suddenly as it had begun. Early in the struggle a slender, straggling
column had diverged from the main line, about half way between the
nests. I now found the entire body of ants moving in this new
direction. The one raid over, they had undertaken another upon a colony
of blacks some twenty-five yards distant, and were transporting the
pupæ and larvæ at about the same rate as before. To reach this nest,
the column must cross the wagon road, and here a number were crushed
from time to time by passing vehicles. But the marching army passed by
with the stolen pupæ and paid no heed to their wounded comrades. This
second foray ceased before nightfall.
The following morning by ten o'clock the raid had been renewed and a
great stream of ants were bearing away pupæ as before. Whenever the
column moved over dry leaves its progress was distinctly audible, a
rustling sound suggesting the curiously dry _crik crik_ of a serpent.
The footfall of the ants was as incessant as the patter of rain; a
barefooted insect host, a rabble of _sans culottes_, and the sound of
their marching feet reached my listening ears, as it were in the clouds
above them.
On the fourth day the slavers began kidnapping the blacks themselves
and carrying them unharmed to the nest. Quite often I found them
carrying individuals of their own species. These may have been
deserters or they may have been ants from some other community, who,
learning of the raid, thought to be present at the final sack and
perhaps share in the spoils. A still more puzzling thing was the fact
that some few red ants bore negroes in the wrong direction,--that is,
from the red back to the black colony. I have noticed on former
occasions that the raid may become thus complicated toward its close as
if the ants, drunk with victory, were beside themselves.
On the 7th of August the raid was directed against a new negro colony
some distance further down the road. It was carried on with something
like the usual vigor until the 25th of the month, when it apparently
ceased. The first nests of blacks, in which some few ants remained,
were no longer molested, though the besieging army passed them on its
way to the field of operation. Thus the series of raids of this one
colony of red ants continued for nearly a month.
I found no less than three other raids in progress at this time, among
widely separated communities, so that the marauding spirit was
contagious among them and spread like the war fever. The red warriors
were everywhere in arms and bent on pillage. One hill, being free from
grass, offered a clear view of what was going on at the doorway at
least. Here the black workers--the slaves of a former raid--were
carrying out bits of gravel, while the train of red ants entered,
bearing the stolen pupæ from the pillaged nest. The red ants were at
this time bringing some large queen pupæ which they had great
difficulty in getting over the ground. As they approached the entrance,
the black workers deposited their bits of gravel and ran to their
assistance. Several blacks which remained near the entrance seemed to
act thus as porters, while others about the top of the hill were
engaged as laborers.
Stopping work at about five o'clock, the train of red ants melted away
before one's eyes. They dropped their task very much as a gang of men
do when the whistle blows. Their day at that sort of labor was
therefore only about seven or eight hours, as if some of the principles
of Labor Union were in vogue among these brigands. They would kidnap
only so many hours a day. The slaves, however, kept at work until dusk.
Perhaps the red ants continued inside the nest, disposing of the pupæ
captured during the day, but they brought in none after five o'clock.
Three days had elapsed from the close of this raid when, for some
reason, the entire colony of red ants deserted the hill, carrying the
newly captured slaves and their pupæ with them. They took up their
abode under a cement walk, an unusual place for red ants, and a week of
incessant labor was consumed in carrying the black ants and pupæ to the
new site. This was, then, a _bona fide_ exodus of an entire community.
Under the cement walk to which the colony of red ants had migrated with
their slaves were numerous nests of small brown ants. These swarmed one
sultry afternoon, and as they came pouring out of the cracks in the
walk and clustered on the surface, the fierce red ants fell upon them
with fury, slaying hundreds and leaving most of the bodies on the
walk, though many were carried away. This I took to be a veritable
hunting expedition. Like some other "sportsmen," they appeared to kill
more than they wanted, and the little heaps of winged dead were left to
be scattered by a gust of wind.
On the following day a new chapter opened in the history of this
remarkable colony, for I found them attacking a large negro colony some
distance away. Contrary to custom, the blacks defended their nests with
spirit, and at first seemed to hold their own. Not divining what was to
follow, I was surprised to find the red ants carrying away no pupæ. But
the next day it was made plain enough, for the red ants appeared in a
compact column bearing pupæ and slaves, which but a week before they
had deposited under the walk, and which they were now moving for the
third time. Was this a second exodus or had the move to the walk been
merely an expedient until they should find a more suitable place?
