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diff --git a/42871-0.txt b/42871-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2ae158 --- /dev/null +++ b/42871-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5686 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42871 *** + +WILD LIFE NEAR HOME + +[Illustration: "The feast is finished and the games are on."] + + + + +Wild Life Near +Home + +By Dallas Lore Sharp + +With Illustrations +By Bruce Horsfall + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK + +The Century Co. + +1901 + + + + +Copyright, 1901, by +The Century Co. + +Copyright, 1897, by The J. B. Lippincott Co. +Copyright, 1897, by Perry Mason & Co. +Copyright, 1898, by Frank Leslie's Publishing House. + +_Published October, 1901._ + + + + +TO +MY WIFE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +IN PERSIMMON-TIME 1 + +BIRDS' WINTER BEDS 31 + +SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS 47 + +A BIRD OF THE DARK 65 + +THE PINE-TREE SWIFT 79 + +IN THE OCTOBER MOON 95 + +FEATHERED NEIGHBORS 111 + +"MUS'RATTIN'" 169 + +A STUDY IN BIRD MORALS 185 + +RABBIT ROADS 207 + +BRICK-TOP 233 + +SECOND CROPS 247 + +WOOD-PUSSIES 277 + +FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP 295 + +A BUZZARDS' BANQUET 321 + +UP HERRING RUN 341 + + + I wish to thank the editors of "Lippincott's Magazine," + "Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly," "Zion's Herald," and the + "Youth's Companion" for allowing me to reprint here the + chapters of "Wild Life Near Home" that first appeared in + their pages. + +DALLAS LORE SHARP. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + +The feast is finished and the games are on _Frontispiece_ + +Ripe and rimy with November's frosts 5 + +Swinging from the limbs by their long prehensile tails 7 + +Under such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious beast 10 + +Filing through the corn-stubs 13 + +Here on the fence we waited 16 + +He had stopped for a meal on his way out 20 + +Playing possum 22 + +She was standing off a dog 26 + +The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds 37 + +There she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously 45 + +And--dreamed 46 + +I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster 52 + +The meadow-mouse 55 + +It was Whitefoot 60 + +From his leafless height he looks down into the Hollow 63 + +It caught at the insects in the air 71 + +Unlike any bird of the light 77 + +They peek around the tree-trunks 83 + +The sparrow-hawk searching the fences for them 88 + +In October they are building their winter lodges 103 + +The glimpse of Reynard in the moonlight 106 + +They probe the lawns most diligently for worms 117 + +Even he loves a listener 118 + +She flew across the pasture 121 + +Putting things to rights in his house 122 + +A very ordinary New England "corner" 124 + +They are the first to return in the spring 127 + +Where the dams are hawking for flies 130 + +They cut across the rainbow 135 + +The barn-swallows fetch the summer 137 + +From the barn to the orchard 138 + +Across the road, in an apple-tree, built a pair of redstarts 140 + +Gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her beak 143 + +In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of robins. +The crude nest was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork +of the tree, so that the cats and roving boys could help +themselves without trouble 145 + +I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole 148 + +He will come if May comes 151 + +Within a few feet of me dropped the lonely frightened quail 152 + +On they go to a fence-stake 154 + +It was a love-song 156 + +But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly 161 + +In a dead yellow birch 163 + +So close I can look directly into it 164 + +Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and +went chuckling down the bank 170 + +The big moon was rising over the meadows 173 + +Section of muskrat's house 174 + +The snow has drifted over their house till only a +tiny mound appears 177 + +They rubbed noses 179 + +Two little brown creatures washing calamus 180 + +She melted away among the dark pines like a shadow 186 + +She called me every wicked thing that she could think of 189 + +It was one of those cathedral-like clumps 191 + +They were watching me 192 + +A triumph of love and duty over fear 199 + +He wants to know where I am and what I am about 203 + +In the agony of death 205 + +Calamity is hot on his track 212 + +Bunny, meantime, is watching just inside the next brier-patch 215 + +The squat is a cold place 217 + +The limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that fox 220 + +His drop is swift and certain 225 + +Seven young ones in the nest 231 + +The land of the mushroom 239 + +Witch-hazel 244 + +I knew it suited exactly 252 + +With tail up, head cocked, very much amazed, +and commenting vociferously 254 + +In a solemn row upon the wire fence 257 + +Young flying-squirrels 258 + +The sentinel crows are posted 260 + +She turned and fixed her big black eyes hard on me 265 + +Wrapped up like little Eskimos 266 + +It is no longer a sorry forest of battered, sunken stumps 269 + +Even the finger-board is a living pillar of ivy 272 + +A family of seven young skunks 284 + +The family followed 289 + +"Spring! spring! spring!" 300 + +A wretched little puddle 303 + +He _was_ trying to swallow something 307 + +In a state of soured silence 322 + +Ugliness incarnate 325 + +Sailing over the pines 328 + +A banquet this _sans_ toasts and cheer 333 + +Floating without effort among the clouds 337 + +From unknown regions of the ocean 345 + +A crooked, fretful little stream 346 + +Swimming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes! 349 + +Here again hungry enemies await them 355 + + + + +IN PERSIMMON-TIME + + +[Illustration] + +WILD LIFE NEAR HOME + +[Illustration] + +IN PERSIMMON-TIME + + +The season of ripe persimmons in the pine-barren region of New Jersey +falls during the days of frosty mornings, of wind-strewn leaves and +dropping nuts. Melancholy days these may be in other States, but +never such here. The robin and the wren--I am not sure about all of +the wrens--are flown, just as the poet says; but the jay and the crow +are by no means the only birds that remain. Bob White calls from +the swales and "cut-offs"; the cardinal sounds his clear, brilliant +whistle in the thickets; and the meadow-lark, scaling across the +pastures, flirts his tail from the fence-stake and shouts, _Can you +see-e me?_ These are some of the dominant notes that still ring +through the woods and over the fields. Nor has every fleck of color +gone from the face of the out-of-doors. She is not yet a cold, white +body wrapped in her winding-sheet. The flush of life still lingers in +the stag-horn sumac, where it will burn brighter and warmer as the +shortening days darken and deaden; and there is more than a spark--it +is a steady glow--on the hillsides, where the cedar, pine, and holly +stand, that will live and cheer us throughout the winter. What the +soil has lost of life and vigor the winds have gained; and if the +birds are fewer now, there is a stirring of other animal life in the +open woods and wilder places that was quite lost in the bustle of +summer. + +And yet! it is a bare world, in spite of the snap and crispness and +the signs of harvest everywhere; a wider, silenter, sadder world, +though I cannot own a less beautiful world, than in summer. The corn +is cut, the great yellow shocks standing over the level fields like +weather-beaten tepees in deserted Indian villages; frosts have mown +the grass and stripped the trees, so that, from a bluff along the +creek, the glistening Cohansey can be traced down miles of its course, +and through the parted curtains, wide vistas of meadow and farm that +were entirely hidden by the green foliage lie open like a map. + +This is persimmon-time. Since most of the leaves have fallen, there is +no trouble in finding the persimmon-trees. They are sprinkled about +the woods, along the fences and highways, as naked as the other trees, +but conspicuous among them all because of their round, dark-red fruit. + +[Illustration: "Ripe and rimy with November's frosts."] + +What a season of fruit ours is! Opening down in the grass with the +wild strawberries of May, and continuing without break or stint, +to close high in the trees with the persimmon, ripe and rimy with +November's frosts! The persimmon is the last of the fruits. Long +before November the apples are gathered--even the "grindstones" are +buried by this time; the berries, too, have disappeared, except for +such seedy, juiceless things as hang to the cedar, the dogwood, and +greenbrier; and the birds have finished the scattered, hidden clusters +of racy chicken-grapes. The persimmons still hold on; but these are +not for long, unless you keep guard over the trees, for they are +marked: the possums have counted every persimmon. + +You will often wonder why you find so few persimmons upon the ground +after a windy, frosty night. Had you happened under the trees just +before daybreak, you would have seen a possum climbing about in the +highest branches, where the frost had most keenly nipped the fruit. +You would probably have seen two or three up the trees, if persimmons +were scarce and possums plentiful in the neighborhood, swinging from +the limbs by their long prehensile tails, and reaching out to the ends +of the twigs to gather in the soft, sugary globes. Should the wind be +high and the fruit dead ripe, you need not look into the trees for the +marauders; they will be upon the ground, nosing out the lumps as they +fall. A possum never does anything for himself that he can let the +gods do for him. + +Your tree is perhaps near the road and an old rail-pile. Then you +may expect to find your persimmons rolled up in possum fat among the +rails; for here the thieves are sure to camp throughout the persimmon +season, as the berry-pickers camp in the pines during huckleberry-time. + +Possums and persimmons come together, and Uncle Jethro pronounces +them "bofe good fruit." He is quite right. The old darky is not alone +in his love of possums. To my thinking, he shows a nice taste in +preferring November possum to chicken. + +[Illustration: "Swinging from the limbs by their long prehensile +tails."] + +It is a common thing, in passing through Mount Zion or Springtown in +the winter, to see what, at first glance, looks like a six-weeks' pig +hanging from an up-stairs window, but which, on inspection, proves +to be a possum, scalded, scraped, and cleaned for roasting, suspended +there, out of the reach of dogs and covetous neighbors, for the extra +flavor of a freezing. Now stuff it and roast it, and I will swap my +Thanksgiving turkey for it as quickly as will Uncle Jethro himself. + +Though the possum is toothsome, he is such a tame, lumbering dolt that +few real sportsmen care for the sorry joy of killing him. Innumerable +stories have been told of the excitement of possum-hunting; but after +many winters, well sprinkled with moonlight tramps and possums, I +can liken the sport to nothing more thrilling than a straw-ride or a +quilting-party. + +There is the exhilarating tramp through the keen, still night, and if +possum-hunting will take one out to the woods for such tramps, then it +is quite worth while. + +No one could hunt possums except at night. It would be unendurably +dull by daylight. The moon and the dark lend a wonderful largeness to +the woods, transforming the familiar day-scenes into strange, wild +regions through which it is an adventure merely to walk. There is +magic in darkness. However dead by day, the fields and woods are fully +alive at night. We stop at the creaking of the bare boughs overhead as +if some watchful creature were about to spring upon us; every stump +and bush is an animal that we have startled into sudden fixedness; and +out of every shadow we expect a live thing to rise up and withstand +us. The hoot of the owl, the bark of the fox, the whinny of the coon, +send shivers of excitement over us. We jump at a mouse in the leaves +near by. + +Helped out by the spell of moonlight and the collusion of a ready +fancy, it is possible to have a genuine adventure by seizing a logy, +grinning possum by the tail and dragging him out of a stump. Under +such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious beast, grunting and +hissing with wide-open mouth; and you may feel just a thrill of the +real savage's joy as you sling him over your shoulder. + +[Illustration: "Under such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious +beast."] + +But never go after possums alone, nor with a white man. If you must +go, then go with Uncle Jethro and Calamity. I remember particularly +one night's hunt with Uncle Jethro. I had come upon him in the evening +out on the kitchen steps watching the rim of the rising moon across +the dark, stubby corn-field. It was November, and the silver light was +spreading a plate of frost over the field and its long, silent rows of +corn-shocks. + +When Uncle Jethro studied the clouds or the moon in this way, it meant +a trip to the meadows or the swamp; it was a sure sign that geese had +gone over, that the possums and coons were running. + +I knew to-night--for I could smell the perfume of the ripe persimmons +on the air--that down by the creek, among the leafless tops of the +persimmon-trees, Uncle Jethro saw a possum. + +"Is it Br'er Possum or Br'er Coon, Uncle Jethro?" I asked, slyly, just +as if I did not know. + +"Boosh! boosh!" sputtered the old darky, terribly scared by my sudden +appearance. "W'at yo' 'xplodin' my cogitations lak dat fo'? W'at I +know 'bout any possum? Possum, boy? Possum? W'at yo' mean?" + +"Don't you sniff the 'simmons, Uncle Jeth?" + +Instinctively he threw his nose into the air. + +"G' 'way, boy; g' 'way fum yhere! I ain't seen no possum. I 's +thinkin' 'bout dat las' camp-meetin' in de pines"; and he began to +hum: + + "Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry, + In de la-ane, in de lane." + +Half an hour later we were filing through the corn-stubs toward the +creek. Uncle Jethro carried his long musket under his arm; I had a +stout hickory stick and a meal-sack; while ahead of us, like a sailor +on shore, rolled Calamity, the old possum-dog. + +If in June come perfect days, then perfect nights come in November. +There is one thing, at least, as rare as a June day, and that is a +clear, keen November night, enameled with frost and set with the +hunter's moon. + +Uncle Jethro was not thinking of last summer's camp-meeting now; but +still he crooned softly a camp-meeting melody: + + "Sheep an' de goats a- + Gwine to de pastcha, + Sheep tell de goats, 'Ain't yo' + Walk a leetle fasta?' + + "Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry, + In de la-ane, in de lane. + + "Coon he up a gum-tree, + Possum in de holla; + Coon he roll hi'self in ha'r, + Possum roll in talla. + + "Lawd, I wunda--" + +until we began to skirt Cubby Hollow, when he suddenly brought himself +up with a snap. + +It was Calamity "talkin' in one of her tongues." The short, sharp +bark came down from the fence at the brow of the hill. Uncle Jethro +listened. + +[Illustration: "Filing through the corn-stubs."] + +"Jis squirrel-talk, dat. She'll talk possum by-um-bit, she will. Ain't +no possum-dog in des diggin's kin talk possum wid C'lamity. An' w'en +_she_ talk possum, ol' man possum gotter listen. Sell C'lamity? Dat +dog can't be bought, she can't." + +As we came under the persimmon-trees at the foot of Lupton's Pond, +the moon was high enough to show us that no possum had been here yet, +for there was abundance of the luscious, frost-nipped fruit upon the +ground. In the bare trees the persimmons hung like silver beads. We +stopped to gather a few, when Calamity woke the woods with her cry. + +"Dar he is! C'lamity done got ol' man possum now! Down by de bend! +Dat's possum-talk, big talk, fat talk!" And we hurried after the dog. + +We had gone half a mile, and Uncle Jethro had picked himself up at +least three times, when I protested. + +"Uncle Jeth!" I cried, "that's an awfully long-legged possum. He'll +run all his fat off before we catch him." + +"Dat's so, boy, shu' 'nough! W'at dat ol' fool dog tree a long-legged +possum fo', nohow? Yer, C'lamity, 'lamity, yer, yer!" he yelled, as +the hound doubled and began to track the _rabbit_ back toward us. + +We were thoroughly cooled before Calamity appeared. She was boxed on +the ear and sent off again with the command to talk possum next time +or be shot. + +She was soon talking again. This time it _must_ be possum-talk. There +could be no mistake about that long, steady, placid howl. The dog must +be under a tree or beside a stump waiting for us. As Uncle Jethro +heard the cry he chuckled, and a new moon broke through his dusky +countenance. + +"Yhear dat? _Dat's_ possum-talk. C'lamity done meet up wid de ol' man +dis time, shu'." + +And so she had, as far as we could see. She was lying restfully on +the bank of a little stream, her head in the air, singing that long, +lonesome strain which Uncle Jethro called her possum-talk. It was +a wonderfully faithful reproduction of her master's camp-meeting +singing. One of his weird, wordless melodies seemed to have passed +into the old dog's soul. + +But what was she calling us for? As we came up we looked around for +the tree, the stump, the fallen log; but there was not a splinter +in sight. Uncle Jethro was getting nervous. Calamity rose, as we +approached, and pushed her muzzle into a muskrat's smooth, black hole. +This was too much. She saw it, and hung her head, for she knew what +was coming. + +"Look yhere, yo' obtuscious ol' fool. W'at yo' 'sociatin' wid a +low-down possum as takes t' mus'rats' holes? W'at I done tol' yo' +'bout dis? Go 'long home! Go 'long en talk de moon up a tree." And as +Uncle Jethro dropped upon his knees by the hole, Calamity slunk away +through the brush. + +I held up a bunch of freshly washed grass-roots. + +"Uncle Jeth, this must be a new species of possum; he eats roots like +any muskrat," I said innocently. + +It was good for Calamity not to be there just then. Uncle Jethro loved +her as he would have loved a child; but he vowed, as he picked up his +gun: "De nex' time dat no-'count dog don't talk possum, yo' 'll see de +buzzard 'bout, yo' will." + +We tramped up the hill and on through the woods to some open fields. +Here on the fence we waited for Calamity's signal. + +[Illustration: "Here on the fence we waited."] + +"Did you say you wouldn't put any price on Calamity, Uncle Jethro?" I +asked as we waited. + +There was no reply. + +"Going to roast this possum, aren't you?" + +Silence. + +"Am I going to have an invite, Uncle Jeth?" + +"Hush up, boy! How we gwine yhear w'at dat dog say?" + +"Calamity? Why, didn't you tell her to go home?" + +The woods were still. A little screech-owl off in the trees was the +only creature that disturbed the brittle silence. The owl was flitting +from perch to perch, coming nearer us. + +"W'at dat owl say?" whispered Uncle Jethro, starting. "'No possum'? +'no possum'? 'no possum'? Come 'long home, boy," he commanded aloud. +"W'en ol' Miss Owl say 'No possum,' C'lamity herself ain't gwine git +none." And sliding to the ground, he trudged off for home. + +We were back again in the corn-field with an empty sack. The moon was +riding high near eleven o'clock. From behind a shock Calamity joined +us, falling in at the rear like one of our shadows. Of course Uncle +Jethro did not see her. He was proud of the rheumatic old hound, +and a night like this nipped his pride as the first frosts nip the +lima-beans. + +It was the owl's evil doing, he argued all the way home. "W'en ol' +Miss Owl say 'Stay in'--no use: + + 'Simmons sweet, 'simmons red, + Ain't no possum leave his bed. + +All de dogs in Mount Zion won't fin' no possum out dis night." + +No; it was not Calamity's fault: it was Miss Owl's. + +We were turning in back of the barn when there came a sudden yelp, +sharp as a pistol-shot, and Calamity darted through Uncle Jethro's +legs, almost upsetting him, making straight for the yard. At the same +moment I caught sight of a large creature hurrying with a wabbly, +uncertain gait along the ridge-pole of the hen-house. + +It was a possum--as big as a coon. He was already half-way down the +side of the coop; but Calamity was below him, howling like mad. + +Uncle Jethro nearly unjointed himself. Before the frightened animal +had time to faint, the triumphant hunter was jouncing him up and down +inside the sack, and promising the bones and baking-pan to Calamity. + +"W'at dat yo' mumblin', boy? Gwine ax yo'self a' invite? G' 'way; g' +'way; yo' don' lak possum. W'at dat yo' sayin' 'g'in' C'lamity? Yo' +'s needin' sleep, chil', yo' is. Ain't I done tol' yo' dat dog gwine +talk possum by-um-bit? W'at dem 'flections 'g'in' ol' Miss Owl? Boosh, +boy! Dat all fool-talk, w'at ol' Miss Owl say. We done been layin' +low jis s'prise yo', me an' C'lamity an' ol' Miss Owl has." And as he +placed the chopping-block upon the barrel to keep the possum safe till +morning, he began again: + + "Coon he up a gum-tree, + Possum in de holla; + Coon he roll hi'self in ha'r, + Possum roll in talla. + + "Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry, + In de la-ane, in de lane." + +The next morning Uncle Jethro went to get his possum. But the possum +was gone. The chopping-block lay on the woodshed floor, the cover of +the barrel was pushed aside, and the only trace of the animal was a +bundle of seed-corn that he had pulled from a nail overhead and left +half eaten on the floor. He had stopped for a meal on his way out. + +Uncle Jethro, with Uncle Remus, gives Br'er Rabbit the wreath for +craft; but in truth the laurel belongs to Br'er Possum. He is an +eternal surprise. Either he is the most stupidly wise animal of the +woods, or the most wisely stupid. He is a puzzle. Apparently his one +unburied talent is heaviness. Joe, the fat boy, was not a sounder nor +more constant sleeper, nor was his mental machinery any slower than +the possum's. The little beast is utterly wanting in swiftness and +weapons, his sole hope and defense being luck and indifference. To +luck and indifference he trusts life and happiness. And who can say he +does not prosper--that he does not roll in fat? + +[Illustration: "He had stopped for a meal on his way out."] + +I suppose there once were deer and otter in the stretches of wild +woodland along the Cohansey; but a fox is rare here now, and the coon +by no means abundant. Indeed, the rabbit, even with the help of the +game laws, has a hard time. Yet the possum, unprotected by law, slow +of foot, slower of thought, and worth fifty cents in any market, still +flourishes along the creek. + +A greyhound must push to overtake a rabbit, but I have run down a +possum with my winter boots on in less than half-way across a clean +ten-acre field. He ambles along like a bear, swinging his head from +side to side to see how fast you are gaining upon him. When you come +up and touch him with your foot, over he goes, grunting and grinning +with his mouth wide open. If you nudge him further, or bark, he will +die--but he will come to life again when you turn your back. + +Some scientifically minded people believe that this "playing possum" +follows as a physiological effect of fear; that is, they say the +pulse slackens, the temperature falls, and, as a result, instead of a +pretense of being dead, the poor possum actually swoons. + +A physiologist in his laboratory, with stethoscope, sphygmoscope, +thermometer, and pneumonometer, may be able to scare a possum into a +fit--I should say he might; but I doubt if a plain naturalist in the +woods, with only his two eyes, a jack-knife, and a bit of string, was +ever able to make the possum do more than "play possum." + +We will try to believe with the laboratory investigator that the +possum does genuinely faint. However, it will not be rank heresy to +run over this leaf from my diary. It records a faithful diagnosis +of the case as I observed it. The statement does not claim to be +scientific; I mean that there were no 'meters or 'scopes of any kind +used. It is simply what I saw and have seen a hundred times. Here is +the entry: + +[Illustration: Playing possum.] + + + POSSUM-FAINT + + _Cause._ My sudden appearance before the patient. + + _Symptoms._ A backing away with open mouth and unpleasant + hisses until forcibly stopped, when the patient falls + on one side, limp and helpless, a long, unearthly smile + overspreading the face; the off eye closed, the near eye + just ajar; no muscular twitching, but most decided attempts + to get up and run as soon as my back is turned. + + _Treatment._ My non-interference. + + _Note._ Recovery instantaneous with my removal ten feet. + This whole performance repeated twelve times in as many + minutes. + + December 26, 1893. + +I have known the possum too long for a ready faith in his extreme +nervousness, too long to believe him so hysterical that the least +surprise can frighten him into fits. He has a reasonable fear of dogs; +no fear at all of cats; and will take his chances any night with a +coon for the possession of a hollow log. He will live in the same +burrow with other possums, with owls,--with anything in fact,--and +overlook any bearable imposition; he will run away from everything, +venture anywhere, and manage to escape from the most impossible +situations. Is this an epileptic, an unstrung, flighty creature? +Possibly; but look at him. He rolls in fat; and how long has obesity +been the peculiar accompaniment of nervousness? + +It is the amazing coolness of the possum, however, that most +completely disposes of the scientist's pathetic tale of unsteady +nerves. A creature that will deliberately walk into a trap, spring +it, eat the bait, then calmly lie down and sleep until the trapper +comes, has no nerves. I used to catch a possum, now and then, in the +box-traps set for rabbits. It is a delicate task to take a rabbit +from such a trap; for, give him a crack of chance and away he bolts +to freedom. Open the lid carefully when there is a possum inside, and +you will find the old fellow curled up with a sweet smile of peace on +his face, fast asleep. Shake the trap, and he rouses yawningly, with a +mildly injured air, offended at your rudeness, and wanting to know why +you should wake an innocent possum from so safe and comfortable a bed. +He blinks at you inquiringly and says: "Please, sir, if you will be so +kind as to shut the door and go away, I will finish my nap." And while +he is saying it, before your very eyes, off to sleep he goes. + +Is this nervousness? What, then, is it--stupidity or insolence? + +Physically as well as psychologically the possums are out of the +ordinary. As every one knows, they are marsupials; that is, they have +a pouch or pocket on the abdomen in which they carry the young. Into +this pocket the young are transferred as soon as they are born, and +were it not for this strange half-way house along the journey of their +development they would perish. + +At birth a possum is little more than formed--the least mature babe +among all of our mammals. It is only half an inch long, blind, deaf, +naked, and so weak and helpless as to be unable to open its mouth or +even cry. Such babies are rare. The smallest young mice you ever saw +are as large as possums at their birth. They weigh only about four +grains, the largest of them, and are so very tiny that the mother +has to fasten each to a teat and _force_ the milk down each wee +throat--for they cannot even swallow. + +They live in this cradle for about five weeks, by which time they can +creep out and climb over their mother. They are then about the size of +full-grown mice, and the dearest of wood babies. They have sharp pink +noses, snapping black eyes, gray fur, and the longest, barest tails. +I think that the most interesting picture I ever saw in the woods was +an old mother possum with eleven little ones clinging to her. She was +standing off a dog as I came up, and every one of the eleven was +peeking out, immensely enjoying this first adventure. The quizzing +snouts of six were poked out in a bunch from the cradle-pouch, while +the other five mites were upon their mother's back, where they had +been playing Jack-and-the-beanstalk up and down her tail. + +[Illustration: "She was standing off a dog."] + +Historically, also, the possum is a conundrum. He has not a single +relative on this continent, except those on exhibition in zoölogical +gardens. He left kith and kin behind in Australia when he came over to +our country. How he got here, and when, we do not know. Clouds hang +heavy over the voyages of all the discoverers of America. The possum +was one of the first to find us, and when did he land, I wonder? How +long before Columbus, and Leif, son of Eric? + +In his appetite the possum is no way peculiar, except, perhaps, that +he takes the seasons' menus entire. Between persimmon-times he eats +all sorts of animal food, and is a much better hunter than we usually +give him credit for. Considering his slowness, too, he manages to +plod over an amazing amount of territory in the course of his evening +rambles. He starts out at dusk, and wanders around all night, planning +his hunt so as to get back to his lair by dawn. Sometimes at daybreak +he is a long way from home. Not being able to see well in the light, +and rather than run into needless danger, he then crawls into the +nearest hole or under the first rail-pile he comes to; or else he +climbs a tree, and, wrapping his tail about a limb, settles himself +comfortably in a forked branch quite out of sight, and sleeps till +darkness comes again. + +[Illustration] + +On these expeditions he picks up frogs, fish, eggs, birds, mice, corn, +and in winter a chicken here and there. + +In the edge of a piece of woods along the Cohansey there used to stand +a large hen-coop surrounded by a ten-foot fence of wire netting. One +winter several chickens were missing here, and though rats and other +prowlers about the pen were caught, still the chickens continued to +disappear. + +One morning a possum was seen to descend the wire fence and enter the +coop through the small square door used by the fowls. We ran in; but +there was no possum to be found. We thought we had searched everywhere +until, finally, one of us lifted the lids off a rusty old stove that +had been used to heat the coop the winter before, and there was the +possum, with two companions, snug and warm, in a nest of feathers on +the grate. + +Here were the remains of the lost chickens. These sly thieves had +camped in this stove ever since autumn, crawling in and out through +the stovepipe hole. During the day they slept quietly; and at night, +when the chickens were at roost, the old rascals would slip out, grab +the nearest one, pull it into the stove, and feast. + +Is there anything on record in the way of audacity better than that? + +[Illustration] + + + + +BIRDS' WINTER BEDS + + +[Illustration] + +BIRDS' WINTER BEDS + + The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold. + + +A storm had been raging from the northeast all day. Toward evening +the wind strengthened to a gale, and the fine, icy snow swirled and +drifted over the frozen fields. + +I lay a long time listening to the wild symphony of the winds, +thankful for the roof over my head, and wondering how the hungry, +homeless creatures out of doors would pass the night. Where do the +birds sleep such nights as this? Where in this bitter cold, this +darkness and storm, will they make their beds? The lark that broke +from the snow at my feet as I crossed the pasture this afternoon-- + + What comes o' thee? + Whar wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, + An' close thy e'e? + +The storm grew fiercer; the wind roared through the big pines by the +side of the house and swept hoarsely on across the fields; the pines +shivered and groaned, and their long limbs scraped over the shingles +above me as if feeling with frozen fingers for a way in; the windows +rattled, the cracks and corners of the old farm-house shrieked, and a +long, thin line of snow sifted in from beneath the window across the +garret floor. I fancied these sounds of the storm were the voices of +freezing birds, crying to be taken in from the cold. Once I thought I +heard a thud against the window, a sound heavier than the rattle of +the snow. Something seemed to be beating at the glass. It might be a +bird. I got out of bed to look; but there was only the ghostly face +of the snow pressed against the panes, half-way to the window's top. +I imagined that I heard the thud again; but, while listening, fell +asleep and dreamed that my window was frozen fast, and that all the +birds in the world were knocking at it, trying to get in out of the +night and storm. + +The fields lay pure and white and flooded with sunshine when I awoke. +Jumping out of bed, I ran to the window, and saw a dark object on the +sill outside. I raised the sash, and there, close against the glass, +were two quails--frozen stiff in the snow. It was they I heard the +night before fluttering at the window. The ground had been covered +deep with snow for several days, and at last, driven by hunger and +cold from the fields, they saw my light, and sought shelter from the +storm and a bed for the night with me. + +Four others, evidently of the same covey, spent the night in the +wagon-house, and in the morning helped themselves fearlessly to the +chickens' breakfast. They roosted with the chickens several nights, +but took to the fields again as soon as the snow began to melt. + +It is easy to account for our winter birds during the day. Along +near noon, when it is warm and bright, you will find the sparrows, +chickadees, and goldfinches searching busily among the bushes and +weeds for food, and the crows and jays scouring the fields. But what +about them during the dark? Where do they pass the long winter nights? + +Why, they have nests, you say. Yes, they _had_ nests in the summer, +and then, perhaps, one of the parent birds may be said to have slept +in the nest during the weeks of incubation and rearing of the young. +But nests are cradles, not beds, and are never used by even the young +birds from the day they leave them. Muskrats build houses, foxes have +holes, and squirrels sleep in true nests; but of the birds it can +be said, "they have not where to lay their heads." They sleep upon +their feet in the grass, in hollow trees, and among the branches; +but, at best, such a bed is no more than a roost. A large part of +the year this roost is new every night, so that the question of a +sleeping-place during the winter is most serious. + +The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds and +grass-stalks down and scatter their chaff over the snow, sleep in +the thick cedars and pines. These warm, close-limbed evergreens I +have found to be the lodging-houses of many of the smaller winter +birds--the fox-colored sparrow, snowbird, crossbill, and sometimes of +the chickadee, though he usually tucks his little black cap under his +wing in a woodpecker's hole. + +[Illustration: "The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried +ragweeds."] + +The meadow-larks always roost upon the ground. They creep well under +the grass, or, if the wind is high and it snows, they squat close to +the ground behind a tuft of grass or thick bush and sleep while the +cold white flakes fall about them. They are often covered before the +morning; and when housed thus from the wind and hidden from prowling +enemies, no bird could wish for a cozier, warmer, safer bed. + +But what a lonely bed it is! Nothing seems so utterly homeless and +solitary as a meadow-lark after the winter nightfall. In the middle of +a wide, snow-covered pasture one will occasionally spring from under +your feet, scattering the snow that covered him, and go whirring away +through the dusk, lost instantly in the darkness--a single little life +in the wild, bleak wilderness of winter fields! + +Again, the grass is often a dangerous bed. On the day before the great +March blizzard of 1888, the larks were whistling merrily from the +fences, with just a touch of spring in their call. At noon I noted no +signs of storm, but by four o'clock--an hour earlier than usual--the +larks had disappeared. They rose here and there from the grass as I +crossed the fields, not as they do when feeding, far ahead of me, but +close to my feet. They had gone to bed. By early evening the snow +began to fall, and for two days continued furiously. + +A week later, when the deep drifts melted, I found several larks that +had perished from cold or starvation or had smothered under the weight +of snow. + +There is something of awe in the thought of a bird nestling close +beneath a snow-laden bush in a broad meadow, or clinging fast to a +limb in the swaying top of some tall tree, rocked in its great arms +through the night by a winter gale. All trees, even the pines and +cedars, are fearfully exposed