about, I am attracted by a singularly brilliant and emphatic warble,
proceeding from the low bushes, and quickly suggesting the voice of
the Maryland yellow-throat. Presently the singer hops up on a dry
twig, and gives me a good view. Lead-colored head and neck, becoming
nearly black on the breast; clear olive-green back, and yellow belly.
From his habit of keeping near the ground, even hopping upon it
occasionally, I know him to be a ground warbler; from his dark breast
the ornithologist has added the expletive mourning, hence the mourning
ground warbler.
Of this bird both Wilson and Audubon confessed their comparative
ignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted with
its haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel,
though its voice at once suggests the class of warblers to which it
belongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and
studiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pair
here. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betraying
the locality of her nest. The ground warblers all have one notable
feature,--very beautiful legs, as white and delicate as if they had
always worn silk stockings and satin slippers. High tree warblers have
dark-brown or black legs and more brilliant plumage, but less musical
ability.
The chestnut-sided belongs to the latter class. He is quite common in
these woods, as in all the woods about. He is one of the rarest and
handsomest of the warblers; his white breast and throat, chestnut
sides, and yellow crown show conspicuously. But little is known of his
habits or haunts. Last year I found the nest of one in an uplying
beech-wood, in a low bush near the roadside, where cows passed and
browsed daily. Things went on smoothly till the cow-bunting stole her
egg into it, when other mishaps followed, and the nest was soon empty.
A characteristic attitude of the male during this season is a slight
drooping of the wings, and tail a little elevated, which gives him a
very smart, bantam-like appearance. His song is fine and hurried, and
not much of itself, but has its place in the general chorus.
A far sweeter strain, falling on the ear with the true sylvan cadence,
is that of the black-throated green-backed warbler, whom I meet at
various points. He has no superiors among the true _Sylvia_. His song
is very plain and simple, but remarkably pure and tender, and might be
indicated by straight lines, thus,---- ----=V=¯¯¯¯; the first two
marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, in the same pitch of
voice, and quite unaccented; the latter marks, the concluding notes,
wherein the tone and inflection are changed. The throat and breast of
the male are a rich black like velvet, his face yellow, and his back a
yellowish-green.
Beyond the Barkpeeling, where the woods are mingled hemlock, beech,
and birch, the languid midsummer note of the black-throated blue-back
falls on my ear. "Twea, twea, twea-e-e!" in the upward slide, and with
the peculiar _z-ing_ of summer insects, but not destitute of a certain
plaintive cadence. It is one of the most languid, unhurried sounds in
all the woods. I feel like reclining upon the dry leaves at once.
Audubon says he has never heard his love-song; but this is all the
love-song he has, and he is evidently a very plain hero with his
little brown mistress. He assumes few attitudes, and is not a bold and
striking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference for
dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches
and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground,
and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and
crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure
white; and he has a white spot on each wing.
Here and there I meet the black and white creeping warbler, whose fine
strain reminds me of hair-wire. It is unquestionably the finest
bird-song to be heard. Few insect strains will compare with it in this
respect; while it has none of the harsh, brassy character of the
latter, being very delicate and tender.
That sharp, uninterrupted, but still continued warble, which, before
one has learned to discriminate closely, he is apt to confound with
the red-eyed vireo's, is that of the solitary warbling vireo,--a bird
slightly larger, much rarer, and with a louder, less cheerful and
happy strain. I see him hopping along lengthwise of the limbs, and
note the orange tinge of his breast and sides and the white circle
around his eye.
But the declining sun and the deepening shadows admonish me that this
ramble must be brought to a close, even though only the leading
characters in this chorus of forty songsters have been described, and
only a small portion of the venerable old woods explored. In a
secluded swampy corner of the old Barkpeeling, where I find the great
purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems never
to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful display of
lichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the larger
growths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most
rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long bearded
moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the limbs. Every
twig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it. A
young yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal look, and seems ill at
ease under such premature honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as if by
hands for some solemn festival.
Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently as the hush and
stillness of twilight come upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest
hour of the day. And as the hermit's evening hymn goes up from the
deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation of
sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint
types and symbols.
[Illustration: Maryland Yellow-throat.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For December, 1858.
[Illustration: Golden-crowned Thrush.]
ADIRONDAC.
When I went to the Adirondacs, which was in the summer of 1863, I was in
the first flush of my ornithological studies, and was curious, above all
else, to know what birds I should find in these solitudes--what new
ones, and what ones already known to me.
