IN THE OPEN
INTIMATE STUDIES
AND APPRECIATIONS OF
NATURE BY
STANTON DAVIS KIRKHAM
AUTHOR OF
"WHERE DWELLS THE SOUL SERENE"
"THE MINISTRY OF BEAUTY"
"_Over and above a healthy
curiosity, or any scientific
acquaintance, it is the
companionship of the woods
and fields which counts--
a real friendship for birds
and bees and flowers._"
PAUL ELDER & COMPANY
SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1908
by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
TO MY WIFE
MARY WILLIAMS KIRKHAM
THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
PREFACE
_There is an estate on which we pay no tax and which is not susceptible
of improvement. It is of indefinite extent and is to be reached by
taking the road to the nearest woods and fields. While this is quite as
valuable as any property we may possess, as a matter of fact few assert
their title to it._
_Nature is in herself a perpetual invitation to come into the open. The
woods are an unfailing resource; the mountains and the sea,
companionable. To count among one's friends, the birds and flowers and
trees is surely worth while; for to come upon a new flower is then in
the nature of an agreeable event, and a chance meeting with a bird may
lend a pleasant flavor to the day._
CONTENTS
PREFACE v
THE POINT OF VIEW 1
SIGNS OF SPRING 11
BIRD LIFE 22
SONGS OF THE WOODS 40
WILD GARDENS 56
WEEDS 69
INSECT LORE 78
THE WAYS OF THE ANT 94
AUTUMN STUDIES 113
PASTURE STONES 127
NEIGHBORS 136
THE WINTER WOODS 153
LAUGHING WATERS 164
THE MOUNTAINS 173
THE FOREST 185
THE SEA 196
INDEX 209
_A flock of wild geese on the wing is no less than an
inspiration. When that strong-voiced, stout-hearted company
of pioneers pass overhead, our thoughts ascend and sail with
them over the roofs of the world. As band after band come
into the field of vision--minute glittering specks in the
distant blue--to cross the golden sea of the sunset and
disappear in the northern twilight, their faint melodious
honk is an Orphean strain drawing irresistibly._
AFTER THE PAINTING BY
LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES
[Illustration]
THE POINT OF VIEW
Nature is in herself a perpetual invitation: the birds call, the trees
beckon and the winds whisper to us. After the unfeeling pavements, the
yielding springy turf of the fields has a sympathy with the feet and
invites us to walk. It is good to hear again the fine long-drawn note
of the meadow-lark--voice of the early year,--the first bluebird's
warble, the field-sparrow's trill, the untamed melody of the kinglet--a
magic flute in the wilderness--and to see the ruby crown of the beloved
sprite. It is good to inhale the mint crushed underfoot and to roll
between the fingers the new leaves of the sweetbrier; to see again the
first anemones--the wind-children,--the mandrake's canopies, the
nestling erythronium and the spring beauty, like a delicate carpet; or
to seek the clintonia in its secluded haunts, and to feel the old
childlike joy at sight of lady's-slippers.
It is worth while to be out-of-doors all of one day, now and then, and
to really _know_ what is morning and what evening; to observe the
progress of the day as one might attend a spectacle, though this
requires leisure and a free mind. The spirit of the woods will not lend
itself to a mere fair-weather devotion. You must cast in your lot with
the wild and take such weather as befalls. If you do not now and then
spend a day in the snow, you miss some impressions that no fair weather
can give. When you have walked for a time in the spring shower, you
have a new and larger sympathy with the fields. The shining leaves,
glistening twigs, jeweled cobwebs and the gentle cadence of the falling
rain all tell you it is no time to stay indoors.
Life in the woods sharpens the nose, the eyes, the ears. There are
nose-feasts, eye-feasts, ear-feasts. What if the frost-grapes are
sour--they are fair to look at. Some things are for the palate and some
for the eye. The fragrance of blackberries is as delicate as the
flavor, a spicy aroma, a woodsy bouquet, and to eat without seeing or
smelling is to lose much. Clustered cherries, so lustrous black with
their red stems, refresh the inner and the outer man. You may safely
become a gourmand with respect to these wild flavors. Their virtue is
of the volatile sort that will not stand bottling; it will not enter
into essence or tincture. You must yourself go out and pick the cherry
under a September sky and in the presence of the first glowing leaves
of sumac and Virginia creeper.
Does not the bayberry revive and exhilarate the walker, as
smelling-salts restore fainting women? You have but to roll the waxen
berry in the fingers, or crush the leaf, to feel that indefinable
thrill which belongs to the woods, to the open air--the free life.
Another vigorous and stimulating odor is the fragrance of green
butternuts, which contains the goodness, the sweetness, the very marrow
of the woods, and calls out the natural and unaffected, as a strain of
music arouses the heroic. The tartness of the barberry matches the
crispness of the air and rebukes the lack of vigor in us. No true child
can resist the lure of wintergreen berries, while to nibble the bark of
a fresh young sassafras shoot admits us to some closer association with
Nature. A whiff of balsam is an invitation to share the abandon of the
woods, and awakens memories of the halcyon days, the shining hours,
when nutting and berrying were the real things of life.
