I was once sitting on the shore of a lake at twilight, wholly intent on
following the antics of a bull moose I had called into the open. He was
on the other side of a small bay, ranging up and down, listening,
threshing the bushes with his antlers, blowing his penny-trumpet at
intervals,—in a dozen impatient ways showing what a young and foolish
moose he was. A veteran would have kept to the cover till he had
located what he came for. I had ceased my bellowing when the bull first
answered, had been thrilled by his rush through the woods, had cheered
him silently when he burst into the open, grunting and challenging like
a champion; now I was quietly enjoying his bewilderment at not finding
the tantalizing cow he had just heard calling. He did not see or
suspect me; I had the comedy all to myself, and was keenly interested
to know how he would act when he rounded the bay, as he certainly
would, and found me sitting in his path. Because he was big and
truculent and a fool, I did not know what to expect; my canoe floated
ready against the outer end of a stranded log, where a push would send
it and me into deep water. I mention these details simply to show where
my thoughts were.
As I watched the play in the hushed twilight, suddenly came the feeling
that something was watching me. The bull had started around the bay in
my direction; possibly his eyes had picked me out—but no, he was in
plain sight, and the feeling is always associated with something
unseen. Without changing position I looked carefully all about,
searching the lake and especially the woods, which were already in deep
shadow. Finding no bird or beast, no motion, nothing alarming, I turned
to question the bull, who had halted to sound his ridiculous trumpet.
He was perhaps fifty or sixty yards away. He had not yet seen me; I had
no fear of him, no anxiety whatever; yet again came the feeling, this
time insistent, compelling, as if some one had touched me and said,
“Get away!” I did so promptly, jumping to my feet; and out of a fir
thicket behind me charged another bull that I had not dreamed of
calling.
By his size, his antlers, his fierce grunting, I recognized this brute
on the instant. I had met him before, once on a trail, once on the lake
shore, and had given him all the room he wanted. He was a grizzled old
bull, morose and ugly, that seemed to have lost his native fear of
man—from a galling wound, perhaps, or from living an outcast life by
himself. He was a little crazy, I judged. That he was dangerous I knew
from the fact that he had previously made an unprovoked attack upon my
Indian. He, too, had heard the call; had approached it from behind as
stealthily as a cat, and had no doubt watched me, puzzled by my
stillness, till my first decided motion brought him out on the jump.
But I am wandering away from the small boy getting his first lessons in
the woods, and learning that the important thing is to hold perfectly
still.
Later, when eight or nine years old, I went alone day after summer day
to the wild berry-pastures. When my big pail would hold no more, I
would make a bowl by bashing in the top of my hat, and fill it to the
brim with luscious blueberries. These with a generous slice of bread
made an excellent lunch, which I always ate within sight of a bird’s
nest, or the den of a fox, or some other abode of life that I had
discovered in the woods. And again, as I sat quiet in the solitude, the
birds and small animals might be led by curiosity to approach as
fearlessly as when I was too small to harm them. Now a vixen, finding
me too near her den and cubs, would squall at me impatiently, like a
little yellow dog with a cat’s voice; or again, a brooding bird that
objected to my scrutiny would first turn her tail to me, and presently
come round again, and finally get mad and flutter about my head,
scolding loudly to chivvy me away. So it often happened that one had
nearer or happier or more illuminating glimpses of wild life in that
small hour of rest than would be possible in a month of roaming the
woods with gun or collecting-box.
Once as I was eating my lunch under the pines, meanwhile watching a den
I had found to see what might come out of it, a crow sailed in on
noiseless wings and lit so near me that I hardly dared wink for fear he
would notice the motion. My first thought was that he was nest-robbing
(a crow is very discreet about that business), but he appeared rather
to be listening, cocking his head this way or that; and from a lazy
hawing in the distance I concluded he was satisfying himself that his
flock was occupied elsewhere and that he was quite alone. Presently he
hitched along the branch on which he stood and glided off to the crotch
of a pine-tree, where he began to uncover what was hidden under a mat
of brown needles. The first thing he took out was a piece of glass,
which sparkled with rainbow colors in a stray glint of sunshine. Then
came a bit of quartz with more sparkles, a shell, a silvery buckle, and
some other glistening objects which I could not make out. He turned his
treasures over and over, all the while croaking to himself in a pleased
kind of way; then he put them all back, covered them again with
needles, and slipped away without a sound. Having kept tame crows, I
knew that they are forever stealing and hiding whatever bright objects
they find about the house; and here in the pine woods was a thing to
indicate that wild crows, perhaps all of them, have the same covetous
habit.