sleeping-places, and death from cold is +not infrequent among the birds that take beds in them. + +The pine barrens, and especially certain pine clumps along Cohansey +Creek and at the head of Cubby Hollow, used to be famous crow-roosts. +Thousands of the birds, a few years ago, frequented these pieces of +wood in the winter. About the middle of the afternoon, during the +severest weather, they begin to fly over to the roost at the head of +the Hollow, coming in from the surrounding fields, some of them from +miles away, where they have been foraging all day for food. You can +tell the character of the weather by the manner of their flight. In +the fall and spring they went over cawing, chasing each other and +performing in the air; they were happy, and life was as abundant +as the spring promise or the autumn fullness everywhere. But in +January the land is bare and hard, and life correspondingly lean and +cheerless. You see it in their heavy, dispirited flight; all their +spring joyousness is gone; they pass over silent and somber, reluctant +to leave the fields, and fearful of the night. There is not a croak as +they settle among the pines--scores, sometimes hundreds of them, in a +single tree. + +Here, in the swaying tops, amid the heavy roar of the winds, they +sleep. You need have no fear of waking them as you steal through the +shadows beneath the trees. The thick mat of needles or the sifted snow +muffles your footfalls; and the winds still the breaking branches and +snapping twigs. What a bed in a winter storm! The sky is just light +enough for you to distinguish the dim outlines of the sleepers as they +rock in the waves of the dark green that rise and fall above you; the +trees moan, the branches shiver and creak, and high above all, around +and beneath you, filling the recesses of the dark wood rolls the +volume of the storm. + +But the crows sleep on, however high the winds. They sit close to +the branches, that the feathers may cover their clinging feet; they +tuck their heads beneath their wing-coverts, thus protecting the +whole body, except one side of the head, which the feathers of the +wing cannot quite shelter. This leaves an eye exposed, and this eye, +like the heel of Achilles, proves to be the one vulnerable spot. It +freezes in very severe weather, causing a slow, painful death. In +the morning, after an unusually cold night, you can find dozens of +crows flapping piteously about in the trees of the roost and upon the +ground, with frozen eyes. In January, 1895, I saw very many of them +along the Hollow, blind in one eye or in both eyes, dying of pain and +starvation. It was pitiful to see their sufferings. The snow in places +was sprinkled with their broken feathers, and with pine-needles which +they had plucked off and tried to eat. Nothing could be done for the +poor things. I have tried time and again to doctor them; but they were +sure to die in the end. + +Who has not wondered, 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? Or who, as he hears the +_honking_ of geese overhead in the darkness, has not questioned by +what + + ... plashy brink + Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, + Or where the rocking billows rise and sink + On the chafed ocean-side, + +they will find rest? + +In winter, when a heavy southeast wind is blowing, the tides of +Delaware Bay are high and the waters very rough. Then the ducks that +feed along the reedy flats of the bay are driven into the quieter +water of the creeks, and at night fly into the marshes, where they +find safe beds in the "salt-holes." + +The salt-holes are sheets of water having no outlet, with clean +perpendicular sides as if cut out of the grassy marsh, varying in size +from a few feet wide to an acre in extent. The sedges grow luxuriantly +around their margins, making a thick, low wall in winter, against +which the winds blow in vain. If a bird must sleep in the water, such +a hole comes as near to being a perfect cradle as anything could be, +short of the bottom of a well. + +The ducks come in soon after dark. You can hear the whistle of their +wings as they pass just above your head, skimming along the marsh. +They settle in a hole, swim close up to the windward shore, beneath +the sedges, and, with their heads under their wings, go fast asleep. +And as they sleep the ice begins to form--first, along their side of +the hole, where the water is calmest; then, extending out around them, +it becomes a hard sheet across the surface. + +A night that will freeze a salt-hole is not one in which there is +likely to be much hunting done by man or beast. But I have been on the +marshes such nights, and so have smaller and more justified hunters. +It is not a difficult feat to surprise the sleeping ducks. The ice is +half an inch thick when you come up, and seals the hole completely, +save immediately about the bodies of the birds. Their first impulse, +when taken thus at close range, is to dive; and down they go, turning +in their tracks. + +Will they get out? One may chance to strike the hole which his warm +body kept open, as he rises to breathe; but it is more likely that he +will come up under the ice, and drown. I have occasionally found a +dead duck beneath the ice or floating in the water of a salt-hole. It +had been surprised, no doubt, while sleeping, and, diving in fright, +was drowned under the ice, which had silently spread like a strange, +dreadful covering over its bed. + +Probably the life of no other of our winter birds is so full of +hardship as is that of the quail, Bob White. + +In the early summer the quails are hatched in broods of from ten to +twenty, and live as families until the pairing season the next spring. +The chicks keep close to the neighborhood of the home nest, feeding +and roosting together, under the guidance of the parent birds. But +this happy union is soon broken by the advent of the gunning season. +It is seldom that a bevy escapes this period whole and uninjured. +Indeed, if _one_ of the brood is left to welcome the spring it is +little less than a miracle. + +I have often heard the scattered, frightened families called together +after a day of hard shooting; and once, in the old pasture to the +north of Cubby Hollow, I saw the bevy assemble. + +It was long after sunset, but the snow so diffused the light that I +could see pretty well. In climbing the fence into the pasture, I +had started a rabbit, and was creeping up behind a low cedar, when +a quail, very near me, whistled softly, _Whirl-ee!_ The cedar was +between us. _Whirl-ee, whirl-ee-gig!_ she whistled again. + +[Illustration: "There she stood in the snow with head high, listening +anxiously."] + +It was the sweetest bird-note I ever heard, being so low, so liquid, +so mellow that I almost doubted if Bob White could make it. But there +she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously. Again she +whistled, louder this time; and from the woods below came a faint +answering call: _White!_ The answer seemed to break a spell; and on +three sides of me sounded other calls. At this the little signaler +repeated her efforts, and each time the answers came louder and +nearer. Presently something dark hurried by me over the snow and +joined the quail I was watching. It was one of the covey that I had +heard call from the woods. + +Again and again the signal was sent forth until a third, fourth, and +finally a fifth were grouped about the leader. There was just an +audible twitter of welcome and gratitude exchanged as each new-comer +made his appearance. Once more the whistle sounded; but this time +there was no response across the silent field. + +The quails made their way to a thick cedar that spread out over the +ground, and, huddling together in a close bunch under this, they +murmured something soft and low among themselves and--dreamed. + +Some of the family were evidently missing, and I crept away, sorry +that even one had been taken from the little brood. + +[Illustration: "And--dreamed."] + + + + +SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS + + +[Illustration] + +SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS + + +It was a cold, desolate January day. Scarcely a sprig of green showed +in the wide landscape, except where the pines stood in a long blur +against the gray sky. There was not a sign that anything living +remained in the snow-buried fields, nor in the empty woods, shivering +and looking all the more uncovered and cold under their mantle of +snow, until a solitary crow flapped heavily over toward the pines in +search of an early bed for the night. + +The bird reminded me that I, too, should be turning toward the pines; +for the dull gray afternoon was thickening into night, and my bed lay +beyond the woods, a long tramp through the snow. + +As the black creature grew small in the distance and vanished among +the trees, I felt a pang of pity for him. I knew by his flight that he +was hungry and weary and cold. Every labored stroke of his unsteady +wings told of a long struggle with the winter death. He was silent; +and his muteness spoke the foreboding and dread with which he faced +another bitter night in the pines. + +The snow was half-way to my knees; and still another storm was +brewing. All day the leaden sky had been closing in, weighed down by +the snow-filled air. That hush which so often precedes the severest +winter storms brooded everywhere. The winds were in leash--no, not in +leash; for had my ears been as keen as those of the creatures about +me, I might even now have heard them baying far away to the north. It +was not the winds that were still; it was the fields and forests that +quailed before the onset of the storm. + +I skirted Lupton's Pond and saw the muskrat village, a collection of +white mounds out in the ice, and coming on to Cubby Hollow, I crossed +on the ice, ascended the hill, and keeping in the edge of the swamp, +left the pines a distance to the left. A chickadee, as if oppressed by +the silence and loneliness among the trees, and uneasy in his stout +little heart at the threatening storm, flew into the bushes as near +to me as he could get, and, apparently for the sake of companionship, +followed me along the path, cheeping plaintively. + +As I emerged from the woods into a corn-field and turned to look over +at the gloomy pines, a snowflake fell softly upon my arm. The storm +had begun. Now the half-starved crows came flocking in by hundreds, +hurrying to roost before the darkness should overtake them. A biting +wind was rising; already I could hear it soughing through the pines. +There was something fascinating in the oncoming monster, and backing +up behind a corn-shock, I stopped a little to watch the sweep of its +white winds between me and the dark, sounding pines. + +I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster. How the wild, +unhoused things must suffer to-night! I thought, as the weary +procession of crows beat on toward the trees. Presently there was +a small stir within the corn-shock. I laid my ear to the stalks and +listened. Mice! I could hear them moving around in there. It was with +relief that I felt that here, at least, was a little people whom the +cold and night could not hurt. + +[Illustration: "I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster."] + +These mice were as warmly sheltered inside this great shock as I +should be in my furnace-warmed home. Their tiny nests of corn-silk, +hidden away, perhaps, within the stiff, empty husks at the shock's +very center, could never be wet by a drop of the most driving rain nor +reached by the most searching frosts. And not a mouse of them feared +starvation. A plenty of nubbins had been left from the husking, and +they would have corn for the shelling far into the spring--if the +fodder and their homes should be left to them so long. + +I floundered on toward home. In the gathering night, amid the swirl +of the snow, the shocks seemed like spectral tents pitched up and +down some ghostly camp. But the specters and ghosts were all with me, +all out in the whirling storm. The mice knew nothing of wandering, +shivering spirits; they nibbled their corn and squeaked in snug +contentment; for only dreams of the winter come to them in there. + +These shock-dwellers were the common house-mice, _Mus musculus_. But +they are not the only mice that have warm beds in winter. In fact, +bed-making is a specialty among the mice. + +_Zapus_, the jumping-mouse, the exquisite little fellow with the long +tail and kangaroo legs, has made his nest of leaves and grass down +in the ground, where he lies in a tiny ball just out of the frost's +reach, fast asleep. He will be plowed out of bed next spring, if his +nest is in a field destined for corn or melons; for _Zapus_ is sure +to oversleep. He is a very sound sleeper. The bluebirds, robins, +and song-sparrows will have been back for weeks, the fields will be +turning green, and as for the flowers, there will be a long procession +of them started, before this pretty sleepy-head rubs his eyes, uncurls +himself, and digs his way out to see the new spring morning. + +Does this winter-long sleep seem to him only as a nap overnight? + +[Illustration: The meadow-mouse.] + +_Arvicola_, the meadow-mouse, that duck-legged, stump-tailed, +pot-bellied mouse whose paths you see everywhere in the meadows +and fields, stays wide awake all winter. He is not so tender as +_Zapus_. The cold does not bother him; he likes it. Up he comes from +his underground nest,--or home, rather, for it is more than a mere +sleeping-place,--and runs out into the snow like a boy. He dives +and plunges about in the soft white drifts, plowing out roads that +crisscross and loop and lady's-chain and lead nowhere--simply for the +fun of it. + +Fairies do wonderful things and live in impossible castles; but no +fairy ever had a palace in fairy-land more impossible than this +unfairy-like meadow-mouse had in my back yard. + +One February day I broke through the frozen crust of earth in the +garden and opened a large pit in which forty bushels of beets were +buried. I took out the beets, and, when near the bottom, I came upon a +narrow tunnel running around the wall of the pit like the Whispering +Gallery around the dome of St. Paul's. It completely circled the pit, +was well traveled, and, without doubt, was the corridor of some small +animal that had the great beet-pit for a winter home. + +There were numerous dark galleries branching off from this main +hallway, piercing out into the ground. Into one of these I put my +finger, by way of discovery, thinking I might find the nest. I did +find the nest--and more. The instant my finger entered the hole a +sharp twinge shot up my arm, and I snatched away my hand with a +large meadow-mouse fastened to the end of my finger, and clinging +desperately to her, lo! two baby mice, little bigger than thimbles. + +In this mild and even temperature, four feet below the frozen surface +of the garden, with never a care as to weather and provisions, dwelt +this single family of meadow-mice. What a home it was! A mansion, +indeed, with rooms innumerable, and a main hall girdling a very +mountain of juicy, sugary beets. This family could not complain of +hard times. Besides the beets, the mice had harvested for themselves +a number of cribs of clover-roots. These cribs, or bins, were in +the shape of little pockets in the walls of the great gallery. Each +contained a cupful of the thick, meaty tap-roots of clover, cut into +lengths of about half an inch. If the beets should fail (!), or cloy +upon them, they had the roots to fall back on. + +It was absolutely dark here, and worse; there was no way to get fresh +air that I could see. Yet here two baby mice were born in the very +dead of winter, and here they grew as strong and warm and happy as +they would have grown had the season showered rose-petals instead of +snowflakes over the garden above. + +_Hesperomys_ is the rather woodsy name of the white-footed or +deer-mouse, a shy, timid little creature dwelling in every wood, who, +notwithstanding his abundance, is an utter stranger to most of us. We +are more familiar with his tracks, however, than with even those of +the squirrel and rabbit. His is that tiny double trail galloped across +the snowy paths in the woods. We see them sprinkled over the snow +everywhere; but when have we seen the feet that left them? Here goes +a line of the wee prints from a hole in the snow near a stump over to +the butt of a large pine. Whitefoot has gone for provender to one of +his storehouses among the roots of the pine; or maybe a neighbor lives +here, and he has left his nest of bird-feathers in the stump to make a +friendly call after the storm. + +A bed of downy feathers at the heart of a punky old stump beneath +the snow would seem as much of a snuggery as ever a mouse could +build; but it is not. Instead of a dark, warm chamber within a hollow +stump, Whitefoot sometimes goes to the opposite extreme, and climbs a +leafless tree to an abandoned bird's nest, and fits this up for his +winter home. Down by Cubby Hollow I found a wood-thrush's nest in a +slender swamp-maple, about fifteen feet from the ground. The young +birds left it late in June, and when Whitefoot moved in I do not know. +But along in the winter I noticed that the nest looked suspiciously +round and full, as if it were roofed over. Perhaps the falling leaves +had lodged in it, though this was hardly likely. So I went up to the +sapling and tapped. My suspicions were correct. After some thumps, +a sleepy, frightened face appeared through the side of the nest, +and looked cautiously down at me. No one could mistake that pointed +nose, those big ears, and the round pop-eyes so nearly dropping out +with blinking. It was Whitefoot. I had disturbed his dreams, and he +had hardly got his wits together yet, for he had never been awakened +thus before. And what could wake him? The black-snakes are asleep, +and there is not a coon or cat living that could climb this spindling +maple. Free from these foes, Whitefoot has only the owls to fear, +and I doubt if even the little screech-owl could flip through these +interlaced branches and catch the nimble-footed tenant of the nest. + +[Illustration: "It was Whitefoot."] + +In spite of the exposure this must be a warm bed. The walls are thick +and well plastered with mud, and are packed inside with fine, shredded +bark which the mouse himself has pulled from the dead chestnut limbs, +or, more likely, has taken from a deserted crow's nest. The whole is +thatched with a roof of shredded bark, so neatly laid that it sheds +water perfectly. The entrance is on the side, just over the edge of +the original structure, but so shielded by the extending roof that the +rain and snow never beat in. The thrushes did their work well; the +nest is securely mortised into the forking branches; and Whitefoot +can sleep without a tremor through the wildest winter gale. Whenever +the snow falls lightly a high white tower rises over the nest; and +then the little haycock, lodged in the slender limbs so far above our +heads, is a very castle indeed. + +High over the nest of the white-footed mouse, in the stiffened top of +a tall red oak that stands on the brow of the hill, swings another +winter bed. It is the bulky oak-leaf hammock of the gray squirrel. + +A hammock for a winter bed? Is there anything snug and warm about a +hammock? Not much, true enough. From the outside the gray squirrel's +leaf bed looks like the coldest, deadliest place one could find in +which to pass the winter. The leaves are loose and rattle in the wind +like the clapboards of a tumble-down house. The limb threatens every +moment to toss the clumsy nest out upon the storm. But the moorings +hold, and if we could curl up with the sleeper in that swaying bed, we +should rock and dream, and never feel a shiver through the homespun +blankets of chestnut bark that wrap us round inside the flapping +leaves. + +Be it never so cozy, a nest like this is far from a burrow--the bed +of a fat, thick-headed dolt who sleeps away the winter. A glance into +the stark, frozen top of the oak sends over us a chill of fright and +admiration for the dweller up there. He cannot be an ease-lover; +neither can he know the meaning of fear. We should as soon think of +a sailor's being afraid of the shrieking in the rigging overhead, as +of this bold squirrel in the tree-tops dreading any danger that the +winter winds might bring. + +There are winters when the gray squirrel stays in the hollow of some +old tree. A secure and sensible harbor, this, in which to weather the +heavy storms, and I wonder that a nest is ever anchored outside in the +tree-tops. The woodsmen and other wiseacres say that the squirrels +never build the tree-top nests except in anticipation of a mild +winter. But weather wisdom, when the gray squirrel is the source, is +as little wise as that which comes from Washington or the almanac. I +have found the nests in the tree-tops in the coldest, fiercest winters. + +[Illustration: "From his leafless height he looks down into the +Hollow."] + +It is not in anticipation of fine weather, but a wild delight in the +free, wild winter, that leads the gray squirrel to swing his hammock +from the highest limb of the tallest oak that will hold it. He dares +and defies the winds, and claims their freedom for his own. From his +leafless height yonder he looks down into the Hollow upon the tops of +the swamp trees where his dizzy roads run along the angled branches, +and over the swamp to the dark pines, and over the pines, on, on +across the miles of white fields which sweep away and away till they +freeze with the frozen sky behind the snow-clouds that drift and pile. +In his aery he knows the snarl and bite of the blizzard; he feels the +swell of the heaving waves that drive thick with snow out of the cold +white north. Anchored far out in the tossing arms of the strong oak, +his leaf nest rocks in the storm like a yawl in a heaving sea. + +But he loves the tumult and the terror. A night never fell upon the +woods that awed him; cold never crept into the trees that could chill +his blood; and the hoarse, mad winds that swirl and hiss about his +pitching bed never shook a nerve in his round, beautiful body. How he +must sleep! And what a constitution he has! + + + + +A BIRD OF THE DARK + + +[Illustration] + +A BIRD OF THE DARK + + +The world is never more than half asleep. Night dawns and there is +almost as wide a waking as with the dawn of day. We live in the glare +till it leaves us blind to the forms that move through the dark; +we listen to the roar of the day till we can no longer hear the +stir that begins with the night. But here in the darkness is life +and movement,--wing-beats, footfalls, cries, and calls,--all the +wakefulness, struggle, and tragedy of the day. + +Whatever the dusk touches it quickens. Things of bare existence by day +have life at night. The very rocks that are dead and inanimate in the +light get breath and being in the dark. What was mere substance now +becomes shadow, and shadow spirit, till all the day's dead live and +move. The roads, fences, trees, and buildings become new creatures; +landmarks, distances, and places change; new odors are on the winds; +strange lights appear; soft footsteps pass and repass us; and hidden +voices whisper everywhere. The brightest day is not more awake; at +high noon we are not more alert. + +One of the commonest of these night sounds is the cry of the +whippoorwill. From the middle of April to the end of September it +rings along the edge of the clearing; but how seldom we have seen +the singer! To most of us it is only a disembodied voice. Night has +put her spell upon the whippoorwills and changed them from birds +into wandering shadows and voices. There is something haunting in +their call, a suggestion of fear, as though the birds were in flight, +pursued by a shape in the gloom. It is the voice of the lost--the +voice of the night trying to find its way back to the day. There is +snap enough in the call if you happen to be near the bird. Usually the +sound comes to us out of the darkness and distance--the loneliest, +ghostliest cry of all the night. + +It is little wonder that so many legends and omens follow the +whippoorwill. How could our imaginations, with a bent for +superstition, fail to work upon a creature so often heard, so rarely +seen, of habits so dark and uncanny? + +One cannot grow accustomed to the night. The eager, jostling, +open-faced day has always been familiar; but with the night, though +she comes as often as the day, no number of returns can make us +acquainted. Whatever is peculiarly her own shares her mystery. Who can +get used to the bats flitting and squeaking about him in the dusk? Or +who can keep his flesh from creeping when an owl bobs over him in the +silence against a full moon? Or who, in the depths of a pine barren, +can listen to a circle of whippoorwills around him, and not stay +his steps as one lost in the land of homeless, wailing spirits? The +continual shifting of the voices, the mocking echoes, and the hiding +darkness combine in an effect altogether gruesome and unearthly. + +One may hear the whippoorwill every summer of his life, but never see +the bird. It is shy and wary, and, with the help of the darkness, +manages to keep strangely out of sight. Though it is not unusual to +stumble upon one asleep by day, it is a rare experience to surprise +one feeding or singing at night. + +One evening I was standing by a pump in an open yard, listening to the +whippoorwills as they came out to the edge of the woods and called +along the fields. The swamp ran up so close on this side of the house +that faint puffs of magnolia and wild grape could be strained pure +from the mingling odors in the sweet night air. The whippoorwills +were so near that the introductory _chuck_ and many of the finer, +flute-like trills of their song, which are never heard at a distance, +were clear and distinct. Presently one call sounded out above the +others, and instantly rang again, just behind a row of currant-bushes +not ten feet away. + +I strained my eyes for a glimpse of the creature, when swift wings +fanned my face, and a dark, fluffy thing, as soft and noiseless +as a shadow, dropped at my feet, and exploded with a triple cry +of _Whip-poor-will!_ that startled me. It was a rapid, crackling, +vigorous call that split through the night as a streak of lightning +through a thunder-cloud. The farmers about here interpret the notes +to say, _Crack-the-whip!_ and certainly, near by, this fits better +than _Whip-poor-will!_ + +[Illustration: "It caught at the insects in the air."] + +The bird was flitting about the small platform upon which I stood. I +remained as stiff as the pump, for which, evidently, it had mistaken +me. It was not still a moment, but tossed back and forth on wings +that were absolutely silent, and caught at the insects in the air +and uttered its piercing cry. It leaped rather than flew, sometimes +calling on the wing, and always upon touching the ground. + +This is as good a view of the bird as I ever got at night. The +darkness was too thick to see what the food was it caught, or how +it caught it. I could not make out a pose or a motion more than the +general movements about the pump. The one other time that I have had a +good look at the bird, when not asleep, showed him at play. + +It was an early August morning, between two and three o'clock. The +only doctor in the village had been out all night at a little town +about five miles away. He was wanted at once, and I volunteered to get +him. + +Five miles is pure fun to a boy who has run barefoot every one of his +fifteen summers; so I rolled up my trousers, tightened my belt, and +bent away for Shiloh at an easy dog-trot that, even yet, I believe I +could keep up for half a day. + +There was not a glimmer in the east when I started. I had covered +three miles, and was entering a long stretch of sprout-land when the +dawn began. The road was dusty, and the dew-laid powder puffed beneath +the soft, swift pats of my feet. Things began to stand out with some +distinctness now as the pale light brightened. No wagons had been +along, and every mark of the night was plain. Here and there were +broad, ragged-edged bands across the road--the trails of the wandering +box-turtles. I saw the smooth, waving channel left by a snake that had +just gone across. Here and there were bunches of rabbit tracks, and +every little while appeared large spots in the road, where some bird +had been dusting itself. + +Suddenly I made a sharp turn, and almost ran over a whippoorwill +concealed in a very cloud of dust which she was flirting up with her +wings. This explained the spots back along the road. The bird flew up +and settled a few yards ahead of me, and took another hasty dip. This +she kept up for nearly a quarter of a mile. + +The road was alive with whippoorwills. It was their bathing-hour, and +playtime, too. The serious business of the night was done; they had +hunted through the first hours, and now it was time to be social. The +light was coming rapidly, and so was bedtime; but they called and +capered about me, playing away the narrowing night to the very edge of +day. + +On my return, an hour later, the sun was looking over the tops of the +"cut-offs," but he did not see a whippoorwill. They were all roosting +lengthwise upon the logs and stumps back among the bushes. + +[Illustration] + +These unnatural, unbirdlike habits of the whippoorwill are matched by +the appearance of the bird. The first time one sees a whippoorwill he +questions whether its shape and color are the result of its nocturnal +life or whether it took to the night to hide its unbeautiful self from +the gaze of the day. + +It has ridiculously short legs, a mere point of a bill, and a +bristled, head-dividing gap that would shame a frog. Looked at in the +daylight, its color, too, is a meaningless mixture, as unreal and +half done as the rest of the creature. But we should not be so hasty +in our judgment. There is design in all things in nature; utility is +the first law of creation: and the discovery of plan and purpose is +the highest appreciation of beauty. + +The whippoorwill's dress must be criticized from the view-point of its +usefulness to the bird; then it becomes one of the most exquisitely +artistic garments worn. Compare it with that of any other bird, and +your wonder at it grows. Another such blending of light and shadow +cannot be found. The night herself seems to have woven this robe out +of warp from the strands of early dawn and of woof spun from the +twilight. + +The whippoorwill cannot change the color of its dress with the passing +clouds, nor match it with the light green of unfolding leaves and +the deep bronze of old tree-trunks, as the chameleon can. But the +bird has no need of such control. It is always in harmony with its +surroundings. In the falling twilight it seems a shadow among the +shadows; in the breaking dawn it melts into the gray half-light, a +phantom; at midnight it is only an echo in the dark; and at noontime +you would pass the creature for a mossy knot, as it squats close to a +limb or rail, sitting lengthwise, unlike any bird of the light. + +We need not expect a bird of such irregular habits as the whippoorwill +to have the normal instincts of birds, even with regard to its +offspring. A bird given to roaming about at night, the companion of +toads and bats and spooks, is not one that can be trusted to bring up +young. You cannot count much on the domesticity of a bird that flits +around with the shadows and fills the night with doleful, spellbinding +cries. + +The nest of the whippoorwill is the bare ground, together with +whatever leaves, pebbles, or bits of wood happen to be under the +eggs when they are laid. I found a nest once by the side of a log +in the woods, and by rarest good fortune missed putting my foot +upon the eggs. Here there was no attempt at nest-building, not even +a depression in the earth. There were two of the eggs,--the usual +number,--long and creamy white, with mingled markings of lavender and +reddish brown. Here, upon the log, one of the birds dozed away the +day, while the mate on the nest brooded and slept till the gloaming. + +The effect of this erratic life in the forest glooms and under the +cover of night has been to make the whippoorwill careless of her home +and negligent of her young. She has become a creature of omen, weird +and wakeful, lingering behind the time of superstition to keep myths +moving in our scanty groves and mystery still stirring through the +dark rooms of the night. + +[Illustration: "Unlike any bird of the light."] + + + + +THE PINE-TREE SWIFT + + +[Illustration] + +THE PINE-TREE SWIFT + + +In any large museum you may see the fossil skeletons, or the casts of +the skeletons, of those mammoth saurians of the Mesozoic Age. But you +can go into the pine barrens any bright summer day and capture for +yourself a real live saurian. The gloom of the pines is the lingering +twilight of that far-off time, and the pine-tree lizard, or swift, is +the lineal descendant of those reptile monsters who ruled the seas and +the dry land before man was. + +Throughout southern New Jersey the pine-tree swifts abound. The +worm-fences, rail-piles, bridges, stone-heaps, and, above all, the +pine-trees are alive with them. They are the true children of the +pines, looking so like a very part of the trees that it seems they +must have been made by snipping off the pitch-pines' scaly twigs and +giving legs to them. They are the aborigines, the primitive people of +the barrens; and it is to the lean, sandy barrens you must go if you +would see the swifts at home. + +In these wide, silent wastes, where there are miles of scrub-pine +without a clearing, where the blue, hazy air is laden with the odor of +resin, where the soft glooms are mingled with softer, shyer lights, +the swifts seem what they actually are--creatures of another, earlier +world. When one darts over your foot and scurries up a tree to watch +you, it is easy to imagine other antediluvian shapes moving in the +deeper shadows beyond. How they rustle the leaves and scratch the +rough pine bark! They hurry from under your feet and peek around the +tree-trunks into your face, their nails and scales scraping, while +they themselves remain almost invisible on the deep browns of the +pines; and if you are inclined to be at all nervous, you will start +and shiver. + +The uncanny name "lizard" is partly accountable for our unpleasant +feelings toward this really intelligent and interesting little beast. +If he were more widely known as "swift," _Sceloporus_ would be +less detested. The _z_ in "lizard" adds a creepy, crawly, sinister +something to the name which even the wretched word "snake" does not +suggest. "Swift," the common name in some localities, is certainly +more pleasing, and, at the same time, quite accurately descriptive. + +[Illustration: "They peek around the tree-trunks."] + +There is nothing deadly nor vicious, nor yet unlovely, about the +swift, unless some may hate his reptile form and his scales. But he +is strangely dreaded. The mere mention of him is enough to stampede +a Sunday-school picnic. I know good people who kill every swift they +meet, under the queer religious delusion that they are lopping off a +limb of Satan. "All reptiles are cursed," one such zealot declared to +me, "and man is to bruise their heads." The good book of nature was +not much read, evidently, by this student of the other Good Book. + +The swift is absolutely harmless. He is without fang, sting, or evil +charm. He is not exactly orthodox, for he has a third eye in the +top of his head, the scientists tell us; but that eye is entirely +hidden. It cannot bind nor leer, like Medusa. Otherwise the swift is +a perfectly normal little creature, about six inches long from tip to +tip, quick of foot, scaly, friendly, wonderfully colored in undulating +browns and blues, and looking, on the whole, like a pretty little +Noah's-ark alligator. + +On the south side of the clump of pines beyond Cubby Hollow is a pile +of decaying rails where I have watched the swifts, and they me, for so +many seasons that I fancy they know me. Dewberry-vines and Virginia +creeper clamber over the pile, and at one end, flaming all through +July, burns a splendid bush of butterfly-weed. The orange-red blossoms +shine like a beacon against the dark of the pines, and lure a constant +stream of insect visitors, who make living for the swifts of this +particular place rich and easy while the attraction lasts. + +Any hot day I can find several swifts here, and they are so tame that +I can tickle them all off to sleep without the slightest trouble. +They will look up quickly as I approach, fearless but alert, with +head tilted and eyes snapping; but not one stirs. With a long spear +of Indian grass I reach out gently and stroke the nearest one. Shut +go his eyes; down drops his head; he sleeps--at least, he pretends +to. This is my peace greeting. Now I may sit down, and life upon the +rail-pile