One who is possessed with the idea of finding a certain bird or plant
is in a fair way to the discovery, and sooner or later each will come
into the field of vision. How the robin discovers the worm is a mystery
to be explained on the score of _attention_; it is perfect
concentration on a single point, with faculties trained in that
direction. That the footsteps of ants were audible had not occurred to
me till one day in watching the progress of the annual raid of the red
ants upon the black colonies, I plainly heard the patter of their feet,
as the column marched at double-quick over the floor of dry leaves.
There are many sounds in Nature that only become evident when we give
absolute attention, when we become all ear,--as there are things seen
only when we become for the time an eye.
Sensitive and sympathetic natures rarely confuse one person with
another, whereas the cold or obtuse really never see the finer
distinctions in a face. They make poor observers. Any one unacquainted
with birds will show by an attempted description that he has not in the
least seen the bird. I have known old lumbermen who had not noticed the
difference in the needles of the species of pine, nor the leaves of
oaks; but they knew the difference in the quality of the wood well
enough, because that appealed to their interest and held their
attention.
Preparedness adds zest to the walk and enriches it, precisely as a
broad culture and a fund of information enlarge the view of the
traveler. Notwithstanding what may be in the woods, it takes some
understanding and some interest to see it. An unprepared person will
see little; an uninterested person will see nothing. To many of the
villagers the wood-lot is a remote and unfamiliar wilderness, and the
warblers and vireos as unknown as any tropic bird. We should at least
know the kinglets by their caste-mark--whether it be red or yellow--and
the oriole by the colors of his ancient line.
Given a certain preparedness even the rocks become instinct with
suggestion. They are more than stone,--even historical reminders, which
incite one to long and pleasing trains of thought. In the mountains I
came upon a flat ledge of shale which showed ripple marks of an earlier
sea than any we know, a far-off Devonian ocean which once washed this
primitive beach. They had long parted company, and now the beach was
up among the spruce and balsams,--such vicissitudes are there in the
fortunes of all. The ancient waters had left their mark, that however
high the rock might go, it should none the less speak of the mother
sea. Again, the traces of glaciation on ledges and boulders appeal to
the imagination with a peculiar eloquence. What a mighty cosmic plane
was that which smoothed these granite ledges! It planed off New England
as if it were a knot on a plank, and scattered over it the dust and
chips of the workshop. These ledges serve as a fairly accurate compass,
and are at least more reliable than the lichens on the trees.
Some men have an eye for trees and an inborn sympathy with these rooted
giants, as if the same sap ran in their own veins. To them trees have a
personality quite as animals have, and, to be sure, there are
"characters" among trees. I knew a solitary yellow pine which towered
in the landscape, the last of its race. Its vast columnar trunk seemed
to loom and expand as one approached. Always there was distant music in
the boughs above, a noble strain descending from the clouds. Its song
was more majestic than that of any other tree, and fell upon the
listening ear with the far-off cadence of the surf, but sweeter and
more lyrical, as if it might proceed from some celestial harp. Though
there was not a breeze stirring below, this vast tree hummed its mighty
song. Apparently its branches had penetrated to another world than
this, some sphere of unceasing melody.
There is a difference in the voices of trees. Some with difficulty
utter any note, or answer to the storm alone; others only sigh and
shiver. There are days when they gently murmur together, as if a rumor
of general interest had reached them. Again the woods are silent, until
one enters a grove of white pines, when on the instant a sweet low
chant falls on the ear. Come upon the aspen on quiet days and it is all
of a tremor, in a little ecstasy by itself, while the rest are mute.
Trees change their songs with the season. In winter the whistling,
rattling, roaring of hickories and oaks is a veritable witch-song,
beside which the voices of midsummer days are as the cooing of doves.
During a quiet snowfall, the white crystals sifting through the pines
convey the idea of a gentle sociability somewhere in the branches
overhead, the softly whispered and amiable gossip of pine-needles and
snowflakes, old cronies who have not met in the past eight months.
The woods offer unlimited opportunity for making acquaintances, and
nothing else stimulates the interest more than this. The keenest
pleasure is in meeting a new bird: a rare and subtle stimulus not to be
defined, to be experienced only and cherished as a memory. You stand in
the midst of one of the mixed flocks of autumn--winter visitants with a
sprinkling of warblers, and perhaps a blue-headed vireo and a pair of
silent thrushes--and recognize old friends, with a chance of
discovering a stranger. It calls out the zest for the woods like an
appetite for dinner--a finer, more ethereal appetite, which is
satisfied through the eye and ear. Occasionally the blue-headed vireo
may be heard, though the season is far advanced, and the little Parula
warbler indulges in a spiritual and melodious reverie, as if he already
had visions of another spring and was communicating in a state of
trance and ecstasy his prophetic thought.
