snow told. At daybreak I had found the trail of a hunting pack, and was
following it stealthily, with many a cautious détour and look ahead,
for they are unbelievably shy brutes; and so it happened that I came
upon the carcass of the deer only a few minutes after the wolves had
fed and roamed lazily off toward their day-bed. I followed them too
eagerly, and alarmed them before I could pick the big one I wanted;
whereupon they took to rough country, traveling a pace that left me
hopelessly far behind. When I returned to the deer, to read how the
wolves had surprised and killed their game, I noticed the fresh trail
of a solitary wolf coming in at right angles to the trail of the
hunting pack. It was the limper again, who had just eaten what he
wanted and trailed off by himself. I followed and soon jumped him, and
took after him on the lope, thinking I could run him down or at least
come near enough for a revolver-shot; but that was a foolish notion.
Even on three legs he whisked through the thick timber so much easier
than I could run on snow-shoes that I never got a second glimpse of
him.
By that time I was bound to know, if possible, how the limper happened
to find this second deer for his comfort; so I picked up his incoming
trail and ran it clear back to his den under the windfall, from which
he had come as straight as if he knew exactly where he was heading. His
trail was from eastward; what little air was stirring came from the
south; so that it was impossible for his nose to guide him to the meat
even had he been within smelling distance, as he certainly was not. The
record in the snow was as plain as any other print, and from it one
might reasonably conclude that either the wolves can send forth a
silent food-call, with some added information, or else that a solitary
wolf may be so in touch with his pack-mates that he knows not only
where they are, but also, in a general way, what they are doing.
In comparison with timber-wolves the caribou is rather a witless brute;
but he, too, has his “uncanny” moods, and one who patiently follows
him, with deeper interest in his anima than in his antlered head, finds
him frequently doing some odd or puzzling thing which may indicate a
perception more subtle than that of his dull eyes or keen ears or
almost perfect nose. Here is one example of Megaleep’s peculiar way:
I was trailing a herd of caribou one winter day on the barrens
(treeless plains or bogs) of the Renous River in New Brunswick. For
hours I had followed through alternate thick timber and open bog
without alarming or even seeing my game. The animals were plainly on
the move, perhaps changing their feeding-ground; and when Megaleep
begins to wander no man can say where he will go, or where stop, or
what he is likely to do next. Once, after trailing him eight or ten
miles, twice jumping him, I met him head-on, coming briskly back in his
own tracks, as if to see what was following him. From the trail I read
that there were a dozen animals in the herd, and that one poor wounded
brute lagged continually behind the others. He was going on three legs;
his right forefoot, the bone above it shattered by some blundering
hunter’s bullet, swung helplessly as he hobbled along, leaving its
pathetic record in the snow.
On a wooded slope which fell away to a chain of barrens, halting to
search the trail ahead, my eye caught a motion far across the open, and
through the field-glass I saw my herd for the first time, resting
unsuspiciously on the farther edge of the barren, a full mile or more
away. From my feet the trail led down through a dense fringe of
evergreen, and then straight out across the level plain. A few of the
caribou were lying down; others moved lazily in or out of the forest
that shut in the barren on that side; and as I watched them two
animals, yearlings undoubtedly, put their heads together for a pushing
match, like domestic calves at play.
Hardly had I begun to circle the barren, keeping near the edge of it
but always out of sight in the evergreens, when I ran upon a solitary
caribou trail, the trail of the cripple, who had evidently wearied and
turned aside to rest, perhaps knowing that his herd was near the end of
its journey. A little farther on I jumped him out of a fir thicket, and
watched him a moment as he hobbled deeper into the woods, heading away
to the west. The course surprised me a little, for his mates were
northward; and at the thought I quickly found an opening in the cover
and turned my glass upon the other caribou. Already they were in wild
alarm. For a brief interval they ran about confusedly, or stood tense
as they searched the plain and the surrounding woods for the source of
danger; then they pushed their noses out and racked away at a marvelous
pace, crossing the barren diagonally toward me and smashing into the
woods a short distance ahead, following a course which must soon bring
them and their wounded mate together. If I were dealing with people, I
might say confidently that they were bent on finding out what the alarm
was about; but as I have no means of knowing the caribou motive, I can
only say that the two trails ran straight as a string through the
timber to a meeting-point on the edge of another barren to the
westward.
