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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/880-h.zip b/880-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..24b53e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/880-h.zip diff --git a/880-h/880-h.htm b/880-h/880-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5b786a --- /dev/null +++ b/880-h/880-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1157 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + My Garden Acquaintance, by James Russell Lowell + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's My Garden Acquaintance, by James Russell Lowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Garden Acquaintance + +Author: James Russell Lowell + +Release Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #880] +Last Updated: February 4, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By James Russell Lowell + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's + "Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with + years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I + found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple + expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes + you out of doors. In our broiling July weather one can walk out with this + genially garrulous Fellow of Oriel and find refreshment instead of + fatigue. You have no trouble in keeping abreast of him as he ambles along + on his hobby-horse, now pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to watch + the motions of a bird or an insect, or to bag a specimen for the Honorable + Daines Barrington or Mr. Pennant. In simplicity of taste and natural + refinement he reminds one of Walton; in tenderness toward what he would + have called the brute creation, of Cowper. I do not know whether his + descriptions of scenery are good or not, but they have made me familiar + with his neighborhood. Since I first read him, I have walked over some of + his favorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes rather than by + any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book has also the + delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never to have had any + harder work to do than to study the habits of his feathered + fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on the wall. His + volumes are the journal of Adam in Paradise, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." +</pre> + <p> + It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It is vastly + better than to + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "See great Diocletian walk + In the Salonian garden's noble shade," +</pre> + <p> + for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the noises of Rome, + while here the world has no entrance. No rumor of the revolt of the + American Colonies seems to have reached him. "The natural term of an hog's + life" has more interest for him than that of an empire. Burgoyne may + surrender and welcome; of what consequence is <i>that</i> compared with + the fact that we can explain the odd tumbling of rooks in the air by their + turning over "to scratch themselves with one claw"? All the couriers in + Europe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White's little + Chartreuse;(1) but the arrival of the house-martin a day earlier or later + than last year is a piece of news worth sending express to all his + correspondents. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>La Grande Chartreuse</i> was the original Carthusian monastery in + France, where the most austere privacy was maintained. + </p> + <p> + Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent humor, so much the + more delicious because unsuspected by the author. How pleasant is his + innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, and still more of + the Selbornian, <i>fauna!</i> I believe he would gladly have consented to + be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that means the occasional + presence within the parish limits of either of these anthropophagous + brutes could have been established. He brags of no fine society, but is + plainly a little elated by "having considerable acquaintance with a tame + brown owl." Most of us have known our share of owls, but few can boast of + intimacy with a feathered one. The great events of Mr. White's life, too, + have that disproportionate importance which is always humorous. To think + of his hands having actually been though worthy (as neither Willoughby's + nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted plover, the <i>Charadrius himaniopus,</i> + with no back toe, and therefore "liable, in speculation, to perpetual + vacillations"! I wonder, by the way, if metaphysicians have no hind toes. + In 1770 he makes the acquaintance in Sussex of "an old family tortoise," + which had then been domesticated for thirty years. It is clear that he + fell in love with it at first sight. We have no means of tracing the + growth of his passion; but in 1780 we find him eloping with its object in + a post-chaise. "The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it + that, when I turned it out in a border, it walked twice down to the bottom + of my garden." It reads like a Court Journal: "Yesterday morning H.R.H. + the Princess Alice took an airing of half an hour on the terrace of + Windsor Castle." This tortoise might have been a member of the Royal + Society, if he could have condescended to so ignoble an ambition. It had + but just been discovered that a surface inclined at a certain angle with + the plane of the horizon took more of the sun's rays. The tortoise had + always known this (though he unostentatiously made no parade of it), and + used accordingly to tilt himself up against the garden-wall in the autumn. + He seems to have been more of a philosopher than even Mr. White himself, + caring for nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when it rained, or the + sun was too hot, and to bury himself alive before frost,—a + four-footed Diogenes, who carried his tub on his back. + </p> + <p> + There are moods in which this kind of history is infinitely refreshing. + These creatures whom we affect to look down upon as the drudges of + instinct are members of a commonwealth whose constitution rests on + immovable bases, never any need of reconstruction there! <i>They</i> never + dream of settling it by vote that eight hours are equal to ten, or that + one creature is as clever as another and no more. <i>They</i> do not use + their poor wits in regulating God's clocks, nor think they cannot go + astray so long as they carry their guide-board about with them,—a + delusion we often practise upon ourselves with our high and mighty reason, + that admirable finger-post which points every way and always right. It is + good for us now and then to converse with a world like Mr. White's, where + Man is the least important of animals. But one who, like me, has always + lived in the country and always on the same spot, is drawn to his book by + other occult sympathies. Do we not share his indignation at that stupid + Martin who had graduated his thermometer no lower than 4o above zero of + Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest weather ever known the mercury basely + absconded into the bulb, and left us to see the victory slip through our + fingers, just as they were closing upon it? No man, I suspect, ever lived + long in the country without being bitten by these meteorological + ambitions. He likes to be hotter and colder, to have been more deeply + snowed up, to have more trees and larger blow down than his neighbors. + With us descendants of the Puritans especially, these weather-competitions + supply the abnegated excitement of the race-course. Men learn to value + thermometers of the true imaginative temperament, capable of prodigious + elations and corresponding dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked + 98o in the shade, my high water mark, higher by one degree than I had ever + seen it before. I happened to meet a neighbor; as we mopped our brows at + each other, he told me that he had just cleared 100o, and I went home a + beaten man. I had not felt the heat before, save as a beautiful + exaggeration of sunshine; but now it oppressed me with the prosaic + vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic intensity became all at once + rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did, + for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our own); + but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald Mercury, + standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse something of + this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in these + mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a true + country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first question + on coming down of a morning was, like Barabas's, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill?" +</pre> + <p> + It is an innocent and healthful employment of the mind, distracting one + from too continual study of himself, and leading him to dwell rather upon + the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did the wind back round, + or go about with the sun?" is a rational question that bears not remotely + on the making of hay and the prosperity of crops. I have little doubt that + the regulated observation of the vane in many different places, and the + interchange of results by telegraph, would put the weather, as it were, in + our power, by betraying its ambushes before it is ready to give the + assault. At first sight, nothing seems more drolly trivial than the lives + of those whose single achievement is to record the wind and the + temperature three times a day. Yet such men are doubtless sent into the + world for this special end, and perhaps there is no kind of accurate + observation, whatever its object, that has not its final use and value for + some one or other. It is even to be hoped that the speculations of our + newspaper editors and their myriad correspondence upon the signs of the + political atmosphere may also fill their appointed place in a + well-regulated universe, if it be only that of supplying so many more + jack-o'-lanterns to the future historian. Nay, the observations on finance + of an M.C. whose sole knowledge of the subject has been derived from a + life-long success in getting a living out of the public without paying any + equivalent therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter to some + explorer of our <i>cloaca maxima,</i> whenever it is cleansed. + </p> + <p> + For many years I have been in the habit of noting down some of the leading + events of my embowered solitude, such as the coming of certain birds and + the like,—a kind of <i>memoires pour servir,</i> after the fashion + of White, rather than properly digested natural history. I thought it not + impossible that a few simple stories of my winged acquaintances might be + found entertaining by persons of kindred taste. + </p> + <p> + There is a common notion that animals are better meteorologists than men, + and I have little doubt that in immediate weather-wisdom they have the + advantage of our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a sailor or + shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing that leads me to + believe their minds capable of erecting the horoscope of a whole season, + and letting us know beforehand whether the winter will be severe or the + summer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the weather himself + does not always know very long in advance whether he is to draw an order + for hot or cold, dry or moist, and the musquash is scarce likely to be + wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in the coming of the + song-sparrow between a very early and a very backward spring. This very + year I saw the linnets at work thatching, just before a snow-storm which + covered the ground several inches deep for a number of days. They struck + work and left us for a while, no doubt in search of food. Birds frequently + perish from sudden changes in our whimsical spring weather of which they + had no foreboding. More than thirty years ago, a cherry-tree, then in full + bloom, near my window, was covered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall + of mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many of them. It should + seem that their coming was dated by the height of the sun, which betrays + them into unthrifty matrimony; + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;"(1) +</pre> + <p> + but their going is another matter. The chimney swallows leave us early, + for example, apparently so soon as their latest fledglings are firm enough + of wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is before them. On the other + hand the wild-geese probably do not leave the North till they are frozen + out, for I have heard their bugles sounding southward so late as the + middle of December. What may be called local migrations are doubtless + dictated by the chances of food. I have once been visited by large flights + of cross-bills; and whenever the snow lies long and deep on the ground, a + flock of cedar-birds comes in mid-winter to eat the berries on my + hawthorns. I have never been quite able to fathom the local, or rather + geographical partialities of birds. Never before this summer (1870) have + the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in my orchard; though I + always know where to find them within half a mile. The rose-breasted + grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline (three miles away), yet I + never saw one here till last July, when I found a female busy among my + raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was <i>prospecting</i> with + a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on the whole, to think + well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another bed if it would help to + win over so delightful a neighbor. + </p> + <p> + (1) Chaucer's <i>Canterbury Tales, Prologue,</i> line 11. + </p> + <p> + The return of the robin is commonly announced by the newspapers, like that + of eminent or notorious people to a watering-place, as the first authentic + notification of spring. And such his appearance in the orchard and garden + undoubtedly is. But, in spite of his name of migratory thrush, he stays + with us all winter, and I have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 + degrees below zero of Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within,(1) like + Emerson's Titmouse, and as cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation + among people who do not value themselves less for being fond of cherries. + There is, I admit, a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of + the Bloomfield sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of + the Poor Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his + energy is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of + lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. + But for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, I would not exchange him + for all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever + faults, he has not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the + children of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit than could be distilled + from many successive committees of the Horticultural Society, and he eats + with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He feels and freely + exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the earliest mess of green + peas; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine. But if he get also the + lion's share of the raspberries, he is a great planter, and sows those + wild ones in the woods that solace the pedestrian, and give a momentary + calm even to the jaded victims of the White Hills. He keeps a strict eye + over one's fruit, and knows to a shade of purple when your grapes have + cooked long enough in the sun. During the severe drought a few years ago + the robins wholly vanished from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for + three weeks, meanwhile a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, + seemed to find the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its + sweet Argos across the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair + bunches. I watched them from day to day till they should have secreted + sugar enough from the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I would + celebrate my vintage the next morning. But the robins, too, had somehow + kept note of them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into the + promised land, before I was stirring. When I went with my basket at least + a dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and + alighting on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill remarks about me + of a derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not Wellington's + veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not Federals or Confederates + were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral chickens. I was + keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the fair Fidele with, but the + robins made them a profounder secret to her than I had meant. The tattered + remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest-home. How paltry it looked at + the bottom of my basket,—as if a humming-bird had laid her egg in an + eagle's nest! I could not help laughing; and the robins seemed to join + heartily in the merriment. There was a native grape-vine close by, blue + with its less refined abundance, but my cunning thieves preferred the + foreign flavor. Could I tax them with want of taste? