_peery-eery-ódical_ was another favorite, and we soon learned to admire
the Baltimore oriole and its wonderful hanging nests, and the scarlet
tanager glowing like fire amid the green leaves.
But no singer of them all got farther into our hearts than the little
speckle-breasted song sparrow, one of the first to arrive and begin
nest-building and singing. The richness, sweetness, and pathos of this
small darling’s song as he sat on a low bush often brought tears to our
eyes.
The little cheery, modest chickadee midget, loved by every innocent boy
and girl, man and woman, and by many not altogether innocent, was one
of the first of the birds to attract our attention, drawing nearer and
nearer to us as the winter advanced, bravely singing his faint silvery,
lisping, tinkling notes ending with a bright _dee, dee, dee_! however
frosty the weather.
The nuthatches, who also stayed all winter with us, were favorites with
us boys. We loved to watch them as they traced the bark-furrows of the
oaks and hickories head downward, deftly flicking off loose scales and
splinters in search of insects, and braving the coldest weather as if
their little sparks of life were as safely warm in winter as in summer,
unquenchable by the severest frost. With the help of the chickadees
they made a delightful stir in the solemn winter days, and when we were
out chopping we never ceased to wonder how their slender naked toes
could be kept warm when our own were so painfully frosted though clad
in thick socks and boots. And we wondered and admired the more when we
thought of the little midgets sleeping in knot-holes when the
temperature was far below zero, sometimes thirty-five degrees below,
and in the morning, after a minute breakfast of a few frozen insects
and hoarfrost crystals, playing and chatting in cheery tones as if
food, weather, and everything was according to their own warm hearts.
Our Yankee told us that the name of this darling was Devil-downhead.
Their big neighbors the owls also made good winter music, singing out
loud in wild, gallant strains bespeaking brave comfort, let the frost
bite as it might. The solemn hooting of the species with the widest
throat seemed to us the very wildest of all the winter sounds.
Prairie chickens came strolling in family flocks about the shanty,
picking seeds and grasshoppers like domestic fowls, and they became
still more abundant as wheat-and corn-fields were multiplied, but also
wilder, of course, when every shotgun in the country was aimed at them.
The booming of the males during the mating-season was one of the
loudest and strangest of the early spring sounds, being easily heard on
calm mornings at a distance of a half or three fourths of a mile. As
soon as the snow was off the ground, they assembled in flocks of a
dozen or two on an open spot, usually on the side of a ploughed field,
ruffled up their feathers, inflated the curious colored sacks on the
sides of their necks, and strutted about with queer gestures something
like turkey gobblers, uttering strange loud, rounded, drumming
calls,—_boom! boom! boom!_ interrupted by choking sounds. My brother
Daniel caught one while she was sitting on her nest in our corn-field.
The young are just like domestic chicks, run with the mother as soon as
hatched, and stay with her until autumn, feeding on the ground, never
taking wing unless disturbed. In winter, when full-grown, they assemble
in large flocks, fly about sundown to selected roosting-places on tall
trees, and to feeding-places in the morning,—unhusked corn-fields, if
any are to be found in the neighborhood, or thickets of dwarf birch and
willows, the buds of which furnish a considerable part of their food
when snow covers the ground.
The wild rice-marshes along the Fox River and around Pucaway Lake were
the summer homes of millions of ducks, and in the Indian summer, when
the rice was ripe, they grew very fat. The magnificent mallards in
particular afforded our Yankee neighbors royal feasts almost without
price, for often as many as a half-dozen were killed at a shot, but we
seldom were allowed a single hour for hunting and so got very few. The
autumn duck season was a glad time for the Indians also, for they
feasted and grew fat not only on the ducks but on the wild rice, large
quantities of which they gathered as they glided through the midst of
the generous crop in canoes, bending down handfuls over the sides, and
beating out the grain with small paddles.