Without further ado they invaded the nest, and four distinct colonies
(the red ants held slaves of a previous year), one red and three black,
with all larvæ and pupæ and some eggs, were thus housed together. One
may imagine the feelings of the unfortunate community on finding not
only an invading army of freebooters, but that some thousands of their
own cousins, children and all, were come bag and baggage to live with
them.
Now the marching column passed close by the nests of the little brown
ants which had been their hunting-ground of the few past days. They
were too engrossed in carrying pupæ to follow the chase, but I found
three of their slaves posted by some small holes in the cement through
which the brown ants left their nests. These negroes remained near the
opening, and, as the brown ants appeared, would reach over the edge and
pull one forth which was soon crushed and tossed aside. During the
several hours that I watched them the three slaves remained so engaged.
From time to time they would run about among the wounded, and picking
up one here or there, apparently give it a nip.
This final move occupied some eight days, and nothing further
transpired in the history of this colony,--that is, above ground. The
war fever subsided as suddenly as it had arisen, and the erstwhile
warriors were perhaps become peaceful educators of the slaves now
being born into captivity with only some vague instinct of freedom,
some race memory handed down from the halcyon days before the advent of
the red Tartar.
If the sluggard is to go to the ant, then let it not be to the red ant,
nor again to the slave, but to some Syrian species known to Solomon,
which stored up provender for the winter, or to the little brown ant
which herds the aphid. Huber relates that he found the slave-making ant
of Europe (_P. rufescens_) unable to feed itself, so that, if isolated,
it would miserably starve in the midst of plenty. Not to such an ant,
then, should the sluggard go, but to that wise yellow species which,
declares Lubbock, actually brought in and cared for the eggs of an
aphid through the winter, and carried out the young aphids in the
spring to their proper food plant. Certainly should we ever attain to
the dignity of wings, there will be no occasion to emulate the ant,
which, being born into that freedom, tears them from its body, the rest
of its days to crawl upon the earth.
AUTUMN STUDIES
Early in August we are surprised each year by the glowing leaves on the
tupelo, a little patch of scarlet gleaming in the swamp, while the high
blueberry is still in fruit and the silver-rod is making its
appearance. By the time the wood-lilies have faded in the huckleberry
pasture, the red bunchberries add their bit of color to the carpet on
the edge of the swamp. The large berries of the clintonia turn that
rare shade of blue which they retain but a short time, growing darker
as they ripen. This delicate bloom appears later on the berries of the
smilax, the frost-grapes, the savin and the viburnums; but in the
clintonia there is an admixture of some tint lacking in these, which
gives a finer blue, as though there were reflected here some remoter
depths of the heavens, a bit of ethereal and celestial color imprisoned
for a moment. Mountain-holly is now in its prime, its berries of a deep
cherry, perhaps one of the richest reds to be found in nature, as those
of the clintonia present one of the rarest blues, equaled only by
gentians and bluebirds. Both berries, of course, wear their true colors
only in their prime and lose them on becoming overripe. In the swamps
the little yellow and brown cyperus is in flower and the leaves of the
small, pale St.-John's-wort have reddened to a brilliant hue, while
young bullfrogs and pickerel-frogs sun themselves on the lily-pads and
dream away the mellow hours.
While the dog-days are disappointing in respect to bird life, there are
compensations. The charm of this season lies in the mushrooms. Though
these last through October, they are more in evidence in August, and
take on prominence then because of a diminishing flora and the
withdrawal from view of a large number of birds. It is a second
spring--hot, moist and fungus--a blooming of the mushroom world. Old
stumps and dead branches blossom gaily, and bring forth a tropic flora.
Decay is seen to be the matrix of beauty. The logs of corduroy roads
through the swamp are incrusted with a shelf fungus (_P. versicolor_)
of marvelous hues. These, spread like open fans, are fastened to the
wood by the pileus itself, as by the handle. Some are banded in
seal-brown and amber, the surface having the lustrous, changeful
effects of a cat's eye. Others are striped in violet and deep green;
still others in green and mauve, and some in ochre and tawny hues,
while over all there is a play of light as on watered silk.
