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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b02114a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66072 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66072) diff --git a/old/66072-0.txt b/old/66072-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8f0de44..0000000 --- a/old/66072-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4933 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Woodland Paths, 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: Woodland Paths - -Author: Winthrop Packard - -Illustrator: Charles Copeland - -Release Date: August 16, 2021 [eBook #66072] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Steve Mattern, Chuck Greif. With thanks to James Baker and - Jeff Kelley 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 WOODLAND PATHS *** - - - - - WOODLAND PATHS - - - - - 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: Six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk - - [_Page 33_] - ] - - - - - WOODLAND PATHS - - 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 - -SOUTH RAIN 1 - -SPRING DAWN 21 - -MARCH WINDS 41 - -WOOD ROADS 65 - -THE BROOK IN APRIL 87 - -EXPLORATIONS 109 - -EARLIEST BUTTERFLIES 133 - -APRIL SHOWERS 153 - -PROMISE OF MAY 175 - -BOG BOGLES 197 - -BOBBING FOR EELS 219 - -THE VANISHING NIGHT HERONS 241 - -HARBINGERS OF SUMMER 259 - - -INDEX 281 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -Six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk _Frontispiece_ - - OPPOSITE PAGE - -That blood-curdling screech was one of triumph -over the sudden death of a rabbit 4 - -He sets his cotton-tail white flag at half mast from -fear, and goes whooping through the brush in -a frenzy 44 - -There was a clamor of blue jays as the hour grew -late 168 - -The air was vivid with friendly staccato calls 192 - -The wings arch in similar curves and lift him seemingly -a rod in air 254 - -Her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful -attitude of all birds on the nest 278 - - - -SOUTH RAIN - - -The night was dark and bitter cold, though it was early March. Over in -the dismal depths of Pigeon Swamp, where no pigeons have nested for -nearly a half century though it is as wild and lone to-day as it was -when they flocked there by thousands, a deep-toned, lonely cry -resounded. It was like the fitful baying of a dog in the distance, only -that it was too wild and eerie for that. Then there was silence for a -space and an eldritch screech rang out. - -It was blood-curdling to a human listener, but it was reassuring to the -great horned owl snuggling down on her two great blotched eggs to keep -them secure from the cold, for it was the voice of her mate hunting. -Sailing silently on bat-like wings he was beating the open spaces of the -wood, hoping to find a partridge at roost, and I fancy the deep “whoo; -hoo, hoo, hoo; whoo, whoo,” all on the same note, was a grumble that -trained dogs and pump-guns are making the game birds so scarce. Perhaps -that blood-curdling screech was one of triumph over the sudden death of -a rabbit, for _Bubo virginiana_ is tremendously rapacious and will eat -any living thing which he can carry away in his claws. - -It might, too, have been his method of expressing ecstasy over the nest -and the promise of spring which the horned owl alone has the courage to -anticipate with nest-building in these raw and barren days, when winter -seemingly still has his grip firmly set on us. Oftentimes his - -[Illustration: That blood-curdling screech was one of triumph over the -sudden death of a rabbit] - -housekeeping arrangements are completed by late February. No other bird -does that in Massachusetts, though farther north the Canada jay also -lays eggs about that time, way up near the Arctic Circle where the -thermometer registers zero or below and the snow is deep on the ground. - -On what trees he cuts the notches of the passing days I do not know, but -surely the horned owl’s almanac is as reliable as the Old Farmer’s, and -he knows the nearness of the spring. I dare say the other birds which -winter with us know it too, though not being so big and husky they do -not venture to give hostages to the enemy quite so early in the season. -The barred owls will build in late March, and soon after April fool’s -day the woodcock will be stealing north and placing queer, pointed, -blotched eggs in some little hollow just above high water in the swamp. - -The crows are cannier still. You will hardly find eggs in their nests -hereabouts before the fifteenth of April, and you will do well to -postpone your hunting till the twenty-fifth. Yet they all know, as well -as I do, when the spring is near, and I think I have the secret of the -message which has come to them. It is not the fact that a south wind has -blown, for this may happen at any time during the winter, but it is -something that reaches them on the wings of this same south wind. - -This night on which the horned owl of Pigeon Swamp brooded her eggs so -carefully was lighted by the moon, but toward midnight a purple -blackness grew up all about the still sky and blotted out all things in -a velvety smear that sent even Bubo to perch beside his mate. There was -then no breath of wind. The faint air from the north that had brought -the deep chill had faltered and died, leaving its temperature behind it -over all the fields and forest. The air stung and the ground rang like -tempered steel beneath the foot, yet you had but to listen or breathe -deep to know what was coming. The stroke of twelve from the distant -steeple brought a resonance of romance along the clear miles and the air -left in your nostrils a quality that never winter air had a right to -hold. To one who knows the temper of the open field and the forest by -day and night the promise was unmistakable, though so subtle as to be -difficult to define. - -Whether it was sound or smell or both I knew then that a south wind was -coming, bearing on its balmy breath those spicy, amorous odors of the -tropics that come to our frozen land only when spring is on the way. The -goddess scatters perfumes from her garments as she comes and the south -wind catches them and bears them to us in advance of her footsteps. You -may sniff these same odors of March far offshore along the West -Indies,--spicy, intoxicating scents, borne from the hearts of tropic -wild-flowers and floating off to sea on every breeze. - -With them floats that wonderful grape-bloom tint that touches the -surface of all the waters to northward of these islands with its velvety -softness, the currents carrying it ever northward and eastward, -sometimes almost to the shores of the British Isles. You may see it all -about you in mid-ocean as your vessel steams from New York to Liverpool -or Southampton or Havre or the Hook of Holland. Some essence of all this -gets into the air on the southerly gales that are borne in the windward -islands and whirl up along our coast to die finally in Newfoundland or -Labrador or Greenland itself. I believe the horned owl knows it as well -as I do and begins his nest-building at the first sniff. - -At daybreak the wind had begun to blow, all the keen chill was softened -out of the air, and blobs of rain blurred the southern window panes. The -temperature had risen already above freezing and was still on the upward -path. There was in all the atmosphere that rich, cool freshness that -comes with rain-clouds blown far over seas. It is the same quality which -we get in an east rain, but it had in it also that suggestion of -spiciness and that soft purple haze which drifts away from the tropic -islands that border the Caribbean. Stopping a moment in my study before -going out into this, I found another creature that had felt the faint -call of spring and answered it, I fear, too soon. This was a great -_Samia cecropia_ moth. The night before he had been safely tucked away -in his cocoon over my mantel, where I had hung it last December. - -In the night he had answered the call and now was perched outside his -cell, gently expanding his wings with pulsing motions that seemed -tremulous with eagerness or delight. I noted the soft delicacy of the -coloring in his rich, fur-surfaced body and wings, shades which are reds -and grays and browns and ashes of roses, and a score of others so dainty -and delicate that we have no words to describe or define them. - -A wonderful creature this to appear in a man’s house, sit poised on his -mantel and blink serenely at him, as if the man himself were the -intruder and the room the usual habitat of creatures out of fairy-land. -I studied him carefully, thinking, indeed, that he might vanish at any -moment, and then I went out into the woods in the soft south rain, only -to find that his colors that I thought so marvelous in the shadow of the -four walls of my room were reproduced in rich profusion all about me. - -His velvety-white markings, lined and touched off with brown so deep in -places as to be either purple with density or black, were those of the -birch trunks all about me, and there were the rufous tints that shaded -down into pearl pinks and lavender all through the groups of distant -birch twigs. His gray fur was the softest and richest of the fur of the -gray squirrels, and this gray again shaded into red in spots that could -be matched only by the fur of the red squirrel. There were soft tans on -him of varying shades, from rich to delicate pale, and all the last -year’s leaves and grasses had them. Nor was there a color about him -which was not matched and repeated a thousand fold in bark and twigs and -lichens and shadows all through the wood. - -I had but to stand by with the great moth in my mind’s eye to see the -whole woodland bursting from its cocoon and spreading its wings for -flight. As a matter of fact that is what it is going to do later--but -the time is not yet. Meanwhile the south rain was washing its colors -clear and laying bare their bright beauty. In it you saw without -question the promise of new growth and new life. Trees and shrubs stood -like school children with shining morning faces, newly washed for the -coming session. All trace of dinginess was gone. The yellow freckles on -the brown cheeks of the wild cherry gleamed from far; the pale, olive -green tint of the willow’s complexion was transparent in its new-found -brilliancy. - -Looking down on the ruddy glow of healthy maple twigs, it seemed as if -they should have yellow hair and sunny blue eyes, so rich is the -coloring of these Saxons of the wood and so fresh it shone under the -ministering rain. Even the dour scrub oaks, surly Ethiopians, were not -so black as they have been painted all winter, but lost their ebon tint -in a hue of rich dark green that was a pleasing foil to the -cecropia-moth beauty of the rest of the woods. - -The one color lacking was blue. The sky’s leaden gray was but a foil for -the rich woodland tints, and I wandered on seeking its hue elsewhere. -Over on the hillside are the hepaticas. Their color when open is hardly -blue, being more often purple or even lavender, yet they would do, -lacking a more pronounced shade. But I could not find a hepatica in -bloom as yet. Their tri-lobed leaves are still green and show but little -the wear and tear of the winter’s frosts and thaws. In the center of -each group is the pointed bud that encloses the furry blossoms, itself -as softly clad in protecting fur as the body of my moth visitor, but no -hint of color peeped from it as yet. You need to look carefully in very -early spring to be sure of this, too; for the hepatica is the shyest of -sweet young things, and when she first blooms it is with such modesty -that you have to chuck the flower-heads under the chin to get a glimpse -even of their eyes. Later on the coaxing sun reassures them and they -stare placidly and innocently up to it like wondering children. - -Over on the sandy southern slope there might be violets, too. Later in -the year the whole field will be blue with them and all about are their -rosettes of sagittate leaves, which the cold has had to hold sternly in -check to keep them from growing the winter through. Indeed, I do not -believe it has fully succeeded. It has been a mild season, and I think -the violets have taken the opportunity during warm spells of several -days’ duration to surreptitiously put forth another leaf or so in the -very center of that rosette. If so, they might well have followed this -courage with the further audacity of buds, and buds, indeed, they had -but not one of them was open far enough to show even a faint hint of the -blue that I was seeking. - -It was hardly to be expected of the violets. They are so sturdy and full -of simple, homely, common sense that it is rare that you find them -doing things out of the usual routine. Warm skies and south winds may -tease them long before they will respond by blooming earlier than their -wonted date. They know the ways of the world well and realize how unwise -it is for proper young people to overstep the bounds of strict -conventionality. On the other hand, the hepaticas, with all their -innocence, perhaps because of it, care little for the conventions. -Indeed, I doubt if they know there are such things, or if they have -heard of them would recognize them. It is likely that in some sunny, -sheltered nook some rash youngster, all clad in furs of pearl gray, is -in bloom now, though so shy and so hidden that I was unable to find the -hint of color. I have known them to half-open those lavender-blue eyes -under the protecting crust of winter snow. - -Toward nightfall the rain ceased and the clouds simply faded out of a -pale sky, letting the sun shine through with gentle warmth. Whither the -mists went it was hard to tell, but they were gone, and a soft spring -sun began wiping the tears from all things. Under its caress it seemed -as if you could see the buds swell a little, and I am quite sure, though -I was not there to see, that at this moment the willow catkins down by -the brook slipped forth from their protecting brown sheaths and boldly -proclaimed the spring. - -They might have done so, and I would not have seen had I been there, for -just then I had a message. “Cheerily we, cheerily we,” came a faint -voice out of the sky. An echo from distant angel choirs practicing -carols for Easter could not have seemed more musical or brought more -delight to me down at the bottom of the soft blue haze that was taking -golden radiance from the setting sun. Up through it I looked to the pale -blue of the sky and saw two motes dancing down the sunshine,--motes that -caroled and grew to glints of heavenly blue that fluttered down on an -ancient apple tree like bits of benediction. - -Just a pair of bluebirds, of course, and I don’t know now whether they -are the first of the migrants to reach my part of the pasture or whether -they are the two that have wintered here and that I have seen before on -bright days. Wherever they came from they supplied the one bit of blue -that I had sought, and their presence was like an embodiment of joy. -Then the gentle prattling sweetness of their carol; what a range there -was between that and the wild voice of the great-horned owl, heard not -twenty-four hours before! It was all the vast range between Arctic -winter night and soft summer sunshine. The owl had voiced the savage -grumble of the winter, the bluebird caroled the gentle promise of the -spring. - -The promise may be long in finding its fulfilment, of course. The snow -may lie deep and the frost nip the willow catkins,--though little -they’ll care for that,--and the bluebirds may be driven more than once -to the deep shelter of the cedar swamp, but that does not take away the -promise that came on the wings of the south wind,--the promise that set -the great horned owl to laying her eggs in that abandoned crow’s nest, -and that made the bluebirds seek the ancient apple tree as their very -first perch. March is no spring month, in spite of the “Old Farmer’s -Almanack.” It is just a blank page between the winter and the spring, -but if you scan it closely you will find on it written the promise we -all seek,--the hope that lured my great _Samia cecropia_ out of his snug -cocoon. - - - - -SPRING DAWN - - -I have been night-clerking a bit lately--social settlement work, you -know--at the Pasture Pines Hotel, paying especial attention to the crow -lodgers, and in so doing have come to the conclusion that in the last -score or so of years the crows in my town have changed their habits. - -It used to be their custom to roost in flocks, winters. Over on the -Wheeler place in the big pines you could find a rookery of several -hundred of a winter evening, dropping in from all directions and making -a perfect uproar of crow talk, or rather crow yells, till darkness sent -them all to sleep, sitting together in long rows on the upper limbs, I -suppose for mutual warmth. Here, each with head poked deep under his -wing, they would remain till dawn, when with more uproar they would all -whirl off together to some common breakfasting place. Later in the day -they would become separated, only to drop in at night to the usual -roost. - -It was not a very safe proceeding, for farm boys, eager to use that new -gun, used to go down before sunset and hide beneath the pines, letting -go both barrels with great slaughter after the crows had become settled. -Perhaps this had something to do with the breaking up of the custom, for -now, though many crows roost on the Wheeler place, they do so singly, -each in his own room, so to speak. - -The same is true of the crow guests at the Pasture Pines Hotel. I had -the pleasure of waking them early there this morning, incidentally, and -vicariously, waking all crow-town. Last night, just as the last tint of -amber was fading from the sunset sky, letting a yellow-green evening -star come through, almost like a first daffodil, a crow slipped bat-wise -across the amber and dropped into a certain pine to roost. - -I noted the tree, and this morning, before hardly a glimmer of dawn had -come, slipped along beneath the dark boughs, planning to get just -beneath his tree and see him first. But I had planned without the -obstructions in the path and the uncertain light. I approached unheard -on the needle-carpeted avenue beneath the big trees, but when I started -across the field, still twenty rods away from my bird, I kicked a dry, -broken branch. - -“What? What’s that?” It was an unmistakable crow inquiry, fairly shouted -from the tree I had marked as the roosting place. There wasn’t the space -of a breath between the snap of that branch and the answer of the bird. -Surely a night-clerk in crow-town has an easy task. There need be no -prolonged hammering on the door of the guest who would be called early. -One tap is sufficient. I had hoped to stand beneath that tree and sight -my crow in the gray of dawn, see him yawn with that prodigious black -beak after he had withdrawn it from under his wing, then stretch one -wing and one leg, as birds do, look the world over, catch sight of me -and go off at a great pace, shouting a hasty warning to the world in -general. - -But he did not need to see me. That breaking branch had opened his eyes -and ears with one snap. He heard the crisp of my footfall on the frozen -grass of the field and immediately there was a great flapping in the -marked pine tree and he was off over the tops of its neighbors to a safe -place an eighth of a mile away. He said three things, and so plain were -they that any listener could have understood them. Languages vary, but -emotions and the inflections they cause are the same in all creatures. -The veriest tyro in wood-lore could have understood that crow. - -His first ejaculation was plainly surprise and query blended. In his -sleep he had heard a noise. He thought it, very likely, a fellow calling -to him to get up and start the day’s work. Then when the answer was a -man’s footfall he flew to safety, sounding the short, nervous yelp which -is always the danger signal. Then when he had again alighted in safety -he realized that it was morning again and he was awake and it was time -that the gang got together. “Hi-i, hi-i, hi-i-i,” it said. It was -neither musical nor polite, but it was intended to wake every crow -within a half-mile in a spirit of riotous good-fellowship. There was no -further need of my services; every crow within a half-mile answered that -call. Then I could hear those farther on rousing and taking up the cry, -and so it went on, no doubt indefinitely. - -I have a feeling that I waked every crow in eastern Massachusetts a full -half-hour before his accustomed time, simply by kicking that dead limb. -However, I learned one thing, and hereby report it to the Lodging-House -Commission: that is, that the crows hereabouts have now given up the -dormitory idea and occupy individual rooms after nightfall. They were -scattered all through the pasture and woodland but no two were within -twenty rods of one another. - -Their minds have not yet turned to nest-building and mating, though the -time is near, for they still flock in hilarious good-fellowship at -sunrise, and you may hear them whooping and hurrahing about in crowds -all day long. They may be beginning to “take notice”; I suspect some of -the hilarity is over that. But they have not come to the pairing-off -stage. When they reach that the flocks will disappear and you would -hardly think there was a crow left in the whole wood. You might by -stepping softly surprise a pair of them inspecting a likely pine in the -pasture, planning for the nest. You might, by listening in secluded -places, hear the curious, low-toned, prolonged croak, which is a -love-song. I have heard this described as musical, but it is not. It is -as if a barn-door hinge should try to sing “O Promise Me.” But there -will be no more congregations. - -Certainly there was not much in the aspect of the night which was just -slipping away when I waked my crow that would seem to justify plans of -nest-building. The thermometer marked twenty in my sheltered front porch -when I stepped out. It must have been some degrees below that in the -open. The ground was flint with the frost in it. The old thick ice was -gone from the pond, indeed, broken up by the disintegrating insinuation -of the sun and the vigorous lashing of northwest gales, but in its place -was a skim of new ice formed that night. Standing still, you felt the -lance of the north wind still; it was winter. Yet you had but to -breathe deep to get the soft assurance of the near presence of spring, -and if you walked briskly for a moment the north wind’s lances fell -clattering to the icy ground and you moved in a new atmosphere of warmth -and geniality. Thus point to point are the picket lines of the -contending forces. - -In the west the pale, cold moon, now a few days past the full, was -sinking in a blue-black sky that might have been that of the keenest -night in December. In the east, out of a low bank of dark clouds that -marked the dun spring mists rising from the sea twenty miles away, -flashed iris tints of dawn upward into a clear, pale sky that bore -dapplings of softest apple-green. On the one hand were night and the -winter, on the other dawn and the spring, and down the pine-sheltered -path I walked between the two to a point where I stopped in delight. -The pine path ended, and the willows let the spring dawn filter through -their delicate sprays. Just here I caught the hum of the water rolling -over the dam and the prattle of the brook below, and right through it -all, clear, mellow, and elated, came the voice of a song sparrow. - -“Kolink, kolink, chee chee chee chee chee, tseep seedle, sweet, sweet,” -he sang and it fitted so well with the rollicking tinkle of the brook -that I knew he was down among the alders where he could smell the rich -spring odor of the purling water. The two sounds not only complemented -one another as do two parts in music, but they were of the same quality, -though so distinctly different. It was as if tenor and alto were being -sung. - -I had gone forth expecting bluebirds; I had half hoped for a robin when -it came time for matins, for robins have been about all winter, and here -a song sparrow, no doubt the first spray from the northward surging wave -of migratory birds, was the first to break the winter stillness. He had -hardly piped his first round, though, before the voices of bluebirds -murmured in the air above, and two lighted on the willows, caroling in -that subdued manner which is the epitome of gentleness. I think these -two were migrants, for later in the morning I heard others. - -Then in a half minute there was a shrilling of wings that beat the air -rapidly and six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk. Most ducks -make a swishing sound with the wings when in rapid flight, but this was -so marked a sibillation that I am quite sure it was a flock of -goldeneyes, more commonly called whistlers, because they so excel in -wing music. They swung a wide circle over my head and then dropped back -into the pond, where an opening in the young ice gave them opportunity. -Curiosity probably brought them up. They wanted to see what that was -prowling on the pond shore in the uncertain light,--a prompting that -might have cost them dear had I carried a gun, for they came within easy -range; then, having seen, they went back to their fishing. Their -presence added a touch of wildness to the scene that was not without its -charm, for you can hardly call the bluebird or the song sparrow wild -birds. They are almost as domestic as the garden shrubbery. - -For the moment the bird songs and the whistling of the ducks’ wings -through the rosy morning light made me forget the grip of the winter -cold that was in all the air, yet when I had crossed the dam and begun -to clamber along the other shore of the pond the winter reasserted -itself. Here was no promise of changing season. The thick ice in its -disintegration had been pushed far ashore by the westerly gales, and -here it was frozen in pressure ridges which were not so far different -from those one may see on the Arctic shores. To them was cemented the -young ice of the night, and I could walk along shore in places on its -surface, its structure as elastic as that of early December. - -Here, too, was piled high the débris not only of that great battle in -which the spring forces had ripped the thick ice from the water, but of -the daily skirmishes in which winter and north wind have set a half-inch -of ice all along the surface and spring sunshine has broken it away -from its moorings, obliging the very north wind that made it to pile it -in long windrows high on shore. To clamber along these pressure ridges -and hear the crunching cakes resound under my tread in hollow, frosty -tones, to feel the bite of the north wind which drifted across the new -ice, was to step out of the spring promise which the birds had given me, -back into the Arctic. I was almost ready to look for seal and wonder if -I wouldn’t soon hear the wild wolf-howl of Eskimo dogs and round a point -onto one of their snow-igloo villages. - -The song sparrow was far out of hearing and here we were in mid-winter -again. Only in the east was there promise. Through the dark tracery of -pond-bordering trees I could see the sky all a soft, unearthly green, -like an impressionist lawn, and all through this the sun, now close -below the horizon, had forced into bloom red tulips and blue and yellow -crocuses of spring dawn. From the ice ridges it was all as unreal as if -it were hung in a frozen gallery, and I were an unwilling tourist -shivering as I observed it. - -Again, I had to go but a short distance to find a new country. Here the -warmer waters of a little brook came babbling down the slope and had -pushed away all the ice ridges and warmed its own path far out into the -new ice. Along its edge the alder catkins hung in grouped tassels of -venetian red, and here and there a group had so thrilled to the warmth -of the running water that even in the face of the cold wind they had -begun to relax a bit and show cracks in the varnished surface that has -kept the stamens secure all winter. - -It will not be long now before these favored ones will begin to shake -the yellow pollen from their curls. Already they are giving the hint of -it. A little way upstream, however, was a far more potent reminder of -the coming season. I caught a whiff of its fragrance and smiled before I -saw it. - -I wonder why we always smile at this most beautiful spring flower,--for -it was a spring blossom, the very first of the season, which was growing -in the soft green of the brookside grass, its yellow head all swathed in -a maroon and green, striped and flecked, pointed hood, lifted bravely -above the protecting herbage into the nipping air. The flowering spadix -I could not see; only the handsome, protecting spathe which was wound -about the tender blooms to protect them from the cold. When the sun is -high in the sky this spathe will loosen a bit and let visiting insects -enter for the fertilization of the blossom. But in that cold air of -early morning it was wrapped tight. - -I have seen orchids tenderly nurtured in conservatories that had not -half the honest beauty of this flower. Neither to me is the odor of the -derided skunk-cabbage more unpleasant than that of many a coddled and -admired garden bloom--a dahlia, for instance. Yet I smiled in derision -on catching the first whiff of it, and so do we all. If the -_symplocarpus_ cared it would be too bad, but it does not. Unconscious -of its caddish critics, it blooms serenely on in the swamps and takes -the tiny insects into its confidence and its hood, and adds a bit of -rich color to the place when no other blossom dares. And even as I -looked at it the sun slipped out of the low band of dark horizon-mists -and sent a golden good-morning like a benediction right down upon the -head of the humble, courageous, sturdy beauty of the brookside. After -that approval why should any blossom care? - - - - -MARCH WINDS - - -For two days the mad March winds have been blowing a fifty-mile gale, -setting all the woodland crazy. No wonder the March hare is mad. He -lives in Bedlam. No sooner does he squat comfortably in his form, his -fair fat belly with round apple-tree bark lined, topped off with wee -green sprigs of rash but succulent spring herbs from the brookside, -ready to contemplate nature with all the philosophy which such a -condition engenders, than the form rises in the air and its component -leaves skitter through the wood and over the hill out of sight, leaving -him denuded. - -The usually dignified and gentle trees howl like beagles on his trail. -The protecting scrub oaks, gone mad, too, dab and flip at him till he -gets fidgety with thoughts of horned owls, and things rattle down out of -the sky as if he were being pelted with buckshot. All these matters get -on his nerves after a little, and if he sets his cotton-tail white flag -at half mast from fear and goes whooping through the brush in a frenzy, -there is small blame to him. Even man, whose mental girth and weight are -supposed to be ballast sufficient against all buffetings, going forth on -such a day needs the buttons of his composure well sewed on or he will -find it ripped from him like the hare’s form and sent skittering down -the lea along with his hat, while he himself bolts here and there -fighting phantoms and objurgating the unseen. - -Mad March winds are a good test of stability of soul. He who can stand -their weltings with serenity, can watch his - -[Illustration: He sets his cotton-tail white flag at half mast from -fear, and goes whooping through the brush in a frenzy] - -un-anchored personal belongings go mad with the March hare and still -thrid the sombre boskage of the wood with sunny thought and no venom -beneath his tongue, ought to be President. Even the New York papers -could not make him bring suit. - -And after the two days of gale how sweet the serenity that came to the -thrashed and winnowed pastures and woodland. I fancy it all feeling like -a boy at school who, after being soundly flogged, gets back to the -soothing calm of his accustomed seat. There is a gentle joy about that -feeling that, as many of us know, has neither alloy nor equal. The whole -woodland, thus spanked and put away to cool, feels the winter of its -discontent vanishing behind it and has no room in its heart for aught -but the peace and joy of regeneration. - -The gale began to fail during the second day and before midnight it was -dead; thus short-lived is frenzy. I do not know now if those last gentle -sighs were those of the wind in sorrow of its misdeeds, thus on its -death-bed repentant, or those of the trees, themselves given a chance to -sleep at last after a forty-hour fight for their lives. In the threshing -and winnowing of the woodland none but the physically fit may survive. -Oaks that have held their last year’s leaves lovingly on the twig had to -let them go like the veriest chaff, and all twigs and limbs that have -been weakened. - -And as chaff and débris is thus pruned from the forest, so those trees -themselves that are not physically fit for the struggle for existence -are weeded out. The eye may not be able to pick these, but the gale -finds them. If the whelming pressure of its steady onrush is not -sufficient to bring them down, the racking of varying force and the -torsion of sudden changes in direction will snap the weakened trunk or -tear out the loosened roots. Then there is a groan and a crash, and -space for the younger growth to spread toward more light and air. - -At no time of year is the weakness of roothold so liable to be fatal to -a tree as now. During the winter a gale may snap a tree off at the trunk -and smash it bodily to the ground. But if there is no weakness in the -trunk there can be none in the roots, for the frost that is set about -them holds even the shortest, as if embedded in stone. But now, when the -solvent ice has loosened the whole surface for a depth of a foot or -more, leaving it fluffy and disintegrated, those trees which have no -tap-roots and hold only in this lightened surface are in the greatest -danger of uprooting of the whole year. Farmers often clear a shrubby -pasture in late March or early April hereabout by taking advantage of -this fact. They make a trace-chain fast about the base of a pasture -cedar or a stout huckleberry bush, and with a word to the old horse the -shrub is dragged from the softened earth, root and all. In mid-summer, -after the ground has become compact, this is not to be done. - -It is the spring house-cleaning time of the year, when nature is -sweeping and picking up, preparatory to laying new carpets and getting -new furnishings throughout, and if any of the old furniture of the -woodland is not able to stand the strain it has to go to the woodpile. -Without the mad March winds the forest would lose much of its fresh -virility, the old deadwood would cumber the new growth, and the mild -melancholy of decay would prevail as it does in some swamps where -sheltering surrounding hills and close growth shunt the gales. - -Yet, though house-cleanings are no doubt necessary and beneficient, few -of us love them, and we hail with equal joy the resultant cleanliness -and the cessation of the uproar. The two days’ gale finally got all the -winds of the world piled up somewhere to the southward and ceased, and -the piled-up atmosphere drifted back over us, bringing mild blue haze -that was like smoke from the fires of summer floating far. All things -that had been taut and dense relaxed into dimples or softened into -tears. The frost went out of the plowed fields that morning, though the -sun was too blurred with the kindly blue mist to have any force. It was -just the general relaxation which did it. - -Then is apt to come a halcyon day, and though the kingfisher is not here -to brood, nor will he be for a month, his fabled weather slips on in -advance to cheer us. It may not last a day. March is as mad as April is -fickle, and you will need to start early to be sure of it. Then, even if -you come home in a snowstorm, you will at least have had a brief glimpse -of that sunny softness which is dearer in March than in any other month. - -This morning, in that calm which is most apt to settle on the land just -before sunrise, the whole woodland seemed to breathe freely and beam in -the soft air. The bluebirds caroled all about, and where a few days ago -one song sparrow surprised me with his song, a dozen jubilated in the -pasture bushes. A half-dozen blackbirds flew over, and though I could -not see a single red epaulet in the gray light, and listened in vain for -that melodious “kong-quer-ree” which no other bird can sing, I knew them -as well by their call of “chut-chuck,” which is equally characteristic. - -A flock of goldfinches lighted in the pines with much twittering and -suggestions of the summer flight-note of “perchicoree.” But that is no -more than they have been doing all winter. In a moment, though, the -twittering changed. A melodious note began to come into it, and soon -several in the flock were singing rival songs as sweet, though I do not -think as loud, as those they will sing when June warmth sets the whole -bird world a-choiring. It was a happy note in the cool spring air, for -it was more than a spring song. The bluebirds and song sparrows voice -that, but the song of the goldfinch is a song of summer, and -irresistibly reminds one of fervid June heat and full-leaved trees. It -was a warming, winning chorus, and it brought the sun up over the -horizon, seemingly with a bound. - -In all this joy of early matins I still miss one bird note that surely -ought to be heard by now, and that is the robin’s. Robins are here in -considerable numbers, but not one of them have I heard sing. I’m afraid -the robin is lazy, but, perhaps, it is just his honest, matter-of-fact -nature which does not believe in forcing the season. He will sing loud -and long enough by-and-by. - -Such a spring morning is the best season of the year for moth hunting. -The moths are all sound asleep still, tucked away in their cocoons, that -are also tucked away in the woodland where it is not so easy to see them -in winter. Now the mad March winds have swept the last brown leaves -from the bushes, and such moths as hang up there for the winter sleep -are easily seen. You may take them home and hang them up wherever you -see fit, and you will then be on hand to greet the moth when at his -leisure he feels prompted to come forth from his snug sleeping-bag. - -I always find more of the spice-bush silk-moth than any others,--perhaps -because we both love the same woodland spots, borders of the ponds and -streams where the benzoin and sassafras flourish, or upland pastures -where the wild cherry hangs out its white racemes in May. They dangle -freely in the wind, looking for all the world like a left-over leaf -rolled by accident into a rude cylinder. Yet the moth is safe and warm -within, rolled up in a silken coat that is firmly glued to the leaf; -and not only that, but extends in silky fabric all up along the petiole, -and firmly holds it to the twig itself. The mad winds which have scoured -the bush clean of all leaves and débris have had no strength which can -pluck this “last leaf upon the tree.” - -If left to itself it will still hang there a year or two, perhaps more, -after the moth has emerged, gradually bleaching to a soft gray, but -still clinging. It is a splendid quality of silk, but no one has yet -succeeded in reeling or carding it. _Callosamia promethia_ thus escapes -becoming a product of the farm rather than the pasture. It is a fine -species to have hanging in winter cradles above your mantel, for the -_imago_ is large and beautiful, with deep browns and tans softly shading -into grays that are tinted with iris, the male being distinct with a -body color of deep brown less diversified than the coloring of his -mate. - -The _Samia cecropia_ is another of our silk-worm moths whose cocoon is -not difficult to find. The _cecropia_, instead of rolling up in a -pendant leaf, constructs his cocoon without protection, and glues it -right side up beneath a stout twig or even a considerable limb. I have -one now that I took from the under side of a big leaning alder bole, -skiving it off with the bark, but most of those I have collected have -been attached to slender twigs of low shrubs. - -But, though the _cecropia_ does not roll up in a leaf, he is apt to -place his winter home where dead leaves will persist about him. I have -never found him so plentiful as the _promethea_, though he is commonly -reported as numerous. Perhaps this habit of hiding among the dead -leaves has to do with this. He is our largest moth, and in beauty of -coloring is surpassed, to my mind, only by two others. - -One of these is _Telia polyphemus_,--a wonderful creature, almost as -large as the _cecropia_, all a soft, rosy tan with fleckings of gray and -white and bands of soft violet-gray and pink, and great eyespots of -white margined with yellow, browed with peacock blue, and ringed with -violet-black. The larva, which is bigger than a big man’s thumb, is a -beautiful shade of transparent green with side slashings of silvery -white, and feeds on most of our deciduous forest trees. - -I have had most luck in finding them on chestnuts. Last fall, when -beating a chestnut tree for the nuts, I dislodged several, one of which -I brought home and put in a cage with some leaves. He refused to eat, -but in a day or so spun a cocoon down in the corner of the box with a -chestnut leaf glued over him. No wonder we rarely see either moth, -caterpillar, or cocoon. The larva dwells in the higher trees, rolls -himself in leaves in the autumn, and spends the winter on the ground, -usually covered out of sight by the other leaves. Then the moth, wary -and swift, flies only by night. - -The _Actias luna_, the beautiful, long-tailed, green luna moth, is, I -think, better known, for it has a way of flitting about woodland glades -in late June or July, before nightfall. But in the caterpillar or the -cocoon it is as hard to find as the _polyphemus_, and for similar -reasons. It, too, feeds upon walnut and hickory, and in the fall spins a -papery cocoon among the dried leaves on the ground. - -The _luna_ moth is to me the highest type of moth beauty, and it is -worth a long search among leaves to find a cocoon of either this or the -_polyphemus_, and have the splendid privilege of seeing the lovely -inmate later emerge, spread its fairy-like wings, and soar away into the -soft spring twilight. It is as great a wonder as it would be to step -some mid-summer midnight into a fairy ring and, after having speech with -Mab and Titania and Puck and Ariel, see them flit daintily across the -face of the rising moon and vanish in the purple dusk. The world of the -_polyphemus_ and the _luna_, the _cecropia_ and the _promethea_, is as -far removed from ours and as full of strange romance as that. - -Along the pond shore these mad March days one gets glimpses of another -world, too, that is, I dare say, as regardless of us as we are of that -of the moths. This morning in the dusk of young dawn the pond was like a -black mirror reflecting the shadows of the sky. But across it, near the -middle, was drawn a silver streak, the path of ducks swimming. Presently -I heard their voices,--the resonant quack of a black duck and the hoarse -“pra-a-p pr-a-a-p” of the drake. As they called, into the pond with a -splash came a small flock of divers, showing white as they whirled to -settle. The two species swam together, seemed to look each other over, -held who knows what conversations in their own way, then separated. It -is not for black duck and buffleheads to congregate, especially in the -spring; and while the black duck and drake swam sedately away, the -buffleheads began to hunt the small white perch which swim in schools -near the surface, making a splash as if a stone was thrown into the -water at every lightning-like dive. - -Just as many a man here in Massachusetts lives his life and dies without -ever having seen or heard of a _polyphemus_ moth or a bufflehead, though -both may fly over his own head on many a dusky twilight, so the -migrating thousands of ducks each year fly over our cities and know -little of their uproar and bustle, nothing of their yearnings toward art -or theology, or of the inspiration of poets or the agony of the -down-trodden. Their world is all-important to them; ours is nothing, so -they escape our guns, which they vaguely feel will harm them. - -Even we with our books, our laboratories, and our concerted research -into all things under heaven and in earth, do not get very far into the -lives of other creatures. I have said all the moths are still in their -cocoons. Perhaps they are, all but one, at least. That is a small brown -fellow that came flying across the brook in the chill air of a sunset a -night or two ago and now lies dead on my desk. - -I caught him, for I wanted to know what moth dared come forth when the -ground was still frozen and no bud had yet burst. But I would better -have let him fly along to work out his own destiny, for in all the -moth-book there is no mention of this wee brown creature that dared the -frosty night with frail wings. I do not think he was an uncommon -specimen. Moths are so numerous that only the most characteristic -varieties of the more important species can be noticed in the -text-books. - -On my way home I crossed a sunny glade among the pines, and here I met -an old friend, and had another example of the workings of other lives -whose wisdom or ability is beyond our ken. On the dark trunk of a pine -was sitting the spring’s first specimen, so far as my observation goes, -of butterfly life, an _Antiopa vanessa_, his mourning cloak so closely -folded that it made him invisible against the pine-tree bark. As I drew -near he flipped into the air and sailed by, beautiful in his tan-yellow -border with its spots of soft blue. - -I say he was on the pine bark, but I did not see him there. For aught I -know, so well was he concealed, the tree opened and let him out, then -closed, that his hiding place might not be revealed. I would almost as -soon believe this as to believe, what lepidopterists assure me is true, -that this frail creature lives through the zero gales and deep snows of -five months of winter to come out in the first bright days of early -spring unharmed. It is as likely that a pine trunk would voluntarily -conceal him as that he could survive, frozen solid in some crevice in a -stone wall or hollow stump. At any rate, he is out again, along with the -hepaticas and song sparrows, and though the March winds and the March -hare may both go mad again, we have had moments when the spring was very -near. - - - - -WOOD ROADS - - -Some time in the night the tender gray spring mists that the hot -afternoon sun had coaxed up from all the meadowy places realized that -they were deserted, lost in the darkness. The young moon had gone -decorously to bed at nine o’clock, pulling certain cloud puffs of white -down over even the tip of her nose, that she might not be tempted to -come out and dance with these lovely pale creatures. - -They were dancing then, but later they trembled together in fright, for -the kindly stars, their shining eyes grown tremulous with tender tears, -vanished too, withdrawn behind the black haze which the north wind sends -before it. A nimbus, wind-blown from distant mountain tops, was -spreading over the zenith, and through it the gentle spring mists heard -resound the crack of doom, the voice of the north wind itself, made up -of echoes of crashing ice floes out of Hudson’s Bay and the Arctic. Then -the spring mists fled to earth again, but had no strength left to enter -in. Instead, they lay there dead, covering all things a half-inch deep -with soft bodies of purest white, and we looked forth in the morning and -said that there had been a robin-snow. - -It is a pity that those gentle, innocent gray-blue spring mists should -die, even to be lovely in death as they are, but it is their way of -getting back home. In the morning the repentant sun came and dissolved -the white, silent ones into gentle tears,--dayborn dew that slipped down -among the grass roots and laid moist cheeks close to daisy and violet -buds as they went by, and almost loved them into bloom. A few more -robin-snows and they will all be out. Very likely somewhere a dandelion, -some sturdy, rough-and-ready youngster, quivered into yellow florescence -at the caress. Robin-snows and the cajoling sun of the last week of -March often make summer enough for this honest, fearless flower. - -Quite likely the tender joy of the mists at getting back safe to earth -under the caress of the eager sun, and their terror of the north wind, -which still rumbles by in the upper air, are both nascent on such days, -for you have but to go out to feel them, and they inevitably lead you -out of the raw mire of the highways, across the wind-swept pasture, into -wood roads. - -These on such days have an atmosphere of their own. Here the thrill of -the sun is as potent as the push of the X-ray. It slips through clothes -and flesh, nor do bones stay it till it tingles in the marrow, a -vitalizing fire that is soothed and nourished by the soft essence of -those dead mists, now glowing upward from the moist humus. No wonder the -woodland things come to life and grow again at the touch! The north wind -may howl high above. Here under the trees the soft airs that breathe out -of Eden touch you and you know that just round the curve of the road is -the very gate itself. - -My way to the most secret and withdrawn country of these wood roads -always leads me across Ponkapog brook at the spot where rest the ruins -of the old mill. It is three-quarters of a century or more since it -ground grist, and of its timbers scarcely a moss-grown remnant remains. -The gate to the old dam has been gone almost as long, but the waters do -not forget. Every year the spring floods bring down what driftwood the -pond banks can spare and bar their own course with it at this spot. The -water rises as high as of old, for a brief time. - -It is as if the brook paid a memorial tribute thus yearly to the honest -labor of the pioneers, now long gone. For a time it lasts, then the -cementing bonds of dead leaves fail and the black flood roars through to -the sea. Come two months later and where its highest rim touched you -will find that it planted flowers in loving remembrance also, and -saxifrage and dwarf blue violet lean in fragrant affection over the -waters. I like to think that on Memorial day at least the stream makes -echo of the clank of the old-time mill-wheel in its liquid prattle, and -that the shuttle of reflected sunshine dancing back and forth is a -glorified ghost of the old wheels whirling once more in memory of the -miller and his neighbors. - -Farther on I reach the pond shore, and on the narrow ridge which marks -the old-time high tide of winter ice pressure, a dry moraine always, -though running through marshy land, I strike what must be the oldest -trail in this part of the country. Here is a path which was traveled -before the time of the Norman conquest, or, for that matter, before -Cæsar led his victorious legions into Gaul. Here the first Indians trod -dry-footed when they went back and forth about the pond in their hunting -and fishing, for then, as now, it was a natural causeway. - -To-day a stranger, seeking his way about the pond for the first time, -would not fail to find it, and the habitual wood-rover of the region, -old or young, knows its every turn. Upon this to-day, between the marsh -and the bog in the alluring spring sunshine, I found a whole bird -convention. Such an uproar! It was as if the suffragettes in one grand -concerted movement had swooped down upon Parliament by the air-ship -route, as the cable says they threaten, and were in the heat of -battering down its walls of deafness with racket and roaring, after the -fashion of the attempt on Jericho of old. - -The blackbirds were in the greatest numbers and made the most noise -individually. There were a hundred of them, more or less, sitting about -in the trees and bushes, a few on the ground, and all of them practicing -every call or song that blackbird was ever known to make. All the harsh -croaking of frogs that as young birds they heard from the nest by the -bog they voiced in their calls; all the liquid melody of gentle brooks -tinkling over shallows, and the piping of winds in hollow marsh reeds, -they reproduced in their songs, and the whole was jumbled in this -uproarious medley. They even shamed a robin or two into singing,--the -first time I have heard these laggards do it this year, though they have -been here in force for some weeks. - -There seemed to be no cause for this other than the joy of living. It -was just an impromptu concert in honor of the spring. I think I never -noticed before how vigorously the blackbird uses his tail at one of -these concerts. All the long black tails present worked up and down as -if each were a pump-handle working a bellows to supply wind for the -pipings. It reminded me of the church organ-loft, and the labors of the -boy when the choir is in full swing and the organist has everything -opened up and is dancing on the pedal notes to keep up. - -Either side of this trail the wood should be a paradise for woodpeckers, -for the trees are here allowed to grow old without interference. In -birch and maple stubs the flickers have dug hole after hole, sometimes -all up and down a single trunk. The downy woodpeckers have been active -also and the chickadees have reared many a nestful of fluffy chicks in -the same neighborhood. Yet, with all the opportunity that the flickers -have had to bore in soft decaying wood for food or for shelter, I see -that they have also dug a round hole through the inch boards in the peak -of the old cranberry house. This, too, was probably for shelter, for -many flickers winter with us, and there would be room in the old -cranberry house-loft for a whole community, but I wonder sometimes if -there is not another reason. - -Just as beavers and squirrels must gnaw to keep their teeth from growing -too long, so I sometimes think that woodpeckers need to hammer about so -much, whether for food or not, to keep their bills in good condition. It -is difficult to otherwise account for their continual practice. I knew a -flicker once who used to drum a half-hour at a time on a sheet-iron -ventilator on the roof of a building. I think he did it to keep his bill -properly calloused and his muscle up, so that when he did tackle a -shagbark tree with a fat, inch-long borer waiting in its heart-wood the -chips would fly. - -This low pond-bank moraine with its immemorial trail leads all along the -north side of the pond, skirting the shoreward edge of the great bog -nicely. It takes you through the Talbot plains where tan-brown levels -stretch far to the northward, seeming to shrink suddenly back from the -overhanging bulk of Great Blue Hill, and it leads again into the tall -oak woods, where later the warbling vireos will swing in the topmost -branches and cheer the solemn arches with their gentle carols. By-and-by -the bog ends and the path marks the dividing line between the bulrushes, -marsh grass, bog-hobble wickets, and mingled débris of last summer’s -thorough wort, and joepye weed, and marsh St. John’s-wort on the one -hand, and the soft pinky grays of the wood on the other. - -The climbing sun shines in here fervently, and the clear waters lap on -the sand and croon among the water weeds with all the semblance of -summer. No wonder the wild ducks linger long. The pond is full of -them,--black ducks and sheldrake,--quacking and whistling back and -forth, sometimes forty of them in the air at once, and taking no notice -of the wanderer on the bank. It seems to be their jubilee day as well as -that of the birds on shore. - -Thus by way of the long trail teeming with spring life I reach the -enchanted country of the wood roads. Here are no pastures reclaimed, no -ancient cellar holes to show the path of the pioneer. Woodland it was -when the first Englishman came to Cape Cod; woodland it remains to-day. -Somewhere in its depths the barred owls are nesting, and I hear the -shrill pæan of a hawk as he harries the distant hillside. But for the -most part there is a gentle silence, a dignified quiet that befits the -solitude. It is the hush of the elder years dwelling in places somewhat -man-harried indeed, but never by man possessed. In this country to the -east of Ponkapog Pond lingered longest the moose and bear. The fox makes -it his home and his hunting-ground still; I find his trail still warm, -and in summer you should tread with care, for an occasional rattlesnake -trails his slow length among the rocks. The most that man has ever done -here is to shoot and chop trees. The echoes of axe and gun die away -soon, the trees grow up again, and man’s only mark is the wood roads. - -Roads in this world are supposed to lead from somewhere to somewhere -else, but no suspicion of such definiteness of purpose can ever be -attached to wood roads, unless you are willing to say that they lead -from the land of humdrum to the country of romance. Sometimes, in -following them, you unexpectedly come out on the highway, but far more -often you have better luck, and the plain trail grows gently vague, -shimmers away to nothing, and you find yourself, perhaps, in a beech -grove, out of which is no path. You can hear the young trees titter at -your embarrassment, but you cannot find the path that led you among -them. - -Perhaps in all your future wanderings you may not come upon that beech -grove again, for the wood roads wind and interlace and play strange -tricks on all outsiders. Particularly over in this region wood-lot -owners sometimes lose their wood-lots, and are able to get track of them -only after prolonged search, tumbling upon them then more by accident -than wit. Sometimes a wood road innocently leads you round a hill and -slyly slips you into itself again through a gap in the thicket. Thus, -before you know it, you may have gone around the hill any number of -times, as strangers get coursing in revolving doors in the entrances to -city buildings and continue to revolve until rescued. - -Nor can you tell where the most sedate and straightforward one which you -can pick out will lead you, except that you know it will be continually -through a land of delight, and that Eden is bound to be just ahead of -you. - -It is difficult to understand, though, in all seriousness, how these -roads persist. Wood cut off over extensive areas grows up again in -thirty or forty years and fills in the gap in the forest till no trace -of it remains, yet the roads by which it was carted to the highway, -leading once as directly as possible, seem still to have some subtle -power of resistance whereby they are not overgrown, though they lose -their directness. After a few years it seems as if, glad to be relieved -of any responsibility, they took to strolling aimlessly about, meeting -one another and separating again casually. - -I never see a wood-cart coming out with a load, yet the road seems as -definite in marking as it did a half-century ago. But that is one of the -fascinations of the region. You take the same road as usual, and by it -you come out at some strange and hitherto unheard-of garden of delight. -It is like the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, where one