If you would reasonably explain the matter, remember that these
startled animals were far away from me; that the cripple and myself
were both hidden from their eyes, and that I was moving upwind and
silently. It was impossible that they should hear or see or smell me;
yet they were on their toes a moment after the cripple started up, as
if he had rung a bell for them. It was not the first time I had
witnessed a herd of animals break away when, as I suspected, they had
received some silent, incomprehensible warning, nor was it the last;
but it was the only time when I could trace the whole process without
break or question from beginning to end. And when, to test the matter
to the bottom, I ran the trail of the herd back to where they had been
resting, there was no track of man or beast in the surrounding woods to
account for their flight.
One may explain this as a mere coincidence, which is not an
explanation; or call it another example of the fact that wild animals
are “queer,” which is not a fact; but in my own mind every action of
the caribou and all the circumstances point to a different
conclusion—namely, that the fear or warning or impulse of one animal
was instantly transferred to others at a distance. I think, also, that
the process was not wholly unconscious or subconscious, but that one
animal sent forth his warning and the others acted upon it more or less
intelligently. This last is a mere assumption, however, which cannot be
proved till we learn to live in an animal’s skin.
It is true that the event often befalls otherwise, since you may jump
one animal without alarming others of the same herd; and it is possible
that the degree or quality of the alarm has something to do with its
carrying power, as we feel the intense emotion of a friend more quickly
than his ordinary moods. In this case the solitary caribou was
tremendously startled; for I was very near, and the first intimation he
had of me, or I of him, was when my snow-shoe caught on a snag and I
pitched over a log almost on top of him. Yet the difficulty of drawing
a conclusion from any single instance appears in this: that I have more
than once stalked, killed and dressed an animal without disturbing
others of his kind near at hand (it may be that no alarm was sent out,
for the animal was shot before he knew the danger, and in the deep
woods animals pay little attention to the sound of a rifle); and again,
when I have been trying to approach a herd from leeward, I have seen
them move away hurriedly, silently, suspiciously, in obedience to some
warning which seemed to spread through the woods like a contagion.
The latter experience is common enough among hunters of big game, who
are often at a loss to explain the sudden flight of animals that a
moment ago, under precisely the same outward influences, were feeding
or resting without suspicion. Thus, you may be stalking a big herd of
elk, or wapiti, which are spread out loosely over half a mountainside.
You are keen for the master bull with the noble antlers; nothing else
interests you, more’s the pity; but you soon learn that the cunning old
brute is hidden somewhere in the midst of the herd, depending on the
screen of cow-elk to warn him of danger to his precious skin. Waiting
impatiently till this vanguard has moved aside, you attempt to worm
your way nearer to the hidden bull. You are succeeding beautifully, you
think, when a single cow that you overlooked begins to act uneasily.
She has not seen or heard you, certainly, and the wind is still in your
favor; but there she stands, like an image of suspicion, head up,
looking, listening, testing the air, till she makes up her mind she
would as lief be somewhere else, when without cry or grunt or warning
of any kind that ears can hear she turns and glides rapidly away.
Now if you value animal lore above stuffed skins, or experience above
the babble of hunting naturalists, forget the big bull and his
greed-stirring antlers; scramble quickly to the highest outlook at
hand, and use your eyes. No alarm has been sounded; the vast silence is
unbroken; yet for some mysterious reason the whole herd is suddenly on
the move. To your right, to your left, near at hand or far away, bushes
quiver or jump; alert brown forms appear or vanish like shadows, all
silent and all heading in the direction taken by the first sentinel.
