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diff --git a/old/66059-0.txt b/old/66059-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 59c5217..0000000 --- a/old/66059-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3622 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wood Wanderings, by Winthrop Packard - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Wood Wanderings - -Author: Winthrop Packard - -Illustrator: Charles Copeland - -Release Date: August 14, 2021 [eBook #66059] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Steve Mattern, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD WANDERINGS *** - - - - - WOOD WANDERINGS - - THE WORKS OF WINTHROP PACKARD - - - WOODLAND PATHS - WILD PASTURES - WOOD WANDERINGS - WILDWOOD WAYS - - _Each illustrated by Charles Copeland_ - - 12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, each volume $1.20 _net_, postage 8 - cents - - -The four volumes together constitute “The New England Year,” dealing, in -the order given, with the four seasons. The set, boxed, $4.80; _carriage - extra_. Sold separately. - - - SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY - PUBLISHERS BOSTON - -[Illustration: You may see a slender doe pirouette like a ballet-dancing -wood nymph - -[_Page 38_] -] - - - - - WOOD WANDERINGS - - BY - WINTHROP PACKARD - - ILLUSTRATED BY - CHARLES COPELAND - - [Illustration] - - - BOSTON - SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1910 - - BY SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY - (INCORPORATED) - - _Entered at Stationers’ Hall_ - - - THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - -The author wishes to express his thanks to the “Boston Transcript” for - permission to reprint in this volume matter which was originally - contributed to its columns. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -FAIRY FRUIT 1 - -THE LAND OF SPRUCE 21 - -BIRDS OF THE NOR’EASTER 43 - -THE SQUIRREL HARVEST 65 - -AMONG AUTUMN LEAVES 85 - -THE DAY THAT SUMMER CAME BACK 107 - -WHEN AUTUMN PASSES 129 - -NOVEMBER WOODS 149 - -WINTER BIRDS’-NESTING 171 - -SOME CROWS I HAVE KNOWN 193 - -INDEX 217 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -You may see a slender doe pirouette like a ballet-dancing -wood nymph _Frontispiece_ - - OPPOSITE PAGE - -The woodchuck is the very mark and origin of the -paunchy gnome 8 - -Seems to think himself secure there 36 - -The red squirrel gets the burs after the fashion of -the real sport 68 - -He does not have to look for his food 160 - -A field mouse had appropriated this nest for an -autumn storehouse 182 - -Across the angry crimson of the west flitted silhouetted -black wings 198 - - - - -FAIRY FRUIT - - -To-day the September west winds have begun the fall house-cleaning by -sweeping the tops of the pine woods. All the morning the little brown -scales which nestle close to the base of each pine leaf as it grows, -protecting it from the withering force of the midsummer sun, have been -soaring and spinning in high glee, curiously lighting up with brown -glimmers the solemn sanctuaries beneath. - -It is the first prophecy of winter under the sheltering boughs where -still lingers the midsummer warmth. The chickadees, going their forenoon -rounds, scold about it in a brisk fashion that is in tune with the -briskness of the wind itself. In the languor of the south wind the -chickadee has a little lazy song which he sings often, “Sleepee, -sleepee,” a tuneful little ditty that makes you want to stretch out on -the brown carpet with a mound of green moss for a pillow and let the -resinous odors lull you to sleep. I always feel that the bird himself -murmurs it with one eye closed and himself in danger of falling off the -perch in slumber. - -None of that song to-day. It’s “chick-chickachick, chick-a-chicadee dee -dee,” with a snap in it like the crack of a whip. Yet the flock soon -passes on, and in the dreamy warmth of the grove you know little of the -vivid touch in the wind. Only enough of it comes through to set the -little brown pine motes to whirling merrily as they fall, vanishing from -sight like flitting elves as they touch the brown carpet below. - -There was another elf-like transformation, an appearing and a -disappearing, in the woods this morning. That was a _Pyrameis atalanta_ -that kept vanishing into the trunk of a big pitch pine. This, the red -admiral, own cousin to the familiar _Pyrameis carduii_, the painted -lady, is a butterfly whose movements are as snappy as those of the west -wind on these house-cleaning days. Rich red, white and black are the -colors on the upper side of its wings, but when these are closed there -is exposed only the under side, which makes the creature so exactly like -a rough chip of the pitch-pine bark that when he lights on the trunk the -vanishing is complete. Out of nothing he sprang, a vivid flash of -darting red and white flipping before your eyes, then he darted up to -the pine trunk that seemed to open and let him go in, so completely did -he transform his bright colors into a bit of brown bark. - -The more I see of woodland glades and sun-dappled depths and the -creatures that inhabit them the less I am inclined to smile at the elder -races of the world that peopled them with fairies, sprites, and goblins. -Why should they not believe in these things? It is hard sometimes for us -to forego all lingering remnants of faith in such inhabitants of field -and wood. - -This morning on my way to the grove I seemed to meet with more than the -usual number of woodchucks, though you would hardly call it meeting, for -our paths never crossed. But in three different parts of the big -mowing-field a woodchuck bobbed out of nowhere in particular. No doubt -he was feeding on the clover of the farmer’s aftermath, but I saw no -more of that than the cropped herbage after the woodchuck was gone. My -first sight each time was when the animal began to roll in a straight -line across the field. I say roll, for woodchucks at this time of year -are so fat that they do not seem to run, but undulate over the grass as -does the deep sea wave over the shallows. - -I never can help chasing them, though I know well what is about to -happen. Nor do I expect to catch one, for, fat as they are, they move -with surprising rapidity. Even if I happen to know where his hole is by -the pile of dirt at the door and rush between him and it, I am no nearer -getting my game. I always fancy that the fat shoulders of the woodchuck -jiggle with laughter and his little pig eyes twinkle, for that is just -what he expects and is prepared for. He keeps right on in his straight -line, then psst! he vanishes. You don’t see him dive or turn or hide. He -just goes out of sight. You may poke about in the grass for a long time -before you find the secret entrance by which he has returned to his -burrow. Sometimes he has two of them. They are dug from within outward -and no tell-tale trace of dirt is left to mark their location. This has -all been carried down with infinite pains, then up, and left at the -public door, where all may see it. The woodchuck is the very mark and -origin of the paunchy gnome, which is said to guard buried treasures, -and which bobs out of the earth, frightens Hob from his intended mining, -then bobs back into the earth to guard the gold. - -So you have but to go into the pine grove to-day with inquiring eye and - -[Illustration: The woodchuck is the very mark and origin of the paunchy -gnome] - -acquiescent mind and all the beautiful old superstitions that always -plead to be taken into the belief will come trooping along, to your -supreme delectation. Well might the great and good Wordsworth say, he -who knew the open wold and the bosky dell as few of us are privileged to -know them, and wrote about them as none of us can: - - “Great God! I’d rather be - A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, - So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, - Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; - Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, - Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” - -Here in the pine grove is the riding-school of sylphs -innumerable,--those fragile fairies who float in slender grace on the -passing breeze. Their launching stands are the flat-topped receptacles -of the blooms of _Erechthites hieracifolium_, the coarse and homely -fireweed. All summer it has stood in the open spaces of the wood with -its tall stalks bearing blossoms that look like green druggists’ -pestles, with no beauty of petal or sepal to entice, no fragrance to -call the wandering bee. Indeed, these surly blooms seem like buds that -were too cross to open. Now it is different. The green bonds of guardian -bracts are reflexed, and you may now see that this unattractive flower -has held close pressed within its homely heart companies of sylphs. - -White and slender and soft, they stand until the right wind comes along, -then they spring fearlessly to his invisible shoulders and are borne -whither they list. Not mortal things are these thistledown fairies that -are so transparent white that you may look through them as they float by -and see the sun. If it pleases them to touch your hand or your cheek as -they pass, you may note an ethereality of sensation which is thought -rather than feeling, so light it is. - -The _Epilobium angustifolium_, sometimes called willow herb, is another -fireweed, as beautiful of bloom as _Erechthites_ is homely. Like this, -it grows in waste places in the wood, flaunting its long raceme of -showy, pink-purple flowers all summer. Like the _Erechthites_, too, when -September has tamed its exuberance, it is more beautiful still as the -abode of white sylphs which cling in whorls to its stem. Yet, mark you -the difference. The sylphs, reared by the dour and homely fireweed, -stand erect and prim in close communion as stately and correct and -dignified as sylphs may be. Those born of the flaunting _Epilobium_ -cling to it in graceful, almost voluptuous abandon, assuming such poses -as nymphs might in wooing a satyr. Equally beautiful, the first are like -prim New England schoolmarms diaphanously gowned for a Greek play; the -second suggest artists’ models frolicking in the woodland before being -called to pose. - -Along with these two fireweeds, breeders of sylphs, in my pine wood -grows the pokeweed, a villainous name for a wonderfully vigorous and -beautiful plant. Just now its close-set racemes of purple-black berries -are ripening, their color a vivid contrast with the smooth rich green of -its ovate-oblong leaves and the wine color of its stems. It is really a -royal plant, and so great is its vigor that its dark berries threaten to -burst their skins and scatter their rich crimson lifeblood. If you will -look closely at the berries you will see that the fairies have stitched -them neatly across the top to prevent this. The marks of the needle -show, and the tiny puckering made by drawing the thread very tight. - -It is so workmanlike a performance that I suspect the _leprachauns_, who -are shoemakers, of having been called in to do it,--called in, for the -_leprachauns_, without doubt, have all they can do conveniently, making -and mending the fairy shoon. No doubt the brownies, who are domestic -fairies and who would be keeping watch of the woodland fruits anent the -preserving season, had them attend to this, lest the preserving be a -failure. The poke berries look so rich and luscious that I have tried -them; but I cannot say that I like the flavor, which is rich indeed, but -peculiar. But then, I remember my first olive. They don’t taste half so -bad as that did, and compared with pickled limes, which school-girls -eat with avidity, they are nectar and ambrosia in one package. - -All the under-pine world is spread just now with beautiful berries, for -which neither we nor the birds seem to have a taste. There are the -partridge berries, which, by the way, I have never seen a partridge eat, -nor have I found them in the crops of partridges, which I have been mean -enough to shoot. Yet these are, to my mind, the most edible of all, -though they are insipidly sweet, and their flavor is so finely pleasant -that it is not for the coarse palate of most mortals. Their vines carpet -the wood in places, and the soft, pure red of the berries would catch -the eye of bird or beast from afar. These stay ripe and sound all -winter, and you may see their red shining softly among the evergreen -leaves when the bare ground responds, dull and sleepy still, to the -resurrection trump of spring. They have not been gobbled whole, -therefore the larger animals and birds of the wood do not care for them; -but in the spring you will often find them with a tiny bite taken out of -one side. This can have been done by no other than the fairy urchins, -too young to eat fruit with safety, and forbidden by their mothers, they -yet slip out and take a bite before they can be hindered. - -Equally beautiful and conspicuous, and equally insipid to the human -taste, are the great blue berries of the _Clintonia borealis_, which -grows sparingly under the pines hereabouts. These are as large as the -end of your finger, and a wonderful clear shade of prussian blue. If you -know the leaf of the lady’s slipper,--the moccasin-flowered orchid which -is so common in June under all pines,--you might, thinking of the leaf -only, call this the fruit of the lady’s slipper, where, as sometimes -happens, but one berry grows on a stem. Yet if you look further you will -not long labor under the mistake, for you will find many stalks with -several berries, whereas the single blossom of the _Cypripedium acaule_ -could leave behind it but one. The fruit of the lady’s slipper is at -this time of the year a dry brown pod, whence all the little dry seeds -have long ago dropped; indeed, it is only occasionally that you will -find the pod left so long. - -I do not know but birds eat the beautiful fruit of the _Clintonia_, -though I have never seen them do it, and I fancy it is too insipid to -creatures that love wild blackberries, raspberries, and cherries. Yet, -as in the case of the partridge berries, I have often seen the fruit -with a tiny mouthful taken out of it as it stands on the stalk. This is -a bigger mouthful than the marks left in the partridge berries, so I -know that it is not fairy urchins which have done it, even if I thought -they could climb these tall, slippery stalks. I have a fancy that Queen -Mab herself, who, as you very well know, is the fairy midwife as well as -queen, flitting home in the dusk of morning from motherly service, has -stopped for a brief refreshment on the _Clintonia_ stalk. I even have a -notion that I can see in the bitten berries the prints of the wee pearls -that are her teeth. - -Every little starry bloom of the _Smilacina bifolia_, which vies with -the _Mitchella_ in carpeting the pine wood, leaves behind it a lovely -tiny berry that is like a pinhead currant. These, now, are in little -groups at the top of the withering stalks. Fairy currants I have heard -them called, and I think the name a good one, for they are red and juicy -like currants and taste not unlike them, though, like all these fruits, -the flavoring is more insipid. They are a lovelier berry before ripening -than after, for when young they are a slender sage green, through which -the red shows more and more in dappling spots as they ripen, making them -a most beautiful warm gray. - -I am quite sure that the fairies make jam of these, stowing it away in -wild-cherry stone jars, built for them by the stone-mason wood mice, who -are very busy with the wild-cherry stones about this time. They drill a -little round hole in each and extract the kernel, then put the stones -away in their storehouses for sale to the fairies. I have often found -these storehouses with the stones put away in them, but have never been -fortunate enough to find the fairy larder with the jam in the jars. - -I often wonder what the fairies think of the fruit of the nodding -_trillium_, which you will find in the wood now with the others. I fancy -they look upon it with wonder and amazement as a miracle of agriculture, -just as we, about this time, wonder at the vast pumpkin exhibited at the -county fair. It is sometimes almost an inch in diameter, roundish, with -six angles or flutings on it, and a very vivid crimson in color. - -To the fairies they must seem to grow, like cocoanuts, on palm trees, -for the _trillium’s_ erect stem, bearing its spreading palm-like leaves -only at the top, is a foot or so high. I imagine they gather these as -they fall with great glee, and stow them away for winter use in making -fairy pumpkin pies. Often in autumn, along woodland paths in the night, -I have seen a faint glow where I was about to set my foot. Always I step -aside carefully, for I have been told that this soft, greenish light -comes from glowworms. - -Yet it is more than likely that sometimes the fairy urchins have been -allowed to make jack-o’-lanterns from the smaller of these _trillium_ -pumpkins, and this faint glow is the fairy candle within these. After -stepping aside you should bend your head and listen. If you hear faint, -tinkling laughter, inexpressibly sweet and fine, it is the urchins out -with their jack-o’-lanterns, and laughing in glee that they have -succeeded in scaring someone. - - - - -THE LAND OF SPRUCE - - -The seamed and wrinkled face of Katahdin, brown and weather-beaten, -looks over twenty-five miles of unbroken forest eastward to “Number One” -plantation, through which runs the fine gray line of the Patten road. -Southward for miles upon miles, northward for miles upon other miles it -stretches, taut and straight as a bowstring, narrow as a creed, and as -inexorable. - -On either side of it, here and there, the hand of man has hewn an open -space for a farm. Yet you may stand on the summit of the ridge at Number -One and look eastward for forty miles and see only the unbroken green of -the forest, with the black lances of the firs and spruce stabbing the -sky. The thin gray road seems about to be crushed and wiped off the -world by these green eastern and western millstones which press upon it. -They smooth off the boundaries of the farm spaces, roll over fences, and -crush them into the black earth beneath. The lone farmer fights -valiantly against this, but sooner or later old age gets him, or a fire -burns his buildings; then the forest rolls majestically on and over him. - -That is what it has done up on Number One. On the long white line of the -Patten road a single house and farm buildings remain. These mark General -Winfield Scott’s farthest north during the Aroostook war, three-quarters -of a century ago, when Maine and New Brunswick quarreled over boundary -lines. I can but fancy that the general, who had traveled that long, -thin line of straight road, from Bangor to Lincoln, to Mattawamkeag, -and thence to Number One, up hill and down dale, with never a curve to -rest the eye or avoid a hill, sighed thankfully when he learned that he -need not reach his journey’s end. - -Along this road in his day, and for fifty years after, trailed the tote -teams laden with goods for northern Aroostook, returning weighted with -the products of the forest. Four and six-horse teams they were, and they -traveled sometimes a dozen in a procession, doubling hitches at some -steep pitch and hauling the wagons over, one by one. The road was a busy -one then, and the old taverns strung along at intervals of a dozen miles -or so rang with life. To-day those that remain are bleak and deserted, -and only a few remain. The others have been burned at one time or -another. - -Along this road came Thoreau on his trip into the Maine