One supremely mellow day the last of October, there came a pair of
hermits to a secluded spot, flitting into a white oak, where they
remained regarding me with round bright eyes. In due season they
crossed to the pine under which I sat, whereupon one, directly over my
head, began cautiously descending from branch to branch through the
lower dead limbs until he was but a few feet from my face. Here he sat,
regarding me in a gentle friendly way and talking to himself in an
undertone--or was he talking to me? The impelling force continued to
draw my little friend--it was mutual did he but know, a true case of
love at sight--for at last, with an indescribable little flutter, he
dropped from his perch with the evident intent of alighting upon me,
but changed his course directly in my face, and with a swift motion of
the wings darted into the shrubbery. Upon a near view the spell had
broken, and he was again the timid solitary thrush.
It is because the wild life is so shy and elusive that the unexpected
encounters have such charm. They are altogether clandestine and
romantic. You may stroll time and again without the least
encouragement, as though wholly ostracized from this society; and then
some morning you are welcomed on every hand and admitted to the inner
circle of the wood life. About the woods there is ever an enticing
mystery. They invite us to enter as though they concealed some
treasure we sought. A race dwells here apart, and we turn aside for
that silent and refreshing company. When they speak, their speech is
lyrical. There are men who have never known any friendship in Nature;
others again who never outgrow the love of birds and flowers, who
preserve some youthfulness and innocence which keeps them in touch with
wild life. Over and above a healthy curiosity, or any scientific
acquaintance, it is the _companionship_ of the woods and fields which
counts--a real friendship for birds and bees and flowers. Let us
remember the woods in the days of our youth, that we may have this
unfailing resource in later years.
SIGNS OF SPRING
The approach of spring is felt, rather than reasoned about. There is
that in us which rises to greet the incoming tide of the year before
our eyes have apprised us of any change. Winter lies over the world
much as ashes are banked on coals for the night, which nevertheless
retain their heat and will be found alive and glowing in the morning.
In the tropics the fire is not banked and there is no cold dawn with
anticipations of the kindly blaze soon to arise, no gradual uncovering
of the cheerful coals. Here in New England the dawn is rigorous and
spring more welcome. The winter buds are evidence that it is not far
away, and it takes but the least encouragement at any time for this
latent heat and life to awake and show itself in the high blueberry
twigs. Such buoyant faith has the skunk-cabbage it never entirely loses
sight of spring, but exerts some spell over its muddy bed, whereby you
may see that there, at least, it has already come in November.
The reddening of the twigs is in effect a prelude, and precedes the
real spring as dawn precedes daylight, or twilight the night; this is
the dawn of the year and these blueberry twigs its first flush. Smilax
turns suddenly green as the sap circulates in its spiny stems, and the
brown and sear aspect of the earth is relieved and enlivened. This
early green is as refreshing to the eye as the first rhubarb to the
palate.
One of the earliest signs is the little rosette of bright-colored
leaves on the smaller hair-cap mosses, growing in contact with an
outcropping ledge. You may see whole patches in the pastures, varying
from orange to deep red, a vivid bit of color next the brown earth and
looking like diminutive blossoms. Then come the fruiting spikes of the
common field horsetails, poking out of some sand-bank. These signs of
the awakening season appeal to the trained eye rather than to the
casual glance. Such an one detects the slightest swelling of a
leaf-bud, the faint reddening of a twig, the deeper green of another.
The sap dripping from the freshly cut limb of a birch, or pendent from
the wound in a long glittering icicle, is evidence of the quickened
circulation of the earth. Among the thick mat of dry leaves you may
perhaps find the delicate shoots of wood anemones, and in the swamps
the tightly rolled stipes of the osmunda, like little croziers, while
there is ice yet in the leaves of the pitcher-plant.
Deep lying in all men is a poetic vein which now appears on the
surface. The first pussy-willows and the arrival of bluebirds arouse
sentiments as common to us as the love of music: some suggestion of
renewal, of awakening after the sleep of winter, which touches even the
rough man and makes him kin for a day to the child. We embark each year
on the sea of winter, with unquestioning faith that on its other shore
spring awaits us, once more to shake the violets from her lap. When, in
March, that shore looms in the distance, we feel the joy of travelers
in sight of their native land. There may be rough seas, and March winds
are blustery, but _there_ in sight, nevertheless, is that faint outline
on the horizon.
No blossoming rod of Aaron could appear more miraculous than do the
flowering willows. These twigs of brown and lifeless aspect suddenly
burst into bloom and array themselves in exquisite silvery gray
catkins, while the snow may be still on the ground. Not long after,
the alders in the swamp unfold their clusters of drooping aments which
have been on the tree stiff and rigid throughout the winter. Thousands
of little tails are thus mysteriously hung out on the alder twigs to
sway gently in the breeze, turning from a reddish hue to a
sulphur-yellow as they expand and become powdered with pollen. Born
into a frosty world when the feeble sun is still distant and cold, the
March flowers are a link between winter and spring. But Nature has
certainly relaxed her features; there is just the ghost of a smile on
her icy lips.
This year I heard the bluebird's warble on the 4th of February, but did
not see the bird, and heard no more till early in March, when they came
in flocks. Out of the sky comes to us this liquid note, as if the
heavens had opened and poured upon us their benediction. How sweet it
is to the ear, what music to the heart! And when suddenly a little
flock starts up from the wall or fence, how rich and welcome to the
eye, long denied its modicum of color, is the blue of their backs! We
have had little but artificial tastes and colors and perfumes for so
long that the senses seize with avidity these first offerings--we are
hungry for them.