story leads -into another and you wander on with always a new climax just ahead of -you. - -Out of the great pudding-stone boulders of this region, of which you may -find specimens as large as an ordinary dwelling-house standing in lonely -dignity, you may see cunning workmen making soil for the nourishment of -these forest trees. Here will be a round blot of yellow-gray lichen, -perhaps a _Parmelia conspersa_, clinging to the smoothest surface of -flint with ease and sending down its microscopic rhizoids into the -tiniest crevice between the round pebble, which is the plum, and the -slate which makes the body of the pudding. - -On another part of the boulder you may find a slanting surface, where -the parmelia’s work is already done. Its tiny root-organs have dissolved -off and split away enough of the slate to loosen some tiny pebbles, -which fall to the ground as gravel, leaving hollows in which dew and -dead lichens make a soil for the roots of soft pads of mosses. Some of -the boulders over here are like Western buttes, densely tenanted by -these hardy cliff-dwellers, the many-footed rock lovers finding -foothold where you would hardly think the lichens even would survive. - -I never tramp these roads, which it sometimes seems as if the pukwudgies -moved about in the night for the confusion of men, without being lost, -at least for a time, and finding a new boulder to worship. Once, thus -lost, I found a little gem of a pond, which hides in the hollows a -half-mile or so east from Ponkapog Pond. This, too, I fear the -pukwudgies move about in the night, for I hear of many men who have -found it once and sought it again in vain. - -To-day I came upon it once more,--a cup of clear water in the hollow of -the forest’s hand, smiling up at the sky with neither inlet or outlet. -The black ducks had found it, too. They greeted my approaching footsteps -with quacks of alarm, and I had hardly rounded the bushes on the bank -before sixteen of them, with much splashing, rose heavily into the air -and sailed off toward the big pond. - -Even in their fright I noticed that they went out as the animals did -from the ark,--two by two,--and I smiled, for it is one more sign of -spring. I noticed the crows in couples to-day for the first time. A few -black duck breed hereabout, and the little pond with the button-bushes -growing along one shallow shore as thick as mangroves in a West India -swamp might well be considered by house-hunting couples. Sitting under a -mountain laurel whose leaves furnish the only shade on the bank, I -watched quietly for nearly half an hour. Then there was a soft swish of -sailing wings, and a pair dropped lightly in without splash enough to be -heard. Yet there was little to see, after all. They simply sat mirrored -in the motionless water for another half-hour by the town clock, looking -adoration into one another’s eyes, then snuggled close and swam in among -the button-bushes as if with one foot. That was all. It was a veritable -quaker-meeting love-making; but just the same I shall look for the nest -among the button-bush mangroves in another month, and I do hope that -pukwudgies will not have mixed the wood roads and hidden the pond so -well that I cannot find it. - - - - -THE BROOK IN APRIL - - -The pond is a mile long, but it is shallow, with a level bottom that was -once a peat meadow, and the water, holding some of this peat in -solution, has a fine amber tinge. It is as if the sphagnums that wrought -for ages in the bog and died to give it its black levels held in reserve -vast stores of their own rich wine reds and mingled them with the -yellows of hemlock heart-wood and the soft tan of marsh grasses that lie -dead, all robed in funereal black at the pond bottom. - -By what mystery of alchemy the water compounds during its winter wait -under the thick ice this amethystine glow in its pellucid depths I do -not know, but the spring sunlight always shows it as it sends its shafts -down into the quivering shallows, and it creams the foam that fluffs -beneath the gate of the old dam and flows seaward. - -This gate is always lifted a little and the stream never fails. In -spring its brimming volume floods the meadows and roars down miniature -rocky gorges,--a soothing lullaby of a roar that you may hear crooning -in at your window of an April night to surely sing you to sleep. In -summer the gateman comes along and puts a mute on the stream by dropping -the gate a little, and it lisps and purls through the little gorges, -slipping from one rock-bound pool to another. - -In April the suckers come up, breasting the flood from another pond a -half-mile down stream, to spawn; great, sturdy, lithe, shiny-sided -fellows they are, at this time of year almost as beautiful and as alert -as salmon, weighing sometimes five or six pounds. The same intoxication -which makes the flood froth and dance and shout as it tumbles down the -steeps from meadow to meadow seems to thrill in their veins and give -them strength to cleave an arrow flight through the quivering rapids and -gambol up the falls with an exultant agility that seems strange in this -fish that is so sluggish and dull on the pond bottom in midsummer. - -Adam’s ale is brewed the year round, but it is the spring drought that -works miracles of agility in the blood of somber creatures. Winter -fishes are like some middle-class Englishmen sitting glum and motionless -in their stalls. Only when tapster Spring draws the ale and the barmaid -brooks dance blithely down with foaming mugs do we learn how jovial and -athletic they may be. Thus the suckers, suddenly waking to exuberant -activity, swim the frothing current, leap the miniature falls like -gleaming salmon, and congregate just below the dam. - -Some years the gateman has kindly instincts at just the psychological -moment and comes over and shuts down the gate of a Saturday afternoon in -the presence of many boys, in whose veins also froths the exultant foam -of spring joy. Then, indeed, does low water spell Waterloo for the -suckers. In the shoaling current they flee down stream, seeking the -deeper pools and hiding under stones in water-worn hollows wherever they -can find refuge. - -There is a crude instrument, formerly a familiar output of the local -blacksmith, known as a sucker spear. It is composed of two cast-off -horseshoes, one being straightened and welded across the other in the -middle of the bend. This gives a rough imitation of Neptune’s trident -with the three prongs a good half-inch broad and usually sharpened to a -cutting edge. Mounted on a long pole it is complete, and its possession -makes of a boy a vengeful Poseidon having dominion over the shallows of -the brook. Boys who know no better because they have been taught by -their elders that this is the way to do it, “spear” suckers with these -instruments. A handy youngster can guillotine a five-pound fish into two -separate, bloody sections with this plunging death, and fork the limp -and quivering remnants up on the bank with it. - -Even the boy who does it, though he whoops with the wild delight of -bloody conquest, knows that this is not sport. There is a better way to -catch suckers, and he who has once learned it willingly discards the -crude instrument of the blacksmith for the fine touch of the true -sportsman. He matches boy against fish, and feels the man thrill through -his marrow every time he wins. It is the same game that great John Ridd -learned from his primitive forbears on the West of England’s moors, -whereby he went forth to tickle trout in the icy stream and was led into -the enchanted valley where dwelt huge outlaws--and Lorna Doone. - -Bare-legged and bare-armed you wade into the icy water and slip your -hands gently under the big stones at bottom, wherever there are crevices -into which a fish might enter. If you have the requisite fineness of -touch, experience will soon tell you what it is you feel beneath in the -darkness of the watery cave. It may be nothing but the fine play of -currents across your fingers, in which all sensitiveness and expectation -seem to center. It is wonderful how much soul crowds down into your -finger-tips when they feel for something you cannot see in places where -things may bite. - -There may be a turtle there, and if so you have leave to withdraw. It -may be an eel, and you need not mind, for the eel will take care of -himself; you can no more grasp him than you can the quivering currents. -It is customary to expect water-snakes, and there is a fineness of -delight about the dread that the expectation inspires that is just a -little more than mortal. Orpheus, seeking dead Eurydice, must have -turned the corners on the way down with some such feeling. Perhaps it is -because the dread is groundless that it is so deific. It has no basis in -the senses, but is purely a creature of the finer imaginings. The -water-snake is harmless if by any chance he could be there. But there is -no chance of this. At the sucker time of the year he is still sleeping -his winter sleep, tucked away in some rock crevice of the upper bank, -safe from flood and frost. - -If you prod crudely the big fish will take flight and rush to another -hiding place. But if you are wise and careful enough you will feel -something swaying in the current and stroking your fingers like the soft -touch of a feather duster. It is the big fellow’s tail and you will soon -learn better than to grab it. The muscular strength of one of these big -fish is beyond belief. Howsoever tight your grip on him here, he will -swing his body from side to side with such force and swiftness that he -will writhe from your hold before you can get him out of water. - -That is not the way to do it. Instead, you cunningly slip your hand -gently along from his tail toward his head. You will likely go over your -rolled-up sleeve; perhaps it will be necessary to plunge shoulder and -even head in the effort to reach far enough. - -Having discounted the Plutonian water-snakes you will find this but -giving zest to the game; indeed, it is doubtful if you know that it has -happened until it is all over. Your palm slides gingerly over the dorsal -fin and goes on till you feel the gentle waving of the pectorals. Then -suddenly you grip a thumb and finger into the gills, showing the iron -hand through the velvet, and with one strong surge lift your fish from -beneath his rock and fling him high upon the bank. - -There is a fundamental joy in this kind of fishing that you can get in -no other. If there were fish in the rivers of Paradise Adam caught them -for Eve in this way. I have always been sorry that big John Ridd found -nothing but fingerling trout on his way up the little stream that led to -the Doone Valley. He should have tackled our brook in April. - -Along the stream to-day, noting the pussy-willows all out in spring -garments of pearl gray and the alders swaying and sifting yellow dust -from their open stamens, I passed the spot where Bose and I met as early -a spring run of fish as often occurs. Bose would corroborate it if he -could, but, unfortunately, Bose is somewhat dead, as much so as a dog of -his spirit and imagination can be. His bones lie decently buried down -under the great oak where he loved to sit and think about foxes, but I -am not so sure about the rest of it. If there are any happy -hunting-grounds where the souls of game flee away I warrant Bose leads -the pack. He was a full-blooded foxhound, deep-chested, musical, -lop-eared; and he didn’t know a fox from a buff cochin. He hunted -continually, but rarely on a real trail. His nose was for visions. - -It was on a first day of April that we came out of the door together, -and Bose took one sniff, lifted his head, bayed musically, and was off -into the pasture with me following, both of us ripe for any adventure. -There was a smell of spring in the air; indeed, I was not sure but it -was the green-robed, violet-crowned goddess whom the dog set forth to -hunt. If so, I was more than glad to follow, for the winters seem long -in my town. We know that the sun-god is pursuing Daphne northward. We -have signs of her in the yearning of willow twigs and the shy blooming -of hepaticas. If she should already be hiding in some sunny, sheltered -nook of the pasture Bose would be as likely to go after her as any other -vision. - -March had gone out like a lamb, trailing a shorn fleece of mists behind -him,--mists that morning sun tinted with opal fires that burned out -after a little and left pale-blue ashes smeared in the hollows and blown -soft against the distant hills. All through the air thrilled the glamor -of those new-born hopes that attend the goddess, and I wanted to give -tongue with Bose when I found him quartering the barberry slope of the -upper pasture with clumsy gallop. - -He had led me plump into fairy-land at the first plunge, for the brown -leaves of last year rustled with the tread of brownies, and I came up -in time to see a fat gnome rolling along, humping his shoulders and -jiggling with laughter before the uproarious onslaught of the dog, -turning at the burrow’s mouth to grin in the teeth of eager jaws and -vanish into thin air as they clicked. A woodchuck? So Hodge would call -it, seeing according to his kind. Probably Bose knew it for a fox, a -silver-gray at least, according to his foxhound dreams. I myself knew -that spring glamor was on all the woodland and that this was a -round-paunched gnome, guardian of buried treasure, out for an April day -frolic, and going back reluctantly to his post after having a moment’s -fun with the dog. - -As for the brownies, they were signs, or rather forerunners, pacemakers -to the spring. I could see the little black eyes and droll-pointed -noses of them as they worked eagerly all about in the shrubbery, passing -the word that the goddess might arrive at any moment and that it was -time to dress for her. Now they whispered it to terminal buds, and now -to lateral, but mostly they put their brown heads down among the leaves, -giving the message to bulb and corm, tuber and root stock. I could hear -them calling all about, a quaint little elfin note of “tseep, tseep,” -and anon one would turn a roguish handspring and vanish, thus -hocus-pocusing himself to the next northward grove. - -Busy brownies they were,--hop-o’-my-thumbs clad in rufous-brown feather -coats that so harmonized with the dead leaves among which they worked -that it was difficult to see them except when they moved. -Ornithologists, bound by the letter of their knowledge, would, I dare -say, name these fox sparrows; but even these might have hesitated and -forgotten their literalness, looking into newborn April’s smiling face -that blue-misted morning, out trailing the spring with Bose. - -Then, much like the brownies, Bose vanished. He seemed to have lost the -trail, nor was my scent keener, though all about were signs. The maple -twigs were decorated with rosettes of red and yellow in honor of her -coming. Birch twigs reddened with them, and the woodland that had been -gray was fairly blushing with tell-tale color. Over on an open, sandy -hillside the cinquefoil buds were beginning to curl upward, and in the -heart of violet leaves faint hints of blue made you think of sleepy -children just opening a little of one eye at promise of morning. - -Here, too, I was conscious of a faint, ethereally fine perfume that -seemed to float suddenly to my senses as if it had come over the -treetops from the south. From up stream came the babble of the brook -like dainty laughter. If I had heard the swish of silken garments -floating away in the direction from which these came I had not been -surprised. Eagerly I turned and followed where they led me. - -Soon I heard Bose again, a half-mile behind; he, too, had caught the -trail. Baying eagerly, he galloped by a few minutes later, interjecting -into his uproar by some strange method of dog elocution a whine of -recognition and an invitation to follow. - -So he went on down the pasture. No leaf bud had opened, though many were -agape, ready to burst with the pulse of new life that throbbed through -the twigs and heightened their colors. The swamp blueberry bushes and -the wild smilax were the greener for it, just as the maples and birches -were the redder. With your ear to the bark you might hear the thrumming -of the sap in the cambium layers, practicing a second to the drone of -bees to come a little later. And still the fairy fine scent lured me, -and I could hear Bose’s voice, eager to incoherence, just ahead. If you -did not know about his visions you would surely think he had a fox in -his jaw and was shaking him. - -Down a sunny slope, robed in the diaphanous gray-green of bursting -birch-buds, the fairy odor led me to a little bower on the bank, where -for a moment I saw the nymph herself stand, rosy pink, slender and -sweet, gowned in the birch-bud color all shimmered with the yellow of -alder pollen drawn in filmy gauze about her. Strange goblins in silvery -brown danced in grotesque gambols at her feet, while behind the bank I -heard the splashing of Bose in shallow water, frenzied howls of -excitement and ecstasy followed each time by another of the clumsy -goblins somersaulting up from below to join the dance. Fairy-land and -goblin town had indeed come together in celebration of the arrival of -the spring! - -On the threshold of this realm I trod a moment bewildered, and then, -stumbling, broke the spell with a hasty exclamation. The enchantment -vanished like a dream. Standing by the brookside I saw only the homely -world again. Yet it was a strange enough sight. Up at the dam the gate -had suddenly been closed, and a dozen three-pound fish, on their way up -to spawn, had been marooned in the shallow water. These Bose was -shaking up in wild delight and tossing up on the bank, where they danced -in clumsy, fish-out-of-water dismay. These were the dancing goblins; nor -had I been very far wrong about Daphne. There she stood still, slender -and dainty, only, just as when pursued by Apollo of old, she had turned -into a shrub. There she stood, the Daphne mezereum of the elder -botanists, the clustering blooms of pink sending forth their faint, -sweet odor that had come so far down the pasture to Bose and me and sent -us hunting visions. - -To be sure, it was the first of April! But the joke was not all on us, -for Bose had for once found real game, albeit such as foxhound never -hunted before, and I had found the spring. Two bluebirds, house-hunting -among the willows, caroled in confirmation of it, and Apollo himself, -shining through the gray mist of birch twigs, kissed Daphne rapturously. - -She was so sweet that I did not blame him. As for Bose, he actually came -up and licked the blushing twigs, then in sudden confusion at being -caught in such sentimental actions, tore off on the make-believe trail -of more visions, leaving me to rescue his gamboling goblins and put them -back into their native water. - - - - -EXPLORATIONS - - -To-day I remind myself forcibly of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G. C., M. P. -C., whose paper entitled “Speculations on the Sources of the Hampstead -Ponds” was received with such enthusiasm on the part of the Pickwick -Club, for I have made new discoveries of the sources of Ponkapog Pond. -These are quite as astounding to me as were the Hampstead revelations to -the Pickwick Club, and just as those sent Mr. Pickwick and his friends -forth on new voyages, so these led me to a hitherto undiscovered -country. - -In spite of our increasing population and our progressive business -activity, there are portions of eastern Massachusetts towns that are -forgotten. Often these are large tracts where the foot of man rarely -treads and the creatures of the wilderness roam and prey, breed and die -undisturbed by civilization. They may hear the hoot of the factory -whistle morning, noon, and evening, or the faint echoes of the distant -roar of trains, but they give no heed. - -Their world is the wilderness and their problem that of living with -their forest neighbors. Man hardly enters into their arrangements. Now -and then one of these tracts has a past that is related to humanity, -though the casual passer would never suspect it. The wilderness sweeps -over the trail of man gleefully and his monuments must be built high and -strong or they will be swept away with a rapidity that is startling. - -It is only by perpetual efforts that we hold on to our landmarks. The -rain will come in between the shingles and, beginning with the roof, -sweep your house into the cellar just a mass of brown mold before you -know it. Then the frost and sun tumble the cellar wall in upon it, and -where once your proud dwelling stood is a grass-grown hollow. To-day’s -generation trips on the capstone of what was the tower of its ancestors -and thinks it merely a projection of the earth’s rib, which it is and to -which it has returned. - -I fancy every old Massachusetts town has these woodland places that were -once the hopeful clearings of early settlers. Now and then, roaming the -deep wood where only the creatures of the primal forest seem to have -freehold tenure, I find an alien has strayed from the elder years, a -hermit of the wood and of our own time. I know a purple lilac that -dwells thus serenely, miles from present-day habitations, in a scrub -forest that was fifty years ago a stretch of cathedral pines. Only long -search showed me the faint hollow in the brown earth which was once the -narrow cellar of a wee house. No record of an early householder here -remains other than that planted by the hopeful housewife’s hand,--the -lilac shrub. - -For more than a century it has held the ground where its fellow-pioneers -planted it, holding close within its pinky heart-wood memories of -English lanes white with hawthorne and, far beyond these, indistinct -recollections of rose-perfumed Persian gardens, the home of its race. -Perhaps upon its ancestral root rested the feet of Omar Khayyam when he -wrote: - - And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass - Among the guests star-scattered on the grass, - And in your blissful errand reach the spot - Where I made one--turn down an empty glass. - -Perhaps within the fragrance of a blossom that sprang from the same -stock old Cromwell and his Ironsides paused some May morning and -breathed deep and sang a surly hymn. We propagate the lilac from the -root, not the seed, and the same sap has flowed through the veins of the -present strain for a thousand years. A whiff of lilac perfume in a -woodland tangle next month, and out of the wilderness we step, from one -ancient garden to another, back by centuries into the pleasant places of -a world long gone. - -To many a New England child the smell of lilacs brings homesickness, and -he does not know why. It is because it is the May odor of the vanished -home garden, not only of Myles and Priscilla of Plymouth, but of a -thousand generations of his own stock before them. - -The woodland of to-day’s discoveries is not such. I do not believe -pioneer ever stoned a cellar in its depths, and if the Indian set his -teepee here it was only in passing. Now and then the harrying hand of -man has cut off its greater growth and let the sunlight in on its roots, -that the adventitious buds may have a chance, and newer and stronger -trunks tower upward eventually, but the shadows that dapple its -brown-leaf mold carry no dreams of human domination. - -The vexation of axe and gun, and even the searing scar of flame, are -only minor incidents in the great work of the wood, whose ultimate -purpose no man knows. We see the rocks disintegrated and the hollows -filled with richer soil, that the forest may grow taller and more surely -shelter the gentler things of earth. We find it holding back the waters -in its cunningly contrived bogs, and hiding medicinal plants in its -hollows, waiting always with benediction in its leaves for the -comforting of weary men; but we feel when we know the woods best that -these, too, are but its casual benefits; its great purpose lies deeper, -and the more we seek it the better we know we are. - -Great men come out of the forests of the earth. If they are not born -there they seek the place before coming to their greatness. Lincoln hews -rails, Washington surveys and scouts, and Roosevelt ranches in the -Western wilderness. Perhaps it is for these and their kin that the woods -exist. It is always Peter the Hermit that leads the crusade, and without -crusades the world were a poor place. It seems as if all our prophets -must wrestle at least forty days in the wilderness before coming forth -with brows white with the mark of immortality. - -It lies at the southeast corner of the pond, beginning at the little -bogs, from which it springs abruptly. Along the water’s edge of these -bogs picknickers row their boats all summer long, and catch fish and eat -sandwiches. Inland, a foot or two, the duck hunter in the autumn treads -precariously along the quaking surface with his eyes on the margin, or -perhaps on the ducks that swim in the open pond, but rarely does any one -penetrate the bog-carpeted swamp of great cedars just back of this -quaking margin. - -And this is strange. The passion for exploration is born in all hearts. -We are prompted to go to Tibet, or seek the sources of the Nile, or -penetrate the jungles that lie between the Amazon and the Orinoco. I -have felt this impulse strongly myself, and longing for distant lands -have passed unnoticed this opportunity right at hand for penetrating an -untrodden wilderness. With most of us the undiscovered country lies just -a step off the beaten track. So across the rolling bog and into the -twilight greenness beneath the cedars I sailed to-day, venturing as -Columbus did over a known sea to an unknown, and thence to a new -world,--one where straight, limbless cedar trunks stand close like -temple columns under a gray-green roof of twigs and leaves. - -All the upper tones are gray and green, for this is the world of the -mosses and lichens. The ground is built of them, and the temple columns -are so covered with their arabesques and bas-reliefs, so daintily -frescoed and carved, that it seems as if here were a museum of all -designs for the beautifying of interiors that ever occurred. And as all -the tree trunks are gray and green till the texture and color of bark -is hardly to be discerned, so the carpeting of the floor of this temple -and the upholstering of its furniture is brown and green. The thin rays -of the sun that filter through here and there are greenish gold, till -the whole gives an under-water atmosphere to the place, and you walk -about as a diver might on the sea-bottom, with things new and strange -floating at every hand. - -Mosses in the ordinary woodland we are apt to pass with unseeing eye. -They decorate rocks and trees, dead stumps and earth with such -unobtrusive good taste that we come back feeling the beauty of the -woodland, and not at all knowing what made it. Some fence corner or -group of trees or shrubs or a stump has touched us with its beauty, and -so well dressed it is in its moss clothes that we have not seen them at -all, but have come away only with the recollection of how well the rock -or the stump looked, and we cannot say whether it wore a plaid or a -check or just plain goods. - -In this swamp, however, it is as if the whole woodland wardrobe were -hung up for inspection, an Easter opening of all kinds of wood wear. -Here the _Usnea barbata_ trails its old man’s beard from the cedar limbs -well up in the arches above the pillars, its drooping softness having -the effect of delicate tapestry. Clinging lichens, those delicate unions -of algal cells and fond fungi, paint the northerly sides of the tree -trunks all the way down, while the freer-growing fringe or fleck the -southern exposures. _Parmelias_ to north, _cetrarias_ and _stictas_ to -the south might well guide the wanderer, giving him the points of the -compass and leading him thus to his path again. - -Under foot the _sphagnums_ build the bog and hold chief sway, but other -common varieties dispute the footing with them. Here is the _acutifolia_ -with its pointed leaves giving the tufts the appearance of a bunch of -pointed petaled chrysanthemums, the greens and purples softly shading -into one another and showing a fine contrast with the drier, yellower -portions of the plant. Here, too, is the edelweiss-like _squarrosum_ in -its loosely-crowded clusters of bluish green, and the robust -_cymbifolium_. - -All these grow from their own débris in the wettest portions of the -footing. Wherever there is, in this many-colored and lovely carpet, a -dead cedar trunk the dainty cedar moss, creeping everywhere, has -occupied the space with its delicate fern-like leaves, making of all -ugly rotten wood the loveliest furnishing imaginable for these solemn, -twilight spaces. Cushion mosses pad with their bluish-green velvet -hassocks here and there, and, sitting on one of them that I might put -all my wit into seeing, I noted for the first time, though growing all -about me, in fact, a moss that I had never seen before,--the _mnium_. - -Its delicate, translucent green leaves are little like those of a moss -at first sight. One thinks it rather some rare and delicate flowering -plant of the wet bog, now but thrusting up its delicate leaves, to bloom -later. I dare say the _mnium punctatum_ is a common bog moss. Very -likely I have trampled it ruthlessly under foot before this in following -some more showy denizen of the deep woods; but to find it thus, -exploring a new swamp for the first time, it gave me as great pleasure -as I might have had in finding a new orchid hiding about the sources of -the Orinoco. - -It was the _sphagnums_ that led me to the brookside and caused me to -recall that lusty scientist, Mr. Pickwick, and his discovery of the -sources of the Hampstead ponds. And while I stood and wondered I saw a -second brook, only a little further on, also flowing downward into the -_sphagnum_ and losing itself in the bog, to pass beneath the cedar roots -and moss débris and enter the pond. - -Some ancient traveler, perhaps Marco Polo, passing from Babylon to -Bagdad, coming first upon the Euphrates and then the Tigris, may have -felt some of the amazement and delight which I had in this discovery. -Never before had I known of a brook entering the pond. It had always -been a sheet of water self-contained and sufficient in itself, fed, I -thought, by springs beneath its own surface. I had paddled by and -tramped over the mouths of these two brooks a hundred times and never -knew before why the pond always smiled and dimpled as I went by. No -wonder it laughs; it has kept that same joke on ninety-nine of a hundred -of the people who frequent it, and I am not sure there is another -hundredth. - -It seemed as if all the woodland burst into guffaws of laughter, now -that the joke was out and there was no further need of keeping quiet -about it. The cedars rocked in the west wind with suppressed merriment -and a couple of red squirrels snickered like school children and tore up -and down the lichen-covered trunks and fell off into a swamp birch and -had hardly strength to hold on, so breathless were they. A pair of -crows, looking up nesting material, haw-hawed right out over my head -till they had to stop flapping and sail, they were so weak from it, and -a whole flock of chickadees tittered all along behind my back for a -quarter of a mile as I went on up the swamp on the left bank of the -Euphrates. - -It was amusing, and after a little I could see the joke and laugh -myself. The Tigris was on my right, and by-and-by the two began to -prattle down over a hard bottom from higher ground. Only for a little -way, though, for here we came to another wide swamp which the two -traversed under low sprouts of swamp maple and birch, the ground having -been cut over within a few years. - -And right here I ran into a full chorus, a raucous cacophony, an Homeric -din that sounded as if all the rough-voiced goblins between Blue Hill -and the Berkshires were assembled in convention up stream and had just -heard the story, particularly well told. I knew them. They were the wood -frogs, holding their annual convention, indeed, in the water all along -the marshy margin of the swamp. Once a year they come down, as people go -to the seashore, disporting themselves in the waves and making very -merry about it. They were not laughing at me. They were simply shouting -their happiness at being thawed out and finding it springtime once more. - -Their voices, pitched about an octave below middle C, and all on one -note, sound not unlike a great flock of ducks gabbling wildly, but they -are really more nearly musical than that. After the convention is over -they go back to the woods, where you will find them sitting among the -leaves, though you will never see them till they see you. And when you -do see them they are in the air. They have surprisingly long legs and -can jump tremendously, turning in the air as they go, so that, having -landed, their next leap will take them in a new direction. The earth -seems to swallow them as they touch it, for their coloration is that of -the brown leaves, and they leap from one invisibility to the next. - -Beyond the frog chorus I found my stream again, dancing daintily along -hemlock shaded shallows and rippling over slate ledges in the latticed -shade of oak and maple twigs, and here another voice called me, a -staccato whistle with a suspicion of a trill in it now and then, the -voice of the very spirit of the spring woodland,--the _hyla_. I have -called it a whistle, yet it is hardly that; it is rather the soft rich -tone of a pipe, such as Pan might have imitated when he first blew into -the hollow reed on the brook margin. - -He is a shy fellow, this inch-long brown frog that swells his throat -till it is like a balloon and pipes forth this mellow note, and he is -even more invisible than the wood-frog. You may seek him diligently for -years and not find him, for his voice is that of a ventriloquist and he -seems to send it hither and thither. It is as if this were a trick of -some frisky Ariel of the wood that danced about and whistled, now before -and now behind you. When the trill comes in it you may well think the -tricksy spirit is laughing at you so that his voice shakes. It would be -no surprise if some trilling note ended in a giggle and Ariel himself -should float by you on the mocking air. - -The great chorus of spring peepers is to come later; now, but an -occasional one has waked from his frosty nest beneath the woodland -leaves and come down to the water margin to sing. Nor do I know whether -it was the ventriloquial call of one that sounded now ahead and now -behind, now above and now below, or whether relays of jovial invisible -sprites passed me on from pool to pool. What I do know is that, a mile -or more beyond its outlet under the ooze of the little bog, I found the -source of my Euphrates in springs that boil clear through the sand and -send forth the cool, pure water for the delectation of all who will come -to drink. - -Here upon the margin I heard another chorus that repaid me for all the -rough laughter of the wood-goblin frogs,--the plaintive melodies of a -little flock of vesper sparrows, newly arrived and very happy about it. -These come later than the song sparrows, and bring a quality of -wistfulness in their song which in this differs from the bluff -heartiness of the earlier bird. It is as if their joy in the strong sun -and the awakening of creation was tempered and softened to a touch of -tears at some gentle remembrance. The vesper sparrows recall the -vanished happiness of past summers in their greeting to that which -comes. - -After that my way led me home through the purpling woodland toward the -golden greeting of the sunset. I had tasted to the full the joy of -exploration and discovery. I doubt if Humboldt felt any better coming -back from his exploration of the sources of the Caspian. My Euphrates I -know; my Tigris I have reserved for future, perhaps even greater joy of -tracing to its source in the mystic depths of, to me, untrodden -woodland. - - - - -EARLIEST BUTTERFLIES - - -Just as in midsummer the people of the little pasture and woodland -hollows must envy those of the hilltop their cool, breezy outlook, so in -mid-April the thought must be reversed. For still the warfare between -the north wind and the sun which began in February skirmishes and -reached its Gettysburg in late March, goes fitfully on, with Appomattox -hardly in sight. - -The South is to win in this fratricidal struggle though, and in the -summer millennium of peace and prosperity the two forces will join hands -and work for the good of the whole land. Already the warriors of the -North are driven to the hilltops, where they still shout defiance, and -whence they rush in determined raids on the valleys below. It is a -losing fight, for all day long the golden forces of the sun roll up the -land and fill all the hollows and hold them in serene warmth and peace. -However hard last night’s frost, however stiff the gale overhead, I can -always find bowl-shaped depressions where summer already coaxes the -winter-worn woodland. - -The very first squatters in this land, whose presence antedates those -people of record who held land by deeds and grants, seem to have found -and loved these little sun-warmed hollows too, for in them I find the -only traces of this pioneer occupation. Records in ink or on parchment -of these pioneers are few, indeed, and these which they left on the land -itself are but slight. Here a depression may show where a tiny cellar -was dug, though no trace of stone work will be found. It was easier for -the pioneer to frame his cellar wall of logs, just as he built those of -the house above it. - -You may find by careful search the worn path to the spring nearby, for -that which is written on the earth itself remains visible long after -inscriptions on stone are gone. The wind and the sun, the frost and the -rain, will erase the carving from your marble tablet. But the path -across a plain, once worn deep and firm by many passing feet, will -always show its tracing to the discerning eye. Perhaps a huge old -apple-tree stump may have lasted till now, even showing faint signs of -life, and round about what was the immediate dooryard the trees of the -wood may cluster; but they will hold back and leave some open space, as -if they still respected invisible bounds set by the long departed human -occupant. - -There seem to be many such sleepy hollows in my town, spots where -dreams dwell and the once trodden earth clings tenaciously to the -prints of long-vanished feet. Over their tops to-day the north wind -sings his war song, but his failing arrows fall to earth harmless, for -golden troops of sunshine roll over the southern rim and fill the space -below with quivering delight. - -Just to walk about in this sunshine is a pleasure, and to sit in the -pioneer’s hollow land and let it flood your marrow is to be thrilled -with a primal joy that is the first the race has to remember. It -antedates the first man by unknown millions of years. The same sun -touched with the same joy the first primordial cell. With the thrill the -one quivered into two and thus came the origin of species. - -To-day in such a hollow and under such a sun the pageant of woodland -life passed before me, much as it may have passed before the pioneer as -he sat on his log doorstep and rested perhaps from labors in the -cornfield, whose hills of earth still checker the level, sandy plain -behind his hollow. Strange that the brawny, seventeenth-century -adventurer should be but vanished dust and a dream, while the loam that -he stirred with careless hoe holds the form that he gave it more than -two hundred years ago! Five or six times his cornfield has matured a -forest, and the great trees have been cut down and carted away, and yet -the corn hills linger. Thus easily does the clay outlast the potter. - -When I first marched into the tiny clearing the place was silent, brown -and deserted, but that is the way of the woodland, and we soon learn to -understand it. A certain aboriginal courtesy is required before you are -allowed to become one of the company. Thus among the Eskimos you enter -an assembly and sit quietly a moment until one of those already present -notices and speaks to you. In this way you are admitted to fellowship. -It is very bad taste for the newcomer to speak first. - -So at first I noticed only the brown of last year’s grasses, the dead -stems of goldenrod and aster, of St. John’s-wort and mullein. A tiny -cloud slid across the face of the sun and a scout of the north wind blew -down the slope and chilled the golden glow of sunlight with which the -hollow had seemed filled to the brim. Looking down into it from a -sheltered spot on the rim, I had thought the place full of dreams of -June. As I sat down in the shadow on the pioneer’s grass-plot with the -scouting north wind at my back, it was rather a recollection of -November. - -A dead leaf, frightened by that scurrying wind, dashed down over the -tree tops and lighted, a brown splash on the pale, dead grass. Then all -in a moment the cloud blew by, the north wind saw the enemy all about -him in force and dashed over the rim of the hill, the amber warmth of -the sun descending and filling the cup to the brim with the gentle -ecstasy of returning summer. - -In the still radiance the brown leaf floated into the air again, hovered -a moment before my very eyes, and lighted near by on the gray bones of -what had once been the pioneer’s apple tree. Thus I received my -introduction. I had been spoken to by one of the people of the place, -received my accolade as it were, and was privileged to see clearly. For -the brown leaf was not a brown leaf at all, but a hunter’s butterfly. - -It is astonishing to find already so many forms of frail life stirring -in the sun, though just a night or two ago the thermometer registered -ten degrees of frost, and the ground was frozen solid the next morning. -Here was my hunter’s butterfly, a wee dab of pulpy cell that a touch of -my finger could crush, borne on wings of gossamer frailness that might -be whipped to tatters by a wind-snapped twig, yet sailing serenely -about, defying anything to harm him. - -The strange part of it is that he has been somewhere hereabouts all -winter long. All about in the pastures are the frail ghosts of last -year’s cudweed, on which as a caterpillar he fed. But it is six months -at least since he cast off his chrysalis skin and emerged in his present -form to face bitter winds and a constantly lowering temperature, days of -chilling rain, smothering snow, and ice that coated all things with an -inch-thick armor for days. All the wrecks that these might have caused -him he has in some mysterious fashion escaped, and here he is, as merry -as a grig. - -He did not seem to be hungry, unless, like me, he was eager to devour -the sunshine. He sat on the gray, weather-worn, fallen trunk of the -ancient apple tree, his wings gently rising and falling, while I noted -the beauty of his rich reds with their black and white markings and -margins of black just tipped with a blueish tinge on the tips of the -fore wings. Then he closed them for a minute, showing me the dark -blurring of the under parts that had made me think him a dead leaf as he -blew over the ridge with the wind, though now I could note the blue -ocelli of the after wings. - -It was only for a moment that he rested motionless thus, and it was -hard not to think him a chip of ancient bark or a fragment of a leaf, -then he flipped himself into the air and was off over the hill again in -a tremendous hurry. All butterflies get occasional aerograms and go off -as if on a matter of life or death in response to the messages, but it -seems as if these over-winter chaps were especially subject to them in -the first warm days. Later an angle-wing came down into my valley, but -he did not stay long enough for me to find out which of the _Graptas_ he -was,--whether the question mark or the comma, _Grapta interrogationis_ -or _Grapta comma_. I should call him the comma, for his stop was of the -shortest, if it were not that my doubt of his identity leaves me with -the query. - -The rush of his business was even greater than that of _Pyrameis -huntera_, and with one flip of his crooked-edged wings he was out of -sight. - -Three other butterflies I saw during the day in the neighborhood of my -sunny hollow. One, the mourning cloak, _Vanessa antiopa_, I always -expect to see on warm days in the sunny brown woods of April, and am -rarely disappointed. Another which took the air from the hillocked -ground of the two-century-old cornfield I thought to be _Vanessa -j-album_, more familiarly known, perhaps, as the Compton tortoise. I -would have been glad to know this surely, for this butterfly is rather -rare here; but bless me, he went off over the hills at a rate that -shamed the flipperty angle-wing. These dilly-dallying butterflies of the -poet, indeed! They are the busiest creatures of the whole woodland. - -Last of all was a little red chap that shot through the rich gold of the -sunlight quite like an agitated bullet, his motor doing its very -prettiest with the muffler off and both propellers roaring. Orville -Wright could not have caught him. It was but a brief glimpse that I got, -but I took him for one of the skippers, perhaps the silver-spotted, -which is common here, though I have never seen one so early before. He -was burly, thick-necked, short-winged, which is characteristic of the -hesperids. - -I would be glad to know what these early butterflies find to eat. -Certain flowers are now in bloom, but you never find a mourning cloak or -a hunter, a question mark or a painted lady fluttering about them. The -bees are in the willow blooms and the alder catkins after pollen. The -maples are in bloom. You can find hepaticas and violets, chickweed, -crocus, snowdrop, and, I dare say, dandelions in blossom, and almost -every day some new shrub or shy herb sends perfumed invitation out on -the messenger winds. - -Yet I find April butterflies most partial to such sunny spots as the -ancient cornfield, where pines and scrub oaks will give no hint of bloom -for weeks to come, and only dry lichens seem to flourish on the twig and -chip-encumbered earth. Here the dainty cladonias thrive, the -brown-fruited lifting tiny cups to the sun, while the scarlet-crested -help this and the fringed variety to make crisp, tiny, fairy gardens -that will show you great beauty if you will put your nose to the earth -as the butterfly does in looking at them. - -Perhaps these earliest spring butterflies sip from brown cups or draw -from frost-moistened scarlet crests some potent elixir which warms the -cockles of their wee hearts during the frigid nights of our -Massachusetts Aprils. I hope so. I never catch them sipping honey at -this time from any of the recognized sources. Perhaps the full flow of -sap which is fairly bursting the young limbs of all trees now leaks -enough to give syrup for the tasting, and they are thus more fortunate -than their brethren, who will come later and dance attendance on lilac -and milkweed. Maple sugar is better than honey. - -There will be blossoms enough for them in the little hollow by and by, -though at first it looked so brown and sere. Little by little, after my -initiation at the antennæ of _Pyrameis huntera_, I began to see them, a -rosette of green under my elbow, perhaps, or a serrate tip farther on. -All under the brown grass the green rosettes of biennials and perennials -have waited all winter long for a time like this. Out of the cores of -growth built with slow labor in the increasing chill of autumn they are -now sending new leaves, one after another in rapid succession, that top -the brown grasses and begin to wreathe them with the tender green of -spring. - -There is joy in their very coloring as they stretch up to meet the -enfolding warmth of the sun. Here an early buttercup waves a cleft and -somewhat pinnate hand to me with jaunty assurance, though in the heart -of its cluster is as yet no sign of the ascending stem that is to bear -the glossy, yellow bloom aloft. Dandelion leaves shake their notched -spears all about, proud that their buds are already visible, though -still tucked down in the heart of the plant and showing no sign of -yellow. - -Here are the wee strawberry-like leaves of the cinquefoil, pale -counterpart of the buttercup to which it looks up in gentle envy and -admiration. The cinquefoil follows hard upon the heels of the violet, -and already its buds are eager to be up and open. The linear root -leaves of aster and goldenrod sit snug and green, growing a bit, but in -no hurry to appear above the brown vegetation of last year. Their watch -comes late, and there is no reason for them to be stirring thus early. -And so the growth of lush green leaves is pushing up all over the -dooryard of the old-time settler getting ahead of the lazy wood grasses -that have hardly begun to put out tiny spears that eventually will stab -through the old fog and help the others to make a new tapestry carpet -for the empty woodland spaces. - -Loveliest of all these now, and, indeed, the most germane to the spot, -is the mullein. All winter long it has sat serene and self-sufficient, -under the snow, armor-encased in pellucid ice, or in the bare, bitter -nights when the stars of heaven were one solid coruscation of silver -and the still cold bit very deep. Clad in kersey like the pioneer, its -homespun clothing has defied the weather, holding the cold away from its -thin leaf with all this padding of matted wool which makes the plant -seem so rough and coarse. In the summer it will defy the fierce heat of -the July sun with the same armor, sitting here with its feet in the -burning sand and its tall spike tossing back the sunshine with a laugh -from its golden efflorescence. - -Like the pioneer, the mullein came from the Old World, well fitted to -bear the rigors and defy the dangers of the New. Like him it took root, -and its seed holds the land in the rough places, brave and beautiful, -though rough-coated, tender at heart, and helpful always. - -So, when the sun has gone over the western ridge and the north wind -scouts have again mustered courage to invade the place, I leave the -little hollow to the wilderness that still enfolds dreams of the -one-time occupant. In its sheltered nooks some of the day’s golden -warmth will remain, even until the sun comes again. I cannot tell where -my busy butterflies will spend the night, but if I were one of them I -should flip back into the dooryard of the pioneer’s homestead and cuddle -down in the great heart of one of those rosettes of mullein leaves, -there to slumber, warm and serene, wrapped to the eyes in its blankets -of soft wool. - - - - -APRIL SHOWERS - - -At nightfall the wind ceased, ashamed perhaps of its prolonged violence, -and we felt the soft presence of April all about. Someone had suddenly -wrapped the world in a protecting mantle of perfumed dreams. - -Hitherto it had been struggling to realize spring, succeeding here and -there indeed, but always against cold disfavor and sullen opposition. -Now, in a breath almost, joys and relaxation had come to all out-door -creatures, and the air itself was suffused with tears of relief that -brimmed over and made little laughing patterings on bare twigs and brown -grass. Till then we had had no green of spring. The woodland world had -been pink, and amber, and full of soft yearning of colors in hope and -promise; flowers had struggled bravely forth here and there, but they -had smiled patiently on a land brown with pasture grass of last year. - -Yet in a night the full warmth of April fondness and her tears of joy at -being really home again changed all that. Under the patter of wee -showers the wan grasses of last year laid weary heads upon the black -earth beneath them and went to sleep, while up in their places sprang -the lush green spears of this year, glinting back a million joyous -facets to the next morning’s sun that thus seemed to sprinkle all things -with gleam of jewels. - -They came very softly at first in the black dusk, these April showers, -growing out of the air so close to my cheek that their touch upon it was -infinitely fine and soothing. Thus the dew touches the grass on still -nights in summer. To be alone in the pasture on such a night is to -become one with all the primal gentleness of the universe. I could feel -the happiness of the pasture shrubs and perennial herbs and germinating -annuals, growing now on the warm bosom of mother earth, tucked away -beneath the perfumed robe of April night. - -The night before the cold sky was blown miles high in the air by the -rough winds, and the pasture people sighed and shrank and shivered. The -night out of which April showers were to be born descended like a -benediction, and swathed all humble things in caressing warmth that was -tremulous with moisture and perfume. - -With the rain came gentle woodland sprites; and while it played them a -merry, ghostly tune, they worked in harmony. They pressed the wan brown -grass lovingly down and patted the black earth over it till it went to -sleep. They pulled lustily at germinating blades, and in their labor, -there under the darkness, they painted out in a night the brown of last -year with the verdant pigment of this. They hammered and pried at the -tough, varnished outer husks of buds, and finally worked them open and -began unfolding the soft yellow-green of the young leaves within. - -Thus the tips of huckleberry twigs, which had given a soft shade of wine -red to the pasture all winter long, lost this tint and bourgeoned into -palest green, and the shadbush buds began to shake loose their racemes -of bloom. The little people worked in squads, and showers played their -merry tunes hither and yon as they labored. - -All through the night the fresh smell of the open pores of earth met you -everywhere, and moist air built upon this all other odors and carried -them very far. An opened kitchen door in the distance let out not only a -rainbow-edged blur of yellow light, but the smell of fresh-baked bread -cooling on the table before being put away in the big stone crock in the -pantry by some belated New England housewife. - -With the lullaby roar of the distant brook came the odor of the willow -blooms, and with a shift of wind the faint resinous perfume of the pine -wood. The darkness which blots outlines from the sight leaves the -location of things to the other senses which serve faithfully. Scent and -sound are as apprehensive as sight. Often, walking in the darkness, one -may feel faintly the obscure workings of a sense which is none of these, -whereby he dodges a tree trunk or a fence corner which he feels is -there, yet through none of the five ordinary senses. The darkness gives -us antennæ. - -The April showers touch with caressing fingers the chords of all things -and bring music from them, each according to its kind. In the open -forest under deciduous trees the dead leaves thrummed a ghostly dirge -like that of the “Dead March in Saul.” Winter ghosts marched to it in -solemn procession out of the woodland. Memories of sleet and deep snow, -ice storm, and heartbreaking frost, tramped soggily in sullen procession -over the misty ridge and on northward toward the barren lands to the -north of Hudson’s Bay. Thrilling through this solemn march below I heard -the laughing fantasia of young drops upon bourgeoning twigs above, dirge -and ditty softening in distance to a mystic music, a rune of the ancient -earth. - -In the open pasture the tune changed again. It was there a chirpy -crepitation that presaged all the tiny, cheerful insects whose songs -will make May nights merry. These, no doubt, take their first music -lessons from the patter of belated April showers on the grass roofs of -their homes. - -But it was down on the pond margin that I found the most perfect music. -Slender mists danced to it, fluttering softly up from the margin, -swaying together in ecstasy, and floating away into a gray dreamland of -delight. It was the same tune, with quaint, syncopated variations, that -the budding twigs and the brown pasture grasses had given forth, but -more sprightly and with a bell-like tinkle more clear and fresh than any -other sound that can be made, this tintinnabulation of falling globules -ringing against their kindred water. - -Every drop danced into the air again on striking and in the mellow glow -of an obscure twilight I could see the surface stippled with pearly -light. Then through it all came a new song; the first soloist of the -night, the first of his kind of the season, thrilling a long, dreamy, -heart-stirring cadenza of happiness, the love call of the swamp tree -frog. - -As the pattering music of the April showers on the waiting land is a -rune of the ancient earth, so the love song of the swamp tree frog -dreams down the years to us all the way from the carboniferous age. When -the coal measures were forests of tree ferns, and the first men paddled -through steaming shallows in their shade, the swamp tree frog was a tree -frog indeed, and sang his soothing song from their branches. Since then -he has degenerated and has lost most of the adhesive power of the tiny -disks on fingers and toes. He no longer clings readily to trees, and is -but an awkward climber. So, too, the webbing between his toes has nearly -vanished, and he is not a strong swimmer. He haunts the shallows of the -swamps and the sunny pools on the margin of the deep cove. - -Perhaps he knows that he is degenerate, and that his safety lies mainly -in silence and obscurity, for he sings rarely, except in the first -heyday of spring, when the air is full of soft mists and warmth that -stirs the deep-lying memories of the carboniferous age. He is a -beautiful fellow, hardly more than an inch long, often flesh-colored, -and with coppery iris tints that should make the mouths of frog-eating -creatures water. It is for desire of him I believe that the pickerel -haunt the veriest shallows at this time of year, where you may see them -of an evening with their back fins sticking out like the latticed sails -of a Chinese junk. - -I do not believe there is anywhere to be heard a dreamier or more -soothing lullaby than that sung by the swamp tree frogs of a misty April -night to the tinkling accompaniment of showers pattering upon the -dancing surface of the pond. It begins in a sigh, swells till it stirs a -memory, and dies away in a dream of its own happiness. - -All the warm, soothing night the swamp tree frogs sang, and the showers -made music for the laboring sprites, and when the morning came it was to -a world new clothed in all Easter finery. The raindrop sprites had -beaten and relaid the pasture carpets that had been so brown with the -dust of last year, and now they were so clean and had such a soft, green -nap that it was a renewed pleasure to walk on them. Green, too, was the -wear of many of the pasture shrubs, and the fripperies of the shadbush -made the more sober ones turn heads to look at her again. Already she -had creamed the sage green of her delicate gown with the white of -opening buds, and the berry bushes and the wild cherry, the viburnums, -and all the other early flowering shrubs felt a touch of their own -coming joy in just looking at her. - -Loveliest of all these pasture folk was the sweet gale. If you would -know how beautiful just catkins can make a slender, modest creature you -should hasten into the pasture now and take note of her. Until last -night you would have passed her by without noting, so modest and -reticent she is. - -The other two members of her family have been for months more in -evidence. The sweet fern keeps some of her last year’s leaves still, and -as you pass tosses a bouquet of perfume to you that you may know she is -by. The bayberry holds blue candles to the wind all winter, and the -incense of them carries far. But the sweet gale is too modest and shy -for such things. She just sits quiet and unobserved, and thinks holy -thoughts, and because she does so it seems as if all the warmth and -kindness of April sun and April showers touched her first. - -The catkins of the sweet fern were still hard and varnished, and had not -cracked a smile this morning after the night of April showers. Not a -candle of the bayberry had melted or shown flame in all this softness -and warmth, yet there stood the gentle sweet gale all aflame with soft -amber and pale gold, a veritable burning bush of beauty. There is no -perfume from these blossoms, so gently shy and self-contained is the -plant. Both the bayberry and sweet fern will woo you from a distance -with rich aroma, but only after the leaves have come, and then only if -you bruise them, will you get a message from the shy heart of the sweet -gale. - -On such a morning it seems as if all the birds were here, flitting back -and forth through the soft blue early mists and singing for pure joy in -the soft air and gentle warmth. For the first time the robins sang as if -they meant it, not in great numbers, though there are legions of them -here, but enough so that you can easily forecast the power of the full -chorus which will tune up a little later. Blackbirds and bluebirds -caroled, and song sparrows fairly split their throats, and now and then -a flicker would sit up on a top bough, clear his throat, throw out his -chest and pipe up “Tucker-tucker-tucker-tucker-tucker,” then, abashed at -the noise he had made, go off on tiptoe, very much ashamed, as well he -might be. - -Not a fox sparrow could I see; I think they went on the day before, but -a kingfisher was flying from cove to cove, springing that cheerful cry -of his, which sounds as if someone were rattling a stick on his slats. A -meadow lark piped a clear whistle from the top of a pitch pine, then -alternately fluttered and sailed down into the grass for an early bite. -The chipping sparrow swelled his little gray throat and trilled a -homely, contented note, and there was a clamor of blue jays as the hour -grew late. - -I find the blue jay a lazy chap. No early morning revelry is for him. -Breakfast is a serious matter, not to be entered into lightly or with -chattering. Later in the day he is apt to be noisy enough, though he -never sings in public. The nearest he - -[Illustration: There was a clamor of blue jays as the hour grew late] - -ever comes to it is when, in a crowd of good fellows, he gives you an -imitation of some other bird, for the blue jay is a good deal of a -mimic. But it is always a burlesque, and it rarely gets beyond the first -few notes before a jeering chorus from his companions cuts it off, nor -do you ever know whether they are jeering at him or the bird he is -burlesquing. I fancy it does not matter to them as long as they have a -chance to jeer. - -The crows are rather silent now, though occasionally there is a dreadful -towrow over a love affair which does not run smooth. Crows are such -canny Scotchmen of the woods that you would hardly expect them to throw -caution to the winds and have a riot and a duel with much loud talk over -a love affair, but it does happen. Among the pines a day or two ago I -heard a great screaming and scolding, cries of anger and distress, and -then, before I could reach the scene, silence. - -When I got there all I saw was two crows slipping shamefacedly away -behind the tree tops. I thought it merely a lovers’ quarrel, but the -next day I found beneath the pines not far from the spot a handsome -young crow dandy, dead. It puzzled me a bit. He bore no marks of shot, -but seemingly had died by violence. He was a stout youngster and had -been in the prime of life and vigor. This morning, when all the soft -glamor of the spring seemed made for lovers, and many of the birds were -very happy about it, I heard another crow quarrel going on, and was mean -enough to spy on it. - -There was a lady, very demure, and there were two lovers anything but -demure. Neither could get near enough to the lady to croak soft words of -love in her ear, for the other immediately flew at him in a rage. The -two tore about among the trees, hurling bad words at one another. It was -distinct profanity. They towered high in air and dove perilously one -after the other back into the woods again, screaming reckless oaths. Now -and then they came together, and one or the other yelled with pain. It -lasted but a few minutes, but it was a very hot scrimmage. Then one of -them evidently had enough, and abandoned the fight, taking refuge in a -thick fir very near me. No one of the three minded my presence. - -The victor went back to his lady love on mincing wings, and though I -could not see them I knew that he was received with open favor, for the -cooing of cawing that followed was positively uncanny. As a reckless -freebooter, a wise and jovial latter-day Robin Hood of the woods, I -like the crow; but his love-making voice, dear me! One of Macbeth’s -witches might address the cauldron in the same tone. Evidently the -discomfited rival thought so too, for he began to jaw in an undertone -and flew grumbling away, mostly on one wing. I have no direct evidence, -of course, but I think my dead crow came to his untimely end in one of -these duels between rival lovers. - -I was glad to leave the crows behind me for once, and then in the full -sunshine of the later morning I chanced upon a tree full of goldfinches. -It was a tree full, also, of most delightful music. Each bird was vying -with the other in a spring song that was more in tune with the -surroundings than any ever written by Bach or Schumann, a pure outgiving -of blossoming delight. - -The birds themselves have just come into new bloom. Like the sweet gale -they seem to have put on new color of gold almost in a night, for they -made yellow gleams that were like blossoms all about on the bare twigs, -their black wings making the color more vivid by contrast. Yesterday it -was, or was it the day before, that these lovely singers were going -about in sober brown, like sparrows. Now suddenly they are splashes of -tropic sunshine. - -It is their mating plumage which they will wear until late August puts -them in brown again. They are so happy about it, and their rich, -variable songs are such a delight that I am glad they do not quit wooing -and go to nest-building until late June, the latest, I think, of all our -birds. - -And while I listened to the goldfinches a tiny bit of the sky fell. It -lighted on a leaf by me, and expanded its wings and enjoyed the full -sun. It was one of the least of butterflies and one of the loveliest, -the common blue, the winter form, so called because it comes thus in -April from a chrysalid that has passed the rigors of winter -successfully. Like the blossoming sweet gale the song of the swamp tree -frog and the gold of the goldfinch’s plumage this tiny, fearless bit of -blue is a seal of the actual soft presence of the spring, which comes -only when the April showers have made her calling and election sure. - -To be sure, we might have a whiff of snow yet, but it will be only the -dust blown far from the fleeing feet of those winter ghosts now scuffing -the tundra up where the Saskatchewan empties into Hudson’s Bay. - - - - -PROMISE OF MAY - - -The first touch of the rose-gray morning air brought to my senses -suspicion of two new delights; one, the more sensuously pleasing, to be -sought, the other to be hoped for. It was easy to hope for things of -such a morning, for there come gracious days in the very passing of -April that presage all the seventh heaven of early June. - -At such times the pasture people bestir themselves, and no longer march -sedately toward the full life of summer, but begin to riot and caper -forward. The old Greek myth of fauns dancing on new greensward is not -less than fact; by May-day the shrubs caracole. I suspect even the -cassandra of wiggling its toes under the morose morass; and though it -may not outwardly prance, it puts on the white of new buds as if it at -least were coming out of mourning. - -By sunrise the riot of the robin symphony had become a fugue, and there -was some chance to hear the other birds. I had hoped for a soloist who -should certainly be here. The coming of the earlier bird migrants from -the South is sometimes delayed by storms or forwarded by pleasant -weather, but those which come now are almost sure to appear at a -definite date. There are always Baltimore orioles in the elms about my -house on the morning of the eighth day of May. No one has yet seen one -on the seventh, though the neighborhood takes an interest in the matter -and keeps careful watch. It is a matter of twenty-five years since the -observations began, and not yet has the date failed. If on that morning -I do not see the flash of an oriole’s orange, yellow, and black among -the young apple tree leaves, and hear that musical whistle, I shall -think something has gone dreadfully wrong with return tickets from -Nicaragua. - -Of the brown thrush I am not quite so sure. He rarely calls on me. -Instead, I have to seek him out on the first few days of his arrival. He -likes the sprout land best, and the flash of rufous brown that you get -from him as he flits away among the scrub oaks might well be the color -of a fox’s brush, yet there is no mistaking his sunrise solo. It is -quite the most sonorously musical bird song of early spring, and I have -heard it often on the twenty-fifth of April. - -I dare say it has always been here as early as that, though some years I -have failed of the concert-room and so of the singer. Always he is here -by May-day. This morning his rich contralto rang from a birch tip in the -pasture where he or some thrush just like him has sung each May-day -morning for I do not know how many years. I listened in vain for the -chewink, though he too is due. Like the brown thrush he is a -thicket-haunting bird, following soon on the trail of the fox sparrow, -cultivating the underbrush by claw as he does. - -There is no rest for the weary brown leaves of last year, though they -may take passage on the March winds to the inmost recesses of the -green-brier tangle of the pasture corners. Through March and early April -the fox sparrow harries them, and they have hardly settled with a sigh -to a brief nap in his trail before the brown thrush and the chewink are -at them with bill and toe-nail, and these are here for the summer. -About a week later, generally on the very sixth of May, easy going -mister catbird will appear with great pretence of bustle. He is a -thicket bird, too, but unlike the chewink and the brown thrush his -farming is all folderol. He simply potters round on their trail, -gleaning. Whatever the thicket-bird name is for Ruth, that is his. - -There are sweeter singers in the spring woodland than the brown thrush, -but I know of none whose rich voice carries so far, and this one’s rang -in my ears through all my wanderings till the sun was high and the dew -was well dried off the bushes. Now and then I must needs forget him and -even my quest in my joy over the fresh beauties that the shrubs were -putting on, seemingly every moment. It is something to look at an -olive-brown pasture cedar which has been as demure as a nun all winter -and spring, and see it suddenly in bloom from head to foot, as if before -your very eyes, coming out all sunclad in cloth of gold. It is no -illusion of the sun’s rays or the scintillation of the morning dew, but -a rich glow of gold out of the sturdy heart of the plant itself. - -Last October I had thought nothing could make a cedar more beautiful -than that rich embroidery of blue beading on cloth of olive, which these -Indian children of the pasture world donned for winter wear. Now I know -their May robes to be lovelier. No doubt they are days in coming out, -these tiny blooms of the pasture cedars, yet they always reach the point -where I notice them in a flash. One moment they are somber and sedate, -the next they are all dipped in sunshine and dimple with a loveliness -which is the dearer because it is so unexpected. - -You might think it just the foliage of the plant taking on a livelier -tint with the coming of glad weather, and there is a change there, but -that is only from brown to green. In the severe cold of the winter the -leaves seem to suffer a decomposition in the chlorophyl which gives them -their green tint and put on a winter garb of brownish hue, but with the -coming of the warm days the chlorophyl is reformed, and the brown is -rapidly giving place to green when this new transformation flashes on -the scene. Right out of the little green leaf-scales grow thousands of -tiny golden-brown spikes with a dozen golden mushroom caps ranged in -whorls of four about them. - -They are not more than an eighth of an inch long, these pollen bearing -spikes which will presently loose upon the wind tiny balloons bearing -pollen grains to float down the field to the even more rudimentary -pistillate flower, but they are big enough to change the gloom of rocky -hillsides to a glow of delight, seemingly in an hour. You have but to -look about you if you will visit the pasture cedars on May-day, and you -may see the place light up with the change. - -There is no fragrance to these blooms other than the resinous delight -which the leaves themselves distil at the caress of warm suns. It was no -odor of the pasture cedars which had given an object to my walk. - -The larch is not a native of Massachusetts, but it will grow here fairly -well if you plant it, and there are long rows of these trees by the -roadside on the way to the pasture. These are all coming forth in the -fragile beauty of new ideas. The larch is the mugwump among conifers, -dallying irresolutely between two parties. Born a dyed-in-the-wool -Republican it has yet of late years leanings toward Democracy. So it -votes with the conifers on cones and the deciduous trees on leaves. - -Sometimes I cut a larch limb to see if this year one isn’t turning -endogenous, and am never sure but the fruit for the new season will turn -out to be acorns instead of cones. You never can be sure in what way -these independents will surprise you. It is lucky the trees do not have -the Australian ballot on what their year’s output shall be. If they did -there would be no possibility of predicting what would be the larch -crop. - -As might be expected, larches are not virile trees, but have a slender -beauty which is quite effeminate. Just now their this year’s leaves are -a third grown, and are very lovely in their feathery softness, but -lovelier yet are the young larch cones, growing along the branches, -sessile among the young green of the leaves, translucent, deep rose-pink -cameos of cones, that remind you of an etherealized tiny pineapple, a -strawberry, and a stiff blossom carved in coral, all in one. - -After all, I am convinced that the larches may do as they please about -their leaves, vote with the deciduous trees if they wish to, and flout -their coniferous ancestry if they will, provided they continue to grow -yearly on May first these most delectable of cones. No blossom of the -year can show greater beauty. - -Baffled in my search for the origin of the sensuous odor which had lured -me and which seemed still to drift hither and thither on the variable -air, I got the canoe and paddled over alongshore to a cove that I know, -a new-moon shaped hiding place behind a barrier reef of rough rocks, -further screened by brittle willows that struggle forward year after -year, waist deep in water, bravely endeavoring to be trees. They almost -succeed, too, in that their trunks tower a modest twenty feet and some -of their limbs remain on throughout the year. So brittle are the slender -twigs, however, that the least touch seems to take them from the parent -tree; and as I push my canoe between them in a favorable channel of the -reef I collect an armful in it in brushing by. It is a wonder that the -March gales have left any. - -Past the barrier and afloat on the slender, placid crescent I found a -new-moon world with a life of its own. Rough waves may roll outside, but -only the gentlest undulations crinkle the reflections on the mirror -surface within. The winds may blow, but rarely a flaw strikes in far -enough to ruffle the water. Here, with the sun on my back, I might sit -quietly, and soon the normal life of the place, if at first disturbed by -my entrance, would go on. - -Yet here is no drowsy silence, such as will fill the cove with sleep in -August. Passing April may leave things quiet, but they are awake. The -first sound which disturbed this quiet was a kerplunk at my side, -followed by the grating of a turtle shell over rough rock and a second -plunge. Two spotted turtles that had been sunning themselves on a rock -at my very elbow as I glided in thus became submarines, and slipped -silently away to Ooze Harbor between two sheltering rocks at bottom. -These two had been contemplating nature with the sun on their backs, as -I planned to, and had been loth to leave such pleasant employment. I -think the turtle’s brain may work quickly, but his motions are as slow -as those of the Federal Government. - -Round about me were the mangrove-like buttonball bushes, showing no -signs of green, and the brown heads of hardhack and meadow-sweet blooms -of last year bent over their own reflections in the water. Here were -gray and brown sackcloth and ashes. Did not the little cove know that -Lent was long past? Yes, for here, too, were the maples scattering their -red blooms all along the surface; and as I looked again I saw the sage -green of young willow leaves just pushing out along the yellow bark of -those brittle shoots. - -Under the brown heads of the _Spiræa formentosa_ and _salicifolia_ were -vivid leaves putting forth, and just as the pasture cedars seemed to -jump into bloom before my eyes, so the little crescent cove seemed to -garb itself in green as I looked. Under water, too, were all kinds of -succulent young herbs just coming up, like the water-parsnip, whose root -leaves start in the pond bottom, but which, with the receding waters of -summer, will grow rank in the mud of the margin. - -A leopard frog sounded his call from the roots of last year’s reeds,--a -gentle drawl which has been compared to the sound produced by tearing -stout cotton cloth, and perhaps that is as near as one can come to -characterizing it, though the sound is a far more mellow and soothing -rattle than that. The hylas have ceased their peeping and the wood frogs -no longer croak. They have laid their eggs in the warming waters and -gone up into the woods. Hitched to a twig a foot beneath the surface I -found a jelly-like mass as big as my two fists, which contained a -thousand or so of the eggs of the green frog,--_Rana clamitans_,--and no -doubt those of the hylas and wood frogs were to be found nearby. The -new-moon cove is a famous frog rendezvous, and a month from now the -night there will be clamorous with the cries of many species. You would -never believe there were so many varieties till you begin to hunt them -by ear. - -A pair of robins came and inspected their last year’s nest in a willow -over the water, and I saw there a left-over kingbird’s, still holding -the space, though the kingbirds themselves will not be back to claim it -before the fifth or sixth of May. A silent black and white creeper -slipped up and down and all in and about the shoreward bushes, gleaning -stealthily and persistently, always with a watchful eye out for possible -danger. This watchfulness did not cease when the bird finished hunting -and settled down for a noonday nap. It chose for this a spot on the -black and white angle of a red alder shrub, where it would look exactly -like a knot on the wood. Then it fluffed down into a fat ball of -feathers and for a half-hour seemed to snooze, motionless except for its -head, that every few seconds turned and looked this way and then that. -It was a noonday nap, but it was sleeping with both eyes open. - -The kingfisher, always an example of nervous energy, flitted back and -forth outside the willow barrier, springing his rattle in short vigorous -calls. Once he fell into the water with a splash, and came out again -with a young white perch in his mouth. By and by he gave an extra shout -and went off over the hill and was gone an hour. Then two came back and -the air was vivid with friendly - -[Illustration: The air was vivid with friendly staccato calls] - -staccato calls. But there seemed to be a disagreement later, for after a -little the first bird was alone again. Then he began to fly back and -forth, high over the cove, till his white throat seemed a sister to the -young moon, paper white in the zenith. - -All the kingfisher calls before that had been brief, but now as he flew -he clattered like an alarm clock,--the kind that begins at ghostly hours -and continues without intermission till you finally get up in despair -and throw it out the window. His cry would begin with his leaving the -point beyond the cove on one side, continue without a break as he swung -high, and only cease when he had dropped to earth again on the other -side. Where he got the wind for this continuous vaudeville I cannot say. -I have never heard a kingfisher call so long without an interval before, -but I take it to have been a far cry sent out for that vanished mate. -Perhaps she answered finally, for he betook himself off after a little, -I hope to a rendezvous. - -While I listened in the silence for the returning call of the -kingfisher, a little shore wind came over my shoulder and brought to me -the same delicious, sensuous perfume that I had noticed in the early -morning, only where it had then been as slender as a hope it was now -rich and full with the joy of fulfilment. I looked back in some wonder -at the rocky marsh behind the cove, but now I saw farther than the -alders and maples that fringed its edge. - -Just as the golden glow of the cedars in the upland pasture had seemed -to come all of a sudden, as if turned up by the pressure of a button -which made electrical connection, and set the machinery of fantasy at -work, so the inner swamp suddenly grew all sun-stricken with the yellow -of the spicebush bloom. Bare twigs bore clusters of it everywhere, and -its intoxicating odor thrilled all my senses with rich dreams of June. - -So all this day of passing April the sun shone in the placid heart of -the little cove with the full fervor of summer. The leopard frog -throated his dreamy yawn from the bog, and the rich, soft perfume of the -spicebush seemed to wrap all the senses in longing that thrilled and -disquieted even while it lulled. There is a call to _vagabondia_ in the -odor of the spicebush, that gipsy of the wilder wood, which finds ready -echo in the hearts of us all. If it bloomed the year round there would -be no cities. - -While I breathed the witchery to the full there fell from the sky above -a gentle call, a single bird note out of the blue, that made me sit up -straight and look eagerly. - -A swift wing stabbed the air above the tree tops, and the note sounded -nearer. “Quivit, quivit,” it said in liquid gentleness, and the first -barn swallow of my season slipped down toward the pond and skimmed the -surface in graceful flight. May is welcome. She could be ushered in by -no sweeter music than the gentle call of the barn swallow, nor could she -send before her more dignified couriers than the glowing pasture cedars -or more richly sensuous odors than that of the spicebush which makes all -the swamps yellow with sunshine in her honor. - - - - -BOG BOGLES - - -A spirit of mystery always broods over the great bog of Ponkapog Pond. -Only occasionally does man disturb its quaking, sinking surface with his -foot. You may wade all about on it, even to the edge where the billowing -moss yields to the scarcely less stable pond surface; but to do so in -safety you must know it intimately, else you will go down below, -suddenly, to become a nodule in the peat, and perhaps be dug up intact a -thousand years from now and put in a museum. - -Hence man rather shuns the bog, and it has become, or perhaps I might -better say it has remained, the home of all sorts of shy creatures that -shun man. It would not be surprising if the little people that the -Ponkapog Indians knew so well, the pukwudgies which were their fairies, -the little manitous which were guardian spirits, and the fearsome folk, -the Indian bogies, still linger here, though the Indians are long gone. - -This morning in the lonesomest spot I thought I heard speech of them -all, and though various creatures appeared later and claimed the voices, -it is to be believed that these merely came out of the tall grass to go -straw bail for them. At this time of year you may reach this lonesomest -spot by boat, if you will take a light one with smooth flat bottom and -push valiantly through winding passages where you may not row and boldly -ride over grassy surfaces that yield beneath you. - -It is a different bog edge from that of last summer; a new world. The -Nesæa, which made wickets of bog-hopple all about, is hardly to be -seen, and you will wonder at the absence of the millions of serried -stems of pickerel weed that held the outer defences with halberds and -made them blue with flaunting banners of the bog’s advance guard. - -If you will look over the boat’s side as you glide through open water -near the edge you will see these, lying in heaps, blades pointing -bravely to seaward almost a half-fathom deep, slain by the winter’s -cold, indeed, but their bodies a bulwark on which younger warriors will -stand firmly in the skirmish line this year. Already the slender spears -of these prick upward out of the gray tangle at bottom, and it will not -be long before they stab the surface, eager for the accolade of the -field marshal sun. - -In the little channels up which you glide tiny tides flow back and -forth, driven, no doubt, by the undulations of the waves in the open -pond, and here through the dark depths the brownish green clusters of -pointed peat-moss roll along like Russian tumble-weeds driven across the -Dakotas by prairie winds, to grow again in new soil. On either side are -island clumps of meadow grass, and in the shallows you may see, as -carefully planted as if by some landscape gardener of the pond bottom, -most wonderfully beautiful fairy gardens of young water-lily leaves. - -Out of the brown ooze at varied dignified distances apart spring the -slender, erect stems, some only a few inches long, others longer, till a -precocious few tickle the surface with the upper rim of the rounded -leaf. These leaves are set at quaint angles that give the garden a -perky, Alice-in-Wonderland effect. The Welsh rabbit and the mock turtle -might well come down these garden paths hand in hand, or the walrus and -the carpenter sit beneath the flat shade of these dado-decoration leaves -and swap poems. - -But, after all, the wonder of it is not the quaint beauty of the -arrangement but the bewildering richness of the coloring of these -leaves. Only the faintest suggestion of green is in them. Instead, they -glow with a velvety crimson maroon in varying shades, a color -inexpressibly soft and rich. The blood-red of last year’s cranberries -that form a floating bead edge to the bog in many places is more vivid, -but not so rich. The lilies of next July will be lovely, indeed, but -never so sumptuously beautiful or so full of quaint delight. - -At the end of the waterway you come to a barrier of cassandra, which -blocks your further passage and half surrounds you with a low, irregular -hedge. I fear I have misnamed the cassandra. I thought it dour and -morose; but that was in late April. Now it is early May, and by some -trick of the bog pukwudgies the gloom of its still clinging last year’s -leaves is lightened into a soft sage green that is prim indeed, but -lovely in its primness, while all underneath these leaves, in festoons -along the arching stems, are tiny white blossoms that are like ropes of -dripping pearls. - -Grim and morose, indeed! The cassandra is like a gentle, pure-souled -girl of the elder Puritans, arrayed for her coming-out party, her -primness of garb only enhancing the beauty of soul that shines through -it and finds visible expression in the pearls. And already lovers buzz -about her. Their cheerful hum is like the sound of soft stringed -instruments fanned by the warm breeze in this fairy-peopled land of -loneliness. Here I see my first bumblebee of the season, seemingly less -dunderheaded out here among the wild blooms than he will be later in the -white clover of the lawn. - -Perhaps the prim and definite arrangement of the cassandra blossoms, -hung so close in long strings that he has a straight road to follow, -helps keep his wits about him. Here are honeybees a-plenty, adding the -clarinet to his bassoon, and many a wild bee, too, bringing the -scintillation of iridescent thorax or wing, and his own peculiar pitch -to the symphony. I dare say the hymenopterists know each bee by ear as -well as by sight. - -In this fairy land of bog tangle the hylas, that I had thought all -through with their songs for the year, piped in chorus as each cloud -slipped over the sun, and the leopard frogs yawned throatily, dreamily, -all about in the full sunshine. The hotter it was the more they liked -it, and in the brightest part of the day they cut up the yawns into -brief words and phrases which made a most language-like gabble. - -Of course I could not see this peace congress of leopard frogs and can -prove only that it sounded like them. It may very well have been the -pukwudgies talking over my presence and wondering if white men were now -coming to oust them from their last stronghold in the bog, as they have -driven them and the once more visible Indians from the rough hills and -sandy plains about the pond. Indeed, as I sat quiet, hour after hour, in -this miniature wilderness, I came to hear many a strange and -unclassified sound that, for all I know, may have been fay or frog, -banshee or bird. - -I began to get glints of sunlight reflecting from grassy islands all -about. It was as if some very human folk had held high carnival here the -night before and sown the dry spots with empty black bottles. But a -second look showed these to be spotted turtles, sitting up above the -water level, each with his head held up as if he wished especially to -get the warmth of the sun on his throat. On such a day one might well -envy the turtle for having his bones all on the outside. It is easy for -him to let the spring sunshine into his very marrow. - -The turtle, in spite of the canticle which, bubbling over with the -enthusiastic poetry of spring, declares that “the voice of the turtle is -heard in our land,” is usually reckoned dumb. The commentators have -carefully announced that the turtle mentioned is the turtle-dove cooing -in the joy of springtime. That may be, but I do not see how they know, -for the turtle, denied a voice by naturalists and scriptural -commentators alike, nevertheless has one, and a song of its own. - -A turtle, suddenly jolted, will give a quaint little squeak as he yanks -himself back into his shell. That is common enough, but this day there -were two, sitting up on nearby tussocks, that piped a musical little -song of spring, just a soft trill that was eminently frog-like but -distinct. I heard it and tried at first to make it the trill of hylas, -but it was more of a trill and different in quality. Try as I would I -could but locate this quaint little song in the throats of the two -turtles. I carefully scared one off his perch and one trill ceased. I -scared the other, and both voices were silent, though here and there in -the marsh I could hear others. It may have been the pukwudgies playing -ventriloquial tricks on me from the shade of the swamp cedars just -beyond, and laughing in their beaded sleeves at the joke; but if it was -not they, I am convinced that my turtles sang, and that Solomon not only -knew what he was talking about but meant exactly what he said. - -While I was listening to the two turtles and wondering about them, I -kept hearing over among the white cedars raucous profanity of the most -outrageous sort. Bad words snarled in throaty squawks came oftener and -oftener, till by the time the turtles had gone down into oblivion -beneath the bog roots the most villainous language from at least two -squawkers gave evidence that a low-bred row was going on. I could -distinguish accusation and recrimination till it sounded like a family -quarrel between drunken bog bogles. - -Then there was the sound of blows, and with a wild shriek of a most -reckless word a bittern flapped out, whirled round once or twice as if -undecided where he would go, then dropped in the grass down the bog a -way. Here he turned his black, stake-like head this way and that for a -moment, then pulled it down out of sight. I had known the bittern was -misanthropic, but I had never before realized that he was so -ill-tempered and profane. I am positive he was beating his wife, and the -whole affair sounded like a case of too much bog whiskey. - -For an hour there was no sight or sound of this bittern, though uncouth -conversation seemed to be going on still in the tangle whence he flew, -but I heard no more profanity. Yet out of the heart of the bog curious -sounds came floating at intervals,--sounds which often I had difficulty -in getting any known creature to go bail for. I do not mean the ordinary -bird voices, though the air was full of these. It seems as if all the -small migrants made this a port of call or a refuge, and paid for their -safety with music. Warblers trilled their varied notes from the cedars -or the thicket of cassandra shrubs, some coming boldly near, others -giving sign of their presence only by the glint of a wing or the shaking -of a twig, others still invisible but vocal. - -Thrush and catbird, song sparrow and chipping sparrow, chickadee and -creeper, all helped to fill the air with sound, but it was not to these -I listened. It was rather to obscure whinings and grumblings out of the -deep heart of the bog, goblin talk very likely that seemed to grow -louder and come nearer. Then after a little I heard splashing, and out -into a clear space of grassy shallows came a splendid great muskrat -followed by another just as large. In the middle of this tourney ground -the two faced each other, and after a second of sparring closed. - -It was hardly a scientific fight. They batted and clawed, butted and -scratched and bit, whining like eager dogs, and now and then yelping -with pain. But it was effective; in a very few minutes one had enough -and turned and fled, ploughing a straight furrow through the shallows, -to a plunge in a deep hole. The victor followed a few yards, then as if -convinced that the retreat was a real one, turned and went proudly back, -probably to the lady who was the cause of all this trouble. Muskrats are -such gentle creatures that I was amazed to see this happen, but affairs -of the heart are serious even in the depths of the bog. I lay a part of -the bog bogle talk which still went on in the eerie depths behind the -green of the cedars to the other muskrats. It does not seem as if they -could have been to blame for it all. - -Then I remembered the vanished bittern and began to work my boat toward -the part of the bog where he disappeared. Very likely he had committed -suicide in repentance for his bad behavior and his profanity. He ought -to have, but he was simply sulking, after all. I think he felt so bad -about it that his usual wariness was at fault, for I was almost upon him -before he saw me. It may have been drunken stupor, but I like to believe -it was remorse. - -When he did see me his dismay was ludicrous. He almost fell over himself -in getting into the air, and he flapped back toward the spot where the -quarrel had gone on with wild squawks that said “Help, help!” as -plainly as any language could. Out from among the cedars, in answer to -this frenzied appeal, came the other bittern, and then another. I -watched the three flapping down the bog and saw them light together at a -safe distance. Then I knew the cause of all the trouble in the bittern -family. The bog world, like the pasture world and the deep wood, at this -time of year is full of blissful love making, but it is also full of -heartrending jealousies and fights to a finish. No wonder the pukwudgies -and bog bogles are full of talk and excitement back there; there is -enough food for gossip. - -Sitting quietly in the boat in this new part of the bog I had a queer -feeling of being grimly watched by, I could not tell what. I have read -tales of travelers in African jungles who felt the eyes of a lurking -boa constrictor resting balefully on them when the creature itself was -concealed. It was something like that, and I looked about rather -uneasily. Probably the bog voices were getting on my nerves and it was -time to go home. Then I glanced over one side of the boat and very -nearly jumped over the other, for there were the two grim eyes, in a -great horny head as big as my two fists, looking up at me. - -I had been amusing myself with imagining that I heard the little people -of the bog, but here was the great dragon, the very devil himself, -sunning his black hulk on a fairy acre of bog grass. At its further end -I saw his tail, as large as my forearm at the base, tapering with -alligator-like corrugations to its tip. I saw his great webbed feet as -large as my hand and furnished with claws. I saw his thick neck, and -that was all of him in sight. The rest was concealed within a huge mound -of black, plated, horny shell that was fourteen inches from side to side -and sixteen inches from front to back. These were measurements which I -took after I had decided that he did not intend to eat me right away, -perhaps not at all. - -_Chelydra serpentina_, the snapping turtle, or the alligator snapper, as -he is sometimes called, and with reason, for, except for his casing of -shell, he is very like an alligator, is not uncommon in the bog; but I -had never before seen so huge or so ancient appearing a specimen. His -black shell was worn gray with age and bore two deep scars where some -sharp instrument very like a spear had been jabbed into his back. I -suspect this to have been an Indian spear, and I fully believe that my -black dragon of the bog was a well-grown turtle before the white man -ever saw Ponkapog Pond. - -There were parallel ridges in the structure of his shell that seemed to -show much wear as if this turtle had carried weight on his back. The -Indians have a legend that the world itself is held up on the back of a -great turtle. Very well; this is the one. I saw the marks of its -friction on his great muddy black structure as I looked him over, there -in the middle of the loneliest place in the bog. - -I might have taken him by that alligator tail and swung his seventy or -eighty pounds into the boat, I suppose. Terrapin is valuable, and the -snapping turtle is own cousin to the terrapin. I have a fancy, though, -that if he had got into the boat I should have got out. No ordinary -Ponkapog boat was likely to hold us both, and I wisely refrained. Nor -did he molest me, but stood his ground, still gazing at me with that -cold, critical eye. After a time he moved on, pushing his great weight -with ease over the crushed bog growth and sliding with dignity down into -the muddy depths of an open channel. - -For myself, I turned the boat’s prow toward the distant landing and -pushed, as he had, over the yielding shallows to the open pond. I had -seen a hundred beauties in the lonely bog and been well initiated into -its mysteries. For me the spotted turtles had sung, the muskrats had -fought a tourney, the bitterns had voiced a family quarrel. And now it -was nightfall, and the big old dragon of the bog had looked me over with -measuring eye. It was high time that I headed for home if I expected to -get there. - - - - -BOBBING FOR EELS - - -It is fortunate that the angleworm is born without a voice, else -throughout the length and breadth of the land were now resounding a -chorus of doleful shrieks, for great is the dismemberment of angleworms -about this time. The same warmth of imminent summer which made the grass -jump six inches in length over night, has brought him forth in great -numbers, over night also, for the angleworm is a lover of darkness. - -I know Darwin thought earthworm a more proper designation of him, but it -is to be believed that Darwin was not a fisherman. Had he been he would -have known that the chief end of worm is to become bait. There may be -nicer things to have than these somewhat attenuated hermits of the -mold, but if there are the fishes do not know it, and there are few -anglers but on May fifteenth would give their weight in gold for them if -such was the price. It is fortunate, therefore, that angleworms are -inhabitants of the earth, so to speak, and not of any one neighborhood. -It is, no doubt, possible to catch fish with other bait. There are -grasshoppers, to be sure, though not at this time of year. There are -various artificial flies and lures, spoon hooks and other wastrel -inventions. Of these little is to be said; indeed, some of them are -unspeakable. - -On fortunate springs April showers linger into May, finally hastening -northward lest summer catch them here and make a wet June of it. The -seductive warmth of summer is in them now, and as they go spilling by of -perfumed nights they work all kinds of wonder. Things that were -beginning to grow up suddenly blow up. My cherry tree has exploded over -night. Two days ago the grass, we noted with delight, was really quite -green. This morning it waves in the wind, and I am confident that by -to-morrow, at this rate, it will be full of bobolinks and mowing -machines. Yesterday you could see far through the woodland. To-day it is -clouded with its own green leaves, and along aisles that begin to be -shady the truant ovenbirds are shouting “Teacher, teacher, teacher, -teacher,” in warning to one another every time they hear a human -footfall in the path. - -The first dragon flies have come, and in woodland places lovely little -brown butterflies skip about like mad. No wonder the Hesperidæ are -commonly known as skippers. These that I saw to-day, most of them -_Thanaos brizo_, the sleepy dusky-wing, defied any but the most alert -eye to follow them as they dashed from invisibility on some dark fallen -limb to vanishment on brown mud of the path. They seemed to skip in and -out of existence at will. I call them brown, for you will see that they -are that if you have a chance to see one sitting at rest. You may get -near enough to see the beautiful blueish spots surrounded with dark -rings on the fore wings, and the double row of yellow spots on the hind -wings. For all that _Thanaos brizo_ is as black as your hat to the eye -when he is in flight. Perhaps that is why he vanishes so readily. You -are looking for a black butterfly, and what you see is nothing but a -brown bit of bark or leaf. - -Darwin was convinced that the earthworm, as he called him, was of -inestimable value to man, and he cites how he works over the mold and -loosens it up, ploughing it, as it were, for future planters who should -thus be able to enjoy the fruits of the earth, leveling it and working -in various ways for the good of mankind. But Darwin never says a word of -the inestimable value of earthworms as angleworms. Thus often do our -greatest scientists fail to interpret things at their true value. Very -likely Darwin never had an opportunity to bob for eels in a New England -pond. If so he would have seen worms as they are, for no man can really -know things till he has yearned for them. - -In the winter time the angleworm goes down well below the reach of frost -which will kill him. Indeed, he is sensitive to the cold, and comes to -the surface only when the sun has warmed the earth so that it is -comfortable. Under the May moon he comes, sometimes clear out of his -hole, and wanders far in search of friends or new countries. Often of a -moist early morning you may find big ones caught out on the concrete -sidewalk or marooned in the dry dust of the road, remaining to be an -easy prey for early birds. - -But these are the adventurous or unfortunate few. The many have remained -all night stretched far from the mouths of their burrows, indeed, but -with tails still hooked into the door jamb, and able to make a rapid -backward scramble into safety. It is this habit of the worm of warm -summer evenings that the wise angler utilizes for his capture. The robin -knows it too, and he spices his rapture of matin song with trips across -the lawn, where, between staccato hops, he eyes the grass sidewise and -catches late roisterers before they can get under cover. These he takes -by the scruff of the neck, as one might say, hauls them, stretching and -resisting, forth from their homes and swallows them. - -Thus with the unrighteous, but even the upright, or rather the -downright, who are that, snugly ensconced as they intended to be, he is -apt to see and seize, for the robin’s eye is good and his bill is long -enough. Angleworms, after the joys or labors of the night are over, -withdraw into their holes, but often not very far. They like to lie with -the head drawn back just out of sight, near enough to the surface to -bask in the warmth of the sun. - -Some line the outer ends of their burrows with leaves to keep them from -the damp of the earth, thus further to enjoy themselves. Some, too, on -retiring, draw leaves and sticks in, thus going into their holes and -pulling the holes in after them, as the saying goes. Some merely pile -small stones in a sort of an ant heap about the mouth. In the gravel -walk these little mounds are often taken for those piled by the -industrious ants. The robin gets many of these as he hops, and it is no -wonder that his chestnut-red front looms as round as a pumpkin and -almost as big. - -There are many ways of getting angleworms and many ways of using them -after you get them; but he who wants them in bulk will do well to -imitate the robin,--only do it in the night instead of the day. Of -course you may go out with a spade and assault likely spots in the -garden. That is often satisfactory, though crude. It is likely to result -in small numbers and not well assorted sizes. - -I knew a man once who used to jab for angleworms with a crowbar, and it -was a rather astonishing thing to watch him and see the results. The -angleworm’s hearing is crude in the extreme. Indeed, hearing in the -ordinary sense of the word he has none. Mary Garden might sing at the -mouth of his burrow and he would never know it. Sousa’s finest march on -fifty instruments--count ’em fifty--might be played on the bandstand -just over his head and he would never feel one thrill. The only sound he -gets is a crunching and grubbing in the earth near him. This he feels, -for he is the chief food of the grubbing mole, and that sound means but -one thing to him,--that he is being dug for. So when he heard that -crowbar wriggling and crunching in the gravel beneath he used to flee to -the surface in numbers. - -This man always whistled an eerie little tune while he wriggled the bar. -He said he was calling them, and it was quite like magic the way in -which they hustled to the surface and crawled about his feet. Most -people fail in this method. It takes a peculiar motion to the bar and a -good eye in choosing the spot where the worms are. And then, few people -know the tune. - -Nightfall and the robin’s method are best. Wait till the full darkness -of a moist night. Hang a lantern about your neck and get down on your -marrow bones by a grassy roadside. Worms do not see, and are not -sensitive to light. You have but to crawl quietly forward and pick them -up with a quick snatch, for the worm can feel, and he gets back into his -burrow with an agility which is surprising. - -On the right kind of a May night I have seen the roadside of a -Massachusetts village the scene of more than one such spectacle. A -stranger from the big world, seeing a very fat man crawling by the -roadside with a lantern hung about his neck, making frantic dabs here -and there, and hauling forth great worms that resisted and hung on -valiantly and stretched like red rubber, might well have said that here -was voodoo worship or a Dickey initiate gone mad. But it was nothing of -the sort,--merely the crack local fisherman getting his bait. - -I have looked in vain in Izaak Walton for a pæan on angleworms or a -description of a proper method for making a bob for eels, and I thereby -find the “Compleat Angler” incomplete. However, Izaak was an admirable -fisherman in the rather patient and conservative way of the England of -his time. He advises to bait for eels “with a little, a very little, -lamphrey, which some call a pride, and may in the hot months be found -many of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps in other rivers; -yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in a dung-hill.” - -He should have seen a Yankee catch eels with a pole and line with a big -wad of worms tied on the end of the line and no hook at all, for such is -a “bob,” as we know it in Norfolk County. The making of a bob is not a -pleasant affair for the angleworms, which seem born for destruction, so -many are the creatures that prey on them, and I am glad of Darwin’s -assurance that, in spite of the fact that they wriggle when rent, they -have little fineness of perception and feeling and do not suffer--much. - -This crack fisherman who was so stout and who used to get his bait by -lantern light at night, to whom my memory runs, always made a bob of -shoemaker’s thread, because it was fine and of great strength. He had a -long wire needle like an upholsterer’s needle, and with this he would -deftly string great angleworms from head to tail, sliding them one by -one down upon his shoemaker’s thread till he had a rope of them twelve -feet long or so. Then tying the ends together he looped this up till it -hung in a wad of loops as big as his two fists. This, hung upon the end -of his line, was all he needed for a night’s fishing. - -The way of its use is this. First catch your night, one of those nights -when there is a promise of soft rain in the sky and the wind that is to -bring it just sighs gently over the trees from the southward. Too much -wind is bad, for it so ruffles the surface that the fish cannot find -you. A very gentle ripple, on the contrary, is helpful, for it makes a -dancing path of light from your fire, up which the eels may trail you to -the very spot where hangs the bob. - -The stout fisherman used to take along at least two boys who would be -useful in gathering wood for the fire and in other matters. Then, -picking the exactly most favorable spot on the dam where the deep, dark -water shoulders the bank, he built his fire after the full darkness had -come. In common with many others I regret the passing of the old-time -cedar rail fence. Wire abominations may be cheaper, but who ever heard -of building a fishing fire out of tariff-nurtured, wire-trust, fencing -material? Fishing fire material of the proper sort is rare nowadays, and -I can but feel that the youth of the present generation are born to -barren years. - -With the fire well alight and the deep half-bushel basket placed handy -by, the fisherman would make his line fast to the tip of that long, -light, supple but strong birch pole and cast the big bob far from him -with a generous splash into the water, letting it sink till within a -foot or two of bottom. How far under the dark water the eels might see -that flickering fire and be drawn to it as moths circle about a light at -night I cannot say, but I think it was very far, for on favorable nights -it seemed as if all the eels in the pond must have been drawn thither. I -know that fishing without a fire you may catch one eel or perhaps two, -but you will never get such numbers as come to a proper blaze made of -the dryest of good old cedar rails. - -In South American waters there is an electric eel which can give a stout -shock to such as touch him; but I think all eels must be electric, else -why the shock that one in the deep water off the pond bank can send -through a dozen feet of line and as much more of birch pole to your hand -the moment he pokes his nose against a bob? It tingles in your palms, -and is as good as prescribed electric treatment from a battery, for it -thrills you with a quickening of life and nerve and a magical alertness. - -The eel is not nearly so cautious with a bob as with a hook. He nibbles, -which is the first shock; he bites, which is the second and stronger; -then he takes hold. I can see the stout fisherman now with the fire -gleam on his rugged face, his feet planted wide apart and his weight -well on the hinder one, his hands wide apart on the pole and his whole -attitude that of a lion couchant for a back somersault. - -At the nibble his face twitches, at the bite his knee bends, and then -the end of the pole sags quickly downward with the line as taut as a -violin string. The eel has taken hold, his throat-pointing teeth are -tangled in the thread of the bob, and the stout fisherman’s weight has -gone far back of his point of support. If the line should break so -would the fisherman’s neck. - -They prate much to me about the stance and the swing, the addressing and -the following through in driving a ball at golf. The words are used -glibly, but I doubt if many know their real significance. Whatever that -is it all applies, and more, to the proper bobbing of an eel. It is the -summoning of all the forces of a man’s vigor and personality in one -supreme stroke. Holding on, quite literally by the skin of his teeth, -the eel circles a section of the pond with his tail and seems to lift it -with him. The line sings and the birch pole bends nearly double. It is -for a second a question which will win, but the shoemaker’s thread is -very strong, and so is the stout fisherman. - -Suddenly the eel gives up. Still hung to the bob he shoots into the air -the full length of the line, describes a circle in high heaven, of -which the fisherman’s feet are the center, and drops in the grass, while -the fisherman, in marvelous defiance of all laws of gravity, brings his -two hundred and fifty pounds back to an upright position without losing -his footing. Golf may be all very well, but it does not equal this. -Small blame to the fisherman if he poises a moment like Ajax defying the -lightning. - -Now, the boys have their innings. Somewhere in classic literature the -Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold. So the boys upon the eel -that flops mightily and wriggles in vain in the tall grass. He is dumped -in the deep basket; and hardly is he there before the fisherman has -swung another in that mighty circle. An eel is very canny, and often -escapes a hook even when well on. I never knew one to get away from a -bob. Sometimes the half-bushel basket would go back home nearly full of -them. And as for their size, I do not wish to say, except that no small -ones seem to bite at a bob. In that I will quote from Izaak Walton, who, -after giving excellent directions for dressing and cooking an eel, says: - -“When I go to dress an Eel thus I wish he were as long and as big as -that which was caught in Peterborough River in the year 1667, which was -a yard and three-quarters long.” To which I can but add that I defy old -England to produce any bigger eels than we have in New England. - - - - -THE VANISHING NIGHT HERONS - - -It is a long time since I have set eyes, in broad daylight, upon the -black-crowned night heron, often known as “quawk,” and otherwise -derisively named by the impuritans. The scientists have also, it seems -to me, joined in this derision, for they have dubbed him _Nycticorax -nycticorax nævius_, which is a libel on his language. At any rate, it -sounds like it. The roots are evidently the same. - -Yesterday, however, in broad daylight, I saw two pair sailing down out -of the sunlit sky to light on a tree by the border of the pond. Very -white they looked in the glare of day, and I wondered at first if four -snowy egrets had not escaped the plume hunters after all and fled north -for safety. Probably I shall never see snowy egrets again, though they -used to stray north as far as this on occasions. Now, even the night -heron, which used to nest hereabout in colonies of hundreds, is rarely -seen. - -I suppose if bird species must become, one by one, extinct, we can as -well afford to lose the night heron as any. He is not a particularly -beautiful bird in appearance, though these four seemed handsome enough -as they sailed grandly down into the trees on the pond border. His voice -is unmelodious. Quawk is only a convenient handle for his one word. It -should rather be made up of the roughest consonants in the language, -thrown together with raucous vigor. It sounds more like “hwxzvck!” shot -into the mud out of a damp cloud. The voices of night herons, sailing -in companies over the marshes and ponds used to sound like echoes of a -convocation of witches, falling through damp gloom as broomstick flights -went over. Shakespeare named a witch Sycorax. He may have been making -game of herons. - -To-day, having seen these four, I went down to the places which used to -be the old-time haunts of night herons, and looked carefully but in vain -for traces of their presence. It is their nesting time. There should be -eggs about to hatch, or young about to make prodigious and ungainly -growth in singularly flimsy nests that let you see the blue of the eggs -faintly visible through the loosely crossed twigs against the blue of -the sky. These I did not find, and the big cedars which used to be so -populous were lonely enough. - -Once there would be a nest in every tree, two-thirds of the way up, and -a big heron sitting on guard at the top of the tree, or astride the -eggs on the nest itself. How the long legged mother bird could sit on -this loose nest and not resolve it into its component parts and drop the -two-inch long eggs to destruction on the peat-moss beneath is still a -mystery to me. But she could do it, and the young after they were -hatched did it, sometimes six of them, and the nests remained after they -were gone, in proof of it. Most birds’ nests are marvels of -construction; the black-crowned night heron’s seems a marvel of lack of -it, but I think few of us could make so ill a nest so well. - -The night heron’s day begins at dusk and ends, as a rule, at daylight. -His eyes have all the night-seeing ability of those of the owl, and he -finds his way through fog and darkness, and his food as well. Yet the -bird seems to see well enough by day. The four that sailed down to the -pond yesterday in the full glare of the afternoon sun had no hesitation -about their flight. They swung the corner of the wood and lighted on -limbs of the trees with as much directness and certainty as a hawk -might. Indeed, when their voracious young are growing up they have to -fish night and day. It seems to me that fish must be becoming more -plentiful now that the black-crowned night herons are few in number, for -a single bird must consume yearly an enormous quantity. - -I undertook the care and feeding of two once that I had taken from one -of those impossible nests. They were the most solemnly ridiculous young -creatures that were ever made. “Man,” says Plato, “is a featherless -biped.” So were these youthful night herons. They were pretty nearly as -naked as truth and might have passed for caricatures of the Puritan -conscience, for they were so erect they nearly fell over backward. - -They would not stay in any nest made for them, but preferred to inhabit -the earth, usually just round the corner of something, whence they poked -weird heads with staring eyes that discountenanced all creatures that -they met. The family cat, notoriously fond of chicken, stalked them a -bit the first day that they occupied the yard. At the psychological -moment, when _Felis domesticatus_ was crouching, green eyed, for a -spring, the two gravely rose and faced her. She took one look at those -pods of bodies on stilts, those strange heads stretched high above on -attenuated necks, and faced the wooden severity of their stare for but a -second. Then she gave forth a yowl of terror and fled to her favorite -refuge beneath the barn, whence she was not known to emerge for a space -of twenty-four hours. - -There was something so solemn, so “pokerish,” so preternaturally -dignified about these creatures that they seemed to be out of another, -eerier, world. If we ever get so advanced as to travel from planet to -planet I shall expect to find things like them peering round corners at -me on some of the out-of-the-way satellites, the moons of Neptune, for -instance. - -Most young birds will eat what you bring them and clamor for more until -they are full. These young herons yawned at my approach as solemnly as -if they were made of wood and worked by the pulling of a string. Never a -sound did I know them to make during their brief stay with me, but they -would stand motionless and silent and gape unwinkingly till a piece of -fish was dropped within the yawn. Then it would close deliberately and -reopen, the fish having vanished. Fish were plentiful that year and so -seemed to be time and bait, and I became curious as to the actual -capacity of a growing night heron. I could feed either one till I could -see the last piece still in the back of his mouth because there was -standing room only. Yet if I went away but for a moment and came back, -there they stood, as prodigiously empty as ever. The thing became -interesting until I began to discover assorted piles of uneaten fish -about the yard, and watching soon showed what was happening. - -Foot passengers out in the country have a motto which says, “never -refuse a ride; if you do not want it now you may need it next time.” -This seemed to be the idea which worked sap-wise in the cambium layers -of these wooden young scions of the family _Nycticorax nycticorax -nævius_. They never refused a fish. As long as I stood by, their beaks, -having closed as well as possible on the very last piece required to -stuff them to the tip, would remain closed. After they thought I had -gone away they would stalk gravely round a corner, look over the -shoulder with an innocence which was peculiarly blear-eyed, then, -believing the coast clear, yawn the whole feeding into obscurity in the -tall grass. Then they would stalk meditatively forth with hands clasped -behind the back, so to speak, and gape for some more. - -This was positively the only thing they did except to wait patiently for -a chance to do it again, and I soon tired of them and took them back to -the rookery, where they were received and, so far as I could see, taken -care of, either by their own parents or as orphans at the public -expense. It all seemed a matter of supreme indifference to these -moon-hoax chicks. There is much controversy as to whether animals act -from reason or from instinct. I am convinced that these young night -herons contained spiral springs and basswood wheels and that thence came -their actions. Probably had I looked them over carefully enough I should -have found them inscribed with the motto, “Made in Switzerland.” - -I fancy many people confound the night heron, known to them only by his -wildwitch cry, voiced as he flies over their canoe in the summer dusk, -with the great blue heron, which is nearly twice as big a bird. Perhaps -I would better say twice as long, in speaking of herons, for bigness has -little to do with them. I well remember my amazement as a small boy, -coming out of the woods onto the shore of the pond with a big -muzzle-loading army musket under my arm--my first hunting -expedition--and scaring up a great blue heron. - -I had been reading the “Arabian Nights,” and knew that the roc was a -great bird that darkened the sun and carried off elephants in his -talons. Very well, here was the very bird in full flight before me, -darkening the entire cove with his wings. Es-Sindibad of the Sea might -be tied to the leg of this one for aught I knew. Mechanically the old -musket came to my shoulder and roared, and when I had picked myself up -and collected the musket and my senses, there lay the bird on the beach, -dead. But he was still an “Arabian Nights’” sort of a bird for one of -his dimensions had vanished, his bulk. He was all bill, neck, legs, and -feathers, the wonder being how so small a body could sustain such a -spread. - -The great blue heron, in spite of his slenderness, which you can -interpret as grace or awkwardness, as you will, is a beautiful bird and -a welcome addition to the pond shore, the sheltered cove or the -sheltered brookside pool which he frequents. If you will come very -softly to his accustomed stand you may have a chance to see him sit, -erect and motionless, the personification of dignity and vigilance. The -very crown of his head is white, but you are more apt to notice the -black feathers which border it and draw together behind into a crest -which gives a thought of reserved alertness to his motionless pose. - -The general impression of his coloring is that of a slaty gray, this -melting into brownish on his neck and being prettily - -[Illustration: The wings arch in similar curves and lift him seemingly a -rod in air] - -touched with rufous and black on other parts of the body. It is a -pleasure to watch his graven-image pose, but it is an even greater one -to see him take flight. His long legs bend under him, and he springs -forward into the air in a mighty parabola. The wings arch in similar -curves and lift him with the very first stroke seemingly a rod in air, -and as they arch forward for the second the long outstretched neck draws -back and the long legs trail in very faithful reproduction of the -ornamentation on a Japanese screen. You hardly feel that here is a -living creature, flying away from fear of you. It is rather as if a -skillful decorator had magically painted the great bird in on the drop -scene in front of you. But the flight of the great blue heron is strong -if his body is small in comparison with his other dimensions, and he -rapidly rises in the majesty of power and flaps out of sight over the -tree tops. - -The great blue heron is not rare, but I think he, too, is much less -common than he used to be. Usually he does not summer with us, going -farther north, where he nests in colonies. I seem to find him most often -in late September or October, when he drops off for a few weeks, a -pleasant fishing trip interlude in his flight to winter quarters in the -south. But he is here now, and may be met with on most any May morning -if you will seek out his haunts. - -Fully as common but by no means so noticeable is our little green heron, -the third species of the genus that one is apt to see hereabouts. You -will usually pass him unnoticed as he sits all day long in the shadow on -a limb near the shore. Nor will you be apt to see him until he becomes -convinced that you are about to approach too near. Then, with a little -frightened croak, that is more like a squeak, as if his hinges were -rusty, he springs into the air, flutters along shore a few rods and -disappears into the woods again. - -The thought of this little fellow always brings to my mind the silent -drowse and quivering heat of August afternoons along a drought-dwindled -brook where cardinal flowers lift crimson plumes on the margin of the -still remaining pools. Here where deciduous trees shade the winding -reaches he loves to sit and wait for the cool of evening before dropping -to the margin and hunting his supper. - -I always suspect him of being asleep there with his glossy black head -thrust under his green wing. That would give him an excuse for being -surprised at close quarters and account for his vast alarm when he does -see you. If not I think he would slip quietly away before you got too -near as so many birds do that see you in the woods before you see them. -But perhaps not; perhaps he trusts to luck and hopes till the very last -that you will pass on and leave him to watch his game preserves in peace -and decide which fishes and frogs he will find most appetizing. The -little green heron is a solitary bird, a very recluse in fact, and I do -not recall ever seeing two together. He is a nervous chap, after you -have once flushed him, however, and if you watch his flight with care -you may see him light, stretch his head high to see if you are following -him, meanwhile nervously twitching his apology for a tail. - - - - -HARBINGERS OF SUMMER - - -Out of the violet dusk of some June dawn you will see the summer coming -over the hills from the south and you will know her from the spring at -sight. I do not know how. I doubt if the whip-poor-will, who has a -jealous eye on the dawn and its signs, for its first appearance means -bedtime and surcease from labor for him, knows. Yet he feels her -presence, for he waits it as a sign to select the spot for his nest. - -The whip-poor-will is hardly a home builder. He just occupies a flat for -the summer, a place that seems no more fit for a home than any other -flat. Just as I often wonder how apartment-house dwellers find their way -back at dinner-time, in spite of the bewildering sameness of the -surroundings, so it seems to me quite miraculous that the whip-poor-will -can find the way back to the eggs or young at daybreak. Nest there is -none. It is simply a spot picked, seemingly, at random, on the brown -last year’s leaves, or the bare rock of the pasture. - -But the whip-poor-will has been here since early May, and till now has -not offered to take an apartment. Yesterday, without doubt, he saw the -summer coming and picked his site. By to-morrow or next day you might -find the two eggs there--if you are a wizard. It takes such to find a -whip-poor-will’s eggs. You might look at them and never see them, so -well do they match the ground on which they lie,--more like pebbles than -anything else, with their dull white obscurely marked with lilac and -brownish-gray spots. I sometimes think the mother bird herself fails to -find them and that may be one reason why whip-poor-wills do not seem to -increase in numbers. - -Like the whip-poor-will the scarlet tanager waits sight of the coming of -summer before he begins his nest. It is odd that the two should have -even this habit in common, for otherwise they are far apart. The tanager -is essentially a bird of the daylight, his very colors born of the sun. -I rarely hear him or see his scarlet flame until the sunlight is on his -tree top to make him seem all the more vivid. Then as the day waxes, and -the robins one by one cease their singing, he takes up their song and -continues it, often until the robins return to the choir as the -afternoon shadows lengthen. The tanager’s song is singularly like that -of the robin, only more leisurely and refined. After you have become -familiar with it you begin to feel that the robin is a very huckster of -a soloist. - -“Kill ’im, cure ’im, give ’im physic,” is what the early settlers -thought the robin sang to them. It always seems to me as if he sang, -“Cherries; berries; strawberries. Buy a box; buy a box.” You might -translate the scarlet tanager’s song into either set of words but you -would not. Instead, you would ponder long to find a phrase whose gentle -refinement should express just the quality of it. Then I think you would -give it up, as I always do, content to feel its pure serenity, which is -quite beyond words. - -The tanager is just about beginning the weaving of his home, which is as -gentle and refined in structure as his song. You may see through it if -you get just the right position from below, yet it is well built and -strong, woven of slender selected twigs and tendrils, a delicate cup, -just big enough to hold the three or four eggs of tender blue with their -rufous-brown markings, and the olive-green mother bird. The tanager’s -life is as open as the day, and as he watches southward from his pine -tree top you may well mark the coming of summer by the beginning of that -nest well out on a lower pine bough. - -And if you are not fortunate enough to have a tanager in your pine grove -you might well take the time from another bird, as different from the -scarlet flame of the tree top as the tanager is from the whip-poor-will; -that is the wood pewee. As the whip-poor-will loves the darkness and the -tanager the bright sun of the topmost boughs of the grove, so the wood -pewee loves the resinous depths of the pines, where in the hot twilight -of a summer midday he pipes his cheerful little three-note song. Like -the cicada, he seems to sing best when it is hottest, and the thought of -his song inevitably brings to mind the drone of the summer-loving -insect, the prattle of the brook at the foot of the hill, and the lazy -dappling of the sunlight as it falls perpendicularly to the feathery -fronds of the cinnamon ferns far below. - -He who would find humming birds’ nests would do well to first take a -course in hunting those of the wood pewee. The two seem to have the same -type of mind when it comes to nest-building, though the wood pewee’s is -five times the size of the other and proportionally easy to find. Each -saddles his nest on a limb and covers it outside with gray lichens from -the trees nearby, so that from below it looks like merely a -lichen-covered knot. As the wood pewee loves to sing his song in the -shadows of the upper levels of the deep pine wood, so he loves to look -down as he sings upon his nest on a limb below, usually twenty or more -feet from the ground. - -Such humming birds’ nests as I have found have been made of fern wool or -the pappus of the blooms of dandelions or other compositæ just compacted -together and lichen-covered. The wood pewee builds of moss and fine -fiber, grass and rootlets, using the lichen covering for the outside, as -does the humming bird. It is a beautiful nest, a rustic home which -perfectly fits the dead pine limb on which you often find it, and its -surroundings, a nest as rustic as the grove and the bird. - -These two, the tanager and the wood pewee, I know are already picking -the limbs for their nests and having an eye out for available material, -for I know that they have had the first word that summer is here. I got -it myself from the southerly slope of Blue Hill, a spot to which I like -to climb as the lookout goes to the cross-trees, whence the southerly -outlook is far and you may sight the sails of spring or summer while yet -they are hull down below the horizon of the season. - -All creatures love to climb. Here along the rocky path the young -gerardias have found a foothold, and put forth strange sinuate or -pinnatifid leaves that puzzle you to identify them until you note the -last year’s stalks and seed-pods, now empty but persistent. Exuberance -and young life often take frolicsome ways of expending their vitality. -When the gerardias are two months older, and have settled down to the -growing of those wonderful yellow bells which fill the woodland with -golden delight, their stem leaves will lose all this riot of outline and -coloration and settle down to plain, smooth-edged green. The blossoms -may need a foil, but will brook no rival on their own stem. - -The path that I take to my southerly looking masthead soon leaves the -gerardias behind. They need alluvium and a certain fertility and -moisture, and the crevices of the rock are not for them. There as I -climb among the cedars I pass the withered stalks of the saxifrage that -a month ago made the crevices white. Now only an occasional belated -blossom, scraggly and worn as if with dissipation, seems hastening to -reach oblivion with its fellows. - -But the wild columbine still holds horns of honey plenty for the sipping -of moth and butterfly, whose proboscides are long enough to reach the -ultimate tip where it is stored. You may have a mouthful of honey if -you will bite off the tiny bulbs at the very ends of these -cornucopias,--a honey that has a fragrant sweetness that is unsurpassed -in flavor. Nor are the bees behind you in knowledge. They may not reach -the honey through the mouth of the horn, but they, too, can bite, and -many a flower shows it, now that their season is passing. Their coral -red and yellow glows with a rich radiance in the dusk under the cedars, -and they have climbed far higher than the gerardias. - -With the columbine, right up onto the very ledges themselves, have come -the barberry bushes. They must have seen the summer coming, and they -were the first to pass the hint on to me, for they have hung themselves -with all the gold in their jewel boxes, pendant racemes of exquisite -jewel work everywhere, their sprays of tender green grouping and -swaying in the wind, nodding and smiling, decked with earrings, -brooches, bracelets, and beads, all cunningly wrought of solid gold. -Barberry bushes love the rough pasture and even these rougher rocks, yet -they bring to them only grace and elegance and refinement, and receive -no hint of uncouthness or barbarity from their surroundings. - -These and a score of other herbs and shrubs clamber blithely upward and -clothe the rocky hillside with beauty, but the queen of the place is the -flowering dogwood. No other shrub has such airy blitheness of decorative -beauty. There is something about the set of the leaves that suggests -green-clad sprites about to dance for joy, but now every dainty branch -is as if thronged with white butterflies, poising for flight. No other -plant shows such a spirituality of delight as this now that it knows -that the summer is here. On the plain below the poplars shimmer and -quiver translucent green in the ecstasy of young leaves all tremulous -with happiness and the tingle of surgent sap. Yet neither tree nor shrub -nor any flowering herb seems to so stand on tiptoe for a flight into the -blue heaven above, blossom and leaf and branch and trunk, as does this -dainty delight of the shady hillside, the flowering dogwood. - -The summer does not explode as does the spring. The spring promises and -delays, approaches and withdraws, coquettes until we are in despair, -then suddenly swoops upon us and smothers in the delight of her full -presence. But the summer comes genially and graciously forward, -announced by a thousand heralds. To-day you could not find on hillside -or in lowland a spot that did not glow with the fact. On a bare ledge, -where the gnarled cedars have held the rim of the hill all winter long -against the gales and zero weather, I thought I might find a pause in -the universal story. Here should be only gray rock and a rim of brown -cedars, as much the furniture of winter as of summer. But I had -forgotten the outlook. - -On the fields far below, the tall grass, so green that it was fairly -blue in comparison with the yellow of young leaves, rushed forward -before the wind like a green flood of roaring water. Across the plain -and up the slopes it poured as the waters of Niagara pour down the slope -to the brink of the fall. Even the white foam of the rapids was -simulated in the silvery-green flashes that raced with the breeze. Only -summer grass thus flows. No other season can give it such vivid motion. - -To me there came too a dozen summer messengers. Two or three varieties -of transparent winged dragon flies swirled in and out of the little bay -of sunshine. A fulvous and black butterfly lighted on the rock at my -feet and gently, rhythmically raised and lowered his wings. It was as -expressive of satisfaction as smacking the lips would be. Again and -again he slipped away and then sailed back, leaving me still in doubt as -to whether he was the lovely little _Melitæa harrisi_, or _Phyciodes -nycteis_, both of which are very solemn names for pretty little -butterflies which fly about as a signal that summer is already beginning -to glow about us. - -By and by the joy of the spot seemed to soothe him and he settled down -for a longer stay, folding his wings and proving to me that he was -_nycteis_ without question, for there on his hind wing was distinctly -the mark of the silver crescent. Butterflies should have been popular -when knighthood was in flower, for each carries the heraldic blazon of -his house where all may see. - -Soon I found my seat on the rock disputed by a pair of dusky-wings. I -had found the earlier dusky-wings of the woodland paths skittish and -unwilling to let me get to close quarters with them. This may have been -because I made the advances. I had been seated but a moment when this -pair that had dashed madly away at my approach dashed as madly back and -very nearly lighted on me, then they dashed away again. - -Soon, however, they came back in more friendly fashion and settled down -within reach of my hand, where I could observe them at leisure. Then I -saw that this was to me a new variety of the dusky-wing, the _Thanaos -persius_ instead of _Thanaos brizo_, as I had thought. _Persius’_ -dusky-wing had climbed the hill as I had, to see if summer was coming, -and had found it here. The pale corydalis which nodded columbine-like -heads of softest coral red and yellow knew it too, and drowsed in the -sunshine as did the butterflies, but I went on, seeking more evidence. - -On the shore of Hoosic-whissic Pond a wood thrush sits on her nest in a -green-brier clump, within ten feet of noisy picnickers. Bravely she sits -and shields her eggs, nor does she stir for all the riot about her. I -poked my head within the tangle till my face was within two feet of her, -and still she did not move. Her throat swelled a little, and a -questioning look came into her eyes. - -The wood thrush is a shy bird at ordinary times, but not when sitting on -her nest. Then she seems to suddenly acquire a modest boldness that is -as becoming as the gentle shyness of other times. We looked at one -another in mutual friendliness. I noted the bright cinnamon brown of the -head fading on the back to a soft olive brown, the whole having the -smoothness and perfect fit of a lady’s glove. The white throat and some -of the black markings on the white breast were visible above the rim of -the nest, and her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful -attitude of all birds on the nest. Brooding maternity has the same -prayerful sweetness of attitude in the wood thrush that it has in the -human mother. It always suggests white hands clasped and raised in -prayer and thanksgiving. - -While I watched the wood thrush, a quick gleam of gold and black caught -my eye as it danced by in the sunshine outside the thicket. Here was a -promise of summer, indeed, and I followed it on, leaving the brooding -thrush to her happiness. It led across the open, sandy plain to the -south, and into the deep wood beyond. On the way the cinquefoil and -buttercups, the strawberry blossoms and the running blackberries were -gay with fluttering little red butterflies, the coppers and the crescent -spots, and whites and blues, a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, but it -was not until I got into the deep golden shade of the dense wood that I -saw the fulfilment of the promise. - -Here in the glow of sunlight so strained and etherealized by passing -through fluttering green that it was all one mist of color, a vivid -heart of chrysoprase, I found the wood full of great yellow -butterflies, - -[Illustration: Her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful -attitude of all birds on the nest] - -dozens of them dancing up and down in the soft radiance, and lighting to -put gorgeous yellow blossoms on twigs that could never put forth such -beauty again. Here was the summer, coming sedately through the -gold-green spaces of the wood with scores of golden spirits dancing -joyously about her. The “tiger swallowtail,” _Papilio turnus_, as the -lepidopterists have named him, is the most beautiful of all our -butterflies, painted in gold with black margins, and a single touch of -scarlet cunningly applied to each wing. All the glow of summer seems to -be concentrated in him, and his presence is the final test of hers. - - - - -INDEX - -A - -Actias luna, 57 - -Adam, 98 - -Ajax, 238 - -Alder, 33, 55, 98, 194 - ----- catkins, 37, 146 - ----- red, 192 - -Alice-in-Wonderland, 202 - -Alligator, 216, 217 - ----- snapper, 216 - -Amazon, 118 - -Angler, Compleat, 231 - -Angle-wing, 144, 145 - -Angleworm, 221, 222, 225, 227, 228, 232 - -Ant, 228 - -Antiopa vanessa, 62 - -Apple tree, 18, 19, 43, 137, 141, 143 - -Appomattox, 135 - -April fool’s day, 5 - -Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, 82, 253 - -Arctic, 19, 35, 36, 68 - ----- circle, 5 - -Ariel, 58, 129 - -Ark, 85 - -Aster, 140, 150 - - -B - -Babylon, 124 - -Bach, 172 - -Bagdad, 124 - -Barberry, 100, 270, 271 - -Bayberry, 166 - -Beagles, 43 - -Bear, 79 - -Beaver, 76 - -Bee, 105, 146 - ----- honey, 205 - -Bedlam, 43 - -Beech, 79 - -Benzoin, 53 - -Berry bush, 165 - -Birch, 11, 75, 103, 105, 108, 126 - ----- swamp, 125, 180 - -Bittern, 210, 214, 218 - -Blackberry, running, 278 - -Blackbird, 50, 73, 74, 167 - -Blueberry, swamp, 105 - -Bluebirds, 18, 19, 32, 33, 34, 50, 51, 107, 167 - -Boa-constrictor, 215 - -Bobolinks, 223 - -Bog-hobble, 77 - -Bog-hopple, 200 - -Borer, 76 - -Bubo, 6 - ----- virginianum, 4 - -Bufflehead, 59, 60 - -Bulrushes, 77 - -Bumblebee, 205 - -Buttercup, 149, 278 - -Butterfly, angle-wing, 144, 145 - ----- brown, 223 - ----- blue, 278 - ----- common blue, 174 - ----- Compton tortoise, 145, 276 - ----- coppers, 278 - ----- crescent spot, 278 - ----- dusky-wing, 224, 275, 276 - ----- Grapta, 144 - ----- Grapta comma, 144 - ----- Grapta interrogationis, 144 - ----- hesperid, 146 - ----- hesperidæ, 223 - ----- hunters’, 141, 142, 146 - ----- Melitæa harrisi, 274 - ----- mourning cloak, 145, 146 - ----- Nycteis, 275 - ----- painted lady, 146 - ----- Papilio turnus, 279 - ----- Phyciodes nycteis, 274 - ----- question mark, 146 - ----- red, 278 - ----- skipper, 146, 223 - ----- skipper, silver spotted, 146 - ----- tiger swallowtail, 279 - ----- white, 271, 278 - ----- yellow, 278 - ----- Thanaos brizo, 244, 276 - ----- Thanaos persius, 276 - ----- Vanessa antiopa, 62, 145 - ----- Vanessa j-album, 145 - -Buttonball, 189 - -Buttonbush, 85, 86 - - -C - -Callosamia promethea, 55 - -Caribbean, 9 - -Caspian, 131 - -Cassandra, 177, 203, 204, 205, 211 - -Catbird, 181, 211 - -Cæsar, 72 - -Cecropia, 58 - -Cedar, 118, 119, 125, 194, 211, 213, 214, 245, 269, 270, 273 - ----- pasture, 48, 181, 182, 184, 189, 196 - ----- swamp, 209 - ----- white, 209 - -Cetraria, 121 - -Chelydra serpentina, 216 - -Cherry, 223, 264 - -Cherry, wild, 12, 53, 165 - -Chestnut, 56 - -Chewink, 180, 181 - -Chickadee, 75, 126, 211 - -Chickweed, 146 - -Chrysanthemum, 122 - -Cicada, 266 - -Cinquefoil, 103, 149, 278 - -Cladonia, 147 - ----- brown-fruited, 147 - ----- scarlet-crested, 147 - -Cliff-dwellers, 84 - -Clover, white, 205 - -Columbine, wild, 269, 270 - -Columbus, 119 - -Compositæ, 276 - -Compton tortoise, 145 - -Conifers, 184 - -Copper, 278 - -Corydalis, pale, 276 - -Cranberries, 203 - -Creeper, 211 - ----- black and white, 191 - -Crescent spot, 278 - -Cromwell, 115 - -Cudweed, 142 - -Cymbifolium, 122 - - -D - -Daffodil, 25 - -Dahlia, 39 - -Daisy, 68 - -Dandelion, 69, 146, 149, 267 - -Daphne, 99, 107, 108 - ----- mezereum, 107 - -Darwin, 221, 224, 225, 232 - -“Dead March,” 160 - -Dog, wolf, 36 - -Dogwood, flowering, 271, 272 - -Doone, Lorna, 94 - ----- Valley, 98 - -Dove, turtle, 207 - -Drake, 59 - -Duck, 33, 34, 59, 60, 118, 127 - ----- black, 59, 78, 84, 85 - ----- bufflehead, 59 - ----- diver, 59 - ----- goldeneyes, 34 - ----- sheldrake, 78 - ----- whistler, 34 - -Dragon, 215, 218 - ----- flies, 223, 274 - -Dusky-wing, 224, 276 - - -E - -Earthworm, 221, 224, 225 - -Easter, 17, 121, 164 - -Eden, 70, 81 - -Eel, 95, 225, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 237, 239 - ----- electric, 235 - -Egrets, snowy, 243, 244 - -Elephant, 253 - -Elm, 178 - -Eskimo, 36, 139 - -Es-Sindibad, 253 - -Ethiopians, 13 - -Euphrates, 124, 126, 130, 131 - -Eurydice, 95 - -Eve, 98 - - -F - -Faun, 177 - -Federal Government, 189 - -Felis domesticatus, 248 - -Fern, tree, 162 - ----- cinnamon, 266 - -Flicker, 75, 76 - -Flies, artificial, 222 - ----- dragon, 223, 274 - -Flowering dogwood, 271, 272 - -Fox, 79, 99, 100, 179 - -Frog, 73, 130 - ----- green, 191 - ----- hyla, 128, 190, 191, 205, 208 - ----- leopard, 190, 195, 205, 206 - ----- peepers, 129 - ----- swamp tree, 162, 164, 174 - ----- wood, 127, 190, 191 - - -G - -Garden, Mary, 229 - -Gaul, 72 - -Gettysburg, 135 - -Gerardia, 268, 269, 270 - -Goldeneyes, 34 - -Goldenrod, 140, 150 - -Goldfinch, 52, 172, 174 - -Grapta, 144 - ----- comma, 144 - ----- interrogationis, 144 - -Grasshopper, 222 - -Green-brier, 180 - -Greenland, 9 - - -H - -Hampstead Ponds, 111, 124 - -Hardhack, 189 - -Hare, March, 43, 44, 45, 63 - -Havre, 8 - -Hawk, 78, 247 - -Hawthorne, 114 - -Hemlock, 89 - -Hepatica, 13, 14, 16, 63, 100, 146 - -Heron, 246, 249 - ----- black-crowned, night, 243, 246, 247 - ----- great blue, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256 - ----- little green, 256, 258 - -Heron, night, 244, 245, 246, 247, 252 - -Hesperids, 146 - -Hesperidæ, 223 - -Hill, Blue, 267 - ----- Great Blue, 77 - -Hook of Holland, 8 - -Hoosic-whissic Pond, 276 - -Huckleberry, 48, 158 - -Hudson’s Bay, 67, 160, 171 - -Humboldt, 131 - -Hummingbird, 266, 267 - -Hunter, 146 - -Hyla, 128, 190, 191, 205, 208 - - -I - -Indian, 73, 116, 182, 206, 216, 217 - ----- bogies, 200 - ----- Ponkapog, 200 - -Ironsides, 115 - - -J - -Jay, blue, 168, 169 - ----- Canada, 5 - -Jericho, 73 - -Joepye weed, 77 - - -K - -Khayyam, Omar, 114 - -Kingbird, 191 - -Kingfisher, 50, 168, 192, 193, 194 - - -L - -Lamphrey, 231 - -Larch, 184, 186 - -Lark, meadow, 168 - -Laurel, mountain, 85 - -Lent, 189 - -Lichen, 121 - -Lilac, 115, 148 - ----- purple, 113, 114 - -Lincoln, 117 - -Lorna Doone, 94 - -Luna, 58 - - -M - -Mab, 58 - -Macbeth, 172 - -Mangrove, 85, 86, 189 - -Maple, 13, 75, 105, 126, 128, 146, 189, 194 - -Marsh grass, 77 - ----- St. John’s-wort, 77, 140 - -Meadow lark, 168 - -Meadow-sweet, 189 - -Melitæa harrisi, 274 - -Memorial day, 71 - -Milkweed, 148 - -Mole, 229 - -Moose, 79 - -Moss, cedar, 122 - ----- cetraria, 121 - ----- cushion, 123 - ----- lichen, 121 - ----- Mnium, dotted, 123 - ----- Mnium punctatum, 123 - ----- Parmelia, 121 - ----- Peat, 201, 246 - ----- Sphagnum, 89, 122, 124 - ----- Sphagnum acutifolia, 122 - ----- Sphagnum cymbifolium, 122 - ----- Sphagnum squarrosum, 122 - ----- Sphagnum stictas, 121 - -Moth, callosamia promethia, 54 - ----- luna, 57 - ----- spice-bush silk, 53 - ----- Polyphemus, 57, 58, 60 - ----- Promethea, 58 - ----- Telia polyphemus, 56 - -Mountain laurel, 85 - -Mourning cloak, 145, 146 - -Mullein, 140, 150, 151 - -Muskrat, 212, 213, 218 - -Myles, 115 - - -N - -Neptune, 249 - -Neptune’s trident, 93 - -Nesæa, 200 - -New England, 115, 159, 225 - -Newfoundland, 9 - -Niagara, 273 - -Nicaragua, 179 - -Nile, 118 - -Nimbus, 67 - -Norman conquest, 72 - -Nycteis, 275 - -Nycticorax nycticorax nævius, 243, 251 - - -O - -Oak, 45, 98, 128 - ----- scrub, 13, 44, 147, 179 - -“Old Farmer’s Almanack,” 19 - -Orchid, 39, 124 - -Orinoco, 118, 124 - -Oriole, Baltimore, 178, 179 - -Ovenbird, 223 - -Owl, barred, 5, 78 - ----- horned, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 18, 19, 44 - - -P - -Painted lady, 146 - -Pan, 128 - -Papilio turnus, 279 - -Paradise, 98 - -Partridge, 4 - -Parmelia, 121 - ----- conspersa, 83 - -Pasture Pines Hotel, 33, 34 - -Peat, 89, 199 - ----- moss, 201 - -Peepers, 129 - -Perch, white, 59, 192 - -Perseus, 276 - -Persian, 114 - -Peterborough River, 239 - -Peter the Hermit, 117 - -Phyciodes nycteis, 274 - -Pickerel, 163 - ----- weed, 163 - -Pickwick Club, 111 - -Pickwick, Samuel, 111, 124 - -Pine, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32, 60, 61, 62, 63, 114, 147, 170, 265 - ----- pitch, 168 - -Pineapple, 186 - -Plato, 247 - -Plutonian, 97 - -Plymouth, 115 - -Polo, Marco, 124 - -Polyphemus, 57, 58, 60 - -Ponkapog brook, 112 - -Ponkapog pond, 79, 84, 111, 199, 217 - -Poplar, 272 - -Poseidon, 93 - -Pride, 231 - -Priscilla, 115 - -Promethea, 58 - -Puck, 58 - -Pumpkin, 228 - -Puritans, 204, 248 - -Pussy-willows, 98 - - -Q - -“Quawk,” 243 - -Question mark, 146 - - -R - -Rabbit, 4 - ----- Welsh, 202 - -Rana clamitans, 191 - -Rattlesnake, 79 - -Ridd, John, 94, 98 - -Robin, 33, 52, 74, 167, 178, 191, 226, 227, 228, 230, 263 - ----- snow, 68, 69 - -Robin Hood, 171 - -Roc, 253 - -Rookery, 23 - -Roosevelt, 117 - - -S - -Saki, 114 - -Salmon, 91 - -Samia cecropia, 10, 13, 20, 55, 56 - -Saskatchewan, 174 - -Sassafras, 53 - -Saul, 160 - -Saxifrage, 71, 269 - -Saxons, 13 - -Schumann, 172 - -Shadbush, 158, 165 - -Shagbark tree, 76 - -Shakespeare, 245 - -Skipper, 146, 223 - -Skunk-cabbage, 39 - -Smilax, 105 - -Snake, water, 95, 96, 97 - -Snowdrop, 146 - -Snow, robin, 68, 69 - -Sousa, 229 - -Southampton, 8 - -Sparrow, 173 - ----- chipping, 168, 211 - ----- fox, 103, 168, 180 - ----- song, 32, 33, 34, 36, 50, 51, 63, 130, 167, 211 - ----- vesper, 130 - -Sphagnum, 89, 122, 124 - ----- acutifolia, 122 - ----- cymbifolium, 122 - ----- squarrosum, 122 - -Spicebush, 195, 196 - -Spirea formentosa, 189 - ----- salicifolia, 189 - -Squirrel, 76 - ----- red, 11, 125 - ----- gray, 11 - -Sticta, 121 - -St. John’s-wort, marsh, 79, 140 - -Strawberry, 186, 264, 278 - -Suckers, 90, 92, 96, 98 - -Swallow, barn, 196 - -Swamp, cedar, 19 - ----- Pigeon, 3, 6 - -Sweet fern, 165, 166, 167 - -Sweet gale, 165, 166, 167, 173, 174 - -Switzerland, 252 - -Sycorax, 245 - - -T - -Talbot plains, 77 - -Tanager, 263, 265, 267 - ----- scarlet, 264 - -Telia polyphemus, 56 - -Terrapin, 217 - -Thames, 231 - -Thanaos brizo, 224, 276 - -Thanaos persius, 276 - -Thoroughwort, 77 - -Thrush, 180, 211 - ----- brown, 179, 180, 181 - ----- wood, 276, 277 - -Tibet, 118 - -Tiger swallowtail, 279 - -Tigris, 124, 126, 131 - -Titania, 58 - -Tropics, 7 - -Tulips, 37 - -Turtle, 95, 188, 207, 208, 209, 217 - ----- dove, 207 - ----- mock, 202 - ----- snapping, 216, 217 - ----- spotted, 207, 218 - - -U - -Usnea barbata, 12 - - -V - -Vanessa antiopa, 145 - ----- j-album, 146 - -Viburnum, 165 - -Violets, 15, 68, 103, 146, 149 - ----- dwarf blue, 71 - -Vireo, warbling, 77 - - -W - -Walnut, 57 - -Walrus, 203 - -Walton, Izaak, 231, 239 - -Warbler, 211 - -Washington, 117 - -Waterloo, 92 - -Water-lily, 202 - ----- parsnip, 190 - ----- snake, 95, 96, 97 - -West of England’s moors, 94 - -Wheeler place, 24 - -Whip-poor-will, 261, 262, 263, 265 - -Whistlers, 34 - -Willow, 13, 17, 32, 33, 100, 107, 146, 187, 189, 191, 192 - ----- pussy, 98 - -Woodchuck, 100 - -Woodcock, 5 - -Woodpecker, 75, 76 - ----- downy, 75 - -Wood pewee, 265, 266, 267 - -Wright, Orville, 146 - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODLAND PATHS *** - -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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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Woodland Paths</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Winthrop Packard</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Charles Copeland</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 16, 2021 [eBook #66072]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Steve Mattern, Chuck Greif. With thanks to James Baker and Jeff Kelley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODLAND PATHS ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" -height="550" alt="[Image of -the book's cover unavailable.]" /></a> -</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c"><a href="#CONTENTS">Contents.</a><br /> -<a href="#INDEX">Index.</a></p> -<p class="c"><a href="#ILLUSTRATIONS">List of Illustrations</a><br /> <span class="nonvis">(In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] -clicking on the image will bring up a larger version.)</span></p> - -<p class="c">(etext transcriber's note)</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class="c">WOODLAND PATHS</p> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="c">THE WORKS OF<br /><br /> W I N T H R O P -P A C K A R D<br />———</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td align="left">WOODLAND PATHS</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">WILD PASTURES</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">WOOD WANDERINGS</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left">WILDWOOD WAYS</td></tr> -</table> - -<p class="c"><i>Each illustrated by Charles Copeland</i></p> - -<p class="c">12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, each volume $1.20 <i>net</i>, postage 8 -cents</p> - -<p class="c"><small>The four volumes together constitute “The New England Year,” dealing, in -the order given, with the four seasons. The set, boxed, $4.80; <i>carriage -extra</i>. Sold separately.</small></p> - -<p class="c"> -SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY<br /> -<span class="smcap">Publishers</span> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Boston</span></span><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_001" style="width: 363px;"> -<a href="images/i001_frontis.jpg"> -<img src="images/i001_frontis.jpg" width="363" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>Six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk</p> - -<p style="text-align:right;"> -[<i><a href="#page_33">Page 33</a></i></p></div> -</div> - -<h1>WOODLAND PATHS</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -WINTHROP PACKARD<br /> -<br />ILLUSTRATED BY<br /><br /> -CHARLES COPELAND<br /> -<br /><br /> -<img src="images/colophon.png" -width="120" -alt="[Image unavailable.]" /> -<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -BOSTON<br /> -SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY<br /> -PUBLISHERS<br /> -<br /><br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1910</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">By Small, Maynard and Company</span><br /> -(INCORPORATED)<br /> -<br /> -<i>Entered at Stationers’ Hall</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /><small> -THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.</small><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td></td><td class="rt"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#SOUTH_RAIN">South Rain</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#SPRING_DAWN">Spring Dawn</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_21">21</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#MARCH_WINDS">March Winds</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_41">41</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#WOOD_ROADS">Wood Roads</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_65">65</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#THE_BROOK_IN_APRIL">The Brook in April</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_87">87</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#EXPLORATIONS">Explorations</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#EARLIEST_BUTTERFLIES">Earliest Butterflies</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_133">133</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#APRIL_SHOWERS">April Showers</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#PROMISE_OF_MAY">Promise of May</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_175">175</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#BOG_BOGLES">Bog Bogles</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_197">197</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#BOBBING_FOR_EELS">Bobbing for Eels</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_219">219</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#THE_VANISHING_NIGHT_HERONS">The Vanishing Night Herons</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_241">241</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#HARBINGERS_OF_SUMMER">Harbingers of Summer</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_259">259</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pddsc"><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_281">281</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_001">Six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#ill_001"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>OPPOSITE PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_002">That blood-curdling screech was one of triumphover the sudden death of a rabbit</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_4">4</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_003">He sets his cotton-tail white flag at half mast from fear, and goes whooping through the brush in a frenzy</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_44">44</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_004">There was a clamor of blue jays as the hour grew late</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_168">168</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_005">The air was vivid with friendly staccato calls</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_192">192</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_006">The wings arch in similar curves and lift him seemingly a rod in air</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_254">254</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><a href="#ill_007">Her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful attitude of all birds on the nest</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_278">278</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="SOUTH_RAIN" id="SOUTH_RAIN"></a>SOUTH RAIN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE night was dark and bitter cold, though it was early March. Over in -the dismal depths of Pigeon Swamp, where no pigeons have nested for -nearly a half century though it is as wild and lone to-day as it was -when they flocked there by thousands, a deep-toned, lonely cry -resounded. It was like the fitful baying of a dog in the distance, only -that it was too wild and eerie for that. Then there was silence for a -space and an eldritch screech rang out.</p> - -<p>It was blood-curdling to a human listener, but it was reassuring to the -great horned owl snuggling down on her two great blotched eggs to keep -them secure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> from the cold, for it was the voice of her mate hunting. -Sailing silently on bat-like wings he was beating the open spaces of the -wood, hoping to find a partridge at roost, and I fancy the deep “whoo; -hoo, hoo, hoo; whoo, whoo,” all on the same note, was a grumble that -trained dogs and pump-guns are making the game birds so scarce. Perhaps -that blood-curdling screech was one of triumph over the sudden death of -a rabbit, for <i>Bubo virginiana</i> is tremendously rapacious and will eat -any living thing which he can carry away in his claws.</p> - -<p>It might, too, have been his method of expressing ecstasy over the nest -and the promise of spring which the horned owl alone has the courage to -anticipate with nest-building in these raw and barren days, when winter -seemingly still has his grip firmly set on us. Oftentimes his</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_002" style="width: 424px;"> -<a href="images/i004.jpg"> -<img src="images/i004.jpg" width="424" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>That blood-curdling screech was one of triumph over the -sudden death of a rabbit</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">housekeeping arrangements are completed by late February. No other bird -does that in Massachusetts, though farther north the Canada jay also -lays eggs about that time, way up near the Arctic Circle where the -thermometer registers zero or below and the snow is deep on the ground.</p> - -<p>On what trees he cuts the notches of the passing days I do not know, but -surely the horned owl’s almanac is as reliable as the Old Farmer’s, and -he knows the nearness of the spring. I dare say the other birds which -winter with us know it too, though not being so big and husky they do -not venture to give hostages to the enemy quite so early in the season. -The barred owls will build in late March, and soon after April fool’s -day the woodcock will be stealing north and placing queer, pointed, -blotched eggs in some little hollow just above high water in the swamp.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span></p> - -<p>The crows are cannier still. You will hardly find eggs in their nests -hereabouts before the fifteenth of April, and you will do well to -postpone your hunting till the twenty-fifth. Yet they all know, as well -as I do, when the spring is near, and I think I have the secret of the -message which has come to them. It is not the fact that a south wind has -blown, for this may happen at any time during the winter, but it is -something that reaches them on the wings of this same south wind.</p> - -<p>This night on which the horned owl of Pigeon Swamp brooded her eggs so -carefully was lighted by the moon, but toward midnight a purple -blackness grew up all about the still sky and blotted out all things in -a velvety smear that sent even Bubo to perch beside his mate. There was -then no breath of wind. The faint air from the north that had brought -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span> deep chill had faltered and died, leaving its temperature behind it -over all the fields and forest. The air stung and the ground rang like -tempered steel beneath the foot, yet you had but to listen or breathe -deep to know what was coming. The stroke of twelve from the distant -steeple brought a resonance of romance along the clear miles and the air -left in your nostrils a quality that never winter air had a right to -hold. To one who knows the temper of the open field and the forest by -day and night the promise was unmistakable, though so subtle as to be -difficult to define.</p> - -<p>Whether it was sound or smell or both I knew then that a south wind was -coming, bearing on its balmy breath those spicy, amorous odors of the -tropics that come to our frozen land only when spring is on the way. The -goddess scatters perfumes from her garments as she comes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> and the south -wind catches them and bears them to us in advance of her footsteps. You -may sniff these same odors of March far offshore along the West -Indies,—spicy, intoxicating scents, borne from the hearts of tropic -wild-flowers and floating off to sea on every breeze.</p> - -<p>With them floats that wonderful grape-bloom tint that touches the -surface of all the waters to northward of these islands with its velvety -softness, the currents carrying it ever northward and eastward, -sometimes almost to the shores of the British Isles. You may see it all -about you in mid-ocean as your vessel steams from New York to Liverpool -or Southampton or Havre or the Hook of Holland. Some essence of all this -gets into the air on the southerly gales that are borne in the windward -islands and whirl up along our coast to die finally in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> Newfoundland or -Labrador or Greenland itself. I believe the horned owl knows it as well -as I do and begins his nest-building at the first sniff.</p> - -<p>At daybreak the wind had begun to blow, all the keen chill was softened -out of the air, and blobs of rain blurred the southern window panes. The -temperature had risen already above freezing and was still on the upward -path. There was in all the atmosphere that rich, cool freshness that -comes with rain-clouds blown far over seas. It is the same quality which -we get in an east rain, but it had in it also that suggestion of -spiciness and that soft purple haze which drifts away from the tropic -islands that border the Caribbean. Stopping a moment in my study before -going out into this, I found another creature that had felt the faint -call of spring and answered it, I fear, too<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> soon. This was a great -<i>Samia cecropia</i> moth. The night before he had been safely tucked away -in his cocoon over my mantel, where I had hung it last December.</p> - -<p>In the night he had answered the call and now was perched outside his -cell, gently expanding his wings with pulsing motions that seemed -tremulous with eagerness or delight. I noted the soft delicacy of the -coloring in his rich, fur-surfaced body and wings, shades which are reds -and grays and browns and ashes of roses, and a score of others so dainty -and delicate that we have no words to describe or define them.</p> - -<p>A wonderful creature this to appear in a man’s house, sit poised on his -mantel and blink serenely at him, as if the man himself were the -intruder and the room the usual habitat of creatures out of fairy-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span>land. -I studied him carefully, thinking, indeed, that he might vanish at any -moment, and then I went out into the woods in the soft south rain, only -to find that his colors that I thought so marvelous in the shadow of the -four walls of my room were reproduced in rich profusion all about me.</p> - -<p>His velvety-white markings, lined and touched off with brown so deep in -places as to be either purple with density or black, were those of the -birch trunks all about me, and there were the rufous tints that shaded -down into pearl pinks and lavender all through the groups of distant -birch twigs. His gray fur was the softest and richest of the fur of the -gray squirrels, and this gray again shaded into red in spots that could -be matched only by the fur of the red squirrel. There were soft tans on -him of varying shades,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> from rich to delicate pale, and all the last -year’s leaves and grasses had them. Nor was there a color about him -which was not matched and repeated a thousand fold in bark and twigs and -lichens and shadows all through the wood.</p> - -<p>I had but to stand by with the great moth in my mind’s eye to see the -whole woodland bursting from its cocoon and spreading its wings for -flight. As a matter of fact that is what it is going to do later—but -the time is not yet. Meanwhile the south rain was washing its colors -clear and laying bare their bright beauty. In it you saw without -question the promise of new growth and new life. Trees and shrubs stood -like school children with shining morning faces, newly washed for the -coming session. All trace of dinginess was gone. The yellow freckles on -the brown cheeks of the wild cherry gleamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> from far; the pale, olive -green tint of the willow’s complexion was transparent in its new-found -brilliancy.</p> - -<p>Looking down on the ruddy glow of healthy maple twigs, it seemed as if -they should have yellow hair and sunny blue eyes, so rich is the -coloring of these Saxons of the wood and so fresh it shone under the -ministering rain. Even the dour scrub oaks, surly Ethiopians, were not -so black as they have been painted all winter, but lost their ebon tint -in a hue of rich dark green that was a pleasing foil to the -cecropia-moth beauty of the rest of the woods.</p> - -<p>The one color lacking was blue. The sky’s leaden gray was but a foil for -the rich woodland tints, and I wandered on seeking its hue elsewhere. -Over on the hillside are the hepaticas. Their color when open is hardly -blue, being more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> often purple or even lavender, yet they would do, -lacking a more pronounced shade. But I could not find a hepatica in -bloom as yet. Their tri-lobed leaves are still green and show but little -the wear and tear of the winter’s frosts and thaws. In the center of -each group is the pointed bud that encloses the furry blossoms, itself -as softly clad in protecting fur as the body of my moth visitor, but no -hint of color peeped from it as yet. You need to look carefully in very -early spring to be sure of this, too; for the hepatica is the shyest of -sweet young things, and when she first blooms it is with such modesty -that you have to chuck the flower-heads under the chin to get a glimpse -even of their eyes. Later on the coaxing sun reassures them and they -stare placidly and innocently up to it like wondering children.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span></p> - -<p>Over on the sandy southern slope there might be violets, too. Later in -the year the whole field will be blue with them and all about are their -rosettes of sagittate leaves, which the cold has had to hold sternly in -check to keep them from growing the winter through. Indeed, I do not -believe it has fully succeeded. It has been a mild season, and I think -the violets have taken the opportunity during warm spells of several -days’ duration to surreptitiously put forth another leaf or so in the -very center of that rosette. If so, they might well have followed this -courage with the further audacity of buds, and buds, indeed, they had -but not one of them was open far enough to show even a faint hint of the -blue that I was seeking.</p> - -<p>It was hardly to be expected of the violets. They are so sturdy and full -of simple, homely, common sense that it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> rare that you find them -doing things out of the usual routine. Warm skies and south winds may -tease them long before they will respond by blooming earlier than their -wonted date. They know the ways of the world well and realize how unwise -it is for proper young people to overstep the bounds of strict -conventionality. On the other hand, the hepaticas, with all their -innocence, perhaps because of it, care little for the conventions. -Indeed, I doubt if they know there are such things, or if they have -heard of them would recognize them. It is likely that in some sunny, -sheltered nook some rash youngster, all clad in furs of pearl gray, is -in bloom now, though so shy and so hidden that I was unable to find the -hint of color. I have known them to half-open those lavender-blue eyes -under the protecting crust of winter snow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span></p> - -<p>Toward nightfall the rain ceased and the clouds simply faded out of a -pale sky, letting the sun shine through with gentle warmth. Whither the -mists went it was hard to tell, but they were gone, and a soft spring -sun began wiping the tears from all things. Under its caress it seemed -as if you could see the buds swell a little, and I am quite sure, though -I was not there to see, that at this moment the willow catkins down by -the brook slipped forth from their protecting brown sheaths and boldly -proclaimed the spring.</p> - -<p>They might have done so, and I would not have seen had I been there, for -just then I had a message. “Cheerily we, cheerily we,” came a faint -voice out of the sky. An echo from distant angel choirs practicing -carols for Easter could not have seemed more musical or brought more -delight to me down at the bottom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> of the soft blue haze that was taking -golden radiance from the setting sun. Up through it I looked to the pale -blue of the sky and saw two motes dancing down the sunshine,—motes that -caroled and grew to glints of heavenly blue that fluttered down on an -ancient apple tree like bits of benediction.</p> - -<p>Just a pair of bluebirds, of course, and I don’t know now whether they -are the first of the migrants to reach my part of the pasture or whether -they are the two that have wintered here and that I have seen before on -bright days. Wherever they came from they supplied the one bit of blue -that I had sought, and their presence was like an embodiment of joy. -Then the gentle prattling sweetness of their carol; what a range there -was between that and the wild voice of the great-horned owl, heard not -twenty-four<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> hours before! It was all the vast range between Arctic -winter night and soft summer sunshine. The owl had voiced the savage -grumble of the winter, the bluebird caroled the gentle promise of the -spring.</p> - -<p>The promise may be long in finding its fulfilment, of course. The snow -may lie deep and the frost nip the willow catkins,—though little -they’ll care for that,—and the bluebirds may be driven more than once -to the deep shelter of the cedar swamp, but that does not take away the -promise that came on the wings of the south wind,—the promise that set -the great horned owl to laying her eggs in that abandoned crow’s nest, -and that made the bluebirds seek the ancient apple tree as their very -first perch. March is no spring month, in spite of the “Old Farmer’s -Almanack.” It is just a blank<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span> page between the winter and the spring, -but if you scan it closely you will find on it written the promise we -all seek,—the hope that lured my great <i>Samia cecropia</i> out of his snug -cocoon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="SPRING_DAWN" id="SPRING_DAWN"></a>SPRING DAWN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE been night-clerking a bit lately—social settlement work, you -know—at the Pasture Pines Hotel, paying especial attention to the crow -lodgers, and in so doing have come to the conclusion that in the last -score or so of years the crows in my town have changed their habits.</p> - -<p>It used to be their custom to roost in flocks, winters. Over on the -Wheeler place in the big pines you could find a rookery of several -hundred of a winter evening, dropping in from all directions and making -a perfect uproar of crow talk, or rather crow yells, till darkness sent -them all to sleep, sitting together in long rows on the upper limbs, I -suppose for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span> mutual warmth. Here, each with head poked deep under his -wing, they would remain till dawn, when with more uproar they would all -whirl off together to some common breakfasting place. Later in the day -they would become separated, only to drop in at night to the usual -roost.</p> - -<p>It was not a very safe proceeding, for farm boys, eager to use that new -gun, used to go down before sunset and hide beneath the pines, letting -go both barrels with great slaughter after the crows had become settled. -Perhaps this had something to do with the breaking up of the custom, for -now, though many crows roost on the Wheeler place, they do so singly, -each in his own room, so to speak.</p> - -<p>The same is true of the crow guests at the Pasture Pines Hotel. I had -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> pleasure of waking them early there this morning, incidentally, and -vicariously, waking all crow-town. Last night, just as the last tint of -amber was fading from the sunset sky, letting a yellow-green evening -star come through, almost like a first daffodil, a crow slipped bat-wise -across the amber and dropped into a certain pine to roost.