Fickle April, with its sullen showers and teasing, wayward moods, its
alternate days of warm sunshine and chilling rain, still leaves us who
live north of the fortieth parallel in doubt whether summer really
intends to come or not. Not so on the gulf coast; langorous breezes
incline one to take life easy, the sun high overhead has the true June
fervor, and, if further evidence is needed to convince us, ripening
strawberries and blooming roses tell us that summer is here. Gardens
filled with huge, flaming amaryllis, fragrant calycanthus and a thousand
and one shrubs strange to the northern eye, greet us in every yard. In
front of the houses and along the streets, their purple fragrance
welcoming every newcomer, stand the China trees, the haunt of busy bees
and their indefatigable pursuer the kingbird, or bee martin.
In the lowlands a short distance back from the beach, the azaleas
(Azalea nudiflora) are just dropping the last of their pink bloom, a
bouquet thrown at the feet of all-conquering summer. Here and there in
these jungles of yupon, bay, buttonwood, etc., appears a shrub clad in a
filmy white mist. If this be the season for weddings, it must be that
this is the bride that greets our eyes. A delicately beautiful bride she
is, with arms that toss in the slightest breeze and now and then coyly
shove aside the cloudy veil to take a farewell glimpse at the world she
leaves.
The natives do not take this view of this shrub (Chionanthus
virginicus). They have dubbed it “grand-daddy-gray-beard.” Usually
popular names have much to justify them, but in the instance just
mentioned, and that of the brilliant red flower which gazes at us from
the underbrush, they are suggestive of African superstition rather than
Saxon sentiment. The melancholy local fancy sees in these flaming orbs
only the power of evil, hence the name “Devil’s eye.” If I could be
assured that the devil’s eye is really as beautiful and kind in its
expression as its floral representative I would be willing, like
Emerson, to call its possessor “the dear old devil.”
Let us go back to the beach and stroll along the shell road, which
parallels the shore all the way from Gulfport to Biloxi. Perhaps the
glare of the white road is not pleasant to the eyes, but the deep green
of live oak and long leafed pine is restful, the mingled fragrance of
the salt breeze of the gulf, the resiny odor of the pine and the
blossoming wisteria charm the senses and lull us into rapturous content.
Only a few of the trees and shrubs which border the highway are of the
kinds familiar to observers in Ohio and Illinois. Now and then a water
oak or a sweet gum appears; but otherwise in the cypress, pine or live
oak of the larger growth, or in the palmetto, Spanish dagger and rattan
vine of the undergrowth, the eye looks in vain for old acquaintances.
The live oak certainly has individuality. Shorter and more spreading in
its habit of growth than most of its kind, its limbs are gnarled and
knotty, strong and muscular with its wrestling with the hurricanes that
sweep the bosom of the gulf. It loves the white sand just a few feet
above high tide, where it stands as a protector for the weaker growth
between the tossing waters and the great pine forest. As is the case
with human beings, this vigorous conflict with its surroundings does it
good; for no place in the South that I have been have I found the live
oaks as plentiful or as vigorous as on this strip of barren sand.
The birds know a good thing when they see it; hence they are well
represented here at this season of the year. Our old acquaintance of the
Maumee Valley, the Maryland yellow throat, with his cunning black mask
and his cheerful if not wholly musical “Wichety, wichety, wichety,”
greets us from a perch on a rattan vine, but on our nearer approach
dives down into the palmettos, where only the noise made by his tiny
feet indicates his whereabouts. Two other warblers, the hooded and the
redstart, a little belated, perhaps, have stopped here on their way
north to the old nesting grounds on the Kankakee and the Hudson. The
most numerous as well as the most conspicuous element of the bird
population is the summer tanager, whose intensely scarlet coat adds a
touch of vivid color very grateful to the eye. Nearly every oak contains
one of these redcoats, whistling a solo for our benefit or discussing
the details of housekeeping with his more sober coated little wife.
Almost as numerous as the tanagers, and even more interesting, are the
orchard orioles. Their song has more of the fire and ring of true music,
a compensation probably for the comparative dullness of their garb. In
nest building the orchard oriole is an artist. I remember one day
finding in a small water oak a nest so carefully woven out of excelsior
as to make me think the bird could knit if he would only turn his talent
in that direction. Where twine and excelsior are not easily obtained, no
doubt they utilize the long streamers of Spanish moss which hang from
half the trees in the gulf country.
Flying about in the gardens, as tame as robins on northern lawns, or
sharing the live oaks with the tanagers and orioles, are a multitude of
mocking birds. There must be something in Maurice Thompson’s suggestion
in “By Ways and Bird Notes” that along this coast the mocking birds find
those berries and seeds best adapted to develop a high degree of musical
ability and artistic expression, for these birds certainly surpass their
brethren found a few hundred miles to the north.
Besides these land birds there are a multitude of sea birds more
conspicuous on account of noise and numbers than bright coloring or
attractive ways. The herring gull is very plentiful on this coast,
wherever sand flats and shallow water offer attractive feeding grounds.
It is a pleasant sight to see a dozen of these pearl gray creatures
turning and wheeling, as free and easy as the wind. Just in shore from
where the gulls are flying are some fish crows, a thoughtless, noisy
set, contented to feast on the crabs and stray minnows which have eluded
the watchful gulls. At the edge of the water, just where the wavelets of
the receding tide curl and swish before turning back to join their
fellows, a couple of sandpipers are running a race, now and then
stopping to pick up some tidbit left by the water. A shadow flits along
the sand. We look up. A great fish hawk or osprey soars seaward. He
sails past the noisy crows, past the graceful gulls and steers for Ship
Island, that line of darker haze where sky and ocean meet. Truly, April
is the season to visit this coast.
James Stephen Compton.