vision as to put an end to the game-destroyer. As a precaution I had
changed clothes, and now shifted position, avoiding the log because the
wary bird would surely take a look at it before coming down. My stand
was a weathered stump beside the road, against which I sat on a carpet
of moss, without concealment of any kind. At a short distance lay the
grouse, a poor crumpled thing, just as he had wilted under the hawk’s
swoop.
Thus a half-hour or more passed comfortably. A gorgeous cock-partridge
sauntered into the open, saw me when I nodded to him, and went slowly
off with that graceful, balancing motion which a grouse affects when he
is well satisfied with himself. Then, as the sun rose, there was a
swift-moving shadow, a rustle of pinions; the goshawk swept down the
road in front of me and lit beside his game. He was a handsome bandit,
in full adult plumage; his gray breast was penciled in shadowy lines,
while his back was a foggy blue, as if in his northern home he had
caught the sheen of the heavens above and of rippling waters beneath
his flight. His folded wings stood out squarely from his shoulders with
an impression of power, like an eagle’s. There was something noble in
his poise, in his challenging eye, in the forward thrust of his fierce
head; but the spell was broken at the first step. He moved awkwardly,
unwillingly it seemed; his great curving talons interfered with his
footing when he touched the earth.
This time, instead of a rifle, there was a trim shotgun across my
knees. The hawk was mine whether he stood quiet or leaped into swift
flight, and feeling sure of him now I watched awhile, wondering whether
he would break up his game with his claws, as some owls do, or tear it
to pieces with his hooked beak. For a moment he did neither, but stood
splendidly alert over his kill. Once he turned his head completely
around over either shoulder, sweeping his piercing glance over me, but
seeing nothing unusual. Then he seized his game in one foot and struck
his beak into the breast, making the feathers fly as he laid the
delicate flesh open. When I found myself weakening, growing sentimental
at the thought that it was his last meal, his last taste of freedom and
the wild, I remembered the grouse and got quietly on my feet. Though
busy with his feast, he caught the first shadow of a motion; I can
still see the gleam in his wild eyes as he sprang aloft.
I thought him beyond all harm as he lay on his back, one outstretched
wing among the feathers of his victim; but he struck like a flash when
I reached down for him carelessly. “Take that! and that! and remember
me!” he said, driving his weapons up with astonishing force, a force
that kills or paralyzes his game at the first grip. Four of his
needle-pointed talons went to the bone, and the others were well buried
in the flesh of my arm. The old viking had been some time with his
ancestors before I pried him loose.
As for the sense of smell, on which most animals depend for accurate
information, I have tried numerous experiments with deer, moose, bear
and other creatures to learn how far they can wind a man, and how their
powers compare one with another. There is no definite answer to the
problem, so baffling are the conditions of observing these shy beasts;
but you are in for some surprises, at least, when you attempt to solve
it in the open. You will learn, for example, that when a gale is
blowing the animals are more at sea than in a dead calm; or that in a
gusty wind you can approach them about as easily from one side as from
another. Such a wind rolls and eddies violently, rebounding from every
hill or point or shore in such erratic fashion that the animals have no
means of locating a danger when they catch a fleeting sniff of it. It
is for this reason, undoubtedly, that all game is uncommonly wild on a
windy day: the constant motion of leaves or tossing boughs breeds
confusion in their eyes, and the woodsy smells are so broken by
cross-currents that they cannot be traced to their source. So it has
happened more than once on a gusty day that a deer, catching my scent
on the rebound, has whirled and rushed straight at me, producing the
momentary illusion that he was charging.
With a steady but not strong wind blowing in their direction, I have
seen deer become alarmed while I was yet a quarter-mile away; this on a
lake, where there was nothing to interfere with the breeze or the
scent. On the burnt lands or the open barrens I have seen bear and
caribou throw up their heads and break away while I was even farther
removed. In a light breeze the distance is much shorter, varying from
fifty to two hundred yards, according to the amount of moisture in the
air. On days that are still or very dry, or when the air is filled with
smoke from a forest fire (the latter soon inflames all sensitive
nostrils), the animals are at sea again, and depend less on their noses
than on their eyes or ears.