</p> - -<p>I noted the tree, and this morning, before hardly a glimmer of dawn had -come, slipped along beneath the dark boughs, planning to get just -beneath his tree and see him first. But I had planned without the -obstructions in the path and the uncertain light. I approached unheard -on the needle-carpeted avenue beneath the big trees, but when I started -across the field, still twenty rods away from my bird, I kicked a dry, -broken branch.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What? What’s that?” It was an unmistakable crow inquiry, fairly shouted -from the tree I had marked as the roosting place. There wasn’t the space -of a breath between the snap of that branch and the answer of the bird. -Surely a night-clerk in crow-town has an easy task. There need be no -prolonged hammering on the door of the guest who would be called early. -One tap is sufficient. I had hoped to stand beneath that tree and sight -my crow in the gray of dawn, see him yawn with that prodigious black -beak after he had withdrawn it from under his wing, then stretch one -wing and one leg, as birds do, look the world over, catch sight of me -and go off at a great pace, shouting a hasty warning to the world in -general.</p> - -<p>But he did not need to see me. That breaking branch had opened his eyes -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span> ears with one snap. He heard the crisp of my footfall on the frozen -grass of the field and immediately there was a great flapping in the -marked pine tree and he was off over the tops of its neighbors to a safe -place an eighth of a mile away. He said three things, and so plain were -they that any listener could have understood them. Languages vary, but -emotions and the inflections they cause are the same in all creatures. -The veriest tyro in wood-lore could have understood that crow.</p> - -<p>His first ejaculation was plainly surprise and query blended. In his -sleep he had heard a noise. He thought it, very likely, a fellow calling -to him to get up and start the day’s work. Then when the answer was a -man’s footfall he flew to safety, sounding the short, nervous yelp which -is always the danger signal. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> when he had again alighted in safety -he realized that it was morning again and he was awake and it was time -that the gang got together. “Hi-i, hi-i, hi-i-i,” it said. It was -neither musical nor polite, but it was intended to wake every crow -within a half-mile in a spirit of riotous good-fellowship. There was no -further need of my services; every crow within a half-mile answered that -call. Then I could hear those farther on rousing and taking up the cry, -and so it went on, no doubt indefinitely.</p> - -<p>I have a feeling that I waked every crow in eastern Massachusetts a full -half-hour before his accustomed time, simply by kicking that dead limb. -However, I learned one thing, and hereby report it to the Lodging-House -Commission: that is, that the crows hereabouts have now given up the -dormitory idea and occupy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> individual rooms after nightfall. They were -scattered all through the pasture and woodland but no two were within -twenty rods of one another.</p> - -<p>Their minds have not yet turned to nest-building and mating, though the -time is near, for they still flock in hilarious good-fellowship at -sunrise, and you may hear them whooping and hurrahing about in crowds -all day long. They may be beginning to “take notice”; I suspect some of -the hilarity is over that. But they have not come to the pairing-off -stage. When they reach that the flocks will disappear and you would -hardly think there was a crow left in the whole wood. You might by -stepping softly surprise a pair of them inspecting a likely pine in the -pasture, planning for the nest. You might, by listening in secluded -places, hear the curious, low-toned, prolonged<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> croak, which is a -love-song. I have heard this described as musical, but it is not. It is -as if a barn-door hinge should try to sing “O Promise Me.” But there -will be no more congregations.</p> - -<p>Certainly there was not much in the aspect of the night which was just -slipping away when I waked my crow that would seem to justify plans of -nest-building. The thermometer marked twenty in my sheltered front porch -when I stepped out. It must have been some degrees below that in the -open. The ground was flint with the frost in it. The old thick ice was -gone from the pond, indeed, broken up by the disintegrating insinuation -of the sun and the vigorous lashing of northwest gales, but in its place -was a skim of new ice formed that night. Standing still, you felt the -lance of the north wind still; it was winter. Yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> you had but to -breathe deep to get the soft assurance of the near presence of spring, -and if you walked briskly for a moment the north wind’s lances fell -clattering to the icy ground and you moved in a new atmosphere of warmth -and geniality. Thus point to point are the picket lines of the -contending forces.</p> - -<p>In the west the pale, cold moon, now a few days past the full, was -sinking in a blue-black sky that might have been that of the keenest -night in December. In the east, out of a low bank of dark clouds that -marked the dun spring mists rising from the sea twenty miles away, -flashed iris tints of dawn upward into a clear, pale sky that bore -dapplings of softest apple-green. On the one hand were night and the -winter, on the other dawn and the spring, and down the pine-sheltered -path I walked between the two to a point<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> where I stopped in delight. -The pine path ended, and the willows let the spring dawn filter through -their delicate sprays. Just here I caught the hum of the water rolling -over the dam and the prattle of the brook below, and right through it -all, clear, mellow, and elated, came the voice of a song sparrow.</p> - -<p>“Kolink, kolink, chee chee chee chee chee, tseep seedle, sweet, sweet,” -he sang and it fitted so well with the rollicking tinkle of the brook -that I knew he was down among the alders where he could smell the rich -spring odor of the purling water. The two sounds not only complemented -one another as do two parts in music, but they were of the same quality, -though so distinctly different. It was as if tenor and alto were being -sung.</p> - -<p>I had gone forth expecting bluebirds;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> I had half hoped for a robin when -it came time for matins, for robins have been about all winter, and here -a song sparrow, no doubt the first spray from the northward surging wave -of migratory birds, was the first to break the winter stillness. He had -hardly piped his first round, though, before the voices of bluebirds -murmured in the air above, and two lighted on the willows, caroling in -that subdued manner which is the epitome of gentleness. I think these -two were migrants, for later in the morning I heard others.</p> - -<p>Then in a half minute there was a shrilling of wings that beat the air -rapidly and six ducks swung over my head in the rosy dusk. Most ducks -make a swishing sound with the wings when in rapid flight, but this was -so marked a sibillation that I am quite sure it was a flock of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> -goldeneyes, more commonly called whistlers, because they so excel in -wing music. They swung a wide circle over my head and then dropped back -into the pond, where an opening in the young ice gave them opportunity. -Curiosity probably brought them up. They wanted to see what that was -prowling on the pond shore in the uncertain light,—a prompting that -might have cost them dear had I carried a gun, for they came within easy -range; then, having seen, they went back to their fishing. Their -presence added a touch of wildness to the scene that was not without its -charm, for you can hardly call the bluebird or the song sparrow wild -birds. They are almost as domestic as the garden shrubbery.</p> - -<p>For the moment the bird songs and the whistling of the ducks’ wings -through the rosy morning light made me forget the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span> grip of the winter -cold that was in all the air, yet when I had crossed the dam and begun -to clamber along the other shore of the pond the winter reasserted -itself. Here was no promise of changing season. The thick ice in its -disintegration had been pushed far ashore by the westerly gales, and -here it was frozen in pressure ridges which were not so far different -from those one may see on the Arctic shores. To them was cemented the -young ice of the night, and I could walk along shore in places on its -surface, its structure as elastic as that of early December.</p> - -<p>Here, too, was piled high the débris not only of that great battle in -which the spring forces had ripped the thick ice from the water, but of -the daily skirmishes in which winter and north wind have set a half-inch -of ice all along the surface and spring sunshine has broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> it away -from its moorings, obliging the very north wind that made it to pile it -in long windrows high on shore. To clamber along these pressure ridges -and hear the crunching cakes resound under my tread in hollow, frosty -tones, to feel the bite of the north wind which drifted across the new -ice, was to step out of the spring promise which the birds had given me, -back into the Arctic. I was almost ready to look for seal and wonder if -I wouldn’t soon hear the wild wolf-howl of Eskimo dogs and round a point -onto one of their snow-igloo villages.</p> - -<p>The song sparrow was far out of hearing and here we were in mid-winter -again. Only in the east was there promise. Through the dark tracery of -pond-bordering trees I could see the sky all a soft, unearthly green, -like an impressionist lawn, and all through this the sun, now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> close -below the horizon, had forced into bloom red tulips and blue and yellow -crocuses of spring dawn. From the ice ridges it was all as unreal as if -it were hung in a frozen gallery, and I were an unwilling tourist -shivering as I observed it.</p> - -<p>Again, I had to go but a short distance to find a new country. Here the -warmer waters of a little brook came babbling down the slope and had -pushed away all the ice ridges and warmed its own path far out into the -new ice. Along its edge the alder catkins hung in grouped tassels of -venetian red, and here and there a group had so thrilled to the warmth -of the running water that even in the face of the cold wind they had -begun to relax a bit and show cracks in the varnished surface that has -kept the stamens secure all winter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span></p> - -<p>It will not be long now before these favored ones will begin to shake -the yellow pollen from their curls. Already they are giving the hint of -it. A little way upstream, however, was a far more potent reminder of -the coming season. I caught a whiff of its fragrance and smiled before I -saw it.</p> - -<p>I wonder why we always smile at this most beautiful spring flower,—for -it was a spring blossom, the very first of the season, which was growing -in the soft green of the brookside grass, its yellow head all swathed in -a maroon and green, striped and flecked, pointed hood, lifted bravely -above the protecting herbage into the nipping air. The flowering spadix -I could not see; only the handsome, protecting spathe which was wound -about the tender blooms to protect them from the cold. When the sun is -high in the sky<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> this spathe will loosen a bit and let visiting insects -enter for the fertilization of the blossom. But in that cold air of -early morning it was wrapped tight.</p> - -<p>I have seen orchids tenderly nurtured in conservatories that had not -half the honest beauty of this flower. Neither to me is the odor of the -derided skunk-cabbage more unpleasant than that of many a coddled and -admired garden bloom—a dahlia, for instance. Yet I smiled in derision -on catching the first whiff of it, and so do we all. If the -<i>symplocarpus</i> cared it would be too bad, but it does not. Unconscious -of its caddish critics, it blooms serenely on in the swamps and takes -the tiny insects into its confidence and its hood, and adds a bit of -rich color to the place when no other blossom dares. And even as I -looked at it the sun slipped out of the low band of dark horizon-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span>mists -and sent a golden good-morning like a benediction right down upon the -head of the humble, courageous, sturdy beauty of the brookside. After -that approval why should any blossom care?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="MARCH_WINDS" id="MARCH_WINDS"></a>MARCH WINDS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OR two days the mad March winds have been blowing a fifty-mile gale, -setting all the woodland crazy. No wonder the March hare is mad. He -lives in Bedlam. No sooner does he squat comfortably in his form, his -fair fat belly with round apple-tree bark lined, topped off with wee -green sprigs of rash but succulent spring herbs from the brookside, -ready to contemplate nature with all the philosophy which such a -condition engenders, than the form rises in the air and its component -leaves skitter through the wood and over the hill out of sight, leaving -him denuded.</p> - -<p>The usually dignified and gentle trees howl like beagles on his trail. -The pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span>tecting scrub oaks, gone mad, too, dab and flip at him till he -gets fidgety with thoughts of horned owls, and things rattle down out of -the sky as if he were being pelted with buckshot. All these matters get -on his nerves after a little, and if he sets his cotton-tail white flag -at half mast from fear and goes whooping through the brush in a frenzy, -there is small blame to him. Even man, whose mental girth and weight are -supposed to be ballast sufficient against all buffetings, going forth on -such a day needs the buttons of his composure well sewed on or he will -find it ripped from him like the hare’s form and sent skittering down -the lea along with his hat, while he himself bolts here and there -fighting phantoms and objurgating the unseen.</p> - -<p>Mad March winds are a good test of stability of soul. He who can stand -their weltings with serenity, can watch his</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_003" style="width: 448px;"> -<a href="images/i044.jpg"> -<img src="images/i044.jpg" width="448" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>He sets his cotton-tail white flag at half mast from -fear, and goes whooping through the brush in a frenzy</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">un-anchored personal belongings go mad with the March hare and still -thrid the sombre boskage of the wood with sunny thought and no venom -beneath his tongue, ought to be President. Even the New York papers -could not make him bring suit.</p> - -<p>And after the two days of gale how sweet the serenity that came to the -thrashed and winnowed pastures and woodland. I fancy it all feeling like -a boy at school who, after being soundly flogged, gets back to the -soothing calm of his accustomed seat. There is a gentle joy about that -feeling that, as many of us know, has neither alloy nor equal. The whole -woodland, thus spanked and put away to cool, feels the winter of its -discontent vanishing behind it and has no room in its heart for aught -but the peace and joy of regeneration.</p> - -<p>The gale began to fail during the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> day and before midnight it was -dead; thus short-lived is frenzy. I do not know now if those last gentle -sighs were those of the wind in sorrow of its misdeeds, thus on its -death-bed repentant, or those of the trees, themselves given a chance to -sleep at last after a forty-hour fight for their lives. In the threshing -and winnowing of the woodland none but the physically fit may survive. -Oaks that have held their last year’s leaves lovingly on the twig had to -let them go like the veriest chaff, and all twigs and limbs that have -been weakened.</p> - -<p>And as chaff and débris is thus pruned from the forest, so those trees -themselves that are not physically fit for the struggle for existence -are weeded out. The eye may not be able to pick these, but the gale -finds them. If the whelming pressure of its steady onrush is not -sufficient to bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span> them down, the racking of varying force and the -torsion of sudden changes in direction will snap the weakened trunk or -tear out the loosened roots. Then there is a groan and a crash, and -space for the younger growth to spread toward more light and air.</p> - -<p>At no time of year is the weakness of roothold so liable to be fatal to -a tree as now. During the winter a gale may snap a tree off at the trunk -and smash it bodily to the ground. But if there is no weakness in the -trunk there can be none in the roots, for the frost that is set about -them holds even the shortest, as if embedded in stone. But now, when the -solvent ice has loosened the whole surface for a depth of a foot or -more, leaving it fluffy and disintegrated, those trees which have no -tap-roots and hold only in this lightened surface are in the greatest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span> -danger of uprooting of the whole year. Farmers often clear a shrubby -pasture in late March or early April hereabout by taking advantage of -this fact. They make a trace-chain fast about the base of a pasture -cedar or a stout huckleberry bush, and with a word to the old horse the -shrub is dragged from the softened earth, root and all. In mid-summer, -after the ground has become compact, this is not to be done.</p> - -<p>It is the spring house-cleaning time of the year, when nature is -sweeping and picking up, preparatory to laying new carpets and getting -new furnishings throughout, and if any of the old furniture of the -woodland is not able to stand the strain it has to go to the woodpile. -Without the mad March winds the forest would lose much of its fresh -virility, the old deadwood would cumber the new growth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> and the mild -melancholy of decay would prevail as it does in some swamps where -sheltering surrounding hills and close growth shunt the gales.</p> - -<p>Yet, though house-cleanings are no doubt necessary and beneficient, few -of us love them, and we hail with equal joy the resultant cleanliness -and the cessation of the uproar. The two days’ gale finally got all the -winds of the world piled up somewhere to the southward and ceased, and -the piled-up atmosphere drifted back over us, bringing mild blue haze -that was like smoke from the fires of summer floating far. All things -that had been taut and dense relaxed into dimples or softened into -tears. The frost went out of the plowed fields that morning, though the -sun was too blurred with the kindly blue mist to have any force. It was -just the general relaxation which did it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span></p> - -<p>Then is apt to come a halcyon day, and though the kingfisher is not here -to brood, nor will he be for a month, his fabled weather slips on in -advance to cheer us. It may not last a day. March is as mad as April is -fickle, and you will need to start early to be sure of it. Then, even if -you come home in a snowstorm, you will at least have had a brief glimpse -of that sunny softness which is dearer in March than in any other month.</p> - -<p>This morning, in that calm which is most apt to settle on the land just -before sunrise, the whole woodland seemed to breathe freely and beam in -the soft air. The bluebirds caroled all about, and where a few days ago -one song sparrow surprised me with his song, a dozen jubilated in the -pasture bushes. A half-dozen blackbirds flew over, and though I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> -not see a single red epaulet in the gray light, and listened in vain for -that melodious “kong-quer-ree” which no other bird can sing, I knew them -as well by their call of “chut-chuck,” which is equally characteristic.</p> - -<p>A flock of goldfinches lighted in the pines with much twittering and -suggestions of the summer flight-note of “perchicoree.” But that is no -more than they have been doing all winter. In a moment, though, the -twittering changed. A melodious note began to come into it, and soon -several in the flock were singing rival songs as sweet, though I do not -think as loud, as those they will sing when June warmth sets the whole -bird world a-choiring. It was a happy note in the cool spring air, for -it was more than a spring song. The bluebirds and song sparrows voice -that, but the song of the goldfinch is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> song of summer, and -irresistibly reminds one of fervid June heat and full-leaved trees. It -was a warming, winning chorus, and it brought the sun up over the -horizon, seemingly with a bound.</p> - -<p>In all this joy of early matins I still miss one bird note that surely -ought to be heard by now, and that is the robin’s. Robins are here in -considerable numbers, but not one of them have I heard sing. I’m afraid -the robin is lazy, but, perhaps, it is just his honest, matter-of-fact -nature which does not believe in forcing the season. He will sing loud -and long enough by-and-by.</p> - -<p>Such a spring morning is the best season of the year for moth hunting. -The moths are all sound asleep still, tucked away in their cocoons, that -are also tucked away in the woodland where it is not so easy to see them -in winter. Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span> the mad March winds have swept the last brown leaves -from the bushes, and such moths as hang up there for the winter sleep -are easily seen. You may take them home and hang them up wherever you -see fit, and you will then be on hand to greet the moth when at his -leisure he feels prompted to come forth from his snug sleeping-bag.</p> - -<p>I always find more of the spice-bush silk-moth than any others,—perhaps -because we both love the same woodland spots, borders of the ponds and -streams where the benzoin and sassafras flourish, or upland pastures -where the wild cherry hangs out its white racemes in May. They dangle -freely in the wind, looking for all the world like a left-over leaf -rolled by accident into a rude cylinder. Yet the moth is safe and warm -within, rolled up in a silken coat that is firmly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> glued to the leaf; -and not only that, but extends in silky fabric all up along the petiole, -and firmly holds it to the twig itself. The mad winds which have scoured -the bush clean of all leaves and débris have had no strength which can -pluck this “last leaf upon the tree.”</p> - -<p>If left to itself it will still hang there a year or two, perhaps more, -after the moth has emerged, gradually bleaching to a soft gray, but -still clinging. It is a splendid quality of silk, but no one has yet -succeeded in reeling or carding it. <i>Callosamia promethia</i> thus escapes -becoming a product of the farm rather than the pasture. It is a fine -species to have hanging in winter cradles above your mantel, for the -<i>imago</i> is large and beautiful, with deep browns and tans softly shading -into grays that are tinted with iris, the male being distinct with a -body<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span> color of deep brown less diversified than the coloring of his -mate.</p> - -<p>The <i>Samia cecropia</i> is another of our silk-worm moths whose cocoon is -not difficult to find. The <i>cecropia</i>, instead of rolling up in a -pendant leaf, constructs his cocoon without protection, and glues it -right side up beneath a stout twig or even a considerable limb. I have -one now that I took from the under side of a big leaning alder bole, -skiving it off with the bark, but most of those I have collected have -been attached to slender twigs of low shrubs.</p> - -<p>But, though the <i>cecropia</i> does not roll up in a leaf, he is apt to -place his winter home where dead leaves will persist about him. I have -never found him so plentiful as the <i>promethea</i>, though he is commonly -reported as numerous. Perhaps this habit of hiding among the dead -leaves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> has to do with this. He is our largest moth, and in beauty of -coloring is surpassed, to my mind, only by two others.</p> - -<p>One of these is <i>Telia polyphemus</i>,—a wonderful creature, almost as -large as the <i>cecropia</i>, all a soft, rosy tan with fleckings of gray and -white and bands of soft violet-gray and pink, and great eyespots of -white margined with yellow, browed with peacock blue, and ringed with -violet-black. The larva, which is bigger than a big man’s thumb, is a -beautiful shade of transparent green with side slashings of silvery -white, and feeds on most of our deciduous forest trees.</p> - -<p>I have had most luck in finding them on chestnuts. Last fall, when -beating a chestnut tree for the nuts, I dislodged several, one of which -I brought home and put in a cage with some leaves. He refused to eat, -but in a day or so spun a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> cocoon down in the corner of the box with a -chestnut leaf glued over him. No wonder we rarely see either moth, -caterpillar, or cocoon. The larva dwells in the higher trees, rolls -himself in leaves in the autumn, and spends the winter on the ground, -usually covered out of sight by the other leaves. Then the moth, wary -and swift, flies only by night.</p> - -<p>The <i>Actias luna</i>, the beautiful, long-tailed, green luna moth, is, I -think, better known, for it has a way of flitting about woodland glades -in late June or July, before nightfall. But in the caterpillar or the -cocoon it is as hard to find as the <i>polyphemus</i>, and for similar -reasons. It, too, feeds upon walnut and hickory, and in the fall spins a -papery cocoon among the dried leaves on the ground.</p> - -<p>The <i>luna</i> moth is to me the highest type of moth beauty, and it is -worth a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> long search among leaves to find a cocoon of either this or the -<i>polyphemus</i>, and have the splendid privilege of seeing the lovely -inmate later emerge, spread its fairy-like wings, and soar away into the -soft spring twilight. It is as great a wonder as it would be to step -some mid-summer midnight into a fairy ring and, after having speech with -Mab and Titania and Puck and Ariel, see them flit daintily across the -face of the rising moon and vanish in the purple dusk. The world of the -<i>polyphemus</i> and the <i>luna</i>, the <i>cecropia</i> and the <i>promethea</i>, is as -far removed from ours and as full of strange romance as that.</p> - -<p>Along the pond shore these mad March days one gets glimpses of another -world, too, that is, I dare say, as regardless of us as we are of that -of the moths. This morning in the dusk of young dawn the pond was like a -black mirror reflecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span> the shadows of the sky. But across it, near the -middle, was drawn a silver streak, the path of ducks swimming. Presently -I heard their voices,—the resonant quack of a black duck and the hoarse -“pra-a-p pr-a-a-p” of the drake. As they called, into the pond with a -splash came a small flock of divers, showing white as they whirled to -settle. The two species swam together, seemed to look each other over, -held who knows what conversations in their own way, then separated. It -is not for black duck and buffleheads to congregate, especially in the -spring; and while the black duck and drake swam sedately away, the -buffleheads began to hunt the small white perch which swim in schools -near the surface, making a splash as if a stone was thrown into the -water at every lightning-like dive.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span></p> - -<p>Just as many a man here in Massachusetts lives his life and dies without -ever having seen or heard of a <i>polyphemus</i> moth or a bufflehead, though -both may fly over his own head on many a dusky twilight, so the -migrating thousands of ducks each year fly over our cities and know -little of their uproar and bustle, nothing of their yearnings toward art -or theology, or of the inspiration of poets or the agony of the -down-trodden. Their world is all-important to them; ours is nothing, so -they escape our guns, which they vaguely feel will harm them.</p> - -<p>Even we with our books, our laboratories, and our concerted research -into all things under heaven and in earth, do not get very far into the -lives of other creatures. I have said all the moths are still in their -cocoons. Perhaps they are, all but one, at least. That is a small<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span> brown -fellow that came flying across the brook in the chill air of a sunset a -night or two ago and now lies dead on my desk.</p> - -<p>I caught him, for I wanted to know what moth dared come forth when the -ground was still frozen and no bud had yet burst. But I would better -have let him fly along to work out his own destiny, for in all the -moth-book there is no mention of this wee brown creature that dared the -frosty night with frail wings. I do not think he was an uncommon -specimen. Moths are so numerous that only the most characteristic -varieties of the more important species can be noticed in the -text-books.</p> - -<p>On my way home I crossed a sunny glade among the pines, and here I met -an old friend, and had another example of the workings of other lives -whose wis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span>dom or ability is beyond our ken. On the dark trunk of a pine -was sitting the spring’s first specimen, so far as my observation goes, -of butterfly life, an <i>Antiopa vanessa</i>, his mourning cloak so closely -folded that it made him invisible against the pine-tree bark. As I drew -near he flipped into the air and sailed by, beautiful in his tan-yellow -border with its spots of soft blue.</p> - -<p>I say he was on the pine bark, but I did not see him there. For aught I -know, so well was he concealed, the tree opened and let him out, then -closed, that his hiding place might not be revealed. I would almost as -soon believe this as to believe, what lepidopterists assure me is true, -that this frail creature lives through the zero gales and deep snows of -five months of winter to come out in the first bright days of early -spring unharmed. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span> is as likely that a pine trunk would voluntarily -conceal him as that he could survive, frozen solid in some crevice in a -stone wall or hollow stump. At any rate, he is out again, along with the -hepaticas and song sparrows, and though the March winds and the March -hare may both go mad again, we have had moments when the spring was very -near.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="WOOD_ROADS" id="WOOD_ROADS"></a>WOOD ROADS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>OME time in the night the tender gray spring mists that the hot -afternoon sun had coaxed up from all the meadowy places realized that -they were deserted, lost in the darkness. The young moon had gone -decorously to bed at nine o’clock, pulling certain cloud puffs of white -down over even the tip of her nose, that she might not be tempted to -come out and dance with these lovely pale creatures.</p> - -<p>They were dancing then, but later they trembled together in fright, for -the kindly stars, their shining eyes grown tremulous with tender tears, -vanished too, withdrawn behind the black haze which the north wind sends -before it. A nimbus, wind-blown from distant mountain tops,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> was -spreading over the zenith, and through it the gentle spring mists heard -resound the crack of doom, the voice of the north wind itself, made up -of echoes of crashing ice floes out of Hudson’s Bay and the Arctic. Then -the spring mists fled to earth again, but had no strength left to enter -in. Instead, they lay there dead, covering all things a half-inch deep -with soft bodies of purest white, and we looked forth in the morning and -said that there had been a robin-snow.</p> - -<p>It is a pity that those gentle, innocent gray-blue spring mists should -die, even to be lovely in death as they are, but it is their way of -getting back home. In the morning the repentant sun came and dissolved -the white, silent ones into gentle tears,—dayborn dew that slipped down -among the grass roots and laid moist cheeks close to daisy and violet -buds as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> they went by, and almost loved them into bloom. A few more -robin-snows and they will all be out. Very likely somewhere a dandelion, -some sturdy, rough-and-ready youngster, quivered into yellow florescence -at the caress. Robin-snows and the cajoling sun of the last week of -March often make summer enough for this honest, fearless flower.</p> - -<p>Quite likely the tender joy of the mists at getting back safe to earth -under the caress of the eager sun, and their terror of the north wind, -which still rumbles by in the upper air, are both nascent on such days, -for you have but to go out to feel them, and they inevitably lead you -out of the raw mire of the highways, across the wind-swept pasture, into -wood roads.</p> - -<p>These on such days have an atmosphere of their own. Here the thrill of -the sun is as potent as the push of the X-ray. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> slips through clothes -and flesh, nor do bones stay it till it tingles in the marrow, a -vitalizing fire that is soothed and nourished by the soft essence of -those dead mists, now glowing upward from the moist humus. No wonder the -woodland things come to life and grow again at the touch! The north wind -may howl high above. Here under the trees the soft airs that breathe out -of Eden touch you and you know that just round the curve of the road is -the very gate itself.</p> - -<p>My way to the most secret and withdrawn country of these wood roads -always leads me across Ponkapog brook at the spot where rest the ruins -of the old mill. It is three-quarters of a century or more since it -ground grist, and of its timbers scarcely a moss-grown remnant remains. -The gate to the old dam has been gone almost as long, but the waters<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> do -not forget. Every year the spring floods bring down what driftwood the -pond banks can spare and bar their own course with it at this spot. The -water rises as high as of old, for a brief time.</p> - -<p>It is as if the brook paid a memorial tribute thus yearly to the honest -labor of the pioneers, now long gone. For a time it lasts, then the -cementing bonds of dead leaves fail and the black flood roars through to -the sea. Come two months later and where its highest rim touched you -will find that it planted flowers in loving remembrance also, and -saxifrage and dwarf blue violet lean in fragrant affection over the -waters. I like to think that on Memorial day at least the stream makes -echo of the clank of the old-time mill-wheel in its liquid prattle, and -that the shuttle of reflected sunshine dancing back and forth is a -glorified ghost of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> old wheels whirling once more in memory of the -miller and his neighbors.</p> - -<p>Farther on I reach the pond shore, and on the narrow ridge which marks -the old-time high tide of winter ice pressure, a dry moraine always, -though running through marshy land, I strike what must be the oldest -trail in this part of the country. Here is a path which was traveled -before the time of the Norman conquest, or, for that matter, before -Cæsar led his victorious legions into Gaul. Here the first Indians trod -dry-footed when they went back and forth about the pond in their hunting -and fishing, for then, as now, it was a natural causeway.</p> - -<p>To-day a stranger, seeking his way about the pond for the first time, -would not fail to find it, and the habitual wood-rover of the region, -old or young, knows its every turn. Upon this to-day, between<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span> the marsh -and the bog in the alluring spring sunshine, I found a whole bird -convention. Such an uproar! It was as if the suffragettes in one grand -concerted movement had swooped down upon Parliament by the air-ship -route, as the cable says they threaten, and were in the heat of -battering down its walls of deafness with racket and roaring, after the -fashion of the attempt on Jericho of old.</p> - -<p>The blackbirds were in the greatest numbers and made the most noise -individually. There were a hundred of them, more or less, sitting about -in the trees and bushes, a few on the ground, and all of them practicing -every call or song that blackbird was ever known to make. All the harsh -croaking of frogs that as young birds they heard from the nest by the -bog they voiced in their calls; all the liquid<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span> melody of gentle brooks -tinkling over shallows, and the piping of winds in hollow marsh reeds, -they reproduced in their songs, and the whole was jumbled in this -uproarious medley. They even shamed a robin or two into singing,—the -first time I have heard these laggards do it this year, though they have -been here in force for some weeks.</p> - -<p>There seemed to be no cause for this other than the joy of living. It -was just an impromptu concert in honor of the spring. I think I never -noticed before how vigorously the blackbird uses his tail at one of -these concerts. All the long black tails present worked up and down as -if each were a pump-handle working a bellows to supply wind for the -pipings. It reminded me of the church organ-loft, and the labors of the -boy when the choir is in full swing and the organ<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span>ist has everything -opened up and is dancing on the pedal notes to keep up.</p> - -<p>Either side of this trail the wood should be a paradise for woodpeckers, -for the trees are here allowed to grow old without interference. In -birch and maple stubs the flickers have dug hole after hole, sometimes -all up and down a single trunk. The downy woodpeckers have been active -also and the chickadees have reared many a nestful of fluffy chicks in -the same neighborhood. Yet, with all the opportunity that the flickers -have had to bore in soft decaying wood for food or for shelter, I see -that they have also dug a round hole through the inch boards in the peak -of the old cranberry house. This, too, was probably for shelter, for -many flickers winter with us, and there would be room in the old -cranberry house-loft for a whole community, but I won<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span>der sometimes if -there is not another reason.</p> - -<p>Just as beavers and squirrels must gnaw to keep their teeth from growing -too long, so I sometimes think that woodpeckers need to hammer about so -much, whether for food or not, to keep their bills in good condition. It -is difficult to otherwise account for their continual practice. I knew a -flicker once who used to drum a half-hour at a time on a sheet-iron -ventilator on the roof of a building. I think he did it to keep his bill -properly calloused and his muscle up, so that when he did tackle a -shagbark tree with a fat, inch-long borer waiting in its heart-wood the -chips would fly.</p> - -<p>This low pond-bank moraine with its immemorial trail leads all along the -north side of the pond, skirting the shoreward edge of the great bog -nicely. It takes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> you through the Talbot plains where tan-brown levels -stretch far to the northward, seeming to shrink suddenly back from the -overhanging bulk of Great Blue Hill, and it leads again into the tall -oak woods, where later the warbling vireos will swing in the topmost -branches and cheer the solemn arches with their gentle carols. By-and-by -the bog ends and the path marks the dividing line between the bulrushes, -marsh grass, bog-hobble wickets, and mingled débris of last summer’s -thorough wort, and joepye weed, and marsh St. John’s-wort on the one -hand, and the soft pinky grays of the wood on the other.</p> - -<p>The climbing sun shines in here fervently, and the clear waters lap on -the sand and croon among the water weeds with all the semblance of -summer. No wonder the wild ducks linger long. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> pond is full of -them,—black ducks and sheldrake,—quacking and whistling back and -forth, sometimes forty of them in the air at once, and taking no notice -of the wanderer on the bank. It seems to be their jubilee day as well as -that of the birds on shore.</p> - -<p>Thus by way of the long trail teeming with spring life I reach the -enchanted country of the wood roads. Here are no pastures reclaimed, no -ancient cellar holes to show the path of the pioneer. Woodland it was -when the first Englishman came to Cape Cod; woodland it remains to-day. -Somewhere in its depths the barred owls are nesting, and I hear the -shrill pæan of a hawk as he harries the distant hillside. But for the -most part there is a gentle silence, a dignified quiet that befits the -solitude. It is the hush of the elder years dwelling in places<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span> somewhat -man-harried indeed, but never by man possessed. In this country to the -east of Ponkapog Pond lingered longest the moose and bear. The fox makes -it his home and his hunting-ground still; I find his trail still warm, -and in summer you should tread with care, for an occasional rattlesnake -trails his slow length among the rocks. The most that man has ever done -here is to shoot and chop trees. The echoes of axe and gun die away -soon, the trees grow up again, and man’s only mark is the wood roads.</p> - -<p>Roads in this world are supposed to lead from somewhere to somewhere -else, but no suspicion of such definiteness of purpose can ever be -attached to wood roads, unless you are willing to say that they lead -from the land of humdrum to the country of romance. Sometimes, in -following them, you unexpectedly come<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span> out on the highway, but far more -often you have better luck, and the plain trail grows gently vague, -shimmers away to nothing, and you find yourself, perhaps, in a beech -grove, out of which is no path. You can hear the young trees titter at -your embarrassment, but you cannot find the path that led you among -them.</p> - -<p>Perhaps in all your future wanderings you may not come upon that beech -grove again, for the wood roads wind and interlace and play strange -tricks on all outsiders. Particularly over in this region wood-lot -owners sometimes lose their wood-lots, and are able to get track of them -only after prolonged search, tumbling upon them then more by accident -than wit. Sometimes a wood road innocently leads you round a hill and -slyly slips you into itself again through a gap<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> in the thicket. Thus, -before you know it, you may have gone around the hill any number of -times, as strangers get coursing in revolving doors in the entrances to -city buildings and continue to revolve until rescued.</p> - -<p>Nor can you tell where the most sedate and straightforward one which you -can pick out will lead you, except that you know it will be continually -through a land of delight, and that Eden is bound to be just ahead of -you.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to understand, though, in all seriousness, how these -roads persist. Wood cut off over extensive areas grows up again in -thirty or forty years and fills in the gap in the forest till no trace -of it remains, yet the roads by which it was carted to the highway, -leading once as directly as possible, seem still to have some subtle -power of resistance whereby<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span> they are not overgrown, though they lose -their directness. After a few years it seems as if, glad to be relieved -of any responsibility, they took to strolling aimlessly about, meeting -one another and separating again casually.</p> - -<p>I never see a wood-cart coming out with a load, yet the road seems as -definite in marking as it did a half-century ago. But that is one of the -fascinations of the region. You take the same road as usual, and by it -you come out at some strange and hitherto unheard-of garden of delight. -It is like the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, where one story leads -into another and you wander on with always a new climax just ahead of -you.</p> - -<p>Out of the great pudding-stone boulders of this region, of which you may -find specimens as large as an ordinary dwelling-house standing in lonely -dignity, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span> may see cunning workmen making soil for the nourishment of -these forest trees. Here will be a round blot of yellow-gray lichen, -perhaps a <i>Parmelia conspersa</i>, clinging to the smoothest surface of -flint with ease and sending down its microscopic rhizoids into the -tiniest crevice between the round pebble, which is the plum, and the -slate which makes the body of the pudding.</p> - -<p>On another part of the boulder you may find a slanting surface, where -the parmelia’s work is already done. Its tiny root-organs have dissolved -off and split away enough of the slate to loosen some tiny pebbles, -which fall to the ground as gravel, leaving hollows in which dew and -dead lichens make a soil for the roots of soft pads of mosses. Some of -the boulders over here are like Western buttes, densely tenanted by -these hardy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> cliff-dwellers, the many-footed rock lovers finding -foothold where you would hardly think the lichens even would survive.</p> - -<p>I never tramp these roads, which it sometimes seems as if the pukwudgies -moved about in the night for the confusion of men, without being lost, -at least for a time, and finding a new boulder to worship. Once, thus -lost, I found a little gem of a pond, which hides in the hollows a -half-mile or so east from Ponkapog Pond. This, too, I fear the -pukwudgies move about in the night, for I hear of many men who have -found it once and sought it again in vain.</p> - -<p>To-day I came upon it once more,—a cup of clear water in the hollow of -the forest’s hand, smiling up at the sky with neither inlet or outlet. -The black ducks had found it, too. They greeted my approaching footsteps -with quacks of alarm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> and I had hardly rounded the bushes on the bank -before sixteen of them, with much splashing, rose heavily into the air -and sailed off toward the big pond.</p> - -<p>Even in their fright I noticed that they went out as the animals did -from the ark,—two by two,—and I smiled, for it is one more sign of -spring. I noticed the crows in couples to-day for the first time. A few -black duck breed hereabout, and the little pond with the button-bushes -growing along one shallow shore as thick as mangroves in a West India -swamp might well be considered by house-hunting couples. Sitting under a -mountain laurel whose leaves furnish the only shade on the bank, I -watched quietly for nearly half an hour. Then there was a soft swish of -sailing wings, and a pair dropped lightly in without splash enough to be -heard. Yet there was little to see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span> after all. They simply sat mirrored -in the motionless water for another half-hour by the town clock, looking -adoration into one another’s eyes, then snuggled close and swam in among -the button-bushes as if with one foot. That was all. It was a veritable -quaker-meeting love-making; but just the same I shall look for the nest -among the button-bush mangroves in another month, and I do hope that -pukwudgies will not have mixed the wood roads and hidden the pond so -well that I cannot find it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="THE_BROOK_IN_APRIL" id="THE_BROOK_IN_APRIL"></a>THE BROOK IN APRIL</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE pond is a mile long, but it is shallow, with a level bottom that was -once a peat meadow, and the water, holding some of this peat in -solution, has a fine amber tinge. It is as if the sphagnums that wrought -for ages in the bog and died to give it its black levels held in reserve -vast stores of their own rich wine reds and mingled them with the -yellows of hemlock heart-wood and the soft tan of marsh grasses that lie -dead, all robed in funereal black at the pond bottom.</p> - -<p>By what mystery of alchemy the water compounds during its winter wait -under the thick ice this amethystine glow in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span> pellucid depths I do -not know, but the spring sunlight always shows it as it sends its shafts -down into the quivering shallows, and it creams the foam that fluffs -beneath the gate of the old dam and flows seaward.</p> - -<p>This gate is always lifted a little and the stream never fails. In -spring its brimming volume floods the meadows and roars down miniature -rocky gorges,—a soothing lullaby of a roar that you may hear crooning -in at your window of an April night to surely sing you to sleep. In -summer the gateman comes along and puts a mute on the stream by dropping -the gate a little, and it lisps and purls through the little gorges, -slipping from one rock-bound pool to another.</p> - -<p>In April the suckers come up, breasting the flood from another pond a -half-mile down stream, to spawn; great,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> sturdy, lithe, shiny-sided -fellows they are, at this time of year almost as beautiful and as alert -as salmon, weighing sometimes five or six pounds. The same intoxication -which makes the flood froth and dance and shout as it tumbles down the -steeps from meadow to meadow seems to thrill in their veins and give -them strength to cleave an arrow flight through the quivering rapids and -gambol up the falls with an exultant agility that seems strange in this -fish that is so sluggish and dull on the pond bottom in midsummer.</p> - -<p>Adam’s ale is brewed the year round, but it is the spring drought that -works miracles of agility in the blood of somber creatures. Winter -fishes are like some middle-class Englishmen sitting glum and motionless -in their stalls. Only when tapster Spring draws the ale and the bar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span>maid -brooks dance blithely down with foaming mugs do we learn how jovial and -athletic they may be. Thus the suckers, suddenly waking to exuberant -activity, swim the frothing current, leap the miniature falls like -gleaming salmon, and congregate just below the dam.</p> - -<p>Some years the gateman has kindly instincts at just the psychological -moment and comes over and shuts down the gate of a Saturday afternoon in -the presence of many boys, in whose veins also froths the exultant foam -of spring joy. Then, indeed, does low water spell Waterloo for the -suckers. In the shoaling current they flee down stream, seeking the -deeper pools and hiding under stones in water-worn hollows wherever they -can find refuge.</p> - -<p>There is a crude instrument, formerly a familiar output of the local -blacksmith, known as a sucker spear. It is com<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span>posed of two cast-off -horseshoes, one being straightened and welded across the other in the -middle of the bend. This gives a rough imitation of Neptune’s trident -with the three prongs a good half-inch broad and usually sharpened to a -cutting edge. Mounted on a long pole it is complete, and its possession -makes of a boy a vengeful Poseidon having dominion over the shallows of -the brook. Boys who know no better because they have been taught by -their elders that this is the way to do it, “spear” suckers with these -instruments. A handy youngster can guillotine a five-pound fish into two -separate, bloody sections with this plunging death, and fork the limp -and quivering remnants up on the bank with it.</p> - -<p>Even the boy who does it, though he whoops with the wild delight of -bloody conquest, knows that this is not sport.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> There is a better way to -catch suckers, and he who has once learned it willingly discards the -crude instrument of the blacksmith for the fine touch of the true -sportsman. He matches boy against fish, and feels the man thrill through -his marrow every time he wins. It is the same game that great John Ridd -learned from his primitive forbears on the West of England’s moors, -whereby he went forth to tickle trout in the icy stream and was led into -the enchanted valley where dwelt huge outlaws—and Lorna Doone.</p> - -<p>Bare-legged and bare-armed you wade into the icy water and slip your -hands gently under the big stones at bottom, wherever there are crevices -into which a fish might enter. If you have the requisite fineness of -touch, experience will soon tell you what it is you feel beneath in the -darkness of the watery cave. It may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> nothing but the fine play of -currents across your fingers, in which all sensitiveness and expectation -seem to center. It is wonderful how much soul crowds down into your -finger-tips when they feel for something you cannot see in places where -things may bite.</p> - -<p>There may be a turtle there, and if so you have leave to withdraw. It -may be an eel, and you need not mind, for the eel will take care of -himself; you can no more grasp him than you can the quivering currents. -It is customary to expect water-snakes, and there is a fineness of -delight about the dread that the expectation inspires that is just a -little more than mortal. Orpheus, seeking dead Eurydice, must have -turned the corners on the way down with some such feeling. Perhaps it is -because the dread is groundless that it is so deific. It has no basis in -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span> senses, but is purely a creature of the finer imaginings. The -water-snake is harmless if by any chance he could be there. But there is -no chance of this. At the sucker time of the year he is still sleeping -his winter sleep, tucked away in some rock crevice of the upper bank, -safe from flood and frost.</p> - -<p>If you prod crudely the big fish will take flight and rush to another -hiding place. But if you are wise and careful enough you will feel -something swaying in the current and stroking your fingers like the soft -touch of a feather duster. It is the big fellow’s tail and you will soon -learn better than to grab it. The muscular strength of one of these big -fish is beyond belief. Howsoever tight your grip on him here, he will -swing his body from side to side with such force and swiftness that he -will writhe from your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> hold before you can get him out of water.</p> - -<p>That is not the way to do it. Instead, you cunningly slip your hand -gently along from his tail toward his head. You will likely go over your -rolled-up sleeve; perhaps it will be necessary to plunge shoulder and -even head in the effort to reach far enough.</p> - -<p>Having discounted the Plutonian water-snakes you will find this but -giving zest to the game; indeed, it is doubtful if you know that it has -happened until it is all over. Your palm slides gingerly over the dorsal -fin and goes on till you feel the gentle waving of the pectorals. Then -suddenly you grip a thumb and finger into the gills, showing the iron -hand through the velvet, and with one strong surge lift your fish from -beneath his rock and fling him high upon the bank.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span></p> - -<p>There is a fundamental joy in this kind of fishing that you can get in -no other. If there were fish in the rivers of Paradise Adam caught them -for Eve in this way. I have always been sorry that big John Ridd found -nothing but fingerling trout on his way up the little stream that led to -the Doone Valley. He should have tackled our brook in April.</p> - -<p>Along the stream to-day, noting the pussy-willows all out in spring -garments of pearl gray and the alders swaying and sifting yellow dust -from their open stamens, I passed the spot where Bose and I met as early -a spring run of fish as often occurs. Bose would corroborate it if he -could, but, unfortunately, Bose is somewhat dead, as much so as a dog of -his spirit and imagination can be. His bones lie decently buried down -under the great oak where he loved to sit and think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> about foxes, but I -am not so sure about the rest of it. If there are any happy -hunting-grounds where the souls of game flee away I warrant Bose leads -the pack. He was a full-blooded foxhound, deep-chested, musical, -lop-eared; and he didn’t know a fox from a buff cochin. He hunted -continually, but rarely on a real trail. His nose was for visions.</p> - -<p>It was on a first day of April that we came out of the door together, -and Bose took one sniff, lifted his head, bayed musically, and was off -into the pasture with me following, both of us ripe for any adventure. -There was a smell of spring in the air; indeed, I was not sure but it -was the green-robed, violet-crowned goddess whom the dog set forth to -hunt. If so, I was more than glad to follow, for the winters seem long -in my town. We know that the sun-god is pursuing Daphne<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> northward. We -have signs of her in the yearning of willow twigs and the shy blooming -of hepaticas. If she should already be hiding in some sunny, sheltered -nook of the pasture Bose would be as likely to go after her as any other -vision.</p> - -<p>March had gone out like a lamb, trailing a shorn fleece of mists behind -him,—mists that morning sun tinted with opal fires that burned out -after a little and left pale-blue ashes smeared in the hollows and blown -soft against the distant hills. All through the air thrilled the glamor -of those new-born hopes that attend the goddess, and I wanted to give -tongue with Bose when I found him quartering the barberry slope of the -upper pasture with clumsy gallop.