One moment there are scores of elk in sight, feeding or resting
quietly; the next they are gone and the great hillside is lifeless. The
thrill of that silent, moving drama has more wisdom in it, yes, and
more pleasure, than the crash of your barbarous rifle or the convulsive
kicking of a stricken beast that knows not why you should kill him.
Such is the experience, known to almost every elk-hunter who has
learned that life is more interesting than death; and I know nothing of
deer nature to explain it save this—that the whole herd has suddenly
felt and understood the silent impulse to go, and has obeyed it without
a question, as the young wolf or fox cub obeys the silent return call
of his watchful mother.
Such impulses seem to be more common and more dependable among the
whales, which have rudimentary or imperfect sense-organs, but which are
nevertheless delicately sensitive to external impressions, to the
approach of unseen danger, to the movements of the tiny creatures on
which they feed, to changes of wind or tide and to a falling barometer,
as if nature had given them a first-class feeling apparatus of some
kind to make up for their poor eyes and ears. Repeatedly have I been
struck by this extraordinary sensitiveness when watching the monstrous
creatures feeding with the tide in one of the great bays of the
Newfoundland or the Labrador coast. If I lowered a boat to approach one
of them, he would disappear silently before I could ever get near
enough to see clearly what he was doing. That seemed odd to me; but
presently I began to notice a more puzzling thing: at the instant my
whale took alarm every other whale of the same species seemed to be
moved by the same impulse, sounding when the first sounded, or else
turning with him to head for the open sea.
A score of times I tried the experiment, and commonly, but not
invariably, with the same result. I would sight a few leviathans
playing or feeding, shooting up from the deep, breaching half their
length out of water to fall back with a tremendous souse; and through
my glasses I would pick up others here or there in the same bay.
Selecting a certain whale, I would glide rapidly toward him, crouching
low in the dory and sculling silently by means of an oar over the
stern. By some odd channel of perception (not by sight, certainly, for
I kept out of the narrow range of his eye, and a whale is not supposed
to smell or hear) he would invariably get wind of me and go down; and
then, jumping to my feet, I would see other whales in the distance
catch the instant alarm, some upending as they plunged to the deeps,
others whirling seaward and forging full speed ahead.
This observation of mine is not unique, as I supposed, for later I
heard it echoed as a matter of course by the whalemen. Thus, when I
talked with my friend, Captain Rule, about the ways of the great
creatures he had followed in the old whaling-days, he said, “The
queerest habit of a whale, or of any other critter I ever fell foul of,
was this: when I got my boat close enough to a sperm-whale to put an
iron into him, every other sperm-whale within ten miles would turn
flukes, as if he had been harpooned, too.” But he added that he had not
noticed the same contagion of alarm, not in the same striking or
instantaneous way, when hunting the right or Greenland whale—perhaps
because the latter is, as a rule, more solitary in its habits.
Wolves and caribou and whales are far from the observation of most
folk; but the winter birds in your own yard may some time give you a
hint, at least, of the same mysterious transference of an impulse over
wide distances. When you scatter food for them during a cold snap or
after a storm (it is better not to feed them regularly, I think,
especially in mild weather when their proper food is not covered with
snow) your bounty is at first neglected except by the house sparrows
and starlings. Unlike our native birds, these imported foreigners are
easily “pauperized,” seeking no food for themselves so long as you take
care of them. They keep tabs on you, also, waiting patiently about the
house, and soon learn what it means when you emerge from your back door
on a snowy morning with a broom in one hand and a pan in the other.
They are feeding greedily the moment your back is turned, and for a
time they are the only birds at the table. When they have gorged
themselves, for they have no manners, a few tree-sparrows and juncos
flit in to eat daintily. Then suddenly the wilder birds appear—jays,
chickadees, siskins, kinglets and, oh, welcome! a flock of
bob-whites—coming from you know not where, in obedience to a summons
which you have not heard. Some of these may have visited the yard in
time past, and are returning to it now, hunger driven; but others you
have never before met within the city limits, and a few have their
accustomed dwelling in the pine woods, which are miles away. How did
these hungry hermits suddenly learn that food was here?