will go normally on. + +Upon the end of a rail, so close to a cluster of the butterfly-weed +blossoms that he can pick the honey-gatherers from it,--as you would +pick olives from a dish on the table,--lies a big male swift without a +tail. He lost that member in an encounter with me several weeks ago. A +new one has started, but it is a mere bud yet. I know his sex by the +brilliant blue stripe down each side, which is a favor not granted +the females. The sun is high and hot. "Fearfully, hot," I say under +my wide straw hat. "Delightfully warm," says the lizard, sprawling +over the rail, his legs hanging, eyes half shut, every possible scale +exposed to the blistering rays, and his bud of a tail twitching with +the small spasms of exquisite comfort that shoot to the very ends of +his being. + +The little Caliban! How he loves the sun! It cannot shine too hot nor +too long upon him. He stiffens and has aches when it is cold, so he is +a late riser, and appears not at all on dark, drizzly days. + +His nose is resting upon the rail like a drowsy scholar's upon the +desk; but he is not asleep: he sees every wasp and yellow-jacket that +lights upon the luring flowers. He has learned some things about the +wasp tribe; and if any of them want honey from his butterfly-weed, +they may have it. These come and go with the butterflies and +hard-backed bugs, no notice being taken. But I hear the booming of +a bluebottle-fly. _Sceloporus_ hears him, too, and gathers his legs +under him, alert. The fly has settled upon one of the flower-clusters. +He fumbles among the blossoms, and pretty soon blunders upon those +watched by the swift. Fatal blunder! There is a quick scratching on +the rail, a flash of brown across the orange flowers, and the next +thing I see is the swift, back in his place, throwing his head about +in the air, licking down the stupid bluebottle-fly. + +A spider crawls over the rail behind him. He turns and snaps it up. +A fly buzzes about his head, but he will not jump with all four +feet, and so loses it. A humming-bird is fanning the butterfly-weed, +and he looks on with interest not unmixed with fear. Now the bugs, +butterflies, hornets, and wasps make up the motley crowd of visitants +to his garden, and _Sceloporus_ stretches out in the warmth again. He +is hardly asleep when a bird's shadow passes across the rails. The +sharp scratch of scales and claws is heard at half a dozen places on +the pile at once, and every swift has ducked around his rail out of +sight. + +An enemy! The shadow sweeps on across the melon-field, and above in +the sky I see a turkey-buzzard wheeling. This is no enemy. Evidently +the swifts mistook the buzzard's shadow for that of the sharp-shinned +hawk. Had it been the hawk, my little bobtailed friend might have been +taking a dizzy ride through the air to some dead tree-top at that +moment, instead of peeking over his rail to see if the coast were +clear. + +[Illustration: "The sparrow-hawk searching the fences for them."] + +All the lesser hawks feed upon the swifts. I have often seen the +sparrow-hawk perched upon a tall stake searching the fences for them. +Cats eat them also. But they do not agree with puss. They make a cat +thin and morbid and unhappy. We can tell when the lizard-catching +disease is upon Tom by his loss of appetite, his lankness, and his +melancholy expression. + +All fear of the hawk is passed, and the lizards come out into the +light again. Presently one leaves the rails, runs over my foot, and +dashes by short stages into the field. He is after a nest of ants, or +is chasing a long-legged spider. It is worth while to follow them when +they take to the fields, for they may let you into a secret, as they +once did me. + +About a hundred feet into the melon-patch stands an old and very +terrible scarecrow. It is quite without terrors for the swifts, +however. Around this monster's feet the soil is bare and open to the +sun. One day I discovered a lizard making her way thither, and I +followed. She did not stop for ants or spiders, but whisked under the +vines and hastened on as if bound on some urgent business. And so she +was. + +When she reached the warm, open sand at the scarecrow's feet, she dug +out a little hollow, and, to my utter amazement, deposited therein +seven tough, yellowish, pea-like eggs, covered them with sand, and +raced back to the rail-pile. That was all. Her maternal duties were +done, her cares over. She had been a faithful mother to the last +degree,--even to the covering up of her eggs,--and now she left them +to the kindly skies. About the middle of July they hatched, and, in +finding their way to the rail-pile, they stopped at the first mound on +the road, and began life in earnest upon a fiery dinner of red ants. + +It looks as if nature were partial in the care she takes of her +children. How long she bothers and fusses over us, for instance, and +how, without one touch of parental care or interest, she tosses the +lizard out, even before he is hatched, to shift for himself. If, +however, we could eat red ants the day we are born and thrive on them, +I suppose that our mothers, too, without much concern, might let us +run. + +The day-old babies join their elders upon the rails, and are received +with great good humor--with pleasure, indeed; for the old ones seem +to enjoy the play of the youngsters, and allow them to climb over +their backs and claw and scratch them without remonstrance. The swifts +are gentle, peaceable, and sweet-tempered. They rarely fight among +themselves. The only time that I ever found one out of humor was when +she was anxiously hunting for a place in which to leave her eggs. The +trouble of it all made her cross, and as I picked her up she tried to +bite me. And I ought to have been bitten. + +Ordinarily, however, the swifts are remarkably docile and friendly. +If treated kindly, they will allow you to stroke them and handle them +freely within a few minutes after capture. I have sometimes had them +cling to my coat of their own will as I tramped about the woods. They +hiss and open their mouths when first taken; but their teeth could not +prick one's skin if they did strike. + +They are clean, pretty, interesting pets to have about the house and +yard. They are easily tamed, and, in spite of their agility, they are +no trouble at all to capture. I have often caught them with my unaided +hand; but an almost sure way is to take a long culm of green grass, +strip off the plume, and make a snood of the wire-like end. + +A swift is sunning himself upon a rail. He rises upon his front legs, +as you approach, to watch you. Carefully now! Don't try to get too +near. You can just reach him. Now your snood is slipping over his +nose; it tickles him; he enjoys it, and shuts his eyes. The grass +loop is about his neck; he discovers it, and--pull! for he leaps. If +the snood does not break you have him dangling in the air. Bring him +to your coat now, and touch him lightly till his fear is dispelled, +then loose him, and he will stay with you for hours. + +When upon a tree you may seize him with your bare hand by coming up +from behind. But never try to catch him by the tail; for lizards' +tails were not made for that purpose, though, from their length and +convenience to grasp, and from the careless way their owners have of +leaving them sticking out, it seems as if nature intended them merely +for handles. + +In my haste to catch the bobtailed lizard of the rail-pile, I +carelessly clapped my hand upon his long, scaly tail, when, by a quick +turn, he mysteriously unjointed himself from it, leaving the appendage +with me, while he scampered off along the rails. He is now growing +another tail for some future emergency. + +Between eating, sleeping, and dodging shadows, the lizards spend their +day, and about the middle of the afternoon disappear. Where do they +spend their night? They go somewhere from the dew and cold; but where? + +There is a space about two inches deep between the window-sash and the +net-frames in my room. Some time ago I put a number of swifts upon +the netting, covered the window-sill with sand, and thus improvised +an ideal lizard-cage. All I had to do to feed them was to raise the +window, drive the flies from the room on to the netting, and close the +sash. The lizards then caught them at their leisure. + +Two days after they were transferred here, and had begun to feel +at home and fearless of me, I noticed, as night came on, that they +descended from the netting and disappeared in the sand. I put my +finger in and took one out, and found that the sand was much warmer +than the dewy night air. + +This was their bed, and this explained the sleeping habits of the +free, wild ones. The sand remains warm long after the sun sets and +makes them a comfortable bed. Into the sand they go also to escape the +winter. They must get down a foot or more to be rid of the frost; and +being poor diggers, they hunt up the hole of some other creature, or +work their way among the decayed roots of some old stump until below +the danger-line. By the middle of September they have made their beds, +and when they wake up, the melons will be started and the May sunshine +warm upon the rails. + +[Illustration] + + + + +IN THE OCTOBER MOON + + +[Illustration] + +IN THE OCTOBER MOON + + +An October night, calm, crisp, and moonlit! There is a delicate +aroma from the falling leaves in the air, as sweet as the scent of +fresh-filled haymows. The woods are silent, shadowy, and sleepful, +lighted dimly by the moon, as a vague, happy dream lights the dark +valley of our sleep. Dreamful is this night world, but yet not +dreaming. When, in the highest noon, did every leaf, every breeze, +seem so much a self, so full of ready life? The very twigs that lie +brittle and dead beneath our feet seem wakeful now and on the alert. +In this silence we feel myriad movings everywhere; and we know that +this sleep is but the sleep of the bivouac fires, that an army is +breaking camp to move under cover of the night. Every wild thing that +knows the dark will be stirring to-night. And what softest foot can +fall without waking the woods? + + Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; + They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. + +Not a mouse can scurry, not a chestnut drop, not a wind whisper among +these new-fallen leaves without discovery; even a weasel cannot dart +across the moon-washed path and not leave a streak of brown upon the +silver, plain enough to follow. + +A morning in May is best of all the year to be afield with the birds; +but to watch for the wild four-footed things, a moonlight night in +October is the choice of the seasons. May-time is bird-time. That +is their spring of mate-winning and nest-building, and it bubbles +over with life and song. The birds are ardent lovers; they sometimes +fight in their wooing: but fighting or singing, they are frank, +happy creatures, and always willing to see you. The mammals are +just as ardent lovers as the birds, and infinitely more serious. +But they are not poets; they are not in the show business; and they +want no outsider to come and listen to their pretty story of woe. +Their spring, their courting-time, is not a time of song and play. +The love-affairs of a timid, soulful-eyed rabbit are so charged and +intense as not always to be free from tragedy. Don't expect any +attention in the spring, even from that bunch of consuming curiosity, +the red squirrel; he has something in hand, for once, more to his mind +than quizzing you. Life with the animals then, and through the summer, +has too much of love and fight and fury, is too terribly earnest, to +admit of any frolic. + +But autumn brings release from most of these struggles. There is +surcease of love; there is abundance of food; and now the only +passions of the furry breasts are such gentle desires as abide with +the curious and the lovers of peace and plenty. The animals are now +engrossed with the task of growing fat and furry. Troubled with no +higher ambitions, curiosity, sociability, and a thirst for adventure +begin to work within them these long autumn nights, and not one of +them, however wild and fearful, can resist his bent to prowl in the +light of the October moon. + +To know much of the wild animals at home one must live near their +haunts, with eyes and ears open, forever on the watch. For you must +wait their pleasure. You cannot entreat them for the sake of science, +nor force them in the name of the law. You cannot set up your easel +in the meadow, and hire a mink or muskrat to pose for you any time +you wish; neither can you call, when you like, at the hollow gum in +the swamp and interview a coon. The animals flatly refuse to sit for +their pictures, and to see reporters and assessors. But carry your +sketchbook and pad with you, and, after a while, in the most unlikely +times and places, the wariest will give you sittings for a finished +picture, and the most reticent will tell you nearly all that he knows. + +At no time of the year are the animals so loquacious, so easy of +approach, as along in the October nights. There is little to be seen +of them by day. They are cautious folk. By nature most of them are +nocturnal; and when this habit is not inherited, fear has led to its +acquisition. But protected by the dark, the shy and suspicious creep +out of their hiding-places; they travel along the foot-paths, they +play in the wagon-roads, they feed in our gardens, and I have known +them to help themselves from our chicken-coops. If one has never +haunted the fields and woods at night he little knows their multitude +of wild life. Many a hollow stump and uninteresting hole in the +ground--tombs by day--give up their dead at night, and something more +than ghostly shades come forth. + +If one's pulse quickens at the sight and sound of wild things +stirring, and he has never seen, in the deepening dusk, a long, +sniffling snout poked slowly out of a hollow chestnut, the glint of +black, beady eyes, the twitch of papery ears, then a heavy-bodied +possum issue from the hole, clasping the edge with its tail, to gaze +calmly about before lumbering off among the shadows--then he still has +something to go into the woods for. + +Our forests by daylight are rapidly being thinned into picnic groves; +the bears and panthers have disappeared, and by day there is nothing +to fear, nothing to give our imaginations exercise. But the night +remains, and if we hunger for adventure, why, besides the night, here +is the skunk; and the two offer a pretty sure chance for excitement. +Never to have stood face to face in a narrow path at night with a +full-grown, leisurely skunk is to have missed excitement and suspense +second only to the staring out of countenance of a green-eyed wildcat. +It is surely worth while, in these days of parks and chipmunks, when +all stir and adventure has fled the woods, to sally out at night for +the mere sake of meeting a skunk, for the shock of standing before a +beast that will not give you the path. As you back away from him you +feel as if you were really escaping. If there is any genuine adventure +left for us in this age of suburbs, we must be helped to it by the +dark. + +Who ever had a good look at a muskrat in the glare of day? I was +drifting noiselessly down the river, recently, when one started to +cross just ahead of my boat. He got near midstream, recognized me, +and went under like a flash. Even a glimpse like this cannot be had +every summer; but in the autumn nights you cannot hide about their +houses and fail to see them. In October they are building their +winter lodges, and the clumsiest watcher may spy them glistening in +the moonlight as they climb with loads of sedge and mud to the roofs +of their sugar-loaf houses. They are readily seen, too, making short +excursions into the meadows; and occasionally the desire to rove and +see the world will take such hold upon one as to drive him a mile from +water, and he will slink along in the shadow of the fences and explore +your dooryard and premises. Frequently, in the late winter, I have +followed their tracks on these night journeys through the snow between +ponds more than a mile apart. + +[Illustration: "In October they are building their winter lodges."] + +But there is larger game abroad than muskrats and possums. These +October nights the quail are in covey, the mice are alive in the dry +grass, and the foxes are abroad. Lying along the favorite run of +Reynard, you _may_ see him. There are many sections of the country +where the rocks and mountains and wide areas of sterile pine-land +still afford the foxes safe homes; but in most localities Reynard is +rapidly becoming a name, a creature of fables and folk-lore only. The +rare sight of his clean, sharp track in the dust, or in the mud along +the margin of the pond, adds flavor to a whole day's tramping; and the +glimpse of one in the moonlight, trotting along a cow-path or lying +low for Br'er Rabbit, is worth many nights of watching. + +I wish the game-laws could be amended to cover every wild animal left +to us. In spite of laws they are destined to disappear; but if the +fox, weasel, mink, and skunk, the hawks and owls, were protected as +the quail and deer are, they might be preserved a long time to our +meadows and woods. How irreparable the loss to our landscape is the +extinction of the great golden eagle! How much less of spirit, daring, +courage, and life come to us since we no longer mark the majestic +creature soaring among the clouds, the monarch of the skies! A dreary +world it will be out of doors when we can hear no more the scream of +the hawks, can no longer find the tracks of the coon, nor follow a fox +to den. We can well afford to part with a turnip, a chicken, and even +with a suit of clothes, now and then, for the sake of this wild flavor +to our fenced pastures and close-cut meadows. + +I ought to have named the crow in the list deserving protection. He +steals. So did Falstaff. But I should miss Falstaff had Shakspere +left him out; yet no more than I should miss the crow were he driven +from the pines. They are both very human. Jim Crow is the humanest +bird in feathers. The skunk I did include in the list. It was not by +mistake. The skunk has a good and safe side to him, when we know how +to approach him. The skunk wants a champion. Some one ought to spend +an entire October moon with him and give us the better side of his +character. If some one would take the trouble to get well acquainted +with him at home, it might transpire that we have grievously abused +and avoided him. + +[Illustration: "The glimpse of Reynard in the moonlight."] + +There is promise of a future for the birds in their friendship for us +and in our interest and sentiment for them. Everybody is interested +in birds; everybody loves them. There are bird-books and bird-books +and bird-books--new volumes in every publisher's spring announcements. +Every one with wood ways knows the songs and nests of the more +common species. But this is not so with the four-footed animals. +They are fewer, shyer, more difficult of study. Only a few of us are +enthusiastic enough to back into a hole in a sand-bank and watch all +night for the "beasts" with dear old Tam Edwards. + +But such nights of watching, when every fallen leaf is a sentinel and +every moonbeam a spy, will let us into some secrets about the ponds +and fields that the sun, old and all-seeing as he is, will never know. +Our eyes were made for daylight; but I think if the anatomists tried +they might find the rudiments of a third, a night eye, behind the +other two. From my boyhood I certainly have seen more things at night +than the brightest day ever knew of. If our eyes were intended for +day use, our other senses seem to work best by night. Do we not take +the deepest impressions when the plates of these sharpened senses are +exposed in the dark? Even in moonlight our eyes are blundering things; +but our hearing, smell, and touch are so quickened by the alertness of +night that, with a little training, the imagination quite takes the +place of sight--a new sense, swift and vivid, that adds an excitement +and freshness to the pleasure of out-of-door study, impossible to get +through our two straightforward, honest day eyes. + +Albeit, let us stay at home and sleep when there is no moon; and even +when she climbs up big and round and bright, there is no surety of a +fruitful excursion before the frosts fall. In the summer the animals +are worn with home cares and doubly wary for their young; the grass is +high, the trees dark, and the yielding green is silent under even so +clumsy a crawler as the box-turtle. But by October the hum of insects +is stilled, the meadows are mown, the trees and bushes are getting +bare, the moon pours in unhindered, and the crisp leaves crackle and +rustle under the softest-padded foot. + +[Illustration] + + + + +FEATHERED NEIGHBORS + + +[Illustration] + +FEATHERED NEIGHBORS + + +I + +The electric cars run past my door, with a switch almost in front of +the house. I can hear a car rumbling in the woods on the west, and +another pounding through the valley on the east, till, shrieking, +groaning, crunching, crashing, they dash into view, pause a moment +on the switch, and thunder on to east and west till out of hearing. +Then, for thirty minutes, a silence settles as deep as it lay here +a century ago. Dogs bark; an anvil rings; wagons rattle by; and +children shout about the cross-roads. But these sounds have become the +natural voices of the neighborhood--mother-tongues like the chat of +the brook, the talk of the leaves, and the caw of the crows. And these +voices, instead of disturbing, seem rather to lull the stillness. + +But the noise of the cars has hardly died away, and the quiet +come, when a long, wild cry breaks in upon it. _Yarup! yarup! +yarup-up-up-up-up!_ in quick succession sounds the call, followed +instantly by a rapid, rolling beat that rings through the morning hush +like a reveille with bugle and drum. + +It is the cry of the "flicker," the "high-hole." He is propped against +a pole along the street railroad, nearly a quarter of a mile away. +He has a hole in this pole, almost under the iron arm that holds the +polished, pulsing wire for the trolley. It is a new house, which the +bird has been working at for more than a week, and it must be finished +now, for this lusty call is an invitation to the warming. I shall +go, and, between the passing of the cars, witness the bowing, the +squeaking, the palaver. A high-hole warming is the most utterly polite +function in birddom. + +Some of my friends were talking of birds, not long ago, when one of +them turned to me and said hopelessly: + +"'Tis no use. We can't save them even if we do stop wearing them upon +our hats. Civilization is bound to sweep them away. We shall be in a +birdless world pretty soon, in spite of laws and Audubon societies." + +I made no reply, but, for an answer, led the way to the street +and down the track to this pole which High-hole had appropriated. +I pointed out his hole, and asked them to watch. Then I knocked. +Instantly a red head appeared at the opening. High-hole was mad enough +to eat us; but he changed his mind, and, with a bored, testy flip, +dived into the woods. He had served my purpose, however, for his red +head sticking out of a hole in a street-railway pole was as a rising +sun in the east of my friends' ornithological world. New light broke +over this question of birds and men. The cars drive High-hole away? +Not so long as cars run by overhead wires on wooden poles. + +High-hole is a civilized bird. Perhaps "domesticated" would better +describe him; though domesticated implies the purposeful effort of +man to change character and habits, while the changes which have come +over High-hole--and over most of the wild birds--are the result of +High-hole's own free choosing. + +If we should let the birds have their way they would voluntarily +fall into civilized, if not into domesticated, habits. They have no +deep-seated hostility toward us; they have not been the aggressors +in the long, bitter war of extermination; they have ever sued for +peace. Instead of feeling an instinctive enmity, the birds are drawn +toward us by the strongest of interests. If nature anywhere shows +us her friendship, and her determination, against all odds, to make +that friendship strong, she shows it through the birds. The way they +forgive and forget, their endless efforts at reconciliation, and +their sense of obligation, ought to shame us. They sing over every +acre that we reclaim, as if we had saved it for them only; and in +return they probe the lawns most diligently for worms, they girdle the +apple-trees for grubs, and gallop over the whole wide sky for gnats +and flies--squaring their account, if may be, for cherries, orchards, +and chimneys. + +[Illustration: "They probe the lawns most diligently for worms."] + +The very crows, in spite of certain well-founded fears, look upon a +new farm--not upon the farmer, perhaps--as a godsend. In the cold and +poverty of winter, not only the crows, but the jays, quails, buntings, +and sparrows, help themselves, as by right, from our shocks and cribs. +Summer and winter the birds find food so much more plentiful about +the farm and village, find living in all respects so much easier and +happier here than in remote, wild regions, that, as a whole, they +have become a suburban people. + +But life is more than meat for the birds. There is a subtle yet real +attraction for them in human society. They like its stir and change, +its attention and admiration. The shyest and most modest of the +birds pines for appreciation. The cardinal grosbeak, retiring as he +is, cannot believe that he was born to blush unseen--to the tip of +his beautiful crest. And the hermit-thrush, meditative, spiritual, +and free as the heart of the swamp from worldliness--even he loves +a listener, and would not waste his sweetness any longer on desert +forest air. I do not know a single bird who does not prefer a wood +with a wagon-road through it. + +[Illustration: "Even he loves a listener."] + +My friends had smiled at such assertions before their introduction to +the bird in the pole. They knew just enough of woodpeckers to expect +High-hole to build in the woods, and, when driven from there, to +disappear, to extinguish himself, rather than stoop to an existence +within walls of hardly the dignity and privacy of a hitching-post. + +He is a proud bird and a wild bird, but a practical, sensible bird +withal. Strong of wing and mighty of voice, he was intended for a +vigorous, untamed life, and even yet there is the naked savage in his +bound and his whoop. But electric cars have come, with smooth-barked +poles, and these are better than rotten trees, despite the jangle and +hum of wires and the racket of grinding wheels. Like the rest of us, +he has not put off his savagery: he has simply put on civilization. +Street cars are a convenience and a diversion. He has wings and +wildest freedom any moment, and so, even though heavy timber skirts +the track and shadows his pole, and though across the road opposite +stands a house where there are children, dogs, and cats, nevertheless, +High-hole follows his fancy, and instead of building back in the +seclusion and safety of the woods, comes out to the street, the +railroad, the children, and the cats, and digs him a modern house in +this sounding cedar pole. + +Perhaps it is imagination, but I think that I can actually see +High-hole changing his wood ways for the ways of the village. He grows +tamer and more trustful every summer. + +[Illustration: "She flew across the pasture."] + +A pair have their nest in a telegraph-pole near the school-house, +where they are constantly mauled by the boys. I was passing one day +when two youngsters rushed to the pole and dragged out the poor +harassed hen for my edification. She was seized by one wing, and came +out flapping, her feathers pulled and splintered. She had already +lost all but two quills from her tail through previous exhibitions. I +opened my hands, and she flew across the pasture to the top of a tree, +and waited patiently till we went away. She then returned, knowing, +apparently, that we were boys and a necessary evil of village life. + +But this pole-life marks only half the distance that these birds have +come from the woods. + +One warm Sunday of a recent March, in the middle of my morning sermon, +a ghostly rapping was heard through the meeting-house. I paused. _Tap, +tap, tap!_ hollow and ominous it echoed. Every soul was awake in an +instant. Was it a summons from--? But two of the small boys grinned; +some one whispered "flicker"; and I gathered my ornithological wits +together in time to save the pause and proceed with the service. + +After the people went home I found three flicker-holes in the +latticework over the north windows. One of last year's tenants had got +back that morning from the South, and had gone to work cleaning up +and putting things to rights in his house, regardless of Sabbath and +sermon. + +[Illustration: "Putting things to rights in his house."] + +This approach of the flicker to domestic life and human fellowship is +an almost universal movement among the birds. And no tendency anywhere +in wild life is more striking. The four-footed animals are rapidly +disappearing before the banging car and spreading town, yet the birds +welcome these encroachments and thrive on them. One never gets used to +the contrast in the bird life of uninhabited places with that about +human dwellings. Thoreau tells his wonder and disappointment at the +dearth of birds in the Maine woods; Burroughs reads about it, and goes +off to the mountains, but has himself such an aggravated shock of the +same surprise that he also writes about it. The few hawks and rarer +wood species found in these wild places are shy and elusive. More and +more, in spite of all they know of us, the birds choose our proximity +over the wilderness. Indeed, the longer we live together, the less +they fear and suspect us. + + +II + +Using my home for a center, you may describe a circle of a +quarter-mile radius and all the way round find that radius +intersecting either a house, a dooryard, or an orchard. Yet within +this small and settled area I found one summer thirty-six species of +birds nesting. Can any cabin in the Adirondacks open its window to +more voices--any square mile of solid, unhacked forest on the globe +show richer, gayer variety of bird life? + +The nightingale, the dodo, and the ivorybill were not among these +thirty-six. What then? If one can live on an electric-car line, +inside the borders of a fine city, have his church across the road, +his blacksmith on the corner, his neighbors within easy call, +and, with all this, have any thirty-six species of birds nesting +within ear-shot, ought he to ache for the Archæopteryx, or rail at +civilization as a destroyer? + +There is nothing remarkable about this bit of country. I could plant +myself at the center of such a circle anywhere for miles around and +find just as many birds. Perhaps the land is more rocky and hilly, the +woods thicker, the gardens smaller here than is common elsewhere in +eastern Massachusetts; otherwise, aside from a gem of a pond, this is +a very ordinary New England "corner." + +[Illustration: "A very ordinary New England 'corner.'"] + +On the west side of my yard lies a cultivated field, beyond which +stands an ancient apple orchard; on the east the yard is hedged by a +tract of sprout-land which is watched over by a few large pines; at +the north, behind the house and garden, runs a wall of chestnut and +oak, which ten years ago would have been cut but for some fortunate +legal complication. Such is the character of the whole neighborhood. +Patches of wood and swamp, pastures, orchards, and gardens, cut +in every direction by roads and paths, and crossed by one tiny +stream--this is the circle of the thirty-six. + +Not one of these nests is beyond a stone's throw from a house. Seven +of them, indeed, are in houses or barns, or in boxes placed about the +dooryards; sixteen of them are in orchard trees; and the others are +distributed along the roads, over the fields, and in the woods. + +Among the nearest of these feathered neighbors is a pair of bluebirds +with a nest in one of the bird-boxes in the yard. The bluebirds +are still untamed, building, as I have often found, in the wildest +spots of the woods; but seen about the house, there is something so +reserved, so gentle and refined in their voice and manner as to shed +an atmosphere of good breeding about the whole yard. What a contrast +they are to the English sparrows! What a rebuke to city manners! + +They are the first to return in the spring; the spring, rather, comes +back with them. They are its wings. It could not come on any others. +If it tried, say, the tanager's, would we believe and accept it? The +bluebird is the only possible interpreter of those first dark signs of +March; through him we have faith in the glint of the pussy-willows, +in the half-thawed peep of the hylas, and in the northward flying of +the geese. Except for his return, March would be the one month of all +the twelve never looked at from the woods and waysides. He comes, else +we should not know that the waters were falling, that a leaf could be +plucked in all the bare, muddy world. + +[Illustration: "They are the first to return in the spring."] + +Our feelings for the bluebird are much mixed. His feathers are not the +attraction. He is bright, but on the whole rather plainly dressed. Nor +is it altogether his voice that draws us; the snowflakes could hardly +melt into tones more mellow, nor flecks of the sky's April blue run +into notes more limpid, yet the bluebird is no singer. The spell is in +the spirit of the bird. He is the soul of this somber season, voicing +its sadness and hope. What other bird can take his place and fill his +mission in the heavy, hopeful days of March? We are in no mood for +gaiety and show. Not until the morning stars quarrel together will the +cat-bird or scarlet tanager herald the spring. The irreverent song of +a cat-bird in the gray gloom of March would turn the spring back and +draw the winter out of his uncovered grave. The bluebird comes and +broods over this death and birth, until the old winter sleeps his long +sleep, and the young spring wakes to her beautiful life. + +_Within_ my house is another very human little bird--the +chimney-swallow. Sharing our very firesides as he does, he surely +ought to have a warm place in our hearts; but where have I ever read +one word expressing the affection for him that is universally shown +the bluebird? + +I am thinking of our American swallow. We all know how Gilbert White +loved his chimney-swallows--how he loved every creature that flew or +crawled about the rectory. Was it an ancient tortoise in the garden? +the sheep upon the downs? a brood of birds in the chimney? No +matter. Let the creatures manifest never so slight a friendliness for +him, let them claim never so little of his protection, and the good +rector's heart went out toward them as it might toward children of his +own. + +But the swallows were White's fondest care. He and his hirundines were +inseparable. He thought of them, especially those of the chimney, as +members of his household. One can detect almost a father's interest +and joy in his notes upon these little birds. Listen to the parent in +this bit about the young in Letter XVIII. They are just out of the +chimney. + +[Illustration: "Where the dams are hawking for flies."] + +"They play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies; +and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam +and the nestling advance, rising toward each other, and meeting at an +angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note +of gratitude and complacency that a person must have paid very little +regard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat." + +[Illustration] + +Has anything been written about our swift showing as faithful and +sympathetic observation as that? No. He comes and goes without any +one, like Gilbert White, being cheered by his twitter or interested in +his doings. Perhaps it is because we have so many brighter, sweeter +birds about us here; or perhaps our chimneys are higher than those of +Selborne Rectory; or maybe we have no Gilbert White over here. + +Of course we have no Gilbert White. We have not had time to produce +one. The union of man and nature which yields the naturalist of +Selborne is a process of time. Our soil and our sympathy are centuries +savager than England's. We still look at our lands with the spirit of +the ax; we are yet largely concerned with the contents of the gizzards +of our birds. Shall the crows and cherry-birds be exterminated? the +sparrows transported? the owls and hawks put behind bars? Not until +the collectors at Washington pronounce upon these first questions +can we hope for a naturalist who will find White's wonders in the +chimney-swallow. + +These