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +(1) "For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin." + <i>The Titmouse,</i> lines 75, 76. +</pre> + <p> + The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like primitive + fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to the world, + is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough + then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But when they come + after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle their voices, and + their faint <i>pip pip pop!</i> sounds far away at the bottom of the + garden, where they know I shall not suspect them of robbing the great + black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.(1) They are feathered Pecksniffs, + to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts, that look rather shabby + in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against the dark green of the + fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken all the life of an + earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit out of a steak, and then + gulped him, they stand up in honest self-confidence, expand their red + waistcoats with the virtuous air of a lobby member, and outface you with + an eye that calmly challenges inquiry. "Do <i>I</i> look like a bird that + knows the flavor of raw vermin? I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. + Ask any robin if he ever ate anything less ascetic than the frugal berry + of the juniper, and he will answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an + open bosom cover such depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was + redder at that very moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, + he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds + of berries, and is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how + omnivorous he is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and + that Nature seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to + vegetation, perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my + own part, I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than + many berries. + </p> + <p> + (1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one of the + sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the most + beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L. + </p> + <p> + For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a good + singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has the merit of + keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird of my familiar + acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have built in a + gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have known the male to sing + almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer till twilight + duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent, but all have a + delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were, rehearsing their song in + an undertone, which makes their nearness always unobtrusive. Though there + is the most trustworthy witness to the imitative propensity of this bird, + I have only once, during an intimacy of more than forty years, heard him + indulge it. In that case, the imitation was by no means so close as to + deceive, but a free reproduction of the notes of some other birds, + especially of the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. The + catbird is as shy as the robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or + his fledglings are approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. + I have known him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge + of the raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there + for a week or more. In such cases he shows none of that conscious guilt + which makes the robin contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his + post in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal + <i>his</i> berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the + robin will bag your entire crop if he get a chance. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like too + many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from being true. + On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the different species to + each other is that of armed neutrality. They are very jealous of + neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested in the housebuilding of a + pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty site near the + top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber window. A + very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing with mutual + help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts + and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the common-sense of the + tiny house-wife. They had brought their work nearly to an end, and had + already begun to line it with fern-down, the gathering of which demanded + more distant journeys and longer absences. But, alas! the syringa, + immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more than twenty feet away, and + these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared, been all along jealously + watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they deemed an intrusion of + squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly gone for a new load of + lining, than + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots + Came stealing."(1) +</pre> + <p> + Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the nest + in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for they + might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever the + yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own sight-proof + bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired damages, but at + length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up. Perhaps, like other + unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion that the Devil was in it, and + yielded to the invisible persecution of witchcraft. + </p> + <p> + (1) Shakespeare: <i>King Henry V.,</i> act i, scene 2. + </p> + <p> + The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded in driving + off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay colors and + quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing neighbors. I once had + the chance of doing a kindness to a household of them, which they received + with very friendly condescension. I had had my eye for some time upon a + nest, and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what seemed full-grown + wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed the tree, in spite of + angry protests from the old birds against my intrusion. The mystery had a + very simple solution. In building the nest, a long piece of packthread had + been somewhat loosely woven in. Three of the young had contrived to + entangle themselves in it, and had become full-grown without being able to + launch themselves upon the air. One was unharmed; another had so tightly + twisted the cord about its shank that one foot was curled up and seemed + paralyzed; the third, in its struggles to escape, had sawn through the + flesh of the thigh and so much harmed itself that I thought it humane to + put an end to its misery. When I took out my knife to cut their hempen + bonds, the heads of the family seemed to divine my friendly intent. + Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats. they perched quietly within + reach of my hand, and watched me in my work of manumission. This, owing to + the fluttering terror of the prisoners, was an affair of some delicacy; + but ere long I was rewarded by seeing one of them fly away to a + neighboring tree, while the cripple, making a parachute of his wings, came + lightly to the ground, and hopped off as well as he could with one leg, + obsequiously waited on by his elders. A week later I had the satisfaction + of meeting him in the pine-walk, in good spirits, and already so far + recovered as to be able to balance himself with the lame foot. I have no + doubt that in his old age he accounted for his lameness by some handsome + story of a wound received at the famous Battle of the Pines, when our + tribe, overcome by numbers, was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of + late years the jays have visited us only at intervals; and in winter their + bright plumage, set off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, are + especially welcome. They would have furnished Aesop with a fable, for the + feathered crest in which they seem to take so much satisfaction is often + their fatal snare. Country boys make a hole with their finger in the + snow-crust just large enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it + out somewhat beneath, bait it with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips + easily into the trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came + to feast remains a prey. + </p> + <p> + Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my pines, and + twice have the robins, who claim a right of preemption, so successfully + played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them away,—to my + great regret, for they are the best substitute we have for rooks. At Shady + Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved household) they build by + hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their creaking clatter (like + a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to + debate in mass meeting their windy politics, or to gossip at their + tent-doors over the events of the day. Their port is grave, and their + stalk across the turf as martial as that of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. + They never meddled with my corn, so far as I could discover. + </p> + <p> + (1) The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the time of this + paper in Europe. + </p> + <p> + For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait for + boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted as to throw + off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near approach. One + very hot day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a mother and + three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head gasping in the sultry + air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during + the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft + nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness + of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear + him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has + something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there + are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter + morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms of crisp + blue air. The hostility of all smaller birds makes the moral character of + the row, for all his deaconlike demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. + He could never sally forth without insult. The golden robins, especially, + would chase him as far as I could follow with my eye, making him duck + clumsily to avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that + he robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in + our free-and-easy community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him + with dead alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical + visits to the salt-marshes and coming back with a fish in his beak to his + young savages, who, no doubt, like it in that condition which makes it + savory to the Kanakas and other corvine races of men. + </p> + <p> + (1) See Rousseau's <i>La Nouvelle Heloise.</i> + </p> + <p> + Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen seven males flashing + about the garden at once. A merry crew of them swing their hammocks from + the pendulous boughs. During one of these later years, when the + canker-worms stripped our elms as bare as winter, these birds went to the + trouble of rebuilding their unroofed nests, and chose for the purpose + trees which are safe from those swarming vandals, such as the ash and the + button-wood. One year a pair (disturbed, I suppose, elsewhere) built a + second nest in an elm within a few yards of the house. My friend, Edward + E. Hale, told me once that the oriole rejected from his web all strands of + brilliant color, and I thought it a striking example of that instinct of + concealment noticeable in many birds, though it should seem in this + instance that the nest was amply protected by its position from all + marauders but owls and squirrels. Last year, however, I had the fullest + proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of orioles built on the lowest + trailer of a weeping elm, which hung within ten feet of our drawing-room + window, and so low that I could reach it from the ground. The nest was + wholly woven and felted with ravellings of woollen carpet in which scarlet + predominated. Would the same thing have happened in the woods? Or did the + nearness of a human dwelling perhaps give the birds a greater feeling of + security? They are very bold, by the way, in quest of cordage, and I have + often watched them stripping the fibrous bark from a honeysuckle growing + over the very door. But, indeed, all my birds look upon me as if I were a + mere tenant at will, and they were landlords. With shame I confess it, I + have been bullied even by a hummingbird. This spring, as I was cleansing a + pear-tree of its lichens, one of these little zigzagging blurs came + purring toward me, couching his long bill like a lance, his throat + sparkling with angry fire, to warn me off from a Missouri-currant whose + honey he was sipping. And many a time he has driven me out of a + flower-bed. This summer, by the way, a pair of these winged emeralds + fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a bough of the same elm which the + orioles had enlivened the year before. We watched all their proceedings + from the window through an opera-glass, and saw their two nestlings grow + from black needles with a tuft of down at the lower end, till they whirled + away on their first short experimental flights. They became strong of wing + in a surprisingly short time, and I never saw them or the male bird after, + though the female was regular as usual in her visits to our petunias and + verbenas. I do not think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the + many times when I watched the old birds feeding their young, the mother + always alighted, while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing. + </p> + <p> + The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling through the garden + in blossoming-time, but this year, owing to the long rains early in the + season, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they were driven to the + upland. So I had a pair of them domiciled in my grass field. The male used + to perch in an apple-tree, then in full bloom, and, while I stood + perfectly still close by, he would circle away, quivering round the entire + field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle down again + among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a new rapture + of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, + like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. <i>Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc!</i> + he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have + distanced the deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count + Gurowski saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge about this + country which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing-birds! + Well, well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) has found the typical America in Oneida + and Salt Lake City. Of course, an intelligent European is the best judge + of these matters. The truth is there are more singing-birds in Europe + because there are fewer forests. These songsters love the neighborhood of + man because hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is more + abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds. Even + Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose + description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched, + fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my + own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre solitudes of + the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of any singing-bird. In + spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of that marvellous + reverberation of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight, which he was + the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether he made his way very + deep into the wilderness. At any rate, in a letter to Fontanes, written in + 1804, he speaks of <i>mes chevaux paissant a quelque distance.</i> To be + sure Chateaubriand was apt to mount the high horse, and this may have been + but an afterthought of the <i>grand seigneur,</i> but certainly one would + not make much headway on horseback toward the druid fastnesses of the + primaeval pine. + </p> + <p> + (1) In his book of travels, <i>New America.</i> + </p> + <p> + The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within a quarter + of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst of their camp, + and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, one may hear a score + of them singing at once. When they are breeding, if I chance to pass, one + of the male birds always accompanies me like a constable, flitting from + post to post of the rail-fence, with a short note of reproof continually + repeated, till I am fairly out of the neighborhood. Then he will swing + away into the air and run down the wind, gurgling music without stint over + the unheeding tussocks of meadow-grass and dark clumps of bulrushes that + mark his domain. + </p> + <p> + We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in compass, none + whose note is so rich as that of the European blackbird; but for mere + rapture I have never heard the bobolink's rival. But his opera-season is a + short one. The ground and tree sparrows are our most constant performers. + It is now late in August, and one of the latter sings every day and all + day long in the garden. Till within a fortnight, a pair of indigo-birds + would keep up their lively <i>duo</i> for an hour together. While I write, + I hear an oriole gay as in June, and the plaintive <i>may-be</i> of the + goldfinch tells me he is stealing my lettuce-seeds. I know not what the + experience of others may have been, but the only bird I have ever hard + sing in the night has been the chip-bird. I should say he sang about as + often during the darkness as cocks crow. One can hardly help fancying that + he sings in his dreams. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Father of light, what sunnie seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busie ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light." +</pre> + <p> + On second thought, I remember to have heard the cuckoo strike the hours + nearly all night with the regularity of a Swiss clock. + </p> + <p> + The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to that end, bring us the + flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream and laugh + close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a few days ago I + had the satisfaction of studying him through the blinds as he sat on a + tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and at rest, he makes good his + claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. Lumberers have a notion that he + is harmful to timber, digging little holes through the bark to encourage + the settlement of insects. The regular rings of such perforations which + one may see in almost any apple-orchard seem to give some probability to + this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail visits us, and, unseen + among the currant bushes, calls <i>Bob White, Bob White,</i> as if he were + playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is + the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something like the muffled crow of a + cock from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I + once had the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree. The + wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have not seen for many years.(1) Of savage + birds, a hen-hawk now and then quarters himself upon us for a few days, + sitting sluggish in a tree after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once + offered me a near shot from my study-window one drizzly day for several + hours. But it was Sunday, and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce + of God. + </p> + <p> + (1) They made their appearance again this summer (1870).—J.R.L. + </p> + <p> + Certain birds have disappeared from our neighborhood within my memory. I + remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in Sweet Auburn. The + night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved farther + up country. For years I have not seen or heard any of the larger owls, + whose hooting was once of my boyish terrors. The cliff-swallow, strange + emigrant, that eastward takes his way, has come and gone again in my time. + The bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood, no longer + frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the river. The + barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through the dusty + sun-streak of the mow, have been gone these many years. My father would + lead me out to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel before their + yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see them at Selborne. <i>Eheu + fugaces!</i> Thank fortune, the swift still glues his nest, and rolls his + distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated chimneys, still + sprinkles the evening air with his merry twittering. The populous heronry + in Fresh Pond meadows has wellnigh broken up, but still a pair or two + haunt the old home, as the gypsies of Ellangowan their ruined huts, and + every evening fly over us riverwards, clearing their throats with a hoarse + hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather. scarce higher than the tops of + the chimneys. Sometimes I have known one to alight in one of our trees, + though for what purpose I never could divine. Kingfishers have sometimes + puzzled me in the same way, perched at high noon in a pine, springing + their watchman's rattle when they flitted away from my curiosity, and + seeming to shove their top-heavy heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow. + </p> + <p> + Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country is growing less + wild. I once found a summer duck's nest within a quarter of a mile of our + house, but such a <i>trouvaille</i> would be impossible now as Kidd's + treasure. And yet the mere taming of the neighborhood does not quite + satisfy me as an explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to bathe in the + river, I saw every day a brace of woodcock, on the miry edge of a spring + within a few rods of a house, and constantly visited by thirsty cows. + There was no growth of any kind to conceal them, and yet these ordinarily + shy birds were almost as indifferent to my passing as common poultry would + have been. Since bird-nesting has become scientific, and dignified itself + as oology, that, no doubt, is partly to blame for some of our losses. But + some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush comes every year to remind + me of that most poetic of ornithologists. He flits before me through the + pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A pair of pewees have built + immemorially on a jutting brick in the arched entrance to the ice-house; + always on the same brick, and never more than a single pair, though two + broods of five each are raised there every summer. How do they settle + their claim to the homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once the + children of a man employed about the place <i>oologized</i> the nest, and + the pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the + messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did towards him after he had shot the + albatross. But the pewees came back at last, and one of them is now on his + wonted perch, so near my window that I can hear the click of his bill as + he snaps a fly on the wing with the unerring precision a stately + Trasteverina shows in the capture of her smaller deer. The pewee is the + first bird to pipe up in the morning; and during the early summer he + preludes his matutinal ejaculation of <i>pewee</i> with a slender whistle, + unheard at any other time. He saddens with the season, and, as summer + declines, he changes his note to <i>cheu, pewee!</i> as if in lamentation. + Had he been an Italian bird, Ovid would have had a plaintive tale to tell + about him. He is so familiar as often to pursue a fly through the open + window into my library. + </p> + <p> + (1) In Coleridge's poem of that name. + </p> + <p> + There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these old friendships of a + lifetime. There is scarce a tree of mine but has had, at some time or + other, a happy homestead among its boughs, and to which I cannot say, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Many light hearts and wings, + Which now be head, lodged in thy living bowers." +</pre> + <p> + My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss + that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying-time the + metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of <i>scythe-whet.</i> + I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If anybody had + oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair in my garden + every year), it would have left me a sore place in my mind for weeks. I + love to bring these aborigines back to the mansuetude they showed to the + early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary pun) they had grown + accustomed to man and knew his savage ways. And they repay your kindness + with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed contempt. I have made + a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the Puritan way with the + natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism and a great deal of + Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me (as most of them + will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,—a much better weapon + than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them from their pretty pagan + ways. The only one I sometimes have savage doubts about is the red + squirrel. I <i>think</i> he oologizes. I <i>know</i> he eats cherries (we + counted five of them at one time in a single tree, the stones pattering + down like the sparse hail that preludes a storm), and that he gnaws off + the small end of pears to get at the seeds. He steals the corn from under + the noses of my poultry. But what would you have? He will come down upon + the limb of the tree I am lying under till he is within a yard of me. He + and his mate will scurry up and down the great black-walnut for my + diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his death-warrant who has + tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let them steal, and + welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing up and the same + temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there is one of them but + does more good than harm; and of how many featherless bipeds can this be + said? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's My Garden Acquaintance, by James Russell Lowell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 880-h.htm or 880-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/880/ + +Produced by Anthony J. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Garden Acquaintance + +Author: James Russell Lowell + +Posting Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #880] +Release Date: April 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam + + + + + +MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE + + +By James Russell Lowell + + + +ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's +"Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with +years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I +found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple +expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes +you out of doors. In our broiling July weather one can walk out with +this genially garrulous Fellow of Oriel and find refreshment instead +of fatigue. You have no trouble in keeping abreast of him as he ambles +along on his hobby-horse, now pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to +watch the motions of a bird or an insect, or to bag a specimen for the +Honorable Daines Barrington or Mr. Pennant. In simplicity of taste and +natural refinement he reminds one of Walton; in tenderness toward +what he would have called the brute creation, of Cowper. I do not know +whether his descriptions of scenery are good or not, but they have made +me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I first read him, I have walked +over some of his favorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes +rather than by any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book +has also the delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never +to have had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his +feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on +the wall. His volumes are the journal of Adam in Paradise, + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." + +It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It is vastly +better than to + + "See great Diocletian walk + In the Salonian garden's noble shade," + +for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the noises of Rome, +while here the world has no entrance. No rumor of the revolt of the +American Colonies seems to have reached him. "The natural term of an +hog's life" has more interest for him than that of an empire. Burgoyne +may surrender and welcome; of what consequence is _that_ compared with +the fact that we can explain the odd tumbling of rooks in the air +by their turning over "to scratch themselves with one claw"? All the +couriers in Europe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White's +little Chartreuse;(1) but the arrival of the house-martin a day earlier +or later than last year is a piece of news worth sending express to all +his correspondents. + +(1) _La Grande Chartreuse_ was the original Carthusian monastery in +France, where the most austere privacy was maintained. + +Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent humor, so +much the more delicious because unsuspected by the author. How pleasant +is his innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, and +still more of the Selbornian, _fauna!