It changes the whole aspect of things, when on some raw day the first
redwing of the season appears--a vivid bit of color in the bleak swamp,
a hopeful and melodious voice breaking the silence of the year. The
birds are shy and elusive on their arrival and we have every year to
become acquainted again. Even the robins are furtive and silent,
flitting in the sheltered swamps; but the middle of March finds them
calling to each other in their old jocular way. Drawn by the same
subtle influence, the angleworm seems to work toward the surface about
the time the robin is thinking of the lawn, till one day they meet as
by appointment. If the season is late, the worm retires below where it
is less frosty, and the robin takes to the sumac berries, or whatever
else he can find, and defers his spring relish a little longer.
Round about there is an awakening as from an enchanted sleep; the
drowsy world yawns and stretches. The highhole is in evidence, and his
rattling call is calculated to awake the sleepers in that pasture at
least. Soon the chipmunk is on the wall, and the woodchuck warily pokes
his head from his burrow. This note of the highhole is irrepressibly
exuberant and ringing with energy. If it does not prove a tonic to you,
nothing else will. He is even more emphatic in his drumming. His lively
tattoo goes well with his vigorous call. Time to be up and doing! _Wake
up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!_
Presently the first flock of fox-sparrows drop down from somewhere and
go to scratching among the leaves, like so many chickens. The present
season a flock of perhaps fifty settled in and around a thicket on
March 24th. Their bold clear notes could be heard some distance away,
and drew one in that direction. Numbers of them were hopping about, and
occasionally a bird would rise to a branch overhead and sing, looking
like a hermit-thrush as his back was turned. The place was given over
to the sparrows, and never was thicket more tuneful. There was the
sound of unceasing revelry--a sylvan and melodious revelry.
At this season the impulse to expression is natural and daily becomes
more evident. Even the crow begins to affect music and to show off his
accomplishments. But it is Mlle. Corbeau, and not M. Reynard, that
incites him to this exhibition of vanity. You may hear him in the pine
grove, apparently gargling his throat, which is meant for a gay roulade
to please the ear of some dusky beauty lingering near and perhaps
affecting indifference. This is only a prelude to the astonishing
falsetto that sometimes follows, and which, be it hoped, may prove more
acceptable to Mlle. Corbeau than to our more critical ears. It is very
evident something is going on. The large flocks of winter have given
away to small and excited bands which keep up a perpetual clamor. It is
no surprise, then, some day in March to detect a crow carrying twigs.
At no other time is there such concerted singing among the
song-sparrows as in these first days of the arrival of any considerable
flocks. From bare fields and brown hedgerows arises this simple and
spontaneous expression of joy, a primitive invocation to the goddess
Spring, fresh and clear and innocent as the morning itself. As they hop
about among the dry weeds, one will now and then pick up a straw and
hold it meditatively a moment with some premonition of the nest.
Presently they will be flitting among the still leafless brambles and
briers with an air of secrecy and importance. Some bright morning in
March there comes to the listening ear the song of the purple finch--a
wild sweet strain with the abandon of gipsy music, which thrills with
its very wildness and unrestraint. Anon Phoebe arrives with dry
little voice and familiar swoop after the first incautious fly.
Every season has its characteristic song. More than all others is the
voice of the hyla, essentially springlike and to be associated with no
other time. For several days there has been an occasional desultory
chirp from the woods, when of a sudden, some clear evening, there comes
out of the stillness that wonderfully sweet piping of little frogs.
Fresh and ringing as child voices, it has, at a distance, a certain
rhythm, a soothing cadence, which lulls the ear like the musical patter
of rain-drops in summer showers. Put your ear close to one--if you can
find him--and the sound is deafening, so loud and shrill it pierces to
the very marrow. The small creature sits in some low shrub in the
swamp, grasping a twig on either side as with tiny hands, while it
inflates its air-sac from time to time and sings the love-song of its
race. Heard afar, how soft and pleasing are these answering calls of
the hylas which are the very voice of the evening itself.
About the time the hylas begin to sing in chorus, you may look for the
appearance of the leopard-frog. He is to be heard at midday in his pond
uttering a most deliberate and prolonged snore, evenly and smoothly
drawn out, as if his sleep were dreamless and content. Presently there
is an answering snore, full as deliberate and serene, from across the
pond, followed by long intervals of silence. Very different from this
somnolent song of the leopard-frog is the shrilling of garden-toads.
Not every one would recognize the solemn and dusty toad of the
flower-beds, that flops from under the feet in the dusk, in this
brighter colored creature, floating at full length in the shallow
water, his air-sac inflated before him like a parti-colored bubble. The
shrilling of toads fills the air; they are under a spell, a witchery,
which has set them all to chanting this single strain--high-pitched and
subdued--with a sort of mild frenzy.