It requires somewhat of the heroic spirit to discover whether a
mushroom is edible or not. But we may feast our eyes on the amanita,
and all other mushrooms, with no fear of consequences. The mycologist
seems to overlook the finer and esthetic value of mushrooms. They are
beautiful to look upon--surely this is one important qualification.
What more attractive these misty days than the deadly amanita--the
"destroying angel"? How it gleams in the woods! How it lures with its
terrible beauty! But they who are tempted to taste must be wholly given
over to the pleasures of the table. It was not made for the stomach,
but to be digested and assimilated by mental processes alone and the
perception of beauty thereby nourished and sustained.
How clean and wholesome is the pasture mushroom--_the_ mushroom--with
its white flesh, pink gills, and cap from which the skin peels as
readily as from a fig. The same field is often sprinkled over with
puffballs looking as fresh as new-laid eggs, as they poke out of the
close-cropped turf. Some species are thus eminently wholesome and
inviting, while others have a loathsome fungoid personality and affect
one like the sight of reptiles. They express the fact that they are of
the _lower orders_--the slimy world. Mushrooms are indeed almost as
varied in outline and color as flowers. Red species of russula vie with
the rose, with ripe cherries, or the cheeks of Bartlett pears, while
the green russula is of richer, more velvety hue than any unripe fruit.
The grotesque forms of boleti have a kind of fascination. One comes to
distinguish minute differences and to cherish these odd and sometimes
graceful shapes, as a connoisseur might his bronzes or antique vases.
Many of the mosses are fruiting at this season, but they, for the most
part, belong to that mysterious and unfathomable world of the compound
microscope. Yet here are some, be it said with joy, that so proclaim
themselves as to be known of all men. Such we can take home to us as
friends of our leisure and landmarks in our excursions. These at least
we have reclaimed from science. In the shadowy sea of Latin names
these few green isles appear--peat-moss, broom-moss, hair-cap and
fern-moss. Like miniature smilax are the mniums, marvelous little
trailing beauties, while of all vegetable elves the silvery bryum has
the greatest witchery, with young drooping pea-green capsules like so
many fairy pipes. A miniature jungle is the fern-moss, a forest of tree
ferns at our very doors--Ceylon and Java in our wood lot. It is only a
difference of dimension. A patch of this is as rich and luxuriant as
any jungle of bamboos on the lower slope of the Himalaya, and a spider
might as easily lose himself in one as a man in the other.
[Illustration: AUTUMN STUDIES COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY RUDOLF EICKEMEYER]
With what a fine garment of green does Nature clothe the trunks of
swamp-maples and some black birches. It is a true woodland costume
befitting their sylvan life; a snug garment tightly wrapped about the
trunk as though to protect the vital parts of the body while the
extremities are bared to the winds. Woven in woodland looms of mosses
and lichens, it forever replenishes itself, the holes mended and the
bare spots renewed as by deft and invisible weavers.
Where do the birds go in August? Never an oriole's note nor a
bluebird's warble. All the more we appreciate the faithful redeye and
the wood-pewee. The importunate twittering of young birds with their
speckled breasts and half-grown tails is in evidence; they at least do
not hesitate to make themselves known. But in September are bright days
when there come waves of birds. The returning warblers rove in little
bands, and companies of young field-and chipping-sparrows flit in and
out among the bayberries and alight in the path.
In their dull, autumn colors the warblers have an unfamiliar look. They
come disguised in winter cloaks which, if you do not know their little
mannerisms, may be effective enough. With provoking celerity they flit
in and out the thick foliage, and you dance attendance; now this way
and now that, stumbling over pasture stones or plunging into the midst
of blackberry and rose thickets, to be detained at last by the
persuasive catbrier. Again you go forth to find the game has stolen
away and not a warbler is to be seen. Such are the exigencies of bird
study in September; yet in a few days other flocks may arrive. Every
faintest clue is valuable to the ornithologist who honestly refrains
from the gun. Were it not for the peculiar jerking of the tail, one
would hardly recognize the yellowpoll in his dull suit. The
fly-catchers frequently declare their identity through mannerisms. Were
it not for difference of manner and voice, the phoebe and the pewee
might easily be confused; so also the redeye and the warbling vireo. I
have known the redeye for years, but can never make out his _red_ eye,
unless it be a glass one.