Another surprising thing is, that the animal’s ability to detect you
through his sense of smell is largely governed by your own activity or
bodily condition. Thus, when a man is perspiring freely or moving
quickly, his scent is stronger and travels much wider than when he is
sauntering about. But if a man sits absolutely quiet, a clean man
especially, no animal can detect him beyond a few feet, I think, for
the reason that a resting man is like a resting bird or beast in that
he gives off very little body scent, which remains on the ground close
about him instead of floating off on the air currents. Even when the
trees are tossing in a gale there is little stir on the ground, not in
the woods at least, and the closer you hold to Mother Earth the less
likelihood is there of any beast smelling you.
All ground-nesting birds depend for their lives on this curious
provision of nature. Were it not for the fact that practically no scent
escapes while they are brooding their eggs, very few of them would live
to bring forth a family in a wood nightly traversed by such keen-nosed
enemies as the fox and the weasel. My old setter would wind a running
grouse or quail at an incredible distance, and would follow him by
picking his scent from the air; but I have taken that same dog on a
leash near the same birds when they were brooding their eggs, and he
could not or would not detect them unless he were brought within a few
feet, or (a rare occurrence) unless a creeping ground-breeze blew
directly from the nest into his face.
The same provision guards animals, such as deer and caribou, which
build no dens but leave their helpless young on the ground. Two or
three times, after finding a fawn in the woods, I have tested his
concealment by means of my young dog’s nose; and I may add that Rab
will point a deer as stanchly as he points a grouse or woodcock, for he
is still in the happy, irresponsible stage when everything that lives
in the woods is game to him. So long as the fawn remains motionless
where his mother hid him, the dog must be almost on top of him before
pointing or showing any sign of game. But if the little fellow runs or
even rises to his feet at our approach (fawns are apt to do this as
they grow older), the dog seems to catch the scent after the first
motion; he begins to cat-foot, his nose up as in following an air
trail, and steadies to a point while he is still many yards away from
where the fawn was hiding.
The nose of a wolf is keener than that of any dog I ever knew; yet I
once trailed a pack of wolves that passed within sixteen measured feet
of where two deer were sleeping in a hole in the snow. The wolves were
hunting, too, for they killed and partially ate a buck a little farther
on; but the trail said that they had passed close to these sleeping
deer without detecting them.
As for the man-scent, you may judge of that by the violent start or the
headlong rush when an animal catches the first alarming whiff of it. If
he passes quietly on his way, therefore, you may be reasonably sure he
has not smelled you. To the latter conclusion I have been forced many
times when I have been watching in the woods, sitting quiet for hours
at a stretch, and a deer or bear or fox, or some other beast with nose
as keen as a brier, has passed at a dozen yards’ distance without a
sign to indicate that he was aware of me. Some of these animals came
much nearer; so near, in fact, that I was scary of a closer approach
until I had called their attention to what lay ahead of them.
So long as you are seen or suspected, you need have little fear of any
wild beast (only the tame or half-tame are dangerous), but a brute that
stumbles upon you in an unexpected place or moment is always a problem.
Nine times out of ten he will fall all over himself in his haste to get
away; but the tenth time he may fall upon you and give you a mauling.
Moose, for example, are apt to strike a terrible blow with their fore
feet, or to upset a canoe when the jack-light approaches them; not to
attack, I think, at least not consciously, but in blind panic or to
ward off a fancied enemy. So when I have watched from the shore of a
lake and a moose came swinging along without noticing me, I have risen
to my feet or thrown my hat at the big brute when he was as near as I
cared to have him. And more than once, after a tremendous start of
surprise, he has come nearer with his hackles up as soon as he got over
the first effect of my demonstration. Yet when I am roaming the woods
that same brute will catch my scent at from two to five hundred yards,
and rush away before I can get even a glimpse of him.
