It is the amazing coolness of the possum, however, that most_Wild Life Near Home

WILD LIFE NEAR HOME

[Illustration: "The feast is finished and the games are on."]

Wild Life Near

Home

By Dallas Lore Sharp

With Illustrations

By Bruce Horsfall

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

The Century Co.

1901

The Century Co.

_Published October, 1901._

MY WIFE

CONTENTS

PAGE

IN PERSIMMON-TIME 1

BIRDS' WINTER BEDS 31

SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS 47

A BIRD OF THE DARK 65

THE PINE-TREE SWIFT 79

IN THE OCTOBER MOON 95

FEATHERED NEIGHBORS 111

"MUS'RATTIN'" 169

A STUDY IN BIRD MORALS 185

RABBIT ROADS 207

BRICK-TOP 233

SECOND CROPS 247

WOOD-PUSSIES 277

FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP 295

A BUZZARDS' BANQUET 321

UP HERRING RUN 341

I wish to thank the editors of "Lippincott's Magazine,"

"Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly," "Zion's Herald," and the

"Youth's Companion" for allowing me to reprint here the

chapters of "Wild Life Near Home" that first appeared in

their pages.

DALLAS LORE SHARP.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The feast is finished and the games are on _Frontispiece_

Ripe and rimy with November's frosts 5

Swinging from the limbs by their long prehensile tails 7

Under such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious beast 10

Filing through the corn-stubs 13

Here on the fence we waited 16

He had stopped for a meal on his way out 20

Playing possum 22

She was standing off a dog 26

The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds 37

There she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously 45

And--dreamed 46

I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster 52

The meadow-mouse 55

It was Whitefoot 60

From his leafless height he looks down into the Hollow 63

It caught at the insects in the air 71

Unlike any bird of the light 77

They peek around the tree-trunks 83

The sparrow-hawk searching the fences for them 88

In October they are building their winter lodges 103

The glimpse of Reynard in the moonlight 106

They probe the lawns most diligently for worms 117

Even he loves a listener 118

She flew across the pasture 121

Putting things to rights in his house 122

A very ordinary New England "corner" 124

They are the first to return in the spring 127

Where the dams are hawking for flies 130

They cut across the rainbow 135

The barn-swallows fetch the summer 137

From the barn to the orchard 138

Across the road, in an apple-tree, built a pair of redstarts 140

Gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her beak 143

In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of robins.

The crude nest was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork

of the tree, so that the cats and roving boys could help

themselves without trouble 145

I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole 148

He will come if May comes 151

Within a few feet of me dropped the lonely frightened quail 152

On they go to a fence-stake 154

It was a love-song 156

But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly 161

In a dead yellow birch 163

So close I can look directly into it 164

Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and

went chuckling down the bank 170

The big moon was rising over the meadows 173

Section of muskrat's house 174

The snow has drifted over their house till only a

tiny mound appears 177

They rubbed noses 179

Two little brown creatures washing calamus 180

She melted away among the dark pines like a shadow 186

She called me every wicked thing that she could think of 189

It was one of those cathedral-like clumps 191

They were watching me 192

A triumph of love and duty over fear 199

He wants to know where I am and what I am about 203

In the agony of death 205

Calamity is hot on his track 212

Bunny, meantime, is watching just inside the next brier-patch 215

The squat is a cold place 217

The limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that fox 220

His drop is swift and certain 225

Seven young ones in the nest 231

The land of the mushroom 239

Witch-hazel 244

I knew it suited exactly 252

With tail up, head cocked, very much amazed,

and commenting vociferously 254

In a solemn row upon the wire fence 257

Young flying-squirrels 258

The sentinel crows are posted 260

She turned and fixed her big black eyes hard on me 265

Wrapped up like little Eskimos 266

It is no longer a sorry forest of battered, sunken stumps 269

Even the finger-board is a living pillar of ivy 272

A family of seven young skunks 284

The family followed 289

"Spring! spring! spring!" 300

A wretched little puddle 303

He _was_ trying to swallow something 307

In a state of soured silence 322

Ugliness incarnate 325

Sailing over the pines 328

A banquet this _sans_ toasts and cheer 333

Floating without effort among the clouds 337

From unknown regions of the ocean 345

A crooked, fretful little stream 346

Swimming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes! 349

Here again hungry enemies await them 355

IN PERSIMMON-TIME

[Illustration]

WILD LIFE NEAR HOME

[Illustration]

IN PERSIMMON-TIME

The season of ripe persimmons in the pine-barren region of New Jersey

falls during the days of frosty mornings, of wind-strewn leaves and

dropping nuts. Melancholy days these may be in other States, but

never such here. The robin and the wren--I am not sure about all of

the wrens--are flown, just as the poet says; but the jay and the crow

are by no means the only birds that remain. Bob White calls from

the swales and "cut-offs"; the cardinal sounds his clear, brilliant

whistle in the thickets; and the meadow-lark, scaling across the

pastures, flirts his tail from the fence-stake and shouts, _Can you

see-e me?_ These are some of the dominant notes that still ring

through the woods and over the fields. Nor has every fleck of color

gone from the face of the out-of-doors. She is not yet a cold, white

body wrapped in her winding-sheet. The flush of life still lingers in

the stag-horn sumac, where it will burn brighter and warmer as the

shortening days darken and deaden; and there is more than a spark--it

is a steady glow--on the hillsides, where the cedar, pine, and holly

stand, that will live and cheer us throughout the winter. What the

soil has lost of life and vigor the winds have gained; and if the

birds are fewer now, there is a stirring of other animal life in the

open woods and wilder places that was quite lost in the bustle of

summer.