_ I believe he would gladly have +consented to be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that means +the occasional presence within the parish limits of either of these +anthropophagous brutes could have been established. He brags of no +fine society, but is plainly a little elated by "having considerable +acquaintance with a tame brown owl." Most of us have known our share +of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a feathered one. The great +events of Mr. White's life, too, have that disproportionate importance +which is always humorous. To think of his hands having actually been +though worthy (as neither Willoughby's nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted +plover, the _Charadrius himaniopus,_ with no back toe, and therefore +"liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations"! I wonder, by +the way, if metaphysicians have no hind toes. In 1770 he makes the +acquaintance in Sussex of "an old family tortoise," which had then been +domesticated for thirty years. It is clear that he fell in love with it +at first sight. We have no means of tracing the growth of his passion; +but in 1780 we find him eloping with its object in a post-chaise. "The +rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I +turned it out in a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my +garden." It reads like a Court Journal: "Yesterday morning H.R.H. the +Princess Alice took an airing of half an hour on the terrace of Windsor +Castle." This tortoise might have been a member of the Royal Society, +if he could have condescended to so ignoble an ambition. It had but +just been discovered that a surface inclined at a certain angle with +the plane of the horizon took more of the sun's rays. The tortoise had +always known this (though he unostentatiously made no parade of it), +and used accordingly to tilt himself up against the garden-wall in the +autumn. He seems to have been more of a philosopher than even Mr. White +himself, caring for nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when +it rained, or the sun was too hot, and to bury himself alive before +frost,--a four-footed Diogenes, who carried his tub on his back. + +There are moods in which this kind of history is infinitely +refreshing. These creatures whom we affect to look down upon as the +drudges of instinct are members of a commonwealth whose constitution +rests on immovable bases, never any need of reconstruction there! _They_ +never dream of settling it by vote that eight hours are equal to ten, or +that one creature is as clever as another and no more. _They_ do not +use their poor wits in regulating God's clocks, nor think they cannot +go astray so long as they carry their guide-board about with them,--a +delusion we often practise upon ourselves with our high and mighty +reason, that admirable finger-post which points every way and always +right. It is good for us now and then to converse with a world like Mr. +White's, where Man is the least important of animals. But one who, like +me, has always lived in the country and always on the same spot, is +drawn to his book by other occult sympathies. Do we not share his +indignation at that stupid Martin who had graduated his thermometer no +lower than 4o above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest weather +ever known the mercury basely absconded into the bulb, and left us to +see the victory slip through our fingers, just as they were closing +upon it? No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the country without being +bitten by these meteorological ambitions. He likes to be hotter and +colder, to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more trees and +larger blow down than his neighbors. With us descendants of the Puritans +especially, these weather-competitions supply the abnegated excitement +of the race-course. Men learn to value thermometers of the true +imaginative temperament, capable of prodigious elations and +corresponding dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked 98o in the +shade, my high water mark, higher by one degree than I had ever seen it +before. I happened to meet a neighbor; as we mopped our brows at each +other, he told me that he had just cleared 100o, and I went home +a beaten man. I had not felt the heat before, save as a beautiful +exaggeration of sunshine; but now it oppressed me with the prosaic +vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic intensity became all at once +rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did, +for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our +own); but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald +Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse +something of this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in +these mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a +true country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first +question on coming down of a morning was, like Barabas's, + + "Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill?" + +It is an innocent and healthful employment of the mind, +distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him to +dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did +the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational question +that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the prosperity of +crops. I have little doubt that the regulated observation of the vane +in many different places, and the interchange of results by telegraph, +would put the weather, as it were, in our power, by betraying its +ambushes before it is ready to give the assault. At first sight, +nothing seems more drolly trivial than the lives of those whose single +achievement is to record the wind and the temperature three times a day. +Yet such men are doubtless sent into the world for this special end, and +perhaps there is no kind of accurate observation, whatever its object, +that has not its final use and value for some one or other. It is even +to be hoped that the speculations of our newspaper editors and their +myriad correspondence upon the signs of the political atmosphere may +also fill their appointed place in a well-regulated universe, if it +be only that of supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future +historian. Nay, the observations on finance of an M.C. whose sole +knowledge of the subject has been derived from a life-long success +in getting a living out of the public without paying any equivalent +therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter to some explorer of our +_cloaca maxima,_ whenever it is cleansed. + +For many years I have been in the habit of noting down some of +the leading events of my embowered solitude, such as the coming of +certain birds and the like,--a kind of _memoires pour servir,_ after +the fashion of White, rather than properly digested natural history. +I thought it not impossible that a few simple stories of my winged +acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons of kindred taste. + +There is a common notion that animals are better meteorologists +than men, and I have little doubt that in immediate weather-wisdom +they have the advantage of our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a +sailor or shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing that +leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting the horoscope of a +whole season, and letting us know beforehand whether the winter will be +severe or the summer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the +weather himself does not always know very long in advance whether he +is to draw an order for hot or cold, dry or moist, and the musquash is +scarce likely to be wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in +the coming of the song-sparrow between a very early and a very backward +spring. This very year I saw the linnets at work thatching, just before +a snow-storm which covered the ground several inches deep for a number +of days. They struck work and left us for a while, no doubt in search +of food. Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in our whimsical +spring weather of which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years +ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, was covered +with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of mingled rain and snow, which +probably killed many of them. It should seem that their coming was dated +by the height of the sun, which betrays them into unthrifty matrimony; + + "So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;"(1) + +but their going is another matter. The chimney swallows leave us early, +for example, apparently so soon as their latest fledglings are firm +enough of wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is before them. On +the other hand the wild-geese probably do not leave the North till they +are frozen out, for I have heard their bugles sounding southward so +late as the middle of December. What may be called local migrations are +doubtless dictated by the chances of food. I have once been visited by +large flights of cross-bills; and whenever the snow lies long and deep +on the ground, a flock of cedar-birds comes in mid-winter to eat the +berries on my hawthorns. I have never been quite able to fathom the +local, or rather geographical partialities of birds. Never before this +summer (1870) have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in +my orchard; though I always know where to find them within half a mile. +The rose-breasted grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline (three +miles away), yet I never saw one here till last July, when I found a +female busy among my raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was +_prospecting_ with a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on +the whole, to think well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another +bed if it would help to win over so delightful a neighbor. + +(1) Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales, Prologue,_ line 11. + +The return of the robin is commonly announced by the +newspapers, like that of eminent or notorious people to a +watering-place, as the first authentic notification of spring. And such +his appearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. But, in spite +of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all winter, and I +have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 degrees below zero of +Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within,(1) like Emerson's Titmouse, and as +cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation among people who do not +value themselves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit, +a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of the Bloomfield +sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor +Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his energy +is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of lunacy +into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But +for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, I would not exchange him for +all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults, +he has not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the +children of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit than could be +distilled from many successive committees of the Horticultural Society, +and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He +feels and freely exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the +earliest mess of green peas; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine. +But if he get also the lion's share of the raspberries, he is a +great planter, and sows those wild ones in the woods that solace the +pedestrian, and give a momentary calm even to the jaded victims of the +White Hills. He keeps a strict eye over one's fruit, and knows to a +shade of purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun. +During the severe drought a few years ago the robins wholly vanished +from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks, meanwhile +a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, seemed to find the +dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its sweet Argos across +the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair bunches. I watched +them from day to day till they should have secreted sugar enough from +the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I would celebrate my +vintage the next morning. But the robins, too, had somehow kept note of +them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into the promised +land, before I was stirring. When I went with my basket at least a +dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and +alighting on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill remarks about +me of a derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not +Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not Federals +or Confederates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral +chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the fair Fidele +with, but the robins made them a profounder secret to her than I had +meant. The tattered remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest-home. +How paltry it looked at the bottom of my basket,--as if a humming-bird +had laid her egg in an eagle's nest! I could not help laughing; and +the robins seemed to join heartily in the merriment. There was a native +grape-vine close by, blue with its less refined abundance, but my +cunning thieves preferred the foreign flavor. Could I tax them with want +of taste? + +(1) "For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin." + _The Titmouse,_ lines 75, 76. + +The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like +primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to +the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are +noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But +when they come after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle +their voices, and their faint _pip pip pop!_ sounds far away at the +bottom of the garden, where they know I shall not suspect them of +robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.(1) They are +feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts, +that look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against +the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken +all the life of an earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit +out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest +self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of +a lobby member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges +inquiry. "Do _I_ look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin? +I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate +anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will +answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover such +depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very +moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, he is a doubtful +friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and +is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he +is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Nature +seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to vegetation, +perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part, +I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many +berries. + +(1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one of the +sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the +most beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L. + +For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a +good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has the +merit of keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird of my +familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have +built in a gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have known the +male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer +till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent, +but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were, +rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness +always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the +imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy +of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case, +the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free +reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole, +as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the +robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are +approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known +him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the +raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there for a +week or more. In such cases he shows none of that conscious guilt which +makes the robin contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his post +in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal +_his_ berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin +will bag your entire crop if he get a chance. + +Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like +too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from +being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the different +species to each other is that of armed neutrality. They are very jealous +of neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested in the housebuilding +of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty site +near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber +window. A very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing +with mutual help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only +by little flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the +common-sense of the tiny house-wife. They had brought their work +nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the +gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and longer absences. +But, alas! the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more +than twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared, +been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they +deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly +gone for a new load of lining, than + + "To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots + Came stealing."