Now comes the winter wren, peeping and prying round about a mossy
tussock like a little mouse, but far more self-contained. His wee tail
is elevated and his whole demeanor pert. What a picture he makes,
prying about in the hair-caps, his head little higher than the
capsules,--a ruddy, rich-hued, speckled little fellow. If only he would
give us a measure of that fabled song, that Orphean strain of the far
North and of the mountain tops, which is denied to dwellers on these
lower levels! There are songs to be heard only on Parnassus.
These are the days of journeying seeds. In spring it was blowing
pollen; in early autumn, mushroom spores; and now winged seeds flying
before the wind. Those of the hop-hornbeam are done up in little papery
bags which, though incapable of an extended flight, manage to sail out
and away from the parent tree. Even the small seeds of birch and alder,
compact as they are, have wings provided,--for no ambitious flight, to
be sure, but a gentle excursion only, such as the broad-winged maple
seed may take when its hour arrives. Acorns will fall directly below
the tree, perhaps roll some little distance on uneven ground and lie in
rich confusion--a symbol of plenty. For any further transportation they
must depend upon the wings of the jay and the feet of the squirrel. In
this respect the sweet acorns of the white oak have the better chance,
while at the same time they run the greater risk of being eaten. Jays
constantly carry acorns, and may frequently drop them. Gray squirrels
bury them, and recover a surprising number later when the snow is on
the ground. They know wherein the white are superior and are as well
informed about acorns as are we about apples or the varieties of
squash. The white oak acorn is to them Hubbard squash or Baldwin apple.
When Nature planned that the nut trees should bear as they do, she
doubtless considered the squirrel and the boy that was to be. She had
no idea of deriving a thousand seedlings from a hickory, but perhaps
one only, and allowing for those that should come to naught, the boys
and the squirrels might have the rest--to say nothing of weevils, which
get ahead of both when it comes to chestnuts, being on hand to lay
their eggs in the flower. When the boy arrives, it is to find them
already in possession--surely nine-tenths of the law in this case. The
chestnut-bur was seemingly designed as a means of protection rather
than of transportation,--unless it be that in remote times the tertiary
monkey got them in his coat, or perhaps slyly pelted the mastodon with
these monster burs, and they were thus conveyed, as now a dog will
carry beggar-ticks. As a protection it does not serve against its most
insidious foe, the larva of the weevil, which works not from without
but from within. Nature has treated the butternut better by surrounding
it with a husk, as food for the grubs, which are content to go no
deeper. One is a case of armed resistance, the other of diplomacy, and
diplomacy wins.
How evidently all Nature is flowing. It is as though we stood on the
banks of a river and saw pass--today arbutus, tomorrow, columbines,
and later, goldenrod. The last is hardly gone before the advance guard
of skunk-cabbage appears again. Autumn nourishes a vigorous
brood--whole acres of wild sunflowers, acres again of joepye-weed, and
salt marshes aglow with the great rose-mallow. Presently there will be
only asters and goldenrod--everywhere purple and gold; royal robes worn
not for long, to give way to the sober dress of early winter--a monk's
garb.
Early in September the common brakes turn, imparting a faint glow to
the woods. Dicksonia has a brighter hue, and patches surrounding a
pasture boulder fairly seem to emit light. But this is as nothing to
the splendor of cinnamon-ferns in the open bogs, now dry, and the
spagnum withered and sear. It is as if the smouldering earth-fires
leapt at the touch of autumn and glowed in these stately fronds. In the
woods is always a predominance of yellow at this season; so lately
somber and damp, heavy with the mustiness and humidity of the dog-days,
they are now full of imprisoned sunshine. As by a touch of enchantment,
the falling of the lower leaves on all shrubbery and in brier thickets
has suddenly given us distances, larger perspective and new vistas,
where before we were hedged in between dense green walls. Aspen,
shadbush, blackberry, birch and hickory all incline to yellow, mottled
and speckled more or less with brown. Ochre, umber, sienna, gamboge are
on Nature's palette; soon she will replace these with crimson and
scarlet. Already there is a touch of vermilion in the brilliant
poison-ivy; and she has spilled drops of scarlet everywhere on the
outskirts of the woods, along a wall, over a fence, up in a pine, in
the very midst of a radiant gleaming hickory--wherever the Virginia
creeper grows.