And yet! it is a bare world, in spite of the snap and crispness and

the signs of harvest everywhere; a wider, silenter, sadder world,

though I cannot own a less beautiful world, than in summer. The corn

is cut, the great yellow shocks standing over the level fields like

weather-beaten tepees in deserted Indian villages; frosts have mown

the grass and stripped the trees, so that, from a bluff along the

creek, the glistening Cohansey can be traced down miles of its course,

and through the parted curtains, wide vistas of meadow and farm that

were entirely hidden by the green foliage lie open like a map.

This is persimmon-time. Since most of the leaves have fallen, there is

no trouble in finding the persimmon-trees. They are sprinkled about

the woods, along the fences and highways, as naked as the other trees,

but conspicuous among them all because of their round, dark-red fruit.

[Illustration: "Ripe and rimy with November's frosts."]

What a season of fruit ours is! Opening down in the grass with the

wild strawberries of May, and continuing without break or stint,

to close high in the trees with the persimmon, ripe and rimy with

November's frosts! The persimmon is the last of the fruits. Long

before November the apples are gathered--even the "grindstones" are

buried by this time; the berries, too, have disappeared, except for

such seedy, juiceless things as hang to the cedar, the dogwood, and

greenbrier; and the birds have finished the scattered, hidden clusters

of racy chicken-grapes. The persimmons still hold on; but these are

not for long, unless you keep guard over the trees, for they are

marked: the possums have counted every persimmon.

You will often wonder why you find so few persimmons upon the ground

after a windy, frosty night. Had you happened under the trees just

before daybreak, you would have seen a possum climbing about in the

highest branches, where the frost had most keenly nipped the fruit.

You would probably have seen two or three up the trees, if persimmons

were scarce and possums plentiful in the neighborhood, swinging from

the limbs by their long prehensile tails, and reaching out to the ends

of the twigs to gather in the soft, sugary globes. Should the wind be

high and the fruit dead ripe, you need not look into the trees for the

marauders; they will be upon the ground, nosing out the lumps as they

fall. A possum never does anything for himself that he can let the

gods do for him.

Your tree is perhaps near the road and an old rail-pile. Then you

may expect to find your persimmons rolled up in possum fat among the

rails; for here the thieves are sure to camp throughout the persimmon

season, as the berry-pickers camp in the pines during huckleberry-time.

Possums and persimmons come together, and Uncle Jethro pronounces

them "bofe good fruit." He is quite right. The old darky is not alone

in his love of possums. To my thinking, he shows a nice taste in

preferring November possum to chicken.

[Illustration: "Swinging from the limbs by their long prehensile

tails."]

It is a common thing, in passing through Mount Zion or Springtown in

the winter, to see what, at first glance, looks like a six-weeks' pig

hanging from an up-stairs window, but which, on inspection, proves

to be a possum, scalded, scraped, and cleaned for roasting, suspended

there, out of the reach of dogs and covetous neighbors, for the extra

flavor of a freezing. Now stuff it and roast it, and I will swap my

Thanksgiving turkey for it as quickly as will Uncle Jethro himself.

Though the possum is toothsome, he is such a tame, lumbering dolt that

few real sportsmen care for the sorry joy of killing him. Innumerable

stories have been told of the excitement of possum-hunting; but after

many winters, well sprinkled with moonlight tramps and possums, I

can liken the sport to nothing more thrilling than a straw-ride or a

quilting-party.

There is the exhilarating tramp through the keen, still night, and if

possum-hunting will take one out to the woods for such tramps, then it

is quite worth while.

No one could hunt possums except at night. It would be unendurably

dull by daylight. The moon and the dark lend a wonderful largeness to

the woods, transforming the familiar day-scenes into strange, wild

regions through which it is an adventure merely to walk. There is

magic in darkness. However dead by day, the fields and woods are fully

alive at night. We stop at the creaking of the bare boughs overhead as

if some watchful creature were about to spring upon us; every stump

and bush is an animal that we have startled into sudden fixedness; and

out of every shadow we expect a live thing to rise up and withstand

us. The hoot of the owl, the bark of the fox, the whinny of the coon,

send shivers of excitement over us. We jump at a mouse in the leaves

near by.

Helped out by the spell of moonlight and the collusion of a ready

fancy, it is possible to have a genuine adventure by seizing a logy,

grinning possum by the tail and dragging him out of a stump. Under

such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious beast, grunting and

hissing with wide-open mouth; and you may feel just a thrill of the

real savage's joy as you sling him over your shoulder.

[Illustration: "Under such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious

beast."]

But never go after possums alone, nor with a white man. If you must

go, then go with Uncle Jethro and Calamity. I remember particularly

one night's hunt with Uncle Jethro. I had come upon him in the evening

out on the kitchen steps watching the rim of the rising moon across

the dark, stubby corn-field. It was November, and the silver light was

spreading a plate of frost over the field and its long, silent rows of

corn-shocks.

When Uncle Jethro studied the clouds or the moon in this way, it meant

a trip to the meadows or the swamp; it was a sure sign that geese had

gone over, that the possums and coons were running.