little swifts are not as attractive as song-sparrows. They are +sooty--worse than sooty sometimes; their clothes are too tight for +them; and they are less musical than a small boy with "clappers." +Nevertheless I could ill spare them from my family. They were the +first birds I knew, my earliest home being so generous in its chimneys +as to afford lodgings to several pairs of them. This summer they again +share my fireside, squeaking, scratching, and thundering in the flue +as they used to when, real goblins, they came scrambling down to peek +and spy at me. I should miss them from the chimney as I should the +song-sparrows from the meadow. They are above the grate, to be sure, +while I am in front of it; but we live in the same house, and there is +only a wall between us. + +If the chimney would be a dark, dead hole without the swifts, how +empty the summer sky would be were they not skimming, darting, +wiggling across every bright hour of it! They are tireless fliers, +feeding, bathing, love-making, and even gathering the twigs for their +nests on the wing, never alighting, in fact, after leaving the chimney +until they return to it. They rest while flying. Every now and then +you will see them throw their wings up over their heads till the tips +almost touch, and, in twos or threes, scale along to the time of +their jolly, tuneless rattle. + +From May to September, is there a happier sight than a flock of +chimney-swallows, just before or just after a shower, whizzing about +the tops of the corn or coursing over the river, like so many streaks +of black lightning, ridding the atmosphere of its overcharge of +gnats! They cut across the rainbow and shoot into the rose- and +pearl-washed sky, and drop--into the depths of a soot-clogged chimney! + +[Illustration: "They cut across the rainbow."] + +These swallows used to build in caves and in clean, hollow trees; now +they nest only in chimneys. So far have they advanced in civilization +since the landing of the Pilgrims! + +Upon the beams in the top of the barn the brown-breasted, fork-tailed +barn-swallows have made their mud nests for years. These birds are +wholly domesticated. We cannot think of them as wild. And what a place +in our affections they have won! If it is the bluebirds that bring +the spring, the barn-swallows fetch the summer. They take us back +to the farm. We smell the hay, we see the cracks and knot-holes of +light cutting through the fragrant gloom of the mows, we hear the +munching horses and the summer rain upon the shingles, every time a +barn-swallow slips past us. + +For grace of form and poetry of motion there is no rival for the +barn-swallow. When on wing, where else, between the point of a beak +and the tips of a tail, are there so many marvelous curves, such +beautiful balance of parts? On the wing, I say. Upon his feet he is as +awkward as the latest Herreshoff yacht upon the stays. But he is the +yacht of the air. Every line of him is drawn for racing. The narrow, +wide-reaching wings and the long, forked tail are the perfection of +lightness, swiftness, and power. A master designed him--saved every +possible feather's weight, bent from stem to stern, and rigged him to +outsail the very winds. + +[Illustration: "The barn-swallows fetch the summer."] + +From the barn to the orchard is no great journey; but it is the +distance between two bird-lands. One must cross the Mississippi basin, +the Rocky Mountains, or the Pacific Ocean to find a greater change in +bird life than he finds in leaping the bars between the yard and the +orchard. + +A bent, rheumatic, hoary old orchard is nature's smile in the agony +of her civilization. Men may level the forests, clear the land and +fence it; but as long as they plant orchards, bird life, at least, +will survive and prosper. + +[Illustration: "From the barn to the orchard."] + +Except for the warblers, one acre of apple-trees is richer in +the variety of its birds than ten acres of woods. In the three +unkempt, decrepit orchards hereabout, I found the robin, chippy, +orchard-oriole, cherry-bird, king-bird, crow-blackbird, bluebird, +chebec, tree-swallow, flicker, downy woodpecker, screech-owl, yellow +warbler, redstart, and great-crested flycatcher--all nesting as +rightful heirs and proprietors. This is no small share of the glory +of the whole bird world. + +I ought not to name redstart as a regular occupant of the orchard. +He belongs to the woods, and must be reckoned a visitor to the +apple-trees, only an occasional builder, at best. The orchard is +too open for him. He is an actor, and needs a leafy setting for his +stage. In the woods, against a dense background of green, he can play +butterfly with charming effect, can spread himself and flit about like +an autumn leaf or some wandering bit of paradise life, with wings of +the grove's richest orange light and its deepest shadow. + +When, however, he has a fancy for the orchard, this dainty little +warbler shows us what the wood-birds can do in the way of friendship +and sociability. + +Across the road, in an apple-tree whose branches overhang a kitchen +roof, built a pair of redstarts. No one discovered the birds till the +young came; then both parents were seen about the yard the whole day +long. They were as much at home as the chickens, even more familiar. +Having a leisure moment one day, when a bicycle was being cleaned +beneath the tree, the inquisitive pair dropped down, the female +actually lighting upon the handle-bar to see how the dusting was done. +On another occasion she attempted to settle upon the baby swinging +under the tree in a hammock; and again, when I caught one of her own +babies in my hands, she came, bringing a worm, and, without the +slightest fear of me, tried to feed it. Yet she was somewhat daunted +by the trap in which her infant was struggling; she would fan my hands +with her wings, then withdraw, not able to muster quite enough courage +to settle upon them. + +[Illustration: "Across the road, in an apple-tree, built a pair of +redstarts."] + +Neither of these birds ever showed alarm at the people of the house. +In fact, I never saw a redstart who seemed to know that we humans +ought to be dreaded. These birds are now as innocent of suspicion +as when they came up to Adam to be named. On two occasions, during +severe summer storms, they have fluttered at my windows for shelter, +and dried their feathers, as any way-worn traveler might, in safety +beneath my roof. + +From the window one morning I saw Chebec, the least flycatcher, light +upon the clothes-line. She teetered a moment, balancing her big +head by her loosely jointed tail, then leaped lightly into the air, +turned,--as only a flycatcher can,--and, diving close to the ground, +gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her beak, and darted +off. I followed instantly, and soon found her nest in one of the +orchard trees. It was not quite finished; and while the bird was gone +for more of the dandelion down, I climbed up and seated myself within +three feet of the nest. + +Back came Mrs. Chebec with a swoop, but, on seeing me, halted short of +the nest. I was motionless. Hopping cautiously toward the nest, she +took an anxious look inside; finding nothing disturbed, she concluded +that there was no evil in me, and so went on with her interesting +work. It was a pretty sight. In a quiet, capable, womanly way she laid +the lining in, making the nest, in her infinite mother-love, fit for +eggs with shells of foam. + +The chebec is a finished architect. Better builders are few indeed. +The humming-bird is slower, more painstaking, and excels Chebec in +outside finish. But Chebec's nest is so deep, so soft, so round and +hollow! There is the loveliness of pure curve in its walls. And small +wonder! She bends them about the beautiful mold of her own breast. +Whenever she entered with the dandelion cotton, she went round and +round these walls, before leaving, pressing them fondly with her chin +close against her breast. She could not make them sufficiently safe +nor half lovely enough for the white, fragile treasures to be cradled +there. + +[Illustration: "Gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her +beak."] + +Artists though they be, the chebecs, nevertheless, are very tiresome +birds. They think that they can sing--a sad, sorry, maddening mistake. +Mr. Chapman says the day that song was distributed among the birds the +chebecs sat on a back seat. Would they had been out catching flies! In +the chatter of the English sparrow, no matter how much I may resent +his impudence and swagger, there is something so bright and lively +that I never find him really tiresome. But the chebecs come back very +early in spring, and sit around for days and days, catching flies, and +jerking their heads and calling, _Chebec! chebec! chebec!_ till you +wish their heads would snap off. + +In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of robins. The crude nest +was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork of the tree, so that the +cats and roving boys could help themselves without trouble. The mother +sputtered and worried and scolded without let-up, trying to make good +her foolishness in fixing upon such a site by abundance of anxiety and +noise. + +The fussiest, least sensible mother among the birds is the robin. Any +place for her nest but a safe one! The number of young robins annually +sacrificed to pure parental carelessness is appalling. The female +chooses the site for the home, and her ability for blundering upon +unattractive and exposed locations amounts to genius. She insists upon +building on the sand. Usually the rain descends, the floods come, the +winds blow, and there is a fall. + +[Illustration: "In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of +robins. The crude nest was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork +of the tree, so that the cats and roving boys could help themselves +without trouble."] + +Here is a pair building upon a pile of boards under a cherry-tree; +another pair plaster their nest to the rider of an old worm-fence; +while a third couple, abandoning the woods near by, plant theirs, +against all remonstrance, upon the top of a step-ladder that the +brickmakers use daily in their drying-sheds. + +It was the superlative stupidity of this robin that saved her family. +The workmen at first knocked her nest off to the ground. She had +plenty of clay at hand, however, and began her nest again, following +the ladder as it moved about the shed. Such amazing persistence won, +of course. Out of wonder, finally, the men gave the ladder over to her +and stood aside till her family affairs were attended to. Everything +was right in time. After infinite scolding, she at last came off in +triumph, with her brood of four. + +A striking illustration of this growing alliance between us and the +birds is the nest of the great-crested flycatcher in the orchard. +Great-crest has almost become an orchard-bird. At heart he is, and +ever will be, a bird of the wilds. He is not tame--does not want to +be tame; he is bold, and the dangers and advantages of orchard life +attract him. His moving into an apple orchard is no less a wonder than +would be an Apache chief's settling in New York or Boston. + +Most observers still count Great-crest among the wild and unreclaimed. +Florence A. Merriam, speaking of his return in spring, says: "Not many +days pass, however, before he is so taken up with domestic matters +that his voice is rarely heard outside the woods"; and in Stearns's +"Birds" I find: "It does not court the society of man, but prefers +to keep aloof in the depths of the forest, where it leads a wild, +shy, and solitary life." This is not Great-crest as I know him. I +have found many of his nests, and never one in any but orchard trees. +Riding along a country road lately, I heard Great-crest's call far +ahead of me. I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole. Under +him was a pear-tree, and a hundred yards away a farm-house. In the +pear-tree I found his nest--snake-skins and all. + +[Illustration: "I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole."] + +I disagree, too, with most descriptions of this bird's cry. The +authors I have read seem never to have heard him on a quiet May +morning across a fifty-acre field. His voice is "harsh and +discordant" when sounded into one's very ears. The sweetest-toned +organ would be discordant to one inside the instrument. Give the +bird the room he demands,--wide, early-morning fields,--and listen. +A single shout, almost human it seems, wild, weird, and penetrating, +yet clear and smooth as the blast of a bugle. One can never forget +it, nor resist it; for it thrills like a resurrection call--the +last, long summons to the spring waking. This solitary note is often +repeated, but is never so rapid nor so long drawn out as the call of +the flicker. + +Great-crest is a character, one of the most individual of all our +birds. What other bird lines his nest with snake-skins? or hangs such +gruesome things out for latch-strings? He has taken up his residence +among us, but he has given us pretty plainly to understand that we +need not call, else I mistake the hint in the scaly skin that dangles +from his door. The strong personality of the bird is stamped even upon +its eggs. Where are any to match them for curious, crazy coloring? +The artist had purple inks, shading all the way from the deepest +chestnut-purple to the faintest lilac. With a sharp pen he scratched +the shell from end to end with all his colors till it was covered, +then finished it off with a few wild flourishes and crosswise scrawls. + +Like the birds of the orchards and buildings, the field-birds also are +yielding to human influences. We can almost say that we have an order +of farm-birds, so many species seem to have become entirely dependent +upon the pasture and grain-field. + +"Where did Bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in +the North and rice-fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, +merry-hearted beau then as now?" I do not know. But I do know that, +in the thirty and three years since Mr. Burroughs asked the question, +Bobolink has lost none of his nimbleness, nor forgotten one bubbling, +tinkling note of his song. Yet in his autumn journey South, from the +day he reaches the ripe reeds of the Jersey marshes till he is lost in +the wide rice-lands of Georgia, his passage is through a ceaseless, +pitiless storm of lead. Dare he return to us in spring? and can he +ever sing again? He will come if May comes--forgetting and forgiving, +dressed in as gay a suit as ever, and just as full of song. + +There is no marvel of nature's making equal to the miracle of her +temper toward man. How gladly she yields to his masterful dominion! +How sufferingly she waits for him to grow out of his spoiled, vicious +childhood. The spirit of the bobolink ought to exorcise the savage out +of us. It ought, and it does--slowly. + +We are trying, for instance, to cow the savage in us by law, to +restrain it while the birds are breeding; but we hardly succeed yet. +The mating season is scarcely over, the young not yet grown, when the +gunners about me go into the fields with their dogs and locate every +covey of quail, even counting the number of birds in each. With the +dawn of the first day of open season they are out, going from flock to +flock, killing, till the last possible bird is in their bloody bags. + +[Illustration: "He will come if May comes."] + +One of the most pathetic of all the wordless cries of the out-of-doors +is the covey-call of the female quail at night, trying to gather the +scattered flock together after the dogs are called off and the hunters +have gone home. + +[Illustration: "Within a few feet of me dropped the lonely frightened +quail."] + +It was nearly dark one December afternoon, the snow ankle-deep and +falling swiftly, when, crossing a wide field, I heard this call from a +piece of sprout-land ahead of me. Kneeling in the snow, I answered the +whistle. Instantly came a reply. Back and forth we signaled till there +was a whir of wings, and down in the soft snow within a few feet of me +dropped the lonely, frightened quail. She was the only one left of a +covey that the night before had roosted unbroken, snugly wedged, with +their tails together, under a pile of brush. + +Sharing the fields with the quails are the meadow-larks. They scale +along the grass, rarely rising higher than the cedars, flapping +rapidly for a short distance, then sailing a little in a cautious, +breath-held manner, as though wings were a new invention and just a +trifle dangerous yet. On they go to a fence-stake, and land with many +congratulatory flirts of wings and tail. Has anybody observed the +feat? They look around. Yes; here I sit,--a man on a fence across the +field,--and the lark turns toward me and calls out: "Did you see me?" + +He would be the best-bred, most elegant of our birds, were it not for +his self-consciousness. He is consumed with it. There is too much gold +and jet on his breast. But, in spite of all this, the plain, rich +back and wings, the slender legs, the long, delicate beak, the erect +carriage, the important air, the sleek, refined appearance, compel us +to put him down an aristocrat. + +In a closely cropped pasture near the house, in early June, I found +the eggs of the night-hawk. There was no nest, of course: the eggs +lay upon the grass, and, for safety, had been left directly under the +fence. The cows might not step on them here, but nothing prevented +their crushing the fragile things with their noses. + +[Illustration: "On they go to a fence-stake."] + +Lengthwise, upon one of the rails, slept the mother. She zigzagged +off at my approach, dazzled and uncertain in the white light of the +noon, making no outcry nor stopping an instant to watch the fate of +her eggs. She acted like a huge bat, slinking and dodging, out of her +element in the light, and anxious to be hid. She did not seem like +a creature that had a voice; and the way she flew would make one +think that she did not know the use of her wings. But what a circus +flier she is at night! and with what an uncanny noise she haunts the +twilight! She has made more hair stand on end, with her earthward +plunge and its unearthly boom through the dusk, than all the owls +together. It is a ghostly joke. And who would believe in the daylight +that this limp, ragged lump, dozing upon the fence or the kitchen +roof, could play the spook so cleverly in the dark? + + +III + +On the 25th of April, before the trees were in leaf, I heard the +first true wood-note of the spring. It came from the tall oaks beyond +the garden. "_Clear, clear, clear up!_" it rang, pure, untamed, and +quickening. The solitary vireo! It was his whistle, inimitable, +unmistakable; and though I had not seen him since last July, I hurried +out to the woods, sure he would greet me. + +Solitary is the largest, rarest, tamest, and sweetest-voiced of the +vireos. I soon found him high in the tops of the trees; but I wanted +him nearer. He would not descend. So I chased him, stoning and +mocking him even, till, at last, he came down to the bushes and showed +me his big blue head, white eye-rings, wing-bars, and yellow-washed +sides. + +[Illustration: "It was a love-song."] + +He did more than show himself: he sang for me. Within ten feet of +me, he began a quiet little warble of a tenderness and contentment I +never heard before. Such variety of notes, such sweetness of melody, +such easy, unconscious rendering! It was a love-song, but sung all to +himself, for he knew that there was no gentle heart to listen this +side of Virginia. He sang to his own happy heart as pure and sweet a +song as the very angels know. + +Solitary disappeared from that day. I concluded he had gone to +heavier, wilder woods to nest. It was late in June that, passing +through this brush-land, I saw hanging from an oak sapling, just above +my head, a soft, yellowish basket. It was a vireo's nest; but it was +too large, too downy, too yellow for Red-eye. There were no bunches of +white spider-webs upon it, such as Red-eye hangs all over his nest. +I stepped aside for a better view, and had just caught the glint of +a large, white-ringed eye peering over the nest's edge at me, when, +off in the woods behind me, the noon hush was startled by Solitary's +whistle--a round, pure, pearly note that broke the quiet as pearly +teeth break through the smile of a beautiful face. He soon appeared, +coming on, a tree at a time, looking and asking, in no hurry and in no +alarm. When he reached the pine overhead, his mate left the nest to +confer with him. They scolded me mildly while I climbed for a look at +the four delicately spotted eggs; but as soon as I lay down upon the +ground, the mother, without fuss or fear, slipped into the nest and +cuddled down over the eggs till her head hardly showed above the rim. +Had a few bushes been removed I could have seen the nest from my front +door. + +Why do the wood-birds so persistently build their nests along the +paths and roads? I said that even the hermit-thrush prefers a wood +with a road through it. If he possibly can he will build along that +road. And what one of the birds will not? Is it mere stupidity? Is it +curiosity to see what goes on? Is there some safety here from enemies +worse than boys and cats and dogs? Or is it that these birds take this +chance for human fellowship? If this last is the reason for their +rejecting the deep tangles for limbs that overhang roads and tufts of +grass in constantly traveled foot-paths, then they can be pardoned; +otherwise they are foolish--fatally foolish. + +The first black-and-white warbler's nest I ever found was at the +base of a clump of bushes in a narrow wood-path not ten feet from a +highway. There were acres of bushes beyond, thick and pathless, all +theirs to choose from. + +In the same piece of scrub-oak the summer after I found another +black-and-white warbler's nest. The loud talk of three of the birds +attracted me. Two of them were together, and just mated, evidently; +the third was a male, and just as plainly the luckless suitor. He was +trying to start a quarrel between the young couple, doing his best to +make the new bride break her vows. He flew just ahead of them, darting +to the ground, scuttling under the brush, and calling out, "See here! +Come here! Don't fool with him any longer! I have the place for a +nest!" + +But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly as they ran up and +down the trees and hunted under the fallen limbs and leaves for a +home-site. The male led the way and found the places; the female +passed judgment. I followed them. + +[Illustration: "But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly."] + +Every spot the cock peeped into was the finest in the woods; his +enthusiasm was constant and unbounded. "Any place is heaven," he kept +repeating, "any place, so long as I have you." But she was to do the +housekeeping, and the ecstasies of the honeymoon were not to turn her +head. She was house-hunting; and, like every woman, at her best. She +said "no," and "no," and "no." I began to think they never would +find the place, when the male darted far ahead and went out of sight +beneath some low huckleberry-bushes near a stone wall. This wall ran +between the woods and a pasture; and parallel with it, on the woods +side, was a foot-path. + +Up came the little hen, and together they scratched about under the +leaves. Suddenly the cock flew away and fetched a strip of chestnut +bark. This he turned over to his wife. Then both birds flew out to the +chestnut limbs for bark, and brought their strips back. The home was +founded. + +It was the merest cavity, pushed into the dead leaves, with three +shreds of bark for first timbers. In less than a week the structure +was finished and furnished--with a tiny white egg thickly sprinkled +with brown. I watched the spot daily, and finally saw the four young +warblers safely out into their new woods-world. But from the day the +first egg was laid until the nestlings left I constantly expected to +find everything crushed under the foot of some passer-by. + +When free from household cares the chickadee is the most sociable of +the birds of the woods. But he takes family matters seriously, and +withdraws so quietly to the unfrequented parts of the woods during +nesting-time as to seem to have migrated. Yet of the four chickadees' +nests found about the house, one was in a dead yellow birch in a bit +of deep swamp, two others were in yellow birches along wood-roads, and +the fourth was in a rotten fence-post by the main road, a long way +from any trees. + +A workman while mending the fence discovered this last nest. The post +crumbled in his hands as he tried to pull it down, revealing the nest +of moss and rabbit hair, with its five brown-and-white eggs. He left +the old post, propped it up with a sound one, and, mending the broken +walls of the cavity the best he could, hurried along with his task, +that the birds might return. They came back, found the wreckage of +dust and chips covering the eggs, tried the flimsy walls--and went +away. It was a desecrated home, neither safe nor beautiful now; so +they forsook it. + +There is no eagle's nest in this collection of thirty-six. But if Mr. +Burroughs is correct, there is the next thing to it--a humming-bird's +nest; three of them, indeed, one of which is within a stone's throw +of my door! This one is in the oaks behind my garden, but the other +two are even nearer to houses. One of these is upon the limb of a +pear-tree. The tip of this limb rubs against a woodshed connected with +a dwelling. The third nest is in a large apple orchard, in the tree +nearest the house, and saddled upon that branch of the tree which +reaches farthest toward the dwelling. So close is this nest that I can +look out of the garret window directly into it. + +[Illustration: "In a dead yellow birch."] + +I believe that Ruby-throat is so far domesticated that he rejoices +over every new flower-garden. There was nearly half an acre of +gladioli in the neighborhood one summer, where all the humming-birds +gathered from far and near. Here, for the only time in my life, I saw +a _flock_ of humming-birds. I counted eight one day; and the gardener +told me that he had often seen a dozen of them among the spikes. They +squeaked like bats, and played--about as bullets might play. In fact, +I think I dodged when they whizzed past me, as a soldier does the +first time he is under fire. + +[Illustration: "So close I can look directly into it."] + +One of my friends had a cellar window abloom with geraniums. A +ruby-throat came often to this window. One day the mistress of the +flowers caught the wee chap in her hands. He knew at once that she +meant no harm and quietly submitted. A few days later he returned and +was captured again. He liked the honey, and evidently the fondling, +too, for he came very regularly after that for the nectar and the +lady's soft hands. + +The nest behind my garden is in the top of a tall, slender maple, +with oaks and chestnuts surrounding and overshadowing it. Finding a +nest like this is inspiration for the rest of life. The only feat +comparable to it is the discovery of a bee-tree. Finding wild bees, I +think, would be good training for one intending to hunt humming-birds' +nests in the woods. But no one ever had such an intention. No one ever +deliberately started into the woods a-saying, "Go to, now; I'll find a +humming-bird's nest in here!" + +Humming-birds' nests are the gifts of the gods--rewards for patience +and for gratitude because of commoner grants. My nests have invariably +come this way, or, if you choose, by accident. The nearest I ever +came to earning one was in the case of this one in the maple. I +caught a glimpse of a humming-bird flashing around the high limbs +of a chestnut, so far up that she looked no bigger than a hornet. I +suspected instantly that she was gathering lichens for a nest, and, as +she darted off, I threw my eyes ahead of her across her path. It was +just one chance in ten thousand if I even saw her speeding through the +limbs and leaves, if I got the line of her flight, to say nothing of +a clue to her nesting-place. It was little short of a miracle. I had +tried many times before to do it, but this is the only time I ever +succeeded: my line of vision fell directly upon the tiny builder as +she dropped to her nest in the sapling. + +The structure was barely started. I might have stared at it with the +strongest glass and never made it out a nest; the sapling, too, was +no thicker at the butt than my wrist, and I should not have dreamed +of looking into its tall, spindling top for any kind of a nest. +Furthermore, as if to rob one of the last possibility of discovering +it, a stray bud, two years before, had pushed through the bark of the +limb about three inches behind where the nest was to be fixed, and +had grown, till now its leaves hung over the dainty house in an almost +perfect canopy and screen. + +For three weeks the walls of this house were going up. Is it +astonishing that, when finished, they looked like a growth of the +limb, like part and parcel of the very tree? I made a daily visit to +the sapling until the young birds flew away; then I bent the tree to +the ground and brought the nest home. It now hangs above my desk, +its thick walls, its downy bed, its leafy canopy telling still of +the little mother's unwearied industry, of her infinite love and +foresight. So faultlessly formed, so safely saddled to the limb, so +exquisitely lichened into harmony with the green around, this tiniest +nest speaks for all of the birds. How needless, how sorry, would be +the loss of these beautiful neighbors of our copses and fields! + + + + +"MUS'RATTIN'" + + +[Illustration: "Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and went +chuckling down the bank."] + +"MUS'RATTIN'" + + +One November afternoon I found Uncle Jethro back of the woodshed, +drawing a chalk-mark along the barrel of his old musket, from the +hammer to the sight. + +"What are you doing that for, Uncle Jeth?" I asked. + +"What fo'? Fo' mus'rats, boy." + +"Muskrats! Do you think they'll walk up and toe that mark, while you +knock 'em over with a stick?" + +"G'way fum yhere! What I take yo' possumin' des dozen winters fo', en +yo' dunno how to sight a gun in de moon yit? I's gwine mus'rattin' by +de moon to-night, en I won't take yo' nohow." + +Of course he took me. We went out about nine o'clock, and entering +the zigzag lane behind the barn, followed the cow-paths down to the +pasture, then cut across the fields to Lupton's Pond, the little +wood-walled lake which falls over a dam into the wide meadows along +Cohansey Creek. + +It is a wild, secluded spot, so removed that a pair of black ducks +built their nest for several springs in the deep moss about the upper +shore. + +It is shallow and deeply crusted over with lily-pads and +pickerel-weed, except for a small area about the dam, where the water +is deep and clear. There are many stumps in the upper end; and here, +in the shallows, built upon the hummocks or anchored to the submerged +roots, are the muskrats' houses. + +The big moon was rising over the meadows as we tucked ourselves snugly +out of sight in a clump of small cedars on the bank, within easy range +of the dam and commanding a view of the whole pond. The domed houses +of the muskrats--the village numbered six homes--showed plainly as +the moon came up; and when the full flood of light fell on the still +surface of the pond, we could see the "roads" of the muskrats, like +narrow channels, leading down through the pads to the open space about +the dam. + +[Illustration: "The big moon was rising over the meadows."] + +A muskrat's domestic life is erratic. Sometimes there will be a large +village in the pond, and, again, an autumn will pass without a single +new house being built. It may be that some of the old houses will +be fitted up anew and occupied; but I have known years when there +was not a house in the pond. At no time do all of the muskrats build +winter houses. The walls of the meadow ditches just under the dam are +honeycombed with subterranean passages, in which many of the muskrats +live the year round. Neither food nor weather, so far as I have found, +influence them at all in the choice of their winter quarters. In low, +wet meadows where there are no ditches, the muskrats, of course, live +altogether in mud and reed houses above ground, for the water would +flood the ordinary burrow. These structures are placed on the tussocks +along a water-hole, so that the dwellers can dive out and escape under +water when danger approaches. But here in the tide-meadows, where +the ditches are deep, the muskrats rear their families almost wholly +in underground rooms. It is only when winter comes, and family ties +dissolve, that a few of the more sociable or more adventurous club +together, come up to the pond, and while away the cold weather in +these haystack lodges. + +[Illustration: Section of muskrat's house.] + +These houses are very simple, but entirely adequate. If you will lift +the top off an ordinary meadow lodge you will find a single room, with +a bed in the middle, and at least one entrance and one exit which are +always closed to outsiders by water. + +The meadow lodge is built thus: The muskrat first chooses a large +tussock of sedge that stands well out of the water for his bedstead. +Now, from a foundation below the water, thick walls of mud and grass +are erected inclosing the tussock; a thatch of excessive thickness +is piled on; the channels leading away from the doors are dug out if +necessary; a bunch of soaking grass is brought in and made into a bed +on the tussock--and the muskrat takes possession. + +The pond lodges at the head of Lupton's are made after this fashion, +only they are much larger, and instead of being raised about a +tussock of sedge, they are built upon, and inclose, a part of a log +or stump. + +This lodge life is surely a cozy, jolly way of passing the winter. The +possums are inclined to club together whenever they can find stumps +that are roomy enough; but the muskrats habitually live together +through the winter. Here, in the single room of their house, one after +another will come, until the walls can hold no more; and, curling +up after their night of foraging, they will spend the frigid days +blissfully rolled into one warm ball of dreamful sleep. Let it blow +and snow and freeze outside; there are six inches of mud-and-reed wall +around them, and, wrapped deep in rich, warm fur, they hear nothing of +the blizzard and care nothing for the cold. + +Nor are they prisoners of the cold here. The snow has drifted over +their house till only a tiny mound appears; the ice has sealed the +pond and locked their home against the storm and desolation without: +but the main roadway from the house is below the drifting snow, and +they know where, among the stumps and button-bushes, the warm-nosed +watchers have kept breathing-holes open. The ice-maker never finds +their inner stair; its secret door opens into deep, under-water paths, +which run all over the bottom of the unfrozen pond-world. + +[Illustration: "The snow has drifted over their house till only a tiny +mound appears."] + +Unless roused by the sharp thrust of a spear, the muskrats will sleep +till nightfall. You may skate around the lodge and even sit down upon +it without waking the sleepers; but plunge your polo-stick through +the top, and you will hear a smothered _plunk, plunk, plunk_, as one +after another dives out of bed into the water below. + +The moon climbed higher up the sky and the minutes ran on to ten +o'clock. We waited. The night was calm and still, and the keen, alert +air brought every movement of the wild life about us to our ears. +The soft, cottony footfalls of a rabbit, hopping leisurely down the +moonlit path, seemed not unlike the echoing steps on silent, sleeping +streets, as some traveler passes beneath your window; a wedge of wild +geese _honked_ far over our heads, holding their mysterious way to the +South; white-footed mice scurried among the dried leaves; and our ears +were so sharpened by the frosty air that we caught their thin, wiry +squeaks. + +Presently there was a faint plash among the muskrat houses. The +village was waking up. Uncle Jethro poked the long nose of his gun +cautiously through the bushes, and watched. Soon there was a wake +in one of the silvery roads, then a parting of waves, and stemming +silently and evenly toward us, we saw the round, black head of a +muskrat. + +It was a pretty sight and a pretty shot; but I would not have had +the stillness and the moonlit picture spoiled by the blare of that +murderous musket for the pelts of fifty muskrats, and as the gun was +coming to Uncle Jethro's shoulder, I slipped my hand under the lifted +hammer. + +With just an audible grunt of impatience the old negro understood,--it +was not the first good shot that my love of wild things had