The warmth of the deep spring fountains of the creek in our meadow kept
it open all the year, and a few pairs of wood ducks, the most
beautiful, we thought, of all the ducks, wintered in it. I well
remember the first specimen I ever saw. Father shot it in the creek
during a snowstorm, brought it into the house, and called us around
him, saying: “Come, bairns, and admire the work of God displayed in
this bonnie bird. Naebody but God could paint feathers like these.
Juist look at the colors, hoo they shine, and hoo fine they overlap and
blend thegether like the colors o’ the rainbow.” And we all agreed that
never, never before had we seen so awfu’ bonnie a bird. A pair nested
every year in the hollow top of an oak stump about fifteen feet high
that stood on the side of the meadow, and we used to wonder how they
got the fluffy young ones down from the nest and across the meadow to
the lake when they were only helpless, featherless midgets; whether the
mother carried them to the water on her back or in her mouth. I never
saw the thing done or found anybody who had until this summer, when Mr.
Holabird, a keen observer, told me that he once saw the mother carry
them from the nest tree in her mouth, quickly coming and going to a
nearby stream, and in a few minutes get them all together and proudly
sail away.
Sometimes a flock of swans were seen passing over at a great height on
their long journeys, and we admired their clear bugle notes, but they
seldom visited any of the lakes in our neighborhood, so seldom that
when they did it was talked of for years. One was shot by a blacksmith
on a millpond with a long-range Sharp’s rifle, and many of the
neighbors went far to see it.
The common gray goose, Canada honker, flying in regular harrow-shaped
flocks, was one of the wildest and wariest of all the large birds that
enlivened the spring and autumn. They seldom ventured to alight in our
small lake, fearing, I suppose, that hunters might be concealed in the
rushes, but on account of their fondness for the young leaves of winter
wheat when they were a few inches high, they often alighted on our
fields when passing on their way south, and occasionally even in our
corn-fields when a snowstorm was blowing and they were hungry and
wing-weary, with nearly an inch of snow on their backs. In such times
of distress we used to pity them, even while trying to get a shot at
them. They were exceedingly cautious and circumspect; usually flew
several times round the adjacent thickets and fences to make sure that
no enemy was near before settling down, and one always stood on guard,
relieved from time to time, while the flock was feeding. Therefore
there was no chance to creep up on them unobserved; you had to be well
hidden before the flock arrived. It was the ambition of boys to be able
to shoot these wary birds. I never got but two, both of them at one
so-called lucky shot. When I ran to pick them up, one of them flew
away, but as the poor fellow was sorely wounded he didn’t fly far. When
I caught him after a short chase, he uttered a piercing cry of terror
and despair, which the leader of the flock heard at a distance of about
a hundred rods. They had flown off in frightened disorder, of course,
but had got into the regular harrow-shape order when the leader heard
the cry, and I shall never forget how bravely he left his place at the
head of the flock and hurried back screaming and struck at me in trying
to save his companion. I dodged down and held my hands over my head,
and thus escaped a blow of his elbows. Fortunately I had left my gun at
the fence, and the life of this noble bird was spared after he had
risked it in trying to save his wounded friend or neighbor or family
relation. For so shy a bird boldly to attack a hunter showed wonderful
sympathy and courage. This is one of my strangest hunting experiences.
Never before had I regarded wild geese as dangerous, or capable of such
noble self-sacrificing devotion.
The loud clear call of the handsome bob-whites was one of the
pleasantest and most characteristic of our spring sounds, and we soon
learned to imitate it so well that a bold cock often accepted our
challenge and came flying to fight. The young run as soon as they are
hatched and follow their parents until spring, roosting on the ground
in a close bunch, heads out ready to scatter and fly. These fine birds
were seldom seen when we first arrived in the wilderness, but when
wheat-fields supplied abundance of food they multiplied very fast,
although oftentimes sore pressed during hard winters when the snow
reached a depth of two or three feet, covering their food, while the
mercury fell to twenty or thirty degrees below zero. Occasionally,
although shy on account of being persistently hunted, under pressure of
extreme hunger in the very coldest weather when the snow was deepest
they ventured into barnyards and even approached the doorsteps of
houses, searching for any sort of scraps and crumbs, as if piteously
begging for food. One of our neighbors saw a flock come creeping up
through the snow, unable to fly, hardly able to walk, and while
approaching the door several of them actually fell down and died;
showing that birds, usually so vigorous and apparently independent of
fortune, suffer and lose their lives in extreme weather like the rest
of us, frozen to death like settlers caught in blizzards. None of our
neighbors perished in storms, though many had feet, ears, and fingers
frost-nipped or solidly frozen.