I knew to-night--for I could smell the perfume of the ripe persimmons

on the air--that down by the creek, among the leafless tops of the

persimmon-trees, Uncle Jethro saw a possum.

"Is it Br'er Possum or Br'er Coon, Uncle Jethro?" I asked, slyly, just

as if I did not know.

"Boosh! boosh!" sputtered the old darky, terribly scared by my sudden

appearance. "W'at yo' 'xplodin' my cogitations lak dat fo'? W'at I

know 'bout any possum? Possum, boy? Possum? W'at yo' mean?"

"Don't you sniff the 'simmons, Uncle Jeth?"

Instinctively he threw his nose into the air.

"G' 'way, boy; g' 'way fum yhere! I ain't seen no possum. I 's

thinkin' 'bout dat las' camp-meetin' in de pines"; and he began to

hum:

"Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry,

In de la-ane, in de lane."

Half an hour later we were filing through the corn-stubs toward the

creek. Uncle Jethro carried his long musket under his arm; I had a

stout hickory stick and a meal-sack; while ahead of us, like a sailor

on shore, rolled Calamity, the old possum-dog.

If in June come perfect days, then perfect nights come in November.

There is one thing, at least, as rare as a June day, and that is a

clear, keen November night, enameled with frost and set with the

hunter's moon.

Uncle Jethro was not thinking of last summer's camp-meeting now; but

still he crooned softly a camp-meeting melody:

"Sheep an' de goats a-

Gwine to de pastcha,

Sheep tell de goats, 'Ain't yo'

Walk a leetle fasta?'

"Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry,

In de la-ane, in de lane.

"Coon he up a gum-tree,

Possum in de holla;

Coon he roll hi'self in ha'r,

Possum roll in talla.

"Lawd, I wunda--"

until we began to skirt Cubby Hollow, when he suddenly brought himself

up with a snap.

It was Calamity "talkin' in one of her tongues." The short, sharp

bark came down from the fence at the brow of the hill. Uncle Jethro

listened.

[Illustration: "Filing through the corn-stubs."]

"Jis squirrel-talk, dat. She'll talk possum by-um-bit, she will. Ain't

no possum-dog in des diggin's kin talk possum wid C'lamity. An' w'en

_she_ talk possum, ol' man possum gotter listen. Sell C'lamity? Dat

dog can't be bought, she can't."

As we came under the persimmon-trees at the foot of Lupton's Pond,

the moon was high enough to show us that no possum had been here yet,

for there was abundance of the luscious, frost-nipped fruit upon the

ground. In the bare trees the persimmons hung like silver beads. We

stopped to gather a few, when Calamity woke the woods with her cry.

"Dar he is! C'lamity done got ol' man possum now! Down by de bend!

Dat's possum-talk, big talk, fat talk!" And we hurried after the dog.

We had gone half a mile, and Uncle Jethro had picked himself up at

least three times, when I protested.

"Uncle Jeth!" I cried, "that's an awfully long-legged possum. He'll

run all his fat off before we catch him."

"Dat's so, boy, shu' 'nough! W'at dat ol' fool dog tree a long-legged

possum fo', nohow? Yer, C'lamity, 'lamity, yer, yer!" he yelled, as

the hound doubled and began to track the _rabbit_ back toward us.

We were thoroughly cooled before Calamity appeared. She was boxed on

the ear and sent off again with the command to talk possum next time

or be shot.

She was soon talking again. This time it _must_ be possum-talk. There

could be no mistake about that long, steady, placid howl. The dog must

be under a tree or beside a stump waiting for us. As Uncle Jethro

heard the cry he chuckled, and a new moon broke through his dusky

countenance.

"Yhear dat? _Dat's_ possum-talk. C'lamity done meet up wid de ol' man

dis time, shu'."

And so she had, as far as we could see. She was lying restfully on

the bank of a little stream, her head in the air, singing that long,

lonesome strain which Uncle Jethro called her possum-talk. It was

a wonderfully faithful reproduction of her master's camp-meeting

singing. One of his weird, wordless melodies seemed to have passed

into the old dog's soul.

But what was she calling us for? As we came up we looked around for

the tree, the stump, the fallen log; but there was not a splinter

in sight. Uncle Jethro was getting nervous. Calamity rose, as we

approached, and pushed her muzzle into a muskrat's smooth, black hole.

This was too much. She saw it, and hung her head, for she knew what

was coming.

"Look yhere, yo' obtuscious ol' fool. W'at yo' 'sociatin' wid a

low-down possum as takes t' mus'rats' holes? W'at I done tol' yo'

'bout dis? Go 'long home! Go 'long en talk de moon up a tree." And as

Uncle Jethro dropped upon his knees by the hole, Calamity slunk away

through the brush.

I held up a bunch of freshly washed grass-roots.

"Uncle Jeth, this must be a new species of possum; he eats roots like

any muskrat," I said innocently.

It was good for Calamity not to be there just then. Uncle Jethro loved

her as he would have loved a child; but he vowed, as he picked up his

gun: "De nex' time dat no-'count dog don't talk possum, yo' 'll see de

buzzard 'bout, yo' will."

We tramped up the hill and on through the woods to some open fields.

Here on the fence we waited for Calamity's signal.

[Illustration: "Here on the fence we waited."]

"Did you say you wouldn't put any price on Calamity, Uncle Jethro?" I

asked as we waited.

There was no reply.