That the same surprising sense-limitation is upon deer and other game
animals may be inferred from the following experience, which is typical
of many others. I was perched among some cedar roots on the shore of a
pond, one September day, watching a buck with the largest antlers I
have ever seen on one of his kind. I had been some time quiet when he
glided out to feed in a little bay, on my right; and my heart was with
him in the wish that he might keep his noble crown through the hunting
season, for his own pleasure and the adornment of the woods and the
confusion of all head-hunters. There was no breeze; but a moistened
finger told of a faint drift of air from the lake to the woods.
As I watched the buck, there came to my ears a crunching of gravel from
the opposite direction, and two deer appeared on the point at my left,
heading briskly down into the bay. They passed between my outstretched
feet and the water’s edge, where the strip of shore was perhaps three
yards wide; then they turned in my direction, seeing or smelling
nothing, went slowly up the bank and halted at the edge of the woods to
the right and a little behind me, so close that I dared not move even
my eyes to follow them. I measured the distance afterward, and found
that from their hoof-marks to the cedar root against which I rested was
less than eight feet. Imperceptibly I turned for another look, and saw
both deer at attention, their heads luckily pointed away from me. They
were regarding the big buck intently, as if to question him. They
showed no alarm as yet; but they were plainly uneasy, searching the
forest on all sides and at times turning to look over my head upon the
breathless lake. Every nervous action said that they found something
wrong in the air, some hint or taint or warning which they could not
define. So they moved alertly into the woods, halting, listening,
testing the air, using all their senses to locate a danger which they
had passed and left behind them.
From such experiences one might reasonably conclude that, like the
brooding grouse or the hidden fawn, a motionless man gives off so
little scent that the keenest nose is at fault until it comes almost
within touching distance. If any further proof is needed, you may find
it when you sleep in the open, and shy creatures draw near without any
fear of you. By daylight deer, bear and moose are extremely timid; they
rarely come within eyeshot of your camp, and they vanish at the first
sniff which tells them that you have invaded their feeding-grounds. But
when you are well asleep the same animals will pass boldly through your
camp-yard; or they will awaken you, as they have many times awakened
me, when you are tenting or sleeping under the stars by some outlying
pond. If you lie quiet, content to listen, the invading animal will
move freely here or there without concern; but no sooner do you begin
to stir, however quietly, than he catches the warning scent, and a
thudding of earth or a smashing of brush tells the rest of the story.
I recall one night, cloudy and very still, when I slept under my canoe
on a strip of sand beside a wilderness lake. The movement of an animal
near at hand awoke me. In the black darkness I could see nothing; but
somehow I knew he was big, and aside from the crepitation of the sand,
which I plainly heard, I seemed to feel the brute near me. For a moment
there was a pause, a dead silence; then came a thump, a rattlety-bang;
the canoe shook as something hit the lower end of it, and the creature
moved away. There was nothing to be done without eyes, so I snuggled
the blanket closer and went to sleep again. In the morning there were
the tracks of a moose, a bull as I judged from the shape of his feet,
to say that he had come down the shore at a fast walk, halted, stepped
over the stern of the canoe, and went on without hastening his pace.
That was odd enough; but more surprising were some tracks on the other
side, between the bow of the canoe and the woods. Very faint and dainty
tracks they were, as if a soft pad had touched the sand here and there
in an uneven line; but they told of a fox who had come trotting along
under the bank, and who had passed in the night without awakening me.
That neither he nor the moose had smelled the sleeping man, or nothing
alarming in him at least, is about as near to certainty as you will
come in interpreting animal action.
There is another and not wholly unreasonable hypothesis which may help
to explain such phenomena; namely, that it is not the scent of man but
of excitement, anger, blood-lust or some other abnormal quality which
alarms a wild animal. It sounds queer, I know, to say that anger can be
smelled; but it is more than probable that anger or fierce excitement
of any kind distils in the body a kind of poison which is physical and
sensible. Such excitement certainly weakens a man, clogging his system
with the ashes of its hot fires; and there is no reason why it should
not smell to earth as well as to high heaven.