</p> - -<p>He had led me plump into fairy-land at the first plunge, for the brown -leaves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> of last year rustled with the tread of brownies, and I came up -in time to see a fat gnome rolling along, humping his shoulders and -jiggling with laughter before the uproarious onslaught of the dog, -turning at the burrow’s mouth to grin in the teeth of eager jaws and -vanish into thin air as they clicked. A woodchuck? So Hodge would call -it, seeing according to his kind. Probably Bose knew it for a fox, a -silver-gray at least, according to his foxhound dreams. I myself knew -that spring glamor was on all the woodland and that this was a -round-paunched gnome, guardian of buried treasure, out for an April day -frolic, and going back reluctantly to his post after having a moment’s -fun with the dog.</p> - -<p>As for the brownies, they were signs, or rather forerunners, pacemakers -to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> spring. I could see the little black eyes and droll-pointed -noses of them as they worked eagerly all about in the shrubbery, passing -the word that the goddess might arrive at any moment and that it was -time to dress for her. Now they whispered it to terminal buds, and now -to lateral, but mostly they put their brown heads down among the leaves, -giving the message to bulb and corm, tuber and root stock. I could hear -them calling all about, a quaint little elfin note of “tseep, tseep,” -and anon one would turn a roguish handspring and vanish, thus -hocus-pocusing himself to the next northward grove.</p> - -<p>Busy brownies they were,—hop-o’-my-thumbs clad in rufous-brown feather -coats that so harmonized with the dead leaves among which they worked -that it was difficult to see them except when they moved. -Ornithologists, bound by the let<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span>ter of their knowledge, would, I dare -say, name these fox sparrows; but even these might have hesitated and -forgotten their literalness, looking into newborn April’s smiling face -that blue-misted morning, out trailing the spring with Bose.</p> - -<p>Then, much like the brownies, Bose vanished. He seemed to have lost the -trail, nor was my scent keener, though all about were signs. The maple -twigs were decorated with rosettes of red and yellow in honor of her -coming. Birch twigs reddened with them, and the woodland that had been -gray was fairly blushing with tell-tale color. Over on an open, sandy -hillside the cinquefoil buds were beginning to curl upward, and in the -heart of violet leaves faint hints of blue made you think of sleepy -children just opening a little of one eye at promise of morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> - -<p>Here, too, I was conscious of a faint, ethereally fine perfume that -seemed to float suddenly to my senses as if it had come over the -treetops from the south. From up stream came the babble of the brook -like dainty laughter. If I had heard the swish of silken garments -floating away in the direction from which these came I had not been -surprised. Eagerly I turned and followed where they led me.</p> - -<p>Soon I heard Bose again, a half-mile behind; he, too, had caught the -trail. Baying eagerly, he galloped by a few minutes later, interjecting -into his uproar by some strange method of dog elocution a whine of -recognition and an invitation to follow.</p> - -<p>So he went on down the pasture. No leaf bud had opened, though many were -agape, ready to burst with the pulse of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span> new life that throbbed through -the twigs and heightened their colors. The swamp blueberry bushes and -the wild smilax were the greener for it, just as the maples and birches -were the redder. With your ear to the bark you might hear the thrumming -of the sap in the cambium layers, practicing a second to the drone of -bees to come a little later. And still the fairy fine scent lured me, -and I could hear Bose’s voice, eager to incoherence, just ahead. If you -did not know about his visions you would surely think he had a fox in -his jaw and was shaking him.</p> - -<p>Down a sunny slope, robed in the diaphanous gray-green of bursting -birch-buds, the fairy odor led me to a little bower on the bank, where -for a moment I saw the nymph herself stand, rosy pink, slender and -sweet, gowned in the birch-bud color all shimmered with the yellow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> of -alder pollen drawn in filmy gauze about her. Strange goblins in silvery -brown danced in grotesque gambols at her feet, while behind the bank I -heard the splashing of Bose in shallow water, frenzied howls of -excitement and ecstasy followed each time by another of the clumsy -goblins somersaulting up from below to join the dance. Fairy-land and -goblin town had indeed come together in celebration of the arrival of -the spring!</p> - -<p>On the threshold of this realm I trod a moment bewildered, and then, -stumbling, broke the spell with a hasty exclamation. The enchantment -vanished like a dream. Standing by the brookside I saw only the homely -world again. Yet it was a strange enough sight. Up at the dam the gate -had suddenly been closed, and a dozen three-pound fish, on their way up -to spawn, had been marooned in the shallow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> water. These Bose was -shaking up in wild delight and tossing up on the bank, where they danced -in clumsy, fish-out-of-water dismay. These were the dancing goblins; nor -had I been very far wrong about Daphne. There she stood still, slender -and dainty, only, just as when pursued by Apollo of old, she had turned -into a shrub. There she stood, the Daphne mezereum of the elder -botanists, the clustering blooms of pink sending forth their faint, -sweet odor that had come so far down the pasture to Bose and me and sent -us hunting visions.</p> - -<p>To be sure, it was the first of April! But the joke was not all on us, -for Bose had for once found real game, albeit such as foxhound never -hunted before, and I had found the spring. Two bluebirds, house-hunting -among the willows, caroled in confirmation of it, and Apollo himself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> -shining through the gray mist of birch twigs, kissed Daphne rapturously.</p> - -<p>She was so sweet that I did not blame him. As for Bose, he actually came -up and licked the blushing twigs, then in sudden confusion at being -caught in such sentimental actions, tore off on the make-believe trail -of more visions, leaving me to rescue his gamboling goblins and put them -back into their native water.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="EXPLORATIONS" id="EXPLORATIONS"></a>EXPLORATIONS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>O-DAY I remind myself forcibly of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G. C., M. P. -C., whose paper entitled “Speculations on the Sources of the Hampstead -Ponds” was received with such enthusiasm on the part of the Pickwick -Club, for I have made new discoveries of the sources of Ponkapog Pond. -These are quite as astounding to me as were the Hampstead revelations to -the Pickwick Club, and just as those sent Mr. Pickwick and his friends -forth on new voyages, so these led me to a hitherto undiscovered -country.</p> - -<p>In spite of our increasing population and our progressive business -activity, there are portions of eastern Massachusetts towns that are -forgotten. Often<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span> these are large tracts where the foot of man rarely -treads and the creatures of the wilderness roam and prey, breed and die -undisturbed by civilization. They may hear the hoot of the factory -whistle morning, noon, and evening, or the faint echoes of the distant -roar of trains, but they give no heed.</p> - -<p>Their world is the wilderness and their problem that of living with -their forest neighbors. Man hardly enters into their arrangements. Now -and then one of these tracts has a past that is related to humanity, -though the casual passer would never suspect it. The wilderness sweeps -over the trail of man gleefully and his monuments must be built high and -strong or they will be swept away with a rapidity that is startling.</p> - -<p>It is only by perpetual efforts that we hold on to our landmarks. The -rain will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> come in between the shingles and, beginning with the roof, -sweep your house into the cellar just a mass of brown mold before you -know it. Then the frost and sun tumble the cellar wall in upon it, and -where once your proud dwelling stood is a grass-grown hollow. To-day’s -generation trips on the capstone of what was the tower of its ancestors -and thinks it merely a projection of the earth’s rib, which it is and to -which it has returned.</p> - -<p>I fancy every old Massachusetts town has these woodland places that were -once the hopeful clearings of early settlers. Now and then, roaming the -deep wood where only the creatures of the primal forest seem to have -freehold tenure, I find an alien has strayed from the elder years, a -hermit of the wood and of our own time. I know a purple lilac that -dwells thus serenely, miles from present-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span>day habitations, in a scrub -forest that was fifty years ago a stretch of cathedral pines. Only long -search showed me the faint hollow in the brown earth which was once the -narrow cellar of a wee house. No record of an early householder here -remains other than that planted by the hopeful housewife’s hand,—the -lilac shrub.</p> - -<p>For more than a century it has held the ground where its fellow-pioneers -planted it, holding close within its pinky heart-wood memories of -English lanes white with hawthorne and, far beyond these, indistinct -recollections of rose-perfumed Persian gardens, the home of its race. -Perhaps upon its ancestral root rested the feet of Omar Khayyam when he -wrote:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the guests star-scattered on the grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in your blissful errand reach the spot<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where I made one—turn down an empty glass.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<p>Perhaps within the fragrance of a blossom that sprang from the same -stock old Cromwell and his Ironsides paused some May morning and -breathed deep and sang a surly hymn. We propagate the lilac from the -root, not the seed, and the same sap has flowed through the veins of the -present strain for a thousand years. A whiff of lilac perfume in a -woodland tangle next month, and out of the wilderness we step, from one -ancient garden to another, back by centuries into the pleasant places of -a world long gone.</p> - -<p>To many a New England child the smell of lilacs brings homesickness, and -he does not know why. It is because it is the May odor of the vanished -home garden, not only of Myles and Priscilla of Plymouth, but of a -thousand generations of his own stock before them.</p> - -<p>The woodland of to-day’s discoveries<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span> is not such. I do not believe -pioneer ever stoned a cellar in its depths, and if the Indian set his -teepee here it was only in passing. Now and then the harrying hand of -man has cut off its greater growth and let the sunlight in on its roots, -that the adventitious buds may have a chance, and newer and stronger -trunks tower upward eventually, but the shadows that dapple its -brown-leaf mold carry no dreams of human domination.</p> - -<p>The vexation of axe and gun, and even the searing scar of flame, are -only minor incidents in the great work of the wood, whose ultimate -purpose no man knows. We see the rocks disintegrated and the hollows -filled with richer soil, that the forest may grow taller and more surely -shelter the gentler things of earth. We find it holding back the waters -in its cunningly contrived bogs, and hiding medic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span>inal plants in its -hollows, waiting always with benediction in its leaves for the -comforting of weary men; but we feel when we know the woods best that -these, too, are but its casual benefits; its great purpose lies deeper, -and the more we seek it the better we know we are.</p> - -<p>Great men come out of the forests of the earth. If they are not born -there they seek the place before coming to their greatness. Lincoln hews -rails, Washington surveys and scouts, and Roosevelt ranches in the -Western wilderness. Perhaps it is for these and their kin that the woods -exist. It is always Peter the Hermit that leads the crusade, and without -crusades the world were a poor place. It seems as if all our prophets -must wrestle at least forty days in the wilderness before coming forth -with brows white with the mark of immortality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span></p> - -<p>It lies at the southeast corner of the pond, beginning at the little -bogs, from which it springs abruptly. Along the water’s edge of these -bogs picknickers row their boats all summer long, and catch fish and eat -sandwiches. Inland, a foot or two, the duck hunter in the autumn treads -precariously along the quaking surface with his eyes on the margin, or -perhaps on the ducks that swim in the open pond, but rarely does any one -penetrate the bog-carpeted swamp of great cedars just back of this -quaking margin.</p> - -<p>And this is strange. The passion for exploration is born in all hearts. -We are prompted to go to Tibet, or seek the sources of the Nile, or -penetrate the jungles that lie between the Amazon and the Orinoco. I -have felt this impulse strongly myself, and longing for distant lands -have passed unnoticed this oppor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span>tunity right at hand for penetrating an -untrodden wilderness. With most of us the undiscovered country lies just -a step off the beaten track. So across the rolling bog and into the -twilight greenness beneath the cedars I sailed to-day, venturing as -Columbus did over a known sea to an unknown, and thence to a new -world,—one where straight, limbless cedar trunks stand close like -temple columns under a gray-green roof of twigs and leaves.</p> - -<p>All the upper tones are gray and green, for this is the world of the -mosses and lichens. The ground is built of them, and the temple columns -are so covered with their arabesques and bas-reliefs, so daintily -frescoed and carved, that it seems as if here were a museum of all -designs for the beautifying of interiors that ever occurred. And as all -the tree trunks are gray and green till the texture and color<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> of bark -is hardly to be discerned, so the carpeting of the floor of this temple -and the upholstering of its furniture is brown and green. The thin rays -of the sun that filter through here and there are greenish gold, till -the whole gives an under-water atmosphere to the place, and you walk -about as a diver might on the sea-bottom, with things new and strange -floating at every hand.</p> - -<p>Mosses in the ordinary woodland we are apt to pass with unseeing eye. -They decorate rocks and trees, dead stumps and earth with such -unobtrusive good taste that we come back feeling the beauty of the -woodland, and not at all knowing what made it. Some fence corner or -group of trees or shrubs or a stump has touched us with its beauty, and -so well dressed it is in its moss clothes that we have not seen them at -all, but have come<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> away only with the recollection of how well the rock -or the stump looked, and we cannot say whether it wore a plaid or a -check or just plain goods.</p> - -<p>In this swamp, however, it is as if the whole woodland wardrobe were -hung up for inspection, an Easter opening of all kinds of wood wear. -Here the <i>Usnea barbata</i> trails its old man’s beard from the cedar limbs -well up in the arches above the pillars, its drooping softness having -the effect of delicate tapestry. Clinging lichens, those delicate unions -of algal cells and fond fungi, paint the northerly sides of the tree -trunks all the way down, while the freer-growing fringe or fleck the -southern exposures. <i>Parmelias</i> to north, <i>cetrarias</i> and <i>stictas</i> to -the south might well guide the wanderer, giving him the points of the -compass and leading him thus to his path again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span></p> - -<p>Under foot the <i>sphagnums</i> build the bog and hold chief sway, but other -common varieties dispute the footing with them. Here is the <i>acutifolia</i> -with its pointed leaves giving the tufts the appearance of a bunch of -pointed petaled chrysanthemums, the greens and purples softly shading -into one another and showing a fine contrast with the drier, yellower -portions of the plant. Here, too, is the edelweiss-like <i>squarrosum</i> in -its loosely-crowded clusters of bluish green, and the robust -<i>cymbifolium</i>.</p> - -<p>All these grow from their own débris in the wettest portions of the -footing. Wherever there is, in this many-colored and lovely carpet, a -dead cedar trunk the dainty cedar moss, creeping everywhere, has -occupied the space with its delicate fern-like leaves, making of all -ugly rotten wood the loveliest furnishing imaginable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> for these solemn, -twilight spaces. Cushion mosses pad with their bluish-green velvet -hassocks here and there, and, sitting on one of them that I might put -all my wit into seeing, I noted for the first time, though growing all -about me, in fact, a moss that I had never seen before,—the <i>mnium</i>.</p> - -<p>Its delicate, translucent green leaves are little like those of a moss -at first sight. One thinks it rather some rare and delicate flowering -plant of the wet bog, now but thrusting up its delicate leaves, to bloom -later. I dare say the <i>mnium punctatum</i> is a common bog moss. Very -likely I have trampled it ruthlessly under foot before this in following -some more showy denizen of the deep woods; but to find it thus, -exploring a new swamp for the first time, it gave me as great pleasure -as I might have had in finding<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> a new orchid hiding about the sources of -the Orinoco.</p> - -<p>It was the <i>sphagnums</i> that led me to the brookside and caused me to -recall that lusty scientist, Mr. Pickwick, and his discovery of the -sources of the Hampstead ponds. And while I stood and wondered I saw a -second brook, only a little further on, also flowing downward into the -<i>sphagnum</i> and losing itself in the bog, to pass beneath the cedar roots -and moss débris and enter the pond.</p> - -<p>Some ancient traveler, perhaps Marco Polo, passing from Babylon to -Bagdad, coming first upon the Euphrates and then the Tigris, may have -felt some of the amazement and delight which I had in this discovery. -Never before had I known of a brook entering the pond. It had always -been a sheet of water self-contained and sufficient in itself, fed, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> -thought, by springs beneath its own surface. I had paddled by and -tramped over the mouths of these two brooks a hundred times and never -knew before why the pond always smiled and dimpled as I went by. No -wonder it laughs; it has kept that same joke on ninety-nine of a hundred -of the people who frequent it, and I am not sure there is another -hundredth.</p> - -<p>It seemed as if all the woodland burst into guffaws of laughter, now -that the joke was out and there was no further need of keeping quiet -about it. The cedars rocked in the west wind with suppressed merriment -and a couple of red squirrels snickered like school children and tore up -and down the lichen-covered trunks and fell off into a swamp birch and -had hardly strength to hold on, so breathless were they. A pair of -crows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> looking up nesting material, haw-hawed right out over my head -till they had to stop flapping and sail, they were so weak from it, and -a whole flock of chickadees tittered all along behind my back for a -quarter of a mile as I went on up the swamp on the left bank of the -Euphrates.</p> - -<p>It was amusing, and after a little I could see the joke and laugh -myself. The Tigris was on my right, and by-and-by the two began to -prattle down over a hard bottom from higher ground. Only for a little -way, though, for here we came to another wide swamp which the two -traversed under low sprouts of swamp maple and birch, the ground having -been cut over within a few years.</p> - -<p>And right here I ran into a full chorus, a raucous cacophony, an Homeric -din that sounded as if all the rough-voiced goblins between Blue Hill -and the Berkshires were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> assembled in convention up stream and had just -heard the story, particularly well told. I knew them. They were the wood -frogs, holding their annual convention, indeed, in the water all along -the marshy margin of the swamp. Once a year they come down, as people go -to the seashore, disporting themselves in the waves and making very -merry about it. They were not laughing at me. They were simply shouting -their happiness at being thawed out and finding it springtime once more.</p> - -<p>Their voices, pitched about an octave below middle C, and all on one -note, sound not unlike a great flock of ducks gabbling wildly, but they -are really more nearly musical than that. After the convention is over -they go back to the woods, where you will find them sitting among the -leaves, though you will never see them till they see you. And when you -do see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> them they are in the air. They have surprisingly long legs and -can jump tremendously, turning in the air as they go, so that, having -landed, their next leap will take them in a new direction. The earth -seems to swallow them as they touch it, for their coloration is that of -the brown leaves, and they leap from one invisibility to the next.</p> - -<p>Beyond the frog chorus I found my stream again, dancing daintily along -hemlock shaded shallows and rippling over slate ledges in the latticed -shade of oak and maple twigs, and here another voice called me, a -staccato whistle with a suspicion of a trill in it now and then, the -voice of the very spirit of the spring woodland,—the <i>hyla</i>. I have -called it a whistle, yet it is hardly that; it is rather the soft rich -tone of a pipe, such as Pan might have imitated when he first blew into -the hollow reed on the brook margin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span></p> - -<p>He is a shy fellow, this inch-long brown frog that swells his throat -till it is like a balloon and pipes forth this mellow note, and he is -even more invisible than the wood-frog. You may seek him diligently for -years and not find him, for his voice is that of a ventriloquist and he -seems to send it hither and thither. It is as if this were a trick of -some frisky Ariel of the wood that danced about and whistled, now before -and now behind you. When the trill comes in it you may well think the -tricksy spirit is laughing at you so that his voice shakes. It would be -no surprise if some trilling note ended in a giggle and Ariel himself -should float by you on the mocking air.</p> - -<p>The great chorus of spring peepers is to come later; now, but an -occasional one has waked from his frosty nest beneath the woodland -leaves and come down to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> the water margin to sing. Nor do I know whether -it was the ventriloquial call of one that sounded now ahead and now -behind, now above and now below, or whether relays of jovial invisible -sprites passed me on from pool to pool. What I do know is that, a mile -or more beyond its outlet under the ooze of the little bog, I found the -source of my Euphrates in springs that boil clear through the sand and -send forth the cool, pure water for the delectation of all who will come -to drink.</p> - -<p>Here upon the margin I heard another chorus that repaid me for all the -rough laughter of the wood-goblin frogs,—the plaintive melodies of a -little flock of vesper sparrows, newly arrived and very happy about it. -These come later than the song sparrows, and bring a quality of -wistfulness in their song which in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> differs from the bluff -heartiness of the earlier bird. It is as if their joy in the strong sun -and the awakening of creation was tempered and softened to a touch of -tears at some gentle remembrance. The vesper sparrows recall the -vanished happiness of past summers in their greeting to that which -comes.</p> - -<p>After that my way led me home through the purpling woodland toward the -golden greeting of the sunset. I had tasted to the full the joy of -exploration and discovery. I doubt if Humboldt felt any better coming -back from his exploration of the sources of the Caspian. My Euphrates I -know; my Tigris I have reserved for future, perhaps even greater joy of -tracing to its source in the mystic depths of, to me, untrodden -woodland.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="EARLIEST_BUTTERFLIES" id="EARLIEST_BUTTERFLIES"></a>EARLIEST BUTTERFLIES</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">J</span>UST as in midsummer the people of the little pasture and woodland -hollows must envy those of the hilltop their cool, breezy outlook, so in -mid-April the thought must be reversed. For still the warfare between -the north wind and the sun which began in February skirmishes and -reached its Gettysburg in late March, goes fitfully on, with Appomattox -hardly in sight.</p> - -<p>The South is to win in this fratricidal struggle though, and in the -summer millennium of peace and prosperity the two forces will join hands -and work for the good of the whole land. Already the warriors of the -North are driven to the hilltops, where they still shout defiance, and -whence they rush in determined raids<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> on the valleys below. It is a -losing fight, for all day long the golden forces of the sun roll up the -land and fill all the hollows and hold them in serene warmth and peace. -However hard last night’s frost, however stiff the gale overhead, I can -always find bowl-shaped depressions where summer already coaxes the -winter-worn woodland.</p> - -<p>The very first squatters in this land, whose presence antedates those -people of record who held land by deeds and grants, seem to have found -and loved these little sun-warmed hollows too, for in them I find the -only traces of this pioneer occupation. Records in ink or on parchment -of these pioneers are few, indeed, and these which they left on the land -itself are but slight. Here a depression may show where a tiny cellar -was dug, though no trace of stone work will be found. It was easier for -the pioneer to frame his cellar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span> wall of logs, just as he built those of -the house above it.</p> - -<p>You may find by careful search the worn path to the spring nearby, for -that which is written on the earth itself remains visible long after -inscriptions on stone are gone. The wind and the sun, the frost and the -rain, will erase the carving from your marble tablet. But the path -across a plain, once worn deep and firm by many passing feet, will -always show its tracing to the discerning eye. Perhaps a huge old -apple-tree stump may have lasted till now, even showing faint signs of -life, and round about what was the immediate dooryard the trees of the -wood may cluster; but they will hold back and leave some open space, as -if they still respected invisible bounds set by the long departed human -occupant.</p> - -<p>There seem to be many such sleepy hollows in my town, spots where -dreams<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> dwell and the once trodden earth clings tenaciously to the -prints of long-vanished feet. Over their tops to-day the north wind -sings his war song, but his failing arrows fall to earth harmless, for -golden troops of sunshine roll over the southern rim and fill the space -below with quivering delight.</p> - -<p>Just to walk about in this sunshine is a pleasure, and to sit in the -pioneer’s hollow land and let it flood your marrow is to be thrilled -with a primal joy that is the first the race has to remember. It -antedates the first man by unknown millions of years. The same sun -touched with the same joy the first primordial cell. With the thrill the -one quivered into two and thus came the origin of species.</p> - -<p>To-day in such a hollow and under such a sun the pageant of woodland -life passed before me, much as it may have passed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span> before the pioneer as -he sat on his log doorstep and rested perhaps from labors in the -cornfield, whose hills of earth still checker the level, sandy plain -behind his hollow. Strange that the brawny, seventeenth-century -adventurer should be but vanished dust and a dream, while the loam that -he stirred with careless hoe holds the form that he gave it more than -two hundred years ago! Five or six times his cornfield has matured a -forest, and the great trees have been cut down and carted away, and yet -the corn hills linger. Thus easily does the clay outlast the potter.</p> - -<p>When I first marched into the tiny clearing the place was silent, brown -and deserted, but that is the way of the woodland, and we soon learn to -understand it. A certain aboriginal courtesy is required before you are -allowed to become one of the company. Thus among the Eskimos you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span> enter -an assembly and sit quietly a moment until one of those already present -notices and speaks to you. In this way you are admitted to fellowship. -It is very bad taste for the newcomer to speak first.</p> - -<p>So at first I noticed only the brown of last year’s grasses, the dead -stems of goldenrod and aster, of St. John’s-wort and mullein. A tiny -cloud slid across the face of the sun and a scout of the north wind blew -down the slope and chilled the golden glow of sunlight with which the -hollow had seemed filled to the brim. Looking down into it from a -sheltered spot on the rim, I had thought the place full of dreams of -June. As I sat down in the shadow on the pioneer’s grass-plot with the -scouting north wind at my back, it was rather a recollection of -November.</p> - -<p>A dead leaf, frightened by that scurry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span>ing wind, dashed down over the -tree tops and lighted, a brown splash on the pale, dead grass. Then all -in a moment the cloud blew by, the north wind saw the enemy all about -him in force and dashed over the rim of the hill, the amber warmth of -the sun descending and filling the cup to the brim with the gentle -ecstasy of returning summer.</p> - -<p>In the still radiance the brown leaf floated into the air again, hovered -a moment before my very eyes, and lighted near by on the gray bones of -what had once been the pioneer’s apple tree. Thus I received my -introduction. I had been spoken to by one of the people of the place, -received my accolade as it were, and was privileged to see clearly. For -the brown leaf was not a brown leaf at all, but a hunter’s butterfly.</p> - -<p>It is astonishing to find already so many<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> forms of frail life stirring -in the sun, though just a night or two ago the thermometer registered -ten degrees of frost, and the ground was frozen solid the next morning. -Here was my hunter’s butterfly, a wee dab of pulpy cell that a touch of -my finger could crush, borne on wings of gossamer frailness that might -be whipped to tatters by a wind-snapped twig, yet sailing serenely -about, defying anything to harm him.</p> - -<p>The strange part of it is that he has been somewhere hereabouts all -winter long. All about in the pastures are the frail ghosts of last -year’s cudweed, on which as a caterpillar he fed. But it is six months -at least since he cast off his chrysalis skin and emerged in his present -form to face bitter winds and a constantly lowering temperature, days of -chilling rain, smothering snow, and ice that coated<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span> all things with an -inch-thick armor for days. All the wrecks that these might have caused -him he has in some mysterious fashion escaped, and here he is, as merry -as a grig.</p> - -<p>He did not seem to be hungry, unless, like me, he was eager to devour -the sunshine. He sat on the gray, weather-worn, fallen trunk of the -ancient apple tree, his wings gently rising and falling, while I noted -the beauty of his rich reds with their black and white markings and -margins of black just tipped with a blueish tinge on the tips of the -fore wings. Then he closed them for a minute, showing me the dark -blurring of the under parts that had made me think him a dead leaf as he -blew over the ridge with the wind, though now I could note the blue -ocelli of the after wings.</p> - -<p>It was only for a moment that he rested<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> motionless thus, and it was -hard not to think him a chip of ancient bark or a fragment of a leaf, -then he flipped himself into the air and was off over the hill again in -a tremendous hurry. All butterflies get occasional aerograms and go off -as if on a matter of life or death in response to the messages, but it -seems as if these over-winter chaps were especially subject to them in -the first warm days. Later an angle-wing came down into my valley, but -he did not stay long enough for me to find out which of the <i>Graptas</i> he -was,—whether the question mark or the comma, <i>Grapta interrogationis</i> -or <i>Grapta comma</i>. I should call him the comma, for his stop was of the -shortest, if it were not that my doubt of his identity leaves me with -the query.</p> - -<p>The rush of his business was even greater than that of <i>Pyrameis -huntera</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span> and with one flip of his crooked-edged wings he was out of -sight.</p> - -<p>Three other butterflies I saw during the day in the neighborhood of my -sunny hollow. One, the mourning cloak, <i>Vanessa antiopa</i>, I always -expect to see on warm days in the sunny brown woods of April, and am -rarely disappointed. Another which took the air from the hillocked -ground of the two-century-old cornfield I thought to be <i>Vanessa -j-album</i>, more familiarly known, perhaps, as the Compton tortoise. I -would have been glad to know this surely, for this butterfly is rather -rare here; but bless me, he went off over the hills at a rate that -shamed the flipperty angle-wing. These dilly-dallying butterflies of the -poet, indeed! They are the busiest creatures of the whole woodland.</p> - -<p>Last of all was a little red chap that shot through the rich gold of the -sunlight quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> like an agitated bullet, his motor doing its very -prettiest with the muffler off and both propellers roaring. Orville -Wright could not have caught him. It was but a brief glimpse that I got, -but I took him for one of the skippers, perhaps the silver-spotted, -which is common here, though I have never seen one so early before. He -was burly, thick-necked, short-winged, which is characteristic of the -hesperids.</p> - -<p>I would be glad to know what these early butterflies find to eat. -Certain flowers are now in bloom, but you never find a mourning cloak or -a hunter, a question mark or a painted lady fluttering about them. The -bees are in the willow blooms and the alder catkins after pollen. The -maples are in bloom. You can find hepaticas and violets, chickweed, -crocus, snowdrop, and, I dare say, dandelions in blossom, and almost -every day some new shrub<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span> or shy herb sends perfumed invitation out on -the messenger winds.</p> - -<p>Yet I find April butterflies most partial to such sunny spots as the -ancient cornfield, where pines and scrub oaks will give no hint of bloom -for weeks to come, and only dry lichens seem to flourish on the twig and -chip-encumbered earth. Here the dainty cladonias thrive, the -brown-fruited lifting tiny cups to the sun, while the scarlet-crested -help this and the fringed variety to make crisp, tiny, fairy gardens -that will show you great beauty if you will put your nose to the earth -as the butterfly does in looking at them.</p> - -<p>Perhaps these earliest spring butterflies sip from brown cups or draw -from frost-moistened scarlet crests some potent elixir which warms the -cockles of their wee hearts during the frigid nights of our -Massachusetts Aprils. I hope so. I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> catch them sipping honey at -this time from any of the recognized sources. Perhaps the full flow of -sap which is fairly bursting the young limbs of all trees now leaks -enough to give syrup for the tasting, and they are thus more fortunate -than their brethren, who will come later and dance attendance on lilac -and milkweed. Maple sugar is better than honey.</p> - -<p>There will be blossoms enough for them in the little hollow by and by, -though at first it looked so brown and sere. Little by little, after my -initiation at the antennæ of <i>Pyrameis huntera</i>, I began to see them, a -rosette of green under my elbow, perhaps, or a serrate tip farther on. -All under the brown grass the green rosettes of biennials and perennials -have waited all winter long for a time like this. Out of the cores of -growth built with slow labor in the increasing chill of autumn they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span> -now sending new leaves, one after another in rapid succession, that top -the brown grasses and begin to wreathe them with the tender green of -spring.</p> - -<p>There is joy in their very coloring as they stretch up to meet the -enfolding warmth of the sun. Here an early buttercup waves a cleft and -somewhat pinnate hand to me with jaunty assurance, though in the heart -of its cluster is as yet no sign of the ascending stem that is to bear -the glossy, yellow bloom aloft. Dandelion leaves shake their notched -spears all about, proud that their buds are already visible, though -still tucked down in the heart of the plant and showing no sign of -yellow.</p> - -<p>Here are the wee strawberry-like leaves of the cinquefoil, pale -counterpart of the buttercup to which it looks up in gentle envy and -admiration. The cinquefoil follows hard upon the heels of the violet, -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> already its buds are eager to be up and open. The linear root -leaves of aster and goldenrod sit snug and green, growing a bit, but in -no hurry to appear above the brown vegetation of last year. Their watch -comes late, and there is no reason for them to be stirring thus early. -And so the growth of lush green leaves is pushing up all over the -dooryard of the old-time settler getting ahead of the lazy wood grasses -that have hardly begun to put out tiny spears that eventually will stab -through the old fog and help the others to make a new tapestry carpet -for the empty woodland spaces.</p> - -<p>Loveliest of all these now, and, indeed, the most germane to the spot, -is the mullein. All winter long it has sat serene and self-sufficient, -under the snow, armor-encased in pellucid ice, or in the bare, bitter -nights when the stars of heaven were one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span> solid coruscation of silver -and the still cold bit very deep. Clad in kersey like the pioneer, its -homespun clothing has defied the weather, holding the cold away from its -thin leaf with all this padding of matted wool which makes the plant -seem so rough and coarse. In the summer it will defy the fierce heat of -the July sun with the same armor, sitting here with its feet in the -burning sand and its tall spike tossing back the sunshine with a laugh -from its golden efflorescence.</p> - -<p>Like the pioneer, the mullein came from the Old World, well fitted to -bear the rigors and defy the dangers of the New. Like him it took root, -and its seed holds the land in the rough places, brave and beautiful, -though rough-coated, tender at heart, and helpful always.</p> - -<p>So, when the sun has gone over the western ridge and the north wind -scouts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> have again mustered courage to invade the place, I leave the -little hollow to the wilderness that still enfolds dreams of the -one-time occupant. In its sheltered nooks some of the day’s golden -warmth will remain, even until the sun comes again. I cannot tell where -my busy butterflies will spend the night, but if I were one of them I -should flip back into the dooryard of the pioneer’s homestead and cuddle -down in the great heart of one of those rosettes of mullein leaves, -there to slumber, warm and serene, wrapped to the eyes in its blankets -of soft wool.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="APRIL_SHOWERS" id="APRIL_SHOWERS"></a>APRIL SHOWERS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>T nightfall the wind ceased, ashamed perhaps of its prolonged violence, -and we felt the soft presence of April all about. Someone had suddenly -wrapped the world in a protecting mantle of perfumed dreams.</p> - -<p>Hitherto it had been struggling to realize spring, succeeding here and -there indeed, but always against cold disfavor and sullen opposition. -Now, in a breath almost, joys and relaxation had come to all out-door -creatures, and the air itself was suffused with tears of relief that -brimmed over and made little laughing patterings on bare twigs and brown -grass. Till then we had had no green of spring. The woodland world had -been pink, and am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span>ber, and full of soft yearning of colors in hope and -promise; flowers had struggled bravely forth here and there, but they -had smiled patiently on a land brown with pasture grass of last year.</p> - -<p>Yet in a night the full warmth of April fondness and her tears of joy at -being really home again changed all that. Under the patter of wee -showers the wan grasses of last year laid weary heads upon the black -earth beneath them and went to sleep, while up in their places sprang -the lush green spears of this year, glinting back a million joyous -facets to the next morning’s sun that thus seemed to sprinkle all things -with gleam of jewels.</p> - -<p>They came very softly at first in the black dusk, these April showers, -growing out of the air so close to my cheek that their touch upon it was -infinitely fine and soothing. Thus the dew touches the grass<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> on still -nights in summer. To be alone in the pasture on such a night is to -become one with all the primal gentleness of the universe. I could feel -the happiness of the pasture shrubs and perennial herbs and germinating -annuals, growing now on the warm bosom of mother earth, tucked away -beneath the perfumed robe of April night.</p> - -<p>The night before the cold sky was blown miles high in the air by the -rough winds, and the pasture people sighed and shrank and shivered. The -night out of which April showers were to be born descended like a -benediction, and swathed all humble things in caressing warmth that was -tremulous with moisture and perfume.</p> - -<p>With the rain came gentle woodland sprites; and while it played them a -merry, ghostly tune, they worked in harmony. They pressed the wan brown -grass lov<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span>ingly down and patted the black earth over it till it went to -sleep. They pulled lustily at germinating blades, and in their labor, -there under the darkness, they painted out in a night the brown of last -year with the verdant pigment of this. They hammered and pried at the -tough, varnished outer husks of buds, and finally worked them open and -began unfolding the soft yellow-green of the young leaves within.</p> - -<p>Thus the tips of huckleberry twigs, which had given a soft shade of wine -red to the pasture all winter long, lost this tint and bourgeoned into -palest green, and the shadbush buds began to shake loose their racemes -of bloom. The little people worked in squads, and showers played their -merry tunes hither and yon as they labored.</p> - -<p>All through the night the fresh smell of the open pores of earth met you -every<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span>where, and moist air built upon this all other odors and carried -them very far. An opened kitchen door in the distance let out not only a -rainbow-edged blur of yellow light, but the smell of fresh-baked bread -cooling on the table before being put away in the big stone crock in the -pantry by some belated New England housewife.</p> - -<p>With the lullaby roar of the distant brook came the odor of the willow -blooms, and with a shift of wind the faint resinous perfume of the pine -wood. The darkness which blots outlines from the sight leaves the -location of things to the other senses which serve faithfully. Scent and -sound are as apprehensive as sight. Often, walking in the darkness, one -may feel faintly the obscure workings of a sense which is none of these, -whereby he dodges a tree trunk or a fence corner which he feels is -there, yet through none of the five ordi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span>nary senses. The darkness gives -us antennæ.</p> - -<p>The April showers touch with caressing fingers the chords of all things -and bring music from them, each according to its kind. In the open -forest under deciduous trees the dead leaves thrummed a ghostly dirge -like that of the “Dead March in Saul.” Winter ghosts marched to it in -solemn procession out of the woodland. Memories of sleet and deep snow, -ice storm, and heartbreaking frost, tramped soggily in sullen procession -over the misty ridge and on northward toward the barren lands to the -north of Hudson’s Bay. Thrilling through this solemn march below I heard -the laughing fantasia of young drops upon bourgeoning twigs above, dirge -and ditty softening in distance to a mystic music, a rune of the ancient -earth.</p> - -<p>In the open pasture the tune changed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span> again. It was there a chirpy -crepitation that presaged all the tiny, cheerful insects whose songs -will make May nights merry. These, no doubt, take their first music -lessons from the patter of belated April showers on the grass roofs of -their homes.</p> - -<p>But it was down on the pond margin that I found the most perfect music. -Slender mists danced to it, fluttering softly up from the margin, -swaying together in ecstasy, and floating away into a gray dreamland of -delight. It was the same tune, with quaint, syncopated variations, that -the budding twigs and the brown pasture grasses had given forth, but -more sprightly and with a bell-like tinkle more clear and fresh than any -other sound that can be made, this tintinnabulation of falling globules -ringing against their kindred water.</p> - -<p>Every drop danced into the air again on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span> striking and in the mellow glow -of an obscure twilight I could see the surface stippled with pearly -light. Then through it all came a new song; the first soloist of the -night, the first of his kind of the season, thrilling a long, dreamy, -heart-stirring cadenza of happiness, the love call of the swamp tree -frog.</p> - -<p>As the pattering music of the April showers on the waiting land is a -rune of the ancient earth, so the love song of the swamp tree frog -dreams down the years to us all the way from the carboniferous age. When -the coal measures were forests of tree ferns, and the first men paddled -through steaming shallows in their shade, the swamp tree frog was a tree -frog indeed, and sang his soothing song from their branches. Since then -he has degenerated and has lost most of the adhesive power of the tiny -disks on fingers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> and toes. He no longer clings readily to trees, and is -but an awkward climber. So, too, the webbing between his toes has nearly -vanished, and he is not a strong swimmer. He haunts the shallows of the -swamps and the sunny pools on the margin of the deep cove.</p> - -<p>Perhaps he knows that he is degenerate, and that his safety lies mainly -in silence and obscurity, for he sings rarely, except in the first -heyday of spring, when the air is full of soft mists and warmth that -stirs the deep-lying memories of the carboniferous age. He is a -beautiful fellow, hardly more than an inch long, often flesh-colored, -and with coppery iris tints that should make the mouths of frog-eating -creatures water. It is for desire of him I believe that the pickerel -haunt the veriest shallows at this time of year, where you may see them -of an evening with their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> back fins sticking out like the latticed sails -of a Chinese junk.</p> - -<p>I do not believe there is anywhere to be heard a dreamier or more -soothing lullaby than that sung by the swamp tree frogs of a misty April -night to the tinkling accompaniment of showers pattering upon the -dancing surface of the pond. It begins in a sigh, swells till it stirs a -memory, and dies away in a dream of its own happiness.</p> - -<p>All the warm, soothing night the swamp tree frogs sang, and the showers -made music for the laboring sprites, and when the morning came it was to -a world new clothed in all Easter finery. The raindrop sprites had -beaten and relaid the pasture carpets that had been so brown with the -dust of last year, and now they were so clean and had such a soft, green -nap that it was a renewed pleasure to walk on them. Green, too, was the -wear of many of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span> pasture shrubs, and the fripperies of the shadbush -made the more sober ones turn heads to look at her again. Already she -had creamed the sage green of her delicate gown with the white of -opening buds, and the berry bushes and the wild cherry, the viburnums, -and all the other early flowering shrubs felt a touch of their own -coming joy in just looking at her.</p> - -<p>Loveliest of all these pasture folk was the sweet gale. If you would -know how beautiful just catkins can make a slender, modest creature you -should hasten into the pasture now and take note of her. Until last -night you would have passed her by without noting, so modest and -reticent she is.</p> - -<p>The other two members of her family have been for months more in -evidence. The sweet fern keeps some of her last year’s leaves still, and -as you pass tosses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span> a bouquet of perfume to you that you may know she is -by. The bayberry holds blue candles to the wind all winter, and the -incense of them carries far. But the sweet gale is too modest and shy -for such things. She just sits quiet and unobserved, and thinks holy -thoughts, and because she does so it seems as if all the warmth and -kindness of April sun and April showers touched her first.</p> - -<p>The catkins of the sweet fern were still hard and varnished, and had not -cracked a smile this morning after the night of April showers. Not a -candle of the bayberry had melted or shown flame in all this softness -and warmth, yet there stood the gentle sweet gale all aflame with soft -amber and pale gold, a veritable burning bush of beauty. There is no -perfume from these blossoms, so gently shy and self-contained is the -plant. Both the bayberry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span> and sweet fern will woo you from a distance -with rich aroma, but only after the leaves have come, and then only if -you bruise them, will you get a message from the shy heart of the sweet -gale.</p> - -<p>On such a morning it seems as if all the birds were here, flitting back -and forth through the soft blue early mists and singing for pure joy in -the soft air and gentle warmth. For the first time the robins sang as if -they meant it, not in great numbers, though there are legions of them -here, but enough so that you can easily forecast the power of the full -chorus which will tune up a little later. Blackbirds and bluebirds -caroled, and song sparrows fairly split their throats, and now and then -a flicker would sit up on a top bough, clear his throat, throw out his -chest and pipe up “Tucker-tucker-tucker-tucker-tucker,” then, abashed at -the noise he had made,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> go off on tiptoe, very much ashamed, as well he -might be.</p> - -<p>Not a fox sparrow could I see; I think they went on the day before, but -a kingfisher was flying from cove to cove, springing that cheerful cry -of his, which sounds as if someone were rattling a stick on his slats. A -meadow lark piped a clear whistle from the top of a pitch pine, then -alternately fluttered and sailed down into the grass for an early bite. -The chipping sparrow swelled his little gray throat and trilled a -homely, contented note, and there was a clamor of blue jays as the hour -grew late.</p> - -<p>I find the blue jay a lazy chap. No early morning revelry is for him. -Breakfast is a serious matter, not to be entered into lightly or with -chattering. Later in the day he is apt to be noisy enough, though he -never sings in public. The nearest he</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_004" style="width: 539px;"> -<a href="images/i168.jpg"> -<img src="images/i168.jpg" width="539" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>There was a clamor of blue jays as the hour grew late</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">ever comes to it is when, in a crowd of good fellows, he gives you an -imitation of some other bird, for the blue jay is a good deal of a -mimic. But it is always a burlesque, and it rarely gets beyond the first -few notes before a jeering chorus from his companions cuts it off, nor -do you ever know whether they are jeering at him or the bird he is -burlesquing. I fancy it does not matter to them as long as they have a -chance to jeer.</p> - -<p>The crows are rather silent now, though occasionally there is a dreadful -towrow over a love affair which does not run smooth. Crows are such -canny Scotchmen of the woods that you would hardly expect them to throw -caution to the winds and have a riot and a duel with much loud talk over -a love affair, but it does happen. Among the pines a day or two ago I -heard a great screaming and scolding, cries of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> anger and distress, and -then, before I could reach the scene, silence.</p> - -<p>When I got there all I saw was two crows slipping shamefacedly away -behind the tree tops. I thought it merely a lovers’ quarrel, but the -next day I found beneath the pines not far from the spot a handsome -young crow dandy, dead. It puzzled me a bit. He bore no marks of shot, -but seemingly had died by violence. He was a stout youngster and had -been in the prime of life and vigor. This morning, when all the soft -glamor of the spring seemed made for lovers, and many of the birds were -very happy about it, I heard another crow quarrel going on, and was mean -enough to spy on it.</p> - -<p>There was a lady, very demure, and there were two lovers anything but -demure. Neither could get near enough to the lady to croak soft words of -love in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span> ear, for the other immediately flew at him in a rage. The -two tore about among the trees, hurling bad words at one another. It was -distinct profanity. They towered high in air and dove perilously one -after the other back into the woods again, screaming reckless oaths. Now -and then they came together, and one or the other yelled with pain. It -lasted but a few minutes, but it was a very hot scrimmage. Then one of -them evidently had enough, and abandoned the fight, taking refuge in a -thick fir very near me. No one of the three minded my presence.</p> - -<p>The victor went back to his lady love on mincing wings, and though I -could not see them I knew that he was received with open favor, for the -cooing of cawing that followed was positively uncanny. As a reckless -freebooter, a wise and jovial latter-day Robin Hood of the woods, I -like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> the crow; but his love-making voice, dear me! One of Macbeth’s -witches might address the cauldron in the same tone. Evidently the -discomfited rival thought so too, for he began to jaw in an undertone -and flew grumbling away, mostly on one wing. I have no direct evidence, -of course, but I think my dead crow came to his untimely end in one of -these duels between rival lovers.</p> - -<p>I was glad to leave the crows behind me for once, and then in the full -sunshine of the later morning I chanced upon a tree full of goldfinches. -It was a tree full, also, of most delightful music. Each bird was vying -with the other in a spring song that was more in tune with the -surroundings than any ever written by Bach or Schumann, a pure outgiving -of blossoming delight.</p> - -<p>The birds themselves have just come<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> into new bloom. Like the sweet gale -they seem to have put on new color of gold almost in a night, for they -made yellow gleams that were like blossoms all about on the bare twigs, -their black wings making the color more vivid by contrast. Yesterday it -was, or was it the day before, that these lovely singers were going -about in sober brown, like sparrows. Now suddenly they are splashes of -tropic sunshine.</p> - -<p>It is their mating plumage which they will wear until late August puts -them in brown again. They are so happy about it, and their rich, -variable songs are such a delight that I am glad they do not quit wooing -and go to nest-building until late June, the latest, I think, of all our -birds.</p> - -<p>And while I listened to the goldfinches a tiny bit of the sky fell. It -lighted on a leaf by me, and expanded its wings and enjoyed the full -sun. It was one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> least of butterflies and one of the loveliest, -the common blue, the winter form, so called because it comes thus in -April from a chrysalid that has passed the rigors of winter -successfully. Like the blossoming sweet gale the song of the swamp tree -frog and the gold of the goldfinch’s plumage this tiny, fearless bit of -blue is a seal of the actual soft presence of the spring, which comes -only when the April showers have made her calling and election sure.</p> - -<p>To be sure, we might have a whiff of snow yet, but it will be only the -dust blown far from the fleeing feet of those winter ghosts now scuffing -the tundra up where the Saskatchewan empties into Hudson’s Bay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="PROMISE_OF_MAY" id="PROMISE_OF_MAY"></a>PROMISE OF MAY</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE first touch of the rose-gray morning air brought to my senses -suspicion of two new delights; one, the more sensuously pleasing, to be -sought, the other to be hoped for. It was easy to hope for things of -such a morning, for there come gracious days in the very passing of -April that presage all the seventh heaven of early June.