A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SPRING
I do not know where to begin--there are so many interesting things to
do this spring! But, while we ought to be interested in all of the
out-of-doors, it is very necessary to select some _one_ field, say,
the birds or flowers, for _special_ study. That would help us to
decide what to do this spring.
I
If there is still room under your window, or on the clothes-pole in
your yard, or in a neighboring tree, nail up another bird-house. (Get
“Methods of Attracting Birds” by Gilbert H. Trafton.) If the
bird-house is on a pole or post, invert a large tin pan over the end
of the post and nail the house fast upon it. This will keep cats and
squirrels from disturbing the birds. If the bird-house is in a tree,
saw off a limb, if you can without hurting the tree, and do the same
there. Cats are our birds’ worst enemies.
II
Cats! Begin in your own home and neighborhood a campaign against the
cats, to reduce their number and to educate their owners to the need
of keeping them well fed and shut up in the house from early evening
until after the early morning; for these are the cats’ natural hunting
hours, when they do the greatest harm to the birds.
This does not mean any cruelty to the cat--no stoning, no persecution.
The cat is not at fault. It is the keepers of the cats who need to be
educated. Out of every hundred nests in my neighborhood the cats of
two farmhouses destroy ninety-five! The state must come to the rescue
of the birds by some new rigid law reducing the number of cats.
III
Speaking of birds, let me urge you to begin your watching and study
early--with the first robins and bluebirds--and to select some near-by
park or wood-lot or meadow to which you can go frequently. There is a
good deal in getting intimately acquainted with a locality, so that
you know its trees individually, its rocks, walls, fences, the very
qualities of its soil. Therefore you want a small area, close at hand.
Most observers make the mistake of roaming first here, then there,
spending their time and observation in finding their way around,
instead of upon the birds to be seen. You must get used to your paths
and trees before you can see the birds that flit about them.
IV
In this haunt that you select for your observation, you must study not
only the birds but the trees, and the other forms of life, and the
shape of the ground (the “lay” of the land) as well, so as to know
_all_ that you see. In a letter just received from a teacher, who is
also a college graduate, occurs this strange description: “My window
faces a hill on which straggle brown houses among the deep green of
elms or oaks or maples, I don’t know which.” Perhaps the hill is far
away; but I suspect that the writer, knowing my love for the
out-of-doors, wanted to give me a vivid picture, but, not knowing one
tree from another, put them all in so I could make my own choice!
Learn your common trees, common flowers, common bushes, common
animals, along with the birds.
V
Plant a garden, if only a pot of portulacas, and _care_ for it, and
watch it grow! Learn to dig in the soil and to love it. It is amazing
how much and how many things you can grow in a box on the window-sill,
or in a corner of the dooryard. There are plants for the sun and
plants for the shade, plants for the wall, plants for the very cellar
of your house. Get you a bit of earth and plant it, no matter how busy
you are with other things this spring.
VI
There are four excursions that you should make this spring: one to a
small pond in the woods; one to a deep, wild swamp; one to a wide
salt marsh or fresh-water meadow; and one to the seashore--to a wild
rocky or sandy shore uninhabited by man.
There are particular birds and animals as well as plants and flowers
that dwell only in these haunts; besides, you will get a sight of four
distinct kinds of landscape, four deep impressions of the face of
nature that are altogether as good to have as the sight of four
flowers or birds.
VII
Make a calendar of _your_ spring (read “Nature’s Diary” by Francis H.
Allen)--when and where you find your first bluebird, robin, oriole,
etc.; when and where you find your first hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage,
etc.; and, as the season goes on, when and where the doings of the
various wild things take place.
VIII
Boy or girl, you should go fishing--down to the pond or the river
where you go to watch the birds. Suppose you do not catch any fish.
That doesn’t matter; for you have gone out to the pond with a pole in
your hands (a pole is a _real_ thing); you have gone with the _hope_
(hope is a _real_ thing) of catching _fish_ (fish are _real_ things);
and even if you catch no fish, you will be sure, as you wait for the
fish to bite, to hear a belted kingfisher, or see a painted turtle, or
catch the breath of the sweet leaf-buds and clustered catkins opening
around the wooded pond. It is a very good thing for the young
naturalist to learn to sit still. A fish-pole is a great help in
learning that necessary lesson.
IX
One of the most interesting things you can do for special study is to
collect some frogs’ eggs from the pond and watch them grow into
tadpoles and on into frogs. There are glass vessels made particularly
for such study (an ordinary glass jar will do). If you can afford a
small glass aquarium, get one and with a few green water plants put in
a few minnows, a snail or two, a young turtle, water-beetles, and
frogs’ eggs, and watch them grow.
X
You should get up by half past three o’clock (at the earliest streak
of dawn) and go out into the new morning with the birds! You will
hardly recognize the world as that in which your humdrum days (there
are no such days, really) are spent! All is fresh, all is new, and the
bird-chorus! “Is it possible,” you will exclaim, “that this can be the
earth?”
Early morning and toward sunset are the best times of the day for
bird-study. But if there was not a bird, there would be the sunrise
and the sunset--the wonder of the waking, the peace of the closing,
day.
XI
I am not going to tell you that you should make a collection of
beetles or butterflies (you should _not_ make a collection of birds or
birds’ eggs) or of pressed flowers or of minerals or of arrow-heads or
of--anything. Because, while such a collection is of great interest
and of real value in teaching you names and things, still there are
better ways of studying living nature. For instance, I had rather
have you tame a hop-toad, feed him, watch him evening after evening
all summer, than make any sort of dead or dried or pressed collection
of anything. Live things are better than those things dead. Better
know one live toad under your doorstep than bottle up in alcohol all
the reptiles of your state.
XII
Finally you should remember that kindliness and patience and close
watching are the keys to the out-of-doors; that only sympathy and
gentleness and quiet are welcome in the fields and woods. What, then,
ought I to say that you should do finally?