Nature works deftly, at first with delicate brush touching a shadbush,
a clump of osmunda, or again only a leaf, a spot of color, a patch here
and a streak there; but the day of transfiguration approaches. Early
October sees the stag-horn sumacs fairly scintillate with color. At
last the whole color-box is upset and runs red down a hillside
huckleberry patch, meeting a yellow streak in a ravine and spreading
out over the swamps, a sea of scarlet and gold. Every year Nature
starts out in this modest fashion and ends in an upset and riot of
color. We should know her ways by this time, but though her plan is the
same she varies the details infinitely and there are always surprises.
These same earth-fires which blazed in the osmunda now glow deep red in
the dwarf sumacs--a dull, fierce flame, as if for the nonce Pluto's
fires shone through the thin shell of earth. The poison-ivy is in its
glory, and no tupelo, no sugar-maple, can rival its scarlet and
vermilion. Earth indeed wears a jewel now. But there is nowhere a
warmer, mellower tint than the shadbush has caught and held,--not
brilliant nor showy, not a shining mark in the woods, but a cheery
sight that warms the cockles of your heart. Little clumps of the
maple-leaved viburnum are now of a delicate smoky pink, while the ash
turns an indescribable hue--a greenish maroon or purplish green if such
there be.
Already the hickory leaves are falling, detaching themselves one by one
and floating leisurely to earth. It will now be our gentle pleasure to
walk through crisp and rustling leaves. Barberries are ripe, and
old-fashioned folk gather them for jelly or preserve them in molasses,
wherein they are as so many shoe-pegs drowned in sweetness. The
solitary sandpiper comes again to preside briefly over the ponds--a
lone, wild spirit. Little flocks of coots scud low over the water, and
in the dark, spongy humus of the hemlock swamp, red squirrels are
digging caches and concealing the small cones, a dozen or more in a
place. Such are the signs of the times.
Yet another sign--the last effort of the dying year--is the
witch-hazel, which sheds its leaves and stands arrayed in yellow
blossoms. A brave suggestion is this flower of the late autumn,
blossoming when all else is in the sear and yellow, that it may bear
seed in another year. When all others have given up and are retreating,
this one comes forth as much as to say it is never too late. There is a
very witchery in the crinkled yellow flower born of the old year in a
frosty world; a borean child brought hither on the wings of the North
wind; a sturdy blossom that will not show itself till it hears the
music of rustling leaves.
Late in autumn the white pines shed their needles and lay down a new
carpet. No turning of the old here, but every year another--fresh,
wholesome, fragrant; a plain, well-wearing groundwork that never
offends the eye and on which is traced from time to time a rare and
original design. It is now a scarlet tupelo or a maple leaf dropped
here and there, and again a creeping mitchella with a red berry or
two, or a clump of ground-pine and a drift of beech and scarlet oak
leaves. On occasion appears a solitary gleaming amanita. Over the rich
seal-brown of ancient hemlock stumps is a tracery of the gray-green
cladonia with its scarlet fruiting cups. What are Tabriz, Daghestan,
Bokhara and the rest to this? These odorous pine-needles are the magic
carpet which gently conveys one into the sylvan world of faun and
nymph. Now it is a sunbath we want rather than a cold dip,--to bask in
the warmth like any cottontail. To lie in some sheltered spot while the
frost is taking off the last leaves, and become saturated with
sunlight, is a mellowing process, and ripens one,--as tomatoes are
ripened on the window-sill or grapes on the trellis.
As the vivid hues of the red maple fade in the swamp and are replaced
by the soft silvery gray and purplish sheen of the bark, the oaks on
the hillside become ruddy. The coloring is rich and subdued, rather
than brilliant and glowing as at first--mahogany and maroon set off by
the purple mists of Indian summer. And now at last branches are bare
and leaves rustle underfoot.
PASTURE STONES