</p> - -<p>At such times the pasture people bestir themselves, and no longer march -sedately toward the full life of summer, but begin to riot and caper -forward. The old Greek myth of fauns dancing on new greensward is not -less than fact; by May-day the shrubs caracole. I suspect even the -cassandra of wiggling its toes under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> morose morass; and though it -may not outwardly prance, it puts on the white of new buds as if it at -least were coming out of mourning.</p> - -<p>By sunrise the riot of the robin symphony had become a fugue, and there -was some chance to hear the other birds. I had hoped for a soloist who -should certainly be here. The coming of the earlier bird migrants from -the South is sometimes delayed by storms or forwarded by pleasant -weather, but those which come now are almost sure to appear at a -definite date. There are always Baltimore orioles in the elms about my -house on the morning of the eighth day of May. No one has yet seen one -on the seventh, though the neighborhood takes an interest in the matter -and keeps careful watch. It is a matter of twenty-five years since the -observations began, and not yet has the date failed. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span> on that morning -I do not see the flash of an oriole’s orange, yellow, and black among -the young apple tree leaves, and hear that musical whistle, I shall -think something has gone dreadfully wrong with return tickets from -Nicaragua.</p> - -<p>Of the brown thrush I am not quite so sure. He rarely calls on me. -Instead, I have to seek him out on the first few days of his arrival. He -likes the sprout land best, and the flash of rufous brown that you get -from him as he flits away among the scrub oaks might well be the color -of a fox’s brush, yet there is no mistaking his sunrise solo. It is -quite the most sonorously musical bird song of early spring, and I have -heard it often on the twenty-fifth of April.</p> - -<p>I dare say it has always been here as early as that, though some years I -have failed of the concert-room and so of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> singer. Always he is here -by May-day. This morning his rich contralto rang from a birch tip in the -pasture where he or some thrush just like him has sung each May-day -morning for I do not know how many years. I listened in vain for the -chewink, though he too is due. Like the brown thrush he is a -thicket-haunting bird, following soon on the trail of the fox sparrow, -cultivating the underbrush by claw as he does.</p> - -<p>There is no rest for the weary brown leaves of last year, though they -may take passage on the March winds to the inmost recesses of the -green-brier tangle of the pasture corners. Through March and early April -the fox sparrow harries them, and they have hardly settled with a sigh -to a brief nap in his trail before the brown thrush and the chewink are -at them with bill and toe-nail, and these are here for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> summer. -About a week later, generally on the very sixth of May, easy going -mister catbird will appear with great pretence of bustle. He is a -thicket bird, too, but unlike the chewink and the brown thrush his -farming is all folderol. He simply potters round on their trail, -gleaning. Whatever the thicket-bird name is for Ruth, that is his.</p> - -<p>There are sweeter singers in the spring woodland than the brown thrush, -but I know of none whose rich voice carries so far, and this one’s rang -in my ears through all my wanderings till the sun was high and the dew -was well dried off the bushes. Now and then I must needs forget him and -even my quest in my joy over the fresh beauties that the shrubs were -putting on, seemingly every moment. It is something to look at an -olive-brown pasture cedar which has been as demure as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> nun all winter -and spring, and see it suddenly in bloom from head to foot, as if before -your very eyes, coming out all sunclad in cloth of gold. It is no -illusion of the sun’s rays or the scintillation of the morning dew, but -a rich glow of gold out of the sturdy heart of the plant itself.</p> - -<p>Last October I had thought nothing could make a cedar more beautiful -than that rich embroidery of blue beading on cloth of olive, which these -Indian children of the pasture world donned for winter wear. Now I know -their May robes to be lovelier. No doubt they are days in coming out, -these tiny blooms of the pasture cedars, yet they always reach the point -where I notice them in a flash. One moment they are somber and sedate, -the next they are all dipped in sunshine and dimple with a loveliness -which is the dearer because it is so unexpected.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span></p> - -<p>You might think it just the foliage of the plant taking on a livelier -tint with the coming of glad weather, and there is a change there, but -that is only from brown to green. In the severe cold of the winter the -leaves seem to suffer a decomposition in the chlorophyl which gives them -their green tint and put on a winter garb of brownish hue, but with the -coming of the warm days the chlorophyl is reformed, and the brown is -rapidly giving place to green when this new transformation flashes on -the scene. Right out of the little green leaf-scales grow thousands of -tiny golden-brown spikes with a dozen golden mushroom caps ranged in -whorls of four about them.</p> - -<p>They are not more than an eighth of an inch long, these pollen bearing -spikes which will presently loose upon the wind tiny balloons bearing -pollen grains to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> float down the field to the even more rudimentary -pistillate flower, but they are big enough to change the gloom of rocky -hillsides to a glow of delight, seemingly in an hour. You have but to -look about you if you will visit the pasture cedars on May-day, and you -may see the place light up with the change.</p> - -<p>There is no fragrance to these blooms other than the resinous delight -which the leaves themselves distil at the caress of warm suns. It was no -odor of the pasture cedars which had given an object to my walk.</p> - -<p>The larch is not a native of Massachusetts, but it will grow here fairly -well if you plant it, and there are long rows of these trees by the -roadside on the way to the pasture. These are all coming forth in the -fragile beauty of new ideas. The larch is the mugwump among conifers, -dallying<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> irresolutely between two parties. Born a dyed-in-the-wool -Republican it has yet of late years leanings toward Democracy. So it -votes with the conifers on cones and the deciduous trees on leaves.</p> - -<p>Sometimes I cut a larch limb to see if this year one isn’t turning -endogenous, and am never sure but the fruit for the new season will turn -out to be acorns instead of cones. You never can be sure in what way -these independents will surprise you. It is lucky the trees do not have -the Australian ballot on what their year’s output shall be. If they did -there would be no possibility of predicting what would be the larch -crop.</p> - -<p>As might be expected, larches are not virile trees, but have a slender -beauty which is quite effeminate. Just now their this year’s leaves are -a third grown, and are very lovely in their feathery softness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> but -lovelier yet are the young larch cones, growing along the branches, -sessile among the young green of the leaves, translucent, deep rose-pink -cameos of cones, that remind you of an etherealized tiny pineapple, a -strawberry, and a stiff blossom carved in coral, all in one.</p> - -<p>After all, I am convinced that the larches may do as they please about -their leaves, vote with the deciduous trees if they wish to, and flout -their coniferous ancestry if they will, provided they continue to grow -yearly on May first these most delectable of cones. No blossom of the -year can show greater beauty.</p> - -<p>Baffled in my search for the origin of the sensuous odor which had lured -me and which seemed still to drift hither and thither on the variable -air, I got the canoe and paddled over alongshore to a cove that I know, -a new-moon shaped hiding place<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span> behind a barrier reef of rough rocks, -further screened by brittle willows that struggle forward year after -year, waist deep in water, bravely endeavoring to be trees. They almost -succeed, too, in that their trunks tower a modest twenty feet and some -of their limbs remain on throughout the year. So brittle are the slender -twigs, however, that the least touch seems to take them from the parent -tree; and as I push my canoe between them in a favorable channel of the -reef I collect an armful in it in brushing by. It is a wonder that the -March gales have left any.</p> - -<p>Past the barrier and afloat on the slender, placid crescent I found a -new-moon world with a life of its own. Rough waves may roll outside, but -only the gentlest undulations crinkle the reflections on the mirror -surface within. The winds may<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> blow, but rarely a flaw strikes in far -enough to ruffle the water. Here, with the sun on my back, I might sit -quietly, and soon the normal life of the place, if at first disturbed by -my entrance, would go on.</p> - -<p>Yet here is no drowsy silence, such as will fill the cove with sleep in -August. Passing April may leave things quiet, but they are awake. The -first sound which disturbed this quiet was a kerplunk at my side, -followed by the grating of a turtle shell over rough rock and a second -plunge. Two spotted turtles that had been sunning themselves on a rock -at my very elbow as I glided in thus became submarines, and slipped -silently away to Ooze Harbor between two sheltering rocks at bottom. -These two had been contemplating nature with the sun on their backs, as -I planned to, and had been loth to leave such pleasant employment. I -think the turtle’s brain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> may work quickly, but his motions are as slow -as those of the Federal Government.</p> - -<p>Round about me were the mangrove-like buttonball bushes, showing no -signs of green, and the brown heads of hardhack and meadow-sweet blooms -of last year bent over their own reflections in the water. Here were -gray and brown sackcloth and ashes. Did not the little cove know that -Lent was long past? Yes, for here, too, were the maples scattering their -red blooms all along the surface; and as I looked again I saw the sage -green of young willow leaves just pushing out along the yellow bark of -those brittle shoots.</p> - -<p>Under the brown heads of the <i>Spiræa formentosa</i> and <i>salicifolia</i> were -vivid leaves putting forth, and just as the pasture cedars seemed to -jump into bloom before my eyes, so the little crescent cove<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> seemed to -garb itself in green as I looked. Under water, too, were all kinds of -succulent young herbs just coming up, like the water-parsnip, whose root -leaves start in the pond bottom, but which, with the receding waters of -summer, will grow rank in the mud of the margin.</p> - -<p>A leopard frog sounded his call from the roots of last year’s reeds,—a -gentle drawl which has been compared to the sound produced by tearing -stout cotton cloth, and perhaps that is as near as one can come to -characterizing it, though the sound is a far more mellow and soothing -rattle than that. The hylas have ceased their peeping and the wood frogs -no longer croak. They have laid their eggs in the warming waters and -gone up into the woods. Hitched to a twig a foot beneath the surface I -found a jelly-like mass as big as my two fists, which contained a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span> -thousand or so of the eggs of the green frog,—<i>Rana clamitans</i>,—and no -doubt those of the hylas and wood frogs were to be found nearby. The -new-moon cove is a famous frog rendezvous, and a month from now the -night there will be clamorous with the cries of many species. You would -never believe there were so many varieties till you begin to hunt them -by ear.</p> - -<p>A pair of robins came and inspected their last year’s nest in a willow -over the water, and I saw there a left-over kingbird’s, still holding -the space, though the kingbirds themselves will not be back to claim it -before the fifth or sixth of May. A silent black and white creeper -slipped up and down and all in and about the shoreward bushes, gleaning -stealthily and persistently, always with a watchful eye out for possible -danger. This watchfulness did not cease when the bird finished<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> hunting -and settled down for a noonday nap. It chose for this a spot on the -black and white angle of a red alder shrub, where it would look exactly -like a knot on the wood. Then it fluffed down into a fat ball of -feathers and for a half-hour seemed to snooze, motionless except for its -head, that every few seconds turned and looked this way and then that. -It was a noonday nap, but it was sleeping with both eyes open.</p> - -<p>The kingfisher, always an example of nervous energy, flitted back and -forth outside the willow barrier, springing his rattle in short vigorous -calls. Once he fell into the water with a splash, and came out again -with a young white perch in his mouth. By and by he gave an extra shout -and went off over the hill and was gone an hour. Then two came back and -the air was vivid with friendly</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_005" style="width: 532px;"> -<a href="images/i192.jpg"> -<img src="images/i192.jpg" width="532" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>The air was vivid with friendly staccato calls</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">staccato calls. But there seemed to be a disagreement later, for after a -little the first bird was alone again. Then he began to fly back and -forth, high over the cove, till his white throat seemed a sister to the -young moon, paper white in the zenith.</p> - -<p>All the kingfisher calls before that had been brief, but now as he flew -he clattered like an alarm clock,—the kind that begins at ghostly hours -and continues without intermission till you finally get up in despair -and throw it out the window. His cry would begin with his leaving the -point beyond the cove on one side, continue without a break as he swung -high, and only cease when he had dropped to earth again on the other -side. Where he got the wind for this continuous vaudeville I cannot say. -I have never heard a kingfisher call so long without an interval before, -but I take it to have been a far cry sent out for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> that vanished mate. -Perhaps she answered finally, for he betook himself off after a little, -I hope to a rendezvous.</p> - -<p>While I listened in the silence for the returning call of the -kingfisher, a little shore wind came over my shoulder and brought to me -the same delicious, sensuous perfume that I had noticed in the early -morning, only where it had then been as slender as a hope it was now -rich and full with the joy of fulfilment. I looked back in some wonder -at the rocky marsh behind the cove, but now I saw farther than the -alders and maples that fringed its edge.</p> - -<p>Just as the golden glow of the cedars in the upland pasture had seemed -to come all of a sudden, as if turned up by the pressure of a button -which made electrical connection, and set the machinery of fantasy at -work, so the inner swamp suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> grew all sun-stricken with the yellow -of the spicebush bloom. Bare twigs bore clusters of it everywhere, and -its intoxicating odor thrilled all my senses with rich dreams of June.</p> - -<p>So all this day of passing April the sun shone in the placid heart of -the little cove with the full fervor of summer. The leopard frog -throated his dreamy yawn from the bog, and the rich, soft perfume of the -spicebush seemed to wrap all the senses in longing that thrilled and -disquieted even while it lulled. There is a call to <i>vagabondia</i> in the -odor of the spicebush, that gipsy of the wilder wood, which finds ready -echo in the hearts of us all. If it bloomed the year round there would -be no cities.</p> - -<p>While I breathed the witchery to the full there fell from the sky above -a gentle call, a single bird note out of the blue,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> that made me sit up -straight and look eagerly.</p> - -<p>A swift wing stabbed the air above the tree tops, and the note sounded -nearer. “Quivit, quivit,” it said in liquid gentleness, and the first -barn swallow of my season slipped down toward the pond and skimmed the -surface in graceful flight. May is welcome. She could be ushered in by -no sweeter music than the gentle call of the barn swallow, nor could she -send before her more dignified couriers than the glowing pasture cedars -or more richly sensuous odors than that of the spicebush which makes all -the swamps yellow with sunshine in her honor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="BOG_BOGLES" id="BOG_BOGLES"></a>BOG BOGLES</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> SPIRIT of mystery always broods over the great bog of Ponkapog Pond. -Only occasionally does man disturb its quaking, sinking surface with his -foot. You may wade all about on it, even to the edge where the billowing -moss yields to the scarcely less stable pond surface; but to do so in -safety you must know it intimately, else you will go down below, -suddenly, to become a nodule in the peat, and perhaps be dug up intact a -thousand years from now and put in a museum.</p> - -<p>Hence man rather shuns the bog, and it has become, or perhaps I might -better say it has remained, the home of all sorts of shy creatures that -shun man. It would not be surprising if the little people that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> the -Ponkapog Indians knew so well, the pukwudgies which were their fairies, -the little manitous which were guardian spirits, and the fearsome folk, -the Indian bogies, still linger here, though the Indians are long gone.</p> - -<p>This morning in the lonesomest spot I thought I heard speech of them -all, and though various creatures appeared later and claimed the voices, -it is to be believed that these merely came out of the tall grass to go -straw bail for them. At this time of year you may reach this lonesomest -spot by boat, if you will take a light one with smooth flat bottom and -push valiantly through winding passages where you may not row and boldly -ride over grassy surfaces that yield beneath you.</p> - -<p>It is a different bog edge from that of last summer; a new world. The -Nesæa, which made wickets of bog-hopple all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> about, is hardly to be -seen, and you will wonder at the absence of the millions of serried -stems of pickerel weed that held the outer defences with halberds and -made them blue with flaunting banners of the bog’s advance guard.</p> - -<p>If you will look over the boat’s side as you glide through open water -near the edge you will see these, lying in heaps, blades pointing -bravely to seaward almost a half-fathom deep, slain by the winter’s -cold, indeed, but their bodies a bulwark on which younger warriors will -stand firmly in the skirmish line this year. Already the slender spears -of these prick upward out of the gray tangle at bottom, and it will not -be long before they stab the surface, eager for the accolade of the -field marshal sun.</p> - -<p>In the little channels up which you glide tiny tides flow back and -forth, driven, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> doubt, by the undulations of the waves in the open -pond, and here through the dark depths the brownish green clusters of -pointed peat-moss roll along like Russian tumble-weeds driven across the -Dakotas by prairie winds, to grow again in new soil. On either side are -island clumps of meadow grass, and in the shallows you may see, as -carefully planted as if by some landscape gardener of the pond bottom, -most wonderfully beautiful fairy gardens of young water-lily leaves.</p> - -<p>Out of the brown ooze at varied dignified distances apart spring the -slender, erect stems, some only a few inches long, others longer, till a -precocious few tickle the surface with the upper rim of the rounded -leaf. These leaves are set at quaint angles that give the garden a -perky, Alice-in-Wonderland effect. The Welsh rabbit and the mock turtle -might well come<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> down these garden paths hand in hand, or the walrus and -the carpenter sit beneath the flat shade of these dado-decoration leaves -and swap poems.</p> - -<p>But, after all, the wonder of it is not the quaint beauty of the -arrangement but the bewildering richness of the coloring of these -leaves. Only the faintest suggestion of green is in them. Instead, they -glow with a velvety crimson maroon in varying shades, a color -inexpressibly soft and rich. The blood-red of last year’s cranberries -that form a floating bead edge to the bog in many places is more vivid, -but not so rich. The lilies of next July will be lovely, indeed, but -never so sumptuously beautiful or so full of quaint delight.</p> - -<p>At the end of the waterway you come to a barrier of cassandra, which -blocks your further passage and half surrounds you with a low, irregular -hedge. I fear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> I have misnamed the cassandra. I thought it dour and -morose; but that was in late April. Now it is early May, and by some -trick of the bog pukwudgies the gloom of its still clinging last year’s -leaves is lightened into a soft sage green that is prim indeed, but -lovely in its primness, while all underneath these leaves, in festoons -along the arching stems, are tiny white blossoms that are like ropes of -dripping pearls.</p> - -<p>Grim and morose, indeed! The cassandra is like a gentle, pure-souled -girl of the elder Puritans, arrayed for her coming-out party, her -primness of garb only enhancing the beauty of soul that shines through -it and finds visible expression in the pearls. And already lovers buzz -about her. Their cheerful hum is like the sound of soft stringed -instruments fanned by the warm breeze in this fairy-peopled land of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> -loneliness. Here I see my first bumblebee of the season, seemingly less -dunderheaded out here among the wild blooms than he will be later in the -white clover of the lawn.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the prim and definite arrangement of the cassandra blossoms, -hung so close in long strings that he has a straight road to follow, -helps keep his wits about him. Here are honeybees a-plenty, adding the -clarinet to his bassoon, and many a wild bee, too, bringing the -scintillation of iridescent thorax or wing, and his own peculiar pitch -to the symphony. I dare say the hymenopterists know each bee by ear as -well as by sight.</p> - -<p>In this fairy land of bog tangle the hylas, that I had thought all -through with their songs for the year, piped in chorus as each cloud -slipped over the sun, and the leopard frogs yawned throatily, dream<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span>ily, -all about in the full sunshine. The hotter it was the more they liked -it, and in the brightest part of the day they cut up the yawns into -brief words and phrases which made a most language-like gabble.</p> - -<p>Of course I could not see this peace congress of leopard frogs and can -prove only that it sounded like them. It may very well have been the -pukwudgies talking over my presence and wondering if white men were now -coming to oust them from their last stronghold in the bog, as they have -driven them and the once more visible Indians from the rough hills and -sandy plains about the pond. Indeed, as I sat quiet, hour after hour, in -this miniature wilderness, I came to hear many a strange and -unclassified sound that, for all I know, may have been fay or frog, -banshee or bird.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span></p> - -<p>I began to get glints of sunlight reflecting from grassy islands all -about. It was as if some very human folk had held high carnival here the -night before and sown the dry spots with empty black bottles. But a -second look showed these to be spotted turtles, sitting up above the -water level, each with his head held up as if he wished especially to -get the warmth of the sun on his throat. On such a day one might well -envy the turtle for having his bones all on the outside. It is easy for -him to let the spring sunshine into his very marrow.</p> - -<p>The turtle, in spite of the canticle which, bubbling over with the -enthusiastic poetry of spring, declares that “the voice of the turtle is -heard in our land,” is usually reckoned dumb. The commentators have -carefully announced that the turtle mentioned is the turtle-dove cooing -in the joy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> of springtime. That may be, but I do not see how they know, -for the turtle, denied a voice by naturalists and scriptural -commentators alike, nevertheless has one, and a song of its own.</p> - -<p>A turtle, suddenly jolted, will give a quaint little squeak as he yanks -himself back into his shell. That is common enough, but this day there -were two, sitting up on nearby tussocks, that piped a musical little -song of spring, just a soft trill that was eminently frog-like but -distinct. I heard it and tried at first to make it the trill of hylas, -but it was more of a trill and different in quality. Try as I would I -could but locate this quaint little song in the throats of the two -turtles. I carefully scared one off his perch and one trill ceased. I -scared the other, and both voices were silent, though here and there in -the marsh I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span> hear others. It may have been the pukwudgies playing -ventriloquial tricks on me from the shade of the swamp cedars just -beyond, and laughing in their beaded sleeves at the joke; but if it was -not they, I am convinced that my turtles sang, and that Solomon not only -knew what he was talking about but meant exactly what he said.</p> - -<p>While I was listening to the two turtles and wondering about them, I -kept hearing over among the white cedars raucous profanity of the most -outrageous sort. Bad words snarled in throaty squawks came oftener and -oftener, till by the time the turtles had gone down into oblivion -beneath the bog roots the most villainous language from at least two -squawkers gave evidence that a low-bred row was going on. I could -distinguish accusation and recrimination till it sounded like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span> family -quarrel between drunken bog bogles.</p> - -<p>Then there was the sound of blows, and with a wild shriek of a most -reckless word a bittern flapped out, whirled round once or twice as if -undecided where he would go, then dropped in the grass down the bog a -way. Here he turned his black, stake-like head this way and that for a -moment, then pulled it down out of sight. I had known the bittern was -misanthropic, but I had never before realized that he was so -ill-tempered and profane. I am positive he was beating his wife, and the -whole affair sounded like a case of too much bog whiskey.</p> - -<p>For an hour there was no sight or sound of this bittern, though uncouth -conversation seemed to be going on still in the tangle whence he flew, -but I heard no more profanity. Yet out of the heart of the bog<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> curious -sounds came floating at intervals,—sounds which often I had difficulty -in getting any known creature to go bail for. I do not mean the ordinary -bird voices, though the air was full of these. It seems as if all the -small migrants made this a port of call or a refuge, and paid for their -safety with music. Warblers trilled their varied notes from the cedars -or the thicket of cassandra shrubs, some coming boldly near, others -giving sign of their presence only by the glint of a wing or the shaking -of a twig, others still invisible but vocal.</p> - -<p>Thrush and catbird, song sparrow and chipping sparrow, chickadee and -creeper, all helped to fill the air with sound, but it was not to these -I listened. It was rather to obscure whinings and grumblings out of the -deep heart of the bog, goblin talk very likely that seemed to grow -louder and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span> come nearer. Then after a little I heard splashing, and out -into a clear space of grassy shallows came a splendid great muskrat -followed by another just as large. In the middle of this tourney ground -the two faced each other, and after a second of sparring closed.</p> - -<p>It was hardly a scientific fight. They batted and clawed, butted and -scratched and bit, whining like eager dogs, and now and then yelping -with pain. But it was effective; in a very few minutes one had enough -and turned and fled, ploughing a straight furrow through the shallows, -to a plunge in a deep hole. The victor followed a few yards, then as if -convinced that the retreat was a real one, turned and went proudly back, -probably to the lady who was the cause of all this trouble. Muskrats are -such gentle creatures that I was amazed to see this happen, but af<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span>fairs -of the heart are serious even in the depths of the bog. I lay a part of -the bog bogle talk which still went on in the eerie depths behind the -green of the cedars to the other muskrats. It does not seem as if they -could have been to blame for it all.</p> - -<p>Then I remembered the vanished bittern and began to work my boat toward -the part of the bog where he disappeared. Very likely he had committed -suicide in repentance for his bad behavior and his profanity. He ought -to have, but he was simply sulking, after all. I think he felt so bad -about it that his usual wariness was at fault, for I was almost upon him -before he saw me. It may have been drunken stupor, but I like to believe -it was remorse.</p> - -<p>When he did see me his dismay was ludicrous. He almost fell over himself -in getting into the air, and he flapped back toward the spot where the -quarrel had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> gone on with wild squawks that said “Help, help!” as -plainly as any language could. Out from among the cedars, in answer to -this frenzied appeal, came the other bittern, and then another. I -watched the three flapping down the bog and saw them light together at a -safe distance. Then I knew the cause of all the trouble in the bittern -family. The bog world, like the pasture world and the deep wood, at this -time of year is full of blissful love making, but it is also full of -heartrending jealousies and fights to a finish. No wonder the pukwudgies -and bog bogles are full of talk and excitement back there; there is -enough food for gossip.</p> - -<p>Sitting quietly in the boat in this new part of the bog I had a queer -feeling of being grimly watched by, I could not tell what. I have read -tales of travelers in African jungles who felt the eyes of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span> lurking -boa constrictor resting balefully on them when the creature itself was -concealed. It was something like that, and I looked about rather -uneasily. Probably the bog voices were getting on my nerves and it was -time to go home. Then I glanced over one side of the boat and very -nearly jumped over the other, for there were the two grim eyes, in a -great horny head as big as my two fists, looking up at me.</p> - -<p>I had been amusing myself with imagining that I heard the little people -of the bog, but here was the great dragon, the very devil himself, -sunning his black hulk on a fairy acre of bog grass. At its further end -I saw his tail, as large as my forearm at the base, tapering with -alligator-like corrugations to its tip. I saw his great webbed feet as -large as my hand and furnished with claws. I saw his thick<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> neck, and -that was all of him in sight. The rest was concealed within a huge mound -of black, plated, horny shell that was fourteen inches from side to side -and sixteen inches from front to back. These were measurements which I -took after I had decided that he did not intend to eat me right away, -perhaps not at all.</p> - -<p><i>Chelydra serpentina</i>, the snapping turtle, or the alligator snapper, as -he is sometimes called, and with reason, for, except for his casing of -shell, he is very like an alligator, is not uncommon in the bog; but I -had never before seen so huge or so ancient appearing a specimen. His -black shell was worn gray with age and bore two deep scars where some -sharp instrument very like a spear had been jabbed into his back. I -suspect this to have been an Indian spear, and I fully believe that my -black dragon of the bog was a well-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span>grown turtle before the white man -ever saw Ponkapog Pond.</p> - -<p>There were parallel ridges in the structure of his shell that seemed to -show much wear as if this turtle had carried weight on his back. The -Indians have a legend that the world itself is held up on the back of a -great turtle. Very well; this is the one. I saw the marks of its -friction on his great muddy black structure as I looked him over, there -in the middle of the loneliest place in the bog.</p> - -<p>I might have taken him by that alligator tail and swung his seventy or -eighty pounds into the boat, I suppose. Terrapin is valuable, and the -snapping turtle is own cousin to the terrapin. I have a fancy, though, -that if he had got into the boat I should have got out. No ordinary -Ponkapog boat was likely to hold us both, and I wisely refrained. Nor -did he molest me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> but stood his ground, still gazing at me with that -cold, critical eye. After a time he moved on, pushing his great weight -with ease over the crushed bog growth and sliding with dignity down into -the muddy depths of an open channel.</p> - -<p>For myself, I turned the boat’s prow toward the distant landing and -pushed, as he had, over the yielding shallows to the open pond. I had -seen a hundred beauties in the lonely bog and been well initiated into -its mysteries. For me the spotted turtles had sung, the muskrats had -fought a tourney, the bitterns had voiced a family quarrel. And now it -was nightfall, and the big old dragon of the bog had looked me over with -measuring eye. It was high time that I headed for home if I expected to -get there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="BOBBING_FOR_EELS" id="BOBBING_FOR_EELS"></a>BOBBING FOR EELS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is fortunate that the angleworm is born without a voice, else -throughout the length and breadth of the land were now resounding a -chorus of doleful shrieks, for great is the dismemberment of angleworms -about this time. The same warmth of imminent summer which made the grass -jump six inches in length over night, has brought him forth in great -numbers, over night also, for the angleworm is a lover of darkness.</p> - -<p>I know Darwin thought earthworm a more proper designation of him, but it -is to be believed that Darwin was not a fisherman. Had he been he would -have known that the chief end of worm is to become bait. There may be -nicer things<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> to have than these somewhat attenuated hermits of the -mold, but if there are the fishes do not know it, and there are few -anglers but on May fifteenth would give their weight in gold for them if -such was the price. It is fortunate, therefore, that angleworms are -inhabitants of the earth, so to speak, and not of any one neighborhood. -It is, no doubt, possible to catch fish with other bait. There are -grasshoppers, to be sure, though not at this time of year. There are -various artificial flies and lures, spoon hooks and other wastrel -inventions. Of these little is to be said; indeed, some of them are -unspeakable.</p> - -<p>On fortunate springs April showers linger into May, finally hastening -northward lest summer catch them here and make a wet June of it. The -seductive warmth of summer is in them now, and as they go spilling by of -perfumed nights<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span> they work all kinds of wonder. Things that were -beginning to grow up suddenly blow up. My cherry tree has exploded over -night. Two days ago the grass, we noted with delight, was really quite -green. This morning it waves in the wind, and I am confident that by -to-morrow, at this rate, it will be full of bobolinks and mowing -machines. Yesterday you could see far through the woodland. To-day it is -clouded with its own green leaves, and along aisles that begin to be -shady the truant ovenbirds are shouting “Teacher, teacher, teacher, -teacher,” in warning to one another every time they hear a human -footfall in the path.</p> - -<p>The first dragon flies have come, and in woodland places lovely little -brown butterflies skip about like mad. No wonder the Hesperidæ are -commonly known as skippers. These that I saw to-day, most of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> them -<i>Thanaos brizo</i>, the sleepy dusky-wing, defied any but the most alert -eye to follow them as they dashed from invisibility on some dark fallen -limb to vanishment on brown mud of the path. They seemed to skip in and -out of existence at will. I call them brown, for you will see that they -are that if you have a chance to see one sitting at rest. You may get -near enough to see the beautiful blueish spots surrounded with dark -rings on the fore wings, and the double row of yellow spots on the hind -wings. For all that <i>Thanaos brizo</i> is as black as your hat to the eye -when he is in flight. Perhaps that is why he vanishes so readily. You -are looking for a black butterfly, and what you see is nothing but a -brown bit of bark or leaf.</p> - -<p>Darwin was convinced that the earthworm, as he called him, was of -inestimable value to man, and he cites how he works<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> over the mold and -loosens it up, ploughing it, as it were, for future planters who should -thus be able to enjoy the fruits of the earth, leveling it and working -in various ways for the good of mankind. But Darwin never says a word of -the inestimable value of earthworms as angleworms. Thus often do our -greatest scientists fail to interpret things at their true value. Very -likely Darwin never had an opportunity to bob for eels in a New England -pond. If so he would have seen worms as they are, for no man can really -know things till he has yearned for them.</p> - -<p>In the winter time the angleworm goes down well below the reach of frost -which will kill him. Indeed, he is sensitive to the cold, and comes to -the surface only when the sun has warmed the earth so that it is -comfortable. Under the May moon he comes, sometimes clear out of his -hole,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span> and wanders far in search of friends or new countries. Often of a -moist early morning you may find big ones caught out on the concrete -sidewalk or marooned in the dry dust of the road, remaining to be an -easy prey for early birds.</p> - -<p>But these are the adventurous or unfortunate few. The many have remained -all night stretched far from the mouths of their burrows, indeed, but -with tails still hooked into the door jamb, and able to make a rapid -backward scramble into safety. It is this habit of the worm of warm -summer evenings that the wise angler utilizes for his capture. The robin -knows it too, and he spices his rapture of matin song with trips across -the lawn, where, between staccato hops, he eyes the grass sidewise and -catches late roisterers before they can get under cover. These he takes -by the scruff of the neck, as one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> might say, hauls them, stretching and -resisting, forth from their homes and swallows them.</p> - -<p>Thus with the unrighteous, but even the upright, or rather the -downright, who are that, snugly ensconced as they intended to be, he is -apt to see and seize, for the robin’s eye is good and his bill is long -enough. Angleworms, after the joys or labors of the night are over, -withdraw into their holes, but often not very far. They like to lie with -the head drawn back just out of sight, near enough to the surface to -bask in the warmth of the sun.</p> - -<p>Some line the outer ends of their burrows with leaves to keep them from -the damp of the earth, thus further to enjoy themselves. Some, too, on -retiring, draw leaves and sticks in, thus going into their holes and -pulling the holes in after them, as the saying goes. Some merely pile<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> -small stones in a sort of an ant heap about the mouth. In the gravel -walk these little mounds are often taken for those piled by the -industrious ants. The robin gets many of these as he hops, and it is no -wonder that his chestnut-red front looms as round as a pumpkin and -almost as big.</p> - -<p>There are many ways of getting angleworms and many ways of using them -after you get them; but he who wants them in bulk will do well to -imitate the robin,—only do it in the night instead of the day. Of -course you may go out with a spade and assault likely spots in the -garden. That is often satisfactory, though crude. It is likely to result -in small numbers and not well assorted sizes.</p> - -<p>I knew a man once who used to jab for angleworms with a crowbar, and it -was a rather astonishing thing to watch him and see the results. The -anglewor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span>m’s hearing is crude in the extreme. Indeed, hearing in the -ordinary sense of the word he has none. Mary Garden might sing at the -mouth of his burrow and he would never know it. Sousa’s finest march on -fifty instruments—count ’em fifty—might be played on the bandstand -just over his head and he would never feel one thrill. The only sound he -gets is a crunching and grubbing in the earth near him. This he feels, -for he is the chief food of the grubbing mole, and that sound means but -one thing to him,—that he is being dug for. So when he heard that -crowbar wriggling and crunching in the gravel beneath he used to flee to -the surface in numbers.</p> - -<p>This man always whistled an eerie little tune while he wriggled the bar. -He said he was calling them, and it was quite like magic the way in -which they hustled to the surface and crawled about his feet. Most<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> -people fail in this method. It takes a peculiar motion to the bar and a -good eye in choosing the spot where the worms are. And then, few people -know the tune.</p> - -<p>Nightfall and the robin’s method are best. Wait till the full darkness -of a moist night. Hang a lantern about your neck and get down on your -marrow bones by a grassy roadside. Worms do not see, and are not -sensitive to light. You have but to crawl quietly forward and pick them -up with a quick snatch, for the worm can feel, and he gets back into his -burrow with an agility which is surprising.</p> - -<p>On the right kind of a May night I have seen the roadside of a -Massachusetts village the scene of more than one such spectacle. A -stranger from the big world, seeing a very fat man crawling by the -roadside with a lantern hung about his neck, making frantic dabs here -and there, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> hauling forth great worms that resisted and hung on -valiantly and stretched like red rubber, might well have said that here -was voodoo worship or a Dickey initiate gone mad. But it was nothing of -the sort,—merely the crack local fisherman getting his bait.</p> - -<p>I have looked in vain in Izaak Walton for a pæan on angleworms or a -description of a proper method for making a bob for eels, and I thereby -find the “Compleat Angler” incomplete. However, Izaak was an admirable -fisherman in the rather patient and conservative way of the England of -his time. He advises to bait for eels “with a little, a very little, -lamphrey, which some call a pride, and may in the hot months be found -many of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps in other rivers; -yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in a dung-hill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He should have seen a Yankee catch eels with a pole and line with a big -wad of worms tied on the end of the line and no hook at all, for such is -a “bob,” as we know it in Norfolk County. The making of a bob is not a -pleasant affair for the angleworms, which seem born for destruction, so -many are the creatures that prey on them, and I am glad of Darwin’s -assurance that, in spite of the fact that they wriggle when rent, they -have little fineness of perception and feeling and do not suffer—much.</p> - -<p>This crack fisherman who was so stout and who used to get his bait by -lantern light at night, to whom my memory runs, always made a bob of -shoemaker’s thread, because it was fine and of great strength. He had a -long wire needle like an upholsterer’s needle, and with this he would -deftly string great angleworms from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> head to tail, sliding them one by -one down upon his shoemaker’s thread till he had a rope of them twelve -feet long or so. Then tying the ends together he looped this up till it -hung in a wad of loops as big as his two fists. This, hung upon the end -of his line, was all he needed for a night’s fishing.</p> - -<p>The way of its use is this. First catch your night, one of those nights -when there is a promise of soft rain in the sky and the wind that is to -bring it just sighs gently over the trees from the southward. Too much -wind is bad, for it so ruffles the surface that the fish cannot find -you. A very gentle ripple, on the contrary, is helpful, for it makes a -dancing path of light from your fire, up which the eels may trail you to -the very spot where hangs the bob.</p> - -<p>The stout fisherman used to take along at least two boys who would be -useful in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> gathering wood for the fire and in other matters. Then, -picking the exactly most favorable spot on the dam where the deep, dark -water shoulders the bank, he built his fire after the full darkness had -come. In common with many others I regret the passing of the old-time -cedar rail fence. Wire abominations may be cheaper, but who ever heard -of building a fishing fire out of tariff-nurtured, wire-trust, fencing -material? Fishing fire material of the proper sort is rare nowadays, and -I can but feel that the youth of the present generation are born to -barren years.</p> - -<p>With the fire well alight and the deep half-bushel basket placed handy -by, the fisherman would make his line fast to the tip of that long, -light, supple but strong birch pole and cast the big bob far from him -with a generous splash into the water, letting it sink till within a -foot or two of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> bottom. How far under the dark water the eels might see -that flickering fire and be drawn to it as moths circle about a light at -night I cannot say, but I think it was very far, for on favorable nights -it seemed as if all the eels in the pond must have been drawn thither. I -know that fishing without a fire you may catch one eel or perhaps two, -but you will never get such numbers as come to a proper blaze made of -the dryest of good old cedar rails.</p> - -<p>In South American waters there is an electric eel which can give a stout -shock to such as touch him; but I think all eels must be electric, else -why the shock that one in the deep water off the pond bank can send -through a dozen feet of line and as much more of birch pole to your hand -the moment he pokes his nose against a bob? It tingles in your palms, -and is as good as prescribed electric treatment from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> a battery, for it -thrills you with a quickening of life and nerve and a magical alertness.</p> - -<p>The eel is not nearly so cautious with a bob as with a hook. He nibbles, -which is the first shock; he bites, which is the second and stronger; -then he takes hold. I can see the stout fisherman now with the fire -gleam on his rugged face, his feet planted wide apart and his weight -well on the hinder one, his hands wide apart on the pole and his whole -attitude that of a lion couchant for a back somersault.</p> - -<p>At the nibble his face twitches, at the bite his knee bends, and then -the end of the pole sags quickly downward with the line as taut as a -violin string. The eel has taken hold, his throat-pointing teeth are -tangled in the thread of the bob, and the stout fisherman’s weight has -gone far back of his point of support. If the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> line should break so -would the fisherman’s neck.</p> - -<p>They prate much to me about the stance and the swing, the addressing and -the following through in driving a ball at golf. The words are used -glibly, but I doubt if many know their real significance. Whatever that -is it all applies, and more, to the proper bobbing of an eel. It is the -summoning of all the forces of a man’s vigor and personality in one -supreme stroke. Holding on, quite literally by the skin of his teeth, -the eel circles a section of the pond with his tail and seems to lift it -with him. The line sings and the birch pole bends nearly double. It is -for a second a question which will win, but the shoemaker’s thread is -very strong, and so is the stout fisherman.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the eel gives up. Still hung to the bob he shoots into the air -the full<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span> length of the line, describes a circle in high heaven, of -which the fisherman’s feet are the center, and drops in the grass, while -the fisherman, in marvelous defiance of all laws of gravity, brings his -two hundred and fifty pounds back to an upright position without losing -his footing. Golf may be all very well, but it does not equal this. -Small blame to the fisherman if he poises a moment like Ajax defying the -lightning.</p> - -<p>Now, the boys have their innings. Somewhere in classic literature the -Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold. So the boys upon the eel -that flops mightily and wriggles in vain in the tall grass. He is dumped -in the deep basket; and hardly is he there before the fisherman has -swung another in that mighty circle. An eel is very canny, and often -escapes a hook even when well on. I never knew one to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> get away from a -bob. Sometimes the half-bushel basket would go back home nearly full of -them. And as for their size, I do not wish to say, except that no small -ones seem to bite at a bob. In that I will quote from Izaak Walton, who, -after giving excellent directions for dressing and cooking an eel, says:</p> - -<p>“When I go to dress an Eel thus I wish he were as long and as big as -that which was caught in Peterborough River in the year 1667, which was -a yard and three-quarters long.” To which I can but add that I defy old -England to produce any bigger eels than we have in New England.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="THE_VANISHING_NIGHT_HERONS" id="THE_VANISHING_NIGHT_HERONS"></a>THE VANISHING NIGHT HERONS</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T is a long time since I have set eyes, in broad daylight, upon the -black-crowned night heron, often known as “quawk,” and otherwise -derisively named by the impuritans. The scientists have also, it seems -to me, joined in this derision, for they have dubbed him <i>Nycticorax -nycticorax nævius</i>, which is a libel on his language. At any rate, it -sounds like it. The roots are evidently the same.</p> - -<p>Yesterday, however, in broad daylight, I saw two pair sailing down out -of the sunlit sky to light on a tree by the border of the pond. Very -white they looked in the glare of day, and I wondered at first if four -snowy egrets had not escaped the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span> plume hunters after all and fled north -for safety. Probably I shall never see snowy egrets again, though they -used to stray north as far as this on occasions. Now, even the night -heron, which used to nest hereabout in colonies of hundreds, is rarely -seen.</p> - -<p>I suppose if bird species must become, one by one, extinct, we can as -well afford to lose the night heron as any. He is not a particularly -beautiful bird in appearance, though these four seemed handsome enough -as they sailed grandly down into the trees on the pond border. His voice -is unmelodious. Quawk is only a convenient handle for his one word. It -should rather be made up of the roughest consonants in the language, -thrown together with raucous vigor. It sounds more like “hwxzvck!” shot -into the mud out of a damp cloud. The voices of night herons,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span> sailing -in companies over the marshes and ponds used to sound like echoes of a -convocation of witches, falling through damp gloom as broomstick flights -went over. Shakespeare named a witch Sycorax. He may have been making -game of herons.</p> - -<p>To-day, having seen these four, I went down to the places which used to -be the old-time haunts of night herons, and looked carefully but in vain -for traces of their presence. It is their nesting time. There should be -eggs about to hatch, or young about to make prodigious and ungainly -growth in singularly flimsy nests that let you see the blue of the eggs -faintly visible through the loosely crossed twigs against the blue of -the sky. These I did not find, and the big cedars which used to be so -populous were lonely enough.</p> - -<p>Once there would be a nest in every tree, two-thirds of the way up, and -a big<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span> heron sitting on guard at the top of the tree, or astride the -eggs on the nest itself. How the long legged mother bird could sit on -this loose nest and not resolve it into its component parts and drop the -two-inch long eggs to destruction on the peat-moss beneath is still a -mystery to me. But she could do it, and the young after they were -hatched did it, sometimes six of them, and the nests remained after they -were gone, in proof of it. Most birds’ nests are marvels of -construction; the black-crowned night heron’s seems a marvel of lack of -it, but I think few of us could make so ill a nest so well.</p> - -<p>The night heron’s day begins at dusk and ends, as a rule, at daylight. -His eyes have all the night-seeing ability of those of the owl, and he -finds his way through fog and darkness, and his food as well. Yet the -bird seems to see well enough by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> day. The four that sailed down to the -pond yesterday in the full glare of the afternoon sun had no hesitation -about their flight. They swung the corner of the wood and lighted on -limbs of the trees with as much directness and certainty as a hawk -might. Indeed, when their voracious young are growing up they have to -fish night and day. It seems to me that fish must be becoming more -plentiful now that the black-crowned night herons are few in number, for -a single bird must consume yearly an enormous quantity.</p> - -<p>I undertook the care and feeding of two once that I had taken from one -of those impossible nests. They were the most solemnly ridiculous young -creatures that were ever made. “Man,” says Plato, “is a featherless -biped.” So were these youthful night herons. They were pretty nearly as -naked as truth and might have passed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> for caricatures of the Puritan -conscience, for they were so erect they nearly fell over backward.</p> - -<p>They would not stay in any nest made for them, but preferred to inhabit -the earth, usually just round the corner of something, whence they poked -weird heads with staring eyes that discountenanced all creatures that -they met. The family cat, notoriously fond of chicken, stalked them a -bit the first day that they occupied the yard. At the psychological -moment, when <i>Felis domesticatus</i> was crouching, green eyed, for a -spring, the two gravely rose and faced her. She took one look at those -pods of bodies on stilts, those strange heads stretched high above on -attenuated necks, and faced the wooden severity of their stare for but a -second. Then she gave forth a yowl of terror and fled to her favorite -refuge beneath<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span> the barn, whence she was not known to emerge for a space -of twenty-four hours.</p> - -<p>There was something so solemn, so “pokerish,” so preternaturally -dignified about these creatures that they seemed to be out of another, -eerier, world. If we ever get so advanced as to travel from planet to -planet I shall expect to find things like them peering round corners at -me on some of the out-of-the-way satellites, the moons of Neptune, for -instance.</p> - -<p>Most young birds will eat what you bring them and clamor for more until -they are full. These young herons yawned at my approach as solemnly as -if they were made of wood and worked by the pulling of a string. Never a -sound did I know them to make during their brief stay with me, but they -would stand motionless and silent and gape unwinkingly till a piece<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span> of -fish was dropped within the yawn. Then it would close deliberately and -reopen, the fish having vanished. Fish were plentiful that year and so -seemed to be time and bait, and I became curious as to the actual -capacity of a growing night heron. I could feed either one till I could -see the last piece still in the back of his mouth because there was -standing room only. Yet if I went away but for a moment and came back, -there they stood, as prodigiously empty as ever. The thing became -interesting until I began to discover assorted piles of uneaten fish -about the yard, and watching soon showed what was happening.</p> - -<p>Foot passengers out in the country have a motto which says, “never -refuse a ride; if you do not want it now you may need it next time.” -This seemed to be the idea which worked sap-wise in the cambium<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> layers -of these wooden young scions of the family <i>Nycticorax nycticorax -nævius</i>. They never refused a fish. As long as I stood by, their beaks, -having closed as well as possible on the very last piece required to -stuff them to the tip, would remain closed. After they thought I had -gone away they would stalk gravely round a corner, look over the -shoulder with an innocence which was peculiarly blear-eyed, then, -believing the coast clear, yawn the whole feeding into obscurity in the -tall grass. Then they would stalk meditatively forth with hands clasped -behind the back, so to speak, and gape for some more.