(1) + +Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the +nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for +they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever +the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own +sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired +damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up. +Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion +that the Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of +witchcraft. + +(1) Shakespeare: _King Henry V.,_ act i, scene 2. + +The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded +in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay +colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing neighbors. +I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a household of them, which +they received with very friendly condescension. I had had my eye for +some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what +seemed full-grown wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed +the tree, in spite of angry protests from the old birds against my +intrusion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In building the nest, +a long piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely woven in. Three +of the young had contrived to entangle themselves in it, and had become +full-grown without being able to launch themselves upon the air. One was +unharmed; another had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that +one foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed; the third, in its struggles +to escape, had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed +itself that I thought it humane to put an end to its misery. When I took +out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, the heads of the family seemed +to divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats. +they perched quietly within reach of my hand, and watched me in my work +of manumission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners, +was an affair of some delicacy; but ere long I was rewarded by seeing +one of them fly away to a neighboring tree, while the cripple, making +a parachute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped off as +well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited on by his elders. A +week later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the pine-walk, in +good spirits, and already so far recovered as to be able to balance +himself with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he +accounted for his lameness by some handsome story of a wound received at +the famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers, +was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years the jays have +visited us only at intervals; and in winter their bright plumage, set +off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They +would have furnished Aesop with a fable, for the feathered crest in +which they seem to take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. +Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large +enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath, +bait it with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into the +trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast +remains a prey. + +Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my +pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of preemption, +so successfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them +away,--to my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have +for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved +household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than +their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) +as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy +politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day. +Their port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that +of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. They never meddled with my corn, so +far as I could discover. + +(1) The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the time of this +paper in Europe. + +For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait +for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted as +to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near +approach. One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a +mother and three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head gasping +in the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness. +All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and +murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition +and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a +lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint +Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman +quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than +his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through +five hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller +birds makes the moral character of the row, for all his deaconlike +demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth +without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase him as far +as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to avoid their +importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he robbed any nests +hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy +community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him with dead +alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical visits +to the salt-marshes and coming back with a fish in his beak to his young +savages, who, no doubt, like it in that condition which makes it savory +to the Kanakas and other corvine races of men. + +(1) See Rousseau's _La Nouvelle Heloise._ + +Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen seven males +flashing about the garden at once. A merry crew of them swing their +hammocks from the pendulous boughs. During one of these later years, +when the canker-worms stripped our elms as bare as winter, these birds +went to the trouble of rebuilding their unroofed nests, and chose for +the purpose trees which are safe from those swarming vandals, such as +the ash and the button-wood. One year a pair (disturbed, I suppose, +elsewhere) built a second nest in an elm within a few yards of the +house. My friend, Edward E. Hale, told me once that the oriole rejected +from his web all strands of brilliant color, and I thought it a striking +example of that instinct of concealment noticeable in many birds, though +it should seem in this instance that the nest was amply protected by its +position from all marauders but owls and squirrels. Last year, however, +I had the fullest proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of orioles +built on the lowest trailer of a weeping elm, which hung within ten feet +of our drawing-room window, and so low that I could reach it from the +ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted with ravellings of woollen +carpet in which scarlet predominated. Would the same thing have happened +in the woods? Or did the nearness of a human dwelling perhaps give the +birds a greater feeling of security? They are very bold, by the way, in +quest of cordage, and I have often watched them stripping the fibrous +bark from a honeysuckle growing over the very door. But, indeed, all +my birds look upon me as if I were a mere tenant at will, and they +were landlords. With shame I confess it, I have been bullied even by a +hummingbird. This spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree of its lichens, +one of these little zigzagging blurs came purring toward me, couching +his long bill like a lance, his throat sparkling with angry fire, to +warn me off from a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And many +a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, by the way, +a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a +bough of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the year before. +We watched all their proceedings from the window through an opera-glass, +and saw their two nestlings grow from black needles with a tuft of +down at the lower end, till they whirled away on their first short +experimental flights. They became strong of wing in a surprisingly short +time, and I never saw them or the male bird after, though the female was +regular as usual in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not +think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the many times when +I watched the old birds feeding their young, the mother always alighted, +while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing. + +The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling through the +garden in blossoming-time, but this year, owing to the long rains early +in the season, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they were driven +to the upland. So I had a pair of them domiciled in my grass field. The +male used to perch in an apple-tree, then in full bloom, and, while I +stood perfectly still close by, he would circle away, quivering round +the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle +down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a +new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a +fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack +remedy. _Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc!_ he seemed +to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced +the deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count Gurowski +saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge about this country +which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing-birds! Well, +well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) has found the typical America in Oneida and +Salt Lake City. Of course, an intelligent European is the best judge +of these matters. The truth is there are more singing-birds in Europe +because there are fewer forests. These songsters love the neighborhood +of man because hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is more +abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds. +Even Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose +description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched, +fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my +own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre solitudes of +the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of any singing-bird. +In spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of that +marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight, +which he was the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether he +made his way very deep into the wilderness. At any rate, in a letter to +Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks of _mes chevaux paissant a quelque +distance._ To be sure Chateaubriand was apt to mount the high horse, +and this may have been but an afterthought of the _grand seigneur,_ but +certainly one would not make much headway on horseback toward the druid +fastnesses of the primaeval pine. + +(1) In his book of travels, _New America._ + +The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within +a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst of +their camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, one +may hear a score of them singing at once. When they are breeding, if +I chance to pass, one of the male birds always accompanies me like a +constable, flitting from post to post of the rail-fence, with a short +note of reproof continually repeated, till I am fairly out of the +neighborhood. Then he will swing away into the air and run down the +wind, gurgling music without stint over the unheeding tussocks of +meadow-grass and dark clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain. + +We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in +compass, none whose note is so rich as that of the European blackbird; +but for mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's rival. But his +opera-season is a short one. The ground and tree sparrows are our most +constant performers. It is now late in August, and one of the latter +sings every day and all day long in the garden. Till within a fortnight, +a pair of indigo-birds would keep up their lively _duo_ for an hour +together. While I write, I hear an oriole gay as in June, and the +plaintive _may-be_ of the goldfinch tells me he is stealing my +lettuce-seeds. I know not what the experience of others may have been, +but the only bird I have ever hard sing in the night has been the +chip-bird. I should say he sang about as often during the darkness as +cocks crow. One can hardly help fancying that he sings in his dreams. + + "Father of light, what sunnie seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busie ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light." + +On second thought, I remember to have heard the cuckoo strike the hours +nearly all night with the regularity of a Swiss clock. + +The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to that end, bring us +the flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream and +laugh close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a few days +ago I had the satisfaction of studying him through the blinds as he sat +on a tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and at rest, he makes +good his claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. Lumberers have a +notion that he is harmful to timber, digging little holes through the +bark to encourage the settlement of insects. The regular rings of such +perforations which one may see in almost any apple-orchard seem to give +some probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail +visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, calls _Bob White, Bob +White,_ as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary +being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo +(something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with +snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see +close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have +not seen for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then +quarters himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish in a tree +after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once offered me a near shot from +my study-window one drizzly day for several hours. But it was Sunday, +and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce of God. + +(1) They made their appearance again this summer (1870).--J.R.L. + +Certain birds have disappeared from our neighborhood within my +memory. I remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in Sweet Auburn. +The night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved +farther up country. For years I have not seen or heard any of the larger +owls, whose hooting was once of my boyish terrors. The cliff-swallow, +strange emigrant, that eastward takes his way, has come and gone again +in my time. The bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood, +no longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the river. +The barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through the +dusty sun-streak of the mow, have been gone these many years. My father +would lead me out to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel +before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see them at +Selborne. _Eheu fugaces!