April brings the twittering of tree-swallows, and spreads a tinge of
color like a faint red mist over the swamps. This flower of the maple
is one whose virtues are seldom sung, as though the blossoms of trees
counted for little. Surely the bursting of silver-gray rods into this
vivid bloom is an event worthy the muse. It is not only in autumn the
red maple graces the swamp. These modest blossoms of the early
year--willow, alder, poplar, elm, maple--must have their place in the
flower calendar, are worthy a Festival of Trees, to be associated with
the song of the hyla.
Anything like an exact flower calendar is out of the question, for much
depends on the locality and the season. We look for bloodroot and
hepatica to follow arbutus, and yet I have on occasion found bluets
several weeks in advance of these. The saxifrage is perhaps quite as
early as any, though I have seen the buds of the marsh-marigold about
to open on the 25th of March. Much depends on which has the more
favorable spot in any locality. In a warm nook, on the 13th of April,
bloodroot, hepatica, spring-beauty, early saxifrage, dicentra, wood-and
rue-anemones and adder's-tongue, as well as common blue and
long-spurred violets, were blooming together in profusion. The
saxifrage and bloodroot might, of course, have been seen a week
earlier. In the same spot several days later, columbines, miterwort
and groundnut, and also sweet white violets, downy yellow and
lance-leaved violets, were added to the list and were followed by
bellworts and wood-betony. This was in northern New Jersey. Meanwhile I
had seen only the common blue violets in the Connecticut Valley, while
in eastern Massachusetts the wood-anemones were not in bloom, and the
leaf of the columbine had just appeared above the soil. This particular
spot was evidently a sort of natural forcing ground where the columbine
was made to bloom with the bloodroot. What becomes of your flower
calendar here? Looking still for signs of spring, I came full upon the
fickle goddess herself.
Before we know it, the migration of warblers has begun and the keen ear
detects their thin wiry notes. But this is not so much a sign as it is
the fulfilling of prophecies.
BIRD LIFE
Walking through bare fields in the chill and birdless world some winter
days, it is brought home to us what an _essential_ feature of our
surroundings the birds are, what a lack there is when they are absent!
A certain poverty lies over the earth; the sky is no longer complete
without a swift or a martin. Birds are part of the landscape; it is
they which animate it. Rarely, when it seems most destitute, a flock of
snow-buntings will come swirling over the pasture, like great
snowflakes driven before the blast. Again, as the wind will pick up dry
snow and blow it over the field, they are off and whirling away,
glittering in the pale yellow light of the winter day as they wheel and
come to the ground. But their presence has redeemed and softened the
austere landscape, made the earth habitable once more and the bare
fields friendly and companionable.
The first snipe and plover in the spring remind us what stay-at-homes
are we, what wanderers they. We must appear to them but poor mollusks,
as they come and go each year on their way from Patagonia to the Arctic
Circle. In how many States, in what diversity of climes they are at
home! And wherever they may be they get their own living by no one's
favor. This prodigious self-reliance affects one as a species of
heroism, whereas it is as unconscious as the falling rain.
What familiarity with the elements and with natural features of the
earth the migrating birds must acquire--with winds and clouds, with
mountain chains and rivers and coast lines! They know the landmarks and
guide-posts of two continents and can find their own way. The whistle
of curlew, or the honk of wild geese high in the air, seems a greeting
out of the clouds from these cosmopolites, to us, sitting rooted to the
earth beneath. A flock of wild geese on the wing is no less than an
inspiration. When that strong-voiced, stout-hearted company of pioneers
pass overhead, our thoughts ascend and sail with them over the roofs of
the world. As band after band come into the field of vision--minute
glittering specks in the distant blue--to cross the golden sea of the
sunset and disappear in the northern twilight, their faint melodious
honk is an Orphean strain drawing irresistibly.
A sort of noble madness seizes the birds in the spring, so that an
exodus of inconceivable extent takes place toward the North, as though
the Pole were a magnet to them. There is a suggestion of epic splendor
in this vast impulse, this flight of the feathered tribes of the earth.
We may well ask the bobolink, What news from Brazil? and the returning
plover, What of the Frozen Sea? What bird-memories do they cherish of
these remote regions? It casts a halo of romance about them, that they
should thus be at home in lands that may perhaps remain ever unvisited
by us.
As if actuated by a sublime faith, in the midst of plenty they arise
and depart, drawn ever to the remote solitudes to rear their young,
like those citizens who return to their own country that their children
may be born in the Fatherland. I do not know if our affinity is greater
with the bob-white and the ruffed grouse, which hear no call to depart,
or with these nomads of the earth. In the coldest weather, redpolls,
crossbills and snow-buntings come to us as to a land of plenty. This is
near enough the equator for these hardy birds--this is their genial
South. It is pleasant to reflect that the falling mercury, which
deprives us of the last of the summer residents, will at the same time
bring us some dweller in the far North which perhaps otherwise we
should not see.
The advancing season makes itself known through the songsters; they
have keener perceptions and receive other intimations than come to us.