woods, and you -may yet see the doorstone on which he stood and looked across to the -store across the street, which was so diminutive that the stout -proprietor, as he said, had to come out to let a customer in. Thoreau -might well have been surprised could he have known the volume of -business done in this diminutive store, which was really only the office -of the big barn behind, which held the goods in bulk. No wonder a -proprietor waxes fat when people hitch up and drive fifteen or twenty -miles to trade at his store, the only one within that distance. - -To-day of South Moluncus not much more than the thresholds remains, the -whole village having been wiped out by fire. But the glory of the place -had departed long since. The railroad which brings civilization and -prosperity to some places takes it away from others; and Mattawamkeag -and Kingman thrive, while South Moluncus and other once busy little -centers in the virgin forest along the old Patten road are like the -cities of old Greece, but memories and ash heaps. The porcupine noses -unmolested in many a cellar along the narrow way, the deer browse -undisturbed on the apple trees, and over the once prosperous farms -passes the resistless, majestic march of the forest. - -It cannot subdue that thin gray line of road, because the hand of man is -set to the keeping of it open; but it crowds to the wheelruts, and in -places where the pitch is steep and later builders have deviated from -the straight line and made a curve so that the hill might be climbed -more easily, it has swooped upon this untraveled bit and made forest of -it again with amazing celerity. - -That is the one astounding thing in this whole region of northern -Maine,--the regenerative power of the forest. What could stand before -the surgent growth of its young trees? Men with axes have been hacking -at the giants of the wood up here for two centuries and more. The -goliaths have been laid low indeed, yet for one tree that stood on a -given space along the hillsides and in the valleys of Number One a -century ago five stand to-day. - -They are giants no more, it is true, but they are splendid trees; and -just as the Liliputians might prevail where Gulliver was bound, so these -trees hold their own against man and even press in on his clearings and -wipe them out. There must be many more lumbermen with axes along the -Macwahoc, the Moluncus, and the Mattawamkeag before this beautiful -region will fail of its forest. - -Over on the ridge, some miles to the westward of the Macwahoc-Kingman -road, stands a sole survivor of the old-time pumpkin pines. Forty and -fifty feet from the earth toward its limbs the birches and beeches lift -whispering leaves. Timber and cat-spruce and resinous fir spire higher -yet and fling incense toward him. Sixty and seventy feet they reach, -growing tenuous to the tip of nothingness, yet the stately column of his -trunk soars half a hundred feet beyond their tops, lonely and -unapproachable. - -It was to forests of such trees as these that our great-grandfathers -brought their axes,--a forest that we unlucky moderns may see here in -our dreams only. We are fortunate in having the stumps left, for they -still stand along the Moluncus in much the same form that they stood -when the lumberman’s axe was yet pitchy with their chips. The roots are -still sound wood, and it may be another half-century before they decay -and add to the richness of the dense forest mold about them. - -The stumps, five or six feet in diameter, and often as high as your -head, showing in what depth of snow our ancestors worked at their -logging, hold their shape in many instances. Around the base is a -circular ring of dark rich mold which was once the bark on the stump. -This has in every case fallen off and crumbled to humus, leaving the -heart-wood exposed. Mosses gray and green cling to this and cover it, -and because it retains its shape you might almost think it sound, but a -kick or a stab with your walking-stick will prove the opposite. It is -but punk, standing in the breathless, windless silence of the wood, mute -monument to a glory that is departed, waiting itself to pass on at a -touch. - -What the glory and solemnity of the Maine forest must have been when -these giants were the columns to the temple of the woods we can but -dream. In the dense shade of their dark, interlocking boughs no -deciduous growth could thrive, and their own lower branches died for -lack of sunlight and passed in time, leaving behind no scars to mar the -splendid columns that rose fifty or sixty feet clear without knob or -limb. - -Out of these lofty, silent spaces must have stepped the tall gods of the -red men, nor can one imagine the Indians themselves traversing them in -other than silent reverence. Nor yet can we of a stronger race stand -among their moss-grown stumps to-day without feeling the worshipful awe -of the forest strong upon us. The gods are gone indeed, but the demigods -remain. The spruces and firs, foster children of the great pines, stand -close-set upon the ground that they once occupied and rear again the -temple toward heaven in pinnacles and spires where once were -darkly-vaulted domes. - -You may worship here still, as I feel that you might have worshiped -under the great pines, and I can but feel, too, that among the firs the -wood gods are nearer and more gently kind than they may have been among -the elder trees. The giant on the ridge, looming so high in cold -reserve, seems too lonely and far away for human companionship. The -spruces and firs are your friends, while yet the deep wood which they -make loses no whit of its solemn nobility. - -The timber-spruce, as it is commonly called, seems to drop its lower -limbs a little more readily than its darker boughed brother, which goes -by the name of cat-spruce among the local lumbermen, to thus prepare -itself for the lumberman’s axe as yielding a timber in which at a given -age are fewer knots. White and black spruce, the botanists call them, -they and the lumbermen definitely distinguishing between the two by -minute differences, which to the new-comer in the big wood are not so -easily appreciable. - -You may know the fir more readily. It seems to me a tree of a finer, -sweeter soul than any other evergreen. George Kimball, the novelist, who -wrote “Piney Home” about the people who dwell among the quaint farms and -silent stretches of interminable forests along the Moluncus and -Macwahoc, puts it pithily and prettily when he says: “The spruces wear -their hair pompadour; the firs part theirs in the middle.” - -The fir, indeed, is a Quaker lady among evergreen trees, with her hair -so smoothly parted, her dark, unassuming, yet beautiful garb, and that -soothing, alluring, healing fragrance which floats ever about her like -an atmosphere of sincerity and loveliness. It seems as if all the wounds -of all the other denizens of the wood might be brought to her to heal, -so loving is her presence, so benign the soothing influence that floats -from her amber tears. - -The sap of all trees has something of goodness and delight in it. The -maples bear sugar that is more than sweetness; it has in it some Attic -salt that makes the imagination smack its lips. The brew of the birch is -more than beer; it is the embodiment of a flavor that bears dreams of -rosy mornings on woody ridges that look down on the golden glory of the -primeval world. So the faint fragrance of the fir floats like a divine -presence from a loving heart that would fain clasp to itself the wounded -and stricken of the world and dress their wounds and make them whole -again. No wonder custom has adopted the fir for the Christmas tree. -There is no tree so fit to bear loving gifts to all the world. - -The spruce partridge, as he is commonly called up here, the Canada -grouse (_Dendragapus canadensis_) of the scientists, is a bird that I -find very common and amazingly unafraid under the spruce and fir in -these northern woods. He is a smaller, grayer, darker bird than the -ruffed grouse which is the familiar bird of our home woods. Up here they -call the latter “birch partridge,” because he feeds on birch buds, -while the spruce partridge feeds on the tips of the spruce. The birch -partridge is more wary. As at home, he thunders up from the underbrush -and shoots himself across space and into the shelter of the farther wood -like an indignant cannonball. - -The spruce partridge winds along the brakes and undergrowth just ahead -of you, or in the more open space under the dense evergreens flutters up -into the lower branches, and seems to think himself secure there. I have -stood among a flock of these beautiful creatures while they called -faintly and reassuringly to one another,--so near that I might see every -minute detail of plumage. Then, before they flew, I stepped quietly up -and touched the soft feathers of the one on the lowest branch. - -Then, indeed, panic fear seemed to - -[Illustration: Seems to think himself secure there] - -strike the flock at one blow, and they whirred into the dense green of -some tender, motherly firs, whose arms closed about them and hid them -from all rude intrusion. These birds are smaller than the ruffed grouse, -though they are plump and beautiful creatures, and, because they feed on -the spruce tips, are said to have flesh too strongly spiced to be -palatable. I am glad of that. After the friendly way in which they -received me into their community, to shoot and eat them would be a good -deal like going out and bagging the neighborhood children on their way -to primary school. - -You soon get to feel that way about the deer up here in the Macwahoc -woods. All along the lumber roads you may see their tracks, their keen -hoofs cutting pointed marks in the soft mold of the wayside. If you have -come silently and the wind is right you may swing a curve and be in -time to hear a buck stamp and blow before he sees you and flips his flag -and bounds off into the brush. Or you may see a slender doe pirouette -like a ballet-dancing wood nymph and float away, with a stiff-legged, -dappled fawn prancing after. - -The creatures of the wilderness, when startled, seem to have a singular -scorn of earth. You hardly note that they spurn it from beneath them as -they depart. The coyote and jack-rabbit of the western plains do not -seem to run; they simply float over the sage-brush, to your following -vision much as a hawk does, only far swifter. So I have seen a fox sail -along, seemingly about three feet in the air all the time, over a -Massachusetts pasture. It is amazingly like flight. A startled Macwahoc -deer in the same way seems to unconsciously acquire the true principle -of the aeroplane. - -In among the hackmatacks and arbor vitæ in the lower land the -golden-winged woodpeckers are gathering in numbers in preparation for -their fall migration southward. You may hear the vigorous note of the -approaching single bird as he stops for a moment on a spruce top. -“Kee-yer, kee-yer, kee-yer,” he shouts, with the accent on the yer. It -has all the loud nasal twang of the stage Yankee, and the bird is as -ludicrously awkward in his ways, sometimes. - -If you step softly through the swamp you may find a group of them going -through a grotesque dance, seemingly for their own amusement. They -spread their tails stiffly, walk along limbs with mincingly awkward -gait, and bob and bow to one another, saying, meanwhile, “Wee tew, wee -tew, wee tew.” It is an amusing performance, and is apt to be -interrupted by your guffaw of laughter, at which, whirls of white, gold, -and black, with a dash of red, they fly away to repeat the performance -in some undiscovered retreat. - -The flicker, which is another of the fifty-seven varieties of alias -under which the golden-winged woodpecker sometimes travels, is, I -believe, the most brainy of the woodpecker tribe. Having brains he has -also humor, and from the time he takes his first flight from the high -hole in some woodland stub till pigeon hawk or barred owl cuts short his -flickering, he is making a joke of things. - -Like the flickers, the crows of northern Maine migrate southward in -winter. The deep, long-remaining snows cover their sources of food too -deep, and they find the clam flats of the coast a sure refuge and a -well-stocked larder. Just now they are waxing fat on grasshoppers, -marching in long lines across the open fields, lines from which no -careless hopper may escape, and croaking contentment as they go. - -They will stay until the snows drive them, however, and even in winter -an occasional scout makes a quick flight north just to see how the land -lies. It is but a half-day’s trip up and back. I wish I might, too, be -able to reach the land of the mother firs as easily when I feel the need -of them. However, the aeroplane is in the incubator, and, unless the -Wrights go wrong, perhaps next year or the year after I shall. - - - - -BIRDS OF THE NOR’EASTER - - -Our weather here in eastern Massachusetts comes from the southwest. -Whirling storms, little or big, move up from the Gulf coast and pass on, -headed for Spitzbergen by way of Newfoundland. Knowing the habits of -these whirling winds, the watchers of the weather bureau are able to -say, as a rule quite accurately, when the storm will reach us, from what -direction the winds will blow, and what they will bring with them and -after them,--rain, gale, or fair weather. - -One exception to this rule of accuracy is when the storm center, instead -of reasonably and politely following the usual route, skips suddenly out -to sea by way of Hatteras and goes roaring up the easterly edge of the -Gulf Stream. That is when the weather signs that you find on the -southeast corner of the front page, evening edition, fail, for that is -when we catch our unexpected northeaster. - -“Back to the wind in the northern hemisphere,” says the rule, “and the -storm center is on your left.” So, with the wind whirling its -thousand-mile circuit about this mysterious center halfway across the -Atlantic, we get it from the northeast, and it brings whiffs of -mid-ocean spume to our nostrils that are weary of the summer’s heat, and -clothes all the land with the gray mists out of which grew the Norse -sagas. - -On days when the northeaster sings along the Gloucester shore, tears -white wraiths off the red rocks of Marblehead and Nahant, and spins them -in beaten spume along the gray sands of Nantasket, we of the inland -country tread our heat-browned pastures with lifted heads, watching -mysterious vapors wrap the land in legend, breathing the same air as the -stormy petrel, and knowing that in our hearts the strong pulse beats -with the blood of vikings. - -On such days I love to watch the pond shore and the reedy stretches of -the meadow marsh, for to them come the first of the wild migrants of -autumn, and in the northeaster you may exchange greetings with the -winter yellow-legs, just down from the Arctic shore. To-day I heard -them, high in the invisible realms of the upper mists, whirling down to -me,--gray forms out of a gray sky that seemed to loose them as it later -will loose snowflakes. - -Their staccato whistle in its minor chromatics shrills forth four notes -over and over again,--notes lonesome with the heartache of northern -barrens, wild as the echoes of ice cliffs that never rang responsive to -voices other than those of the eerie birds of Arctic seas; a -high-pitched plaint that might well be the shrilling of a little lost -wind crying for its mother. You may imitate this whistle well enough to -deceive the birds and bring them swirling within range of your gun if -you will, though you can never put into it the wild plaint that echoes -of far-off, lonely spaces. - -The yellow-legs do not come as often as they used, and it is some years -since I have seen even a small flock of the beautiful little blue-winged -teal that were once so plentiful that the rustle of their wings was a -familiar thing at daybreak on the marsh. I miss them both. It is worth a -tramp to pond or marsh to hobnob even for a brief moment of interchange -of friendly greetings with such travelers. The winter yellow-legs may -summer in the extreme Arctic and winter in Patagonia. The teal’s range -is less, though he may breed in Alaska and winter in South America. -Their loss, here in the east, is the price we pay for civilization of -our present sort. I daresay it is worth it, but I believe there is a -better sort that does not come so high in the loss of wilderness -friends. - -Along the pond shore, after the yellow-legs have dashed in upon us, -whistled the wind full of loneliness and heartache, and dashed away -again like ghosts of gray snow-flurries yet to be, it is a pleasure to -watch the homely antics of the spotted sandpipers. Of these you may find -a pair or two about the pond all summer long, no doubt having a nest in -some grassy meadow nearby. By the time the equinoctial northeaster is -due, this pair or two has become oftentimes a dozen, preparing for their -flight to the shores of the Caribbean Sea, where they will spend the -winter, yet loth to leave New England. - -These birds are never much afraid of me. If I approach too near they -sing out peevishly, “Peet-weet, peet-weet,” and half-circle in a short -level flight out over the water and back again to the shore. Indeed, I -strongly suspect their attitude toward my intrusion is one of humorous -scorn. They are apt to face me as I come quite near, and bow low with -what seems the exaggeration of politeness, only they immediately turn -about and bow just as politely the other way, which flips their white -tail feathers in my direction with a gesture which is certainly one of -ill-bred contempt. - -Then they fly away, leaving me in doubt as to whether they mean it or -not. Probably, however, there is nothing distinctly personal in it. The -legs of the spotted sandpiper are hitched to the body with muscles that -seem to act like springs, and he can’t help teetering when he attempts -to stand still, hence his popular names of teeter, teeter-tail, etc. - -Along with the spotted sandpipers at this time of year I am apt to find -the ring-necked or piping plover, these already on their autumnal -migration, for they breed from Labrador northward. They differ little -from the sandpiper in size, but you will readily know them by the white -collar which encircles the neck, with a little black vest partly defined -just below it. Modest, busy little chaps they are, running about on the -sands, picking up insects and minute _crustaceæ_, continually -twittering “Peep, peep,” and caring little for your approach until, -finally frightened, they rise as one bird and fly away in a compact -flock. - -I have never seen these birds swim, though their half-webbed feet would -seem to indicate that they can. Though, for that matter, birds that have -no webbing at all between the toes sometimes swim well when forced to -it. The common barn-yard hen, thrown into the water, will sit erect and -swim as a duck might until her feathers are wet through. - -To the pond with the autumnal northeaster usually comes a pied-billed -grebe or two. If you are sharp eyed and fortunate you may see one -beating his way down the wind with rapid strokes of his ludicrously -short wings. His flight is something like that of a duck, though I think -he makes harder work of it, more wing strokes to the minute; but you -will know him as he nears you, for no duck ever stretched his head so -eagerly forward or carried his legs dangling so far astern. - -The bird should be at ease on land, for he has a bill like a hen, and -his toes are lobed merely, not connected with webbing. But he is not. On -foot he is slow, clumsy, and ludicrously ungainly. Probably for this -reason