"Going to roast this possum, aren't you?"

Silence.

"Am I going to have an invite, Uncle Jeth?"

"Hush up, boy! How we gwine yhear w'at dat dog say?"

"Calamity? Why, didn't you tell her to go home?"

The woods were still. A little screech-owl off in the trees was the

only creature that disturbed the brittle silence. The owl was flitting

from perch to perch, coming nearer us.

"W'at dat owl say?" whispered Uncle Jethro, starting. "'No possum'?

'no possum'? 'no possum'? Come 'long home, boy," he commanded aloud.

"W'en ol' Miss Owl say 'No possum,' C'lamity herself ain't gwine git

none." And sliding to the ground, he trudged off for home.

We were back again in the corn-field with an empty sack. The moon was

riding high near eleven o'clock. From behind a shock Calamity joined

us, falling in at the rear like one of our shadows. Of course Uncle

Jethro did not see her. He was proud of the rheumatic old hound,

and a night like this nipped his pride as the first frosts nip the

lima-beans.

It was the owl's evil doing, he argued all the way home. "W'en ol'

Miss Owl say 'Stay in'--no use:

'Simmons sweet, 'simmons red,

Ain't no possum leave his bed.

All de dogs in Mount Zion won't fin' no possum out dis night."

No; it was not Calamity's fault: it was Miss Owl's.

We were turning in back of the barn when there came a sudden yelp,

sharp as a pistol-shot, and Calamity darted through Uncle Jethro's

legs, almost upsetting him, making straight for the yard. At the same

moment I caught sight of a large creature hurrying with a wabbly,

uncertain gait along the ridge-pole of the hen-house.

It was a possum--as big as a coon. He was already half-way down the

side of the coop; but Calamity was below him, howling like mad.

Uncle Jethro nearly unjointed himself. Before the frightened animal

had time to faint, the triumphant hunter was jouncing him up and down

inside the sack, and promising the bones and baking-pan to Calamity.

"W'at dat yo' mumblin', boy? Gwine ax yo'self a' invite? G' 'way; g'

'way; yo' don' lak possum. W'at dat yo' sayin' 'g'in' C'lamity? Yo'

's needin' sleep, chil', yo' is. Ain't I done tol' yo' dat dog gwine

talk possum by-um-bit? W'at dem 'flections 'g'in' ol' Miss Owl? Boosh,

boy! Dat all fool-talk, w'at ol' Miss Owl say. We done been layin'

low jis s'prise yo', me an' C'lamity an' ol' Miss Owl has." And as he

placed the chopping-block upon the barrel to keep the possum safe till

morning, he began again:

"Coon he up a gum-tree,

Possum in de holla;

Coon he roll hi'self in ha'r,

Possum roll in talla.

"Lawd, I wunda, who kilt John Henry,

In de la-ane, in de lane."

The next morning Uncle Jethro went to get his possum. But the possum

was gone. The chopping-block lay on the woodshed floor, the cover of

the barrel was pushed aside, and the only trace of the animal was a

bundle of seed-corn that he had pulled from a nail overhead and left

half eaten on the floor. He had stopped for a meal on his way out.

Uncle Jethro, with Uncle Remus, gives Br'er Rabbit the wreath for

craft; but in truth the laurel belongs to Br'er Possum. He is an

eternal surprise. Either he is the most stupidly wise animal of the

woods, or the most wisely stupid. He is a puzzle. Apparently his one

unburied talent is heaviness. Joe, the fat boy, was not a sounder nor

more constant sleeper, nor was his mental machinery any slower than

the possum's. The little beast is utterly wanting in swiftness and

weapons, his sole hope and defense being luck and indifference. To

luck and indifference he trusts life and happiness. And who can say he

does not prosper--that he does not roll in fat?

[Illustration: "He had stopped for a meal on his way out."]

I suppose there once were deer and otter in the stretches of wild

woodland along the Cohansey; but a fox is rare here now, and the coon

by no means abundant. Indeed, the rabbit, even with the help of the

game laws, has a hard time. Yet the possum, unprotected by law, slow

of foot, slower of thought, and worth fifty cents in any market, still

flourishes along the creek.

A greyhound must push to overtake a rabbit, but I have run down a

possum with my winter boots on in less than half-way across a clean

ten-acre field. He ambles along like a bear, swinging his head from

side to side to see how fast you are gaining upon him. When you come

up and touch him with your foot, over he goes, grunting and grinning

with his mouth wide open. If you nudge him further, or bark, he will

die--but he will come to life again when you turn your back.

Some scientifically minded people believe that this "playing possum"

follows as a physiological effect of fear; that is, they say the

pulse slackens, the temperature falls, and, as a result, instead of a

pretense of being dead, the poor possum actually swoons.

A physiologist in his laboratory, with stethoscope, sphygmoscope,

thermometer, and pneumonometer, may be able to scare a possum into a

fit--I should say he might; but I doubt if a plain naturalist in the

woods, with only his two eyes, a jack-knife, and a bit of string, was

ever able to make the possum do more than "play possum."

We will try to believe with the laboratory investigator that the

possum does genuinely faint. However, it will not be rank heresy to

run over this leaf from my diary. It records a faithful diagnosis

of the case as I observed it. The statement does not claim to be

scientific; I mean that there were no 'meters or 'scopes of any kind

used. It is simply what I saw and have seen a hundred times. Here is

the entry:

[Illustration: Playing possum.]