The answer to that question is simple, and entirely “sensible” if you
think only of birds that live or habitually glean in your neighborhood.
Some of them saw you scatter the food, or else found it by searching,
while others spied these lucky ones feeding and came quickly to join
the feast. For birds that live wider afield there is also an
explanation that your senses can approve, though it is probably wrong
or only half right: from a distance they chanced to see wings speeding
in the direction of your yard, and followed them expectantly because
wings may be as eloquent as voices, the flight of a bird when he is
heading for food being very different from the flight of the same bird
when he is merely looking for food. But these most rare visitors,
kinglets or pine-finches or grosbeaks or bob-whites, that never before
entered your yard, and that would not be here now had you not thought
to scatter food this morning,—at these you shake your head, calling it
chance or Providence or mystery, according to your mood or disposition.
To me, after observing the matter closely many times, the reasonable
explanation of these rare visitors is that either wild birds know how
to send forth a silent food-call or, more likely, that the excitement
of feeding birds spreads powerfully outward, and is felt by other
starving birds, alert and sensitive, at a distance beyond all possible
range of sight or hearing. By no other hypothesis can I account for the
fact that certain wild birds make their appearance in my yard at a
moment when a number of other birds are eagerly feeding, and at no
other time, though I watch for them from one year’s end to another.
Like every other explanation, whether of stars or starlings, this also
leads to a greater mystery. The distance at which such a summoning call
can be felt by others must be straitly limited, else would all the
starving birds of a state be flocking to my yard on certain mornings;
and the force by which the silent call is projected is as unknown as
the rare mental ether which bears its waves or vibrations in all
directions. Yet the problem need not greatly trouble us, since the
answer, when it comes, will be as natural as breathing. If silent or
telepathic communication exists in nature, and I think it surely does,
the mystery before us is no greater than that which daily confronts the
astronomer or the wireless operator. One measures the speed of light
from Orion; the other projects his finger-touch across an ocean; but
neither can tell or even guess the quality of the medium by which the
light or the electric wave is carried to its destination.
V
THE SWARM SPIRIT
This is a chapter on the wing drill of birds, the swarming of bees, the
panics and unseasonal migrations of larger or smaller beasts, and other
curious phenomena in which the wild creatures of a flock or herd all
act in unison, doing the same thing at the same time, as if governed by
a single will rather than by individual motives. If it should turn out
that the single will were expressed in a voice or cry, or even in a
projected impulse, then are we again face to face with our problem of
animal communication.
Of the fact of collective action there is no doubt, many naturalists
having witnessed it; and there is also a strictly orthodox explanation.
Thus, when you see a large flock of crows “drilling” in the spring or
autumn, rising or falling or wheeling all together with marvelous
precision, the ornithologists resolve the matter by saying that the
many crows act as one crow because they follow a “collective impulse”;
that is, because the same impulse to rise or fall or wheel seizes upon
them all at precisely the same moment. And this they tell you quite
simply, as if pointing out an obvious fact of natural history, when in
reality they are showing you the rarest chimera that ever looked out of
a vacuum.
Now the wonderful wing drill of certain birds has something in it which
I cannot quite fathom or understand, not even with a miracle of
collective impulse to help me; yet I have observed two characteristics
of the ordered flight which may help to dispel the fog of assumption
that now envelops it. The first is, that the drill is seen only when an
uncommonly large number of birds of the same kind are gathered
together, on a sunny day of early spring, as a rule, or in the
perfection of autumn weather.
The starlings [3] furnish us an excellent example of this peculiarity.
For months at a stretch you see them about the house, first in pairs,
next in family groups, then in larger companies, made up, I think, of
birds raised in the same neighborhood and probably all more or less
related; but though you watch these companies attentively from dawn to
dusk, you shall never see them going through any unusual wing drill.