In visiting vast, primitive, far-off woods one naturally expects to
find something rare and precious, or something entirely new, but it
commonly happens that one is disappointed. Thoreau made three
excursions into the Maine woods, and though he started the moose and
caribou, had nothing more novel to report by way of bird notes, than
the songs of the wood-thrush and the pewee. This was about my own
experience in the Adirondacs. The birds for the most part prefer the
vicinity of settlements and clearings, and it was at such places that
I saw the greatest number and variety.
At the clearing of an old hunter and pioneer by the name of Hewett,
where we paused a couple of days on first entering the woods, I saw
many old friends and made some new acquaintances. The snow-bird was
very abundant here, as it had been at various points along the route,
after leaving Lake George. As I went out to the spring in the morning
to wash myself a purple finch flew up before me, having already
performed its ablutions. I had first observed this bird the winter
before in the Highlands of the Hudson, where, during several clear but
cold February mornings, a troop of them sang most charmingly in a tree
in front of my house. The meeting with the bird here in its breeding
haunts was a pleasant surprise. During the day I observed several pine
finches--a dark-brown or brindlish bird, allied to the common
yellow-bird, which it much resembles in its manner and habits. They
lingered familiarly about the house, sometimes alighting in a small
tree within a few feet of it. In one of the stumpy fields I saw an old
favorite in the grass-finch or vesper-sparrow. It was sitting on a
tall charred stub with food in its beak. But all along the borders of
the woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there was a new song
that I was puzzled in tracing to the author. It was most noticeable in
the morning and at twilight, but was at all times singularly secret
and elusive. I at last discovered that it was the white-throated
sparrow, a common bird all through this region. Its song is very
delicate and plaintive--a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which
disappoints one, however, as it ends when it seems only to have begun.
If the bird could give us the finishing strain of which this seems
only the prelude, it would stand first among feathered songsters.
By a little trout brook in a low part of the woods adjoining the
clearing, I had a good time pursuing and identifying a number of
warblers--the speckled Canada, the black-throated blue, the yellow-rumped,
and Audubon's warbler. The latter, which was leading its troop of young
through a thick undergrowth on the banks of the creek where insects were
plenty, was new to me.
It being August, the birds were all moulting and sang only fitfully
and by brief snatches. I remember hearing but one robin during the
whole trip. This was by the Boreas River in the deep forest. It was
like the voice of an old friend speaking my name.
From Hewett's, after engaging his youngest son,--the "Bub" of the
family,--a young man about twenty and a thorough woodsman, as guide,
we took to the woods in good earnest, our destination being the
Stillwater of the Boreas--a long deep dark reach in one of the remote
branches of the Hudson, about six miles distant. Here we paused a
couple of days, putting up in a dilapidated lumberman's shanty, and
cooking our fish over an old stove which had been left there. The
most noteworthy incident of our stay at this point was the taking by
myself of half a dozen splendid trout out of the Stillwater, after the
guide had exhausted his art and his patience with very insignificant
results. The place had a very trouty look, but as the season was late
and the river warm, I know the fish lay in deep water from which they
could not be attracted. In deep water accordingly, and near the head
of the hole, I determined to look for them. Securing a chub I cut it
into pieces about an inch long and with these for bait sank my hook
into the head of the Stillwater and just to one side of the main
current. In less than twenty minutes I had landed six noble fellows,
three of them over one foot long each. The guide and my incredulous
companions, who were watching me from the opposite shore, seeing my
luck, whipped out their tackle in great haste and began casting first
at a respectable distance from me, then all about me, but without a
single catch. My own efforts suddenly became fruitless also, but I had
conquered the guide and thenceforth he treated me with the tone and
freedom of a comrade and equal.
One afternoon we visited a cave some two miles down the stream which
had recently been discovered. We squeezed and wriggled through a big
crack or cleft in the side of the mountain, for about one hundred
feet, when we emerged into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode,
during certain seasons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all
times of primeval darkness. There were various other crannies and
pit-holes opening into it, some of which we explored. The voice of
running water was everywhere heard, betraying the proximity of the
little stream by whose ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance
had been worn. This streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the cave and
came from a lake on the top of the mountain; this accounted for its
warmth to the hand which surprised us all.
Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A pigeon-hawk came
prowling by our camp, and the faint piping call of the nut-hatches,
leading their young through the high trees was often heard.
On the third day our guide proposed to conduct us to a lake in the
mountains where we could float for deer.
Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged ascent, which brought us
after an hour's heavy climbing, to an elevated region of pine forest,
years before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all manner of
obstacles to our awkward and encumbered pedestrianism. The woods were
largely pine, though yellow birch, beech, and maple were common. The
satisfaction of having a gun, should any game show itself, was the
chief compensation to those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge
would occasionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker and
hasten to his den; else the woods appeared quite tenantless. The most
noted object was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of a great race,
which presided over a cluster of yellow birches, on the side of the
mountain.
About noon we came out upon a long shallow sheet of water which the
guide called Bloody-Moose Pond, from the tradition that a moose had
been slaughtered there many years before. Looking out over the silent
and lonely scene, his eye was the first to detect an object apparently
feeding upon lily-pads, which our willing fancies readily shaped into
a deer. As we were eagerly waiting some movement to confirm this
impression, it lifted up its head, and lo! a great blue heron. Seeing
us approach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnly across to a
dead tree on the other side of the lake, enhancing, rather than
relieving the loneliness and desolation that brooded over the scene.
As we proceeded it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, apparently
loath to be disturbed in its ancient and solitary domain. In the
margin of the pond we found the pitcher-plant growing, and here and
there in the sand the closed gentian lifted up its blue head.
In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate lake, I was conscious
of a slight thrill of expectation, as if some secret of Nature might
here be revealed, or some rare and unheard-of game disturbed. There is
ever a lurking suspicion that the beginning of things is in some way
associated with water, and one may notice that in his private walks he
is led by a curious attraction to fetch all the springs and ponds in
his route, as if by them was the place for wonders and miracles to
happen. Once, while in advance of my companions, I saw, from a high
rock, a commotion in the water near the shore, but on reaching the
point found only the marks of a musquash.
Pressing on through the forest, after many adventures with the
pine-knots, we reached, about the middle of the afternoon, our
destination, Nate's Pond,--a pretty sheet of water, lying like a
silver mirror in the lap of the mountain, about a mile long and half a
mile wide, surrounded by dark forests of balsam, hemlock, and pine,
and, like the one we had just passed, a very picture of unbroken
solitude.
It is not in the woods alone to give one this impression of utter
loneliness. In the woods are sounds and voices, and a dumb kind of
companionship; one is little more than a walking tree himself; but
come upon one of these mountain-lakes, and the wildness stands
relieved and meets you face to face. Water is thus facile and
adaptive, that it makes the wild more wild, while it enhances more
culture and art.
The end of the pond which we approached was quite shoal, the stones
rising above the surface as in a summer-brook, and everywhere showing
marks of the noble game we were in quest of--foot-prints, dung, and
cropped and uprooted lily-pads. After resting for a half-hour, and
replenishing our game-pouches at the expense of the most respectable
frogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft, resinous
pine-woods, intending to camp near the other end of the lake, where,
the guide assured us, we should find a hunter's cabin ready built. A
half-hour's march brought us to the locality, and a most delightful
one it was,--so hospitable and inviting that all the kindly and
beneficent influences of the woods must have abided there. In a slight
depression in the woods, about one hundred yards from the lake, though
hidden from it for a hunter's reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth of
birch, hemlock, and pine, with a lining of balsam and fir, the rude
cabin welcomed us. It was of the approved style, three sides inclosed,
with a roof of bark and a bed of boughs, and a rock in front that
afforded a permanent back-log to all fires. A faint voice of running
water was heard near by, and, following the sound, a delicious
spring-rivulet was disclosed, hidden by the moss and _débris_ as by a
new fall of snow, but here and there rising in little well-like
openings, as if for our special convenience. On smooth places on the
logs I noticed female names inscribed in a female hand; and the guide
told us of an English lady, an artist, who had traversed this region
with a single guide, making sketches.
Our packs unslung and the kettle over, our first move was to ascertain
in what state of preservation a certain dug-out might be, which, the
guide averred, he had left moored in the vicinity the summer
before,--for upon this hypothetical dug-out our hopes of venison
rested. After a little searching it was found under the top of a
fallen hemlock, but in a sorry condition. A large piece had been split
out of one end, and a fearful chink was visible nearly to the
water-line. Freed from the tree top, however, and calked with a
little moss, it floated with two aboard, which was quite enough for
our purpose. A jack and an oar were necessary to complete the
arrangement, and before the sun had set our professor of wood-craft
had both in readiness. From a young yellow birch, an oar took shape
with marvelous rapidity--trimmed and smoothed with a neatness almost
fastidious,--no make-shift, but an instrument fitted for the delicate
work it was to perform.