POSSUM-FAINT

_Cause._ My sudden appearance before the patient.

_Symptoms._ A backing away with open mouth and unpleasant

hisses until forcibly stopped, when the patient falls

on one side, limp and helpless, a long, unearthly smile

overspreading the face; the off eye closed, the near eye

just ajar; no muscular twitching, but most decided attempts

to get up and run as soon as my back is turned.

_Treatment._ My non-interference.

_Note._ Recovery instantaneous with my removal ten feet.

This whole performance repeated twelve times in as many

minutes.

December 26, 1893.

I have known the possum too long for a ready faith in his extreme

nervousness, too long to believe him so hysterical that the least

surprise can frighten him into fits. He has a reasonable fear of dogs;

no fear at all of cats; and will take his chances any night with a

coon for the possession of a hollow log. He will live in the same

burrow with other possums, with owls,--with anything in fact,--and

overlook any bearable imposition; he will run away from everything,

venture anywhere, and manage to escape from the most impossible

situations. Is this an epileptic, an unstrung, flighty creature?

Possibly; but look at him. He rolls in fat; and how long has obesity

been the peculiar accompaniment of nervousness?

It is the amazing coolness of the possum, however, that most

completely disposes of the scientist's pathetic tale of unsteady

nerves. A creature that will deliberately walk into a trap, spring

it, eat the bait, then calmly lie down and sleep until the trapper

comes, has no nerves. I used to catch a possum, now and then, in the

box-traps set for rabbits. It is a delicate task to take a rabbit

from such a trap; for, give him a crack of chance and away he bolts

to freedom. Open the lid carefully when there is a possum inside, and

you will find the old fellow curled up with a sweet smile of peace on

his face, fast asleep. Shake the trap, and he rouses yawningly, with a

mildly injured air, offended at your rudeness, and wanting to know why

you should wake an innocent possum from so safe and comfortable a bed.

He blinks at you inquiringly and says: "Please, sir, if you will be so

kind as to shut the door and go away, I will finish my nap." And while

he is saying it, before your very eyes, off to sleep he goes.

Is this nervousness? What, then, is it--stupidity or insolence?

Physically as well as psychologically the possums are out of the

ordinary. As every one knows, they are marsupials; that is, they have

a pouch or pocket on the abdomen in which they carry the young. Into

this pocket the young are transferred as soon as they are born, and

were it not for this strange half-way house along the journey of their

development they would perish.

At birth a possum is little more than formed--the least mature babe

among all of our mammals. It is only half an inch long, blind, deaf,

naked, and so weak and helpless as to be unable to open its mouth or

even cry. Such babies are rare. The smallest young mice you ever saw

are as large as possums at their birth. They weigh only about four

grains, the largest of them, and are so very tiny that the mother

has to fasten each to a teat and _force_ the milk down each wee

throat--for they cannot even swallow.

They live in this cradle for about five weeks, by which time they can

creep out and climb over their mother. They are then about the size of

full-grown mice, and the dearest of wood babies. They have sharp pink

noses, snapping black eyes, gray fur, and the longest, barest tails.

I think that the most interesting picture I ever saw in the woods was

an old mother possum with eleven little ones clinging to her. She was

standing off a dog as I came up, and every one of the eleven was

peeking out, immensely enjoying this first adventure. The quizzing

snouts of six were poked out in a bunch from the cradle-pouch, while

the other five mites were upon their mother's back, where they had

been playing Jack-and-the-beanstalk up and down her tail.

[Illustration: "She was standing off a dog."]

Historically, also, the possum is a conundrum. He has not a single

relative on this continent, except those on exhibition in zoölogical

gardens. He left kith and kin behind in Australia when he came over to

our country. How he got here, and when, we do not know. Clouds hang

heavy over the voyages of all the discoverers of America. The possum

was one of the first to find us, and when did he land, I wonder? How

long before Columbus, and Leif, son of Eric?

In his appetite the possum is no way peculiar, except, perhaps, that

he takes the seasons' menus entire. Between persimmon-times he eats

all sorts of animal food, and is a much better hunter than we usually

give him credit for. Considering his slowness, too, he manages to

plod over an amazing amount of territory in the course of his evening

rambles. He starts out at dusk, and wanders around all night, planning

his hunt so as to get back to his lair by dawn. Sometimes at daybreak

he is a long way from home. Not being able to see well in the light,

and rather than run into needless danger, he then crawls into the

nearest hole or under the first rail-pile he comes to; or else he

climbs a tree, and, wrapping his tail about a limb, settles himself

comfortably in a forked branch quite out of sight, and sleeps till

darkness comes again.

[Illustration]

On these expeditions he picks up frogs, fish, eggs, birds, mice, corn,

and in winter a chicken here and there.

In the edge of a piece of woods along the Cohansey there used to stand

a large hen-coop surrounded by a ten-foot fence of wire netting. One

winter several chickens were missing here, and though rats and other

prowlers about the pen were caught, still the chickens continued to

disappear.

One morning a possum was seen to descend the wire fence and enter the

coop through the small square door used by the fowls. We ran in; but

there was no possum to be found. We thought we had searched everywhere

until, finally, one of us lifted the lids off a rusty old stove that

had been used to heat the coop the winter before, and there was the

possum, with two companions, snug and warm, in a nest of feathers on

the grate.