the grebe does not go near land when he can help it. Even his -nest is built on the water, sometimes actually floating, a mass of -rotten sedge and mud, and the chicks swim and dive like old birds as -soon as hatched. But if the land gait of the grebe is ludicrous and his -flight laborious, in the water he is the personification of grace, ease, -and agility. - -Well does he merit one of his familiar names,--that of water-witch. -When the hunters go forth to the marsh I am sorry for my innocent -friends, the blue-winged teal. I know how few fly now where once the air -would seem full of them. When I hear the quacking of live decoys my -heart misgives me for the fate of the black duck, for I know how their -fellow-feeling and sociable instinct will bring them in to the blind -where the gunners are hidden. - -Neither decoys nor dead shots give me any qualms of uneasiness where the -pied-billed grebe is concerned. The decoys may split their throats in -calling to him when they see him swim by just out of gunshot. He will -not even turn his head. It may be that he has a voice; I have never -heard him use it. When it is in the open with fair play, grebe against -gun, my sympathies are with the gunner, for I know how great cry and -little wool will result. - -I have seen a pied-billed grebe cornered in a narrow, shallow river by -gunners on each bank. He dove at the flash of the first gun, and though -it was point-blank range, he was under water before the shot could reach -him. He was up again and under a dozen times, to be followed by a dozen -shots, only wasted. No wonder the hunters call him “hell-diver.” I have -seen it stated in nature books that this name is given him because of -the extreme depth to which he is supposed to go. No doubt the grebe goes -deep when he wishes to, but the gunners haven’t taken that into -consideration. The name is one symptom of the profanity which his -exceptional skill necessitates. - -At the end of a dozen shots the grebe cornered in the river decided in -his slow way that he was being hunted while above water, so he simply -failed to come up. A grebe has been known to stay under five minutes -when loosening water-weeds for its nest or when pursuing fish for its -supper. This one was seen no more by the gunners, and after waiting half -an hour or so they went away, firm in the belief that the last shot had -really reached him, but that he had in his death throes become entangled -in water-weeds and remained there. Comforting for the gunners, no doubt, -and very satisfactory to the grebe. Ten minutes after they had -disappeared the bird reappeared and went on feeding as before. - -He had simply been floating along, under water all but the tip of its -bill, which protruded as far as the nostrils and gave him ample -opportunity to breathe. All these are clever feats, of course, but are -explicable. The grebe has to live, either on or in the water, and he has -learned how to do it even with the hand of man against him. He has one -other trick, however, the mechanism of which I have never been able to -understand. Swimming along on the surface he will, if he cares to, -suddenly sink as if made of lead, feet first. How does he do this? One -moment he is as buoyant as a cork; the next he goes down like a -flatiron. “Spirit duck” is another name of his. He deserves it. - -Another bird that is always linked, in my mind, with the sea wind -beating the long marsh grasses into panicled waves and the fine rain of -the equinoctial hanging the sheltered culms with strung pearls, is the -Carolina rail. Some of them breed hereabouts, but the greater number of -them are on their way from Labrador, where they have brought up the -season’s young, to the banks of the Orinoco or the steaming swamps that -border the Amazon. - -How they ever make the flight back and forth each year is one of those -mysteries of which the wilderness world is fascinatingly full. Hardly -with threats and beating of bushes can you drive them out of the marsh -grass. When one of them does take to the wing it is with reluctance and -apology for his awkwardness oozing from every pore. If you will put some -brown feathers, a pair of dangling legs, and two short, inadequate wings -on a misshapen bottle and send it fluttering through the air over the -grass tops for a rod or two, you will have a good imitation of a -Carolina rail protesting at being kicked out of the _Poa serotina_. - -Once is always enough for him. You may go to the exact spot where he -dropped into the grass again and raise all the hullabaloo you wish. Only -with a dog can you start him out again, and the third time he will not -flush even for the dog. Yet with this equipment _Porzana carolina_ -leaves Labrador in the latter part of August and arrives in Venezuela -during November! Perhaps he does part of the journey on foot, for he is -certainly better equipped for walking than for flight. - -The rail is the incarnation of timidity, and you may look long even when -the marsh is full of them before you see one. The best way is to slip -your canoe quietly up some narrow creek where the tall grass waves far -above your head and lie silent in it where you may scan either bank. -Trampling through the grass it seems thick almost to impenetrability, -but with your head on a level with its roots rather than the tops, you -will see that it is full of Gothic-arched aisles, sometimes widening -into under-grass cathedrals with nave and transept, sometimes narrowing -into invisibility, though there is always a secret door through which -the initiated may pass. - -Down the widest of these aisles comes the runway of the muskrat. Through -the tallest of them may stalk the bittern with his long neck stretched -straight out before him, and his sharp bill pointing the way. These are -the broad highways of the marsh, but the rail does not travel them much. -Even their seclusion is too public for him. He prefers the narrowing -passages that lead him to close-pressed grass culms. These cannot bar -his way, for that peculiar wedge-shaped build which makes him so -ridiculous on the wing is just what he needs here. It allows him to -follow the point of his bill and slip through the thickest growth of -culms without a rustle and without disturbing the tops. Hence if you are -fortunate enough to see him, he is just as likely to step forth from a -solid wall of grass as from one of the pointed arches of the openings -along the way. - -You will not hear the grass rustle nor see it move, but the rail will be -there, intent and preternaturally solemn. His head is thrust downward -and forward, his tail is cocked nervously high behind, and he walks -gingerly, as if apologizing to the mud for making tracks in it. You may -see him climb a rush by clutching it with his toes, and feed on the -seeds above; you may see him swim deftly across the creek, for he is a -good swimmer. But the least motion on your part will send him into the -thick grass again so quickly that he seems to dematerialize. - -Old gunners tell me that a rail will slip under water and cling to a -reed with only his bill above the surface, thus imitating the grebe in -his methods of concealment. They say that when hard pushed by dogs and -guns they go entirely beneath the surface and sometimes cling there -until drowned; also that they have known rails to go into fits and -finally swoon from fright. I cannot vouch for these things myself, but I -believe that if any bird ever swooned from fright it was a Carolina -rail. - -Duck, grebe, plover, and rail may come to us storm-driven by the stress -of the equinoctial. Not so the loon. He rides the northeaster, and you -may hear him whooping in wild glee as he slides down the gale. His gray -breast is brave to buffet gray crests of Arctic seas and his mighty -thighs are built to drive the broad webbing of his agile feet till he -whirls through icy waters like a spirit. Alert, defiant, mighty, he is a -familiar figure of the wild gale that has spun a thousand miles across -turbulent seas, and when he lights in our inland waters he comes not for -refuge, but because the restless joy of storm riding has happened to -bring him hither. - -Shoot at him if you will. He is under, unharmed at the flash of your -gun, and he may swim a half-mile, if he cares to, before coming up -again. Then you may hear him laugh in scornful good humor, “Hoo, hoo, -hoo, hoo,” for little he cares for you. He knows enough to keep out of -your way, but you cannot feel that he is afraid of you. When he goes out -again, welting the gale with his strong wings and boring straight into -the wild heart of the northeaster, the pond is lonely, the marsh flat -and insipid, and it is time for dry clothes and the comfort of glowing -logs in the wide fireplace. - - - - -THE SQUIRREL HARVEST - - -The red squirrel is a good deal like me,--he never can wait for the -chestnuts to open. As long ago as early September I used to see him -going up and down the trunks of trees neighboring the chestnuts, -sputtering and exploding his way along in a jerky unrhythm. He would go -up the trunk as a light-weight, motor-skipping runabout goes up a steep -hill, trembling all over as he fizzed along with barking explosions. - -He had his eye on the closed burs, densely set with green spines, and he -was angry because he was liable to get his tongue pierced in getting -them open. But it did not matter. The milk-white pulp in the brown -shells was too tempting. All this last month he has been going to the -very tips of the limbs of the highest trees, clinging there as only a -red squirrel can, and gnawing the burs loose. When a sufficient number -of these were strewn on the ground beneath he would motor down there, -and with the piston still chugging occasionally, just to prove to -himself that he could start his car at a second’s notice, cut -expeditiously through the defiant prickles and smack his wounded lips -over the kernels within. - -Meanwhile, in common with most of the boys in town, I, too, have been -having my troubles with the chestnut burs. A boy understands that the -red squirrel gets the burs after the fashion of the real sport, and so -far as he can he is willing to do the same. But the smaller limbs of the -chestnut are brittle, and under the best of circumstances it is a - -[Illustration: The red squirrel gets the burs after the fashion of the -real sport] - -dangerous thing to go far enough out on them to reach the tips. -Light-weight, daring boys sometimes do this, and often fall in the -attempt, as accident records show. Sometimes the squirrel falls too, -though this is of comparatively rare occurrence. - -The wild creatures of the wood are as liable to accident as you and I, -but they are not so prone to it. That severe pruning which wild life -gives all who are robust enough to live it lops off all the clumsy -branches of the squirrel family tree. Few but the cool-headed and -skillful live to reproduce many of their kind. - -The boy who falls from the upper limbs of the chestnut may save his neck -by catching a lower limb as he falls--I have known boys to do it. Or he -may even land with no serious injury if he is fortunate enough and the -distance is not too great. The squirrel would be almost sure to land -safely either in the lower limb or on the ground. This is more sure in -the case of the red squirrel than in that of the gray, for the gray is -two or three times the weight of the red. Yet I have seen a gray -squirrel come down forty feet though the air and land uninjured. - -My own method of loosing the unripe burs from their tenacious hold on -the limb tips lacks the finesse of that of the squirrel. I do my work -with a club. Nevertheless, it takes wisdom and precision. To stand -twenty feet or so below a bunch of chestnut burs and hurl your club at -them with such accuracy that it hits the limb just behind them at the -right spot to snap them off their perch is an art that you must learn in -boyhood or never. - -You may hit the burs themselves or you may hit the limb farther back, -and nothing happens. With the burs on the ground your task is to open -them, which you must do by pounding with one stone upon another. Hit in -the right place and with the right force, the green, prickly envelope -yields and the soft, brown nuts roll out uncrushed. To me they are -sweetest when this brown is just beginning to tinge them, before the -shells are very hard and the kernel is too resilient and crunchy. - -On these October mornings the chestnuts are ripe,--a wonderful rich -brown, still clinging in close companionship in the center of the burs, -which have opened and revealed the precious kernels within. To harvest -them now by the quart your task is more easy than it was to get a few -when they were three weeks younger. The squirrels know this. There is -no need to climb to the dangerous limb tips and cling there precariously -while gnawing them through. The ground is strewn with bounty, and the -reds and the grays both are busy among the rustling brown leaves -garnering what the winds, the boys, and I have shaken from the open burs -and failed to gather. - -Now and then they eat one, but for the most part they are busy storing -them up for future use. In hollow trees, under stumps, they pile them in -little hoards. But beside that they dig little holes in the ground here -and there and put a nut at the bottom of them and pat the brown leaves -down on top. I have always inferred that these were for special -luncheons, stored ready to hand when the owner did not care to go to the -main larder. I know that they do go to these in the winter on -occasions, for I have often seen the hole through the crusted snow where -the squirrel resolutely dug his way in and left behind him the chipped -shells of the nut which he found there. But I do not believe that one -nut out of a hundred that is thus buried is ever resurrected by the -squirrels; it is nature’s method of getting her chestnut trees properly -planted, and I half believe that the squirrels realize this; that they -do not mean to dig these nuts up again, and only do so when hard pressed -by hunger. - -My path to the chestnut wood to-day lay through a shallow sea of purple -wood-grass. It is a wild grass, scorned of the farmer and left -ungarnered of his scythe, standing now in clumps in all waste places of -the pasture,--an amber wine of autumn tint that intoxicates you as you -pass through. It is a stirrup cup for your expedition. Old as the hills, -amber-purple and clear, yet with a fine bubbling of hoary leaf tips, it -warms the heart as wine of the grape does, and already you begin to be -drunk with the beauty of the day. Afterward you pass through aisles of -birch wood, where the once green leaves are a translucent yellow, fining -the gold of the sunlight down to a soft radiance, a richness of pale -effulgence that I have seen matched only in one gem. - -Some years ago there came from South African mines a wonderful lump of -crystallized carbon,--a great diamond that, cut and polished, yet -weighed one hundred and twenty-five carats,--the famous Tiffany yellow -diamond, in whose heart glows the same yellow radiance which wells -throughout the birch wood of a sunlit October day. The Tiffany gem is -worth its hundreds of thousands, and you might lose it from a hole in -your vest pocket. The birch wood is a half-mile wide, and once you have -felt its soft radiance flood your soul it is yours forever. Neither -deserts nor cities can take it from you. - -Sitting secure in a crotch of the chestnut tree of my choice, beating -the chestnuts from the half-open burs with a birch pole and listening to -their patter on the dry leaves far beneath, I was conscious after a time -of a little gritting squeak,--a squeak that sounded much like a small, -unoiled joint that was very mad about it. It might have been two tree -limbs rubbing together, only that it was too personal. Creaking limbs -are always mournful in tone; this squeak was full of impotent, nervous -rage. - -It was difficult to locate exactly, and I had thinned out the chestnuts -pretty well and was about to climb down before I discovered what it was -that made it. Hanging head down from a twig that protruded from the -under side of a large limb was a great bat, swinging from one hind toe. -His furry, gray body was half loosely wrapped in his wings, that looked -like wrinkled folds of dark sheet rubber. His ugly little face was all -screwed up with rage and his sputtering squeaks were a ludicrous -exposition of impotent fury. - -Every blow of my pole on the tree had jarred him. In his darkness of our -daytime he could not see what it was that troubled him, nor could he -venture to fly away from it lest he rush into worse danger. So he simply -hung on and protested in all the voice and vocabulary that he had, and -when I plucked him carefully by that hind claw and wrapped him in a -handkerchief and stowed him in the side pocket of my coat, he continued -to mutter bat profanity. - -You will find in the velvety heart of a chestnut bur usually three nuts, -sometimes but one of these plump, and with a ripened kernel within the -shell. The two others in this case will be but flat walls of shell with -no kernel. Sometimes two of the three are meaty, and occasionally all -three, only the fat ones being fertile seeds. Poking about among the -brown leaves on the ground beneath the tree for these, now and then -pricking my fingers in separating a particularly fat one from the bur, -that had come down with it, I found another unfamiliar denizen of the -chestnut tree that my clubbing had dislodged. - -This was the larva of _Telia polyphemus_, the _polyphemus_ moth. The -moth himself is a beautiful creature with a six-inch spread of -pinky-brown wings with a wonderful eye-spot of peacock-blue, -dark-maroon, and yellow-white in the after wing. The form that I had -picked up was a fat worm, nearly four inches long and fully an inch in -diameter, of a clear, transparent, yellowish-green texture ornamented on -the sides by raised lines of a silvery white,--a strikingly beautiful -object so far as coloring is concerned. - -The larva of the _Telia polyphemus_ is no uncommon creature among oak -and chestnut trees, although, so near is he in coloring to the leaves on -which he feeds and so high in air does he spend his life, you may live -in the woods for years without seeing one. Him I carefully stowed in -another handkerchief, tucked into another side pocket, and started for -home with my chestnuts and my menagerie. One more adventure, however, -was in store for me. - -In the open pasture stands a tall hickory, clad in the golden tan of -autumn foliage, dripping gray nuts and blackened husks upon the pasture -grass beneath it. Taking his pick among these was a splendid great gray -squirrel, and as I approached, instead of bounding across the open to -the thick wood, where he would have been surely safe, he sprang to the -trunk, and hiding behind it, eyed me over the lowest limb. - -There was something of roguish defiance in his look and I accepted the -challenge. I dropped my coat on the grass, that the bat and caterpillar -might be uncrushed in the mêlée and swung into the tree toward the -squirrel, who promptly scampered up the trunk fifteen feet or so, poked -his head over another limb, and undeniably winked at me. - -The gray squirrel is clever, but even on his own tree his reasoning did -not go very far. I was steadily driving him to the top, where he would -be cornered, but he did not run out on a limb and drop to a lower one -and then scramble down the tree and away, as he so easily might. He went -straight on toward the top, and I after him. Hickory is tough, and even -its small limbs will hold much weight. I could go as high as the -squirrel