spoiled +for him,--and the unsuspecting muskrat swam on to the dam. + +[Illustration: "They rubbed noses."] + +A plank had drifted against the bank, and upon this the little +creature scrambled out, as dry as the cat at home under the roaring +kitchen stove. Down another road came a second muskrat, and, swimming +across the open water at the dam, joined the first-comer on the +plank. They rubbed noses softly--the sweetest of all wild-animal +greetings--and a moment afterward began to play together. + +[Illustration: "Two little brown creatures washing calamus."] + +They were out for a frolic, and the night was splendid. Keeping one +eye open for owls, they threw off all other caution, and swam and +dived and chased each other through the water, with all the fun of +boys in swimming. + +On the bottom of the pond about the dam, in ten or twelve feet of +water, was a bed of unios. I knew that they were there, for I had cut +my feet upon them; and the muskrats knew they were there, for they +had had many a moonlight lunch of them. These mussels the muskrats +reckon sweetmeats. They are hard to get, hard to crack, but worth all +the cost. I was not surprised, then, when one of the muskrats sleekly +disappeared beneath the surface, and came up directly with a mussel. + +There was a squabble on the plank, which ended in the other muskrat's +diving for a mussel for himself. How they opened them I could not +clearly make out, for the shells were almost concealed in their paws; +but judging from their actions and the appearance of other shells +which they had opened, I should say that they first gnawed through the +big hinge at the back, then pried open the valves, and ate out the +contents. + +Having finished this first course of big-neck clams, they were joined +by a third muskrat, and, together, they filed over the bank and down +into the meadow. Shortly two of them returned with great mouthfuls of +the mud-bleached ends of calamus-blades. Then followed the washing. + +They dropped their loads upon the plank, took up the stalks, pulled +the blades apart, and soused them up and down in the water, rubbing +them with their paws until they were as clean and white as the +whitest celery one ever ate. What a dainty picture! Two little brown +creatures, humped on the edge of a plank, washing calamus in moonlit +water! + +One might have taken them for half-grown coons as they sat there +scrubbing and munching. Had the big barred owl, from the gum-swamp +down the creek, come along then, he could easily have bobbed down upon +them, and might almost have carried one away without the other knowing +it, so all-absorbing was the calamus-washing. + +Muskrats, like coons, will wash what they eat, whether washing is +needed or not. It is a necessary preliminary to dinner--their +righteousness, the little Pharisees! Judging from the washing disease +which ailed two tame muskrats that I knew, it is perfectly safe to say +that had these found clean bread and butter upon the plank, instead of +muddy calamus, they would have scoured it just the same. + +Before the two on the plank had finished their meal, the third muskrat +returned, dragging his load of mud and roots to the scrubbing. He was +just dipping into the water when there was a terrific explosion in +my ears, a roar that echoed round and round the pond. As the smoke +lifted, there were no washers upon the plank; but over in the quiet +water floated three long, slender tails. + +"No man gwine stan' dat shot, boy, jis t' see a mus'rat wash hi' +supper"; and Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and went +chuckling down the bank. + + + + +A STUDY IN BIRD MORALS + + +[Illustration: "She melted away among the dark pines like a shadow."] + +A STUDY IN BIRD MORALS + + +The eternal distinctions of right and wrong upon which the moral law +is based inhere even in the jelly of the amoeba. The Decalogue binds +all the way down. In the course of a little observation one must find +how faithfully the animals, as a whole, keep the law, and how sadly, +at times, certain of them are wont to break it. + +To pass over such notorious cases as the cow-bird, cuckoo, +turkey-buzzard, and crow, there is still cause for positive alarm, if +the birds have souls, in the depraved habit of duplicity common among +them. In a single short tramp, one June afternoon, no less than five +different birds attempted to deceive me. The casuist may be able to +justify all five of them; for, no doubt, there are extremities when +this breach of the law should not merit condemnation; but even so, if +in the limits of one short walk _five_ little innocents deliberately +act out the coolest of falsehoods, one cannot help wondering if it is +not true that the whole creation needs redeeming. + +The first of these five was a yellow warbler. I was trying to look +into her nest, which was placed in the top of a clump of alders in +a muddy pasture, when she slipped out and fluttered like an autumn +leaf to the ground. She made no outcry, but wavered down to my feet +with quivering wings, and dragged herself over the water and mud as +if wounded. I paused to look at her, and, as long as I watched, she +played her best to lure me. A black-snake would have struck at her +instantly; but I knew her woman's ways and turned again to the nest. +As soon as she saw that her tears and prayers would not avail; she +darted into the bushes near me and called me every wicked thing that +she could think of. I deserved it all, of course, though I was only +curious to see her cradle and its holdings, which, had she been a +human mother, she would have insisted on my stopping to see. + +[Illustration: "She called me every wicked thing that she could think +of."] + +On the way to Lupton's I climbed a sharp, pine-covered hill, where the +needles were so slippery that I had to halt for a minute's rest at +the top. The trees rose straight and close and slender, with scarcely +a live branch reaching out nearer the ground than twenty feet. The +roof of green shut out the light, and the matting of brown spread the +ground so deep that only a few stunted blueberry-bushes, small ferns, +and straying runners of ground-pine abode there. It was one of those +cathedral-like clumps, a holy of holies of the woods, into whose dim +silence the straggling bushes, briers, and other lowly forest folk +dare not come, but fall upon their knees outside and worship. + +[Illustration: "It was one of those cathedral-like clumps."] + +The birds, however, are not so reverent. I was scarcely stretched upon +the needles when a slight movement overhead arrested my attention. +As I looked, a soft fluttering of wings brought a blue jay into the +branches directly above me. There is nothing peculiar in finding a +blue jay among the pines--they usually nest there. But there was +something peculiar about this jay; he moved so quietly, he appeared so +entirely unconscious of me, though I knew that he saw me as plainly as +I him. Then at his side alighted his mate, meeker and more modest than +a chippy. + +What did it signify--these squawking, scolding, garrulous birds +suddenly gone silent and trustful? In the pines at this season one +never gets nearer a jay than field-glass range--near enough to hear +him dash away, screeching defiance. But here were these two gliding +among the branches above my head as cautiously and softly as +cuckoos, searching apparently for grubs, yet keeping all the time to +the one spot, not leaving for a moment to hunt among other trees. +Round and round the same limbs they went, without once screaming or +uttering so much as a word of that sweet, confiding talk which one +hears when he spies on a pair of lovers or a newly wedded couple of +these birds. I became suspicious. All this meant something. They kept +close together, and fluttered about, hanging from the twigs head down +like chickadees, deliberately biting off bunches of needles, prying +into the cones, and scaling off bits of bark, but finding nothing, nor +even trying to find anything. + +At this juncture I chanced to move my feet. The birds stopped +instantly; but on my becoming quiet they went on scattering the +needles and bark-chips again. Then I raised my glass. They paused +just for a second, and continued, though now I saw that their picking +was all at random, hitting the limb or not as might be. They were not +hunting grubs: they were watching me; and more--they were keeping me +watching them. + +[Illustration: "They were watching me."] + +It was a clever little ruse. But it was too good, too new, too +unjaylike for my faith. There was a nest against one of these pines, +as sure as it was June. And this fearless unconcern? this new and +absorbing interest in grubs? All assumed!--very genuinely assumed, +indeed, and might have led me to do a dozen things other than looking +for the nest, had I known a little less of jays. It was heroic, too. +They were calm and had all their wits about them. Outwardly they were +indifferent to my presence and gave me not the slightest heed. But +this was all show. Every instant they saw me; and, while pretending +not to know that I was near, they had come to intercept me, to attract +my attention to themselves, and save their nest. And at how much cost! +To have looked within those calm little bosoms were to have seen two +hearts as anxious and fearful as ever thumped parental breasts. + +If I had been deceived and led to waste my afternoon or to record +something untrue of the blue jay, still, I think, these two birds +could hardly have been condemned before the law. For did not their +motive justify the deed? + +The blue jays are braggarts, full of noise, and almost without morals; +yet they have not seemed to me quite as bad as they used to, not quite +the same blustering, quarrelsome, unmoral renegades, since these two +showed me how they could conquer their instinctive fears and rise +superior to everything common and cowardly by the power of their +parental love. + +I could not find the nest; so returning the next day, I crept under +cover to the foot of the hill, and, ascending stealthily, saw the hen +as she slipped from the home tree. She melted away among the dark +pines like a shadow, but reappeared immediately with her mate to head +me off again. Not this time, however, for I had their secret. My eye +was upon the nest. It was a loose, rough affair of coarse sticks, +fixed upon two dead branches well up against a slender pine's trunk. +I could see patches of light sky through it, it was such a botch. But +where art failed nature perfected. I saw the sky through the bungled +structure, but not the eggs. I had to climb to see them, for they were +so washed with shadowy green that they blended perfectly with the +color of the nest and the subdued light of the pines. + +After my adventure with the jays I had an interesting experience with +a pair of tiny birds in the sand-bank on the north side of Lupton's +Pond. + +The country immediately surrounding the pond is exceedingly varied and +full of life. The high, level farm-lands break off into sandbanks, +which, in turn, spread into sweeping meadows that run out to the +creek. The little pond lies between steep hills of chestnut-oak and +pine, its upper waters being lost in a dense swamp of magnolia and +alder, while over the dam at its foot there rushes a fall that echoes +around the wooded hills and then goes purling among the elder and dog +roses into the sullen tide-ditches of the meadow. Except the meadows +and cultivated fields, everything is on a small scale, as if the place +were made of the odds and ends, the left-over pieces in the making +of the region round about. Such diversity of soils, such a medley of +features, such profusion of life, in a territory of the same size I +never saw elsewhere. At the boarding-school, near by, Lupton's Pond is +known as "Paradise." + +On reaching the pond I went over to the sand-bank to look for a pair +of kingfishers who had nested there many years; but instead of them, I +saw a pair of winter wrens fly sharply among the washed-out roots of a +persimmon-tree which stood on the edge of the hill above. I instantly +lost sight of one of the birds. The actions of the other were so +self-conscious that I stopped and watched--I had never found a winter +wren's nest. In a moment the missing bird appeared and revealed the +nest. It was large for the size of the builders, made of sticks, +grass, and feathers, and was fixed among the black roots just below +the green hilltop, and set into the sand far enough to leave a little +of one side exposed. + +The wrens hurried away on my approach; but when I retreated to the +foot of the bank, they darted back to the nest, the hen entering +without a pause, while the cock perched upon a root at the door and +began a most extraordinary performance. + +He managed to put himself directly between me and the tiny portal, +completely cutting off my view of the little brown wife inside the +nest; then, spreading his wings, with tail up and head on one side, he +fluttered and bobbed and wagged and poured out a volume of song that +was prodigious. It lifted him fairly off his feet. Had he suddenly +gone up with a whizz, like a sky-rocket, and burst into a shower of +bubbles, trills, runs, and wild, ecstatic warbles, I should have +looked on with no more wonder. Such a song! It was singing gone mad. + +My head was on a level with him. I leaned forward nearer the bank. +At this he went crazy with his efforts--into a fit, almost. I cannot +have been mistaken: it was the first time that I had ever heard a bird +sing when in terror; but I had whistled my way past too many dogs +and through too many graveyards at night to be deceived in the note +of fear, and in the purpose of this song. That bit of a husband was +scared almost out of his senses; but there he stood, squarely between +me and that precious nest and the more precious wife, guarding them +from my evil eyes with every atom of his midget self. + +It was as fine an illustration of courage as I ever saw, a triumph of +love and duty over fear--fear that perhaps we have no way to measure. +And it was a triumph of wedded love at that; for there were no young, +not even an egg in the unfinished nest. It all happened in less than +a minute. The female reappeared in an instant, satisfied that all was +well with the nest, and both birds sped off and dropped among the +briers. + +How would the casuist decide for so sweet, so big, so heroic a +deception--or the attempt? + +A little farther down the creek, where the meadows meet the marsh, +dwell the cousins of the winter wrens, the long-billed marsh-wrens. +Here in the wide reaches of calamus and reeds, where the brackish tide +comes in, the marsh-wrens build by hundreds. Their big, bulky nests +are woven about a handful of young calamus-blades, or tied to a few +long, stout sedge-stalks, and grow as the season grows. + +[Illustration: "A triumph of love and duty over fear."] + +The nests are made of coarse marsh-grass,--of the floatage often,--and +are so long in the process of construction that, when completed, they +are all speared through with the grass-blades, as with so many green +bayonets. They are about the size of a large calabash, nearly round, +thick-walled and heavy, with a small entrance, just under the roof, +leading upward like a short stair to a deep, pocket-like cavity, at +whose bottom lie the eggs, barely out of finger reach. + +I could hear the smothered racket of the singing wrens all about me +in the dense growth, scoldings to my right, defiance to my left, +discussions of wives, grumblings of husbands, and singing of lovers +everywhere, until the whole marsh seemed a-sputter and a-bubble with a +gurgling tide of song like a river running in. Now and then, a wave, +rising higher than its fellows, splashed up above the reeds and broke +into song-spray, as an ecstasy lifted the wee brown performer out of +the green. + +But these short dashes of the wrens into upper air, I have come to +believe, are not entirely the flights of enraptured souls. Something +more than Mr. Chapman's "mine of music bursts within them." Before +they knew that I was near I rarely saw one make this singing dive into +the air; but as soon as they were acquainted with my presence they +appeared on every hand. I had not gone fifty feet into their reedy +domain when I began to catch a furious berating. The knives of the +mowing-machine up in the meadow went no faster nor sharper than these +unseen tongues in the reeds. Suddenly a bit of brown fury dashed into +view near me, spattered the air thick with song-notes, and, as if +veiled by this cloud of melody, it turned on its head and dived back, +chattering of all that was seen to the other furies in the reeds. + +Does any one believe that exhibition to be an explosion of pure +song--the exaltation of unmixed joy? If ever the Ninth Commandment was +broken, it was broken here. + +This uncontrollable emotion, this shower of song, is but a cloak to +the singer's fear and curiosity. He wants to know where I am and what +I am about. I once knew a little dog who was so afraid of the dark +that he would run barking all the way to the barn when put out at +night. So these little spies start up singing their biggest as a blind +to their real feelings and purposes. + +The quail's broken wings and rushes of blood to the head during +nesting-time have lost their lure even for the small boy; yet they +somehow still work on me. I involuntarily give my attention to this +distress until too late to catch sight of the scurrying brood. I +imagine, too, that the oldest and wisest of the foxes is still fooled +by this make-believe, and will continue to be fooled to the end of +time. + +A barren, stony hillside slopes gradually to the marsh where the wrens +live. Here I was met by the fifth deceiver, a killdeer plover. The +killdeer's crocodile tears are bigger and more touchingly genuine than +even the quail's. And, besides all her tricks, she has a voice that +fairly drips woe. + +The killdeer always builds in a worn-out, pebbly pasture or in a bare, +unused field. Here among the stones she makes her nest by scraping +out a shallow cavity, into which she scratches a few bits of rotten +wood and weed-stalks in sizes that would make good timber for a +caddis-worm's house. Instead of digging the cavity, she often hunts up +two or three stones and a corn-butt, which happen to lie so that she +can crowd in between them, and makes this shift serve her for a nest. + +[Illustration: "He wants to know where I am and what I am about."] + +Her eggs are one of the world's small wonders. They lie out in the +open like so many of the pebbles about them--resembling the stones +so perfectly that they are more often overlooked or crushed than +discovered. The ground color of the egg is that of the earth, and the +markings correspond marvelously to the size, shade, and distribution +of the bits of wood beneath them in the nest. I know of no other +instance of protective coloring among the birds so nearly perfect, +unless it be the killdeer herself when playing her favorite trick of +"invisible." + +She had seen me before I entered the reeds of the marsh-wrens. +Squatting close over her eggs, she watched me silently, and seeing +that I was approaching her nest on my way up the hill, she glided off +and suddenly appeared at my feet. Where she came from I did not know. +It was as if the earth had opened and let her out. I stopped. That +was what she wanted. "You numskull, look at me and make a fool of +yourself," she said by the light in her eye. I did exactly so. + +With her head outstretched and body close to the ground, she slid like +a ghost before me as I followed. Now she took form like a stone, now +seemed to sink out of sight into the earth, reappearing only to vanish +again into thin air. Thus she led me on, contriving to keep from +beneath my feet, and always just out of reach, till, seeing that my +credulity and patience were failing, she broke silence for a desperate +last act, and fell in a fit, screaming, _Kill-dee, kill-dee, kill-dee!_ + +There she lay in the agony of death. I stooped to pick her up; but she +happened to flutter a little--the death-spasm. I stepped forward to +take her. Putting my hand down, I--ah! not dead yet! Poor thing! She +jerked just out of my hand--reflex action, no doubt. But now it is all +over; she is dead, and I bend to pick her up, when, springing like +an arrow from my grasp, killdeer, ringing out her wail, goes swiftly +flying across the hill. + +Fooled! Yes; but not altogether fooled, for I knew that it would turn +out so. The impostor! But wasn't it beautifully done? I shall never +grow too wise to be duped. + +She has played me a trick, and now I will revenge myself and find her +nest. I shall--perhaps. + +[Illustration: "In the agony of death."] + + + + +RABBIT ROADS + + +[Illustration] + +RABBIT ROADS + + +In your woods walks did you ever notice a little furrow or +tunnel through the underbrush, a tiny roadway in the briers and +huckleberry-bushes? Did you ever try to follow this path to its +beginning or end, wondering who traveled it? You have, doubtless. But +the woods must be wild and the undergrowth thick and you must be as +much at home among the trees as you are in your own dooryard, else +this slight mark will make no impression upon you. + +But enter any wild tract of wood or high swamp along the creek, and +look sharp as you cut across the undergrowth. You will not go far +before finding a narrow runway under your feet. It is about five +inches wide, leading in no particular direction, and is evidently made +by cutting off the small stems of vines and bushes at an inch or more +from the ground. The work looks as if it had been laid out by rule and +done with a sharp knife, it is so regular and clean. + +This is a rabbit road. Follow it a few rods and you will find it +crossed by another road, exactly similar. Take this new path now, and +soon you are branching off, turning, and joining other roads. You +are in rabbit-land, traveling its highways--the most complicated and +entangling system of thoroughfares that was ever constructed. The +individual roads are straight and plain enough, but at a glance one +can see that the plan of the system is intended to bewilder and lead +astray all who trespass here. Without a map and directions no one +could hope to arrive at any definite point through such a snarl. + +There often comes along with the circus a building called the +"Moorish Maze," over whose entrance is this invitation: + + COME IN AND GET LOST! + +This is what one reads at the cross-roads in rabbit-land. There are +finger-boards and mile-stones along the way; but they point nowhere +and mark no distances except to the rabbits. + +An animal's strong points usually supplement each other; its +well-developed powers are in line with its needs and mode of life. +So, by the very demands of his peculiar life, the beaver has become +chief among all the animal engineers, his specialty being dams. He can +make a good slide for logging, but of the construction of speedways he +knows absolutely nothing. The rabbit, on the other hand, is a runner. +He can swim if he is obliged to. His interests, however, lie mostly in +his heels, and hence in his highways. So Bunny has become an expert +road-maker. He cannot build a house, nor dig even a respectable den; +he is unable to climb, and his face is too flat for hole-gnawing: +but turn him loose in a brambly, briery wilderness, and he will soon +thread the trackless waste with a network of roads, and lay it open +to his nimble feet as the sky lies open to the swallow's wings. + +But how maddening these roads are to the dogs and foxes! In the first +place, they have a peculiar way of beginning nowhere in particular, +and of vanishing all at once, in the same blind fashion. I am not sure +that I ever found a satisfactory end to a rabbit's road--that is, a +nest, a playground, or even a feeding-place. Old Calamity, the hound, +is always tormented and undone whenever she runs foul of a rabbit road. + +[Illustration: "Calamity is hot on his track."] + +She will start Bunny in the open field, and trail away after him in +full tongue as fast as her fat bow-legs will carry her. The rabbit +makes for the woods. Calamity is hot on his track, going down toward +the creek. Suddenly she finds herself plunging along a rabbit road, +breaking her way through by sheer force where the rabbit slipped +along with perfect ease. She is following the path now rather than +the scent, and, all at once, discovers that she is off the trail. She +turns and goes back. Yes, here the rabbit made a sharp break to the +right by a side-path; the track is fresh and warm, and the old hound +sings in her eager delight. On she goes with more haste, running the +path again instead of the trail, and--there is no path! It is gone. +This bothers the old dog; but her nose is keen and she has picked up +the course again. Here it goes into another road. She gives tongue +again, and rushes on, when--_Wow!_ she has plunged into a thick and +thorny tangle of greenbrier. + +That is where the torment comes in. These roads have a habit of taking +in the brier-patches. Calamity will go round a patch if she can; she +will work her way through if she must--but it is at the cost of bloody +ears and a thousand smarting pricks. Bunny, meantime, is watching +just inside the next brier-patch, counting the digs of his clumsy +pursuer. + +I suppose that this "blind alley" kind of road is due to the fact that +the rabbits have no regular homes. They make a nest for the young; but +they never have dens, like minks and coons. In New England they often +live in holes and among the crannies of the stone walls; and there, as +far as I have seen, they rarely or never make roads. Farther south, +where the winters are less severe, they dig no holes, for they prefer +an open, even an exposed, bed to any sort of shelter. + +Shelters are dangerous. Bunny cannot back into a burrow and bare his +teeth to his enemy; he is not a fighter. He can run, and he knows it; +legs are his salvation, and he must have room to limber them. If he +has to fight, then give him the open, not a hole; for it is to be a +kangaroo kicking match, and a large ring is needed. He had as well +surrender himself at once as to run into a hole that has only one +opening. + +During the cold, snowy weather the rabbits usually leave the bare +fields for the woods, though the older and wiser ones more frequently +suffer the storms than risk the greater danger of such a move. When +pressed by hunger or hounded hard, they often take to a rail-pile, +and sometimes they grow so bold as to seek hiding under a barn or +house. One young buck lived all winter in the wood-pile of one of my +neighbors, becoming so tame that he fed with the chickens. + +[Illustration: "Bunny, meantime, is watching just inside the next +brier-patch."] + +The nearest approach that a rabbit makes to a house is his "squat," +or form. This is simply a sitting-place in the fields or along the +woods, that he will change every time he is thoroughly frightened out +of it. Undisturbed he will stay in this squat for months at a time. +Occasionally a rabbit will have two or three squats located over his +range, each one so placed that a wide view on every side may be had. +If it is along the woods, then he sits facing the open fields, with +his ears laid back toward the trees. He can hear as far as he can see, +and his nose tells him who is coming up the wind sooner than either +eyes or ears. + +It is cold, lonely living here in the winter. But everybody, except +the mice and little birds, are enemies, his only friends being +his wits and legs. In the long run, wits and legs are pretty safe +insurance. "He who fights and runs away will live to fight another +day," is Bunny's precept--and it works well; he still thrives. + +The squat is a cold place. The sky is its roof, and its only +protection is the tuft of grass, the stone, or the stump beside which +it is placed. Bunny may change to the lee or windward side, as suits +him, during a storm; but usually he keeps his place and lies close +to the ground, no matter how the wind blows, or how fiercely falls +the rain and snow. I have frequently started them from their squats +in bleak, wind-swept fields, when the little brown things were +completely snowed under. + +There is great individuality among all animals, and though the rabbits +look as much alike as peas, they are no exception to the rule. This +personality is especially shown in their whimsical fancies for certain +squats. Here, within sight of the house and the dog, an old rabbit +took up her abode on a big, flat rail in the corner of the fence. +Of course no hawk or owl could touch her here, for they dared not +swoop between the rails; the dog and cat could scent her, but she +had already whipped the cat, and she had given Calamity so many long +runs that the hound was weary of her. The strategic value of such a +situation is plain: she was thus raised just above the level of the +field and commanded every approach. Perhaps it was not whim, but +wisdom, that led to this selection. + +I knew another, a dwarf rabbit, that always got into a bare or plowed +field and squatted beside a brown stone or clod of earth. Experience +had taught him that he looked like a clod, and that no enemy ever +plagued him when he lay low in the brown soil. + +[Illustration: "The squat is a cold place."] + +One summer I stumbled upon a squat close along the public road. +Cart-loads of trash had been dumped there, and among the debris was a +bottomless coal-scuttle. In the coal-scuttle a rabbit made his squat. +Being open at both ends, it sheltered him beautifully from sun and +rain. Here he sat, napping through the day, watching the interesting +stream of passers-by, himself hidden by the rank weeds and grass. When +discovered by a dog or boy, he tripped out of one of his open doors +and led the intruder a useless run into the swamp. + +At one time my home was separated from the woods by only a +clover-field. This clover-field was a favorite feeding-ground for the +rabbits of the vicinity. Here, in the early evening, they would gather +to feed and frolic; and, not content with clover, they sometimes went +into the garden for a dessert of growing corn and young cabbage. + +Take a moonlight night in autumn and hide in the edge of these woods. +There is to be a rabbit party in the clover-field. The grass has +long been cut and the field is clean and shining; but still there is +plenty to eat. The rabbits from both sides of the woods are coming. +The full moon rises above the trees, and the cottontails start over. +Now, of course, they use the paths which they cut so carefully the +longest possible way round. They hop leisurely along, stopping now and +then to nibble the sassafras bark or to get a bite of wintergreen, +even quitting the path, here and there, for a berry or a bunch of +sweet wood-grass. + +"Stop a moment; this won't do! Here is a side-path where the briers +have grown three inches since they were last cut off. This path must +be cleared out at once," and the old buck falls to cutting. By the +time he has finished the path a dozen rabbits have assembled in the +clover-field. When he appears there is a _thump_, and all look up; +some one runs to greet the new-comer; they touch whiskers and smell, +then turn to their eating. + +The feast is finished, and the games are on. Four or five of the +rabbits have come together for a turn at hop-skip-and-jump. And such +hop-skip-and-jump! They are professionals at this sport, every one of +them. There is not a rabbit in the game that cannot leap five times +higher than he can reach on his tiptoes, and hop a clean ten feet. + +[Illustration: "The limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that +fox."] + +Over and over they go, bounding and bouncing, snapping from their +marvelous hind legs as if shot from a spring-trap. It is the greatest +jumping exhibition that you will ever see. To have such legs as these +is the next best thing to having wings. + +Right in the thick of the fun sounds a sharp _thump! thump!_ Every +rabbit "freezes." It is the stamp of an old buck, the call, _Danger! +danger!_ He has heard a twig break in the woods, or has seen a soft, +shadowy thing cross the moon. + +As motionless as stumps squat the rabbits, stiff with the tenseness of +every ready muscle. They listen. But it was only a dropping nut or a +restless bird; and the play continues. + +They are chasing each other over the grass in a game of tag. There go +two, round and round, tagging and re-tagging, first one being "it" and +then the other. Their circle widens all the time and draws nearer to +the woods. This time round they will touch the bush behind which we +are watching. Here they come--there they go; they will leap the log +yonder. Flash! squeak! scurry! Not a rabbit in the field! Yes; one +rabbit--the limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that fox +trotting off yonder in the shadows, along the border of the woods! + +The picnic is over for this night, and it will be some time before the +cottontails so far forget themselves as to play in this place again. + +It is small wonder that animals do not laugh. They have so little +play. The savage seldom laughs, for he hunts and is hunted like a +wild animal, and is allowed so scant opportunity to be off guard that +he cannot develop the power to laugh. Much more is this true of the +animals. From the day an animal is born, instinct and training are +bent toward the circumvention of enemies. There is no time to play, no +chance, no cause for laughter. + +The little brown rabbit has least reason of all to be glad. He is +utterly inoffensive, the enemy of none, but the victim of many. Before +he knows his mother he understands the meaning of _Be ready! Watch!_ +He drinks these words in with his milk. The winds whisper them; the +birds call them; every leaf, every twig, every shadow and sound, says: +_Be ready! Watch!_ Life is but a series of escapes, little else than +vigilance and flight. He must sleep with eyes open, feed with ears +up, move with muffled feet, and, at short stages, he must stop, rise +on his long hind legs, and listen and look. If he ever forgets, if he +pauses one moment for a wordless, noiseless game with his fellows, he +dies. For safety's sake he lives alone; but even a rabbit has fits of +sociability, and gives way at times to his feelings. The owl and the +fox know this, and they watch the open glades and field-edges. They +must surprise him. + +The barred owl is quick at dodging, but Bunny is quicker. It is the +owl's soft, shadow-silent wings that are dreaded. They spirit him +through the dusk like a huge moth, wavering and aimless, with dangling +dragon-claws. But his drop is swift and certain, and the grip of those +loosely hanging legs is the very grip of death. There is no terror +like the ghost-terror of the owl. + +[Illustration: "His drop is swift and certain."] + +The fox is feared; but then, he is on legs, not wings, and there are +telltale winds that fly before him, far ahead, whispering, _Fox, fox, +fox!