</p> - -<p>This was positively the only thing they did except to wait patiently for -a chance to do it again, and I soon tired of them and took them back to -the rookery, where they were received and, so far as I could see, taken -care of, either by their own par<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span>ents or as orphans at the public -expense. It all seemed a matter of supreme indifference to these -moon-hoax chicks. There is much controversy as to whether animals act -from reason or from instinct. I am convinced that these young night -herons contained spiral springs and basswood wheels and that thence came -their actions. Probably had I looked them over carefully enough I should -have found them inscribed with the motto, “Made in Switzerland.”</p> - -<p>I fancy many people confound the night heron, known to them only by his -wildwitch cry, voiced as he flies over their canoe in the summer dusk, -with the great blue heron, which is nearly twice as big a bird. Perhaps -I would better say twice as long, in speaking of herons, for bigness has -little to do with them. I well remember my amazement as a small boy, -coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> out of the woods onto the shore of the pond with a big -muzzle-loading army musket under my arm—my first hunting -expedition—and scaring up a great blue heron.</p> - -<p>I had been reading the “Arabian Nights,” and knew that the roc was a -great bird that darkened the sun and carried off elephants in his -talons. Very well, here was the very bird in full flight before me, -darkening the entire cove with his wings. Es-Sindibad of the Sea might -be tied to the leg of this one for aught I knew. Mechanically the old -musket came to my shoulder and roared, and when I had picked myself up -and collected the musket and my senses, there lay the bird on the beach, -dead. But he was still an “Arabian Nights’<span class="lftspc">”</span> sort of a bird for one of -his dimensions had vanished, his bulk. He was all bill, neck, legs, and -feathers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span> the wonder being how so small a body could sustain such a -spread.</p> - -<p>The great blue heron, in spite of his slenderness, which you can -interpret as grace or awkwardness, as you will, is a beautiful bird and -a welcome addition to the pond shore, the sheltered cove or the -sheltered brookside pool which he frequents. If you will come very -softly to his accustomed stand you may have a chance to see him sit, -erect and motionless, the personification of dignity and vigilance. The -very crown of his head is white, but you are more apt to notice the -black feathers which border it and draw together behind into a crest -which gives a thought of reserved alertness to his motionless pose.</p> - -<p>The general impression of his coloring is that of a slaty gray, this -melting into brownish on his neck and being prettily</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_006" style="width: 400px;"> -<a href="images/i254.jpg"> -<img src="images/i254.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>The wings arch in similar curves and lift him seemingly a -rod in air</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">touched with rufous and black on other parts of the body. It is a -pleasure to watch his graven-image pose, but it is an even greater one -to see him take flight. His long legs bend under him, and he springs -forward into the air in a mighty parabola. The wings arch in similar -curves and lift him with the very first stroke seemingly a rod in air, -and as they arch forward for the second the long outstretched neck draws -back and the long legs trail in very faithful reproduction of the -ornamentation on a Japanese screen. You hardly feel that here is a -living creature, flying away from fear of you. It is rather as if a -skillful decorator had magically painted the great bird in on the drop -scene in front of you. But the flight of the great blue heron is strong -if his body is small in comparison with his other dimensions, and he -rapidly rises in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span> majesty of power and flaps out of sight over the -tree tops.</p> - -<p>The great blue heron is not rare, but I think he, too, is much less -common than he used to be. Usually he does not summer with us, going -farther north, where he nests in colonies. I seem to find him most often -in late September or October, when he drops off for a few weeks, a -pleasant fishing trip interlude in his flight to winter quarters in the -south. But he is here now, and may be met with on most any May morning -if you will seek out his haunts.</p> - -<p>Fully as common but by no means so noticeable is our little green heron, -the third species of the genus that one is apt to see hereabouts. You -will usually pass him unnoticed as he sits all day long in the shadow on -a limb near the shore. Nor will you be apt to see him until he becomes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> -convinced that you are about to approach too near. Then, with a little -frightened croak, that is more like a squeak, as if his hinges were -rusty, he springs into the air, flutters along shore a few rods and -disappears into the woods again.</p> - -<p>The thought of this little fellow always brings to my mind the silent -drowse and quivering heat of August afternoons along a drought-dwindled -brook where cardinal flowers lift crimson plumes on the margin of the -still remaining pools. Here where deciduous trees shade the winding -reaches he loves to sit and wait for the cool of evening before dropping -to the margin and hunting his supper.</p> - -<p>I always suspect him of being asleep there with his glossy black head -thrust under his green wing. That would give him an excuse for being -surprised at close quarters and account for his vast alarm<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span> when he does -see you. If not I think he would slip quietly away before you got too -near as so many birds do that see you in the woods before you see them. -But perhaps not; perhaps he trusts to luck and hopes till the very last -that you will pass on and leave him to watch his game preserves in peace -and decide which fishes and frogs he will find most appetizing. The -little green heron is a solitary bird, a very recluse in fact, and I do -not recall ever seeing two together. He is a nervous chap, after you -have once flushed him, however, and if you watch his flight with care -you may see him light, stretch his head high to see if you are following -him, meanwhile nervously twitching his apology for a tail.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> </p> -<h2><a name="HARBINGERS_OF_SUMMER" id="HARBINGERS_OF_SUMMER"></a>HARBINGERS OF SUMMER</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>UT of the violet dusk of some June dawn you will see the summer coming -over the hills from the south and you will know her from the spring at -sight. I do not know how. I doubt if the whip-poor-will, who has a -jealous eye on the dawn and its signs, for its first appearance means -bedtime and surcease from labor for him, knows. Yet he feels her -presence, for he waits it as a sign to select the spot for his nest.</p> - -<p>The whip-poor-will is hardly a home builder. He just occupies a flat for -the summer, a place that seems no more fit for a home than any other -flat. Just as I often wonder how apartment-house dwellers find their way -back at dinner-time, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span> spite of the bewildering sameness of the -surroundings, so it seems to me quite miraculous that the whip-poor-will -can find the way back to the eggs or young at daybreak. Nest there is -none. It is simply a spot picked, seemingly, at random, on the brown -last year’s leaves, or the bare rock of the pasture.</p> - -<p>But the whip-poor-will has been here since early May, and till now has -not offered to take an apartment. Yesterday, without doubt, he saw the -summer coming and picked his site. By to-morrow or next day you might -find the two eggs there—if you are a wizard. It takes such to find a -whip-poor-will’s eggs. You might look at them and never see them, so -well do they match the ground on which they lie,—more like pebbles than -anything else, with their dull white obscurely marked with lilac and -brownish-gray spots. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span> sometimes think the mother bird herself fails to -find them and that may be one reason why whip-poor-wills do not seem to -increase in numbers.</p> - -<p>Like the whip-poor-will the scarlet tanager waits sight of the coming of -summer before he begins his nest. It is odd that the two should have -even this habit in common, for otherwise they are far apart. The tanager -is essentially a bird of the daylight, his very colors born of the sun. -I rarely hear him or see his scarlet flame until the sunlight is on his -tree top to make him seem all the more vivid. Then as the day waxes, and -the robins one by one cease their singing, he takes up their song and -continues it, often until the robins return to the choir as the -afternoon shadows lengthen. The tanager’s song is singularly like that -of the robin, only more leisurely and refined. After you have be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span>come -familiar with it you begin to feel that the robin is a very huckster of -a soloist.</p> - -<p>“Kill ’im, cure ’im, give ’im physic,” is what the early settlers -thought the robin sang to them. It always seems to me as if he sang, -“Cherries; berries; strawberries. Buy a box; buy a box.” You might -translate the scarlet tanager’s song into either set of words but you -would not. Instead, you would ponder long to find a phrase whose gentle -refinement should express just the quality of it. Then I think you would -give it up, as I always do, content to feel its pure serenity, which is -quite beyond words.</p> - -<p>The tanager is just about beginning the weaving of his home, which is as -gentle and refined in structure as his song. You may see through it if -you get just the right position from below, yet it is well built and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> -strong, woven of slender selected twigs and tendrils, a delicate cup, -just big enough to hold the three or four eggs of tender blue with their -rufous-brown markings, and the olive-green mother bird. The tanager’s -life is as open as the day, and as he watches southward from his pine -tree top you may well mark the coming of summer by the beginning of that -nest well out on a lower pine bough.</p> - -<p>And if you are not fortunate enough to have a tanager in your pine grove -you might well take the time from another bird, as different from the -scarlet flame of the tree top as the tanager is from the whip-poor-will; -that is the wood pewee. As the whip-poor-will loves the darkness and the -tanager the bright sun of the topmost boughs of the grove, so the wood -pewee loves the resinous depths of the pines, where in the hot twilight -of a sum<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span>mer midday he pipes his cheerful little three-note song. Like -the cicada, he seems to sing best when it is hottest, and the thought of -his song inevitably brings to mind the drone of the summer-loving -insect, the prattle of the brook at the foot of the hill, and the lazy -dappling of the sunlight as it falls perpendicularly to the feathery -fronds of the cinnamon ferns far below.</p> - -<p>He who would find humming birds’ nests would do well to first take a -course in hunting those of the wood pewee. The two seem to have the same -type of mind when it comes to nest-building, though the wood pewee’s is -five times the size of the other and proportionally easy to find. Each -saddles his nest on a limb and covers it outside with gray lichens from -the trees nearby, so that from below it looks like merely a -lichen-covered knot. As the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span> wood pewee loves to sing his song in the -shadows of the upper levels of the deep pine wood, so he loves to look -down as he sings upon his nest on a limb below, usually twenty or more -feet from the ground.</p> - -<p>Such humming birds’ nests as I have found have been made of fern wool or -the pappus of the blooms of dandelions or other compositæ just compacted -together and lichen-covered. The wood pewee builds of moss and fine -fiber, grass and rootlets, using the lichen covering for the outside, as -does the humming bird. It is a beautiful nest, a rustic home which -perfectly fits the dead pine limb on which you often find it, and its -surroundings, a nest as rustic as the grove and the bird.</p> - -<p>These two, the tanager and the wood pewee, I know are already picking -the limbs for their nests and having an eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span> out for available material, -for I know that they have had the first word that summer is here. I got -it myself from the southerly slope of Blue Hill, a spot to which I like -to climb as the lookout goes to the cross-trees, whence the southerly -outlook is far and you may sight the sails of spring or summer while yet -they are hull down below the horizon of the season.</p> - -<p>All creatures love to climb. Here along the rocky path the young -gerardias have found a foothold, and put forth strange sinuate or -pinnatifid leaves that puzzle you to identify them until you note the -last year’s stalks and seed-pods, now empty but persistent. Exuberance -and young life often take frolicsome ways of expending their vitality. -When the gerardias are two months older, and have settled down to the -growing of those wonderful yellow bells which fill the woodland with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span> -golden delight, their stem leaves will lose all this riot of outline and -coloration and settle down to plain, smooth-edged green. The blossoms -may need a foil, but will brook no rival on their own stem.</p> - -<p>The path that I take to my southerly looking masthead soon leaves the -gerardias behind. They need alluvium and a certain fertility and -moisture, and the crevices of the rock are not for them. There as I -climb among the cedars I pass the withered stalks of the saxifrage that -a month ago made the crevices white. Now only an occasional belated -blossom, scraggly and worn as if with dissipation, seems hastening to -reach oblivion with its fellows.</p> - -<p>But the wild columbine still holds horns of honey plenty for the sipping -of moth and butterfly, whose proboscides are long enough to reach the -ultimate tip where it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span> is stored. You may have a mouthful of honey if -you will bite off the tiny bulbs at the very ends of these -cornucopias,—a honey that has a fragrant sweetness that is unsurpassed -in flavor. Nor are the bees behind you in knowledge. They may not reach -the honey through the mouth of the horn, but they, too, can bite, and -many a flower shows it, now that their season is passing. Their coral -red and yellow glows with a rich radiance in the dusk under the cedars, -and they have climbed far higher than the gerardias.</p> - -<p>With the columbine, right up onto the very ledges themselves, have come -the barberry bushes. They must have seen the summer coming, and they -were the first to pass the hint on to me, for they have hung themselves -with all the gold in their jewel boxes, pendant racemes of exquisite -jewel work everywhere, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span> sprays of tender green grouping and -swaying in the wind, nodding and smiling, decked with earrings, -brooches, bracelets, and beads, all cunningly wrought of solid gold. -Barberry bushes love the rough pasture and even these rougher rocks, yet -they bring to them only grace and elegance and refinement, and receive -no hint of uncouthness or barbarity from their surroundings.</p> - -<p>These and a score of other herbs and shrubs clamber blithely upward and -clothe the rocky hillside with beauty, but the queen of the place is the -flowering dogwood. No other shrub has such airy blitheness of decorative -beauty. There is something about the set of the leaves that suggests -green-clad sprites about to dance for joy, but now every dainty branch -is as if thronged with white butterflies, poising for flight. No other -plant shows such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span> spirituality of delight as this now that it knows -that the summer is here. On the plain below the poplars shimmer and -quiver translucent green in the ecstasy of young leaves all tremulous -with happiness and the tingle of surgent sap. Yet neither tree nor shrub -nor any flowering herb seems to so stand on tiptoe for a flight into the -blue heaven above, blossom and leaf and branch and trunk, as does this -dainty delight of the shady hillside, the flowering dogwood.</p> - -<p>The summer does not explode as does the spring. The spring promises and -delays, approaches and withdraws, coquettes until we are in despair, -then suddenly swoops upon us and smothers in the delight of her full -presence. But the summer comes genially and graciously forward, -announced by a thousand heralds. To-day you could not find on hillside -or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> in lowland a spot that did not glow with the fact. On a bare ledge, -where the gnarled cedars have held the rim of the hill all winter long -against the gales and zero weather, I thought I might find a pause in -the universal story. Here should be only gray rock and a rim of brown -cedars, as much the furniture of winter as of summer. But I had -forgotten the outlook.</p> - -<p>On the fields far below, the tall grass, so green that it was fairly -blue in comparison with the yellow of young leaves, rushed forward -before the wind like a green flood of roaring water. Across the plain -and up the slopes it poured as the waters of Niagara pour down the slope -to the brink of the fall. Even the white foam of the rapids was -simulated in the silvery-green flashes that raced with the breeze. Only -summer grass thus flows.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span> No other season can give it such vivid motion.</p> - -<p>To me there came too a dozen summer messengers. Two or three varieties -of transparent winged dragon flies swirled in and out of the little bay -of sunshine. A fulvous and black butterfly lighted on the rock at my -feet and gently, rhythmically raised and lowered his wings. It was as -expressive of satisfaction as smacking the lips would be. Again and -again he slipped away and then sailed back, leaving me still in doubt as -to whether he was the lovely little <i>Melitæa harrisi</i>, or <i>Phyciodes -nycteis</i>, both of which are very solemn names for pretty little -butterflies which fly about as a signal that summer is already beginning -to glow about us.</p> - -<p>By and by the joy of the spot seemed to soothe him and he settled down -for a longer stay, folding his wings and proving<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span> to me that he was -<i>nycteis</i> without question, for there on his hind wing was distinctly -the mark of the silver crescent. Butterflies should have been popular -when knighthood was in flower, for each carries the heraldic blazon of -his house where all may see.</p> - -<p>Soon I found my seat on the rock disputed by a pair of dusky-wings. I -had found the earlier dusky-wings of the woodland paths skittish and -unwilling to let me get to close quarters with them. This may have been -because I made the advances. I had been seated but a moment when this -pair that had dashed madly away at my approach dashed as madly back and -very nearly lighted on me, then they dashed away again.</p> - -<p>Soon, however, they came back in more friendly fashion and settled down -within reach of my hand, where I could observe<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span> them at leisure. Then I -saw that this was to me a new variety of the dusky-wing, the <i>Thanaos -persius</i> instead of <i>Thanaos brizo</i>, as I had thought. <i>Persius’</i> -dusky-wing had climbed the hill as I had, to see if summer was coming, -and had found it here. The pale corydalis which nodded columbine-like -heads of softest coral red and yellow knew it too, and drowsed in the -sunshine as did the butterflies, but I went on, seeking more evidence.</p> - -<p>On the shore of Hoosic-whissic Pond a wood thrush sits on her nest in a -green-brier clump, within ten feet of noisy picnickers. Bravely she sits -and shields her eggs, nor does she stir for all the riot about her. I -poked my head within the tangle till my face was within two feet of her, -and still she did not move. Her throat swelled a little, and a -questioning look came into her eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span></p> - -<p>The wood thrush is a shy bird at ordinary times, but not when sitting on -her nest. Then she seems to suddenly acquire a modest boldness that is -as becoming as the gentle shyness of other times. We looked at one -another in mutual friendliness. I noted the bright cinnamon brown of the -head fading on the back to a soft olive brown, the whole having the -smoothness and perfect fit of a lady’s glove. The white throat and some -of the black markings on the white breast were visible above the rim of -the nest, and her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful -attitude of all birds on the nest. Brooding maternity has the same -prayerful sweetness of attitude in the wood thrush that it has in the -human mother. It always suggests white hands clasped and raised in -prayer and thanksgiving.</p> - -<p>While I watched the wood thrush, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span> quick gleam of gold and black caught -my eye as it danced by in the sunshine outside the thicket. Here was a -promise of summer, indeed, and I followed it on, leaving the brooding -thrush to her happiness. It led across the open, sandy plain to the -south, and into the deep wood beyond. On the way the cinquefoil and -buttercups, the strawberry blossoms and the running blackberries were -gay with fluttering little red butterflies, the coppers and the crescent -spots, and whites and blues, a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, but it -was not until I got into the deep golden shade of the dense wood that I -saw the fulfilment of the promise.</p> - -<p>Here in the glow of sunlight so strained and etherealized by passing -through fluttering green that it was all one mist of color, a vivid -heart of chrysoprase, I found the wood full of great yellow -butterflies,</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="ill_007" style="width: 425px;"> -<a href="images/i278.jpg"> -<img src="images/i278.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>Her bill pointed skyward in the trustful, prayerful -attitude of all birds on the nest</p></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span></p> - -<p class="nind">dozens of them dancing up and down in the soft radiance, and lighting to -put gorgeous yellow blossoms on twigs that could never put forth such -beauty again. Here was the summer, coming sedately through the -gold-green spaces of the wood with scores of golden spirits dancing -joyously about her. The “tiger swallowtail,” <i>Papilio turnus</i>, as the -lepidopterists have named him, is the most beautiful of all our -butterflies, painted in gold with black margins, and a single touch of -scarlet cunningly applied to each wing. All the glow of summer seems to -be concentrated in him, and his presence is the final test of hers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> - -<p class="c"><a href="#A">A</a>, -<a href="#B">B</a>, -<a href="#C">C</a>, -<a href="#D">D</a>, -<a href="#E">E</a>, -<a href="#F">F</a>, -<a href="#G">G</a>, -<a href="#H">H</a>, -<a href="#I">I</a>, -<a href="#J">J</a>, -<a href="#K">K</a>, -<a href="#L">L</a>, -<a href="#M">M</a>, -<a href="#N">N</a>, -<a href="#O">O</a>, -<a href="#P">P</a>, -<a href="#Q">Q</a>, -<a href="#R">R</a>, -<a href="#S">S</a>, -<a href="#T">T</a>, -<a href="#U">U</a>, -<a href="#V">V</a>, -<a href="#W">W</a>.</p> - -<p class="nind"> -<span class="lettre"><a name="A" id="A">A</a></span><br /> - -Actias luna, <a href="#page_57">57</a><br /> - -Adam, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Ajax, <a href="#page_238">238</a><br /> - -Alder, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_55">55</a>, <a href="#page_98">98</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a><br /> - -—— catkins, <a href="#page_37">37</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— red, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -Alice-in-Wonderland, <a href="#page_202">202</a><br /> - -Alligator, <a href="#page_216">216</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -—— snapper, <a href="#page_216">216</a><br /> - -Amazon, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> - -Angler, Compleat, <a href="#page_231">231</a><br /> - -Angle-wing, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -Angleworm, <a href="#page_221">221</a>, <a href="#page_222">222</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a>, <a href="#page_228">228</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a><br /> - -Ant, <a href="#page_228">228</a><br /> - -Antiopa vanessa, <a href="#page_62">62</a><br /> - -Apple tree, <a href="#page_18">18</a>, <a href="#page_19">19</a>, <a href="#page_43">43</a>, <a href="#page_137">137</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a>, <a href="#page_143">143</a><br /> - -Appomattox, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> - -April fool’s day, <a href="#page_5">5</a><br /> - -Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, <a href="#page_82">82</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a><br /> - -Arctic, <a href="#page_19">19</a>, <a href="#page_35">35</a>, <a href="#page_36">36</a>, <a href="#page_68">68</a><br /> - -—— circle, <a href="#page_5">5</a><br /> - -Ariel, <a href="#page_58">58</a>, <a href="#page_129">129</a><br /> - -Ark, <a href="#page_85">85</a><br /> - -Aster, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="B" id="B">B</a></span><br /> - -Babylon, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Bach, <a href="#page_172">172</a><br /> - -Bagdad, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Barberry, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_270">270</a>, <a href="#page_271">271</a><br /> - -Bayberry, <a href="#page_166">166</a><br /> - -Beagles, <a href="#page_43">43</a><br /> - -Bear, <a href="#page_79">79</a><br /> - -Beaver, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -Bee, <a href="#page_105">105</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— honey, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Bedlam, <a href="#page_43">43</a><br /> - -Beech, <a href="#page_79">79</a><br /> - -Benzoin, <a href="#page_53">53</a><br /> - -Berry bush, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -Birch, <a href="#page_11">11</a>, <a href="#page_75">75</a>, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_105">105</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> - -—— swamp, <a href="#page_125">125</a>, <a href="#page_180">180</a><br /> - -Bittern, <a href="#page_210">210</a>, <a href="#page_214">214</a>, <a href="#page_218">218</a><br /> - -Blackberry, running, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Blackbird, <a href="#page_50">50</a>, <a href="#page_73">73</a>, <a href="#page_74">74</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a><br /> - -Blueberry, swamp, <a href="#page_105">105</a><br /> - -Bluebirds, <a href="#page_18">18</a>, <a href="#page_19">19</a>, <a href="#page_32">32</a>, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_34">34</a>, <a href="#page_50">50</a>, <a href="#page_51">51</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a><br /> - -Boa-constrictor, <a href="#page_215">215</a><br /> - -Bobolinks, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -Bog-hobble, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -Bog-hopple, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -Borer, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -Bubo, <a href="#page_6">6</a><br /> - -—— virginianum, <a href="#page_4">4</a><br /> - -Bufflehead, <a href="#page_59">59</a>, <a href="#page_60">60</a><br /> - -Bulrushes, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -Bumblebee, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Buttercup, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Butterfly, angle-wing, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -—— brown, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -—— blue, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— common blue, <a href="#page_174">174</a><br /> - -—— Compton tortoise, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -—— coppers, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— crescent spot, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— dusky-wing, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_275">275</a>, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -—— Grapta, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -—— Grapta comma, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -—— Grapta interrogationis, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -—— hesperid, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— hesperidæ, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -—— hunters’, <a href="#page_141">141</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— Melitæa harrisi, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -—— mourning cloak, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— Nycteis, <a href="#page_275">275</a><br /> - -—— painted lady, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— Papilio turnus, <a href="#page_279">279</a><br /> - -—— Phyciodes nycteis, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -—— question mark, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— red, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— skipper, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -—— skipper, silver spotted, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -—— tiger swallowtail, <a href="#page_279">279</a><br /> - -—— white, <a href="#page_271">271</a>, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— yellow, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -—— Thanaos brizo, <a href="#page_244">244</a>, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -—— Thanaos persius, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -—— Vanessa antiopa, <a href="#page_62">62</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -—— Vanessa j-album, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -Buttonball, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Buttonbush, <a href="#page_85">85</a>, <a href="#page_86">86</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="C" id="C">C</a></span><br /> - -Callosamia promethea, <a href="#page_55">55</a><br /> - -Caribbean, <a href="#page_9">9</a><br /> - -Caspian, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> - -Cassandra, <a href="#page_177">177</a>, <a href="#page_203">203</a>, <a href="#page_204">204</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -Catbird, <a href="#page_181">181</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -Cæsar, <a href="#page_72">72</a><br /> - -Cecropia, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -Cedar, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_119">119</a>, <a href="#page_125">125</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a>, <a href="#page_213">213</a>, <a href="#page_214">214</a>, <a href="#page_245">245</a>, <a href="#page_269">269</a>, <a href="#page_270">270</a>, <a href="#page_273">273</a><br /> - -—— pasture, <a href="#page_48">48</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_196">196</a><br /> - -—— swamp, <a href="#page_209">209</a><br /> - -—— white, <a href="#page_209">209</a><br /> - -Cetraria, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -Chelydra serpentina, <a href="#page_216">216</a><br /> - -Cherry, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_264">264</a><br /> - -Cherry, wild, <a href="#page_12">12</a>, <a href="#page_53">53</a>, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -Chestnut, <a href="#page_56">56</a><br /> - -Chewink, <a href="#page_180">180</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a><br /> - -Chickadee, <a href="#page_75">75</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -Chickweed, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Chrysanthemum, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -Cicada, <a href="#page_266">266</a><br /> - -Cinquefoil, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Cladonia, <a href="#page_147">147</a><br /> - -—— brown-fruited, <a href="#page_147">147</a><br /> - -—— scarlet-crested, <a href="#page_147">147</a><br /> - -Cliff-dwellers, <a href="#page_84">84</a><br /> - -Clover, white, <a href="#page_205">205</a><br /> - -Columbine, wild, <a href="#page_269">269</a>, <a href="#page_270">270</a><br /> - -Columbus, <a href="#page_119">119</a><br /> - -Compositæ, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Compton tortoise, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -Conifers, <a href="#page_184">184</a><br /> - -Copper, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Corydalis, pale, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Cranberries, <a href="#page_203">203</a><br /> - -Creeper, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -—— black and white, <a href="#page_191">191</a><br /> - -Crescent spot, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Cromwell, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -Cudweed, <a href="#page_142">142</a><br /> - -Cymbifolium, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="D" id="D">D</a></span><br /> - -Daffodil, <a href="#page_25">25</a><br /> - -Dahlia, <a href="#page_39">39</a><br /> - -Daisy, <a href="#page_68">68</a><br /> - -Dandelion, <a href="#page_69">69</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_267">267</a><br /> - -Daphne, <a href="#page_99">99</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> - -—— mezereum, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> - -Darwin, <a href="#page_221">221</a>, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a><br /> - -“Dead March,” <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> - -Dog, wolf, <a href="#page_36">36</a><br /> - -Dogwood, flowering, <a href="#page_271">271</a>, <a href="#page_272">272</a><br /> - -Doone, Lorna, <a href="#page_94">94</a><br /> - -—— Valley, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Dove, turtle, <a href="#page_207">207</a><br /> - -Drake, <a href="#page_59">59</a><br /> - -Duck, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_34">34</a>, <a href="#page_59">59</a>, <a href="#page_60">60</a>, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> - -—— black, <a href="#page_59">59</a>, <a href="#page_78">78</a>, <a href="#page_84">84</a>, <a href="#page_85">85</a><br /> - -—— bufflehead, <a href="#page_59">59</a><br /> - -—— diver, <a href="#page_59">59</a><br /> - -—— goldeneyes, <a href="#page_34">34</a><br /> - -—— sheldrake, <a href="#page_78">78</a><br /> - -—— whistler, <a href="#page_34">34</a><br /> - -Dragon, <a href="#page_215">215</a>, <a href="#page_218">218</a><br /> - -—— flies, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -Dusky-wing, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="E" id="E">E</a></span><br /> - -Earthworm, <a href="#page_221">221</a>, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a><br /> - -Easter, <a href="#page_17">17</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_164">164</a><br /> - -Eden, <a href="#page_70">70</a>, <a href="#page_81">81</a><br /> - -Eel, <a href="#page_95">95</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a>, <a href="#page_231">231</a>, <a href="#page_232">232</a>, <a href="#page_233">233</a>, <a href="#page_235">235</a>, <a href="#page_236">236</a>, <a href="#page_237">237</a>, <a href="#page_239">239</a><br /> - -—— electric, <a href="#page_235">235</a><br /> - -Egrets, snowy, <a href="#page_243">243</a>, <a href="#page_244">244</a><br /> - -Elephant, <a href="#page_253">253</a><br /> - -Elm, <a href="#page_178">178</a><br /> - -Eskimo, <a href="#page_36">36</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a><br /> - -Es-Sindibad, <a href="#page_253">253</a><br /> - -Ethiopians, <a href="#page_13">13</a><br /> - -Euphrates, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_130">130</a>, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> - -Eurydice, <a href="#page_95">95</a><br /> - -Eve, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="F" id="F">F</a></span><br /> - -Faun, <a href="#page_177">177</a><br /> - -Federal Government, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Felis domesticatus, <a href="#page_248">248</a><br /> - -Fern, tree, <a href="#page_162">162</a><br /> - -—— cinnamon, <a href="#page_266">266</a><br /> - -Flicker, <a href="#page_75">75</a>, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -Flies, artificial, <a href="#page_222">222</a><br /> - -—— dragon, <a href="#page_223">223</a>, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -Flowering dogwood, <a href="#page_271">271</a>, <a href="#page_272">272</a><br /> - -Fox, <a href="#page_79">79</a>, <a href="#page_99">99</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_179">179</a><br /> - -Frog, <a href="#page_73">73</a>, <a href="#page_130">130</a><br /> - -—— green, <a href="#page_191">191</a><br /> - -—— hyla, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a><br /> - -—— leopard, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_195">195</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_206">206</a><br /> - -—— peepers, <a href="#page_129">129</a><br /> - -—— swamp tree, <a href="#page_162">162</a>, <a href="#page_164">164</a>, <a href="#page_174">174</a><br /> - -—— wood, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="G" id="G">G</a></span><br /> - -Garden, Mary, <a href="#page_229">229</a><br /> - -Gaul, <a href="#page_72">72</a><br /> - -Gettysburg, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> - -Gerardia, <a href="#page_268">268</a>, <a href="#page_269">269</a>, <a href="#page_270">270</a><br /> - -Goldeneyes, <a href="#page_34">34</a><br /> - -Goldenrod, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> - -Goldfinch, <a href="#page_52">52</a>, <a href="#page_172">172</a>, <a href="#page_174">174</a><br /> - -Grapta, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -—— comma, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -—— interrogationis, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> - -Grasshopper, <a href="#page_222">222</a><br /> - -Green-brier, <a href="#page_180">180</a><br /> - -Greenland, <a href="#page_9">9</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="H" id="H">H</a></span><br /> - -Hampstead Ponds, <a href="#page_111">111</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Hardhack, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Hare, March, <a href="#page_43">43</a>, <a href="#page_44">44</a>, <a href="#page_45">45</a>, <a href="#page_63">63</a><br /> - -Havre, <a href="#page_8">8</a><br /> - -Hawk, <a href="#page_78">78</a>, <a href="#page_247">247</a><br /> - -Hawthorne, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Hemlock, <a href="#page_89">89</a><br /> - -Hepatica, <a href="#page_13">13</a>, <a href="#page_14">14</a>, <a href="#page_16">16</a>, <a href="#page_63">63</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Heron, <a href="#page_246">246</a>, <a href="#page_249">249</a><br /> - -—— black-crowned, night, <a href="#page_243">243</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a>, <a href="#page_247">247</a><br /> - -—— great blue, <a href="#page_252">252</a>, <a href="#page_253">253</a>, <a href="#page_254">254</a>, <a href="#page_255">255</a>, <a href="#page_256">256</a><br /> - -—— little green, <a href="#page_256">256</a>, <a href="#page_258">258</a><br /> - -Heron, night, <a href="#page_244">244</a>, <a href="#page_245">245</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a>, <a href="#page_247">247</a>, <a href="#page_252">252</a><br /> - -Hesperids, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Hesperidæ, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -Hill, Blue, <a href="#page_267">267</a><br /> - -—— Great Blue, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -Hook of Holland, <a href="#page_8">8</a><br /> - -Hoosic-whissic Pond, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Huckleberry, <a href="#page_48">48</a>, <a href="#page_158">158</a><br /> - -Hudson’s Bay, <a href="#page_67">67</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a>, <a href="#page_171">171</a><br /> - -Humboldt, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> - -Hummingbird, <a href="#page_266">266</a>, <a href="#page_267">267</a><br /> - -Hunter, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Hyla, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_205">205</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="I" id="I">I</a></span><br /> - -Indian, <a href="#page_73">73</a>, <a href="#page_116">116</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a>, <a href="#page_206">206</a>, <a href="#page_216">216</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -—— bogies, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -—— Ponkapog, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -Ironsides, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="J" id="J">J</a></span><br /> - -Jay, blue, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_169">169</a><br /> - -—— Canada, <a href="#page_5">5</a><br /> - -Jericho, <a href="#page_73">73</a><br /> - -Joepye weed, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="K" id="K">K</a></span><br /> - -Khayyam, Omar, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Kingbird, <a href="#page_191">191</a><br /> - -Kingfisher, <a href="#page_50">50</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a>, <a href="#page_193">193</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="L" id="L">L</a></span><br /> - -Lamphrey, <a href="#page_231">231</a><br /> - -Larch, <a href="#page_184">184</a>, <a href="#page_186">186</a><br /> - -Lark, meadow, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> - -Laurel, mountain, <a href="#page_85">85</a><br /> - -Lent, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Lichen, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -Lilac, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> - -—— purple, <a href="#page_113">113</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Lincoln, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> - -Lorna Doone, <a href="#page_94">94</a><br /> - -Luna, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="M" id="M">M</a></span><br /> - -Mab, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -Macbeth, <a href="#page_172">172</a><br /> - -Mangrove, <a href="#page_85">85</a>, <a href="#page_86">86</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Maple, <a href="#page_13">13</a>, <a href="#page_75">75</a>, <a href="#page_105">105</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_194">194</a><br /> - -Marsh grass, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -—— St. John’s-wort, <a href="#page_77">77</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -Meadow lark, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> - -Meadow-sweet, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Melitæa harrisi, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -Memorial day, <a href="#page_71">71</a><br /> - -Milkweed, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> - -Mole, <a href="#page_229">229</a><br /> - -Moose, <a href="#page_79">79</a><br /> - -Moss, cedar, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— cetraria, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -—— cushion, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> - -—— lichen, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -—— Mnium, dotted, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> - -—— Mnium punctatum, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> - -—— Parmelia, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -—— Peat, <a href="#page_201">201</a>, <a href="#page_246">246</a><br /> - -—— Sphagnum, <a href="#page_89">89</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -—— Sphagnum acutifolia, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— Sphagnum cymbifolium, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— Sphagnum squarrosum, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— Sphagnum stictas, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -Moth, callosamia promethia, <a href="#page_54">54</a><br /> - -—— luna, <a href="#page_57">57</a><br /> - -—— spice-bush silk, <a href="#page_53">53</a><br /> - -—— Polyphemus, <a href="#page_57">57</a>, <a href="#page_58">58</a>, <a href="#page_60">60</a><br /> - -—— Promethea, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -—— Telia polyphemus, <a href="#page_56">56</a><br /> - -Mountain laurel, <a href="#page_85">85</a><br /> - -Mourning cloak, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Mullein, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_151">151</a><br /> - -Muskrat, <a href="#page_212">212</a>, <a href="#page_213">213</a>, <a href="#page_218">218</a><br /> - -Myles, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="N" id="N">N</a></span><br /> - -Neptune, <a href="#page_249">249</a><br /> - -Neptune’s trident, <a href="#page_93">93</a><br /> - -Nesæa, <a href="#page_200">200</a><br /> - -New England, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_159">159</a>, <a href="#page_225">225</a><br /> - -Newfoundland, <a href="#page_9">9</a><br /> - -Niagara, <a href="#page_273">273</a><br /> - -Nicaragua, <a href="#page_179">179</a><br /> - -Nile, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> - -Nimbus, <a href="#page_67">67</a><br /> - -Norman conquest, <a href="#page_72">72</a><br /> - -Nycteis, <a href="#page_275">275</a><br /> - -Nycticorax nycticorax nævius, <a href="#page_243">243</a>, <a href="#page_251">251</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="O" id="O">O</a></span><br /> - -Oak, <a href="#page_45">45</a>, <a href="#page_98">98</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> - -—— scrub, <a href="#page_13">13</a>, <a href="#page_44">44</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_179">179</a><br /> - -“Old Farmer’s Almanack,” <a href="#page_19">19</a><br /> - -Orchid, <a href="#page_39">39</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Orinoco, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Oriole, Baltimore, <a href="#page_178">178</a>, <a href="#page_179">179</a><br /> - -Ovenbird, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -Owl, barred, <a href="#page_5">5</a>, <a href="#page_78">78</a><br /> - -—— horned, <a href="#page_3">3</a>, <a href="#page_4">4</a>, <a href="#page_5">5</a>, <a href="#page_6">6</a>, <a href="#page_9">9</a>, <a href="#page_18">18</a>, <a href="#page_19">19</a>, <a href="#page_44">44</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="P" id="P">P</a></span><br /> - -Painted lady, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Pan, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> - -Papilio turnus, <a href="#page_279">279</a><br /> - -Paradise, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Partridge, <a href="#page_4">4</a><br /> - -Parmelia, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -—— conspersa, <a href="#page_83">83</a><br /> - -Pasture Pines Hotel, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_34">34</a><br /> - -Peat, <a href="#page_89">89</a>, <a href="#page_199">199</a><br /> - -—— moss, <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> - -Peepers, <a href="#page_129">129</a><br /> - -Perch, white, <a href="#page_59">59</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -Perseus, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Persian, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Peterborough River, <a href="#page_239">239</a><br /> - -Peter the Hermit, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> - -Phyciodes nycteis, <a href="#page_274">274</a><br /> - -Pickerel, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> - -—— weed, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> - -Pickwick Club, <a href="#page_111">111</a><br /> - -Pickwick, Samuel, <a href="#page_111">111</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Pine, <a href="#page_24">24</a>, <a href="#page_25">25</a>, <a href="#page_27">27</a>, <a href="#page_29">29</a>, <a href="#page_32">32</a>, <a href="#page_60">60</a>, <a href="#page_61">61</a>, <a href="#page_62">62</a>, <a href="#page_63">63</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a>, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_170">170</a>, <a href="#page_265">265</a><br /> - -—— pitch, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> - -Pineapple, <a href="#page_186">186</a><br /> - -Plato, <a href="#page_247">247</a><br /> - -Plutonian, <a href="#page_97">97</a><br /> - -Plymouth, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -Polo, Marco, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -Polyphemus, <a href="#page_57">57</a>, <a href="#page_58">58</a>, <a href="#page_60">60</a><br /> - -Ponkapog brook, <a href="#page_112">112</a><br /> - -Ponkapog pond, <a href="#page_79">79</a>, <a href="#page_84">84</a>, <a href="#page_111">111</a>, <a href="#page_199">199</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -Poplar, <a href="#page_272">272</a><br /> - -Poseidon, <a href="#page_93">93</a><br /> - -Pride, <a href="#page_231">231</a><br /> - -Priscilla, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> - -Promethea, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -Puck, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -Pumpkin, <a href="#page_228">228</a><br /> - -Puritans, <a href="#page_204">204</a>, <a href="#page_248">248</a><br /> - -Pussy-willows, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="Q" id="Q">Q</a></span><br /> - -“Quawk,” <a href="#page_243">243</a><br /> - -Question mark, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="R" id="R">R</a></span><br /> - -Rabbit, <a href="#page_4">4</a><br /> - -—— Welsh, <a href="#page_202">202</a><br /> - -Rana clamitans, <a href="#page_191">191</a><br /> - -Rattlesnake, <a href="#page_79">79</a><br /> - -Ridd, John, <a href="#page_94">94</a>, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Robin, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_52">52</a>, <a href="#page_74">74</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_178">178</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_226">226</a>, <a href="#page_227">227</a>, <a href="#page_228">228</a>, <a href="#page_230">230</a>, <a href="#page_263">263</a><br /> - -—— snow, <a href="#page_68">68</a>, <a href="#page_69">69</a><br /> - -Robin Hood, <a href="#page_171">171</a><br /> - -Roc, <a href="#page_253">253</a><br /> - -Rookery, <a href="#page_23">23</a><br /> - -Roosevelt, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="S" id="S">S</a></span><br /> - -Saki, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> - -Salmon, <a href="#page_91">91</a><br /> - -Samia cecropia, <a href="#page_10">10</a>, <a href="#page_13">13</a>, <a href="#page_20">20</a>, <a href="#page_55">55</a>, <a href="#page_56">56</a><br /> - -Saskatchewan, <a href="#page_174">174</a><br /> - -Sassafras, <a href="#page_53">53</a><br /> - -Saul, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> - -Saxifrage, <a href="#page_71">71</a>, <a href="#page_269">269</a><br /> - -Saxons, <a href="#page_13">13</a><br /> - -Schumann, <a href="#page_172">172</a><br /> - -Shadbush, <a href="#page_158">158</a>, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -Shagbark tree, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -Shakespeare, <a href="#page_245">245</a><br /> - -Skipper, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_223">223</a><br /> - -Skunk-cabbage, <a href="#page_39">39</a><br /> - -Smilax, <a href="#page_105">105</a><br /> - -Snake, water, <a href="#page_95">95</a>, <a href="#page_96">96</a>, <a href="#page_97">97</a><br /> - -Snowdrop, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Snow, robin, <a href="#page_68">68</a>, <a href="#page_69">69</a><br /> - -Sousa, <a href="#page_229">229</a><br /> - -Southampton, <a href="#page_8">8</a><br /> - -Sparrow, <a href="#page_173">173</a><br /> - -—— chipping, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -—— fox, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_180">180</a><br /> - -—— song, <a href="#page_32">32</a>, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_34">34</a>, <a href="#page_36">36</a>, <a href="#page_50">50</a>, <a href="#page_51">51</a>, <a href="#page_63">63</a>, <a href="#page_130">130</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -—— vesper, <a href="#page_130">130</a><br /> - -Sphagnum, <a href="#page_89">89</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> - -—— acutifolia, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— cymbifolium, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -—— squarrosum, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> - -Spicebush, <a href="#page_195">195</a>, <a href="#page_196">196</a><br /> - -Spirea formentosa, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -—— salicifolia, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> - -Squirrel, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -—— red, <a href="#page_11">11</a>, <a href="#page_125">125</a><br /> - -—— gray, <a href="#page_11">11</a><br /> - -Sticta, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> - -St. John’s-wort, marsh, <a href="#page_79">79</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> - -Strawberry, <a href="#page_186">186</a>, <a href="#page_264">264</a>, <a href="#page_278">278</a><br /> - -Suckers, <a href="#page_90">90</a>, <a href="#page_92">92</a>, <a href="#page_96">96</a>, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Swallow, barn, <a href="#page_196">196</a><br /> - -Swamp, cedar, <a href="#page_19">19</a><br /> - -—— Pigeon, <a href="#page_3">3</a>, <a href="#page_6">6</a><br /> - -Sweet fern, <a href="#page_165">165</a>, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a><br /> - -Sweet gale, <a href="#page_165">165</a>, <a href="#page_166">166</a>, <a href="#page_167">167</a>, <a href="#page_173">173</a>, <a href="#page_174">174</a><br /> - -Switzerland, <a href="#page_252">252</a><br /> - -Sycorax, <a href="#page_245">245</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="T" id="T">T</a></span><br /> - -Talbot plains, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -Tanager, <a href="#page_263">263</a>, <a href="#page_265">265</a>, <a href="#page_267">267</a><br /> - -—— scarlet, <a href="#page_264">264</a><br /> - -Telia polyphemus, <a href="#page_56">56</a><br /> - -Terrapin, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -Thames, <a href="#page_231">231</a><br /> - -Thanaos brizo, <a href="#page_224">224</a>, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Thanaos persius, <a href="#page_276">276</a><br /> - -Thoroughwort, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -Thrush, <a href="#page_180">180</a>, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -—— brown, <a href="#page_179">179</a>, <a href="#page_180">180</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a><br /> - -—— wood, <a href="#page_276">276</a>, <a href="#page_277">277</a><br /> - -Tibet, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> - -Tiger swallowtail, <a href="#page_279">279</a><br /> - -Tigris, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> - -Titania, <a href="#page_58">58</a><br /> - -Tropics, <a href="#page_7">7</a><br /> - -Tulips, <a href="#page_37">37</a><br /> - -Turtle, <a href="#page_95">95</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a>, <a href="#page_207">207</a>, <a href="#page_208">208</a>, <a href="#page_209">209</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -—— dove, <a href="#page_207">207</a><br /> - -—— mock, <a href="#page_202">202</a><br /> - -—— snapping, <a href="#page_216">216</a>, <a href="#page_217">217</a><br /> - -—— spotted, <a href="#page_207">207</a>, <a href="#page_218">218</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="U" id="U">U</a></span><br /> - -Usnea barbata, <a href="#page_12">12</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="V" id="V">V</a></span><br /> - -Vanessa antiopa, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> - -—— j-album, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> - -Viburnum, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> - -Violets, <a href="#page_15">15</a>, <a href="#page_68">68</a>, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> - -—— dwarf blue, <a href="#page_71">71</a><br /> - -Vireo, warbling, <a href="#page_77">77</a><br /> - -<br /> -<span class="lettre"><a name="W" id="W">W</a></span><br /> - -Walnut, <a href="#page_57">57</a><br /> - -Walrus, <a href="#page_203">203</a><br /> - -Walton, Izaak, <a href="#page_231">231</a>, <a href="#page_239">239</a><br /> - -Warbler, <a href="#page_211">211</a><br /> - -Washington, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> - -Waterloo, <a href="#page_92">92</a><br /> - -Water-lily, <a href="#page_202">202</a><br /> - -—— parsnip, <a href="#page_190">190</a><br /> - -—— snake, <a href="#page_95">95</a>, <a href="#page_96">96</a>, <a href="#page_97">97</a><br /> - -West of England’s moors, <a href="#page_94">94</a><br /> - -Wheeler place, <a href="#page_24">24</a><br /> - -Whip-poor-will, <a href="#page_261">261</a>, <a href="#page_262">262</a>, <a href="#page_263">263</a>, <a href="#page_265">265</a><br /> - -Whistlers, <a href="#page_34">34</a><br /> - -Willow, <a href="#page_13">13</a>, <a href="#page_17">17</a>, <a href="#page_32">32</a>, <a href="#page_33">33</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_187">187</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> - -—— pussy, <a href="#page_98">98</a><br /> - -Woodchuck, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> - -Woodcock, <a href="#page_5">5</a><br /> - -Woodpecker, <a href="#page_75">75</a>, <a href="#page_76">76</a><br /> - -—— downy, <a href="#page_75">75</a><br /> - -Wood pewee, <a href="#page_265">265</a>, <a href="#page_266">266</a>, <a href="#page_267">267</a><br /> - -Wright, Orville, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> -</p> - -<hr class="full" /> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODLAND PATHS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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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