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@@ -0,0 +1,1070 @@ +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 + +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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