Another day, a heavenly day when the budding woods were vocal and life
stirred joyously in every thicket, I took a jews’-harp from my pocket
and began to twang it idly. No, there was nothing premeditated in the
act. I had been roving widely, following the winds or the bird-calls
till a sunny opening invited me to rest, and had then fingered the
music-maker with no more purpose than the poet’s boy, who “whistled as
he went for want of thought.” The rhythmic, nasal twanging was a sound
never heard in that place before or since, I think, and the first to
come hurriedly to investigate was a bright-colored warbler, whose name
I did not know; nor did I care to know it, feeling sure that by some
note or sign he would presently suggest a name for himself, which would
please me better than the barbarous jargon I might find in a bird-book.
The alert little fellow lit on a branch within three feet of my face,
turning his head so as to view me with one eye or the other when I kept
quiet, or chirping his indignation when I twanged the jews’-harp. Next
came a jay, officious as the town constable; then more birds, half
concealing their curiosity under gentle manners; and a squirrel who had
no manners at all, scolding everybody and scurrying about in a fashion
which seemed dangerous to his excited head.
As I watched this little assembly, which seemed to be asking, “What’s
up? What’s up?” the meaning of it suddenly dawned on me like a
surprising discovery. When I entered the opening I knew simply that
birds or beasts would draw near if they found me quiet; before I left
it I had found the explanation: that all the wood folk are intensely
curious, as curious as so many human gossips, but without any of their
malice; that by inner compulsion they are drawn to any strange sight or
sound, as a crowd collects when a man cuts a caper or throws a fit or
raises a whoop or looks up into the air, or does anything else out of
the ordinary. When you appear in the quiet woods every bird or beast
within sight or hearing is agog to know about you; they are like the
Nantucket-Islanders, who named their one public hack the “Who’s Come?”
Because you are a stranger, and what you do is none of their business,
they are all the more interested in you and your doings; you come to
them with all the charm of the unknown, the unexpected; and they will
gratify their curiosity, fearlessly and most pleasantly, so long as you
know how to stimulate or play upon it and to hold still while enjoying
it.
All that is natural enough, as natural as life; but it is not written
in any book of natural history, and it came to me that day as a
wonderful discovery. It suggested at once the right way to study birds
or beasts, as living creatures; it has since led to many a fascinating
glimpse of the wood-folk comedy, and to a lifelong pleasure which is
too elusive to be set down in words. At the bottom of it, I suppose, is
the fact that in every wild or natural creature is something, at once
mysterious and familiar, which appeals powerfully to your interest or
sympathy, as if you saw a faint shadow of your other self, or caught a
fleeting memory of that vanished time when you lived in a child’s world
of wonder and delight.
From the beginning, therefore, I met all birds and animals in a child’s
impersonal way; which, strangely enough, ascribes personality to every
living thing, yes, and honors it. These inquisitive little rangers of
the wood or the berry-pasture, shy and exquisitely alert, were all
individuals like myself, each one seeking the joy of life in his own
happy way. My only regret was that I was too clumsy, too obtrusive, too
ignorant of the way of the wild, and so frightened many a timid bird or
beast that I would gladly have known.
All this, too, is perfectly natural; the instinctive attitude of a
child, as of an animal, is one of curiosity rather than of fear or
destruction. If left to his natural instincts, a child meets every
living creature with a mixture of shyness or timidity and bright
interest; he becomes an enemy of the wild, learning to frighten and
harry and kill, not from nature but from the evil example of his
elders. I could prove that beyond a peradventure, I think, if this were
the place; but there is no need of any man’s demonstration. Go yourself
to the big woods at twilight, leaving custom behind you; go alone and
unarmed; hear that rustle of leaves, that tread of soft feet which
brings you to an instant halt; see that strange beast which glides out
into the trail and turns to look at you with luminous eyes. Then
quickly examine your own mental state, and you will know the truth of a
man’s natural or instinctive attitude toward the mystery of life.
