“Behold, how Spring appearing,
The Graces send forth roses;
Behold, how the wave of the sea
Is made smooth by the calm;
Behold, how the duck dives;
Behold, how the crane travels;
And Titan shines constantly bright.
The shadows of the clouds are moving;
The works of man shine;
The earth puts forth fruits;
The fruit of the olive puts forth.
The cup of Bacchus is crowned,
Along the leaves, along the branches,
The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.”
The ducks alight at this season in the still water, in company with the
gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows,
and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to
peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has
not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in
long harrows and waving lines; the gingle of the song-sparrow salutes
us from the shrubs and fences; the plaintive note of the lark comes
clear and sweet from the meadow; and the bluebird, like an azure ray,
glances past us in our walk. The fish-hawk, too, is occasionally seen
at this season sailing majestically over the water, and he who has once
observed it will not soon forget the majesty of its flight. It sails
the air like a ship of the line, worthy to struggle with the elements,
falling back from time to time like a ship on its beam ends, and
holding its talons up as if ready for the arrows, in the attitude of
the national bird. It is a great presence, as of the master of river
and forest. Its eye would not quail before the owner of the soil, but
make him feel like an intruder on its domains. And then its retreat,
sailing so steadily away, is a kind of advance. I have by me one of a
pair of ospreys, which have for some years fished in this vicinity,
shot by a neighboring pond, measuring more than two feet in length, and
six in the stretch of its wings. Nuttall mentions that “The ancients,
particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught their young
to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so were destroyed.
Linnaeus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of the feet of
this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly webbed,
so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the other.”
But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless. Its
shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the
sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his
wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of
the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight
over Parnassus.
The booming of the bittern, described by Goldsmith and Nuttall, is
frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like
a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant
farm-yard. The manner in which this sound is produced I have not seen
anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird has been seen by one of
my neighbors to thrust its bill into the water, and suck up as much as
it could hold, then raising its head, it pumped it out again with four
or five heaves of the neck, throwing it two or three feet, and making
the sound each time.
At length the summer’s eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the
flicker among the oaks on the hill-side, and a new dynasty begins with
calm security.
In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and given the
immense spaces of hollow air, and this curious human ear, one does not
see how the void could be better filled.
Each summer sound
Is a summer round.
As the season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing
visit depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers
ruffle the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a
response and expression for every mood in the depths of the wood.
Sometimes-I hear the veery’s[3] clarion,
Or brazen trump of the impatient jay,
And in secluded woods the chicadee
Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise
Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness
Of virtue evermore.
The phoebe still sings in harmony with the sultry weather by the brink
of the pond, nor are the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the
village without their minstrel.
Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays
The vireo rings the changes sweet,
During the trivial summer days,
Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.
With the autumn begins in some measure a new spring. The plover is
heard whistling high in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit
from tree to tree, the bobolinks and flickers fly in flocks, and the
goldfinch rides on the earliest blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid
the rustle of the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to congregate; you
may stand and count them as they fly low and straggling over the
landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at intervals of half a mile,
until a hundred have passed.
I have seen it suggested somewhere that the crow was brought to this
country by the white man; but I shall as soon believe that the white
man planted these pines and hemlocks. He is no spaniel to follow our
steps; but rather flits about the clearings like the dusky spirit of
the Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and Powhatan, than of
Winthrop and Smith. He is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight,
by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold the world ever;
there is the rook in England, and the crow in New England.
Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
Bird of an ancient brood,
Flitting thy lonely way,
A meteor in the summer’s day,
From wood to wood, from hill to hill,
Low over forest, field, and rill,
What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat,
And bears thee up above the clouds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low?