Day by day, as by appointment, they reappear from Florida, from the
Amazon and the Orinoco, and make themselves at home again in northern
pastures. I have come to look for the tree-swallows as regularly on the
1st of April, as for the oriole on the 10th of May, as if these were
calendar events of real importance. Between the middle of April and the
20th of May lie the incomparable days of the migrating warblers--days
of discovery and adventure, when the torpor of indifference slips away,
and, like a subtle fire in the blood, is felt that enthusiasm the years
do not diminish. When, at night, the small birds pass overhead, their
faint silvery "tseeps" come out of the silence with a weird suggestion
of voices from the unseen world.
Now, the days are full of pleasing suggestions because of little birds
shyly flitting with plant-down and with rootlets and dried grasses.
Some are unmistakably house-hunting, and the female turns herself about
in the crotch of a limb, trying if it be of the right proportions.
Interest in bird life centers about this season. This is their life;
the rest is a preparation or a waiting. It is only natural there should
be an air of secrecy about them now. They are doing their best to
conceal and elude, as indeed they must, and this necessity, being
uppermost in their minds, becomes evident in their manner.
While I am watching a pair of pewees gather lichens from an old maple
for their beautiful shallow nest, the barn-swallows shoot by with mud
for their adobe huts. Now and then one pulls from the mud a few fine
rootlets--perhaps of the white violet or gold thread growing there--and
carries them off. They evidently know their trade. A chestnut warbler
appears with some plant-fiber in her bill, and gives a cluck of
surprise and disgust to find some one on the ground where she thought
to have her secluded and private estate. She hesitates with the down
still in her bill; it is evident what she must be thinking; but at
length she decides to risk it, and enters the huckleberries. She has,
of course, gone into the bushes a long way from the nest. One has great
sympathy with the birds in their little circumventions and
dissimulations, knowing their tribulations. They live among their
numerous foes much as did the early settlers in this land,--that is to
say, in spite of them. The weasel, the owl, and the cat--the terrible
cat--are appointed to decimate the population of birds.
In the several nests of warblers, I am observing, the thrifty housewife
is evidently the home-builder, whereas the male seems to take it upon
himself merely to cheer and encourage her. After she has constructed a
framework she settles herself in this and builds the wall around her,
quite as if she were fitting a garment to herself. Her little ways
while so engaged are distinctly feminine. To think that she has never
been taught her trade, has perhaps never before fitted such a garment,
and she is already deft and expert! The pair seem to take an almost
human satisfaction in their home. Now and again they appear to talk it
over together. Who can doubt they have some pleasure in this
preparation, that they have bird-plans and bird-hopes?
We do not really know, a bird till we have found its nest and seen it
at home. When I came upon the nest of the snowbird in the midst of a
clearing in the mountains, it was like visiting the house for the first
time of one I had known for years--a person of some distinction at
that. It was placed high and dry on a tussock in a flaming patch of
hawkweed. She had an eye for the practical, and knew better than to put
her house where the cellar might be flooded. The four greenish mottled
eggs were her one priceless treasure, which was to her as life itself.
They were warm, and the whole aspect of the nest was sweet and
inviting. It appeared to breathe some feminine element, so dainty was
it, so begirt with flowers.
A humming-bird's nest that I have been watching the present season is
placed on a pitch pinecone, and appears to a casual view to be the cone
itself. It seems as if the bird had it in mind to simulate this or she
would not have chosen such a peculiar site, for it affords no advantage
from a structural point of view. If this be true it is a departure from
all traditions, and shows a bird of some character and originality. In
other respects it is like any humming-bird's nest--one of the most
exquisite of all natural objects.
[Illustration: BIRD LIFE COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY RUDOLF EICKEMEYER]
In the course of ten days, in place of one of the eggs appeared a small
and peculiarly homely object which resembled a spider as much as
anything. Two days later the other egg was hatched. At this stage the
bills of the young birds were very short, but day by day they
lengthened and grew more needlelike. At length one bird opened its
minute and shining black eyes for the first time. The other fell from
the nest on the following day, before its eyes were opened, so that all
it had known of life was the consciousness of hunger.
The female fed her young with much less frequency than do other birds.
When so engaged she perched upon the rim of the nest and pumped the
food into them after the manner of her kind. As she flew to and fro,
she appeared to move always at the same speed, as if her wings were
keyed to a definite rate of vibration and could not vary. Gradually the
young bird emerged from its gruesome infancy, and day by day became
more sylphlike. Heavy winds prevailed, but the diminutive cradle
remained unharmed, though branches were everywhere blown from the
trees. So was the wind tempered in that case at least, till one day
the sylph left the nest, as a thistle-down might detach itself and sail
away on the breeze.
Birds have their home-trees, and one whose traditions are of the pine
is not drawn to build in hardwoods. The woodthrush is associated with
the dogwood, as the catbird with the smilax, and the oriole with the
elm. There are ancient apple orchards which have come to serve only the
bees and the birds; but what temples of music in May with the hum of
bees, and in June with the song of wrens! At this season you cannot do
better than to set out for one of these old-time orchards, neglected of
man and favored of heaven.