_ The owl, remember, like the wind, has wings--wings that are +faster than the wind's, and the latter cannot get ahead to tell of +his coming. Reynard is cunning. Bunny is fore-sighted, wide awake, +and fleet of foot. Sometimes he is caught napping--so are we all; but +if in wits he is not always Reynard's equal, in speed he holds his +own very well with his enemy. Reynard is nimble, but give the little +cottontail a few feet handicap in a race for life, and he stands a +fair chance of escape, especially in the summer woods. + +When the hounds are on his trail the rabbit saves his legs by +outwitting his pursuers. He will win a long distance ahead of them, +and before they overtake him he will double on his track, approaching +as near as he dare to the dogs, then leap far aside upon a log, into +a stream, or among the bushes, and strike out in a new direction, +gradually making back toward the starting-place. He rises on his +haunches to listen, as he goes along, and before the dogs have again +picked up the trail, he has perhaps had time to rest and lunch. + +If it were a matter of dogs only, life would be just full enough of +excitement to be interesting. He can double, balk, and mix trails on +them, and enjoy it. They are nothing to fool. But the gun! Ah, that's +a foe which he cannot get up with. He may double and confuse the +dogs; but as he comes back along a side-road, with them yelping far in +the rear, he often hops right into a game-bag. + +To do justice to the intelligence of the dog, and to be truthful about +the rabbit, it must be remembered that, in the chase, Bunny usually +has the advantage of knowing the lay of the land. The short cuts, +streams, logs, briers, and roads are all in mind before he takes a +jump. The dog is often on strange ground. Free the rabbit for the +hunt, as you do the fox, on unknown territory, and the dogs will soon +take the frightened, bewildered little creature. + +There is no braver or more devoted mother in all the wilds than Molly +Cottontail. She has a mother's cunning and a mother's resourcefulness, +also. But this is to be expected. If number of children count for +experience, then, surely, Molly ought to be resourceful. There +are seasons when she will raise as many as three families--and +old-fashioned families for size, too. It is not uncommon to find ten +young rabbits in a nest. Five times twins! And all to be fed, washed, +and kept covered up in bed together! But animal children, as a rule, +behave better than human children, so we may not measure the task of +Mother Molly by any standard of our own. It is task enough, however, +since you can scarcely count the creatures that eat young rabbits, +nor the enemies that unwittingly destroy them. A heavy rain may drown +them, cattle may crush them, mowing-machines may cut them to pieces, +and boys who are starting menageries may carry them away to starve. + +Molly's mother-wit and craft are sufficient for most of these things. +She picks out a sunny hillside among high grasses and bushes for the +nest, so that the rain will flow off and not flood it, and because +that here the cows are not so likely to trample, nor the plow and +mowing-machine to come. She must also have ready and hidden access to +the nest, which the grass and bushes afford. + +She digs a little hollow in the sand about a foot deep and as big +around as a duck's nest, lines it first with coarse grasses and +leaves, then with a layer of finer grass, and fills the whole with +warm, downy fur plucked from her own sides and breast. This nest, not +being situated at the end of an inaccessible burrow, like the tame +rabbit's or woodchuck's, requires that all care be taken to conceal +every sign of it. The raw sand that is thrown out is artfully covered +with leaves and grass to blend with the surrounding ground; and over +the nest itself I have seen the old rabbit pull vines and leaves until +the inquisitive, nosing skunk would have passed it by. + +Molly keeps the young ones in this bed for about two weeks, after +which time, if frightened, they will take to their heels. They are +exceedingly tender at this age and ought not to be allowed to run out. +They do not know what a man is, and hardly understand what their hind +legs are. I saw one that was at least a month old jump up before a +mowing-machine and bolt across the field. It was his first real scare, +and the first time that he had been called upon to test his legs. It +was funny. He didn't know how to use them. He made some tremendous +leaps, and was so unused to the powerful spring in his hind feet that +he turned several complete somersaults in the air. + +Molly feeds the family shortly after nightfall, and always tucks them +in when leaving, with the caution to lie quiet and still. She is +not often surprised with her young, but lingers near on guard. You +can easily tell if you are in the neighborhood of her nest by the way +she thumps and watches you, and refuses to be driven off. Here she +waits, and if anything smaller than a dog appears she rushes to meet +it, stamping the ground in fury. A dog she will intercept by leaving a +warm trail across his path, or, in case the brute has no nose for her +scent, by throwing herself in front of him and drawing him off on a +long chase. + +One day, as I was quietly picking wild strawberries on a hill, I heard +a curious grunting down the side below me, then the quick _thud! +thud!_ of an angry rabbit. Among the bushes I caught a glimpse of +rabbit ears. A fight was on. + +Crouching beside a bluish spot, which I knew to be a rabbit's nest, +was a big yellow cat. He had discovered the young ones, and was making +mouths at the thought of how they would taste, when the mother's thump +startled him. He squatted flat, with ears back, tail swelled, and hair +standing up along his back, as the rabbit leaped over him. It was a +glimpse of Molly's ears, as she made the jump, that I had caught. It +was the beginning of the bout--only a feint by the rabbit, just to try +the mettle of her antagonist. + +The cat was scared, and before he got himself together, Molly, with a +mighty bound, was in the air again, and, as she flashed over him, she +fetched him a stunning whack on the head that knocked him endwise. He +was on his feet in an instant, but just in time to receive a stinging +blow on the ear that sent him sprawling several feet down the hill. +The rabbit seemed constantly in the air. Back and forth, over and over +the cat she flew, and with every bound landed a terrific kick with her +powerful hind feet, that was followed by a puff of yellow fur. + +The cat could not stand up to this. Every particle of breath and fight +was knocked out of him at about the third kick. The green light in his +eyes was the light of terror. He got quickly to a bush, and ran away, +else I believe that the old rabbit would have beaten him to death. + +The seven young ones in the nest were unharmed. Molly grunted and +stamped at me for looking at them; but I was too big to kick as she +had just kicked the cat, and I could not be led away to chase her, +as she would have led a dog. The little fellows were nearly ready to +leave the nest. A few weeks later, when the wheat was cut in the field +above, one of the seven was killed by the long, fearful knife of the +reaper. + +[Illustration: "Seven young ones in the nest."] + +Perhaps the other six survived until November, the beginning of the +gunning season. But when the slaughter was past, if one lived, he +remembered more than once the cry of the hounds, the crack of the gun, +and the sting of shot. He has won a few months' respite from his human +enemies; but this is not peace. There is no peace for him. He may +escape a long time yet; but his foes are too many for him. He fights a +good fight, but must lose at last. + + + + +BRICK-TOP + + +[Illustration] + +BRICK-TOP + + +That man was not only an item in the reckoning when the world was +made, but that his attributes were anticipated too, is everywhere +attested by the way nature makes use of his wreckage. She provides +bountifully for his comfort, and, not content with this, she takes +his refuse, his waste, what he has bungled and spoiled, and out of +it fashions some of her rarest, daintiest delicacies. She gathers up +his chips and cobs, his stubble and stumps,--the crumbs which fall +from his table,--and brings them back to him as the perfection of her +culinary art. + +So, at least, any one with an imagination and a cultivated taste will +say after he has eaten that October titbit, the brick-top mushroom. + +The eating of mushrooms is a comparatively unappreciated privilege +in our country. The taste is growing rapidly; but we have such an +abundance of more likely stuff to live upon that the people have +wisely abstained from a fungus diet. All things considered, it +is a legitimate and wholesome horror, this wide-spread horror of +toadstools. The woods, the wild fields, and the shaded roadsides gleam +all through July and August with that pale, pretty "spring mushroom," +the deadly _Agaricus (Amanita) vernus_; yet how seldom we hear of even +a child being poisoned by eating it! Surely it seems as if our fear +of toadstools, like our hatred for snakes, has become an instinct. I +have never known a mushroom enthusiast who had not first to conquer +an almost mortal dread and to coax his backward courage and appetite +by the gentlest doses. And this is well. An appetite for mushrooms is +not wholly to be commended. Strangely enough, it is not the novice +only who happens to suffer: the professional, the addicted eater, not +infrequently falls a victim. + +The risk the beginner runs is mainly from ignorance of the species. +In gathering anything one naturally picks the fairest and most +perfect. Now among the mushrooms the most beautiful, the ideal shapes +are pretty sure to be of the poisonous _Amanita_ tribe, whose toxic +breath throws any concentrated combination of arsenic, belladonna, +and Paris green far into the shade. There is nothing morally wrong in +the mushroom habit, yet for downright fatality it is eclipsed only by +the opium habit and the suicidal taste for ballooning. + +There are good people, nevertheless, who will eat mushrooms-toadstools +even, if you please. The large cities have their mycological societies +in spite of muscarine and phallin, as they have kennel clubs in spite +of hydrophobia. Therefore, let us take the frontispiece of skull and +crossbones, which Mr. Gibson thoughtfully placed in his poetic book +on toadstools, for the centerpiece of our table, bring on the broiled +brick-tops, and insist that, as for us, we _know_ these to be the very +ambrosia of the gods. + +The development of a genuine enthusiasm for mushrooms--for anything, +in fact--is worth the risk. Eating is not usually a stimulus to +the imagination; but one cannot eat mushrooms in any other than +an ecstatic frame of mind. If it chances to be your first meal +of brick-tops (you come to the task with the latest antidote at +hand), there is a stirring of the soul utterly impossible in +the eating of a prosaic potato. You are on the verge all the time +of discovery--of quail on toast, oysters, beefsteak, macaroni, +caviar, or liver, according to your nationality, native fancy, and +mycological intensity. The variety of meats, flavors, and wholesome +nutrients found in mushrooms by the average mycologist beggars all +the tales told by breakfast-food manufacturers. After listening to a +warm mycologist one feels as Caleb felt at sight of the grapes and +pomegranates: the children of Anak may be there, but this land of +the mushroom is the land of milk and honey; let us go up at once and +possess it. + +[Illustration: "The land of the mushroom."] + +If eating mushrooms quickens the fancy, the gathering of them sharpens +the eye and trains the mind to a scientific accuracy in detail that +quite balances any tendency toward a gustato-poetic extravagance. When +one's life, when so slight a matter as one's dinner, depends upon the +nicest distinctions in stem, gills, color, and age, even a Yankee will +cease guessing and make a desperate effort to know what he is about. + +Here is where brick-top commends itself over many other species of +mushroom that approach the shape of the deadly _Amanita_. It +is umbrella-shaped, moderately long-stemmed, regularly gilled, and +without a "cup" or bulge at the root, rather pointed instead. It +is a rich brick-brown or red at the center of the cap, shading off +lighter toward the circumference. The gills in fresh young specimens +are a light drab, turning black later with the black spores. It comes +in September, and lasts until the heavy snows fall, growing rarely +anywhere but in the woods upon _oak_ stumps. I have found a few +scattering individuals among the trees, and I took two out of my lawn +one autumn. But oak-trees had stood in the lawn until a few years +before, and enough of their roots still remained to furnish a host +for the mushrooms. A stump sometimes will be covered with them, cap +over cap, tier crowding tier so closely that no particle of the stump +is seen. This colony life is characteristic. I have more than once +gathered half a peck of edible specimens from a single stump. + +The most inexperienced collector, when brick-top has been pointed out +to him, can hardly take any other mushroom by mistake. It is strange, +however, that this delicious, abundant, and perfectly harmless +species should be so seldom pictured among the edible fungi in works +upon this subject. I have seen it figured only two or three times, +under the names _Hypholoma perplexum_ and _H. sublateritius_, with +the mere mention that it was safe to eat. Yet its season is one of +the longest, and it is so abundant and so widely distributed as to +make the gathering of the more commonly known but really rarer species +quite impractical. + +No one need fear brick-tops. When taken young and clean, if they do +not broil into squab or fry into frogs' legs, they will prove, at any +rate, to be deliciously tender, woodsy sweetmeats, good to eat and a +joy to collect. + +And the collecting of mushrooms is, after all, their real value. Our +stomachs are too much with us. It is well enough to beguile ourselves +with large talk of rare flavors, high per cents. of proteids, and +small butcher's bills; but it is mostly talk. It gives a practical, +businesslike complexion to our interest and excursions; it backs up +our accusing consciences at the silly waste of time with a show of +thrift and economy; but here mushroom economy ends. There is about +as much in it as there is of cheese in the moon. No doubt tons and +tons of this vegetable meat go to waste every day in the woods and +fields, just as the mycologists say; nevertheless, according to my +experience, it is safer and cheaper to board at a first-class hotel +than in the wilderness upon this manna, bounty of the skies though it +be. + +It is the hunt for mushrooms, the introduction through their door +into a new and wondrous room of the out-of-doors, that makes mycology +worthy and moral. The genuine lover of the out-of-doors, having filled +his basket with fungi, always forces his day's gleanings upon the +least resisting member of the party before he reaches home, while +he himself feeds upon the excitement of the hunt, the happy mental +rest, the sunshine of the fields, and the flavor of the woods. After +a spring with the birds and a summer with the flowers, to leave glass +and botany-can at home and go tramping through the autumn after +mushrooms is to catch the most exhilarating breath of the year, is +to walk of a sudden into a wonder-world. With an eye single for +fungi, we see them of every shape and color and in every imaginable +place--under leaves, up trees, in cellars, everywhere we turn. Rings +of oreads dance for us upon the lawns, goblins clamber over the +rotting stumps, and dryads start from the hollow trees to spy as we +pass along. + +Brick-top is in its prime throughout October--when, in the dearth of +other interests, we need it most. By this time there are few of the +birds and flowers left, though the woods are far from destitute of +sound and color. The chickadees were never friendlier; and when, since +last autumn, have so many flocks of goldfinches glittered along our +paths? Some of the late asters and goldenrods are still in bloom, and +here and there a lagging joepye-weed, a hoary head of boneset, and a +brilliant tuft of ironweed show above the stretches of brown. + +October is not the month of flowers, even if it does claim the +witch-hazel for its own. It is the month of mushrooms. There is +something unnatural and uncanny about the witch-hazel, blossoming +with sear leaf and limbs half bare. I never come upon it without a +start. The sedges are dead, the maples leafless, the robins gone, the +muskrats starting their winter lodges; and here, in the yellow +autumn sun, straggles this witch-hazel, naked like the willows and +alders, but spangled thick with yellow blossoms! Blossoms, indeed, but +not flowers. Hydras they look like, from the dying lily-pads, crawling +over the bush to yellow and die with the rest of the dying world. + +[Illustration: Witch-hazel.] + +No natural, well-ordered plant ought to be in flower when its leaves +are falling; but if stumps and dead trees are to blossom, of course +leaf-falling time would seem a proper enough season. And what can we +call it but blossoming, when an old oak-stump, dead and rotten these +ten years, wakes up after a soaking rain, some October morning, a very +mound of delicate, glistening, brick-red mushrooms? It is as great a +wonder and quite as beautiful a mystery as the bursting into flower +of the marsh-marigolds in May. But no deeper mystery, for--"dead," +did I call these stumps? Rotten they may be, but not dead. There is +nothing dead out of doors. There is change and decay in all things; +but if birds and bugs, if mosses and mushrooms, can give life, then +the deadest tree in the woods is the very fullest of life. + + + + +SECOND CROPS + + +[Illustration] + +SECOND CROPS + + +I + +Take it the year round, the deadest trees in the woods are the livest +and fullest of fruit--for the naturalist. Dr. Holmes had a passion +for big trees; the camera-carriers hunt up historic trees; boys with +deep pockets take to fruit-trees: but dead trees, since I developed a +curiosity for dark holes, have yielded me the most and largest crops. + +An ardor for decayed trees is not from any perversity of nature. There +is nothing unreasonable in it, as in--bibliomania, for instance. I +discover a gaunt, punky old pine, bored full of holes, and standing +among acres of green, characterless companions, with the held breath, +the jumping pulse, the bulging eyes of a collector stumbling upon a +Caxton in a latest-publication book-store. But my excitement is really +with some cause; for--sh! look! In that round hole up there, just +under the broken limb, the flame of the red-headed woodpecker--a light +in one of the windows of the woods. Peep through it. What rooms! What +people! No; I never paid ten cents extra for a volume because it was +full of years and mildew and rare errata (I sometimes buy books at a +reduction for these accidents); but I have walked miles, and passed +forests of green, good-looking trees, to wait in the slim shade of +some tottering, limbless old stump. + +Within the reach of my landscape four of these ancient derelicts +hold their stark arms against the horizon, while every wood-path, +pasture-lane, and meadow-road leads past hollow apples, gums, or +chestnuts, where there are sure to be happenings as the seasons come +and go. Sooner or later, every dead tree in the neighborhood finds a +place in my note-book. They are all named and mentioned, some over and +over,--my list of Immortals,--all very dead or very hollow, ranging +from a big sweet-gum in the swamp along the creek to an old pump-tree, +stuck for a post within fifty feet of my window. The gum is the +hollowest, the pump the deadest, tree of the lot. + +The nozle-hole of the one-time pump stares hard at my study window +like the empty socket of a Cyclops. There is a small bird-house nailed +just above the window, which gazes back with its single eye at the +staring pump. For some time one April the sputtering sparrows held +this box above the window against the attacks of two tree-swallows. +The sparrows had been on the ground all winter, and had staked their +claim with a nest that had already outgrown the house when the +swallows arrived. In love of fair play, and remembering more than +one winter day made alive and cheerful by the sparrows, I could not +interfere and oust them, though it grieved me to lose the pretty pair +of swallows as summer neighbors. + +The swallows disappeared. All was quiet for a few days, when, one +morning, I saw the flutter of steel-blue wings at the hole in the +pump, and there, propped hard with his tail over the hole, hung my +tree-swallow. I should have that pair as tenants yet, and in a house +where I could see everything they did. He peered quickly around, then +peeped cautiously into the opening, and slipped out of sight through +the dark, round hole. + +[Illustration: "I knew it suited exactly."] + +I knew it suited exactly by the glad, excited way he came out and +darted off. He soon returned with the little shining wife; and through +a whole week there was a constant passing of blue backs and white +breasts as the joyous pair fitted up the inside of that pump with +grass and feathers fit for the cradle of a fairy queen. + +By the rarest fortune I was on hand when one of the sparrows +discovered what had happened in the pump. There is not a single +microbe of Anglophobia in my system. But need one's love for things +English include this pestiferous sparrow? Anyhow, I feel just a mite +of satisfaction when I recall how that sparrow, with the colonizing +instinct of his race, dropping down upon the pump with the notion +that he "had a duty to the world," dropped off that pump straightway, +concluding that his "duty" did not relate to that particular pump any +longer. The sparrows had built everywhere about the place, but that +that pump--a post, and a post to a pair of bars at that--was worth +settling had not dawned on them. When they saw that the swallows had +taken it, one of them lighted there instantly, with tail up, head +cocked, very much amazed, and commenting vociferously. He looked +into the hole from every possible point, and was about to enter, when +there came a whizz of wings, a flash of blue, and a slap that sent him +spinning. When the indignant swallow swooped back, like a boomerang, +the sparrow had scuttled off to an apple-tree. + +[Illustration: "With tail up, head cocked, very much amazed, and +commenting vociferously."] + +That was a _coup de grâce_. Peace reigned after that; and along in +July the five white eggs had found wings and were skimming about the +fly-filled air or counting and preening themselves demurely in a +solemn row upon the wire fence. + +Between two pastures, easily seen from the same study window, stands a +wild apple-tree, pathetically diseased and rheumatic, which like one +of Mr. Burroughs's trees, never bore very good crops of apples, but +four seasons a year is marvelously full of animals. It is chiefly +noted for a strange collection I once took out of its maw-like cavity. + +It was a keen January morning, and I stopped at the tree, as usual, +and thumped. No lodgers there that day, it seemed. I mounted the rail +fence and looked in. Darkness. No; there at the bottom was a patch of +gray, and--I pulled out a snapping, blinking screech-owl. Down went +my hand again, and a second owl came blinking to the light--this one +in rich brown plumage. When I turned him up, his clenched claws held +fistfuls of possum hair. Once more I pushed my hand down the hole, +gingerly, and up to the shoulder. No mistake. Mr. Possum was in there, +and after a little manoeuvering I seized him by the collar, and out +he came grinning, hissing, and winking at the hard, white winter day. + +And how exactly like a possum! "There is a time for all things," comes +near an incarnation in him. There is a time for eating owls--at night, +of course, if owls can then be had. But day is the time to sleep; and +if owls want to share his bed and roost upon him, all right. He +_will_ sleep on till nightfall, in spite of owls. And he would sleep +on here till dusk, in spite of my rude awakening, if I gave him leave. +I dropped him back to the bottom of the hole, then put the two owls +back upon him, and went my way, knowing I should find the three still +sleeping on my return. And it was so. The owls were just as surprised +and just as sleepy when I disturbed them the second time that day. I +left them to finish their nap. But the possum was served for dinner +the following evening--for this, too, is strictly in accord with his +time-for-all-things philosophy. + +This pair of owls were most persistent in their attachment to the +apple-tree. Several times in the course of the winter I found them +sleeping soundly in this same deep cavity, making their winter +lodgings in the bent, tumble-down shanty which, standing not far from +the woods and between the uplands and meadows, has been home, hotel, +post-office, city of refuge, and lookout for many of the wild folk +about the fields. + +[Illustration: "In a solemn row upon the wire fence."] + +A worn-out, gone-to-holes orchard is a very city of hollows-loving +animals. Not far away is one such orchard with a side bordering an +extensive copse. Where the orchard and copse meet is an apple-tree +that has been the ancestral home of unnumbered generations of +flying-squirrels. The cavity was first hollowed out by flickers. The +squirrels were interlopers. When the young come in April the large +opening is stuffed with shredded chestnut bark, leaving barely room +enough for the parents to squeeze through. The sharpest-eyed hawk +awing would never dream of waiting outside that insignificant door for +a meal of squirrel. + +[Illustration: "Young flying-squirrels."] + +But such precautions are not always proof against boys. I robbed +that home one spring of its entire batch of babies (no one with any +love of wild things could resist the temptation to kidnap young +flying-squirrels), and tried to bring them up in domestic ways. But +somehow I never succeeded with pets. Something always happened. +One of these four squirrels was rocked on, a second was squeezed in +a door, a third fell before he could fly, and the fourth I took to +college with me. He had perfect liberty, for I had no other room-mate. +I set aside one hour a day to putting corks, pens, photographs, and +knives back in their places, for him to tuck away the next day in one +of my shoes or under my pillow. More than once I have awakened to find +him curled up in my neck or up my sleeve, the dearest little bedfellow +alive. But it was three stories from my window to the street; and one +day he tried his wings. They were not equal to the flight. Since then +I have left my wild pets in the woods. + +If one wants to know what birds are about, especially the larger, +more cautious species, let him get under cover near a tall dead oak +or walnut, standing alone in the middle of open fields. Such a tree +is the natural rest and lookout for every passer. Here come the hawks +to wait and watch; here the sentinel crows are posted while the flock +pilfers corn and plugs melons; here the flickers and woodpeckers +light for a quick lunch of grubs, to call for company or telegraph +across the fields on one of the resonant limbs; here the flocking +blackbirds swoop and settle, making the old tree look as if it had +suddenly leaved out in mourning--leaves black and crackling; and here +the turkey-buzzards halt heavily in their gruesomely glorious flight. + +With good field-glasses there is no other vantage-ground for bird +study equal to this. Not in a day's tramp will one see so many birds, +and have such chances to observe them, as in a single hour, when the +sun is rising or setting, in the neighborhood of some great, gaunt +tree that has died of years or lonesomeness, or been smitten by a bolt +from the summer clouds. + +[Illustration: "The sentinel crows are posted."] + + +II + +Nature's prodigality and parsimony are extremes farther apart than +her east and west. Why should she be so lavish of interstellar space, +and crowd a drop of stagnant water so? Why give the wide sea surface +to the petrels, and screw the sea-urchins into the rocks on Grand +Manan? Why scatter in Delaware Bay a million sturgeon eggs for every +one hatched, while each mite of a paramecium is cut in two, and wholes +made of the halves? Why leave an entire forest of green, live pines +for a lonesome crow hermitage, and convert the rottenest old stump +into a submerged-tenth tenement? + +Part of the answer, at least, is found in nature's hatred and horror +of death. She fiercely refuses to have any dead. An empty heaven, +a lifeless sea, an uninhabited rock, a dead drop of water, a dying +paramecium, are intolerable and impossible. She hastens always to give +them life. The succession of strange dwellers to the decaying trees +is an instance of her universal and endless effort at making matter +live. + +Such vigilance over the ever-dying is very comforting--and marvelous +too. Let any indifferent apple-tree begin to have holes, and the +tree-toads, the bluebirds, and the red squirrels move in, to fill the +empty trunk with new life and the sapless limbs with fresh fruit. +Let any tall, stray oak along the river start to die at the top, and +straightway a pair of fish-hawks will load new life upon it. And these +other, engrafted lives, like the graft of a greening upon wild wood, +yield crops more valuable often, and always more interesting, than +come from the native stock. + +Perhaps there is no more useless fruit or timber grown than that of +the swamp-gums (_Nyssa uniflora_) of the Jersey bottoms. But if we +value trees according to their capacity for cavities,--the naturalist +has a right to such a scale of valuation,--then these gums rank +first. The deliberate purpose of a swamp-gum, through its hundred +years of life, is to grow as big as possible, that it may hollow out +accordingly. They are the natural home-makers of the swamps that +border the rivers and creeks in southern New Jersey. What would the +coons, the turkey-buzzards, and the owls do without them? The wild +bees believe the gums are especially built for them. No white-painted +hive, with its disappearing squares, offers half as much safety to +these free-booters of the summer seas as the gums, open-hearted, +thick-walled, and impregnable. + +When these trees alone make up the swamp, there is a roomy, empty, +echo-y effect among the great gray boles, with their high, horizontal +limbs spanned like rafters above, produced by no other trees I know. +It is worth a trip across the continent to listen, under a clear +autumn moon, to the cry of a coon-dog far away in the empty halls of +such a swamp. To get the true effect of a barred owl's hooting, one +wants to find the home of a pair in an ancient gum-swamp. I know such +a home, along Cohansey Creek, where, the neighboring farmer tells me, +he has heard the owls hoot in spring and autumn since he remembers +hearing anything. + +I cannot reach around the butt of the tree that holds the nest. +Tapering just a trifle and a little on the lean, it runs up smooth +and round for twenty feet, where a big bulge occurs, just above which +is the capacious opening to the owls' cave. There was design in +the bulge, or foresight in the owls' choice; for that excrescence is +the hardest thing to get beyond I ever climbed up to. But it must be +mounted, or the queerest pair of little dragons ever hatched will go +unseen. + +The owls themselves first guided me to the spot. I was picking my way +through this piece of woods, one April day, when a shadowy something +swung from one high limb to another overhead, following me. It was +the female owl. Every time she lighted she turned and fixed her big +black eyes hard on me, silent, somber, and watchful. As I pushed +deeper among the gums, she began to snap her beak and drop closer. +Her excitement grew every moment. I looked about for the likely tree. +The instant I spied the hole above the bulge, the owl caught the +direction of my eyes, and made a swoop at me that I thought meant +total blindness. + +I began to climb. With this the bird lapsed into the quiet of despair, +perched almost in reach of me, and began to hoot mournfully: _Woo-hoo, +woo-hoo, woo-hoo, oo-oo-a!_ And faint and far away came back a timid +_Woo-hoo, woo-a!_ from her mate, safely hid across the creek. + +[Illustration: "She turned and fixed her big black eyes hard on me."] + +The weird, uncanny cry rolled round under the roof of limbs, and +seemed to wake a ghost-owl in every hollow bole, echoing and reëchoing +as it called from tree to tree, to die away down the dim, deep vistas +of the swamp. The silent wings, the snapping beaks, the eery hoots +in the soft gloom of the great trees, needed the help of but little +imagination to carry one back to the threshold of an unhacked world, +and embolden its nymphs and satyrs, that these centuries of science +have hunted into hiding. + +I wiggled above the bulge at the risk of life, and was greeted at the +mouth of the cavern with hisses and beak-snappings from within. It +was a raw spring day; snow still lingered in shady spots. But here, +backed against the farther wall of the cavity, were two young owls, +scarcely a week old, wrapped up like little Eskimos--tiny bundles of +down that the whitest-toothed frost could never bite through. + +[Illustration: "Wrapped up like little Eskimos."] + +Very green babies of all kinds are queer, uncertain, indescribable +creations-faith generators. But the greenest, homeliest, unlikeliest, +babiest babes I ever encountered were these two in the hole. I wish +Walt Whitman had seen them. He would have written a poem. They defy +my powers of portrayal, for they challenge the whole mob of my normal +instincts. + +But quite as astonishing as the appearance of the young owls was the +presence beneath their feet of the head of a half-grown muskrat, the +hind quarters of two frogs, one large meadow-vole, and parts of four +mice, with many other pieces too small to identify. These all were +fresh--the _crumbs_ of one night's dinner, the leavings of _one_ +night's catch. If these were the fragments only, what would be a +conservative estimate of the night's entire catch? + +Gilbert White tells of a pair of owls that built under the eaves +of Selborne Church, that he "minuted" with his "watch for an hour +together," and found that they returned to the nest, the one or the +other, "about once in every five minutes" with a mouse or some little +beast for the young. Twelve mice an hour! Suppose they hunted only two +evening hours a day? The record at the summer's end is almost beyond +belief. + +Not counting what the two old owls ate, and leaving out of the count +the two frogs, it is within limits to reckon not less than six small +animals brought to the hollow gum every night of the three weeks that +these young owls were dependent for food--a riddance in this short +time of not less than one hundred and twenty-five muskrats, mice, +and voles. What four boys in the same time could clear the meadows +of half that number? And these animals are all harmful, the muskrats +exceedingly so, where the meadows are made by dikes and embankments. + +Not a tree in South Jersey that spring bore a more profitable crop. +When fruit-growing in Jersey is done for pleasure, the altruistic +farmer with a love for natural history will find large reward in his +orchards of gums, that now are only swamps. + +Just as useful as the crop of owls, and beyond all calculation in +its sweetening effects upon our village life, is the annual yield +of swallows by the piles in the river. Years ago a high spring tide +carried away the south wing of the old bridge, but left the piles, +green and grown over with moss, standing with their heads just above +flood-tide mark. In the tops of the piles are holes, bored to pass +lines through, or left by rusted bolts, and eaten wide by waves and +wind. Besides these there are a few genuine excavations made by +erratic woodpeckers. This whole clump of water-logged piles has been +colonized by blue-backed tree-swallows, every crack and cranny wide +enough and deep enough to hold a nest being appropriated for domestic +uses by a pair of the dainty people. It is no longer a sorry forest +of battered, sunken stumps; it is a swallow-Venice. And no gayer +gondoliers ever glided over wave-paved streets than these swallows on +the river. When the days are longest the village does its whittling on +the new bridge in the midst of this twittering bird life, watching the +swallows in the sunset skim and flash among the rotting timbers over +the golden-flowing tide. + +[Illustration: "It is no longer a sorry forest of battered, sunken +stumps."] + +If I turn from the river toward the woods again, I find that the +fences all the way are green with vines and a-hum with bumblebees. +Even the finger-board at the cross-roads is a living pillar of ivy. +All is life. There are no dead, no graveyards anywhere. A nature-made +cemetery does not exist in my locality. Yonder, where the forest-fire +came down and drank of the river, is a stretch of charred stumps; +but every one is alive with some sort of a tenant. Not one of these +stumps is a tombstone. We have graves and slabs and names in our +burial-place, and nothing more. But there is not so much as a slab +in the fields and woods. When the telegraph-poles and the piles are +cut, the stumps are immediately prepared for new life, and soon begin +blossoming into successive beds of mosses and mushrooms, while the +birds are directed to follow the bare poles and make them live again. + +A double line of these pole-specters stretches along the road in front +of my door, holding hands around the world. I have grown accustomed +to the hum of the wires, and no longer notice the sound. But one May +morning recently there was a new note in the pole just outside the +yard. I laid my ear to the wood. _Pick--pick--pick_; then all was +still. Again, after a moment's pause, I heard _pick--pick--pick_ on +the inside. At my feet was a scattering of tiny yellow chips. Backing +off a little, I discovered the hole, about the size of my fist, +away up near the cross-bars. It was not the first time I had found +High-hole laying claim to the property of the telegraph companies. +I stole back and thumped. Instantly a dangerous bill and a flashing +eye appeared, and High-hole, with his miner's lamp burning red in +the top of his cap lunged off across the fields in some ill humor, no +doubt. + +[Illustration: "Even the finger-board is a living pillar of ivy."] + +Throughout the summer there was telegraphing with and without wires +on that dry, resonant