The late walker or sailor, in the October evenings, may hear the
murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most
spirit-like sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the
frosts have tinged the leaves, a solitary loon pays a visit to our
retired ponds, where he may lurk undisturbed till the season of
moulting is passed, making the woods ring with his wild laughter. This
bird, the Great Northern Diver, well deserves its name; for when
pursued with a boat, it will dive, and swim like a fish under water,
for sixty rods or more, as fast as a boat can be paddled, and its
pursuer, if he would discover his game again, must put his ear to the
surface to hear where it comes up. When it comes to the surface, it
throws the water off with one shake of its wings, and calmly swims
about until again disturbed.
These are the sights and sounds which reach our senses oftenest during
the year. But sometimes one hears a quite new note, which has for
background other Carolinas and Mexicos than the books describe, and
learns that his ornithology has done him no service.
It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds
belonging to the State, and among these one is glad to hear of a few
bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats.
When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the
meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness
advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far
off then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk-rat,
made of mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river,
as when I read of the barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver of
the settled States. Their number has even increased within a few years
in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the Merrimack, the
Concord is known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The Indians are said
to have called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its current being much
more sluggish, and its water more muddy than the rest, it abounds more
in fish and game of every kind. According to the History of the town,
“The fur-trade was here once very important. As early as 1641, a
company was formed in the colony, of which Major Willard of Concord was
superintendent, and had the exclusive right to trade with the Indians
in furs and other articles; and for this right they were obliged to pay
into the public treasury one twentieth of all the furs they obtained.”
There are trappers in our midst still, as well as on the streams of the
far West, who night and morning go the round of their traps, without
fear of the Indian. One of these takes from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred musk-rats in a year, and even thirty-six have been shot by
one man in a day. Their fur, which is not nearly as valuable as
formerly, is in good condition in the winter and spring only; and upon
the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out of their holes by
the water, the greatest number is shot from boats, either swimming or
resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass and reeds, by the
side of the stream. Though they exhibit considerable cunning at other
times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to be placed in
their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait being used,
though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter the hunter
cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them when they come to the surface.
Their burrows are usually in the high banks of the river, with the
entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high
water. Sometimes their nests, composed of dried meadow grass and flags,
may be discovered where the bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of
the ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young
in the spring.
Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long ripple is seen in the
still water, where a musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its
nose above the surface, and sometimes a green bough in its mouth to
build its house with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and
swim five or six rods under water, and at length conceal itself in its
hole, or the weeds. It will remain under water for ten minutes at a
time, and on one occasion has been seen, when undisturbed, to form an
air-bubble under the ice, which contracted and expanded as it breathed
at leisure. When it suspects danger on shore, it will stand erect like
a squirrel, and survey its neighborhood for several minutes, without
moving.
In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the
stream, they erect cabins of mud and grass, three or four feet high,
near its edge. These are not their breeding-places, though young are
sometimes found in them in late freshets, but rather their
hunting-lodges, to which they resort in the winter with their food, and
for shelter. Their food consists chiefly of flags and fresh-water
muscles, the shells of the latter being left in large quantities around
their lodges in the spring.
The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a musk-rat, with the legs
and tail dangling, and the head caught under his girdle, for a pouch,
into which he puts his fishing tackle, and essences to scent his traps
with.
The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten, have
disappeared; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the
mink is less common than formerly.
Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest
and most familiar reputation, from the time of Pilpay and Aesop to the
present day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter’s walk. I
tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or
which perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation, as if
I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and
expected soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to know what has
determined its graceful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident
with the fluctuations of some mind. I know which way a mind wended,
what horizon it faced, by the setting of these tracks, and whether it
moved slowly or rapidly, by their greater or less intervals and
distinctness; for the swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace.
Sometimes you will see the trails of many together, and where they have
gambolled and gone through a hundred evolutions, which testify to a
singular listlessness and leisure in nature.