As soon as the lake ice melted, we heard the lonely cry of the loon,
one of the wildest and most striking of all the wilderness sounds, a
strange, sad, mournful, unearthly cry, half laughing, half wailing.
Nevertheless the great northern diver, as our species is called, is a
brave, hardy, beautiful bird, able to fly under water about as well as
above it, and to spear and capture the swiftest fishes for food. Those
that haunted our lake were so wary none was shot for years, though
every boy hunter in the neighborhood was ambitious to get one to prove
his skill. On one of our bitter cold New Year holidays I was surprised
to see a loon in the small open part of the lake at the mouth of the
inlet that was kept from freezing by the warm spring water. I knew that
it could not fly out of so small a place, for these heavy birds have to
beat the water for half a mile or so before they can get fairly on the
wing. Their narrow, finlike wings are very small as compared with the
weight of the body and are evidently made for flying through water as
well as through the air, and it is by means of their swift flight
through the water and the swiftness of the blow they strike with their
long, spear-like bills that they are able to capture the fishes on
which they feed. I ran down the meadow with the gun, got into my boat,
and pursued that poor winter-bound straggler. Of course he dived again
and again, but had to come up to breathe, and I at length got a quick
shot at his head and slightly wounded or stunned him, caught him, and
ran proudly back to the house with my prize. I carried him in my arms;
he didn’t struggle to get away or offer to strike me, and when I put
him on the floor in front of the kitchen stove, he just rested quietly
on his belly as noiseless and motionless as if he were a stuffed
specimen on a shelf, held his neck erect, gave no sign of suffering
from any wound, and though he was motionless, his small black eyes
seemed to be ever keenly watchful. His formidable bill, very sharp,
three or three and a half inches long, and shaped like a pickaxe, was
held perfectly level. But the wonder was that he did not struggle or
make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of
great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in frosty
weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom; but
when he saw and smelled that strange big fishy, black and white,
speckledy bird, the like of which he had never before seen, he rushed
wildly to the farther corner of the kitchen, looked back cautiously and
suspiciously, and began to make a careful study of the handsome but
dangerous-looking stranger. Becoming more and more curious and
interested, he at length advanced a step or two for a nearer view and
nearer smell; and as the wonderful bird kept absolutely motionless, he
was encouraged to venture gradually nearer and nearer until within
perhaps five or six feet of its breast. Then the wary loon, not liking
Tom’s looks in so near a view, which perhaps recalled to his mind the
plundering minks and muskrats he had to fight when they approached his
nest, prepared to defend himself by slowly, almost imperceptibly
drawing back his long pickaxe bill, and without the slightest fuss or
stir held it level and ready just over his tail. With that dangerous
bill drawn so far back out of the way, Tom’s confidence in the
stranger’s peaceful intentions seemed almost complete, and, thus
encouraged, he at last ventured forward with wondering, questioning
eyes and quivering nostrils until he was only eighteen or twenty inches
from the loon’s smooth white breast. When the beautiful bird,
apparently as peaceful and inoffensive as a flower, saw that his hairy
yellow enemy had arrived at the right distance, the loon, who evidently
was a fine judge of the reach of his spear, shot it forward quick as a
lightning-flash, in marvelous contrast to the wonderful slowness of the
preparatory poising, backward motion. The aim was true to a
hair-breadth. Tom was struck right in the centre of his forehead,
between the eyes. I thought his skull was cracked. Perhaps it was. The
sudden astonishment of that outraged cat, the virtuous indignation and
wrath, terror, and pain, are far beyond description. His eyes and
screams and desperate retreat told all that. When the blow was
received, he made a noise that I never heard a cat make before or
since; an awfully deep, condensed, screechy, explosive _Wuck!_ as he
bounced straight up in the air like a bucking bronco; and when he
alighted after his spring, he rushed madly across the room and made
frantic efforts to climb up the hard-finished plaster wall. Not
satisfied to get the width of the kitchen away from his mysterious
enemy, for the first time that cold winter he tried to get out of the
house, anyhow, anywhere out of that loon-infested room. When he finally
ventured to look back and saw that the barbarous bird was still there,
tranquil and motionless in front of the stove, he regained command of
some of his shattered senses and carefully commenced to examine his
wound. Backed against the wall in the farthest corner, and keeping his
eye on the outrageous bird, he tenderly touched and washed the sore
spot, wetting his paw with his tongue, pausing now and then as his
courage increased to glare and stare and growl at his enemy with looks
and tones wonderfully human, as if saying: “You confounded fishy,
unfair rascal! What did you do that for? What had I done to you?