could. - -On the topmost bough he poised. I was within arm’s reach. A gray -squirrel has long, keen teeth and knows well how to use them in -self-defence, yet you may grasp one safely if you will do it right. Take -him with the full hand from behind with the thumb and finger round his -neck and meeting below his jaw. Thus you may hold him securely, -uninjured, and be free from harm yourself. I have often pulled grown -squirrels from the nest in this way. - -But before my hand reached him the squirrel launched himself into the -air with a bound that carried him in his flight clear of all limbs. It -was forty feet to the drought-hardened pasture turf, and immediately I -keenly regretted my frolic. A fall from that height, I thought, could -but end in the death or injury of my friend. I looked to see him go to -his finish, but he did nothing of the kind. Instead, he spread his legs -wide, stiffened his tail, and fairly seemed to flatten himself as he -went down, scaling to the ground instead of falling inertly, and though -he struck with a considerable thud, he was up and scampering for the -wood immediately. - -The squirrel had won, though I can but think it was a foolhardy trick, -and he would have done much better to slip down from tip to tip of the -hickory limbs and circumvent me by circumnavigating me. - -The crimson of the sunset lighted the path home with lambent radiance -that made a twilight of the yellow glow beneath the birches and dulled -the fire of the sumacs on the upland to a red as of dying embers. The -purple wood-grass caught and held the complementaries of these fires -reflected in its shadows till I seemed to stride through ashes of roses -to the dun shadows of the lilacs in my own dooryard. - -Here I bethought me of the bat, too long enshrouded in my pocket for -his comfort, perhaps, and I unknotted the handkerchief, planning to -slip him into an empty squirrel cage for a day’s observation before I -set him free. But I had forgotten that the sun was now below the horizon -and that the bat could see as well as I could. Seemingly, he could see -quicker, for before I could put fingers on him he slipped from the fold -of the handkerchief, dove into the air, and with swift, sculling wings -mounted over the tree tops and was away like the wind. - -However, I had my chestnuts left, and my _Telia polyphemus_ larva. Him I -put in the butterfly cage without delay, along with some chestnut -leaves, on which he might feed. He proceeded instead to spin himself a -cocoon, rolling himself in one of the leaves in the corner of the box. -There he will sleep lightly till spring, when I hope to see him come -out a full-grown moth. I shall watch for him with much interest, for -this species is very variable, and many aberrant forms and local races -occur. There are even albinos, and melanic specimens also have been -noted with the wings almost black. - - - - -AMONG AUTUMN LEAVES - - -The deep woods catch all the rich colors of the autumn sunsets in their -foliage. The dull reds and the vivid ones, the maroons and the scarlets, -the golden yellows and the wondrously soft and mellow shades of tan and -brown they hold till from a hilltop you see the forest afire. Flames -flutter, embers glow and fall, and brown ashes and cinders remain. - -Yet, if you walk far below the fire, in the forest aisles that are -beginning to crisp under foot with the fallen embers of this -conflagration, you are conscious of but one color sensation. A subtle -glow pervades all things,--an atmosphere that is a yellow from which -the sap has run, a very ghost of color. The domes of the hickories that -grow in the open pasture are a rich brown, a most lovable shade; those -hickory saplings that are rooted in the shade, and wait so patiently for -fate to carry off the big trees that they may take their places, take an -autumnal tint of this ghost of yellow also, and all the leaves of the -wood ferns are pale with it,--a paleness that becomes with the more -delicate an almost transparent whiteness. - -We may ingeniously say that the reason that these leaves are so anæmic -is that they grew in the shade and had not in their veins the good green -blood of those that flourished in the open and absorbed from the sun and -wind of summer the burn and tan that were to show in autumn. Yet, how -can we be sure of this when those leaves which grow side by side on the -same tree vary so in their autumnal tints? - -Here upon a maple I find leaves that are still green, while others just -beside them are scarlet. From the hilltop those maples which show the -fieriest flame are the ones that on close inspection show leaves where -the green and red mingle either in the same leaf or contiguous leaves. -Perhaps the green, complementary color of the red takes the part of -shadow background and throws up the more vivid color in greater -prominence. - -The swamp maples are unique in their way of taking on autumnal tints, -anyway. In common with all trees that stand with their feet in the -water, they lose the rich green of full summer growth long before the -frosts touch them, and long before similar trees standing on upland -slopes have any idea that autumn is approaching. Occasionally a maple -branch growing on some swamp tree, bowered in a little cove of woodland -greenery, will flame up in early July, as if some _ignis fatuus_, -wandering in by ghostly moonlight from a near-by ditch, had touched the -bough with strange fire that crimsoned but did not consume. - -There is nothing the matter with the tree; it is well nourished and of -vigorous growth, yet it flares this early signal that winter with her -train is sooner or later to whistle down the tracks of the great -northern road. Such a maple is like an over-zealous flagman who stands -on the crossing and waves his signal before the train has even started -from the distant city. I do not recall seeing this trait exhibited by -other trees. - -Again, individual trees of many species will show ruddy tints in the -swamp, sometimes in early September, before other trees of the same -species, standing near by, have even a suspicion of it. Yet this rule -holds good; the swamp trees color first and lose their leaves first, the -maples first of all. Sometimes by October first precocious specimens are -bald, their gray polls conspicuous spots among the surrounding greenery. -With their vivid colors, their premature baldness, their usually smaller -size, and a generally devil-may-care air which, perhaps, is only seeming -because of these facts, the swamp maples always appear to me like -swashbucklers, roistering young blades in whom riots the wine of life, -whose red faces early in the morning of the autumn and whose premature -baldness both hint of dissipation. Their roots are deep in the richest -of mold dissolved in the water of copious springs. The most bounteous -of banquets and the warmest of wine is continually at their lips. It is -no wonder if their youth is tempted to excesses. - -Most of the lady birches stand aloof on the upland slopes; I notice not -far enough away to forbid the handsome young maples from climbing out of -their mire of dissipation to nibble the dry husks of gravel-bank -breakfast food and drink dew among them if they have the courage. But -not all thus withdraw in whispering groups. Down into the swamp others -have stepped and stand, erect and dainty, among the rubicund roisterers. -Social workers these without doubt, missionaries of the Birch C. T. U., -who thus give their lives nobly to teaching by example. - -Among the same temptations they stand, their shimmering green skirts -drawn slimly about them, their slight forms erect, the very visible -essence of virtue. The fervor of autumn touches them only with a -pale-yellow aureola, which marks at once their freedom from taint of -temptation and their saintliness. There is not much to prove it in a -bird’s-eye view of the swamp this October, yet I can but feel that these -pure lives radiate an influence among the sensuous swamp maples. - -Here and there you will find one of these the rich green of whose summer -leaves turns to yellow hue at this time of year, though it is a -creature-comfort yellow compared with the soft ethereality of the -birches. Such, I believe, are on the road to conversion. The -spirituality of their neighbors has touched them and they are beginning -to be conscious of the beauty of temperate living and strive toward it. - -Perhaps some autumn we shall note the presence of a great revival and -the October swamp will be all one pale, misty nimbus of spirituality, a -soft yellow radiance of saints who have spurned riotous living and glow -with ethereal fires of renunciation. Then will the Birch C. T. U. hold a -praise service. - -On higher ground another maple which from its autumn coloration as well -as other characteristics is a very near relative of the swamp maples is -the white maple, sometimes called the silver-leaved maple. This, too, -turns a vivid red in early October, though it holds its leaves a little -longer than the red maples of the swamp. On the other hand, the imported -Norway maples, more shapely and stately trees in their full growth than -our own, line our streets and parks with noble round heads that are -still green except for a slight frosting of bronzy yellow on top, giving -the tree a richness of dignified maturity that is beautiful to look -upon. There is nothing of the missionary about these; they simply stand -serene, placid reminders of the value of noble example. - -Like these trees in the formation of symmetrical, rounded heads are the -chestnuts, which are still green when the other deciduous trees of the -wood have been caught in the conflagration of autumn coloring. Now, the -first week in October being past, they show a certain yellowness of -foliage which is enhanced by the yellow-brown of the ripe burs which -throng the tips of their upper branches. - -Twice during the year does the rich green of the chestnut leafage bloom -with a richer tinting,--first in June, when the long staminate blossoms -seem to pour in cascades from their billowed tops, and again at this -time of year, when the ripened nuts push open the green burs of -September and the failing sap leaves them at first a yellow-green and -later a golden tan-brown. Walking beneath the trees to-day you are -likely to get a rap on the head from a solid seal-brown chestnut, or -even find your neck full of prickers where the fretful porcupine of a -descending bur has jabbed you. - -Already the ash trees, whose foliage has passed with much rapidity -through olive-green and olive-yellow to tan-brown, which still holds a -little of the olive tint, stand bare and gray against the sky, like the -red maples, sure prophets of winter. The ash is never profuse of leaves. -It drops them first of all in the autumn and is among the latest to put -them forth in the spring. Even in the height of summer you cannot say -that its foliage is dense; and when the slender brown leaves lie upon -the ground they do not make a thick carpet. They merely crisp under foot -instead of rustling. - -Under a Norway maple the ground will later be half-leg deep in dense -curled leaves that rustle and swish under your stride. You plough -through them and they leap up and dance away from your progress, a -splashing, undulating brown tide. Under oaks, much later, you find a -similar sea, though its flood does not rise so high and there is a -crisper rustle that is yet a large-hearted and generous sound. Under -willows there is a silky crispness that is quite different from either. - -So, blindfolded and led from one part of the forest to another, you -might tell every tree under which you passed by the sound of its dead -leaves under foot. So, too, knowing your tree, you might tell with -accuracy the time of the year, the definite week of autumn in which your -pilgrimage was taking place. Under the oaks to-day, though but a few -leaves are yet on the ground, you would feel the round acorns under -foot, and you would know that these were not chestnuts because of the -lack of burs; so, too, you might know that you were under the white oak -instead of the black by the different shape of the acorn. - -If your foot-sense were not sufficiently subtle to note this -difference--though if you were much addicted to life in the open -woodland it would be--you still might, blindfolded, know the white oak -from the black by the sweetness of its acorns. I sometimes think they -are more pleasing to the palate than the chestnuts, though they have a -slight astringency. Yet their meat is sweeter and, aside from the slight -bitterness, has more of flavor, as you will see if you will test first -one and then the other. I think you will agree with me that the chestnut -flavor is pale and insipid in comparison. - -The black-oak acorn is a different fruit. Like the tree it seems to have -absorbed all the bitterness of the wood. The white oak always seems to -me to glow with the generous hospitality of the sunshine, the black oak -to be morose and vindictive, a tree of dull days and shadow. I have -little excuse for this feeling, unless it is because of their fruits. - -The two trees grow side by side in the woodland, the black, if anything, -the more vigorous in growth, yet the scaly whiteness of the bark of the -one always seems hospitable, the rugose blackness of that of the other -unfriendly. So with the fruit; the rich flavor of the white oak acorns -is inviting, the meracious bitterness of the others is repellent. Out of -the fact of this palatableness on the part of the one and repulsiveness -on the part of the other has grown a singular condition in the southern -states, where the trees as here once grew in equal profusion, side by -side in the forests. - -There it is the custom, and has been since the days of first settlement, -to turn swine loose in the forests, where in the autumn they fatten on -“mast,” which is an old English name still in use there, but little -known in New England. It means forest nuts of any kind, but especially -acorns. These southern, forest-feeding swine have so loved the -white-oak mast that they have in a large measure kept the trees from -reproducing by eating all the seeds. The black-oak mast, on the -contrary, they have rejected, as any wise animal would, leaving the -seeds to be scattered about in profusion and reproduce more black oaks. -Hence a scarcity of white oaks in southern forests where they would be -welcome. - -The oaks are more tenacious of their leaves than any other deciduous -tree, though they are fairly early in showing autumn tints. Long after -the reds of other trees of the wood are buried in the brown drifts that -cover the roots from the too fierce frosts of winter the rich deep -crimsons and red-browns of the oak remain. Indeed, the leaves of some -species hold on all winter, and let go their grip only reluctantly when -pushed off by the swelling buds of next spring’s growth. - -Their rustle, as they cling to the twigs in December, makes the wood -vocal as the winter winds sift the snow softly down among them. -Oftentimes before you see the first fine, far-apart flakes of the coming -storm you may hear them pat here and there on a resonant oak leaf, and -their presence makes the winter outlook more perfectly and comfortingly -bleak as the fine flakes whirl through them. Snow amongst perfectly bare -twigs fails of its full effect. You need the shiver of its sifting among -the dry, persistent leaves of the oaks to realize all the beauty of its -bleakness. - -Now, however, the rich wine reds, the vivid crimsons, and the deep -maroons that deepen on the one leaf into bluish purples and on the other -into violet-browns mingled, as they are yet with the vigorous -chlorophyl-green of the untinted leaf, these all are beginning to make -up the more permanent glory of the full tide of autumn color. Come with -me, if you will, at sunset to the scrubby hill where three years ago the -woodchoppers swept through like locusts, devouring every green thing -that lay in their path. - -They left behind them only gray stumps, dead limbs, and devastation. Yet -hardly were their backs turned before the surgent vitality of spring -swept upward from the earth-sheltered roots and burgeoned from the gray -stumps in adventitious shoots that flushed purple with the excess of -young blood in them. Four feet they grew, these new shoots, that year, -and as much more the next, and now another forest of young oaks, black, -white, red, scarlet, and scrub romps where the elder forest stood in -majesty. Its leaves are fewer in number, but of enormous size and full -of the riot of young life, with all the vigor of the parent tree sent up -from the great deep roots. - -Now their tide of sap is flowing back and the deep bronze-green is -turning to the richest crimson and lake. Through these the golden -radiance of the sun is drowned in a sea of bacchanal glory that makes -the eye drunk and bewildered with its wine of crimson fires. To look -toward it directly is to face a furnace of vivid liquid flames that -makes the whole world green with flying blots of complementary color as -you look away. Looking north or south to relieve the eye, you find that -the rich color is still caught cunningly in the curves and facets of the -leaves that glow like fire-rubies set in mosaics of chrysoprase, -almandite, garnet, and carnelian. Turn again so that your back is to the -sun and your eye rests among soft depths of umber lighted by rich reds -that do not dazzle and flanked by tans and beryl. It is a world of glow -and warmth and color that will long outlast the scarlets and yellows of -the other deciduous trees, and even in the dead of winter the sunset -fires will glow and flare in remembrances of these colors in the -still-clinging leaves. - - - - -THE DAY THAT SUMMER CAME BACK - - -The summer came back to-day, trailing gossamer garments over the pasture -and adding the romance of August to the glamour of the mid-October -woods. Where luminous purples hung deep in the shadows of the distance -it painted them with a soft gray-blue bloom like that upon the grape. -The undulating hills were as soft with it as if they were waves of the -sub-tropic reaches of the Gulf Stream, where a wonderful film of purple -efflorescence shimmers as far as eye may see. - -The tan of hickories and the tawny yellow of chestnuts seem to break -through this haze as the floating gulf weed does off Turk’s Island or -among the Bahamas, and when birds lift from the tree tops and sail away, -it is as if a school of flying fishes were darting across your steamer’s -prow. The softly-breathing southern air is welling up from this -mid-ocean river of mysterious romance and floating films of dreams all -along our too clear-cut hills. - -To-morrow the wind will be in the northwest again, the morning sun will -glint on fields that are hoar with frost, and in the afternoon the Blue -Hills will be blue no more, but brown with the rustling tannin of dead -scrub oak leaves seen too clearly,--gray with granite angles, and -sharply cut against a sky from which all dreams have fled. We had -thought the summer too long and too hot, we welcomed the crispness and -vigor of autumn, but to-day we walked abroad with joy in the warmth -that again thrills us as with a fine touch of youth come back, and as -little crinkles of heat shimmer upward from the brown fields we push -forward, eager to bathe in it all once more. - -All the out-door world seems dreamy with the same delight. The blue jays -flutter back and forth on softer wing, and their usual strident clangor -is subdued to an almost caressing babble, in which you think you hear -the tones of spring love-making. They know the feel of nesting weather, -and though it is