When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, with the carelessness
of freedom, or at intervals trace his course in the sunshine along the
ridge of a hill, I give up to him sun and earth as to their true
proprietor. He does not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him, and
there is a visible sympathy between him and it. Sometimes, when the
snow lies light, and but five or six inches deep, you may give chase
and come up with one on foot. In such a case he will show a remarkable
presence of mind, choosing only the safest direction, though he may
lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his fright, he will take no step
which is not beautiful. His pace is a sort of leopard canter, as if he
were in nowise impeded by the snow, but were husbanding his strength
all the while. When the ground is uneven, the course is a series of
graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the surface. He runs as
though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally dropping his
muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his head aloft,
when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he will put
his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the snow
before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from any
nearness, and yet with such expression that it would not be quite
inaudible at any distance.
Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hundred and seven species are
described in the Report. The fisherman will be startled to learn that
there are but about a dozen kinds in the ponds and streams of any
inland town; and almost nothing is known of their habits. Only their
names and residence make one love fishes. I would know even the number
of their fin-rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I am
the wiser in respect to all knowledges, and the better qualified for
all fortunes, for knowing that there is a minnow in the brook. Methinks
I have need even of his sympathy, and to be his fellow in a degree.
I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of
fishing
and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or
Shakspeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the
Angler’s Souvenir, I am fain to exclaim,—
“Can these things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud?”
Next to nature, it seems as if man’s actions were the most natural,
they so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax stretched
across the shallow and transparent parts of our river, are no more
intrusion than the cobweb in the sun. I stay my boat in midcurrent, and
look down in the sunny water to see the civil meshes of his nets, and
wonder how the blustering people of the town could have done this
elvish work. The twine looks like a new river weed, and is to the river
as a beautiful memento of man’s presence in nature, discovered as
silently and delicately as a footprint in the sand.
When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my
feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many
pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain. The
revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At
length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the
heavens again.
Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, is the time for spearing
fish. Suddenly the wind shifts from northeast and east to west and
south, and every icicle, which has tinkled on the meadow grass so long,
trickles down its stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million
comrades. The steam curls up from every roof and fence.
I see the civil sun drying earth’s tears,
Her tears of joy, which only faster flow.
In the brooks is heard the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice,
floating with various speed, full of content and promise, and where the
water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts
hold conversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the
juices of the meadow. In the ponds the ice cracks with a merry and
inspiriting din, and down the larger streams is whirled grating
hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which was so lately a highway for
the woodman’s team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the
skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town
committees anxiously inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere
eye-force to intercede with the ice, and save the treasury.
The river swelleth more and more,
Like some sweet influence stealing o’er
The passive town; and for a while
Each tussuck makes a tiny isle,
Where, on some friendly Ararat,
Resteth the weary water-rat.
No ripple shows Musketaquid,
Her very current e’en is hid,
As deepest souls do calmest rest,
When thoughts are swelling in the breast,
And she that in the summer’s drought
Doth make a rippling and a rout,
Sleeps from Nabshawtuck to the Cliff,
Unruffled by a single skiff.
But by a thousand distant hills
The louder roar a thousand rills,
And many a spring which now is dumb,
And many a stream with smothered hum,
Doth swifter well and faster glide,
Though buried deep beneath the tide.
Our village shows a rural Venice,
Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is;
As lovely as the Bay of Naples
Yon placid cove amid the maples;
And in my neighbor’s field of corn
I recognize the Golden Horn.
Here Nature taught from year to year,
When only red men came to hear,
Methinks ’twas in this school of art
Venice and Naples learned their part;
But still their mistress, to my mind,
Her young disciples leaves behind.
The fisherman now repairs and launches his boat. The best time for
spearing is at this season, before the weeds have begun to grow, and
while the fishes lie in the shallow water, for in summer they prefer
the cool depths, and in the autumn they are still more or less
concealed by the grass. The first requisite is fuel for your crate; and
for this purpose the roots of the pitchpine are commonly used, found
under decayed stumps, where the trees have been felled eight or ten
years.