Unfortunately the wild birds and beasts near our home have learned that
man is unnatural, a creature to be feared, and their curiosity has
given place to another motive. The young still display their natural
bent freely; but the old have heard too many of our guns, have been too
often disturbed by our meddlesome dogs or worthless cats, have suffered
too much at the hands of outrageous egg-collectors or skin-collectors
to be any longer drawn to us when we go afield. As you go farther away
from civilization it becomes easier to play on the animals’ native
curiosity; in the far North or the remote jungle, or wherever man is
happily unknown, they still come fearlessly to investigate you, or to
stand quiet, like the ptarmigan, watching with innocent eyes as you
pass them by. In the intermediate regions, which are harried by
sportsmen for a brief period in the autumn and then left to a long
solitude, the animals are wild or tame according to season; and it has
seemed to me, not always but on occasions, that in some subtle way they
distinguish between man and man, taking alarm at the first sniff of a
hunter, but stopping to show their interest in a harmless woods-rover.
This last is a mere theory, to be sure, and to some it may appear a
fanciful one; but it rests, be assured, upon repeated experience. Thus,
I came once at evening to a camp of hunters who were in a sorry plight.
They were in a good deer country, and had counted largely on venison to
supply their table; but for more than a week they had tasted no meat,
and they were very hungry. The deer were wild as hawks, they assured
me. They had hunted every day; but because of the game’s wildness and
the dry weather, which made the leaves rustle loudly underfoot, it had
proved impossible to approach near enough for a shot—all of which made
me think that, if you want to see game, you should leave your gun at
home. I had met about a dozen deer that day; most of them were within
easy range, and a few of them stood with questioning eyes while a man
might have made ready his camera and taken a picture of them.
The very next morning, and within a mile of the hunters’ camp, I
witnessed a familiar but fascinating display of deer nature. At sunrise
I approached a bog, bordering a stream where a few good trout might be
found, and on the edge of the opening stood a doe and her well-grown
fawn, not twenty yards away. The fawn, a little buck with the nubs of
his first antlers showing, threw up his head as I appeared, and in the
same instant I dropped to the ground behind a mossy log. No whistle or
sound of alarm followed the action; so I scraped a mat of moss from the
log, put it on for a bonnet, and cautiously raised my head.
The old doe was still feeding; the buck stood like a living statue, his
whole attention fastened on the spot where I had disappeared. He had
seen something, he knew not what, and was waiting for it to show itself
again. When my bonnet appeared his eyes seemed to enlarge and flash as
he caught the motion. Without changing his footing, for his surprise
seemed to have rooted him in the ground, he began to sway his body to
left or right, stretching his head high or dropping it low, taking a
dozen graceful attitudes in order to view the queer bit of moss from
different angles. Then he slowly raised a fore foot, put it down very
gently, raised it again, stamped it down hard. Getting no response to
his challenge, he sidled over to his mother, still keeping his eyes
fastened on the log. At his touch or call she lifted her head, pointing
her nose straight at me, as if he had somehow told her where to give
heed.
It was a wonderful sight, the multicolored bog spread like a rug at the
feet of the glorious October woods, and standing on the crimson fringe
of it these two beautiful creatures, demanding with flashing eyes who
the intruder might be. For a full minute, while I held motionless, the
doe kept her eyes steadily on the log; then, “Nothing there, little
buck; don’t worry,” she said in her own silent way, and went to feeding
once more.
“But there is something; I saw it,” insisted the little buck, nudging
his mother by swinging his head against her side. That was the first
and only time, in that quick swing, when he took his eyes from what
attracted them. The doe looked a second time, saw nothing uncommon, and
had turned to feed along the edge of the opening when the little buck
recalled her in some way. “Can’t you see it, that white thing like a
face under the moss?” he was saying. “There! it moved again!”