Here were the remains of the lost chickens. These sly thieves had

camped in this stove ever since autumn, crawling in and out through

the stovepipe hole. During the day they slept quietly; and at night,

when the chickens were at roost, the old rascals would slip out, grab

the nearest one, pull it into the stove, and feast.

Is there anything on record in the way of audacity better than that?

[Illustration]

BIRDS' WINTER BEDS

[Illustration]

BIRDS' WINTER BEDS

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.

A storm had been raging from the northeast all day. Toward evening

the wind strengthened to a gale, and the fine, icy snow swirled and

drifted over the frozen fields.

I lay a long time listening to the wild symphony of the winds,

thankful for the roof over my head, and wondering how the hungry,

homeless creatures out of doors would pass the night. Where do the

birds sleep such nights as this? Where in this bitter cold, this

darkness and storm, will they make their beds? The lark that broke

from the snow at my feet as I crossed the pasture this afternoon--

What comes o' thee?

Whar wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,

An' close thy e'e?

The storm grew fiercer; the wind roared through the big pines by the

side of the house and swept hoarsely on across the fields; the pines

shivered and groaned, and their long limbs scraped over the shingles

above me as if feeling with frozen fingers for a way in; the windows

rattled, the cracks and corners of the old farm-house shrieked, and a

long, thin line of snow sifted in from beneath the window across the

garret floor. I fancied these sounds of the storm were the voices of

freezing birds, crying to be taken in from the cold. Once I thought I

heard a thud against the window, a sound heavier than the rattle of

the snow. Something seemed to be beating at the glass. It might be a

bird. I got out of bed to look; but there was only the ghostly face

of the snow pressed against the panes, half-way to the window's top.

I imagined that I heard the thud again; but, while listening, fell

asleep and dreamed that my window was frozen fast, and that all the

birds in the world were knocking at it, trying to get in out of the

night and storm.

The fields lay pure and white and flooded with sunshine when I awoke.

Jumping out of bed, I ran to the window, and saw a dark object on the

sill outside. I raised the sash, and there, close against the glass,

were two quails--frozen stiff in the snow. It was they I heard the

night before fluttering at the window. The ground had been covered

deep with snow for several days, and at last, driven by hunger and

cold from the fields, they saw my light, and sought shelter from the

storm and a bed for the night with me.

Four others, evidently of the same covey, spent the night in the

wagon-house, and in the morning helped themselves fearlessly to the

chickens' breakfast. They roosted with the chickens several nights,

but took to the fields again as soon as the snow began to melt.

It is easy to account for our winter birds during the day. Along

near noon, when it is warm and bright, you will find the sparrows,

chickadees, and goldfinches searching busily among the bushes and

weeds for food, and the crows and jays scouring the fields. But what

about them during the dark? Where do they pass the long winter nights?

Why, they have nests, you say. Yes, they _had_ nests in the summer,

and then, perhaps, one of the parent birds may be said to have slept

in the nest during the weeks of incubation and rearing of the young.

But nests are cradles, not beds, and are never used by even the young

birds from the day they leave them. Muskrats build houses, foxes have

holes, and squirrels sleep in true nests; but of the birds it can

be said, "they have not where to lay their heads." They sleep upon

their feet in the grass, in hollow trees, and among the branches;

but, at best, such a bed is no more than a roost. A large part of

the year this roost is new every night, so that the question of a

sleeping-place during the winter is most serious.

The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds and

grass-stalks down and scatter their chaff over the snow, sleep in

the thick cedars and pines. These warm, close-limbed evergreens I

have found to be the lodging-houses of many of the smaller winter

birds--the fox-colored sparrow, snowbird, crossbill, and sometimes of

the chickadee, though he usually tucks his little black cap under his

wing in a woodpecker's hole.

[Illustration: "The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried

ragweeds."]

The meadow-larks always roost upon the ground. They creep well under

the grass, or, if the wind is high and it snows, they squat close to

the ground behind a tuft of grass or thick bush and sleep while the

cold white flakes fall about them. They are often covered before the

morning; and when housed thus from the wind and hidden from prowling

enemies, no bird could wish for a cozier, warmer, safer bed.

But what a lonely bed it is! Nothing seems so utterly homeless and

solitary as a meadow-lark after the winter nightfall. In the middle of

a wide, snow-covered pasture one will occasionally spring from under

your feet, scattering the snow that covered him, and go whirring away

through the dusk, lost instantly in the darkness--a single little life

in the wild, bleak wilderness of winter fields!

Again, the grass is often a dangerous bed. On the day before the great

March blizzard of 1888, the larks were whistling merrily from the

fences, with just a touch of spring in their call. At noon I noted no

signs of storm, but by four o'clock--an hour earlier than usual--the

larks had disappeared. They rose here and there from the grass as I

crossed the fields, not as they do when feeding, far ahead of me, but

close to my feet. They had gone to bed. By early evening the snow

began to fall, and for two days continued furiously.

A week later, when the deep drifts melted, I found several larks that

had perished from cold or starvation or had smothered under the weight

of snow.

There is something of awe in the thought of a bird nestling close

beneath a snow-laden bush in a broad meadow, or clinging fast to a

limb in the swaying top of some tall tree, rocked in its great arms

through the night by a winter gale. All trees, even the pines and

cedars, are fearfully exposed sleeping-places, and death from cold is

not infrequent among the birds that take beds in them.