but for a day it soothes them to happy response. This -morning a robin, sure that spring had come again, sat up on the elm tree -outside my window and greeted it with full-throated song, just as he had -in June, and all day long there has been twittering of birds in the -pasture and the forest. - -Only a few of our host of summer visitor song birds remain, and the -great wave of southward migration has passed us, yet to-day the pasture -was vocal with the twittering of late passing warblers, and some even -sang, _sotto voce_, to a sand-dance accompaniment of rustling leaves. -The myrtle warblers were busy among the blue-gray, waxy, aromatic -berries of the bayberry, which is their favorite food. The crop is good -this year, portions of the pasture being almost blue with the close-set -berries, and I think the myrtle warblers will linger long with us. -Indeed, they have been reported as staying all winter when the bayberry -supply is ample and sheltered from the worst of the north winds. - -If they do the robins will stay with them, for the crop of cedar -berries is a good one also. Almost all the red cedars have some, and -some are so thick-set with them that their bronze-green, now yellowing a -little with the lessening sap, is all lightened up with an alluring -blue. I do not blame the robins for lingering long with the cedar -berries. I like them myself. They are a little dry, but very pleasantly -sweet; and after the sweetness is gone there lingers on the palate a -spicy aromatic flavor which is most enticing. - -Some of our Norfolk County swamps are so thickly set with swamp white -cedars that it is almost impossible for a man to push his way through -their young growth. That north wind that can cut its way to the heart of -these must be keen indeed, and here, when the berries are plentiful, you -may find not only robins, but now and then a bluebird, and more -frequently partridge woodpeckers, all winter long. - -We had a killing frost only a night or two ago, the thermometer in -sheltered positions marking twenty-five to twenty-eight degrees. It -withered the grape leaves and took all tender things of the gardens and -fields. Such a temperature for a long autumn night one would think would -be death to those frail creatures of summer,--the butterflies. Yet -to-day I saw a monarch soaring on strong red wings about the top of a -great pine tree, sixty feet in air, seemingly seeking food among the -resinous tips. - -Across the fields a sulphur flitted his dainty way like a yellow fleck -of animated sunshine. A few grizzled goldenrod and frost-bitten asters -still bloom feebly for him, but in the swamp, undismayed, the -witch-hazel twists its soft, yellow petal-fingers and sends out dainty -perfume for his delectation. Over at the clubhouse a hunter’s butterfly -and two well-preserved specimens of the painted lady sunned themselves -in warm spots on the shingles. - -In spite of the summerlike quality of the day these seemed anxious. Now -and then they fluttered eagerly about the building trying window -fastenings and poking their heads into cracks, seemingly trying -desperately to get in. They tried on the shady sides of the building as -well as on the sunny, and though I cannot prove that it was not mere -aimless wandering, it seemed to me to be done with a definite design. I -think the painted ladies were hunting shelter in expectation that the -day was a weather breeder. I think they knew that more cold weather was -sure to follow, and though they had found shelter in which they were -able to weather the first cold snap, they feared lest the next be too -much for them, and hoped to get inside in some crevice next to a stove -funnel. - -Some butterflies, notably the _Antiopa vanessa_, which appears sometimes -on warm days in February, winter successfully. Probably the _vanessa_ is -particularly resistant to cold. Probably also he has a peculiar faculty -for finding shelter and safety, and I think the two hardy examples of -_Pyrameis cardui_ showed signs of some of the same instinct. - -Later, in the full heat of the afternoon, when the thermometer stood at -eighty degrees, I stood by the side of a long, straight country road -leading north and south. One monarch butterfly after another was soaring -along this road, seemingly not in haste, but making, nevertheless, a -speed of six or seven miles an hour. And every one of them was heading -due south on the trail of the one ahead, as if in a game of -follow-your-leader. Was the leader a wise old butterfly who had made the -long southern road before, and were these others monarchs of this year’s -growth following him that they might reach the goal in safety? - -Someone wiser than I may answer this, but if he does I shall ask him how -he knows. - -The _Anosia plexippus_, which is another name for the monarch, has -fluttered about this road all summer long, never going outside his usual -round from one flower clump to another. The cold snap of three days -before may have wakened primal instincts in him and sent him on his -southern migration, just as these may have set the _Pyrameis_ to -fluttering about the clubhouse, where there might be sheltered spots in -which to try to pass the winter in safety. Or the compelling force may -have been something entirely different. Who can ever know? - -All along the borders of the swamp the witch-hazel is working out its -peculiar and mysterious destiny. It is not this belated summer day, -however, that has brought out its fragrant yellow blossoms. They -unfolded just as cheerfully in the killing frost of three nights ago. -Witch-hazel nuts are ripe now, the witch-faced husks splitting open and -showing the glossy black kernels within, about as big as an apple seed, -shaped like the enticing black eyes of the witch herself. - -All among these nuts grow the scrawny blooms, sending out a delicate -fragrance which is as soft and fragile as that of early spring -flowers,--a refined and pleasing scent that brings a thought of -far-away apple blossoms. Yet on this sunny day you may not catch this -odor unless you put your face close to the flowers, for the vigor of the -sun draws up the smell of tannin from all the dry leaves underfoot till -the whole world seems a tea factory. Should the rustle of these leaves -in the light autumn breeze be the silken swish of trailing Oriental -garments, and slant-eyed people appear under pyramid hats and begin to -gather them and pack them in chests marked with strange pencilings like -those on the end of a red-winged blackbird’s egg, I for one would not be -surprised. - -The blackbird himself is an Oriental mystic in disguise, and he marks -the names of his children in Chinese characters round the big end of -each egg. The next time you look into a blackbird’s nest you notice if -this is not so. - -If you wish the odor of the witch-hazel blooms you must go to the swamp -a morning after a showery night. Then the odor of the dead leaves will -have been all washed out of the air, and the faint, fine fragrance of -the latest flowers of the season flits daintily out to greet you as you -fare down the path. - -Yet, though flowers are rare on the third week in October and the -pungency of dead leaves pervades the swamp, the upland pastures have a -fine fragrance of their own,--a perfume so dainty and alluring that you -look for its source in bewilderment, knowing that at this time of year -no flowering shrub, no slender-blossoming vine, remains to float it down -the wind. - -It is not the pitchy aroma of the white pines. These have just carpeted -all the floors of their house anew with last year’s leaves. The new -ones are not pitchy, and that resinous smell which the midsummer sun -distills is hardly to be noticed in the wood. Nor are the pasture cedars -to be thanked. Their prim, close-wrapping branches give forth a woodsy -smell when bruised. It is not a perfume, and it comes only with turmoil. -The soft southern wind bears no particle of it to your wistful senses. -The hemlocks stand, beautiful but darkly morose, on the north side of -the hill, and give forth no scent. - -I searched the pasture long before I found it. Coming out from under the -white pines into an open glade on the more barren soil, where the pitch -pines begin to climb the slope, it always seemed stronger than anywhere -else. It was as if rose-crowned Cytherea and all her attendant nymphs -had just passed from perfumed baths and gone upward through the wood. -If the soft moss had shown the heel marks of dainty sandals I should not -have looked further. It was as possible that the garments of passing -nymphs should have shed sweet odors on the glade as that these should -float serenely there when all the flowers were dead. I paused among the -pitch pines to consider the matter, and one of them thrust its branch -tip directly into my face. - -Then I thought I knew. The same fragrance emanated from the pitch-pine -branch, stronger, indeed, somewhat more resinous, I thought, but -practically the same. Six clubs crown the tip of every pitch-pine -branch, one standing erect like a plume in the center, five arranged -about its base at equal distances, not unlike a five-pointed star. These -are the new shoots for next year, in rudimentary form to be sure, but -all modeled carefully on what is to be. - -There is the vigorous stem and the leaves as green as they will ever be -again, indeed I think greener. The whole thing, which will be a perfect -shoot a foot long, is compacted into a solid club less than an inch in -length. Enclosing this is a fibrous husk which wraps it from all cold. -Howsoever bitter the weather the life warmth of the young shoots is most -carefully protected by this wrapping. But there is more than this. An -air-tight, waterproof coating of hardened pitch is outside of the whole, -completing an exceedingly neat, tasteful, and effective seal. - -The pitch-pine mother trees have completed their preserving and now sit -back and radiate perfume in satisfaction and kindly good will toward the -whole world, for this slightly resinous sweetness does not come at all -from the pitch-covered buds on the branch tips as I first thought. It -seems to emanate from the whole tree. Cut a branch and take it home with -you. Strip leaves and buds from it if you will; then smell the wood. It -is there. But more than from anywhere else it seems to come from the -mature leaves,--those which have borne the burden and the heat of the -summer, and now are losing their rich green in a ripening which befits -maturity and work well done. - -All the evergreens take on this slight tendency to a mellow yellow as -the autumn waxes. It is due, no doubt, to the lessening of the sap in -the leaves. All winter they will hold it, and when the joy of spring -sends his lifeblood bounding back again, it will fade and leave them -vigorously green once more. - -Crossing the glade again on my homeward way I plucked branches of -juniper so thickly studded with blue berries that there seemed scarcely -room for the scaly-pointed leaves, and in so doing I stumbled upon the -real secret of the dainty odor left by the goddess and her train. For -the matured shoots and leaves of the juniper give off a fragrance that -is as much more dainty than that of the pitch pine as that is more -dainty than the strongly resinous odor of the white pine when cut or -bruised. - -Cytherea must have smiled upon the humbler juniper as she passed, and -the dwarfed and stunted shrub must have caught the warmth of her eyes -full in the heart, for it sits snug as the days shorten and radiates a -happiness that is perfume, and sends the thought of the goddess to all -who pass that way. The stronger odor of the pitch pine carries it far -on the soft south wind across the glade and down the path through the -pasture, but this is only the vehicle. The dainty essence of perfume -which stops you as if a soft hand fell upon your arm floats from the -loving heart of the rough and lowly juniper. - -The sun of this day on which summer came back set in a pale sky that -flushed with a tint of rose leaves, burning long before it died to -ashes,--the cool, gray ashes of autumn twilight. Against this the -slender tracery of birch twigs stood outlined delicately. Some leaves -still cling to the birches, and these were silhouetted against the -pale-rose glow in a soft haze that made a shadowy presentment of -springtime all along the western sky. The year in its second childhood -thus slips happily away from us in dreams of its youth. Through the -August midday of the pitch-pine grove we pass to the home path among the -birches, and though October dusk slips its cool hand into ours, it is -only to lead us toward a western horizon where springtime seems still to -wait for us wistfully. - - - - -WHEN AUTUMN PASSES - - -Last night the superstitious leaves, forced to part from the home branch -and begin a journey on Friday, knocked on wood as they went by, hoping -thus to make a change in their luck, for the omens were all bad. The -gibbous moon was peering over the eastern wood and they saw it over -their left shoulders. Hence in their fall they turned round three times, -still for luck! - -They suspected also that they were being sent off in batches of thirteen -and shivered lonesomely all the way to earth, where they scrambled -together in groups and held their breaths, listening. Now and then one -of them saw a ghost, and rustled the fact to the others, who took up -the dreadful story with little spatting sounds of terror till all rose -like a flock of frightened birds and shuddered into scrambling heaps -behind tree trunks and in fence angles. They made the night eerie with -their outcry. As fresh platoons came down the wood-knocking had the -effect of xylophone solos, the dead march in Saul played by goblins in -the lonesome trees that tossed their bare arms to the sky in mute grief. - -All the out-door people seemed sorrowing, and more than half a prey to -superstitious forebodings, for the passing of the hunter’s moon marks -the passing of autumn. November, it is true, is rated as an autumn month -in the almanac, but I have no doubt that The Old Farmer knew better. He -had to divide the year into four equal segments, and he did it very -well. If November must be classed with either autumn or winter it -belongs rather with autumn. But it simply ought to be classed with -neither. - -November is a month by itself, just as March is, and neither has more -than the most casual connection with the season that has gone before. -The year might better be divided into two seasons,--the one of growth, -the other of rest, with November and March sort of dead centers, as they -say in mechanics, interstellar space as they say in astronomy--voids -between the two. - -These wood-knocking leaves are the last from the elms. The native maples -and ash trees were bare long ago, and though some of the still birches -hold their yellow nimbus, many others are bare already. Only the oaks -stand up to be counted with their rich crowns of red transmitting the -sunlight till those at the right angle between you and the sun flash -like fire rubies. - -Yet, when I say this it is true only of the native trees of the forest. -None of the foreigners hereabout seem to ripen up in glory or, indeed, -to understand what a winter is before them and duly prepare for it. The -purple lilacs of my garden hedge show a green that may be a little -grimmer than it was in midsummer, but there is no hint of a ripening -color in them nor have they lost a leaf. Their pith is trained to -continental winters still, and though they have faced a half-century of -New England cold, they still have the habit of the Persian uplands, -which are their birthplace. - -The white lilacs haven’t even that dark green, but are a gentle -shade,--almost like that of early springtime, when the leaves are hardly -as yet half grown. The apple and pear trees have lost some leaves and -others are browned by the frosts we have had, but none of those -remaining show autumn coloring as we know it. They are simply darkened -and grizzled. The Norway maples are showing a bronzy-yellow now, but -holding their leaves bravely still, as if in the memory that, though the -winter night of their homeland is long and dark, its shores are bathed -by the Gulf Stream and the cold is late in coming. I think none of the -imported trees and shrubs of Europe show the gorgeous coloring of our -native ones, though they may have been here long enough to have been -trained to it by the climate, if that is the cause of it. - -Englishmen know nothing of the glory of autumn foliage until they come -to America and see it. Then they are duly impressed, though you cannot -always make them acknowledge it. Search English literature if you will, -through prose and verse, and you will find no reference to any gorgeous -reds and yellows of autumn. They don’t have them. Thomson in his -“Seasons” speaks, referring to autumn, of - - “ ... a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, - Of every hue from wan, declining green to sooty dark.” - -It is a pity Wordsworth could not have been born in Cumberland County, -Maine, instead of Cumberland County, England, and have tramped the hills -of, say, West Mansfield, instead of Westmoreland, that our rich autumn -ripening might have fruited in his verse. I wonder that the English do -not plant our maples and our red oaks in their parks. It would be an -interesting experiment to watch for fifty years or a hundred and see -whether the trees changed to the English habit and lost their gorgeous -hues, and whether, if they retained them, some English poet did not rise -to the occasion and make them immortal in splendid verse. - -Perhaps it would all be a failure. Our American men and women, -transplanted, so soon lose their native characteristics and ripen, -over-ripen in fact, into English men and women that there lurks with us -an underlying fear that the trees might suffer from the insidious blight -also. Perhaps it has been tried with the trees; it would be interesting -to know. - -I think the leaves were afraid to go home to earth in the dark last -night, because it is rarely the custom of leaves to part from the tree -in the night time. On still nights you may camp beneath a maple whose -leaves have long glowed red and seemingly been ready to fall, and not -hear a single spirit-rapping of falling leaf against limb. The frost -may be white upon them in the morning, but not until the rising sun -touches them will they loose their hold and fall to the waiting earth. -Then with the kindly light upon them you may hear, if you listen -intently, the little chirp of contentment with which they let go and -flutter quietly down to their winter’s rest. On a still frosty morning -when the sun has first touched the trees these faint clucks make an -infinitesimal chorus that is as sprightly as the morning light. - -The xylophone ghost-march of last night was a far different thing. It -came with little puffs of south wind after a bright, still day,--puffs -that died out as soon as they had done the work, and left the night -white and still under the gibbous moon. On all the leaves that had not -scurried into shelter a white frost fell that filled them with -ice-needles until they were crisp, and then sprouted miniature -ghost-ferns all along their stems and upper sides. - -Thus they lay stark until the white of the night gloomed into the gray -of a daybreak fog that seemed to scatter all life in a formless void. -After leaves have once been thoroughly frozen they dance about in the -breeze no more. The forming and melting of ice crystals breaks up their -cells and leaves them sodden and no longer elastic. They sag and sink -and the chemic forces of the earth soon begin to work on