The virile hum of honey-and carpenter-bees descends from the flowery
summits to the listener beneath, the contented music of a race dwelling
overhead and nearer the skies than we. It is such an apple--Baldwin,
pippin, or russet--gnarled and archaic in trunk and a bower of beauty
above, which becomes the home-tree of that feathered gnome, the
house-wren, a sprightly elf, living in the depths of a tree trunk and
yet full to the brim of song. He may derive of the flowing sap some
genial trait and takes to the apple as a swift to the chimney, or a
redwing to the swamp. After the cold rains of late May have taken off
the blossoms and with them the bees, the place becomes melodious with
his song. It is thenceforth his estate, and he dominates it with his
small personality. With him his house is his castle, and in true
medieval fashion he barricades his door. Within is snug enough, but
without it has a feudal and forbidding look,--a formidable barrier of
twigs, erected perhaps against the house-sparrow or for fear the
robber-owl may peer too closely.
In this choice of a building site the bird reveals something of itself.
Contrast the wren with the phoebe, a cliff-dweller, loving the
contact of the ledge itself better than any bush or tree. The
song-sparrow has an eye for the wild rose and the yellow warbler for
apple blossoms, but the phoebe has some austere traits which make the
stern rock more congenial to her. Some birds are architects, others
builders merely. The vireos are a family of artists, whereas the
improvident cuckoo will not even lay a proper floor to her nest.
A look into some nests is a glance at the domestic life of a savage
people, and yet we find the virtues we most esteem--patience,
perseverance and fortitude. Hour in and hour out the faithful
kingfisher flies from the nest to the fishing-ground, bringing each
time a small fish. He is a primitive and industrious fisherman who gets
an honest living by his skill and supports his family, yet he is under
ban, while the dilettante whips the stream for his pleasure. The hoarse
rattle of the kingfisher is an altogether barbarous chant with which he
beguiles himself as with a hunting song. His is an austere temperament
with no room for melody. But that he returns every year to the same
nest--the ancestral hall--is evidence of some more domestic and kindly
trait in his character.
This nest is an excavation in the sand, high in a bluff, and is perhaps
five feet deep,--a true cave, and its inmate a cave-dweller. We have
thus both cave-and cliff-dwellers among us--primitive states of man
still exemplified by birds. The cave-dweller had something in common
with the kingfisher, which led him to burrow in the earth for a home.
That was truly an aboriginal abode which I came upon in the spruce
woods in a region of perpetual twilight. The somber spruce was relieved
only by some veteran yellow birches and by ghostly patches of false
miterwort on a projecting ledge. High in a birch was a small hole from
which the scarlet crown and chin of a sapsucker appeared in view, as
the bird thrust out his head and looked inquiringly about. A harsh
imperious call brought the female, who clung to the trunk till the male
came out, whereupon she dived into the hole herself, while he in turn
went foraging.
Whenever the pair were absent from the nest the insatiable young were
heard squealing within. It was a fearsome place that was home to these
young savages, a room within a tower, lighted by a single small window
far above. To think of being born and raised in the dark heart of a
tree! The old birds called to each other from time to time as they
hunted over the neighborhood, and their speech was as that of wild men,
the very rudiments of language--rude, uncouth and evidently of few
words. But, as with the speech of savages, these words were doubtless
packed with meaning, whole sentences and paragraphs in themselves, of
hard and practical import. Now and then the scarlet crown appeared at
the entrance of the dark wigwam. Any lurking foe would be espied from
there. Probably not a twig moved below but it was noticed.
While the robin and the bluebird have come to wear a half domestic
look, the woodpecker is the untutored savage still. As an Indian
remains an Indian, a woodpecker remains a woodpecker. When he comes to
the orchard he is an interloper from the forest. He carries the stamp
of the wilderness with him. Defiance is in the poise of his head; his
attitude is a challenge.
The life of owls and hawks is completely _savage_--a fierce,
carnivorous, terrible existence which no circumstance can affect.
Regarding their young with solemn ferocity, their fierce natures are
not to be modified or softened in the least. A little red owl having
her nest in the heart of a weeping willow, lived so secluded a life her
presence was hardly suspected till she was discovered by the smaller
birds dozing in a cedar. Some days later she appeared at dusk with four
young owls, which she fed on large beetles. The owlets remained perched
in a line on the fence while the old bird in ghostly silence departed
into the night in search of food. It was wonderful to see what excess
of dignity and ferocity was expressed in the personality of these
little birds. As well have expected an Iroquois brave to ask for
quarter. Approach them and they were on the defensive with all the
tricks of appearance--staring eyes, snapping bill and uncanny wavering
motion of the head. Like some phantom creature, the old bird came and
went, leaping noiselessly into the darkness and reappearing as by
magic.
The owlets took their beetles with avidity, swallowing them whole and
gulping and gagging in the process in a manner indicative of discomfit
rather than any satisfaction over the meal. Once the mother brought
what in the darkness appeared to be a small mouse, and this too was
swallowed by one little owl, but only after heroic and protracted
efforts.
It was no great matter on the following day to gain the confidence of
the young owls to a slight degree. But food was the only bond of
affinity. So long as I fed them they were content to perch on my
finger, fierce and solemn little ruffians, and devour bits of raw meat.