A jack was made with equal skill and speed. A stout staff about three
feet long was placed upright in the bow of the boat, and held to its
place by a horizontal bar, through a hole in which it turned easily: a
half wheel eight or ten inches in diameter, cut from a large chip, was
placed at the top, around which was bent a new section of birch bark,
thus forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three candles placed
within the circle completed the jack. With moss and boughs seats were
arranged--one in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern for
the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels was a good preparation, and
when darkness came, all were keenly alive to the opportunity it
brought. Though by no means an expert in the use of the gun,--adding
the superlative degree of enthusiasm to only the positive degree of
skill,--yet it seemed tacitly agreed that I should act as marksman,
and kill the deer, if such was to be our luck.
After it was thoroughly dark we went down to make a short trial-trip.
Everything working to satisfaction, about ten o'clock we pushed out in
earnest. For the twentieth time I felt in the pocket that contained the
matches, ran over the part I was to perform, and pressed my gun firmly,
to be sure there was no mistake. My position was that of kneeling
directly under the jack, which I was to light at the word. The night was
clear, moonless, and still. Nearing the middle of the lake, a breeze
from the west was barely perceptible, and noiselessly we glided before
it. The guide handled his oar with great dexterity; without lifting it
from the water or breaking the surface, he imparted the steady, uniform
motion desired. How silent it was! The ear seemed the only sense, and to
hold dominion over lake and forest. Occasionally a lily-pad would brush
along the bottom, and stooping low I could hear a faint murmuring of the
water under the bow: else all was still. Then, almost as by magic, we
were encompassed by a huge black ring. The surface of the lake, when we
had reached the centre, was slightly luminous from the starlight, and
the dark, even forest-line that surrounded us, doubled by reflection in
the water, presenting a broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The
effect was quite startling, like some huge conjuror's trick. It seemed
as if we had crossed the boundary-line between the real and the
imaginary, and this was indeed the land of shadows and of spectres. What
magic oar was that the guide wielded that it could transport me to such
a realm! Indeed, had I not committed some fatal mistake and left that
trusty servant behind, and had not some wizard of the night stepped into
his place? A slight splashing in-shore broke the spell and caused me to
turn nervously to the oarsman: "Musquash," said he, and kept straight
on.
Nearing the extreme end of the pond, the boat gently headed around,
and silently we glided back into the clasp of that strange orbit.
Slight sounds were heard as before, but nothing that indicated the
presence of the game we were waiting for; and we reached the point of
departure as innocent of venison as we had set out.
After an hour's delay, and near midnight, we pushed out again. My
vigilance and susceptibility were rather sharpened than dulled by the
waiting; and the features of the night had also deepened and
intensified. Night was at its meridian. The sky had that soft
luminousness which may often be observed near midnight at this season,
and the "large few stars" beamed mildly down. We floated out into that
spectral shadow-land and moved slowly on as before. The silence was
most impressive. Now and then the faint _yeap_ of some traveling bird
would come from the air overhead, or the wings of a bat _whisp_
quickly by, or an owl hoot off in the mountains, giving to the silence
and loneliness a tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore would
startle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly to the silent figure in
the stern.
The end of the lake was reached, and we turned back. The novelty and
the excitement began to flag; tired nature began to assert her claims;
the movement was soothing, and the gunner slumbered fitfully at his
post. Presently something aroused me. "There's a deer," whispered the
guide. The gun heard, and fairly jumped in my hand. Listening, there
came the cracking of a limb, followed by a sound as of something
walking in shallow water. It proceeded from the other end of the lake,
over against our camp. On we sped, noiselessly as ever, but with
increased velocity. Presently, with a thrill of new intensity, I saw
the boat was gradually heading in that direction. Now, to a sportsman
who gets excited over a gray squirrel, and forgets that he has a gun
on the sudden appearance of a fox, this was a severe trial. I felt
suddenly cramped for room, and trimming the boat was out of the
question. It seemed that I must make some noise in spite of myself.
"Light the jack," said a soft whisper behind me. I fumbled nervously
for a match, and dropped the first one. Another was drawn briskly
across my knee, and broke. A third lighted, but went out prematurely,
in my haste to get it up to the jack. What would I not have given to
see those wicks blaze! We were fast nearing the shore,--already the
lily-pads began to brush along the bottom. Another attempt, and the
light took. The gentle motion fanned the blaze, and in a moment a
broad glare of light fell upon the water in front of us, while the
boat remained in utter darkness.
By this time I had got beyond the nervous point, and had come round to
perfect coolness and composure again, but preternaturally vigilant and
keen. I was ready for any disclosures; not a sound was heard. In a few
moments the trees along-shore were faintly visible. Every object put
on the shape of a gigantic deer. A large rock looked just ready to
bound away. The dry limbs of a prostrate tree were surely his antlers.