Then comes an hour when flocks of starlings appear on all sides,
heading to a common center. They gather in trees here or there about
the edges of a great field or a strip of open beach, all jabbering like
the blackbirds, which they imitate in their cries, flitting about in
ceaseless commotion, but apparently keeping their family or tribal
organization intact. Suddenly, as at a signal, they all launch
themselves toward the center of the field; the hundred companies unite
in one immense flock, and presto! the drill is on. The birds are no
longer individuals, but a single-minded myriad, which wheels or veers
with such precision that the ash of their ten-thousand wings when they
turn is like the flicker of a signal-glass in the sun.
The same characteristic of uncommon numbers holds true of the crows
and, indeed, of all other species of birds, save one, that ever
practise the wing drill. Wild geese when in small companies, each a
family unit, have a regular and beautiful flight in harrow-shaped
formation; but I have never witnessed anything like a wing drill among
them save on one occasion, when a thousand or more of the birds were
gathered together for a few days of frolic before beginning the
southern migration. Nor have I ever seen the drill among thrushes or
warblers or sparrows or terns or seagulls, which sometimes gather in
uncounted numbers, but which do not, apparently, have the same motive
that leads crows or starlings to unite in a kind of rhythmic air-dance
on periodic occasions.
A second marked characteristic of the wing drill is that it is
invariably a manifestation of play or sport, and that the individual
birds, though they keep the order of the play marvelously well, show in
their looks and voices a suppressed emotional excitement. The drill is
never seen when birds are migrating or feeding or fleeing from danger,
though thousands of them may be together at such a time, but only when
they assemble in a spirit of fun or exercise, and their bodily needs
are satisfied, and the weather or the barometer is just right, and no
enemy is near to trouble them. Whatever their motive or impulse,
therefore, it is certainly not universal or even widespread among the
birds, since most of them do not practise the drill; nor is it in the
least like that mysterious impulse which suddenly sets all the
squirrels of a region in migration, or calls the lemmings to hurry over
plain and forest and mountain till they all drown themselves in the
distant sea; for no sooner is the brief drill over than the companies
scatter quietly, each to its own place, and the individual birds are
again alert, inquisitive, well balanced, precisely as they were before.
The drill is seen at its best among the plover, I think; and, curiously
enough, these are the only birds I know that practise it frequently, in
small or large numbers and in all weathers. I have often watched a
flock come sweeping in to my decoys, gurgling like a thousand fifes
with bubbles in them; and never have I met these perfectly drilled
birds, which stay with us but a few hours on their rapid journey from
the far north to the far south, without renewed wonder at their
wildness, their tameness, their incomprehensible ways. That you may
visualize our problem before I venture an explanation, here is what you
may see if you can forget your gun to observe nature with a deeper
interest:
You have risen soon after midnight, called by the storm and the
shrilling of passing plover, and long before daylight you are waiting
for the birds on the burnt-over plain. Your “stand” is a hole in the
earth, hidden by a few berry-bushes; and before you, at right angles
with the course of the storm (for plover always wheel to head into the
wind when they take the ground), are some scores of rudely painted
decoys. As the day breaks you see against the east a motion as of
wings, and your call rings out wild and clear, to be echoed on the
instant. In response to your whistle the distant motion grows wildly
fantastic; it begins to whirl and eddy, as if a wisp of fog were
rolling swiftly down-wind; only in some mysterious fashion the fog
holds together, and in it are curious flickerings. Those are plover,
certainly; no other birds have that perfect unity of movement; and now,
since they are looking for the source of the call they have just heard,
you throw your cap in the air or wave a handkerchief to attract
attention. There is an answering flash of white from the under side of
their wings as the plover catch your signal and turn all at once to
meet it. Here they come, driving in at terrific speed straight at you!
It is better to stop calling now, because the plover will soon see your
decoys; and these birds when on the ground make no sound except a low,
pulsating whistle of welcome or recall. This is uttered but seldom, and
unless you can imitate it, which is not likely, your whistling will do
no good. Besides, it could not possibly be heard. Listen to that
musical babel, and let your nerves dance to it! In all nature there is
nothing to compare for utter wildness with the fluting of incoming
plover.