Their manners remained sullen and forbidding, though they never refused
to eat. Soon they lost even this slight contact with our world and
disappeared into their own--the nocturnal and barbarous world of the
owl.
Every year there is fresh evidence that the course of true love runs
far from smoothly with the birds. A pair of yellow-throated vireos
built no less than three nests one season and only succeeded in
occupying the last. There were two suitors for the affection of the
female, and they fought continually. The rejected lover harassed the
pair while at work gathering material, and that he twice stole a march
on them and actually tore down the nest appears from circumstantial
evidence.
Great secrecy was observed in constructing the third nest, and the
rejected one no longer harassed them. Either he had transferred his
affections or been fairly vanquished. Life was strenuous and
impassioned with these little birds, but see what constancy and
perseverance! Fancy having two houses torn down, after completing them
with your own hands, and having the courage to build still a third!
There is something of the pioneer and frontiersman in this. The
offspring of this pair were the children of vigorous and romantic
times, and should have inherited some heroic traits.
Even if all goes well otherwise, the sanctity of the nest is liable to
be profaned by the cowbird. This spring was an unusually favorable one
for them. I noticed the least flycatcher and the Maryland yellow-throat
mothering young cowbirds, and many vireos and warblers so engaged. It
is a wary caution that leads the cowbird to choose the smaller birds
for her victims.
It would be hard to say which of all the foster-mothers is the more
solicitous of her charge. Now it appears to be the redeye, and again
the chipping-sparrow. All alike are bent on bringing the birdling to
maturity as though it were of first importance. _That_ cowbird shall
thrive though the heavens fall. The attention seems to be in proportion
to the egregious demands of the foundling. Here at least is a waif well
cared for, an upstart that takes precedence over the true and lawful
heirs. Another year this same adventuress will invade the nests of her
adopted sisters.
The yellow warbler is perhaps the oftenest chosen. Accessible and
easily found, the nest is a beautiful cup-shaped structure lodged in
the fork of a fruit tree, with perchance a spray of blossoms just over
it--a house of silk, a satin bower. How awkward and uncouth must the
cowbird appear squatting on this fragile silken thing to lay her eggs!
Doubtless she watches the yellow bird stripping the dry grass stems and
gathering the pappus of last year's cattails; squats low in the grass
and looks all unconcerned while she marks the tree to which the fluffy
material is carried, and bides her time till the nest is ready. Strange
that she should never discover in herself the home-making instinct, for
even nomads have their tents. Stranger still she should never once wish
to undertake the duties of motherhood.
For a time, perhaps, the young cowbird is influenced by the habit of
the bird that happens to mother it, whether this be a ground-sparrow or
a tree-loving flycatcher. But it grows up a cowbird with all the
inheritance of that peculiar tribe, and its brief contact with a
superior race leaves no impress upon it.
In spite of cowbirds and the exigencies of life the woods are full of
young birds, their tails not yet grown. This is their childhood--a
brief one--as the days in the nest were their infancy. They are
exacting children, yet they do not clamor to be amused, but only to be
fed. I have seen a young chipping-sparrow, its tail half grown, showing
how recently it was from the nest, pick up a straw and carry it about.
So early does the maternal instinct show itself. This straw was its
doll-baby, the only plaything it could know, and this its solemn play.
There is a mild and innocent expression about young birds, as there is
in the faces of children, apparent to a keen vision only. They have yet
to be hardened by experience and vicissitude. The countenances of the
old take on an astute and alert expression. These young black-and-white
creepers and chestnut warblers, now shifting for themselves for the
first time, come about with gentle confidence. They creep and flit
through the trees, coming nearer and nearer, until you look directly
into their small innocent faces and could put your hand upon them. Then
as it would seem they were about to descend like blessings upon your
head, they withdraw and recede from view into the wilderness of leaves
where only your thoughts may follow them.
SONGS OF THE WOODS
We are drawn ever by the voices of birds. Even such as might be called
monotonous and unmelodious are none the less significant and welcome.
The fine lisping notes of warblers, as they industriously hunt for
their food, seem expressive of the contentment of their minds. All over
the hemlock swamp I hear the voices of black-throated green warblers.
Not one may appear in view, but for hours together their musical
conversation continues in the treetops. From somewhere in the branches
above comes the call of a nuthatch, his speech wholly dissimilar from
the rest, as if he might be an inhabitant of a very different world.
Almost in the ear sounds the thin wiry note of a black-and-white
creeper, as he winds around the trunk of a pine and approaches with his
accustomed sociability. High above the others, the trill of the
pine-warbler rings clear and sweet--a more resonant instrument surely.
These voices all affect us agreeably, and bring us in immediate contact
with their world and with wood life. They do not touch our world,
however, nor set in motion the delicate mechanism of the emotions. But
let a bluebird pass overhead all unseen, warbling his celestial "Pure!
Pure! Pure!"--let that significant note fall on the ear and for reasons
unknown it sinks into the soul, into the abyss of _feeling_, and this
as mysteriously rises in a delicious flood to the surface. Whence has
the bluebird his power, that by the mere _quality_ of tone he can exert
this spell?