Faithless, legless, long-nosed wretch!” Intense experiences like the
above bring out the humanity that is in all animals. One touch of
nature, even a cat-and-loon touch, makes all the world kin.
It was a great memorable day when the first flock of passenger pigeons
came to our farm, calling to mind the story we had read about them when
we were at school in Scotland. Of all God’s feathered people that
sailed the Wisconsin sky, no other bird seemed to us so wonderful. The
beautiful wanderers flew like the winds in flocks of millions from
climate to climate in accord with the weather, finding their
food—acorns, beechnuts, pine-nuts, cranberries, strawberries,
huckleberries, juniper berries, hackberries, buckwheat, rice, wheat,
oats, corn—in fields and forests thousands of miles apart. I have seen
flocks streaming south in the fall so large that they were flowing over
from horizon to horizon in an almost continuous stream all day long, at
the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, like a mighty river in the
sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls and cataracts, and
rising suddenly here and there in huge ragged masses like high-plashing
spray. How wonderful the distances they flew in a day—in a year—in a
lifetime! They arrived in Wisconsin in the spring just after the sun
had cleared away the snow, and alighted in the woods to feed on the
fallen acorns that they had missed the previous autumn. A comparatively
small flock swept thousands of acres perfectly clean of acorns in a few
minutes, by moving straight ahead with a broad front. All got their
share, for the rear constantly became the van by flying over the flock
and alighting in front, the entire flock constantly changing from rear
to front, revolving something like a wheel with a low buzzing wing roar
that could be heard a long way off. In summer they feasted on wheat and
oats and were easily approached as they rested on the trees along the
sides of the field after a good full meal, displaying beautiful
iridescent colors as they moved their necks backward and forward when
we went very near them. Every shotgun was aimed at them and everybody
feasted on pigeon pies, and not a few of the settlers feasted also on
the beauty of the wonderful birds. The breast of the male is a fine
rosy red, the lower part of the neck behind and along the sides
changing from the red of the breast to gold, emerald green and rich
crimson. The general color of the upper parts is grayish blue, the
under parts white. The extreme length of the bird is about seventeen
inches; the finely modeled slender tail about eight inches, and extent
of wings twenty-four inches. The females are scarcely less beautiful.
“Oh, what bonnie, bonnie birds!” we exclaimed over the first that fell
into our hands. “Oh, what colors! Look at their breasts, bonnie as
roses, and at their necks aglow wi’ every color juist like the
wonderfu’ wood ducks. Oh, the bonnie, bonnie creatures, they beat a’!
Where did they a’ come fra, and where are they a’ gan? It’s awfu’ like
a sin to kill them!” To this some smug, practical old sinner would
remark: “Aye, it’s a peety, as ye say, to kill the bonnie things, but
they were made to be killed, and sent for us to eat as the quails were
sent to God’s chosen people, the Israelites, when they were starving in
the desert ayont the Red Sea. And I must confess that meat was never
put up in neater, handsomer-painted packages.”