You have but to open your eyes and expand your nostrils for some
evidence of this matter. Bees when angered give off a pungent odor,
which is so different from the ordinary smell of the hive that even
your dull nose may detect the change of temper. The same is true of
even cold-blooded reptiles. When you find a rattler or a black-snake
squirming in the sun, you can smell him faintly at a few yards’
distance. Now stir him up with a pole, or pin him to the earth by
pressing a forked stick with short prongs over his neck. As the snake
becomes enraged he pours off a rank odor, very different from the musky
smell that first attracted your notice, and it travels much wider, and
clings to your clothes for an hour afterward. It is not only possible
but very likely, therefore, that strong emotions affect the bodies of
all creatures in a way perceptible to senses other than sight. If so,
one man who is peaceable and another who is angry or highly excited may
give off such different odors that a brute with sensitive nostrils may
be merely curious about the one and properly afraid of the other.
That wild animals instinctively fear the scent of humanity, as such, is
probably not true. The notion arises, I think, from judging the natural
animal by those we have made unnatural by abuse or persecution.
Whenever man penetrates a wild region for the first time he finds, as a
rule, that the animals have little fear of him, the tameness of wild
game having been noted with surprise by almost every explorer. It has
been noted also, but without surprise, by saints and ascetics who “for
the greater glory of God” have adopted a life of solitude and
meditation, and who have often found the birds or beasts about their
hermitage to be quite fearless of them, and receptive of their
kindness. Not till the abundant flocks and herds of a new region have
been harried and decimated by senseless slaughter do the survivors
begin to be fearful and unapproachable, as we unfortunately know them.
Yet even now, no sooner do we drop our persecution and assume a
rational or humane attitude than the wild ducks come to the boat
landing of a winter hotel, deer feed at our haystacks, and bears come
in broad daylight to comfort themselves at our garbage-cans. Such
things could hardly be if the fear of man were an age-old or
instinctive inheritance.
Nearer home, on any farm bordering the wilderness, you may see wild
deer feeding quite tamely about the edges of the cleared fields all
summer. I recall one such farm in Maine, where the owner had fifteen
acres of green oats waving over virgin soil—a glorious crop for me, but
for him an occasion of lamentation. You could go through that field at
any hour before six in the morning or after six at night and find a
dozen deer with a moose or two making themselves at home. The owner’s
cattle were kept out by a rail fence; but the moose simply leaned
against the fence and went through, while the nimble deer sailed over
the obstruction like grasshoppers. On all such farms the deer have the
scent of man almost constantly in their nostrils, and they are simply
watchful, running when you approach too near, but turning after a short
flight to have a look at you. At times you may see them feeding when
the scent of laborers or fishermen blows fairly over them. But when
October comes, and the law is “off,” and wild-eyed hunters appear with
guns in their hands and death in their thoughts, then the same deer
quickly become as other and wilder creatures, rushing off in alarm at
the first sniff of an enemy. The fact and the changed action are
evident enough; the only interesting question is, To what extent does
the smell of man change when he changes his peaceable ways?
Two or three times I have had opportunity to test the effect of the
human scent in another way, the first time being when I had the good
luck to see a natural child and a natural animal together. The child, a
baby girl just beginning to toddle, was making a journey by means of a
comfortable Indian paukee on my back, and I had left her in an opening
beside a portage trail while I went back to my canoe for a thing I had
forgotten. While I was gone, three deer sauntered into the opening.
They saw the baby, and were instantly as curious about her as so many
gossips, a little spotted fawn especially. The baby saw them, and began
creeping eagerly forward, calling or “crowing” as she went. The deer
saw and heard and smelled her every moment; yet they walked around her
with springy steps, now on this side, now on that, showing a world of
curiosity in their bright eyes, but never a sign of fear.
From a distance I watched the lovely scene, kindling at the beauty of
it, or feeling a bit anxious when I saw the sharp feet of the old doe a
little too near the sunny head or the outstretched hands. Then an eddy
of wind from the mountain got behind me and whirled over the deer. They
caught the scent and were away with a wild alarm-call, their white
flags flying, and the baby waving by-by as they vanished in the woods.