them and -resolve them into salts and humus that will go the rounds and form and -nourish new leaves for another year. - -You may see the ghost of autumn go up, these last mornings of October, -in this dense white fog that often lingers late into the day. Last -night was breathless with frost, after the leaves had done their ghost -dancing, until the wan moon had begun to cushion down in the velvety -blackness of the west and the gray of false dawn had stopped the winking -of low-hung eastern stars. - -The world was blank with silence. Until now, no matter how dark the -night or how still, you had but to listen outdoors to hear the pulse of -nature beat rhythmically, to hear the blood surging and singing through -all her arteries. In that last hour before dawn the pulse had ceased and -the blood stood stagnant. Then some outside presence held the mirror of -the universe down close to the lips of the earth to see if she breathed. -At first it was unclouded. - -Then little wraiths of white mist shuddered up from meadowy hollows and -others danced in bog tangle as will-o’-the-wisps might have done two -months ago. These quivered together in soft gray masses that shut out -the meadows and swamps, absorbing them and numbing them into a white -nothingness. It was neither a rising tide nor a growth, but a sort of -absorption. From my hilltop, in spite of the gathering darkness that -seemed to be crowded together by advancing day, I could see the world -gradually slipping back through chaos into the white glimmering -nothingness of the nebular hypothesis. - -On such mornings, even after the white light of dawn has filtered -through this gray darkness and made its opaqueness visible, the world -stays chloroformed. The keen frost chill which has endured until the -coming of the fog is merged in the dense damp cold of this which goes -deep. The frost chill just touches the surface and does not penetrate. -It numbs your fingers or tingles your ears maybe, but it gives the blood -a fillip that makes it dance merrily, and you are warm though it is -cold. The fog chill works in your marrow and you are cold inside first. - -I think the birds know the night before when one of these marrow-numbing -fogs that wrap all the ghosts of autumn in their folds are coming on, -for they seem to seek closer shelter than usual in the heart of the -evergreens, and even when the cold, gray light of dawn filters through -the opaqueness they still resolutely hold their heads under their wings. -There is no song on a morning like this, no cheery chirping even. They -all know that they will get bronchitis if they try it. - -The red squirrels are a little hoarse already; they have been caught by -a little one earlier in the season and they have no mind to add to it. -So they stay snug. They have made their winter nests now, often in the -close, crinkly limbs of a large birch, often in a good-sized cedar that -stands well among other trees, that they may have easy access to the -squirrel highway. Some of them are in hollow trees and others still have -taken a crow’s nest for their foundation and have built a dome over it. - -Wherever it is placed the material and architecture is the same,--a -soft, silky lining of the finest shreds of the loose-hanging outer bark -of the red cedar, wound round and round with coarser fiber of the same -material, the whole making a round ball as big as a derby hat, or -bigger, the walls being several inches thick. Entrance to this is by a -round hole, just big enough for the slender animal to squeeze in from a -convenient limb. The elasticity of the cedar fiber practically closes -this hole after the squirrel has passed, and the family may cuddle -together there snug through the coldest snap. - -On a bright frosty morning you may hear the shrill pæan of the red -squirrel ringing through the wood as soon as he can see. Then he is out -and alert. On mornings like this when the chill fog hangs dense I never -hear him, and I am quite sure he sticks close to his family, cuddled up -in comfort in the middle of that warm nest. - -The morning light breaks through such a vast cold cloud with difficulty, -indeed we may not truthfully say that the morning breaks. Rather, it -oozes, coming so slowly that without a watch in the pocket you would -not know the lateness of the hour. By-and-by, if you watch the east -carefully, you will be surprised to see how high the pale image of a -morning sun is riding. - -On such a morning few leaves fall. The chill dampness seems to revive -their waning energies and they apply them to clinging just where they -are. Perhaps the chill reminds them dimly that they still are protectors -of next year’s leaf buds that nestle close under most leafstalks and may -be injured if the leaf is torn away too soon. These are well wrapped in -tiny fur overcoats or resinous wrappers, to be sure, but I think, as the -leaves seem to, that if anything could penetrate these clever coverings -it would be one of these morning fogs which mark the passing of -October. - -But, though to us who stand at the bottom of the fog that ghostly image -of a morning sun looks pale and impotent, its work is really vigorous -and aggressive. Looking down on it from a sufficiently high hill we may -see it shredding the upper surface into breakfast food and eating its -way so rapidly downward that the rolling billows of mist ebb before its -rays like a Bay of Fundy tide. - -Long before mid-forenoon it has finished its repast. From below the fog -seems to gradually grow warmer and to be dissolved in its own moisture. -The frost that crisped underfoot before the mists began to shiver -together in the lowlands now glistens as dew under the yellow sun. The -day warms toward the noon and we note with satisfaction what a perfect -one it is. But not till the little winds of afternoon begin to bustle in -among the trees do the leaves again begin to fall. The moisture is -again dried out of their petioles and the xylophone solo tattoos once -more the elfin tune to which they march on. - -But now they do not go shuddering and in superstitious terror. Instead, -there is a lilt to the music and they dance their way down. Some jig it -alone. Others waltz cosily; but by far the larger number like best the -sociable square dance and foot it in groups to the merry-go-round of the -Portland Fancy. It is in such mood that we like best to say good-by to -them. - - - - -NOVEMBER WOODS - - -November is Nature’s stock-taking month, when she suspends her labors, -stands aloof from her work, and counts up the dozens, noting them all on -her list before she carefully puts them into the winter storehouse. To -the very last of October her factory is still running, though on part -time. By the first of December she has put things away. - -November is the month in which she counts up the gain or loss and is -happy or disconsolate, according to the tally. Why else these wonderful -clear days on which you may see without a spyglass clear to the other -end of your universe? On some of these days Nature smiles in delight -over her success, and we say, this is the real Indian summer. She is -pleased with the perfection and profuseness of the product. On others -you will see her eyes cloud with tears, and sometimes a perfect passion -of northeast tempest blots the landscape and drowns the world in a flood -of rain. In this case she has discovered that the workers in some -special department have been lazy or hampered by some unfortunate -condition and their output is a failure. - -There are years when the nuts do not mature and the squirrels must -migrate or starve. On others the drought so dries the upland grasses -that those of next year may not sprout as usual from the roots but must -be propagated by seed, which of itself is scarce also because of the -dryness. Or excessive rains so flood the lowlands that a thousand swamp -and meadow products rot and write the word failure large over a whole -department. - -For Nature’s successes are by no means easily won. She lays such plans -for a hickory tree that if all the blossoms which open in May were to -produce fruit the trees’ tough limbs would be torn from their sockets -with the weight of it long before maturity. Some years, because of storm -or frost, the tree’s crop is a total failure, but the resourceful -mother, the moment she notes the death of the embryos, sets the wood to -making a more vigorous growth than would have been possible in a -fruiting season. Then, though she may weep in November over the loss of -nuts, she will be able to smile through her tears at the thought that -next year the tree will have far more ripe twigs for the bearing of -nuts. Or the tree may produce a thousand nuts and the squirrels be too -busy to plant more than a dozen of them. What is true of the hickory -tree is true of all other creatures of the vegetable and animal world. -Death stalks close upon the heels of birth, and a million fragile lives -pass out unnoticed to one that greets our eyes in maturity. No wonder -some years November is a month of wailing and Nature lets the storms of -December blot the tally sheet with the white forgiveness of the snow -before the almanac will agree that the month is half over. - -The boundaries of the real month are thus not half so firmly set as that -which the calendar proclaims. October may on the one end and December on -the other so overlap it, some years, that Nature has hardly time for her -bookkeeping. This year I think November came a day or two earlier than -the calendar figures it, for the last days of the calendar month of -October went out with a perfect paroxysm of weeping. - -Nature, even before she fairly got her tablets out for the tally, had a -terrible pet about something. I think her grief must be because of the -carelessness of man during the summer’s and autumn’s unprecedented -drought whereby he has killed with his fires so much of the woodland -growth. For other than this it seems to me that the year’s work has been -very successful. Never were wild fruits more plentiful. Only on the -driest of the upland pastures was there failure. There the fruit set in -more than the usual quantity, but in some cases shrivelled before coming -to maturity. - -There was a tremendous crop of chestnuts this year, with enough hickory -and hazel nuts to make the squirrels smile and work overtime in laying -them up for the winter. From the June berries which purpled the shad -bush to the wild apples that still hang on the woodland trees, gleaming -pale-yellow among the rugged tracery of bare branches, production has -been plentiful and picking peaceful. Hardly a rainy night, never a rough -storm, did we have from the first of May until the end of September. All -those trees whose fruiting depends upon windborne pollen which can only -float in dry weather had perfect conditions for fertilization. So with -those plants, whether shrub or tree or annual or perennial herbs, that -depend on insects for the same service. There was no time lost on -account of rain. - -As it was in the vegetable world, so it has been with animal life, and -particularly with those birds which nest on the ground. The mother bird -may conceal her nest so carefully that neither skunk nor fox nor -predatory boys can find it. She cannot conceal it from the -rapidly-rising water of a June flood which will drown her nestlings or -so chill her eggs that they will fail to hatch. A long heavy rain at -just about hatching time may almost wipe out the young birds of a season -among certain varieties. I read recently a report from Maine stating -that the partridges are particularly plentiful in that State this year. -This, the report went on to say, was because the hedgehog bounty of some -years ago had made a scarcity of hedgehogs. Therefore, as the hedgehogs -no longer ate the partridge eggs, partridges were increasing in number. - -The State of Maine porcupine, commonly called hedgehog, though purists -decry the custom, will eat the handle off your canoe paddle, the floor -off your camp, or the boots off your feet. I dare say he eats partridge -eggs when in his short-sighted, clumsy wanderings he happens to find -them, but I doubt if he does enough of this to make him responsible for -a shortage in the partridge crop. I believe the partridges are -particularly plentiful Down East this year because there was never a -cloud in the sky nor a drenching rain from the time the eggs were laid -until the young birds were fully fledged. I know that is what happened -here in Massachusetts and, as a consequence, the young of ground-nesting -birds have had more than their usual opportunity to grow up. - -This is true of partridges, and the application is apt, for the -partridge is not a migrating bird, nor even a wanderer. He clings to -the particular section of woodland where he was brought up with a -faithfulness which is apt to prevent his reaching a green old age. You -may drive him from his covert with all the racket you are able to make. -He may leave with vigor and directness that would seem to prove that he -has through tickets for Seattle. Yet, if you sit quietly by in a -position which commands a good view of the approaches, you will before -long see the flip of a brown wing that is bearing him back again. He has -gone no farther than the dense shelter of a neighboring pine grove, -whence he watches out until he thinks it safe to come home. - -I take it that the same reason holds good for the plentifulness of -woodcock this fall in certain swamps which I frequent. You may know that -woodcock are plentiful in a place, even if you do not see them, by the -numbers of little round holes in moist, soft ground, usually where the -swamp begins to give way to sandy upland. Here the bird goes jabbing for -angleworms, which are his chief diet. I have never been able to catch -them at it, though I have often noticed the borings in the spot whence I -have just flushed the bird. In fact, I have never seen a live woodcock -on the ground anyway. - -The bird is so built that I and other predatory creatures will not be -able to do it. His coloring is well adapted to blend with the -dusky-browns and black of the low ground which he frequents. He does not -have to look for his food. He feels for it. Given the proper piece of -ground to contain angleworms, he has but to probe with that long, -sensitive bill and haul them out when the sense of touch tells him that -one is there. For - -[Illustration: He does not have to look for his food] - -this purpose the end of the upper mandible is somewhat flexible and -moves so as to nip the worm when he feels it. - -If we could see him thus engaged I think we would understand clearly why -a woodcock is so peculiarly built. His eyes are set so far back in his -head that the bird has a grotesque appearance. But in this very fact -lies a large factor of his safety. Wild animals that hunt woodcock may -not slip up on them unseen while they are feeding. The woodcock’s nose -may be in the mud, but his eyes, set absurdly far back on his head, are -then just right for seeing all that is going on. Let there be but the -slightest hint of danger near by and the bird goes straight up in the -air in a tremendous burst of speed. - -Woodcock hunters claim that this speed is so great that the bird is -invisible till he reaches a height of four or five feet. I am inclined -to believe them for I have never yet seen a flushed bird till he got -shoulder high, though he may have come up right in front of my nose. So -vigorous are the strokes of his wings during this flight that the stiff -wing feathers make a shrill whistling which is peculiar to the bird. -Rapidity of flight seems to be in the main exhausted by this effort, -however, for after they get fairly launched they seem to go rather -slowly and clumsily. In the case of the woodcock, as in that of the -partridge, the rainless spring and early summer seem to have given the -birds a chance to bring their full complement of young through to -maturity. - -So, looking over the result of harvest and round-up in pasture and -woodland, I can see no reason why Nature should shed many tears or go -into any tantrums over the results of her busy season. These seem to me -to be above the average, and I look forward to a bright and sunny -November, during which she will count up the finished product with all -good cheer. - -The tally of young brought to successful maturity is all that the animal -world has to show for the success of its department during the season of -growth. But nuts and fruit and ripe seeds are only part of the work of -the trees and shrubs. All the time that they are busy producing that two -feet or less of woody growth, all the time the growing and ripening of -seeds is going on, there is a further and very important labor to be -attended to. That is the production of next year’s buds. This is no -haphazard matter, nor is it left until the other things are out of the -way, but is carefully begun and patiently carried on through the -summer, early autumn seeing everything complete. - -The falling of leaves and ripe fruit shows these hopes for future -foliage and flower revealed for the first time. Stand on a knoll in the -pasture and look over the tops of shrubs and trees on these keen and -clear November days and you will see that the most beautiful colors of -the year are there waiting your eye after you thought that all color had -flamed to its climax and died in the dead ashes of autumn memories. -Grays that are incredibly soft and coot in the vigorous young limbs of -the maples warm into tender reds on the twig tips where the next year’s -buds sit snug. - -All this year’s shoots of the swamp blueberry bushes are a restful -green, but at the tips these, too, ripen into red, while on the higher -ground the black huckleberries and the birches show the same color till -the landscape rolls away from you in a warm and cuddley glow that takes -the nip out of the wind. Looking on these you know that the pasture -cannot be cold, however deep the snows to come or however low the -mercury in the thermometer may fall. As the winter comes on this blanket -of warm red, spread all over the bare trees and shrubs, will deepen in -hue and with the first promise of spring flush into a lively pink that -melts again into slender green with the passing of frost from the roots -and the first soft rains of April. Herein is the better half of the -harvest of the year,--a harvest not of fruition but of promise. The -out-door world ripens hope in the same crop that has given us -fulfilment. - -How full of hope, of promises, of matured plans and energy these rosy -buds are you may not know till you step down among them and test their -virility and perfection. Here is the azalia, its pinky twigs tipped with -swollen, soft green buds as big as your little finger tip. Till the -leaves fell nobody thought the azalia had been doing anything since its -rich-scented white flowers fell last July. Here is the proof of its -labors and foresight. In the hearts of these buds are next July’s -blossoms, in miniature it is true, but perfect in every appointment. - -About them are the green young leaves, vividly colored already, both -only waiting for the mysterious thrill of spring sap to push forward to -maturity, promising the leaves softly green, the blossoms vividly white, -sticky with sweetness, and adorably fragrant. If you will pull one of -the larger of the azalia buds apart you may easily see all this, and as -you do it, be haunted by the ghost of a perfume, an infinitesimally -faint promise of the rich odor yet to be. - -So, in large or small, it is with all the shrubs and trees. Each is -loaded and primed and waits but the touch of the match in the crescent -warmth of the spring sun. Then will