With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops, to contain your fire, and
attached to the bow of your boat about three feet from the water, a
fish-spear with seven tines, and fourteen feet long, a large basket, or
barrow, to carry your fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer
garment, you are equipped for a cruise. It should be a warm and still
evening; and then with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you may
launch forth like a cucullo into the night. The dullest soul cannot go
upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if
he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone down the Styx on a midnight
expedition into the realms of Pluto. And much speculation does this
wandering star afford to the musing nightwalker, leading him on and on,
jack-o’lantern-like, over the meadows; or, if he is wiser, he amuses
himself with imagining what of human life, far in the silent night, is
flitting mothlike round its candle. The silent navigator shoves his
craft gently over the water, with a smothered pride and sense of
benefaction, as if he were the phosphor, or light-bringer, to these
dusky realms, or some sister moon, blessing the spaces with her light.
The waters, for a rod or two on either hand and several feet in depth,
are lit up with more than noonday distinctness, and he enjoys the
opportunity which so many have desired, for the roofs of a city are
indeed raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of the fishes. There
they lie in every variety of posture; some on their backs, with their
white bellies uppermost, some suspended in midwater, some sculling
gently along with a dreamy motion of the fins, and others quite active
and wide awake,—a scene not unlike what the human city would present.
Occasionally he will encounter a turtle selecting the choicest morsels,
or a musk-rat resting on a tussuck. He may exercise his dexterity, if
he sees fit, on the more distant and active fish, or fork the nearer
into his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even take the sound
sleepers with his hands. But these last accomplishments he will soon
learn to dispense with, distinguishing the real object of his pursuit,
and find compensation in the beauty and never-ending novelty of his
position. The pines growing down to the water’s edge will show newly as
in the glare of a conflagration; and as he floats under the willows
with his light, the song-sparrow will often wake on her perch, and sing
that strain at midnight, which she had meditated for the morning. And
when he has done, he may have to steer his way home through the dark by
the north star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for
having lost his way on the earth.
The fishes commonly taken in this way are pickerel, suckers, perch,
eels, pouts, breams, and shiners,—from thirty to sixty weight in a
night. Some are hard to be recognized in the unnatural light,
especially the perch, which, his dark bands being exaggerated, acquires
a ferocious aspect. The number of these transverse bands, which the
Report states to be seven, is, however, very variable, for in some of
our ponds they have nine and ten even.
It appears that we have eight kinds of tortoises, twelve snakes,—but
one of which is venomous,—nine frogs and toads, nine salamanders, and
one lizard, for our neighbors.
I am particularly attracted by the motions of the serpent tribe. They
make our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the
fish seems very superfluous, as if nature had only indulged her fancy
in making them. The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and
circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin
and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from
bough to bough, or hang in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and
flexibleness in the simpler forms of animal life are equivalent to a
complex system of limbs in the higher; and we have only to be as wise
and wily as the serpent, to perform as difficult feats without the
vulgar assistance of hands and feet.
In May, the snapping turtle, _Emysaurus serpentina,_ is frequently
taken on the meadows and in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over
the calm surface, discovers its snout projecting above the water, at
the distance of many rods, and easily secures his prey through its
unwillingness to disturb the water by swimming hastily away, for,
gradually drawing its head under, it remains resting on some limb or
clump of grass. Its eggs, which are buried at a distance from the
water, in some soft place, as a pigeon-bed, are frequently devoured by
the skunk. It will catch fish by daylight, as a toad catches flies, and
is said to emit a transparent fluid from its mouth to attract them.
Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education
and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which
flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in
the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor
has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified
there. I am struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of
nature, as when the lichen on the trees takes the form of their leaves.
In the most stupendous scenes you will see delicate and fragile
features, as slight wreaths of vapor, dewlines, feathery sprays, which
suggest a high refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it were. It
is not hard to account for elves and fairies; they represent this light
grace, this ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the wood, or a
crystal from the brook, and place it on your mantel, and your household
ornaments will seem plebeian beside its nobler fashion and bearing. It
will wave superior there, as if used to a more refined and polished
circle. It has a salute and a response to all your enthusiasm and
heroism.