The pine barrens, and especially certain pine clumps along Cohansey

Creek and at the head of Cubby Hollow, used to be famous crow-roosts.

Thousands of the birds, a few years ago, frequented these pieces of

wood in the winter. About the middle of the afternoon, during the

severest weather, they begin to fly over to the roost at the head of

the Hollow, coming in from the surrounding fields, some of them from

miles away, where they have been foraging all day for food. You can

tell the character of the weather by the manner of their flight. In

the fall and spring they went over cawing, chasing each other and

performing in the air; they were happy, and life was as abundant

as the spring promise or the autumn fullness everywhere. But in

January the land is bare and hard, and life correspondingly lean and

cheerless. You see it in their heavy, dispirited flight; all their

spring joyousness is gone; they pass over silent and somber, reluctant

to leave the fields, and fearful of the night. There is not a croak as

they settle among the pines--scores, sometimes hundreds of them, in a

single tree.

Here, in the swaying tops, amid the heavy roar of the winds, they

sleep. You need have no fear of waking them as you steal through the

shadows beneath the trees. The thick mat of needles or the sifted snow

muffles your footfalls; and the winds still the breaking branches and

snapping twigs. What a bed in a winter storm! The sky is just light

enough for you to distinguish the dim outlines of the sleepers as they

rock in the waves of the dark green that rise and fall above you; the

trees moan, the branches shiver and creak, and high above all, around

and beneath you, filling the recesses of the dark wood rolls the

volume of the storm.

But the crows sleep on, however high the winds. They sit close to

the branches, that the feathers may cover their clinging feet; they

tuck their heads beneath their wing-coverts, thus protecting the

whole body, except one side of the head, which the feathers of the

wing cannot quite shelter. This leaves an eye exposed, and this eye,

like the heel of Achilles, proves to be the one vulnerable spot. It

freezes in very severe weather, causing a slow, painful death. In

the morning, after an unusually cold night, you can find dozens of

crows flapping piteously about in the trees of the roost and upon the

ground, with frozen eyes. In January, 1895, I saw very many of them

along the Hollow, blind in one eye or in both eyes, dying of pain and

starvation. It was pitiful to see their sufferings. The snow in places

was sprinkled with their broken feathers, and with pine-needles which

they had plucked off and tried to eat. Nothing could be done for the

poor things. I have tried time and again to doctor them; but they were

sure to die in the end.

Who has not wondered, as he has seen the red rim of the sun sink down

in the sea, where the little brood of Mother Carey's chickens skimming

round the vessel would sleep that night? Or who, as he hears the

_honking_ of geese overhead in the darkness, has not questioned by

what

... plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean-side,

they will find rest?

In winter, when a heavy southeast wind is blowing, the tides of

Delaware Bay are high and the waters very rough. Then the ducks that

feed along the reedy flats of the bay are driven into the quieter

water of the creeks, and at night fly into the marshes, where they

find safe beds in the "salt-holes."

The salt-holes are sheets of water having no outlet, with clean

perpendicular sides as if cut out of the grassy marsh, varying in size

from a few feet wide to an acre in extent. The sedges grow luxuriantly

around their margins, making a thick, low wall in winter, against

which the winds blow in vain. If a bird must sleep in the water, such

a hole comes as near to being a perfect cradle as anything could be,

short of the bottom of a well.

The ducks come in soon after dark. You can hear the whistle of their

wings as they pass just above your head, skimming along the marsh.

They settle in a hole, swim close up to the windward shore, beneath

the sedges, and, with their heads under their wings, go fast asleep.

And as they sleep the ice begins to form--first, along their side of

the hole, where the water is calmest; then, extending out around them,

it becomes a hard sheet across the surface.

A night that will freeze a salt-hole is not one in which there is

likely to be much hunting done by man or beast. But I have been on the

marshes such nights, and so have smaller and more justified hunters.

It is not a difficult feat to surprise the sleeping ducks. The ice is

half an inch thick when you come up, and seals the hole completely,

save immediately about the bodies of the birds. Their first impulse,

when taken thus at close range, is to dive; and down they go, turning

in their tracks.

Will they get out? One may chance to strike the hole which his warm

body kept open, as he rises to breathe; but it is more likely that he

will come up under the ice, and drown. I have occasionally found a

dead duck beneath the ice or floating in the water of a salt-hole. It

had been surprised, no doubt, while sleeping, and, diving in fright,

was drowned under the ice, which had silently spread like a strange,

dreadful covering over its bed.

Probably the life of no other of our winter birds is so full of

hardship as is that of the quail, Bob White.

In the early summer the quails are hatched in broods of from ten to

twenty, and live as families until the pairing season the next spring.

The chicks keep close to the neighborhood of the home nest, feeding

and roosting together, under the guidance of the parent birds. But

this happy union is soon broken by the advent of the gunning season.

It is seldom that a bevy escapes this period whole and uninjured.

Indeed, if _one_ of the brood is left to welcome the spring it is

little less than a miracle.

I have often heard the scattered, frightened families called together

after a day of hard shooting; and once, in the old pasture to the

north of Cubby Hollow, I saw the bevy assemble.

It was long after sunset, but the snow so diffused the light that I

could see pretty well. In climbing the fence into the pasture, I

had started a rabbit, and was creeping up behind a low cedar, when

a quail, very near me, whistled softly, _Whirl-ee!_ The cedar was

between us. _Whirl-ee, whirl-ee-gig!_ she whistled again.