_ Thank fortune, the swift still glues his +nest, and rolls his distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated +chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his merry twittering. The +populous heronry in Fresh Pond meadows has wellnigh broken up, but still +a pair or two haunt the old home, as the gypsies of Ellangowan their +ruined huts, and every evening fly over us riverwards, clearing their +throats with a hoarse hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather. scarce +higher than the tops of the chimneys. Sometimes I have known one to +alight in one of our trees, though for what purpose I never could +divine. Kingfishers have sometimes puzzled me in the same way, perched +at high noon in a pine, springing their watchman's rattle when they +flitted away from my curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy +heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow. + +Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country is +growing less wild. I once found a summer duck's nest within a quarter of +a mile of our house, but such a _trouvaille_ would be impossible now as +Kidd's treasure. And yet the mere taming of the neighborhood does not +quite satisfy me as an explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to bathe +in the river, I saw every day a brace of woodcock, on the miry edge of +a spring within a few rods of a house, and constantly visited by thirsty +cows. There was no growth of any kind to conceal them, and yet these +ordinarily shy birds were almost as indifferent to my passing as common +poultry would have been. Since bird-nesting has become scientific, and +dignified itself as oology, that, no doubt, is partly to blame for some +of our losses. But some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush comes +every year to remind me of that most poetic of ornithologists. He flits +before me through the pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A +pair of pewees have built immemorially on a jutting brick in the arched +entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and never more than +a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every +summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right +of primogeniture? Once the children of a man employed about the place +_oologized_ the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I +felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did +towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at +last, and one of them is now on his wonted perch, so near my window that +I can hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly on the wing with the +unerring precision a stately Trasteverina shows in the capture of her +smaller deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the morning; and +during the early summer he preludes his matutinal ejaculation of _pewee_ +with a slender whistle, unheard at any other time. He saddens with the +season, and, as summer declines, he changes his note to _cheu, pewee!_ +as if in lamentation. Had he been an Italian bird, Ovid would have had a +plaintive tale to tell about him. He is so familiar as often to pursue a +fly through the open window into my library. + +(1) In Coleridge's poem of that name. + +There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these old +friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce a tree of mine but has had, +at some time or other, a happy homestead among its boughs, and to which +I cannot say, + + "Many light hearts and wings, + Which now be head, lodged in thy living bowers." + +My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss +that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying-time +the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of +_scythe-whet._ I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If +anybody had oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair +in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore place in my mind +for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back to the mansuetude they +showed to the early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary pun) +they had grown accustomed to man and knew his savage ways. And they +repay your kindness with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed +contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the +Puritan way with the natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism +and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me +(as most of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much +better weapon than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them from +their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have savage doubts +about is the red squirrel. I _think_ he oologizes. I _know_ he eats +cherries (we counted five of them at one time in a single tree, the +stones pattering down like the sparse hail that preludes a storm), and +that he gnaws off the small end of pears to get at the seeds. He steals +the corn from under the noses of my poultry. But what would you have? +He will come down upon the limb of the tree I am lying under till he is +within a yard of me. He and his mate will scurry up and down the great +black-walnut for my diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his +death-warrant who has tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let +them steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing +up and the same temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there is +one of them but does more good than harm; and of how many featherless +bipeds can this be said? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's My Garden Acquaintance, by James Russell Lowell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 880.txt or 880.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/880/ + +Produced by Anthony J. 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I used to read it without knowing the secret of +the pleasure I found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some +of the simple expedients of this natural magic. Open the book +where you will, it takes you out of doors. In our broiling July +weather one can walk out with this genially garrulous Fellow of +Oriel and find refreshment instead of fatigue. You have no trouble +in keeping abreast of him as he ambles along on his hobby-horse, +now pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to watch the motions +of a bird or an insect, or to bag a specimen for the Honorable +Daines Barrington or Mr. Pennant. In simplicity of taste and +natural refinement he reminds one of Walton; in tenderness toward +what he would have called the brute creation, of Cowper. I do not +know whether his descriptions of scenery are good or not, but they +have made me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I first read +him, I have walked over some of his favorite haunts, but I still see +them through his eyes rather than by any recollection of actual and +personal vision. The book has also the delightfulness of absolute +leisure. Mr. White seems never to have had any harder work to do +than to study the habits of his feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to +watch the ripening of his peaches on the wall. His volumes are the +journal of Adam in Paradise, + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." + +It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It is vastly +better than to + + "See great Diocletian walk + In the Salonian garden's noble shade," + +for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the noises of +Rome, while here the world has no entrance. No rumor of the +revolt of the American Colonies seems to have reached him. "The +natural term of an hog's life" has more interest for him than that of +an empire. Burgoyne may surrender and welcome; of what +consequence is *that* compared with the fact that we can explain +the odd tumbling of rooks in the air by their turning over "to +scratch themselves with one claw"? All the couriers in Europe +spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White's little +Chartreuse;(1) but the arrival of the house-martin a day earlier or +later than last year is a piece of news worth sending express to all +his correspondents. + +(1) *La Grande Chartreuse* was the original Carthusian monastery +in France, where the most austere privacy was maintained. + + Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent humor, so +much the more delicious because unsuspected by the author. How +pleasant is his innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, +and still more of the Selbornian, *fauna!* I believe he would gladly +have consented to be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that +means the occasional presence within the parish limits of either of +these anthropophagous brutes could have been established. He +brags of no fine society, but is plainly a little elated by "having +considerable acquaintance with a tame brown owl." Most of us +have known our share of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a +feathered one. The great events of Mr. White's life, too, have that +disproportionate importance which is always humorous. To think +of his hands having actually been though worthy (as neither +Willoughby's nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted plover, the +*Charadrius himaniopus,* with no back toe, and therefore "liable, +in speculation, to perpetual vacillations"! I wonder, by the way, if +metaphysicians have no hind toes. In 1770 he makes the +acquaintance in Sussex of "an old family tortoise," which had then +been domesticated for thirty years. It is clear that he fell in love +with it at first sight. We have no means of tracing the growth of his +passion; but in 1780 we find him eloping with its object in a post- +chaise. "The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it +that, when I turned it out in a border, it walked twice down to the +bottom of my garden." It reads like a Court Journal: "Yesterday +morning H.R.H. the Princess Alice took an airing of half an hour on +the terrace of Windsor Castle." This tortoise might have been a +member of the Royal Society, if he could have condescended to so +ignoble an ambition. It had but just been discovered that a surface +inclined at a certain angle with the plane of the horizon took more +of the sun's rays. The tortoise had always known this (though he +unostentatiously made no parade of it), and used accordingly to tilt +himself up against the garden-wall in the autumn. He seems to have +been more of a philosopher than even Mr. White himself, caring for +nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when it rained, or the sun +was too hot, and to bury himself alive before frost,--a four-footed +Diogenes, who carried his tub on his back. + + There are moods in which this kind of history is infinitely +refreshing. These creatures whom we affect to look down upon as +the drudges of instinct are members of a commonwealth whose +constitution rests on immovable bases. never any need of +reconstruction there! *They* never dream of settling it by vote that +eight hours are equal to ten, or that one creature is as clever as +another and no more. *They* do not use their poor wits in +regulating God's clocks, nor think they cannot go astray so long as +they carry their guide-board about with them,--a delusion we often +practise upon ourselves with our high and mighty reason, that +admirable finger-post which points every way and always right. It +is good for us now and then to converse with a world like Mr. +White's, where Man is the least important of animals. But one who, +like me, has always lived in the country and always on the same +spot, is drawn to his book by other occult sympathies. Do we not +share his indignation at that stupid Martin who had graduated his +thermometer no lower than 4o above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in +the coldest weather ever known the mercury basely absconded into +the bulb, and left us to see the victory slip through our fingers, just +as they were closing upon it? No man, I suspect, ever lived long in +the country without being bitten by these meteorological ambitions. +He likes to be hotter and colder, to have been more deeply snowed +up, to have more trees and larger blow down than his neighbors. +With us descendants of the Puritans especially, these weather- +competitions supply the abnegated excitement of the race-course. +Men learn to value thermometers of the true imaginative +termperament, capable of prodigious elations and corresponding +dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked 98o in the shade, my +high water mark, higher by one degree than I had ever seen it +before. I happened to meet a neighbor; as we mopped our brows at +each other, he told me that he had just cleared 100o, and I went +home a beaten man. I had not felt the heat before, save as a +beautiful exaggeration of sunshine; but now it oppressed me with +the prosaic vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic intensity +became all at once rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his +thermometer (as indeed I did, for we Harvard men are apt to think +ill of any graduation but our own); but it was a poor consolation. +The fact remained that his herald Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could +look down on mine. I seem to glimpse something of this familiar +weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in these mercurial +triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a true country- +gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first question on +coming down of a morning was, like Barabas's, + + "Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill?" + + It is an innocent and healthful employment of the mind, +distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him +to dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. +"Did the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational +question that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the +prosperity of crops. I have little doubt that the regulated +observation of the vane in many different places, and the +interchange of results by telegraph, would put the weather, as it +were, in our power, by betraying its ambushes before it is ready to +give the assault. At first sight, nothing seems more drolly trivial +than the lives of those whose single achievement is to record the +wind and the temperature three times a day. Yet such men are +doubtless sent into the world for this special end, and perhaps there +is no kind of accurate observation, whatever its object, that has not +its final use and value for some one or other. It is even to be hoped +that the speculations of our newspaper editors and their myriad +correspondence upon the signs of the political atmosphere may also +fill their appointed place in a well-regulated universe, if it be only +that of supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future +historian. Nay, the observations on finance of an M.C. whose sole +knowledge of the subject has been derived from a life-long success +in getting a living out of the public without paying any equivalent +therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter to some explorer of +our *cloaca maxima,* whenever it is cleansed. + + For many years I have been in the habit of noting down some of +the leading events of my embowered solitude, such as the coming +of certain birds and the like,--a kind of *memoires pour servir,* +after the fashion of White, rather than properly digested natural +history. I thought it not impossible that a few simple stories of my +winged acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons of +kindred taste. + + There is a common notion that animals are better meteorologists +than men, and I have little doubt that in immediate weather-wisdom +they have the advantage of our sophisticated senses (though I +suspect a sailor or shepherd would be their match), but I have seen +nothing that leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting the +horoscope of a whole season, and letting us know beforehand +whether the winter will be severe or the summer rainless. I more +than suspect that the clerk of the weather himself does not always +know very long in advance whether he is to draw an order for hot +or cold, dry or moist, and the musquash is scarce likely to be wiser. +I have noted but two days' difference in the coming of the song- +sparrow between a very early and a very backward spring. This +very year I saw the linnets at work thatching, just before a snow- +storm which covered the ground several inches deep for a number +of days. They struck work and left us for a while, no doubt in +search of food. Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in our +whimsical spring weather of which they had no foreboding. More +than thirty years ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my +window, was covered with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of +mingled rain and snow, which probably killed many of them. It +should seem that their coming was dated by the height of the sun, +which betrays them into unthrifty matrimony; + + "So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;"(1) + +but their going is another matter. The chimney swallows leave us +early, for example, apparently so soon as their latest fledglings are +firm enough of wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is +before them. On the other hand the wild-geese probably do not +leave the North till they are frozen out, for I have heard their bugles +sounding southward so late as the middle of December. What may +be called local migrations are doubtless dictated by the chances of +food. I have once been visited by large flights of cross-bills; and +whenever the snow lies long and deep on the ground, a flock of +cedar-birds comes in mid-winter to eat the berries on my +hawthorns. I have never been quite able to fathom the local, or +rather geographical partialities of birds. never before this summer +(1870) have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in my +orchard; though I always know where to find them within half a +mile. The rose-breasted grosbeak has been a familiar bird in +Brookline (three miles away), yet I never saw one here till last July, +when I found a female busy among my raspberries and surprisingly +bold. I hope she was *prospecting* with a view to settlement in +our garden. She seemed, on the whole, to think well of my fruit, +and I would gladly plant another bed if it would help to win over so +delightful a neighbor. + +(1) Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales, Prologue,* line 11. + + The return of the robin is commonly announced by the +newspapers, like that of eminent or notorious people to a watering- +place, as the first authentic notification of spring. And such his +appearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. But, in spite +of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all winter, and I +have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 degrees below +zero of Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within,(1) like Emerson's +Titmouse, and as cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation +among people who do not value themselves less for being fond of +cherries. There is, I admit, a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song +is rather of the Bloomfield sort, too largely ballasted with prose. +His ethics are of the Poor Richard school, and the main chance +which calls forth all his energy is altogether of the belly. He never +has these fine intervals of lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird +and the mavis, are apt to fall. But for a' that and twice as muckle 's +a' that, I would not exchange him for all the cherries that ever came +out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults, he has not wholly +forfeited that superiority which belongs to the children of nature. +He has a finer taste in fruit than could be distilled from many +successive committees of the Horticultural Society, and he eats +with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He feels and +freely exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the earliest mess +of green peas; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine. But if he +get also the lion's share of the raspberries, he is a great planter, and +sows those wild ones in the woods that solace the pedestrian, and +give a momentary calm even to the jaded victims of the White Hills. +he keeps a strict eye over one's fruit, and knows to a shade of +purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun. +During the severe drought a few years ago the robins wholly +vanished from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three +weeks. meanwhile a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, +seemed to find the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its +sweet Argos across the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair +bunches. I watched them from day to day till they should have +secreted sugar enough from the sunbeams, and at last made up my +mind that I would celebrate my vintage the next morning. But the +robins, too, had somehow kept note of them. They must have sent +out spies, as did the Jews into the promised land, before I was +stirring. When I went with my basket at least a dozen of these +winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and alighting +on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill remarks about me of a +derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not +Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not +Federals or Confederates were ever more impartial in the +confiscation of neutral chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret +to surprise the fair Fidele with, but the robins made them a +profounder secret to her than I had meant. The tattered remnant of +a single bunch was all my harvest-home. How paltry it looked at +the bottom of my basket,--as if a humming-bird had laid her egg in +an eagle's nest! I could not help laughing; and the robins seemed to +join heartily in the merriment. There was a native grape-vine close +by, blue with its less refined abundance, but my cunning thieves +preferred the foreign flavor. Could I tax them with want of taste? + +(1) "For well the soul, if stout within, + Can arm impregnably the skin." + *The Titmouse,* lines 75, 76. + + The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like +primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth +to the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. +They are noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no +afterthought. But when they come after cherries to the tree near +my window, they muffle their voices, and their faint *pip pip pop!* +sounds far away at the bottom of the garden, where they know I +shall not suspect them of robbing the great black-walnut of its +bitter-rinded store.(1) They are feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, +but then how brightly their breasts, that look rather shabby in the +sunlight, shine in a rainy day against the dark green of the fringe- +tree! After they have pinched and shaken all the life of an +earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit out of a steak, and +then gulped him, they stand up in honest self-confidence, expand +their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of a lobby member, and +outface you with an eye that calmly challenges inquiry. "Do *I* +look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin? I throw +myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate +anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will +answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover +such depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder at +that very moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, +he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all +kinds of berries, and is not averse from early pears. But when we +remember how omnivorous he is, eating his own weight in an +incredibly short time, and that Nature seems exhaustless in her +invention of new insects hostile to vegetation, perhaps we may +reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part, I +would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than +many berries. + +(1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the +sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with +the most beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L. + + For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a +good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has +the merit of keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird +of my familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of +them have built in a gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have +known the male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings +of early summer till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly +in vocal talent, but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, +as it were, rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their +nearness always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy +witness to the imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, +during an intimacy of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. +In that case, the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, +but a free reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially +of the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is +as shy as the robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his +fledglings are approached does he become noisy and almost +aggressive. I have known him to station his young in a thick +cornel-bush on the edge of the raspberry-bed, after the fruit began +to ripen, and feed them there for a week or more. In such cases he +shows none of that conscious guilt which makes the robin +contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his post in the +thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal *his* +berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin will +bag your entire crop if he get a chance. + + Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like +too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from +being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the +different species to each other is that of armed neutrality. they are +very jealous of neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested +in the housebuilding of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had +chosen a very pretty site near the top of a tall white lilac, within +easy eye-shot of a chamber window. A very pleasant thing it was +to see their little home growing with mutual help, to watch their +industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts and snatches of +endearment, frugally cut short by the common-sense of the tiny +house-wife. They had brought their work nearly to an end, and had +already begun to line it with fern-down, the gathering of which +demanded more distant journeys and longer absences. But, alas! +the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more than +twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared, +been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what +they deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty +mates fairly gone for a new load of lining, than + + "To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots + Came stealing."(1) + +Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the +nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for +they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever +the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own +sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired +damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it +up. Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion +that the Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of +witchcraft. + +(1) Shakespeare: *King Henry V.,* act i, scene 2. + + The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded +in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay +colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing +neighbors. I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a +household of them, which they received with very friendly +condescension. I had had my eye for some time upon a nest, and +was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what seemed full-grown +wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed the tree, in spite +of angry protests from the old birds against my intrusion. The +mystery had a very simple solution. In building the nest, a long +piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely woven in. Three of +the young had contrived to entangle themselves in it, and had +become full-grown without being able to launch themselves upon +the air. One was unharmed; another had so tightly twisted the cord +about its shank that one foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed; +the third, in its struggles to escape, had sawn through the flesh of +the thigh and so much harmed itself that I thought it humane to put +an end to its misery. When I took out my knife to cut their hempen +bonds, the heads of the family seemed to divine my friendly intent. +Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats. they perched quietly within +reach of my hand, and watched me in my work of manumission. +This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners, was an affair of +some delicacy; but ere long I was rewarded by seeing one of them +fly away to a neighboring tree, while the cripple, making a +parachute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped off +as well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited on by his +elders. A week later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the +pine-walk, in good spirits, and already so far recovered as to be +able to balance himself with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in +his old age he accounted for his lameness by some handsome story +of a wound received at the famous Battle of the Pines, when our +tribe, overcome by numbers, was driven from its ancient camping- +ground. Of late years the jays have visited us only at intervals; and +in winter their bright plumage, set off by the snow, and their +cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They would have furnished +Aesop with a fable, for the feathered crest in which they seem to +take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. Country boys +make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large enough to +admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath, bait it +with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into the trap, but +refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast remains a +prey. + + Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my +pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of preemption, +so successfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them +away,--to my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have +for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved +household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery +than their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned +tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting +their windy politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events +of the day. Their port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as +martial as that of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. They never +meddled with my corn, so far as I could discover. + +(1) The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the time +of this paper in Europe. + + For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait +for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so +wonted as to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate +my near approach. One very hot day I stood for some time within +twenty feet of a mother and three children, who sat on an elm +bough over my head gasping in the sultry air, and holding their +wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season +become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a +tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their +habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him +trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has +something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. +Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of +a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through five +hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller birds +makes the moral character of the row, for all his deaconlike +demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally +forth without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase +him as far as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily +to avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he +robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, +which, in our free-and-easy community, is allowed to poison the +river, supplied him with dead alewives in abundance. I used to +watch him making his periodical visits to the salt-marshes and +coming back with a fish in his beak to his young savages, who, no +doubt, like it in that condition which makes it savory to the +Kanakas and other corvine races of men. + +(1) See Rousseau's *La Nouvelle Heloise.* + + Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen seven males +flashing about the garden at once. A merry crew of them swing +their hammocks from the pendulous boughs. During one of these +later years, when the canker-worms stripped our elms as bare as +winter, these birds went to the trouble of rebuilding their unroofed +nests, and chose for the purpose trees which are safe from those +swarming vandals, such as the ash and the button-wood. One year +a pair (disturbed, I suppose, elsewhere) built a second next in an +elm within a few yards of the house. My friend, Edward E. Hale, +told me once that the oriole rejected from his web all strands of +brilliant color, and I thought it a striking example of that instinct of +concealment noticeable in many birds, though it should seem in this +instance that the nest was amply protected by its position from all +marauders but owls and squirrels. Last year, however, I had the +fullest proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of orioles built on +the lowest trailer of a weeping elm, which hung within ten feet of +our drawing-room window, and so low that I could reach it from +the ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted with ravellings +of woollen carpet in which scarlet predominated. Would the same +thing have happened in the woods? Or did the nearness of a human +dwelling perhaps give the birds a greater feeling of security? They +are very bold, by the way, in quest of cordage, and I have often +watched them stripping the fibrous bark from a honeysuckle +growing over the very door. But, indeed, all my birds look upon +me as if I were a mere tenant at will, and they were landlords. With +shame I confess it, I have been bullied even by a hummingbird. +This spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree of its lichens, one of +these little zigzagging blurs came purring toward me, couching his +long bill like a lance, his throat sparkling with angry fire, to warn +me off from a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And +many a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, +by the way, a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy +acorn-cup upon a bough of the same elm which the orioles had +enlivened the year before. We watched all their proceedings from +the window through an opera-glass, and saw their two nestlings +grow from black needles with a tuft of down at the lower end, till +they whirled away on their first short experimental flights. They +became strong of wing in a surprisingly short time, and I never saw +them or the male bird after, though the female was regular as usual +in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not think it ground +enough for a generalization, but in the many times when I watched +the old birds feeding their young, the mother always alighted, while +the father as uniformly remained upon the wing. + + The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling through the +garden in blossoming-time, but this year, owing to the long rains +early in the season, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they +were driven to the upland. So I had a pair of them domiciled in my +grass field. The male used to perch in an apple-tree, then in full +bloom, and, while I stood perfectly still close by, he would circle +away, quivering round the entire field of five acres, with no break in +his song, and settle down again among the blooms, to be hurried +away almost immediately by a new rapture of music. He had the +volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to +be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. *Opodeldoc- +opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc!* he seemed to repeat +over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced the +deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count +Gurowski saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge +about this country which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had +no singing-birds! Well, well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) has found the +typical America in Oneida and Salt Lake City. Of course, an +intelligent European is the best judge of these matters. The truth is +there are more singing-birds in Europe because there are fewer +forests. These songsters love the neighborhood of man because +hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is more abundant. +Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds. Even +Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose +description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched, +fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as +my own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre +solitudes of the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of +any singing-bird. In spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, +in spite of that marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree falling +of its own weight, which he was the first to notice, I cannot help +doubting whether he made his way very deep into the wilderness. +At any rate, in a letter to Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks of +*mes chevaux paissant a quelque distance.* To be sure +Chateaubriand was at to mount the high horse, and this may have +been but an afterthought of the *grand seigneur,* but certainly one +would not make much headway on horseback toward the druid +fastnesses of the primaeval pine. + +(1) In his book of travels, *New America.* + + The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within +a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst +of their camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, +one may hear a score of them singing at once. When they are +breeding, if I chance to pass, one of the male birds always +accompanies me like a constable, flitting from post to post of the +rail-fence, with a short note of reproof continually repeated, till I +am fairly out of the neighborhood. Then he will swing away into +the air and run down the wind, gurgling music without stint over +the unheeding tussocks of meadow-grass and dark clumps of +bulrushes that mark his domain. + + We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in +compass, none whose note is so rich as that of the European +blackbird; but for mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's +rival. But his opera-season is a short one. The ground and tree +sparrows are our most constant performers. It is now late in +August, and one of the latter sings every day and all day long in the +garden. Till within a fortnight, a pair of indigo-birds would keep up +their lively *duo* for an hour together. While I write, I hear an +oriole gay as in June, and the plaintive *may-be* of the goldfinch +tells me he is stealing my lettuce-seeds. I know not what the +experience of others may have been, but the only bird I have ever +hard sing in the night has been the chip-bird. I should say he sang +about as often during the darkness as cocks crow. One can hardly +help fancying that he sings in his dreams. + + "Father of light, what sunnie seed, + What glance of day hast thou confined + Into this bird? To all the breed + This busie ray thou hast assigned; + Their magnetism works all night, + And dreams of Paradise and light." + +On second thought, I remember to have heard the cuckoo strike the +hours nearly all night with the regularity of a Swiss clock. + + The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to that end, bring us +the flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream +and laugh close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a +few days ago I had the satisfaction of studying him through the +blinds as he sat on a tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and +at rest, he makes good his claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. +Lumberers have a notion that he is harmful to timber, digging little +holes through the bark to encourage the settlement of insects. The +regular rings of such perforations which one may see in almost any +apple-orchard seem to give some probability to this theory. Almost +every season a solitary quail visits us, and, unseen among the +currant bushes, alls *Bob White, Bob White,* as if he were playing +at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is the +turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something like the muffled crow +of a cock from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes heard, +and whom I once had the good luck to see close by me in the +mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have not seen +for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then +quarters himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish in a tree +after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once offered me a near shot +from my study-window one drizzly day for several hours. But it +was Sunday, and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce of +God. + +(1) They made their appearance again this summer (1870).--J.R.L. + + Certain birds have disappeared from our neighborhood within my +memory. I remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in +Sweet Auburn. The night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The +brown thrush has moved farther up country. For years I have not +seen or heard any of the larger owls, whose hooting was once of +my boyish terrors. The cliff-swallow, strange emigrant, that +eastward takes his way, has come and gone again in my time. The +bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood, no +longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the river. The +barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through +the dusty sun-streak of the mow, have been gone these many years. +My father would lead me out to see them gather on the roof, and +take counsel before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see +them at Selborne. *Eheu fugaces!* Thank fortune, the swift still +glues his nest, and rolls his distant thunders night and day in the +wide-throated chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his +merry twittering. The populous heronry in Fresh Pond meadows +has wellnigh broken up, but still a pair or two haunt the old home, +as the gypsies of Ellangowan their ruined huts, and every evening +fly over us riverwards, clearing their throats with a hoarse hawk as +they go, and, in cloudy weather. scarce higher than the tops of the +chimneys. Sometimes I have known one to alight in one of our +trees, though for what purpose I never could divine. Kingfishers +have sometimes puzzled me in the same way, perched at high noon +in a pine, springing their watchman's rattle when they flitted away +from my curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy heads +along as a man does a wheelbarrow. + + Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country is +growing less wild. I once found a summer duck's nest within a +quarter of a mile of our house, but such a *trouvaille* would be +impossible now as Kidd's treasure. And yet the mere taming of the +neighborhood does not quite satisfy me as an explanation. Twenty +years ago, on my way to bathe in the river, I saw every day a brace +of woodcock, on the miry edge of a spring within a few rods of a +house, and constantly visited by thirsty cows. There was no growth +of any kind to conceal them, and yet these ordinarily shy birds were +almost as indifferent to my passing as common poultry would have +been. Since bird-nesting has become scientific, and dignified itself +as oology, that, no doubt, is partly to blame for some of our losses. +But some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush comes every +year to remind me of that most poetic or ornithologists. He flits +before me through the pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A +pair of pewees have built immemorially on a jutting brick in the +arched entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and +never more than a single pair, though two broods of five each are +raised there every summer. How do they settle their claim to the +homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once the children of +a man employed about the place *oologized* the nest, and the +pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the +messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did towards him after he had +shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at last, and one of +them is now on his wonted perch, so near my window that I can +hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly on the wing with the +unerring precision a stately Trasteverina shows in the capture of her +smaller deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the morning; +and during the early summer he preludes his matutinal ejaculation of +*pewee* with a slender whistle, unheard at any other time. He +saddens with the season, and, as summer declines, he changes his +note to *cheu, pewee!* as if in lamentation. Had he been an Italian +bird, Ovid would have had a plaintive tale to tell about him. He is +so familiar as often to pursue a fly through the open window into +my library. + +(1) In Coleridge's poem of that name. + + There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these old +friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce a tree of mine but has had, +at some time or other, a happy homestead among its boughs, and to +which I cannot say, + + "Many light hearts and wings, + Which now be head, lodged in thy living bowers." + +My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I +to miss that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying- +time the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of +*scythe-whet.* I protect my game as jealously as an English +squire. If anybody had oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of +(I have a pair in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore +place in my mind for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back +to the mansuetude they showed to the early voyagers, and before +(forgive the involuntary pun) they had grown accustomed to man +and knew his savage ways. And they repay your kindness with a +sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed contempt. I have made +a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the Puritan way with the +natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism and a great deal +of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me (as most +of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much +better weapon than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them +from their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have +savage doubts about is the red squirrel. I *think* he oologizes. I +*know* he eats cherries (we counted five of them at one time in a +single tree, the stones pattering down like the sparse hail that +preludes a storm), and that he gnaws off the small end of pears to +get at the seeds. He steals the corn from under the noses of my +poultry. But what would you have? He will come down upon the +limb of the tree I am lying under till he is within a yard of me. He +and his mate will scurry up and down the great black-walnut for my +diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his death-warrant +who has tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let them +steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing +up and the same temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there +is one of them but does more good than harm; and of how many +featherless bipeds can this be said? + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of My Garden Acquaintance + diff --git a/old/mgacq10.zip b/old/mgacq10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b6cb7d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mgacq10.zip |