The mother, whose back was turned to me, twisted her head around as if
to humor him, and to interest her I swayed the moss bonnet to and fro
like a pendulum. At that she whirled, surprise written large on her,
and I dropped my head, leaving her staring. When I looked again both
deer were coming nearer, the mother ahead, the fawn holding back as if
to say, “Careful now! It’s big, and it’s hiding just behind that log.”
So they drew on warily, stopping to stamp a fore foot, and every time
they challenged I gave the bonnet an answering wag. When they were so
near that I knew they must soon distinguish my eyes from the moss, I
sank out of sight. I was listening for their alarm-call or for the thud
of their flying feet when a gray muzzle slid over the log, and I laid
my hand fair on the mother’s cheek before she bounded away.
Now there was nothing strange or new in all that; on the contrary, it
was very much like what I had observed in other inquisitive deer. The
only surprising part of the comedy was that the doe, though she had
felt the touch of my hand and no doubt smelled the man behind it,
stopped short after a few jumps and turned to stare at the log again.
That she was still curious, still unsatisfied, was plain enough; what
puzzles me to know is, whether she would have acted in the same way if
one of the hungry hunters had been waiting in my shoes for the chance
or moment to kill her.
IX
AT CLOSE RANGE
It is easy, much easier than you think, to get close to wild birds and
beasts; for after you have met them a few times in the friendly,
impersonal way I have tried to describe, two interesting traits appear:
the first, that they do not see you clearly so long as you hold still;
the second, that even their keen noses lose track of you after you have
been quiet for a little time.
The eye is a weak point in all animals I have chanced to observe, which
apparently depend less on sight than on any other sense—so far as
safety goes, that is. In gratifying their curiosity they seem to be all
eyes. At other times they will catch an abrupt or unusual motion
quickly enough; but they are strangely blind to any motionless object
however large or small. Repeatedly when I have been sitting quiet,
without concealment but with “neutral” clothes that harmonize with the
soft woods colors, I have known deer, moose, caribou, bear, wolf, fox,
lynx, otter, alert beasts of every kind, to approach within a few
yards, giving no heed till a chirp or a slight motion called their
attention. Then they would whirl upon me in astonishment, telling me by
their attitude that till then they had not noticed or suspected me.
Almost invariably at such times animals of the deer family would come a
step nearer, their heads high, their eyes asking questions; but beasts
of prey after one keen look would commonly drop their heads, as if I
were of no consequence, and slyly circle me to get my wind. In either
event success or a better view of the animal depended on just one
condition, which was to hold absolutely still. So long as I met that
condition, none of these wary beasts seemed to have any clear notion
what they were looking at.
Occasionally, indeed, their lack of discernment almost passes belief.
One winter day, while crossing a frozen lake in Ontario, I noticed a
distant speck moving on the snow, and stopped in my tracks to watch it.
The speck turned my way, drew near and changed into an otter, who came
rollicking along in his merry way, taking one or two quick jumps on his
abbreviated legs and a long slide on his ample belly. As the air was
dry and very still I had no fear of his nose, which is not as sensitive
as many others (perhaps because of the peculiar valve or flap which
closes it tight when an otter swims under water); but his eyes and
other senses are extraordinarily good, and it seemed impossible that he
should overlook a man standing erect on the snowy ice, as conspicuous
as a fly in the milk. So I watched the approach with lively interest,
wondering how Keeonekh would act in comparison with other members of
his weasel family when he found himself near me, whether he would dart
away like a fisher, or ignore me like a mink, or show his teeth at me
like a little stoat.
On he came, confidently, as an otter travels, giving no heed to the
enemy in his path, till he halted with a paw resting on one of my
snow-shoes and began to wiggle his broad muzzle, as if he found
something in the air which he did not like. For several moments he
hesitated, sniffing here, listening there, looking sharply about the
lake, into the near-by woods, everywhere except up into my face, and
then went on as he had been heading, leaving a straight trail behind
him. No man can tell what was in his head, and a very intelligent head
it is; but his action seemed to say that he did not see me when he
passed literally under my nose. To him I was merely a stump, one of a
dozen that projected here or there above the ice near the shore.