come the yearly explosion. It is -hard to say which of these next-year promises shows most vigor, yet I -think on the whole I would give the prize to the sapling pines. Each -central shoot of these will go up in the season from fifteen to thirty -inches, and send out four or five laterals. Yet each young tree has from -eight to a dozen brown buds prepared for this, at least two centrals -which you will recognize as being larger and standing more erect. One of -these will get the start and continue the main trunk of the tree. The -other will fall back and be a lateral branch. Yet if, as often happens, -the central shoot is disabled the next strongest will take its place and -so on, if need be, till the last of the dozen buds has stepped into the -place of the lost leader. - -Sometimes, though rarely with the white pine, more often with the fir -and spruce, two will compete with equal success for this lost leadership -and you have a tree with twin tops. Usually, however, one fails in the -race and the stronger goes ahead alone. - -So, going abroad these keen November days, looking upon the world -stripped of the glamour of summer and the glory of autumn fruitage, we -see it by no means a dead and pulseless thing to be wept over and -buried. Instead, we wonder at and delight in the riot of life laid bare -by the passing of leaf and fruit. The woodland is more beautiful, the -pasture more enticing than ever. Beauty thus unadorned is adorned the -most, and we forget to sorrow over the ceasing of this year’s growth in -our joy in the promise of that for the year to be. - - - - -WINTER BIRDS’-NESTING - - -Last night the world was all soft with mist. Over on the brow of -Cemetery Hill you looked off into an illimitable distance of it. Horizon -after horizon loomed over the shoulder of its fellows as the gray-draped -hills rose one beyond the other and tiptoed softly away into the yonder -world,--so softly that you could not tell where the earth ended and the -heavens began. - -The landscape passed like an elder saint from this world to the next, -you could scarce tell when, only that you were awed and soothed with the -soft serenity of the going. In the hush that followed the soft blue -mists changed their draperies for black, in mourning for the passing of -the twilight saint, and thus night came. - -Last summer night on this hilltop was filled with voices. A million -insects chirped and sang. Tree toads trilled, amorous toads played -bagpipes all along the margin of the swamp below, and in deeper water a -thousand frogs shouted one to another in guttural diapason. A little -screech owl used to sit in the darker corner of the pines and ululate -all to himself far into the night, and here and there a songbird, -stirring in his sleep, would pipe a mellow note. A coon would whinny or -a fox would yap, and there were many other sounds whose source you might -not surely define. The forefathers who wait serenely beneath their slate -headstones all along the brow of the hill had much and pleasant company -when the year was in its prime. Now their nights are as silent as if -the world itself were dead, their company ghosts of mist as tenuous as -their own. - -The morning after such a night does not break from above; it grows. It -rises out of the earth like a soft tide, as if the mists that went to -sleep in it last night were the first of all creatures up, making all -things gray again. These tiptoe up, tangling their soft garments in the -trees and roof tops till they slip from them and pass on into the upper -spaces, where their unclothed spirits become the morning light. The -garments, clinging still to all things, remain behind as hoar frost. - -That is the way it was this morning. All the trees had white baby leaves -of infinite daintiness and ghosts of blossoms that were not real enough -for a promise. I might better call them remembrance, touched with hope. -Hardly was the touch of hope there at the earliest light. It was just -white and delicate remembrance. Then, with the thought of the sun, only -the thought for the sun himself was not to come for long, there came a -slender opalescence welling through these white garments, an iridescent -presence that you felt rather than saw, till I knew without looking to -the east that the dawn had grown out of the earth into the high heavens -and the miracle was complete. - -Out of this miracle of the birth of morning light came two pleasant -things. One was the red sun, peeping robustly in among the pines, adding -his glow to the warmth of their shelter; the other was a bustle of merry -company heralded by a salvo of elfin trumpets. A company of chickadees -came breakfasting, and with them were nuthatches. I think no one has -ever see the trumpet which the nuthatch blows, but its tiny, tin toot -is a familiar sound in the pine woods at this time of year. - -If some fay of the fairy orchestra, returning in haste from revels which -lasted till the gray of the morning, did not drop it, I cannot tell -where the nuthatch did pick it up. Its note is certainly more elfin than -bird-like and always seems to add a tiny touch of romantic mystery to -the day. - -Such a November morning is fine for birds’-nesting. You may go hunting -birds’ nests in June if you wish to, but you will not find very many, -half so many in a day as I can find now almost in a glance. Down stream -there is a little island crowded with alder and elder, milkweed and -joe-pye weed, and garlanded with virgin’s bower, where I called many -days last summer to watch the insect life that rioted about it. A bed -of milkweed bloom was each day a busy and cosmopolitan community. - -Right at my elbow as I stood in July watching this was a blackbird’s -nest. I must have brushed it more than once, but I never saw it until -to-day. To be sure, when I first went there the young blackbirds were -grown up and gone, for the nesting season with these birds is short, and -by July the young are flying about with the flock, learning to sing -“tchk, tchk, conkaree.” Had there been young or eggs in the nest the -distress of the parent birds would have warned me of its presence. -Lacking that, so cleverly was it placed for safety and concealment, I -never noticed it till the passing of the leaves left it bare. - -Ten feet away was another, a replica of the first. Among blackbirds -good form in house-building has but one accepted style. The nest is -rather deep, loosely woven of rough grass, lined with finer grasses. -Standing on the little island to-day I could not help seeing these two -nests which before I had passed a score of times without seeing, for if -June is the time of year to hunt for birds’ nests, this is the time of -year to find them. - -The birds can give you, and I really think they are right about it, many -reasons why you should not hunt for their nests in June. Looking at a -nestful of young birds, with the mother fluttering solicitously about, I -always feel as I think I should if I went into a town where I was not -acquainted and went about peeping in at the nursery windows of peoples’ -houses. My motives might be the best in the world. I might be making a -study of nestlings and nests of the human family for scientific -purposes; in fact, I might be a veritable “friendly visitor,” but I -should be fortunate if I did not fall under suspicion, become the object -of dislike, and eventually land in the police court. - -The mere too frequent inspection of the nests and eggs of some birds -will cause abandonment, and those parents who stand by do so with such -evident distress that after the briefest possible satisfactory -inspection we ought to apologize for the intrusion and step away. Many -birds will even attempt to hasten this departure by pretty vigorous -means. - -None of these objections obtains now. There are no birds in this year’s -nests, and you may gather them or tear them to pieces in analytical mood -without doing harm, at least to the birds. Down stream, ten feet from my -second blackbird’s nest, was a catbird’s. The catbird builds a better -nest than the blackbird, at least so far as strength is concerned. -Before the winter is over the grasses of the latter’s structure will be -broken and blown away by the wind or washed back to earth by rain and -snow. - -The catbird’s will surely stand until next fall, and remnants of it may -be sometimes seen in the bush the year after that. For the catbird’s -material is of more rugged quality. His foundation is often of pliant -twigs or tough bark of the wild grapevine, though the nest I have before -me as I write--the one which I could not see last summer when I passed -it at the foot of the little island--has strong, coarse grasses loosely -interwoven for its foundation. Then, within this loose, rough cup is a -layer of tough oak leaves, the dry ones of the year before, -wind-proofing the bottom of the structure. Then comes a layer of fine -black roots, I think those of alder, taken where the stream had washed -them bare. Then more oak leaves, and finally an inner lining of finer -black roots from the same source as those already used. - -The whole is firm, sanitary, wind-proof, but not air-proof, and -sufficiently cup-shaped to hold the young securely, though not so deep -as that of the blackbird. One kick would smash a blackbird’s nest to a -handful of straw. You might kick a catbird’s all about the meadow, and I -am quite sure the inner structure would remain interwoven. - -I think the reason for the difference in the two is this. Though both -often build over water and in similar situations, the blackbird has but -one brood a season, and even a frail nest will do for this. The - -[Illustration: A field mouse had appropriated this nest for an autumn -storehouse] - -catbird hardly has his first brood off the nest before preparations are -in hand for a second; and the nest which can stand two broods of riotous -youngsters in succession, even if fixed up a bit, must needs be of -fairly firm texture. - -The strength of the catbird’s nest often serves another purpose, though -I doubt if this is taken into the calculations when it is planned and -built. I found one of the half-dozen which line the brook conspicuously, -now that they may be seen at all, half full of wild cherry stones. -Evidently a field mouse had appropriated this nest for an autumn -storehouse, perhaps planning, before the weather got too cold, to roof -it over with a dome of soft grasses, this work of the field mouse being -not so very different from that of the red squirrel, only on a smaller -scale. - -Farther down stream in a rough portion of the pasture, brambly but -beautiful with barberries, is the chosen habitat of the yellow warblers -of my neighborhood. Always they build in the barberry bushes here, nor -have I ever found them anywhere else or in other bushes. It is not -difficult to find them when the pasture is in the full leafage of late -May, for you have but to go from one barberry bush to another till you -have succeeded. But the yellow warbler is a shy bird, and I have known -them to desert nest and eggs when these were too often visited. - -It is much better to hunt them now, when you have but to stand on a -little hillock and count, then pluck the nest that you prefer and take -it home with you without abraiding anybody’s feelings. The yellow -warbler mother bird seems to have a great love for the tender buff wool -of the young shoots of the cinnamon fern, which are just about ready to -shed these delicate overcoats when nesting begins with the yellow -warblers. In fact, her color scheme is perfect. - -The nest, when finished, is a symphony of pale buff and silvery grays -that shade imperceptibly toward the buff touches on the under parts of -the warbler and are lighted as with a gleam of sunlight by the bright -yellow of the remaining plumage. Yet this bright yellow has a greenish -tint that is deepened in the tender green of the young shoots of the -barberry, while the yellow itself is again reproduced in the blossoms. -No wonder this lovely little singing-bird loves a barberry bush for its -nest. It finds protection and an artistically satisfying color scheme in -the same bush. - -The silvery grays of the nest are the fine, silky, fibrous inner bark of -the milkweed, whose last year’s stems are shredded by wind and storm in -time for the nest-building. These barberry-bush-building yellow warblers -with whom I have been more or less acquainted for a quarter of a century -seem to care for little else for material, though sometimes they make -the fern fuzz more adhesive with caterpillars’ silk and line with a few -horsehairs and soft feathers. - -Yet though these nests have been invariable in material they have varied -otherwise. Some have been so firmly woven and the material so stoutly -packed as to defy the storms of a winter or two. Others have been so -frail as hardly to be found when the leaves are off. Perhaps these -slight nests are made by birds that were nestlings of the previous year -and have not yet learned the complete art of nest-building. - -Once I found one whose makers were skilled indeed. Instead of placing it -firmly in a crotch and building up with the fern wool within a netting -of fiber wound from twig to twig, as is the usual method, these had -launched boldly into a new architecture. Perhaps they had neighbored the -year before with a vireo. Anyway, they took the vireo’s plans and built -a yellow warbler’s nest on them, hanging it from a nearly horizontal -barberry fork, and finishing a fine, firm, pensile nest, vireo style, -out of yellow warbler material. I never found this nest’s successor, and -I am not sure whether, having found they could do it, they abandoned the -type for the old home style, or whether something happened to the birds, -and thus the warbler world lost budding genius. - -Only one other nest have I found that seemed to be in any way abnormal, -and this, unlike the pensile nest, seems to have had a very definite -reason for its abnormality. The hollow part which had contained the eggs -and young was in no wise different from that of all other warblers’ -nests. It was the depth and firmness of the foundation which surprised -me. This was built up to the height of an ordinary yellow warbler’s nest -before the real nest began at all, and (the young had flown) I promptly -took it home and dissected it. - -Then the murder was out. The extra height had been added to the -structure to circumvent the villainy of a cowbird. The cowbird lays her -eggs in nests of birds that are smaller than herself and there leaves -them to be hatched. She is partial to yellow warblers’ nests because the -eggs that belong there are much like hers in coloring, though smaller, -and the fraud is less likely to be detected. When hatched the young -cowbird is so much larger and stronger that it starves out the other -nestlings or crowds them out. The nest-builders in the main are foolish -enough to bring up this murderous changeling; hence cowbirds are -perpetuated. Perhaps these warblers had had one experience. - -Anyway, finding the cowbird’s egg in their nest, they had promptly -roofed it over with fern wool and fiber, built up the sides to -correspond to the addition, and gone on with their housekeeping. Here -was evidence of prompt action in an emergency in nest-building. I do not -think it possible for the birds to have lifted the cowbird’s egg over -the side of their nest and to have dropped it on the ground, which would -have been the quickest way of getting rid of it. A yellow warbler’s -nest “tumbles home” a bit at the top, as does the hull of a yacht, and I -do not think their slender claws could grasp the egg and get it over -that lip. Instead, they had done what they could,--imprisoned the -intruder egg where it could not hatch. - -I found it there, addled and nearly dried up within, and I rejoiced. The -cowbird is a light-o’-love and abandons children on other people’s -doorsteps. All such should be put in a pie. Since English sparrows -became so plentiful the cowbird has shown a decided partiality for their -nests for its abandoned offspring. I found a cowbird’s egg with those of -an English sparrow that nested in a crevice right over my front door -last spring. If cowbirds must behave in this nefarious manner it is not -so bad to find them choosing the English sparrows for their dupes. The -surprising part of it is to find the cowbird with sufficient courage to -come in under the porch. - -I’d like to watch a young cowbird growing up in a nestful of young -English sparrows. The tender nestlings of the yellow warbler have no -show, but I have an idea that here Greek would meet Greek, and after the -tug-of-war the cowbird would be among those not present. Perhaps in the -falling out both would fall out, at which most of us who love birds -would not grumble. - - - - -SOME CROWS I HAVE KNOWN - - -Already the robins that piped such a deafening morning chorus all about -us last June are swirling in great flocks about the Florida everglades, -getting up a Christmas spirit by filling their crops with holly berries -and practicing spring songs, and perhaps a little spring love-making in -the waxy shadows of the mistletoe bough. - -But not all of them. Yesterday, at sunset, I heard one that had not -joined the innumerable throng. Instead, he lingers to take his Christmas -dinner in New England, his holly the red-berried alder, his mistletoe -black instead of white, with the crowded fruit of the buckthorn. Like -his mates, a thousand miles away, he, too, sang a faint little winter -song that was like an echo of his summer jubilate, a triumphant, -light-hearted tune indeed, but not heartily sung. Twilight gloomed the -deep pine growth where we were, and though the fires of a November -sunset burned red and angry in the sky, they warmed the grove only to -the eye, while the keen north wind that had blowzed the sky with clouds -all day seemed to be seeking shelter there with us. He, too, whistled in -such keen sibillation that the faint oak-leaf rustle from the hillside -sounded like chattering teeth. - -The robin’s faint song may have been one of contentment with his lot, or -one of evening praise for as many mercies as he had received, but it -sounded far more, in that light and that biting air, like the boy who -whistles at night on the long and lonesome road to keep his courage up. -Then the song died away in his throat, for across the angry crimson of -the west flitted silhouetted black wings, and a pair of crows lighted -among the thick boughs of the higher pines to roost for the night. - -The robin muttered “tut, tut!” somewhat hysterically and slipped away to -safer shelter deep among the low boughs and denser shadow of a tree on -the edge of the open pasture. No doubt he recognized hereditary enemies -of his race, and though he was tough enough to dare a northern winter, -was unwilling to take chances with the strong black bills of these -reckless freebooters of the wilderness. And he was right. Crows rarely -eat grown robins, for they cannot catch them, but the tender, -half-fledged nestlings are the mainstay of many a crow saturnalia. - -Only too well do I remember an orgy of this sort. It was late May and -the scent of the apple blossoms filled all the orchard with delight, -just as the robins, morning and evening, filled it with song. They sang -for every cloud that crossed the sky and piped up now and then in the -full sunshine. How they found time for it all it is hard to tell, for -every nest was full of young birds that eat almost their weight in -hearty food each day. - -One day the tunes changed. Coming into the farthest corner from a -woodland trip I heard from some ancient, neglected trees, such as the -robins always love and in which were grouped