In the winter, I stop short in the path to admire how the trees grow up
without forethought, regardless of the time and circumstances. They do
not wait as man does, but now is the golden age of the sapling. Earth,
air, sun, and rain, are occasion enough; they were no better in
primeval centuries. The “winter of _their_ discontent” never comes.
Witness the buds of the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost
on the sides of its bare switches. They express a naked confidence.
With cheerful heart one could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he
were sure to find there the catkins of the willow or the alder. When I
read of them in the accounts of northern adventurers, by Baffin’s Bay
or Mackenzie’s river, I see how even there too I could dwell. They are
our little vegetable redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out till
they come again. They are worthy to have had a greater than Minerva or
Ceres for their inventor. Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed
them on mankind?
Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and
extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well
as art. Having a pilgrim’s cup to make, she gives to the whole, stem,
bowl, handle, and nose, some fantastic shape, as if it were to be the
car of some fabulous marine deity, a Nereus or Triton.
In the winter, the botanist needs not confine himself to his books and
herbarium, and give over his out-door pursuits, but may study a new
department of vegetable physiology, what may be called crystalline
botany, then. The winter of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In
December of that year, the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by
night over its summer haunts with unusual persistency. Such a
hoarfrost, as is very uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full effects
can never be witnessed after sunrise, occurred several times. As I went
forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy
creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together
with their gray hairs streaming in a secluded valley, which the sun had
not penetrated; on that hurrying off in Indian file along some
watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of
the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow. The
river, viewed from the high bank, appeared of a yellowish green color,
though all the landscape was white. Every tree, shrub, and spire of
grass, that could raise its head above the snow, was covered with a
dense ice-foliage, answering, as it were, leaf for leaf to its summer
dress. Even the fences had put forth leaves in the night. The centre,
diverging, and more minute fibres were perfectly distinct, and the
edges regularly indented. These leaves were on the side of the twig or
stubble opposite to the sun, meeting it for the most part at right
angles, and there were others standing out at all possible angles upon
these and upon one another, with no twig or stubble supporting them.
When the first rays of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses
seemed hung with innumerable jewels, which jingled merrily as they were
brushed by the foot of the traveller, and reflected all the hues of the
rainbow as he moved from side to side. It struck me that these ghost
leaves, and the green ones whose forms they assume, were the creatures
of but one law; that in obedience to the same law the vegetable juices
swell gradually into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the
crystalline particles troop to their standard in the same order, on the
other. As if the material were indifferent, but the law one and
invariable, and every plant in the spring but pushed up into and filled
a permanent and eternal mould, which, summer and winter forever, is
waiting to be filled.
This foliate structure is common to the coral and the plumage of birds,
and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same
independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as
in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its
counterpart in some vegetable. As, indeed, all rhymes imply an eternal
melody, independent of any particular sense.
As confirmation of the fact, that vegetation is but a kind of
crystallization, every one may observe how, upon the edge of the
melting frost on the window, the needle-shaped particles are bundled
together so as to resemble fields waving with grain, or shocks rising
here and there from the stubble; on one side the vegetation of the
torrid zone, high-towering palms and widespread banyans, such as are
seen in pictures of oriental scenery; on the other, arctic pines stiff
frozen, with downcast branches.
Vegetation has been made the type of all growth; but as in crystals the
law is more obvious, their material being more simple, and for the most
part more transient and fleeting, would it not be as philosophical as
convenient to consider all growth, all filling up within the limits of
nature, but a crystallization more or less rapid?
On this occasion, in the side of the high bank of the river, wherever
the water or other cause had formed a cavity, its throat and outer
edge, like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a glistening
ice-armor. In one place you might see minute ostrich-feathers, which
seemed the waving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress; in
another, the glancing, fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host; and
in another, the needle-shaped particles collected into bundles,
resembling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears.