Such an incident would be merely freakish if it happened once; but it
happens again and again, becoming almost common or typical, when a man
stands motionless in the presence of other birds or beasts. Twice in
the big woods has the Canada lynx, a dull beast in comparison with the
otter, passed me with an unseeing stare in his wild eyes. And I have
crouched in the snow on a treeless barren while a band of caribou filed
past, so near that I could see the muscles ripple under their sleek
skins and hear the click-click of their hoofs as they walked. The
greater part of the herd did not even notice me; the rest threw a
passing glance in my direction, one halting as if he had a moment’s
doubt, and went on without a sign of recognition.
The eyes of birds are keener, as a rule; but it is still a question
with me how much or how little they see of what is plain as a frog on a
log to human vision. An owl has excellent eyes, which are at their best
in the soft twilight; yet once as I sat quiet in the dusk a horned-owl
swooped and struck at a motion of my head, not seeing the rest of me,
one must think, since he is quick to take alarm when a man appears.
Another owl showed even less discernment in that he overlooked me, head
and all, at a yard’s distance and tried to get his game out from under
my feet.
A little dog had followed me that day, keeping out of sight till we
were far from home, when he showed himself in a waggish way, as if he
knew I would not have the heart to tie him up in that lonely place, as
he deserved. All day long he had a vociferous and a “bully” time making
a nuisance of himself, stirring up a hornets’ nest in every peaceful
spot, chasing deer out of sight with a blithe rowdydow, swimming out to
the raft on which I was fly-fishing, jumping in to get tangled in my
landing-net when I reached for a big trout—in twenty ways showing that
his business was to take care of me, though he was no dog of mine.
Late in the afternoon, as I rested beside the homeward trail, the
little dog rambled off by himself, still looking for trouble, like all
his breed. Presently there was a yelp, a scurry, a glimpse of broad
wings swooping, and back came the trouble-seeker like a streak, his
eyes saying, “Look at this thing I brought you!” and his ears flapping
like a pair of wings to help him along. Over him hovered a big
barred-owl, grim as fate, striking, missing, mounting, swooping again,
brushing me with his wings as he whirled around my head. Between my
heels and the log on which I was sitting my protector wedged himself
securely; the owl with a vicious snapping of his beak sailed up into an
evergreen and made himself invisible. In a moment or two the little dog
came out and was wagging his tail mightily over the adventure when the
owl slanted down on noiseless wings and struck a double set of claws
into him. Then I interfered, rising to my feet; and then, for the first
time I think, the owl saw me as something other than a stump and
vanished quickly in the spruce woods.
Hawks likewise have marvelous eyes for all things that move; but I
began to question the quality of their vision one day when I was
watching a deer, and a red-shouldered hawk lit so near me that I
reached out a hand and caught him.
Another afternoon I came upon a goshawk, keenest of all the falcons,
that had just killed a grouse in the tote-road I was following. He
darted away as I came round a bend; but thinking he might soon return,
for he is a bold and a persistent kind of pirate, I entered the woods
at a swift walk, as if going away. Then I worked cautiously back to the
road through a thicket, and waited on a log in deep shadow, some fifty
yards above where the grouse lay undisturbed. Luckily I had a rifle, an
accurate little twenty-two, often carried as medicine for “vermin,” and
I intended to kill the goshawk at the first chance. He is the viking
among birds, and as such has a romantic interest; but wherever he
appears he is a veritable pest, the most destructive of the hungry
hordes that come down from the North to play havoc with our game.
For a long time the goshawk hovered about, sweeping on tireless wings
high above the trees; but though I was quiet enough to deceive any bird
or beast, he held warily aloof. Once he disappeared, remaining so long
away that I was beginning to think he had wearied of the game of
patience, when I heard an eery call and saw him wheeling over the road
again. His absence became clear a little later when he perched on a
blasted pine, far out of range, where he remained watching for fifteen
or twenty minutes, his only motion being an occasional turning of the
head. That he was hungry and bound to have his own was plain enough;
the puzzle was why he did not come and get it, for it seemed highly
improbable that he would notice a motionless figure at that distance. I
think now that he was sailing high over my head when I re-entered the
trail; that he knew where I was all the time, not because he saw me on
the log, but because he did not see me go away. Before sunset he headed
off toward the mountain, going early to roost with all his kind.