three or four nests, wild -shrieks of anger and dismay from a whole chorus of robins. Coming nearer -I could hear crow voices in guttural undertones, croaking ghoulishly. - -[Illustration: Across the angry crimson of the west flitted silhouetted -black wings] - -The crow has a language, not exactly of words but of inflections and -intonations, which express the primal emotions pretty clearly. I always -think I know what he means, though undoubtedly his crow hearers -understand the finer shades of inflection better than I do. - -There is the shout of warning which says plainly, “Look out, there is -trouble right ahead of you!” A similar shout, but with different -inflection, says, “Come on. Come on. I’ll show you something worth -seeing.” There is the yell of derision and defiance with which a flock -drives an owl through the forest; there is the gentle cooing croak with -which mated birds do their love-making. There is the cry of terror and -the suppliant call for food from the full-grown young. There is also a -peculiarly devilish croak of satisfaction which they make only when -feasting on the tender nestlings of pasture birds. - -This I knew, and I rushed to the rescue of my young robins, but I was -much too late. The feast was well along toward its conclusion and the -nests were nearly empty. The parent birds, reënforced by others of the -neighborhood, were doing their best. They plunged and darted at the -marauders, plucked and clawed at them, but not one whit could they stir -them, nor did they leave at my approach, and it took vigorous and -well-directed volleys of stones from a near-by heap to drive them away. -Then they went heavily, as if gorged to such repletion that they could -hardly fly. - -I went on home sick at heart, and vowing shot-gun vengeance on all crows -thereafter; and it was not until I had carved the chicken for dinner -that I realized that there might be extenuating circumstances. For, -after all, the crows had as much right to robin for their dinner as I -had to chicken for mine. - -Crows certainly are responsible for a large amount of infant mortality -among young birds in the nesting season, however, and to my mind it is -the greatest crime of which these black robbers stand guilty. It is for -this reason that the crow is so well hated by smaller birds, and I don’t -doubt it is this consciousness of guilt that makes him hang his head and -flee away before the attack of the least of them. Blackbird and kingbird -alike will send him flapping in shamed haste for the big wood, and it -makes no difference whether or not he has attempted to burglarize their -homes or slaughter their children. - -Just as a known pickpocket is railroaded out of town by the police, -whether guilty of present misdemeanor or not, so the kingbird sends -flying any crow that crosses his path during the nesting season. You -will hear the strident, half-hissing scream of rage on the part of the -kingbird, see him launch himself from the air above and strike the back -of the flapping crow with a thump that perhaps makes the feathers fly. -The crow never attempts to strike back. He merely hangs his head and -scuttles the faster for the tall timber where is release from this -torment. I’ve never known the kingbird or any other indignant small bird -to do the crow material harm; but he certainly sends him flying. - -One August, traversing a lonely swamp, I heard a great commotion among -crows over in its duskiest, farthest corner. Slipping quietly up, I -found a number of them swooping about another, which sat on a low limb -within a few feet of the ground. This crow was making beseeching cries, -like those of a greedy youngster which still hoped to be fed, and I -thought this was the case at first, for, though by August all young -crows have long been full grown, the old birds continue to keep -oversight of them. I had no sooner come within sight than the keen birds -saw me, and away they all went except the supposed youngster, who still -kept his perch and his silence, nor did he attempt to move as I -approached and finally picked him off his perch. - -For he was no youngster, this crow, but was blind, old, and emaciated. I -think from the appearance of his eyes that he had been blind for a -considerable time, and the interesting question arises as to how he had -lived thus far. Surely he could not have found food for himself thus -for any long period of time, so perhaps the other crows had fed him -right along. - -How old crows grow to be I do not know, but whatever extreme age they -attain this one was it. I took him home and gave him the freedom of the -yard, which he accepted. I fed him, and he seemed to be glad to have a -foster parent and to have no fear. But his presence was fiercely -resented by another family, and that was the kingbirds that had nested -in a neighbor’s apple tree. The young were grown up long ago. In fact, -the kingbirds had not been seen about for some time, but the crow had no -sooner appeared than they came darting into the yard and savagely -attacked him. - -Again and again I had to rescue him from their fury, though he was the -meekest crow I have ever seen, and they no longer had young to defend. -Kingbirds go to bed at early dusk as a rule, but even after dark and -long after I had put my foundling under shelter for the night, this pair -could be heard swearing away to themselves up in the top of their apple -tree, waiting for one more whack at him. Kingbirds leave us for the -south about the first of September. I am quite sure this pair delayed -their migration for some days that year, hating to give up their daily -harrying of my ancient and toothless old crone of a crow. - -He died, of old age no doubt, before the winter, seeming to fade gently -away, as a patriarch should. When, about the fifth of May the next year, -the kingbirds came back, they were noticed looking our back yard over -very minutely several different times. They remembered the crow and -were prepared to drive him over into the next country before they began -their nesting. - -The patriarch was so old he could not see when I found him. Box and Cox -were so young when I lifted them from their nest that they had never -seen. They had scarcely kicked their blue-green, brown-splashed -eggshells overboard when I climbed to their great, strongly-built home -in the upper limbs of a good-sized pine. It had a foundation of stout -sticks topped with smaller ones, and within these a well-woven cup of -slender twigs lined with grapevine bark and the soft fiber of the red -cedar. - -There were five young, hideous, negroid creatures with dark warts where -eyes would be, and mouths that gaped portentously. Had I realized when I -got them the amount of bird food those gaping mouths would engulf, and -then opening, clamor for more, I would have left them to their parents. -These had slipped silently away when I approached the nest, nor were -they visible at all during the kidnapping. I take it that this desertion -is prompted by wisdom, not cowardice or heartlessness, for crows are -devoted parents and look after their young long after they have left the -nest and after a period at which the devotion of other bird parents has -ceased. - -There was no choice among the five; all were equally ugly, and I took -two at random and shinned down the tree with them in a bandanna -handkerchief swung from my teeth. Seeing their young thus carried away -in the teeth of a marauder, I dare say the old crows thought of me as I -thought of their fellows that ate the young robins. But though I don’t -doubt they saw from safe retreat all that went on, they took great care -neither to be seen nor heard. - -The two young birds accepted the featherless biped in _loco parentis_ -without any question. They also accepted all I would put into their -yawning maws, and opened them mutely for more. By and by they found -eyesight, and later voices. Then, not seeing food coming, they would -call for it with yearning and yell for it with ebullient eagerness when -they saw it, or me, or any other approaching biped. I don’t think the -neighbors took kindly to this pair of pets of mine. It was too much like -having a piano and an opera candidate in the next flat. - -Sometimes their own weight a day went into these howling dervishes, in -the form of fish, frogs, grasshoppers, meat, scraps from the table, any -thing, indeed, that luck put in my way or that the ingenuity of -desperation suggested, and still nightfall found them ravenously -emulating Oliver Twist. But they grew, and grew so much alike that which -was Box or which was Cox neither I nor anybody else could tell. - -As their feathers sprouted so did their ambitions. In a little while -they could stand on the edge of their nest, which I had built for them -in the low limbs of a tree near the back door, and flap their impotent -wings at the same time that they yelled for the waiter. Though I was -their guardian angel it was not for me in particular that their clamor -rent the sky, but any one who by any remote possibility might feed them. - -Their first venture off the nest showed this. The new minister went -through the yard, thus making a short cut to a neighborly call. By -chance Box and Cox had been stuffed to repletion some minutes before and -were silent, half asleep in fact. But when the new minister’s hat passed -within two feet of their nest they rose to the occasion, and with one -mutual crow-language yell of “Bread, for the Lord’s sake give us bread!” -they landed on his hat. The family rescued him, of course, with humble -apologies, and he was good enough not to take offence. He came later to -call, generously, also I think somewhat stealthily, and by way of the -front door. - -Box and Cox had found their wings and they used them to hunt down all -possible purveyors of food. They knew me best because I fed them -oftenest, but otherwise showed neither partiality nor affection. They -kept away from the carpenters at work in the near-by shop because they -had many times narrowly missed decapitation with hatchets, but they kept -just beyond hatchet stroke only and clamored tantalizingly. The -carpenters thought they taunted them and used to threaten gun play. - -In return the crows stole bright nails, screws, and such small tools as -they could get hold of. They got away with my pearl-handled pocketknife -on the same principle, and though we often hunted for their hoard we -never found it. Their doings were often amusing to the bystander, but -more often vexatious and sometimes outrageous. I have still a vivid -mental picture of good old Grandfather Totter on his way home by the -path in the field, and stalled, because he could no longer use his cane -to hobble with, but had to have it to fight off Box and Cox. - -Bird neighbors did not love Box and Cox any better than did human -neighbors, and their presence kept kingbirds and robins, bluebirds and -sparrows all in a state of great nervous tension, though I am bound to -say that I never knew the crows to disturb their nests or young. In -fact, as long as I had them, Box and Cox showed no signs of learning to -forage for themselves in any way. They depended absolutely on mankind -for food, and if man was not kind they went hungry. I think that if I -had conscientiously tried to wean them they would have shown ability to -take care of themselves, but I never had the courage to try. I did not -think the neighborhood would stand the racket. - -One day they simply disappeared and I never knew what became of them. -Perhaps they suddenly heard and answered the call of the wild. The -neighbors had been wild more than once. - -Box and Cox were a disappointment. They showed little of either wit or -wisdom. They had a small amount of roguishness and a mighty appetite. -Such traits as they showed were those of youth; those they lacked might -have come with age. Perhaps parent crows teach their young the wisdom -which wood-bred birds certainly show. Box and Cox had none of it, or if -they had they hid it with the pocketknife and the carpenter’s tools. - -On the other hand, the strongest trait of the wood-bred crow is his -distrust of man. Instinct, if it works in the crow tribe, should -certainly have implanted this distrust in the youthful heads of Box and -Cox, but they showed nothing of the sort. And there you have the crow -puzzle all over again, for the crow, wild or tame, is a puzzle. Half a -hundred of them the other day were congregated about a wood road through -the pines, yelling themselves hoarse in the wildest of excitement. - -So interested were they that they took no notice of me when I -approached, thinking that they had a hawk or owl at bay there and were -harrying him. So I walked down the wood road right in amongst them. But -there was neither hawk nor owl nor anything else there to account for -their excitement. They tore about this empty space, cawing, fluttering, -standing erect, alert, and quivering on a limb and gazing wildly at what -seemed to be to them very real and very terrible. But it was nothing to -me; I could not find so much as a chipmunk stirring there. After a -little they chased this terrible nothing on down the road and then -across lots into another part of the wood, leaving me gaping and in -doubt whether they were just playing a game among themselves, all making -believe they saw a monster where there was none, or whether they really -could see some woodland bogle that was invisible to my dull eyes and -were following him on his way. - -Box and Cox may have been among them, and for all I know may later have -told the crowd what a queer creature man is when you come to know him as -foster-fathered crows have to. - - - - -INDEX - - -A - -Acorns, 98, 99, 100 - -Admiral, red, 5 - -Alder, 177, 182 - ----- red-berried, 195 - -Angleworms, 160 - -Anosia plexippus, 117 - -Antiopa vanessa, 116 - -Apple blossoms, 119, 198 - ----- tree, 27, 135, 205 - ----- wild, 156 - -Arbor vitæ, 39 - -Aroostook war, 24 - -Ash tree, 96, 133 - -Aster, 114 - -Azalia, 166 - - -B - -Barberry, 184, 185 - -Bat, 76, 79, 82 - -Bayberry, 111 - -Bee, 10 - -Beech, 29 - -Birch, 29, 34, 35, 74, 75, 83, 92, 93, 126, 127, 133, 143, 165 - ----- C. T. U., 92, 94 - -Bittern, 60 - -Blackberry, 16 - -Blackbird, red-winged, 119, 178, 180, 182, 201 - -Blueberry, swamp, 164 - -Bluebird, 113, 212 - -Blue Hills, 110 - -Buck, 38 - -Buckthorn, 195 - -Butterfly, 5, 114, 117 - ----- admiral, red, 5 - ----- Anosia plexippus, 117 - ----- Antiopa vanessa, 116 - ----- Hunters’, 115 - ----- monarch, 114, 116, 117 - ----- painted lady, 5, 115 - ----- Pyrameis, 117 - ----- Pyrameis atalanta, 5 - ----- Pyrameis cardui, 5, 116 - ----- sulphur, 114 - - -C - -Catbird, 181, 182, 183 - -Cedar, 143 - ----- berries, 113 - ----- pasture, 121 - ----- red, 113, 206 - ----- white, swamp, 113 - -Cemetery Hill, 173 - -Cherries, 16 - -Chestnut, 67, 68, 69, 71, 75, 76, 79, 83, 95, 96, 98, 99, 109, 155 - ----- bur, 77 - ----- leaves, 83 - ----- tree, 76, 77 - -Chickadee, 3, 4, 173 - -Chipmunk, 214 - -Christmas, 195 - ----- tree, 35 - -Clam, 41 - -Clintonia borealis, 15, 16, 17 - -Clover, 6 - -Cocoanut, 19 - -Coon, 174 - -Cowbird, 188, 189, 190, 191 - -Coyote, 38 - -Crow, 40, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215 - ----- nest, 143 - -Crustaceæ, 51 - -Currant, 17 - ----- fairy, 18 - -Cyprepedium acaule, 35 - - -D - -Deer, 27, 37, 38 - -Dendragapus canadensis, 35 - -Doe, 38 - -Duck, 52, 53, 62 - ----- black, 54 - ----- “spirit,” 57 - ----- teal, blue-winged, 48, 49 - - -E - -Elder, 177 - -Elm, 133 - -Epilobium angustifolium, 11 - -Erechthites, 11 - ----- hieracifolium, 9 - - -F - -Fawn, 38 - -Fern, cinnamon, 184 - ----- wood, 88 - -Fir, 23, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 - -Fireweed, 10, 11, 12 - -Fish, flying, 110 - -Flicker, 40 - -Fox, 38, 157, 174 - -Frog, 174, 208 - - -G - -Glow-worm, 20 - -Goldenrod, 114 - -Goliaths, 28 - -Grape, 74, 114 - -Grapevine, wild, 187, 206 - -Grass, purple wood, 73, 82 - -Greece, 27 - -Grebe, pied-billed, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 62 - -Greek, 191 - -Grouse, Canada, 3 - ----- ruffed, 35, 37 - -Gulliver, 28 - - -H - -Hackmatack, 39 - -Hawk, 38, 214 - -Hazel nuts, 155 - -Hedgehog, 157 - -“Hell-diver,” 55 - -Hemlock, 121 - -Hickory, 79, 80, 82, 88, 109, 153, 154, 155 - -Hob, 8 - -Holly berries, 195 - -Huckleberry, black, 164 - -Hunters’ butterfly, 115 - - -I - -Ignis fatuus, 90 - -Indian, 30 - ----- summer, 152 - - -J - -Jay, blue, 111 - -Joepye weed, 177 - -June berries, 156 - -Juniper, 125, 126 - - -K - -Katahdin, 23 - -Kimball, George, 33 - -Kingbird, 201, 202, 204, 205, 212 - - -L - -Lady’s slipper, 15, 16 - -Leprachauns, 13 - -Lilac, 82 - ----- purple, 134 - ----- white, 134 - -Liliputians, 28 - -Locusts, 103 - -Loon, 62 - - -M - -Macwahoc-Kingman road, 29 - -Maple, 34, 89, 91, 133, 136, 137 - ----- red, 94, 96 - ----- Norway, 94, 97, 135 - ----- silver-leaved, 94 - ----- swamp, 89, 90, 93, 94 - ----- white, 94 - -“Mast,” 100, 101 - -Milkweed, 177, 178, 186 - -Mistletoe, 195 - -Mitchella, 17 - -Monarch, 114, 116, 117 - -Mouse, field, 183 - - -N - -Norse Sagas, 46 - -Nuthatch, 176, 177 - - -O - -Oak, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 133, 181, 182 - ----- black, 98, 99, 101, 103 - ----- black, “mast,” 101 - ----- red, 103 - ----- scarlet, 103 - ----- scrub, 103, 110 - ----- white, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103 - -Oak, white, “mast,” 101 - -Oliver Twist, 209 - -Orchid, 15 - -Owl, 214 - ----- barred, 40 - ----- screech, 174 - - -P - -Painted lady, 5, 115 - -Palm, 19 - -Partridge, 14, 157, 158, 162 - ----- berries, 14, 16, 17 - ----- birch, 35, 36 - ----- spruce, 35, 36 - -Patten Road, 23, 24, 27 - -Pear tree, 35 - -Petrel, 47 - -Pine, 15, 32, 114, 174, 197, 206, 214 - ----- pitch, 5, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127 - ----- pumpkin, 29 - ----- white, 120, 125 - -“Piney Home,” 33 - -Plover, 62 - ----- piping, 51 - ----- ring-necked, 51 - ----- yellow-leg, 47, 48, 49 - -Poa serotina, 58 - -Pokeberry, 13 - -Pokeweed, 12 - -Porcupine, 27, 157 - -Porzana carolina, 59 - -Proteus, 9 - -Pyrameis, 117 - ----- atalanta, 5 - ----- cardui, 5, 116 - - -Q - -Queen Mab, 17 - -R - -Rabbit, jack, 38 - -Rail, Carolina, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 - -Raspberry, 16 - -Rivers, Mattawamkeag, 29 - ----- Moluncus, 29, 30, 33 - ----- Macwahoc, 29, 33 - ----- Orinoco, 58 - ----- Amazon, 58 - -Robin, 111, 112, 113, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 212 - - -S - -Sandpiper, spotted, 49, 51 - -Sage-brush, 38 - -“Seasons,” by Thomson, 136 - -Shadbush, 156 - -Skunk, 157 - -Smilacina bifolia, 17 - -South African mines, 74 - -Sparrows, 212 - ----- English, 190, 191 - -Spruce, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 - ----- cat, 29, 33 - ----- black, 33 - ----- timber, 33 - ----- white, 33 - -Squirrel, 69, 70, 72, 73, 144, 152, 154, 155 - ----- gray, 70, 72, 79, 80, 81, 82 - ----- red, 67, 68, 70, 72, 143, 144, 183 - -Sulphur butterfly, 114 - -Sumac, 82 - - -T - -Teal, blue-winged, 48, 49, 54 - -Telia polyphemus, 78, 83 - -Thoreau, 26 - -Toad, tree, 174 - -Totter, Grandfather, 211 - -Trillium, 19, 20 - -Triton, 9 - - -V - -Vikings, 47 - -Vireo, 187 - -Virgin’s bower, 177 - - -W - -Warbler, 112, 188, 189 - ----- myrtle, 112 - ----- yellow, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191 - -Willow, 97 - ----- herb, 11 - -Witch hazel, 114, 118 - ----- blooms, 120 - ----- nuts, 118 - -Woodchuck, 6, 7, 8 - -Woodcock, 159, 160, 161, 162 - -Wood mice, 18 - -Woodpecker, golden-winged, 39, 40 - ----- partridge, 114 - -Wordsworth, 9, 136 - -Wrights, 41 - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD WANDERINGS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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