[Illustration: "There she stood in the snow with head high, listening

anxiously."]

It was the sweetest bird-note I ever heard, being so low, so liquid,

so mellow that I almost doubted if Bob White could make it. But there

she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously. Again she

whistled, louder this time; and from the woods below came a faint

answering call: _White!_ The answer seemed to break a spell; and on

three sides of me sounded other calls. At this the little signaler

repeated her efforts, and each time the answers came louder and

nearer. Presently something dark hurried by me over the snow and

joined the quail I was watching. It was one of the covey that I had

heard call from the woods.

Again and again the signal was sent forth until a third, fourth, and

finally a fifth were grouped about the leader. There was just an

audible twitter of welcome and gratitude exchanged as each new-comer

made his appearance. Once more the whistle sounded; but this time

there was no response across the silent field.

The quails made their way to a thick cedar that spread out over the

ground, and, huddling together in a close bunch under this, they

murmured something soft and low among themselves and--dreamed.

Some of the family were evidently missing, and I crept away, sorry

that even one had been taken from the little brood.

[Illustration: "And--dreamed."]

SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS

[Illustration]

SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS

It was a cold, desolate January day. Scarcely a sprig of green showed

in the wide landscape, except where the pines stood in a long blur

against the gray sky. There was not a sign that anything living

remained in the snow-buried fields, nor in the empty woods, shivering

and looking all the more uncovered and cold under their mantle of

snow, until a solitary crow flapped heavily over toward the pines in

search of an early bed for the night.

The bird reminded me that I, too, should be turning toward the pines;

for the dull gray afternoon was thickening into night, and my bed lay

beyond the woods, a long tramp through the snow.

As the black creature grew small in the distance and vanished among

the trees, I felt a pang of pity for him. I knew by his flight that he

was hungry and weary and cold. Every labored stroke of his unsteady

wings told of a long struggle with the winter death. He was silent;

and his muteness spoke the foreboding and dread with which he faced

another bitter night in the pines.

The snow was half-way to my knees; and still another storm was

brewing. All day the leaden sky had been closing in, weighed down by

the snow-filled air. That hush which so often precedes the severest

winter storms brooded everywhere. The winds were in leash--no, not in

leash; for had my ears been as keen as those of the creatures about

me, I might even now have heard them baying far away to the north. It

was not the winds that were still; it was the fields and forests that

quailed before the onset of the storm.

I skirted Lupton's Pond and saw the muskrat village, a collection of

white mounds out in the ice, and coming on to Cubby Hollow, I crossed

on the ice, ascended the hill, and keeping in the edge of the swamp,

left the pines a distance to the left. A chickadee, as if oppressed by

the silence and loneliness among the trees, and uneasy in his stout

little heart at the threatening storm, flew into the bushes as near

to me as he could get, and, apparently for the sake of companionship,

followed me along the path, cheeping plaintively.

As I emerged from the woods into a corn-field and turned to look over

at the gloomy pines, a snowflake fell softly upon my arm. The storm

had begun. Now the half-starved crows came flocking in by hundreds,

hurrying to roost before the darkness should overtake them. A biting

wind was rising; already I could hear it soughing through the pines.

There was something fascinating in the oncoming monster, and backing

up behind a corn-shock, I stopped a little to watch the sweep of its

white winds between me and the dark, sounding pines.

I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster. How the wild,

unhoused things must suffer to-night! I thought, as the weary

procession of crows beat on toward the trees. Presently there was

a small stir within the corn-shock. I laid my ear to the stalks and

listened. Mice! I could hear them moving around in there. It was with

relief that I felt that here, at least, was a little people whom the

cold and night could not hurt.

[Illustration: "I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster."]

These mice were as warmly sheltered inside this great shock as I

should be in my furnace-warmed home. Their tiny nests of corn-silk,

hidden away, perhaps, within the stiff, empty husks at the shock's

very center, could never be wet by a drop of the most driving rain nor

reached by the most searching frosts. And not a mouse of them feared

starvation. A plenty of nubbins had been left from the husking, and

they would have corn for the shelling far into the spring--if the

fodder and their homes should be left to them so long.

I floundered on toward home. In the gathering night, amid the swirl

of the snow, the shocks seemed like spectral tents pitched up and

down some ghostly camp. But the specters and ghosts were all with me,

all out in the whirling storm. The mice knew nothing of wandering,

shivering spirits; they nibbled their corn and squeaked in snug

contentment; for only dreams of the winter come to them in there.

These shock-dwellers were the common house-mice, _Mus musculus_. But

they are not the only mice that have warm beds in winter. In fact,

bed-making is a specialty among the mice.

_Zapus_, the jumping-mouse, the exquisite little fellow with the long

tail and kangaroo legs, has made his nest of leaves and grass down

in the ground, where he lies in a tiny ball just out of the frost's

reach, fast asleep. He will be plowed out of bed next spring, if his

nest is in a field destined for corn or melons; for _Zapus_ is sure

to oversleep. He is a very sound sleeper. The bluebirds, robins,

and song-sparrows will have been back for weeks, the fields will be

turning green, and as for the flowers, there will be a long procession

of them started, before this pretty sleepy-head rubs his eyes, uncurls

himself, and digs his way out to see the new spring morning.

Does this winter-long sleep seem to him only as a nap overnight?

[Illustration: The meadow-mouse.]