From the under side of the ice in the brooks, where there was a thicker
ice below, depended a mass of crystallization, four or five inches
deep, in the form of prisms, with their lower ends open, which, when
the ice was laid on its smooth side, resembled the roofs and steeples
of a Gothic city, or the vessels of a crowded haven under a press of
canvas. The very mud in the road, where the ice had melted, was
crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, and the crystalline masses
in the sides of the ruts resembled exactly asbestos in the disposition
of their needles. Around the roots of the stubble and flower-stalks,
the frost was gathered into the form of irregular conical shells, or
fairy rings. In some places the ice-crystals were lying upon granite
rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, the frost-work of a longer
night, crystals of a longer period, but to some eye unprejudiced by the
short term of human life, melting as fast as the former.
In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, this singular fact is
recorded, which teaches us to put a new value on time and space. “The
distribution of the marine shells is well worthy of notice as a
geological fact. Cape Cod, the right arm of the Commonwealth, reaches
out into the ocean, some fifty or sixty miles. It is nowhere many miles
wide; but this narrow point of land has hitherto proved a barrier to
the migrations of many species of Mollusca. Several genera and numerous
species, which are separated by the intervention of only a few miles of
land, are effectually prevented from mingling by the Cape, and do not
pass from one side to the other…. Of the one hundred and ninety-seven
marine species, eighty-three do not pass to the south shore, and fifty
are not found on the north shore of the Cape.”
That common muscle, the _Unio complanalus_, or more properly
_fluviatilis_, left in the spring by the musk-rat upon rocks and
stumps, appears to have been an important article of food with the
Indians. In one place, where they are said to have feasted, they are
found in large quantities, at an elevation of thirty feet above the
river, filling the soil to the depth of a foot, and mingled with ashes
and Indian remains.
The works we have placed at the head of our chapter, with as much
license, as the preacher selects his text, are such as imply more labor
than enthusiasm. The State wanted complete catalogues of its natural
riches, with such additional facts merely as would be directly useful.
The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and Invertebrate Animals,
however, indicate labor and research, and have a value independent of
the object of the legislature.
Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot be of much value, as long
as Bigelow and Nuttall are accessible. They serve but to indicate, with
more or less exactness, what species are found in the State. We detect
several errors ourselves, and a more practised eye would no doubt
expand the list.
The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and instructive report than they
have obtained.
These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not
interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored
sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests,
which bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was
comparatively unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he
raises no flowers with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value
of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few
facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of
any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually
written. Men are knowing enough after their fashion. Every countryman
and dairymaid knows that the coats of the fourth stomach of the calf
will curdle milk, and what particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious
diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but it will seem as if
every stone had been turned, and the bark on every tree ripped up. But,
after all, it is much easier to discover than to see when the cover is
off! It has been well said that “the attitude of inspection is prone.”
Wisdom does not inspect, but behold. We must look a long time before we
can see. Slow are the beginnings of philosophy. He has something
demoniacal in him, who can discern a law or couple two facts. We can
imagine a time when,—“Water runs down hill,”—may have been taught in
the schools. The true man of science will know nature better by his
finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than
other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn
by inference and deduction, and the application of mathematics to
philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science
as with ethics,—we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the
Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery
and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and
friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.
[2] A white robin, and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It
is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should
be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than
most in the choice of a building spot. I have seen its nest placed
under the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where
the adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two
of the phoebe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a saw-mill, but
a few feet from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion
of the machinery.
[3] This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is
apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most
common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard
the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it “_yorrick_,”
from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the
traveller through the underwood. The cowbird’s egg is occasionally
found in its nest, as mentioned by Audubon.
[1] _Reports—on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds; the Herbaceous Plants
and Quadrupeds; the Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and the
Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts_. Published agreeably to an
Order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoölogical and
Botanical Survey of the State.