pole. And meantime, if there was anything +unintelligible in the ciphers at Glasgow or Washington, it was +high-hole talk. For there was reared inside that pole as large, as +noisy, and as red-headed a family of flickers as ever hatched. What a +brood they were! They must have snarled the wires and Babelized their +talk terribly. + +While this robust and uncultured family of flickers were growing up, +only three doors away (counting by poles) a modest and soft-voiced +pair of bluebirds, with a decently numbered family of four, were +living in a hole so near the ground that I could look in upon the meek +but brave little mother. + +There is still another dead-tree crop that the average bird-lover and +summer naturalist rarely gathers--I mean the white-footed mice. They +are the jolliest little beasts in all the tree hollows. It is when the +woods are bare and deep with snow, when the cold, dead winter makes +outside living impossible, that one really appreciates the coziness +and protection of the life in these deep rooms, sunk like wells into +the hearts of the trees. With what unconcern the mice await nightfall +and the coming of the storms! They can know nothing of the anxiety +and dread of the crows; they can share little of the crows' suffering +in the bitter nights of winter. A warm, safe bed is a large item in +out-of-doors living when it is cold; and I have seen where these mice +tuck themselves away from the dark and storm in beds so snug and warm +that I wished to be an elf myself, with white feet and a long tail, +to creep in with them. + +I had some wood-choppers near the house on the lookout for mice, but, +though they often marked the stumps where they had cut into nests, the +winter nearly passed before I secured a single white-foot. Coming up +from the pond one day with a clerical friend, after a vain attempt to +skate, we lost our way in the knee-deep snow, and while floundering +about happened upon a large dead pine that was new to me. It was as +stark, as naked, and as dead a tree, apparently, as ever went to +dust. The limbs were broken off a foot or more from the trunk, and +stuck out like stumps of arms; the top had been drilled through and +through by woodpeckers, and now lay several feet away, buried in the +snow; and the bole, like the limbs, was without a shred of bark, but +covered instead with a thin coating of slime. This slime was marked +with fine scratches, as would be made by the nails of very small +animals. I almost rudely interrupted my learned friend's discussion of +the documentary hypothesis with the irreverent exclamation that there +were mice in the old corpse. The Hebrew scholar stared at the tree. +Then he stared at me. Had I gone daft so suddenly? But I was dropping +off my overcoat and ordering him away to borrow the ax of a man we +heard chopping. He looked utterly undone, but thought it best to humor +me, though I know he dreaded putting an ax in my hands just then, +and would infinitely rather have substituted his skates. I insisted, +however, and he disappeared for the ax. + +The snow was deep, the pine was punky and would easily fall; and now +was the chance to get my mice. They were in there, I knew, for those +fine, fresh scratches told of scramblers gone up to the woodpecker +holes since the last storm. + +The preacher appeared with the ax. Off came his coat. He was as +eager now as though this tottering pine were an altar of Baal. He +was anxious, also, to know if I had an extra sense--a kind of X-ray +organ that saw mice at the centers of trees. And, priest though he was +(shame on the human animal!), he had grown excited at the prospect of +the chase of--mice! + +I tramped away the snow about the tree. The ax was swinging swiftly +through the air; the preacher was repeating between strokes: +"_I'm--truly--sorry--man's--dominion--has--_" when suddenly there +was a crunch, a crash, and the axman leaped aside with the yell of a +fiend; for, as the tree struck, three tiny, brown-backed, white-footed +creatures were dashed into the soft snow. "The prettiest thing I ever +saw," he declared enthusiastically, as I put into his hand the only +mouse captured. + +We traced the chambers up and down the tree as they wound, +stairway-like, just inside the hard outer shell. Here and there we +came upon garners of acorns and bunches of bird feathers and shredded +bark--a complete fortress against the siege of winter. + +That pine had not borne a green needle for a decade. It was too long +dead and too much decayed to have even a fat knot left. Yet there was +not a livelier, more interesting tree in the region that winter, nor +one half so full of goings on, as this same old shell of a pine, with +scarcely heart enough to stand. + + + + +WOOD-PUSSIES + + +[Illustration] + +WOOD-PUSSIES + + +One real source of the joy in out-of-door study lies in its off-time +character. A serious, bread-winning study of birds must be a +lamentable vocation; it comes to measuring egg-shells merely, and +stuffing skins. To get its real tonic, nature study must not be +carried on with Walden Pond laboriousness, nor with the unrelieved +persistence of a five years aboard a _Beagle_. Darwin staggered under +the burden of his observations; and Thoreau says: "I would not have +any one adopt _my_ mode of living; for before he has fairly learned it +I may have found out another for myself"--and so he did. + +No; the joy in wild things is the joy of being wild with +them--vacation joy. Think of being forced to gather ants and watch +spiders for a living! It would be quite as bad as making poetry or +prophecy one's profession. From the day Mohammed formally adopts +Koran-making as a business, he begins to lose his spontaneity and +originality, and grows prosy and artificial, even plagiaristic. +Nature shuns the professional. She makes her happiest visits as short +surprises, delightful interruptions and diversions in the thick of our +earnest business. + +You can take no vacation in the mountains? Then snatch a few minutes +before the seven-o'clock whistle blows, or while you hoe, or between +office-hours, to look and listen. The glimpses of wild life caught +at such times will be flashes of revelation. It may be the instant +picture of a gray fox leaping at a buzzard from behind a bush as the +train drives across the wide, blank prairies of southern Kansas; +or a warm time with wasps while mowing in New Jersey; or the chirp +of sparrows in passing King's Chapel Burial-ground when a cold +winter twilight is settling over Boston; or the chance meeting of a +wood-pussy on your way home from singing-school in Maine. Whatever +the picture, and wherever obtained, coming in this unexpected way, it +is sure to be more lasting, meaningful, and happy than volumes of the +kind gathered after long days of tramping with gun and glass. + +Any one can acquaint himself with the out-of-doors, if he keeps his +eyes and ears open and lives a little while, should his lines happen +to fall even in a city. Most cities have parks, or a river, or a +zoölogical garden. A zoölogical garden is not to be despised by the +naturalist. About ninety-nine hundredths of every wild animal remains +wild in spite of iron bars and peanuts and visitors. + +There is one little creature, however, that you must live at least on +the edge of the country to know, for I never saw a zoölogical garden +that had a pit or cage for him. Yet he is not a blood-thirsty nor a +venomous beast; in fact, he is as harmless as a rabbit and every whit +as interesting as a prairie-dog. Nevertheless it is of no use to look +for him in the city. You must go out to the outskirts, to the farms +and pastures, if you would meet the wood-pussy. And even here you must +not look for _him_, but go to church or visit the neighbors after dark +and let the wood-pussy look for you. It will be altogether a rare and +interesting experience, an encounter to remember. + +But what is a wood-pussy? That is the question I asked myself the +first night I spent in Maine. I had occasion to go down the road that +night, and as my hostess handed me the lantern she said warningly, +"Look out for the wood-pussies on the way." From what I was able to +put together that night I was sure that "wood-pussy" was a very pretty +down-east name for what, in New Jersey, I had always called a skunk. + +I have had about a dozen unsought meetings with this greatly dreaded, +seldom-named, but much-talked-of creature. Most of them are moonlight +scenes--pictures of dimly lighted, shadow-flecked paths, with a +something larger than a cat in them, standing stock-still or moving +leisurely toward me, silvered now with pale light, now uncertain and +monstrous where the shadows lie deepest. With these memories always +come certain strange sensations of scalp-risings, chill feelings of +danger, of wild adventure, and of hair-breadth escape. + +I have never met a skunk at night that did not demand (and receive) +the whole path, even when that path was the State highway. Dispute the +authority of a skunk? No more than I should the best-known ranger's +in Texas when requested to hold up my hands. The skunk is the only +animal left in the East that you will not parley with. Try to stare +the Great Stone Face out of countenance if you wish, but when a skunk +begins to sidle toward you, do not try to stare him out of the path; +just sidle in the direction he sidles, and sidle as fast as you can. + +Late one afternoon I was reading by the side of a little ravine on +one of the islands in Casco Bay. The sharp, rocky walls of the cut +were shaded by scrub-pines and draped with dewberry-vines. Presently +the monotonous slop of the surf along the shore, growing fainter as +the tide ebbed, was broken by a stir in the dry leaves at the bottom +of the ravine. I listened. Something was moving below me. Creeping +cautiously to the edge, I looked down, and there, in a narrow yard +between two boulders, not ten feet beneath me, was a family of seven +young skunks. + +They were about three weeks old,--"kittens," the natives called +them,--and seemed to be playing some kind of a rough-and-tumble game +together. Funny little bunches of black and white they were, with +pointed noses, beady black eyes, and very grand tails. They were +jet-black, except for white tips to their tails and a pure white mark +beginning on the top of their heads and dividing down their sides like +the letter V. + +[Illustration: "A family of seven young skunks."] + +My presence was unsuspected and their play went on. It was a sight +worth the rest of the vacation. When you find wild animals so far off +their guard as to play, do as Captain Cuttle suggests--"make a note of +it." It is a red-letter experience. + +I doubt if there is another set of children in all the out-of-doors +so apparently incapable of playing as a set of young skunks. You +have watched lambs stub and wabble about in their gambols, clumsy +and unsafe upon their legs because there was so little body to +hold down so much legs. These young skunks were clumsier than the +wabbliest-legged lambkin that you ever saw, and for just the opposite +reason--there was so little legs to hold up so much body. Such +humpty-dumpty babies! They fell over each other, over the stones, and +over their paws as if paws were made only to be tumbled over. Their +surest, quickest way of getting anywhere was to upset and roll to it. + +It was a silent playground, as all animal playgrounds are. The stir of +the dead leaves and now and then a faint hiss was all I could hear. +Who has ever heard any noise from untamed animals at play? One day I +came softly upon two white-footed mice playing in the leaves along +a wood-road and squeaking joyously; but as a rule the children of +the wilds, no matter how exciting their games, rarely utter a word. +Silence is the first lesson they are taught. Or is it now instinctive? +Have not generations of bitter life-struggle made the animals so timid +and wary that the young are born with a dread of discovery so strong +that they never shout in their play? This softness and silence was the +only striking difference to be seen in the play of these young skunks +here in the falling twilight, safely hidden among the rocks of the +wild ravine, and that of school-children upon a village green. + +The child is much the same, whether the particular species is +four-footed or whether it goes on two feet. Here below me one of the +little toddlers got a bump that hurt him, and it made him just as mad +as a bump ever did me. There was a fuss in a twinkling. He stamped +with both fore feet, showed his teeth, humped his back, and turned +both ends of his tiny body, like a pinched wasp, toward every one +that came near him. The others knew what that particular twist meant +and kept their distance. I knew the import of that movement, too. +These young things had already learned their lesson of self-defense. +I believe that a three-weeks-old skunk could hold his own against the +world. + +The dusk was deepening rapidly in the ravine; and I was just about +to shout to see how they would take it, when a long black snout was +thrust slowly out from beneath a piece of the ledge, and the mother of +the young skunks appeared. Without giving them a look, she crawled off +around a rock. The family followed; and here they all fell to eating +something--what, I could not see. I tried to scare them away, but at +my commands they only switched their tails and doubled into defensive +attitudes. Finally with some stones I drove them, like so many huge +crabs, into the den, and--horrors! they were eating one of their own +kin, a full-grown skunk, the father of their family, for all they +knew or cared, that had been killed the night before in one of the +islander's chicken-coops. + +The skunk is no epicure. The matter of eating one's husband or wife, +one's father or mother, has never struck the skunk as out of the +ordinary. As far as my observation goes, the supreme question with +him is, Can this thing be swallowed? Such thoughts as, What is it? +How does it taste? Will it digest? Is it good form?--no skunk since +the line began ever allowed to interfere with his dinner. An enviable +disregard, this of dietetics! To eat everything with a relish! If the +testimony of Maine farmers can be credited, this animal is absolutely +omnivorous. During the winter the skunks burrow and sleep, several of +them in the same hole. When they go in they are as fat as September +woodchucks; but long before spring, the farmers tell me, the skunks +grow so lean and hungry that, turning cannibal, they fall upon their +weaker comrades and devour them, only the strongest surviving until +the spring. + +[Illustration: "The family followed."] + +In August, along the Kennebec, I found the skunks attacking the sugar +corn. They strip the ears that hang close to the ground, and gnaw +the milky grain. But they do most damage among the chickens. For +downright destructiveness, a knowing old skunk, with a nice taste for +pullets and a thorough acquaintance with the barn-yard, discounts even +Reynard. Reynard is the reputed arch-enemy of poultry, yet there is +a good deal of the sportsman about him; he has some sort of honor, a +sense of the decency of the game. The skunk, on the contrary, is a +poacher, a slaughterer for the mere sake of it. My host, in a single +night, had fourteen hens killed by a skunk that dug under the coop and +deliberately bit them through the neck. He is not so cunning nor so +swift as the fox, but the skunk is no stupid. He is cool and calm and +bold. He will advance upon and capture a hen-house, and be off to his +den, while a fox is still studying his map of the farm. + +Yet, like every other predatory creature, the skunk more than balances +his debt for corn and chickens by his credit for the destruction of +obnoxious vermin. He feeds upon insects and mice, destroying great +numbers of the latter by digging out the nests and eating the young. +But we forget our debt when the chickens disappear, no matter how +few we lose. Shall we ever learn to say, when the redtail swoops among +the pigeons, when the rabbits get into the cabbage, when the robins +rifle the cherry-trees, and when a skunk helps himself to a hen for +his Thanksgiving dinner--shall we ever learn to love and understand +the fitness of things out of doors enough to say, + + But then, poor beastie, thou maun live? + +The skunk is a famous digger. There are gigantic stories in Maine, +telling how he has been seen to escape the hound by digging himself +out of sight in the middle of an open field. I have never tried to +run down a skunk, and so never gave one the opportunity of showing +me all he is capable of as a lightning excavator; but, unless all my +experience is wrong, a skunk would rather fight or run or even die +than exert himself to the extent of digging a home. In the majority of +cases their lairs are made by other paws than their own. + +One of the skunk's common tricks is to take up his abode with a +woodchuck. As woodchucks, without exception, are decent sort of +folk, they naturally object; but the unwelcome visitor, like Tar +Baby, says nothing; simply gives his host the privilege of remaining +in his own house if he chooses. He chooses to go, of course, and the +easy-minded interloper settles down comfortably at home. But it is not +long before a second wanderer chances upon this hole, and, without +thanks or leave, shares the burrow with the first. This often goes on +until the den is crowded--until some farmer's boy digs out a round +half-dozen. + +From such a lair as headquarters the skunks forage at night, each +making off alone to a favorite haunt, and returning before daybreak +for safety and sleep. But a peculiar thing about these lodges, as +about the family den in the ravine, is their freedom from the hateful +musk. One rarely detects any odor about a skunk's burrow. I had been +within twenty feet of this one on the island most of the afternoon +and had not known it. How are a number of skunks living in a single +burrow for weeks able to keep it sweet, when one of them, by simply +passing through a ten-acre field of blossoming clover, will make it +unendurable? It certainly speaks well for the creature's personal +cleanliness, or else is proof of his extreme caution against discovery. + +The odor will easily carry with the wind three miles. On the spot +where the animal has been shot, you will remember it a twelvemonth +after whenever it rains. "Do you want to know how to shoot a skunk on +your kitchen steps and never know it twenty-four hours after?" queried +my Kennebec authority on these beasts. I did, of course, though I +never expected a skunk to take up his stand on my kitchen steps and +compel me to despatch him. + +"Well, shoot him dead, of course; then let him lie there three days. +All that smell will come back to him, no matter how far off it's gone. +It'll all come up out of the boards, too, and go into him, and you can +carry him away by the tail and never know a skunk's been on the farm. +It's curious how a skunk can make a smell, but never have any; and +it's curious how it all returns to him when he dies. Most things are +curious, ain't they?" I agreed that they were. + +But to return to my family in the ravine. The next morning I went +back to the glen and caught three of these young ones. They made +no resistance,--merely warned me to be careful,--and I took them to +the house. For several days I fed them fish and fruit until they +became so tame that I could handle them without caution. But they +were hopelessly dull and uninteresting pets, never showing the least +intelligence, curiosity, or affection. I finally turned them loose +among their native rocks, and they strayed off as unconcerned as if +they had not spent two weeks away from home, shut up in a soap-box. + +There seems to be little excuse, in this broad land of opportunity, +for any one's going into skunk-farming for a business; but these +animals have a good market value, and so, in spite of a big country +and rich resources, our hands are so eager for gold that every summer +we hear of new skunk farms. Still, why not raise skunks? They are more +easily kept than pigs or pigeons; they multiply rapidly; their pelts +make good (?) marten-skins; and I see no reason why any one having a +piece of woodland with a stream in it, and a prairie or an ocean on +each side of it, could not fence it in, stock it with skunks, and do a +profitable and withal an interesting business. + + + + +FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP + + +[Illustration] + +FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP + + +There are many lovers of the out-of-doors who court her in her robes +of roses and in her blithe and happy hours of bird-song only. Now a +lover that never sees her barefoot in the meadow, that never hears +her commonplace chatter at the frog-pond, that never finds her in her +lowly, humdrum life among the toads and snakes, has little genuine +love for his mistress. + +To know the pixy when one sees it, to call the long Latin name of the +ragweed, to exclaim over the bobolink's song, to go into ecstasies at +a glorious sunset, is not, necessarily, to love nature at all. One who +does all this sincerely, but who stuffs his ears to the din of the +spring frogs, is in love with nature's pretty clothes, her dainty airs +and fine ways. Her warm, true heart lies deeper down. When one has +gone down to that, then a March without peepers will be as lonesome +as a crowd without friends; then an orchard without the weather-wise +hyla can never make good his place with mere apples; and the front +door without a solemn, philosophic toad beneath its step will lack +something quite as needful to its evening peace and homeness as it +lacks when the old-fashioned roses and the honeysuckle are gone. + +We are not humble nor thoughtful out of doors. There is too much +sentiment in our passion for nature. We make colored plates and poems +to her. All honor to the poets! especially to those who look carefully +and see deeply, like Wordsworth and Emerson and Whitman. But what +the common run of us needs, when we go a-wooing nature, is not more +poetry, but a scientific course in biology. How a little study in +comparative anatomy, for instance, would reveal to us the fearful and +wonderful in the make-up of all animal forms! And the fearful and +wonderful have a meaning and a beauty which we ought to realize. + +We all respond to the flowers and birds, for they demand no mental +effort. What about the snakes and frogs? Do we shiver at them? Do +we more than barely endure them? No one can help feeling the comfort +and sympathy of the bluebird. The very drifts soften as he appears. +He comes some March morning in a flurry of snow, or drops down out of +a cheerless, soaking sky, and assures us that he has just left the +South and has hurried ahead at considerable hazard to tell us that +spring is on the way. Yet, here is another voice, earlier than the +bluebird's often, with the bluebird's message, and with even more than +the bluebird's authority; but who will listen to a frog? A prophet is +not without honor save in his own country. One must needs have wings +and come from a foreign land to be received among us as a prophet of +the spring. Suppose a little frog noses his way up through the stiff, +cold mud, bumps against the ice, and pipes, _Spring! spring! spring!_ +Has he not as much claim upon our faith as a bird that drops down from +no one knows where, with the same message? The bluebird comes because +he has seen the spring; Hyla comes because he has the spring in his +heart. He that receives Hyla in the name of a prophet shall receive a +prophet's reward. + +[Illustration: "'Spring! spring! spring!'"] + +For me there is no clearer call in all the year than that of the +hylas' in the break-up days of March. The sap begins to start in my +roots at the first peep. There is something in their brave little +summons, as there is in the silvery light on the pussy-willows, that +takes hold on my hope and courage, and makes the March mud good to +tramp through. And this despite the fact that these early hylas so +aggravated my first attack of homesickness that I thought it was to be +fatal. The second night I ever spent away from home and my mother was +passed with old Mrs. Tribbet, who had a large orchard, behind which +was a frog-pond. In vain did she stay me with raisins and comfort me +with apples. I was sick for home. And those frogs! When the guineas +got quiet, how dreadful they made the long May twilight with their +shrieking, strangling, homesick cries! After all these years I cannot +listen to them in the evenings of early spring without catching an +echo from the back of that orchard, without just a throb of that pain +so near to breaking my heart. + +Close by, in a corner lot between the two cross-roads of the village, +lies a wretched little puddle, the home of countless hylas until the +June suns dry it up. Among the hundred or more people who live in the +vicinity and who pass the pond almost daily, I think that I am the +only one who, until recently, was sure he had ever seen a peeper, and +knew that they were neither tadpoles, salamanders, nor turtles. As I +was standing by the puddle, one May day, a good neighbor came along +and stopped with me. The chorus was in full blast--cricket-frogs, +Pickering's frogs, spring frogs, and, leading them all, the melancholy +quaver of Bufo, the "hop-toad." + +"What is it that makes the _dreadful_ noise?" my neighbor asked, +meaning, I knew, by "dreadful noise," the song of the toad. I handed +her my opera-glass, pointed out the minstrel with the doleful bagpipe +sprawling at the surface of the water, and, after sixty years of +wondering, she saw with immense satisfaction that one part in this +familiar spring medley was taken by the common toad. + +Sixty springs are a good many springs to be finding out the author +of so well-known a sound as this woeful strain of the serenading +toad; but more than half a century might be spent in catching a +cricket-frog at his song. I tried to make my neighbor see one that was +clinging to a stick in the middle of the puddle; but her eyes were +dim. Deft hands have dressed these peepers. We have heard them by the +meadowful every spring of our life, and yet the fingers of one hand +number more than the peepers we have seen. One day I bent over three +lily-pads till nearly blind, trying to make out a cricket-frog that +was piping all the while somewhere near or upon them. At last, in +despair, I made a dash at the pads, only to see the wake as the peeper +sank to the bottom an instant before my net struck the surface. + +[Illustration: "A wretched little puddle."] + +The entire frog family is as protectively colored as this least +member, the cricket-frog. They all carry fern-seed in their pockets +and go invisible. Notice the wood-frog with his tan suit and black +cheeks. He is a mere sound as he hops about over the brown leaves. I +have had him jump out of the way of my feet and vanish while I stared +hard at him. He lands with legs extended, purposely simulating the +shape of the ragged, broken leaves, and offers, as the only clue for +one's baffled eyes, the moist glisten as his body dissolves against +the dead brown of the leaf-carpet. The tree-toad, _Hyla versicolor_, +still more strikingly blends with his surroundings, for, to a certain +extent, he can change color to match the bark upon which he sits. +More than once, in climbing apple-trees, I have put my hand upon a +tree-toad, not distinguishing it from the patches of gray-green lichen +upon the limbs. But there is less of wonder in the tree-toad's +ability to change his colors than in the way he has of changing his +clothes. He is never troubled with the getting of a new suit; his +labor comes in caring for his old ones. It is curious how he disposes +of his cast-off clothes. + +One day late in autumn I picked up a tree-toad that was stiff and +nearly dead with cold. I put him in a wide-mouthed bottle to thaw, +and found by evening that he was quite alive, sitting with his toes +turned in, looking much surprised at his new quarters. He made himself +at home, however, and settled down comfortably, ready for what might +happen next. + +The following day he climbed up the side of the bottle and slept +several hours, his tiny disked toes holding him as easily and +restfully as if he were stretched upon a feather-bed. I turned him +upside down; but he knew nothing of it until later when he awoke; then +he deliberately turned round with his head up and went to sleep again. +At night he was wide awake, winking and blinking at the lamp, and +watching me through his window of green glass. + +[Illustration] + +A few nights after his rescue Hyla sat upon the bottom of his bottle +in a very queer attitude. His eyes were drawn in, his head was bent +down, his feet rolled up--his whole body huddled into a ball less +than half its normal size. After a time he began to kick and gasp as +if in pain, rolling and unrolling himself desperately. I thought he +was dying. He would double up into a bunch, then kick out suddenly +and stand up on his hind legs with his mouth wide open as if trying +to swallow something. He _was_ trying to swallow something, and the +thing had stuck on the way. It was a kind of cord, and ran out of +each corner of his mouth, passing over his front legs, thinning and +disappearing most strangely along his sides. + +With the next gulp I saw the cord slip down a little, and, as it did +so, the skin along his sides rolled up. It was his old suit! He was +taking it off for a new one; and, instead of giving it to the poor, +he was trying to economize by eating it. What a meal! What a way to +undress! What curious economy! + +Long ago the naturalists told us that the toads ate their skins--after +shedding them; but it was never made plain to me that they ate +them _while_ changing them--indeed, _swallowed_ them off! Three +great gulps more and the suit--shirt, shoes, stockings, and +all--disappeared. Then Hyla winked, drew his clean sleeve across his +mouth, and settled back with the very air of one who has magnificently +sent away the waiter with the change. + +[Illustration: "He _was_ trying to swallow something."] + +Four days later Hyla ate up this new suit. I saw the entire operation +this time. It was almost a case of surgery. He pulled the skin over +his head and neck with his fore feet as if it were a shirt, then +crammed it into his mouth; kicked it over his back next; worked out +his feet and legs; then ate it off as before. The act was accomplished +with difficulty, and would have been quite impossible had not Hyla +found the most extraordinary of tongues in his head. Next to the +ability to speak Russian with the tongue comes the power to skin one's +self with it. The tree-toad cannot quite croak Russian, but he can +skin himself with his tongue. Unlike ours, his tongue is hung at the +front end, with the free end forked and pointing toward his stomach. +When my little captive had crammed his mouth full of skin, he stuck +this fork of a tongue into it and forced it down his throat and held +it down while he kicked and squirmed out of it. + +Though less beautifully clothed than Hyla, our common toad, Bufo, is +just as carefully clothed. Where the rain drips from the eaves, clean, +narrow lines of pebbles have been washed out of the lawn. On one side +of the house the shade lies all day long and the grass is cool and +damp. Here, in the shade, a large toad has lived for two summers. I +rarely pass that way without seeing him, well hidden in the grass. For +several days lately he had been missing, when, searching more closely +one morning, I found him sunk to the level of his back in the line of +pebbles, his spots and the glands upon his neck so mingling with the +varied collection of gravel about him that only a practised eye, and +that sharp with expectation, could have made him out. + +In a newly plowed field, with some of the fresh soil sticking to him, +what thing could look more like a clod than this brown, shapeless lump +of a toad? But there is a beauty even in this unlovely form; for here +is perfect adaptability. + +Our canons of the beautiful are false if they do not in some way +include the toad. Shall we measure all the out-of-doors by the +linnet's song, the cardinal-flower's flame, and the hay-field's odor? +Deeper, wider, more fundamental and abiding than these standards, lie +the intellectual principles of plan and purpose and the intellectual +quality of perfect execution. We shall love not alone with all our +heart, but with all our mind as well. If we judge the world beautiful +by the superficial standard of what happens to please our eye, we +shall see no more of the world than we do of the new moon. Whole +classes of animals and wide regions of the earth's surface must, by +this test, be excluded. The only way the batrachians could possibly +come in would be by rolling the frogs in bread-crumbs and frying them. +Treated thus, they look good and taste good, but this is all that +can be said for the entire family. Studied, however, from the single +view-point of protective coloring, or again, as illustrating the ease +with which the clumsiest forms can be fitted to the widest variety +of conditions, the toads do not suffer by any comparison. In the +light of such study, Bufo loses his repulsiveness and comes to have a +place quite as unique as the duckbill's, and a personality not less +fascinating than the swallow's or the gray squirrel's. + +[Illustration] + +However, the toad to the most of us is anything but a poem. What, +indeed, looks less lovely, less nimble and buoyant, more chained to +the earth, than a toad? But stretch the least web between his toes, +lengthen his hind legs, and--over he goes, the leopard-frog, champion +high diver of the marsh! Or, instead of the web, tip his toes with the +tiniest disks, and--there he swings, Pickering's little hyla, clinging +as easily to the under surface of that oak-leaf high in the tree as a +fly clings to the kitchen ceiling. + +When a boy I climbed to the top of the flagpole on one of the State +geological survey stations. The pole rose far above the surrounding +pines--the highest point for miles around. As I clinched the top of +the staff, gripping my fingers into the socket for the flag-stick, I +felt something cold, and drawing myself up, found a tree-toad asleep +in the hole. Under him was a second toad, and under the second a +third--all dozing up here on the very topmost tip of all the region. + +From the river-ooze to the tree-top, nature carries this toad-form +simply by a thin web between the toes, or by tiny disks at their tips. +And mixing her greens and browns with just a dash of yellow, she +paints them all so skilfully that, upon a lily-pad, beside a lump of +clay, or against the lichened limb of an old apple-tree, each sits as +securely as Perseus in the charmed helmet that made him invisible. + +The frogs have innumerable enemies among the water-birds, the fish, +the snakes, and such animals as the fisher, coon, possum, and mink. +The toads fortunately are supplied with glands behind their heads +whose secretion is hateful to most of their foes, though it seems to +be no offense whatever to the snakes. A toad's only chance, when a +snake is after him, lies in hiding. I once saw a race between a toad +and an adder snake, however, in which the hopper won. + +One bright May morning I was listening to the music of the church +bells, as it floated out from the city and called softly over the +fields, when my reverie was interrupted by a sharp squeak and a thud +beside the log on which I sat; something dashed over my foot; and +I turned to catch sight of a toad bouncing past the log, making +hard for the brush along the fence. He scarcely seemed to touch the +ground, but skimmed over the grass as if transformed into a midget +jack-rabbit. His case was urgent; and little wonder! At the opposite +end of the log, raised four or five inches from the grass, her eyes +hard glittering, her nose tilted in the air, and astonishment all over +her face, swayed the flat, ugly head of a hognose-adder. Evidently +she, too, had never seen a toad get away in any such time before; and +after staring a moment, she turned under the log and withdrew from the +race, beaten. + +Hungry snakes and hot, dusty days are death to the toads. Bufo would +almost as soon find himself at the bottom of a well as upon a dusty +road in blazing sunshine. His day is the night. He is not particular +about the moon. All he asks is that the night be warm, that the dew +lay the dust and dampen the grass, and that the insects be out in +numbers. At night the snakes are asleep, and so are most of those +ugly, creaking beasts with rolling iron feet that come crushing along +their paths. There is no foe abroad at night, and life, during these +dark, quiet hours, has even for a toad something like a dash of +gaiety. + +In one of the large pastures not far away stands a pump. It is shaded +by an ancient apple-tree, under which, when the days