Quite naturally, therefore, when a sensitive animal runs away from me,
I find myself thinking that perhaps it is not the smell of humanity but
of some evil trait or quality which frightens him. I first laid down
this hypothesis after meeting a strange, childlike man, who had a
passion for roaming by himself in the fields or woods. White men, after
a puzzling acquaintance, would tap their heads or call him crazy; an
Indian would look once in his eyes and say, very softly, “The Great
Spirit has touched him.” He was all gentleness, without a thought or
possibility of harm in his nature. He was also without fear, and
perhaps for this reason he inspired no fear in others. When he appeared
in the woods, singing to himself, the animals would watch him for a
moment, and then go their ways quietly, as if they understood him. What
would happen if a race of such men lived near the wood folk must be
left to the imagination.
MY POND: A SYMPHONY OF THE WOODS
X
THE TRAIL
To reach my pond you must leave your canoe on the shore of
Sungeegamook, the home lake, and go eastward through the big woods.
Yonder is the landing, that bank of green topped by “everlasting” and
blue asters, with a cleft like an arched doorway in the forest behind
it. A rugged jack-pine leans out over a bit of shingle, as if to
indicate a good place to beach your canoe, and there is something
curiously alive, almost sentient, in its attitude. The old tree seems
to watch your approach; through its leaves runs a low murmur of welcome
as you step ashore.
Entering the woods (and because you are alone, and therefore natural,
something in their dim aisles, their mysterious depths, their breathing
silence, makes you go gently) you find yourself in an old logging-road,
once a garish symbol of man’s destructiveness, but growing yearly more
subdued, more beautiful, since Nature began her work of healing. The
earth beneath your feet, the restful earth which the lumbermen left
torn by iron tools or rent by dynamite, has again put on her
soft-colored garments. Feathery beds of fern push boldly into the road
from shadowy places; wild grasses fill all its sunny openings with
their bloom and fragrance; and winding down through shade or sunshine
comes a trail made by the feet of deer and moose. Already these timid
animals have adopted the forgotten road as a runway; you may meet them
here when you return in the evening twilight.
Everywhere beside the trail are old marks of the destroyer. Noble
maples or cedars that were centuries growing have been slashed down,
dismembered, thrust aside to decay, and all because they stood in the
way of a lumber-boss who thought only of getting his cut of spruce down
to the lake. To look upon such trees, dead and shorn of their beauty,
is to feel pity or indignation; but Nature does not share your feeling,
being too abundant of life and resource to waste any moment in regret.
Already she is upbuilding what man has torn down. Glaring ax-wounds
have all disappeared under bandages of living moss; every fallen log
has hidden its loss under a mantle of lichen, soft and gray, which
speaks not of death but of life renewed.
Where the sun touches these prostrate giants a blush of delicate color
spreads over them. See, it deepens as you look upon it curiously, and
you examine it to find a multitude of “fairy-cups” on slender stems,
each lifting its scarlet chalice to the light. Very soft and inviting
seats they offer, yielding to your weight, sending up an odor as of
crushed herbs; but do not accept the invitation. If you must halt to
rest or to enjoy the stillness, sit not down on one of these mossy
logs, but before it at a little distance, and let its blended colors be
to your eye what the wind in the pine is to your ear, or the smell of
hemlock to your nostrils. Then will all your senses delight in harmony,
their natural birthright, while you rest by the way.
Where the old road winds about the end of a ridge, avoiding every steep
pitch, young balsams are crowding thickly into it; where it turns
downward to the lowlands, quick-growing alders claim it as their own;
and as you leave the lake far behind it begins to divide interminably,
each branch breaking into smaller branches, like the twigs of a tree as
you trace them outward. The twig ends with a bud in clear space; but
the farther or landward end of a logging-road dwindles to a deer-path,
the path to a rabbit-run, and the run vanishes in some gloomy cedar
swamp or trackless thicket where is no outlook on any side.
It is in such places, while you puzzle over another man’s road instead
of keeping your own trail straight, that you are most apt to get lost.
Coming back you need have no fear of going astray, since all these
trails lead to the main road, and thence downhill to the lake; but
going forward it is well to steer clear of all branch roads, which lead
nowhere and confuse the sense of direction.