In the New England and Canada woods beechnuts were their best and most
abundant food, farther north, cranberries and huckleberries. After
everything was cleaned up in the north and winter was coming on, they
went south for rice, corn, acorns, haws, wild grapes, crab-apples,
sparkle-berries, etc. They seemed to require more than half of the
continent for feeding-grounds, moving from one table to another, field
to field, forest to forest, finding something ripe and wholesome all
the year round. In going south in the fine Indian-summer weather they
flew high and followed one another, though the head of the flock might
be hundreds of miles in advance. But against head winds they took
advantage of the inequalities of the ground, flying comparatively low.
All followed the leader’s ups and downs over hill and dale though far
out of sight, never hesitating at any turn of the way, vertical or
horizontal that the leaders had taken, though the largest flocks
stretched across several States, and belts of different kinds of
weather.
There were no roosting-or breeding-places near our farm, and I never
saw any of them until long after the great flocks were exterminated. I
therefore quote, from Audubon’s and Pokagon’s vivid descriptions.
“Toward evening,” Audubon says, “they depart for the roosting-place,
which may be hundreds of miles distant. One on the banks of Green
River, Kentucky, was over three miles wide and forty long.”
“My first view of it,” says the great naturalist, “was about a
fortnight after it had been chosen by the birds, and I arrived there
nearly two hours before sunset. Few pigeons were then to be seen, but a
great many persons with horses and wagons and armed with guns, long
poles, sulphur pots, pine pitch torches, etc., had already established
encampments on the borders. Two farmers had driven upwards of three
hundred hogs a distance of more than a hundred miles to be fattened on
slaughtered pigeons. Here and there the people employed in plucking and
salting what had already been secured were sitting in the midst of
piles of birds. Dung several inches thick covered the ground. Many
trees two feet in diameter were broken off at no great distance from
the ground, and the branches of many of the tallest and largest had
given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado.
“Not a pigeon had arrived at sundown. Suddenly a general cry
arose—‘Here they come!’ The noise they made, though still distant,
reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a
close-reefed ship. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men.
The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted and a
magnificent as well as terrifying sight presented itself. The pigeons
pouring in alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses
were formed on the branches all around. Here and there the perches gave
way with a crash, and falling destroyed hundreds beneath, forcing down
the dense groups with which every stick was loaded; a scene of uproar
and conflict. I found it useless to speak or even to shout to those
persons nearest me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and
I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading.
None dared venture within the line of devastation. The hogs had been
penned up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded being
left for the next morning’s employment. The pigeons were constantly
coming in and it was after midnight before I perceived a decrease in
the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued all night, and
anxious to know how far the sound reached I sent off a man who,
returning two hours after, informed me that he had heard it distinctly
three miles distant.
BAROMETER
BAROMETER
Invented by the author in his boyhoodToList
“Toward daylight the noise in some measure subsided; long before
objects were distinguishable the pigeons began to move off in a
direction quite different from that in which they had arrived the
evening before, and at sunrise all that were able to fly had
disappeared. The howling of the wolves now reached our ears, and the
foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, coons, opossums, and polecats were seen
sneaking off, while eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied
by a crowd of vultures, came to supplant them and enjoy a share of the
spoil.
“Then the authors of all this devastation began their entry amongst the
dead, the dying and mangled. The pigeons were picked up and piled in
heaps until each had as many as they could possible dispose of, when
the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.
“The breeding-places are selected with reference to abundance of food,
and countless myriads resort to them. At this period the note of the
pigeon is coo coo coo, like that of the domestic species but much
shorter. They caress by billing, and during incubation the male
supplies the female with food. As the young grow, the tyrant of
creation appears to disturb the peaceful scene, armed with axes to chop
down the squab-laden trees, and the abomination of desolation and
destruction produced far surpasses even that of the roosting places.”