are hottest, the +cattle gather to doze and dream. They have worn away the grass about +the mossy trough, and the water, slopping over, keeps the spot cool +and muddy the summer through. Here the toads congregate from every +quarter of the great field. I stretched myself out flat on the grass +one night and watched them in the moonlight. There must have been +fifty here that night, hopping about over the wet place--as grotesque +a band as ever met by woods or waters. + +We need no "second sight," no pipe of Pan, no hills of Latmos with a +flock to feed, to find ourselves back in that enchanted world of the +kelpies and satyrs. All we need to do is to use the eyes and ears we +have, and haunt our hills by morning and by moonlight. Here in the +moonlight around the old pump I saw goblins, if ever goblins were seen +in the light of our moon. + +There was not a croak, not a squeak, not the slightest sound, save +the small _pit-pat_, _pit-pat_, made by their hopping. There may have +been some kind of toad talk among them, but listen never so closely, I +could not catch a syllable of it. + +Where did they all come from? How did they find their way to this +wet spot over the hills and across the acres of this wide pasture? +You could walk over the field in the daytime and have difficulty in +finding a single toad; but here at night, as I lay watching, every few +minutes one would hop past me in the grass; or coming down the narrow +cow-paths in the faint light I could see a wee black bunch bobbing +leisurely along with a hop and a stop, moving slowly toward the pump +to join the band of his silent friends under the trough. + +[Illustration] + +Not because there was more food at the pump, nor for the joy of +gossip, did the toads meet here. The one thing necessary to their +existence is water, and doubtless many of these toads had crossed this +pasture of fifteen acres simply to get a drink. I have known a toad to +live a year without food, and another to die in three days for lack of +water. And yet this thirsty little beast never knows the pleasure of +a real drink, because he does not know how to drink. + +I have kept toads confined in cages for weeks at a time, never +allowing them water when I could not watch them closely, and I never +saw one drink. Instead, they would sprawl out in the saucer on their +big, expansive bellies, and _soak_ themselves full, as they did here +on the damp sand about the pump. + +Just after sunset, when the fireflies light up and the crickets and +katydids begin to chirp, the toad that sleeps under my front step hops +out of bed, kicks the sand off his back, and takes a long look at the +weather. He seems to _think_ as he sits here on the gravel walk, sober +and still, with his face turned skyward. What does he think about? +Is he listening to the chorus of the crickets, to the whippoorwills, +or is it for supper he is planning? It may be of the vicissitudes of +toad life, and of the mutability of all sublunary things, that he +meditates. Who knows? Some day perhaps we shall have a batrachian +psychology, and I shall understand what it is that my door-step lodger +turns over and over in his mind as he watches the coming of the stars. +All I can do now is to minute his cogitations, and I remember one +evening when he sat thinking and winking a full hour without making a +single hop. + +As the darkness comes down he makes off for a night of bug-hunting. +At the first peep of dawn, bulging plump at the sides, he turns back +for home. Home to a toad usually means any place that offers sleep and +safety for the day; but if undisturbed, like the one under the step, +he will return to the same spot throughout the summer. This chosen +spot may be the door-step, the cracks between the bricks of a well, or +the dense leaves of a strawberry-bed. + +In the spring of 1899 so very little rain fell between March and June +that I had to water my cucumber-hills. There was scarcely a morning +during this dry spell that I did not find several toads tucked away +for the day in these moist hills. These individuals had no regular +home, like the one under the step, but hunted up the coolest, shadiest +places in the soft soil and made new beds for themselves every morning. + +Their bed-making is very funny, but not likely to meet the approval +of the housewife. Wearied with the night's hunting, a toad comes +to the cool cucumber-vines and proceeds at once to kick himself into +bed. He backs and kicks and elbows into the loose sand as far as he +can, then screws and twists till he is worked out of sight beneath +the soil, hind end foremost. Here he lies, with only his big pop-eyes +sticking out, half asleep, half awake. If a hungry adder crawls along, +he simply pulls in his eyes, the loose sand falls over them, and the +snake passes on. + +When the nights begin to grow chilly and there are threatenings of +frost, the toads hunt up winter quarters, and hide deep down in some +warm burrow--till to-morrow if the sun comes out hot, or, it may be, +not to wake until next April. Sometimes an unexpected frost catches +them, when any shelter must do, when even their snake-fear is put +aside or forgotten. "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows," +said Trinculo, as he crawled in with Caliban from the storm. So might +the toad say in an early frost. + +The workmen in a sandstone-quarry near by dug out a bunch of toads one +winter, all mixed up with a bunch of adders. They were wriggled and +squirmed together in a perfect jumble of legs, heads, and tails--all +in their dead winter sleep. Their common enemy, the frost, had taken +them unawares, and driven them like friends into the crevice of the +rocks, where they would have slept together until the spring had not +the quarrymen unearthed them. + +There is much mystery shrouding this humble batrachian. Somewhere in +everybody's imagination is a dark cell harboring a toad. Reading down +through literature, it is astonishing how often the little monster has +hopped into it. There is chance for some one to make a big book of the +fable and folk-lore that has been gathering through the ages about the +toads. The stories of the jewels in their heads, of their age-long +entombments in the rocks, of the warts and spells they induce, of +their eating fire and dropping from the clouds, are legion. + +[Illustration] + +And there seems to be some basis of fact for all these tales. No one +has yet written for us the life-history of the toad. After having +watched the tadpole miracle, one is thoroughly prepared to see toads +jump out of the fire, tumble from broken marble mantles, and fall +from the clouds. I never caught them in my hat during a shower; but +I have stood on Mauricetown Bridge, when the big drops came pelting +down, and seen those drops apparently turn into tiny toads as they +struck the planks, until the bridge was alive with them! Perhaps they +had been hiding from the heat between the cracks of the planks--but +there are people who believe that they came down from the clouds. + +How, again, shall I explain this bit of observation? More than six +years I lived near a mud-hole that dried up in July. I passed it +almost daily. One spring there was a strange toad-call in the hole, +a call that I had never heard anything like before--a deafening, +agonizing roar, hoarse and woeful. I found on investigation that the +water was moving with spade-foot toads. Two days later the hole was +still; every toad was gone. They disappeared; and though I kept that +little puddle under watch for several seasons after that, I have not +known a spade-foot to appear there since. + +[Illustration] + +The water was almost jellied with their spawn, and a little later was +swarming with spade-foot tadpoles. Then it began to dry up, and some +of the tadpoles were left stranded in the deep foot-prints of the +cows along the edge of the hole. Just as fast as the water disappeared +in these foot-prints, the tails of the tadpoles were absorbed and +legs formed, and they hopped away--some of them a week before their +brothers, that were hatched at the same time, but who had stayed in +the middle of the pond, where the deeper water allowed them a longer +babyhood for the use of their tails. So swiftly, under pressure, can +nature work with this adaptable body of the toad! + +Long before the sun-baked mud began to crack these young ones had +gone--where? And whence came their parents, and whither went they? +When will they return? + +[Illustration] + + + + +A BUZZARDS' BANQUET + + +[Illustration: "In a state of soured silence."] + +A BUZZARDS' BANQUET + + +Is there anything ugly out of doors? Can the ardent, sympathetic +lover of nature ever find her unlovely? We know that she is supremely +utilitarian, and we have only wonder and worship for her prodigal and +perfect economy. But does she always couple beauty with her utility? + +To her real lover nature is never tiresome nor uninteresting; but +often she is most fascinating when veiled. She has moods and tempers +and habits, even physical blemishes, that are frequently discovered to +the too pressing suitor; and though these may quicken his interest and +faith, they often dissipate that halo of perfection with which first +fancy clothed her. This intimacy, this "seeing the very pulse of the +machine," is what spoils poets like Burroughs and Thoreau: spoils them +for poets to make them the truer philosophers. + +Like the spots on the sun, all of nature's other blemishes disappear +in the bright blaze of her loveliness when viewed through a veil, +whether of shadows, or mists, or distance. This is half the secret of +the spell of the night, of the mystery of the sea, and the enchantment +of an ancient forest. From the depths of a bed in the meadow-grass +there is perfection of motion, the very soul of poetry, in the flight +of a buzzard far up under the blue dome of the sky; but look at the +same bald-headed, snaky-necked creature upon a fence-stake, and you +wonder how leagues into the clouds ever hid his ugly visage from you. +Melrose must be seen by moonlight. The light to see the buzzard in +has never been on land or sea, has come no nearer than the high white +clouds that drift far away in the summer sky. + +From an economic point of view the buzzard is an admirable creation. +So are the robin, the oriole, and most other birds; but these are +admirable also from the esthetic point of view. Not so the buzzard. +He has the wings of Gabriel--the wings only; for, truly, his neck +and head are Lucifer's. If ugliness be an attribute of nature, then +this bird is its expression incarnate. Not that he is wicked, but +worse than wicked--repulsive. Now the jackal is a mean, sordid scamp, +a miserable half-dog beast, a degenerate that has not fallen far, +since he was never up very high. The buzzard, on the other hand, _was_ +a bird. What he is now is unnamable. He has fallen back below the +reptiles, into a harpy with snake's head and bird's body--a vulture +more horrid than any mythical monster. + +[Illustration: "Ugliness incarnate."] + +Having once seen a turkey-buzzard feeding, one has no difficulty in +accounting for the origin of those "angry creations of the gods" +that defiled the banquets of King Phineus. If there is any holiness +of beauty, surely the turkey-buzzard with clipped wing is the most +unholy, the most utterly lost soul in the world. + +One bright, warm day in January--a frog-waking day in southern New +Jersey--I saw the buzzards in unusual numbers sailing over the pines +beyond Cubby Hollow. Hoping for a glimpse of something social in the +silent, unemotional solitaries, I hurried over to the pines, and +passing through the wood, found a score of the birds feasting just +beyond the fence in an open field. + +Creeping up close to the scene, I quietly hid in a big drift of +leaves and corn-blades that the winds had piled in a corner of the +worm-fence, and became an uninvited guest at the strangest, gruesomest +assemblage ever gathered--a buzzards' banquet. + +The silence of the nether world wrapped this festive scene. Like ugly +shades from across the Styx came the birds, deepening the stillness +with their swishing wings. It was an unearthly picture: the bare, +stub-stuck corn-field, the gloomy pines, the silent, sullen buzzards +in the yellow winter sunlight! + +The buzzards were stalking about when I arrived, all deliberately +fighting for a place and a share of the spoil. They made no noise; +and this dumb semblance of battle heightened the unearthliness of the +scene. As they lunged awkwardly about, the ends of their over-long +wings dragged the ground, and they tripped and staggered like drunken +sailors on shore. The hobbling hitch of seals on land could not be +less graceful than the strut of these fighting buzzards. They scuffled +as long as there was a scrap to fight for, wordless and bloodless, not +even a feather being disturbed, except those that rose with anger, +as the hair rises on a dog's back. But the fight was terrible in its +uncanniness. + +[Illustration: "Sailing over the pines."] + +Upon the fence and in the top of a dead oak near by others settled, +and passed immediately into a state of semi-consciousness that was +almost a stupor. Gloomy and indifferent they sat, hunched up with +their heads between their shoulders, perfectly oblivious of all +mundane things. There was no sign of recognition between the birds +until they dropped upon the ground and began fighting. Let a crow join +a feeding group of its fellows, and there will be considerable cawing; +even a sparrow, coming into a flock, will create some chirping: but +there was not so much as the twist of a neck when a new buzzard joined +or left this assemblage. Each bird sat as if he were at the center of +the Sahara Desert, as though he existed alone, with no other buzzard +on the earth. + +There was no hurry, no excitement anywhere; even the struggle on the +ground was measured and entirely wooden. None of the creatures on the +fence showed any haste to fall to feeding. After alighting they would +go through the long process of folding up their wings and packing +them against their sides; then they would sit awhile as if trying to +remember why they had come here rather than gone to any other place. +Occasionally one would unfold his long wings by sections, as you would +open a jointed rule, pause a moment with them outstretched, and, with +a few ponderous flaps, sail off into the sky without having tasted +the banquet. Then another upon the ground, having feasted, would +run a few steps to get spring, and bounding heavily into the air, +would smite the earth with his too long wings, and go swinging up +above the trees. As these grew small and disappeared in the distance, +others came into view, mere specks among the clouds, descending in +ever-diminishing circles until they settled, without word or greeting, +with their fellows at the banquet. + +The fence was black with them. Evidently there is news that spreads +even among these incommunicative ghouls. Soon one settled upon the +fence-stake directly over me. To dive from the clouds at the frightful +rate of a mile a minute, and, with those mighty wings, catch the body +in the invisible net of air about the top of a fence-stake, is a feat +that stops one's breath to see. No matter if, here within my reach, +his suit of black looked rusty; no matter if his beak was a sickly, +milky white, his eyes big and watery, and wrinkled about his small +head and snaky neck was red, bald skin, making a visage as ugly as +could be made without human assistance. In spite of all this, I looked +upon him with wonder; for I had seen him mark this slender pole from +the clouds, and hurl himself toward it as though to drive it through +him, and then, between these powerful wings, light as softly upon the +point as a sleeping babe is laid upon a pillow from its mother's arms. + +Perhaps half a hundred now were gathered in a writhing heap upon the +ground. A banquet this _sans_ toasts and cheer--the very soul of the +unconvivial. It was a strange dumb-show in serious reality, rather +than a banquet. In the stir of their scuffling, the dry clashing of +their wings, and the noise of their tumbling and pulling and pecking +as they moved together, I could hear low, serpent-like hisses. Except +for a sort of half-heard guttural croak at rare intervals, these +hisses were the only utterances that broke the silence. So far as I +know, this sibilant, batrachio-reptilian language is the meager limit +of the buzzard's faculty of vocal expression. With croak and hiss he +warns and woos. And what tender emotion has a buzzard too subtle for +expression by a croak or hiss? And if he hates, what need has he of +words--with such a countenance? + +But he does not hate, for he does not love. To be able to hate +implies a soul; and the buzzard has no soul. Laziness, gluttony, +uncleanness, have destroyed everything spiritual in him. He has almost +lost his language, so that now, even among his own kind, except when +surprised, he is silent. But he needs no language, for he is not +companionable; there is no trace of companionableness in his nature. +He seems entirely devoid of affection and fellow-feeling, showing no +interest whatever in any one or anything save his stomach. The seven +evil spirits of the dyspeptic possess him, body and soul. + +It must be added, however, that the buzzards are to some extent +gregarious. They often fly together, roost together, and nest in +communities. In this latter fact some naturalists would find evidence +of sociability; but this manner of nesting is not their habit. They +more generally nest a single pair to a swamp. When they nest in +communities, it is rather because the locality is suitable than from +any desire to be together. Yet they frequently choose the same dead +tree, or clump of trees, for a roost, which may mean that even in a +buzzard's bosom there is something that calls for companionship. + +[Illustration: "A banquet this _sans_ toasts and cheer."] + +For a nesting-place the buzzard selects a swamp or remote and +heavy timber where there is slight chance of molestation. Here, in a +rough nest of sticks and leaves, upon the ground, in a hollow log, +upon a stump, or sometimes upon the bare earth, are laid the two long, +brown-blotched eggs that constitute the complement. + +"I once found a nest," a correspondent writes, "in a low, thick mat +of briers and grape-vines. The female was brooding her eggs when I +came upon the nest, and the moment she caught sight of me, instead of +trying to defend her treasures as any normal mother would have done, +she turned like a demon upon her nest, thrust her beak into one of her +eggs, and devoured it before I could scare her off." + +This unnatural act is thus far without parallel in my observation +of bird life. But it is only testimony of what one may read in the +appearance of the buzzard. The indolent habits, the unnamable tastes, +have demoralized and unmothered the creature. + +I cannot think that the buzzard was so depraved back in the Beautiful +Garden. The curse of Adam is on him; but instead of sweating like the +rest of us and so redeeming himself, he is content to be cursed. The +bird has degenerated. You can see in his countenance that originally +he was not so vicious in taste and habit. If, when this office of +scavenger was created, the buzzard was installed, it was because he +was too lazy and too indifferent to refuse. He may have protested and +sulked; he even continues to protest and sulk: but he has been engaged +so long in the business now that he is utterly incapable of earning a +living in any other way. + +I saw all this in the face and attitude of the buzzard on the stake +above me. He sat there as if conscious that a scavenger's life was +beneath a bird of his parts; he looked mad with himself for submitting +to a trade so degrading, mad with his position among the birds: but +long ago he recognized the difficulty of changing his place and manner +of life, and, rather than make the effort, he sank into this state of +soured silence. + +That this is the way to read his personal record and the history of +his clan is clear to my mind, because the bird is still armed with the +great talons and beak of the eagles. He was once a hunter. Through +generations of disuse these weapons have become dulled, weakened, +and unfit for the hunt; and the buzzard, instead of struggling for +his quarry, is driven to eat a dinner that every other predatory bird +would refuse. + +Another proof of his fall is that at this late day he has a decided +preference for fresh food. This was doubtless the unspoiled taste of +his ancestors, given with the beak and talons. He is a glutton and a +coward, else he would be an eagle still. + +We associate the turkey-buzzard with carrion, and naturally attribute +his marvelous power of finding food to his sense of smell. Let a dead +animal be dragged into the field, and in less than an hour there will +be scores of these somber creatures gathered about it, when, in all +the reach of the horizon for perhaps a week past, not more than one or +two have been seen at any one time. Did they detect an odor miles away +and follow the scent hither? Possibly. But yonder you spy a buzzard +sailing so far up that he appears no larger than a swallow. He is +descending. Watch where he settles. Lo! he is eating the garter-snake +that you killed in the path a few minutes ago. How did the bird from +that altitude discover so tiny a thing? He could not have smelled +it, for it had no odor. He saw it. It is not by scent, but by his +astonishing powers of sight, that the buzzard finds his food. + +[Illustration: "Floating without effort among the clouds."] + +One day I carried a freshly killed chicken into the field, and tying +a long string to it, hid myself near by in a corn-shock. Soon a +buzzard passing overhead began to circle about me; and I knew that +he had discovered the chicken. Down he came, leisurely at first, +spirally winding, as though descending some aërial stairway from the +clouds, till, just above the tree-tops, he began to swing like a +great pendulum through the air, turning his head from side to side +as he passed over the chicken, watching to see if it were alive. He +was about to settle when I pulled the string. Up he darted in great +fright. Again and again I repeated the experiment; and each time, +at the least sign of life, the buzzard hurried off--afraid of so +inoffensive a thing as a chicken! + +Quite a different story comes to me from Pennsylvania. My +correspondent writes: "Years ago, while I was at school in De Kalb, +Mississippi, all the children had their attention called to a great +commotion in a chicken-yard next the school-house. It appeared that +a large hawk had settled down and was doing battle with a hen. My +brother left the school-house and ran to the yard, cautiously opened +the gate, slipped up behind, and caught the 'hawk'--which proved to be +a large and almost famished turkey-buzzard. He kept it four or five +days, when it died." Extreme hunger might drive a buzzard to attack +a hen; but rare indeed is such boldness nowadays. + +There were by this time fully a hundred buzzards about me, some +coming, some going, some sitting moody and disgusted, while others +picked hungrily among the bones. They had no suspicion of my presence, +but I had grown tired of them, and springing suddenly from the leaves, +I stood in their midst. There was consternation and hissing for an +instant, then a violent flapping of wings, and away they flew in every +direction. Their heavy bodies were quickly swung above the trees, and +soon they were all sailing away beyond the reach of straining eyes. +Presently one came over far up in the blue, floating without effort +among the clouds, now wheeling in great circles, now swinging through +immense arcs, sailing with stately grandeur on motionless wings in +flight that was sublime. + + + + +UP HERRING RUN + + +[Illustration] + +UP HERRING RUN + + +The habit of migrating is not confined to birds. To some extent it is +common to all animals that have to move about for food, whether they +live in the water or upon the land. The warm south wind that sweeps +northward in successive waves of bluebirds and violets, of warblers +and buttercups, moves with a like magic power over the sea. It touches +the ocean with the same soft hand that wakes the flowers and brings +the birds, and as these return to upland and meadow, the waters stir +and the rivers and streams become alive with fish. Waves of sturgeon, +shad, and herring come in from unknown regions of the ocean, and pass +up toward the head waters of the rivers and through the smaller +streams inland to the fresh-water lakes. + +Waves of herring, did I say? It is a torrent of herring that rushes up +Herring Run, a spring freshet from the loosened sources of the life of +the sea. + +This movement of the fish is mysterious; no more so than the migration +of the birds, perhaps, but it seems more wonderful to me. Bobolink's +yearly round trip from Cuba to Canada may be, and doubtless is, a +longer and a more perilous journey than that made by the herring or by +any other migrant of the sea; but Bobolink's road and his reasons for +traveling are not altogether hidden. He has the cold winds and failing +food to drive him, and the older birds to pilot him on his first +journey South, and the love of home to draw him back when the spring +comes North again. Food and weather were the first and are still the +principal causes of his unrest. The case of the herring seems to be +different. Neither food nor weather influences them. They come from +the deep sea to the shallow water of the shore to find lodgment for +their eggs and protection for their young; but what brings them +from the salt into fresh water, and what drives these particular +herring up Herring Run instead of up some other stream? Will some one +please explain? + +[Illustration: "From unknown regions of the ocean."] + +Herring Run is the natural outlet of Whitman's Pond. It runs down +through Weymouth about three fourths of a mile to Weymouth Back River, +thence to the bay and on to the sea. It is a crooked, fretful little +stream, not over twenty feet wide at the most, very stony and very +shallow. + +[Illustration: "A crooked, fretful little stream."] + +About a hundred years ago, as near as the oldest inhabitants can +remember, a few men of Weymouth went down to Taunton with their +ox-teams, and caught several barrels of herring as they came up the +Taunton River to spawn. These fish they brought alive to Weymouth +and liberated in Whitman's Pond; and these became the ancestors of +the herring which have been returning to Whitman's Pond for the last +century of Aprils. + +As soon as the weather warms in the spring the herring make their +appearance in the Run. A south wind along in April is sure to fetch +them; and from the first day of their arrival, for about a month, +they continue to come, on their way to the pond. But they may be +delayed for weeks by cold or storms. Their sensitiveness to changes of +temperature is quite as delicate as a thermometer's. On a favorable +day--clear and sunny with a soft south wind--they can be seen stemming +up-stream by hundreds. Suddenly the wind shifts, blowing up cold from +the east, and long before the nicest instrument registers a fraction +of change in the temperature of the Run, the herring have turned tail +to and scurried off down-stream to the salt water. + +They seem to mind nothing so much as this particular change of the +wind and the cold that follows. It may blow or cloud over, and even +rain, without affecting them, if only the storms are from the right +quarter and it stays warm. A cold east wind always hurries them back +to deep water, where they remain until the weather warms up again. +Late in May, however, when they must lay their eggs, they ascend the +stream, and nothing short of a four-foot dam will effectually stop +their progress to the pond. + +They are great swimmers. It is a live fish indeed that makes Whitman's +Pond. There are flying-fish and climbing-fish, fish that walk over +land and fish that burrow through the mud; but in an obstacle race, +with a swift stream to stem, with rocks, logs, shallows, and dams to +get over, you may look for a winner in the herring. + +He will get up somehow--right side up or bottom side up, on his head +or on his tail, swimming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes! +A herring can almost walk on his tail. I have watched them swim up +Herring Run with their backs half out of water; and when it became too +shallow to swim at all, they would keel over on their sides and flop +for yards across stones so bare and dry that a mud-minnow might easily +have drowned upon them for lack of water. + +[Illustration: "Swimming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes!"] + +They are strong, graceful, athletic fish, quite the ideal fish type, +well balanced and bewilderingly bony. The herring's bones are his +Samson hair--they make his strength and agility possible; and besides +that, they are vast protection against the frying-pan. + +When the herring are once possessed of the notion that it is high +time to get back to the ancestral pond and there leave their eggs, +they are completely mastered by it. They are not to be stopped nor +turned aside. Like Mussulmans toward Mecca they struggle on, until an +impassable dam intervenes or the pond is reached. They seem to feel +neither hunger, fear, nor fatigue, and, like the salmon of Columbia +River, often arrive at their spawning-grounds so battered and bruised +that they die of their wounds. They become frantic when opposed. In +Herring Run I have seen them rush at a dam four feet high, over which +tons of water were pouring, and, by sheer force, rise over two feet +in the perpendicular fall before being carried back. They would dart +from the foam into the great sheet of falling water, strike it like +an arrow, rise straight up through it, hang an instant in mid-fall, +and be hurled back, and killed often, on the rocks beneath. Had +there been volume enough of the falling water to have allowed them a +fair swimming chance, I believe that they could have climbed the dam +through the perpendicular column. + +Under the dam, and a little to one side, a "rest," or pen, has been +constructed into which the herring swim and are caught. The water in +this pen is backed up by a gate a foot high. The whole volume of the +stream pours over this gate and tears down a two-foot sluiceway with +velocity enough to whirl along a ten-pound rock that I dropped into +the box. The herring run this sluice and jump the gate with perfect +ease. Twelve thousand of them have leaped the gate in a single hour; +and sixty thousand of them went over it in one day and were scooped +from the pen. The fish always keep their heads up-stream, and will +crowd into the pen until the shallow water is packed with them. When +no more can squeeze in, a wire gate is put into the sluice, the +large gates of the dam are closed, and the fish are ladled out with +scoop-nets. + +The town sold the right to a manufacturing company to build this +dam in the Run, together with the sole right to catch the herring, on +condition that yearly a certain number of the fish be carted alive +to the pond in order to spawn; and with this further condition, that +every Weymouth householder be allowed to buy four hundred herring at +twenty-five cents per hundred. + +A century ago four hundred herring to a household might not have been +many herring; but things have changed in a hundred years. To-day no +householder, saving the keeper of the town house, avails himself of +this generous offer. I believe that a man with four hundred pickled +herring about his premises to-day would be mobbed. Pickled herring, +scaly, shrunken, wrinkled, discolored, and strung on a stick in the +woodshed, undoes every other rank and bilious preserve that I happen +to know. One can easily credit the saying, still current in the town, +that if a native once eats a Weymouth herring he will never after +leave the place. + +Usually the fish first to arrive in the spring are males. These +precede the females, or come along with them in the early season, +while the fish to arrive last are nearly all females. The few that +are taken alive to the pond deposit their eggs within a few days, and, +after a little stay, descend the Run, leap the dam, and again pass +out into the ocean. The eggs are placed along the shallow edges of +the pond, among the reeds and sedges. At first they float around in a +thin, viscid slime, or jelly, which finally acts as a glue to fasten +them to the grass. Here, left without parental care, the eggs hatch +and the fry wiggle off and begin at once to shift for themselves. + +How hard they fare! In her sacrifice of young fish, nature seems +little better than a bloody Aztec. I happened to be at Bay Side, a +sturgeon fishery on the Delaware Bay, when a sturgeon was landed whose +roe weighed ninety pounds. I took a quarter of an ounce of these eggs, +counted them, and reckoned that the entire roe numbered 3,168,000 +eggs. Yet, had these eggs been laid, not more than one to a million +would have developed to maturity. So it is with the herring. Millions +of their eggs are devoured by turtles, frogs, pickerel, and eels. +Indeed, young herring are so important a food-supply for fresh-water +fish that the damming of streams and the indiscriminate slaughter of +the spawners now seriously threatens certain inland fishing interests. +Many waters have been re-stocked with herring as a source of food for +more valuable fish. + +August comes, and the youngsters, now about the length of your finger, +grown tired of the fresh water and the close margins of the pond, find +their way to the Run, and follow their parents down its rough bed to +a larger life in the sea. Here again hungry enemies await them. In +untold numbers they fall a prey to sharks, cod, and swordfish. Yet +immense schools survive, and thousands will escape even the fearful +steam nets of the menhaden-fishermen and see Herring Run again. + +[Illustration: "Here again hungry enemies await them."] + +If only we could conjure one of them to talk! What a deep-sea story +he could tell! What sights, what wanderings, what adventures! But +the sea keeps all her tales. We do not know even if the herring from +Whitman's Pond live together as an individual clan or school during +their ocean life. There are certain indications that they do. There +is not much about a Whitman's Pond herring to distinguish it from a +Taunton River or a Mystic Pond herring,--the Weymouth people declare +they can tell the difference with their eyes shut,--though I believe +the fish themselves know one another, and that those of each pond keep +together. At least, when the inland running begins, the schools are +united, for then no Whitman's Pond herring is found with a Taunton +River band. + +In late summer the fry go down-stream; but whether it is they that +return the next spring, or whether it is only the older fish, is +not certain. It is certain that no immature fish ever appear in the +spring. The naturalists are almost agreed that the herring reach +maturity in eighteen months. In that case it will be two years before +the young appear in the Run. The Weymouth fishermen declare, however, +that they do not seek the pond until the third spring; for they say +that when the pond was first stocked, it was three years before any +herring, of their own accord, made their way back to spawn. + +Meantime where and how do they live? All the ocean is theirs to roam +through, though even the ocean has its belts and zones, its barriers +which the strongest swimmers cannot pass. The herring are among the +nomads of the sea; but let them wander never so far through the deep, +you may go to the Run in April and expect to see them. Here, over the +stones and shallows by which they found their way to the sea, they +will come struggling back. No mistake is evermade, no variation, +no question as to the path. On their way up the river from the bay +they will pass other fresh-water streams, as large, even larger, than +Herring Run. But their instinct is true. They never turn aside until +they taste the Run, and though myriads enter, a half-mile farther up +the river not a herring will be found. + +It is easy to see how the ox might know his owner, and the ass his +master's crib; but how a herring, after a year of roving through the +sea, knows its way up Herring Run to the pond, is past finding out. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Retained original spelling except for changing two oe ligatures to +"oe" in "amoeba" and "manoeuvering." + +Moved some illustrations to paragraph breaks. + +The original page numbers are displayed in the List of Illustrations. +The HTML version links the numbers to the illustrations rather than +the page numbers. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Wild Life Near Home, by Dallas Lore Sharp + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42871 *** |