as far out-of-doors as it was expedient to venture. But even then I was
not without excellent feathered society. Red-eyed vireos (one pair had
their nest within twenty feet of the hotel), chippers, song sparrows,
snow-birds, robins, waxwings, and phoebes were to be seen almost any
moment, while the hermit thrushes, as I have before mentioned, paid us
occasional visits. The most familiar of our door-yard friends, however,
to my surprise, were the yellow-rumped warblers. Till now I had never
found them at home except in the forests of the White Mountains; but
here they were, playing the _rôle_ which in Massachusetts we are
accustomed to see taken by the summer yellow-birds, and by no others of
the family. At first, knowing that this species was said to build in low
evergreens, I looked suspiciously at some small spruces which lined the
walk to the pier; but after a while I happened to see one of the birds
flying into a rock-maple with something in his bill, and following him
with my eye, beheld him alight on the edge of his nest. "About four feet
from the ground," the book said (the latest book, too); but this lawless
pair had chosen a position which could hardly be less than ten times
that height,--considerably higher, at all events, than the eaves of the
three-story house. It was out of reach in the small topmost branches,
but I watched its owners at my leisure, as the maple was not more than
two rods from my window. At this time the nestlings were nearly ready
to fly, and in the course of a day or two I saw one of them sitting in a
tree in the midst of a drenching rain. On my offering to lay hold of him
he dropped into the grass, and when I picked him up both parents began
to fly about me excitedly, with loud outcries. The male, especially,
went nearly frantic, entering the bowling alley where I happened to be,
and alighting on the floor; then, taking to the bole of a tree, he
fluttered helplessly upon it, spreading his wings and tail, seeming to
say as plainly as words could have done, "Look, you monster! here's
another young bird that can't fly; why don't you come and catch him?"
The acting was admirable,--all save the spreading of the tail; that was
a false note, for the youngster in my hand had no tail feathers at all.
I put the fellow upon a tree, whence he quickly flew to the ground (he
could fly down but not up), and soon both parents were again supplying
him with food. The poor thing had not eaten a morsel for possibly ten
minutes, a very long fast for a bird of his age. I hoped he would fall
into the hands of no worse enemy than myself, but the chances seemed
against him. The first few days after quitting the nest must be full of
perils for such helpless innocents.
For the credit of my own sex I was pleased to notice that it was the
father-bird who manifested the deepest concern and the readiest wit, not
to say the greatest courage; but I am obliged in candor to acknowledge
that this feature of the case surprised me not a little.
In what language shall I speak of the song of these familiar myrtle
warblers, so that my praise may correspond in some degree with the
gracious and beautiful simplicity of the strain itself? For music to be
heard constantly, right under one's window, it could scarcely be
improved; sweet, brief, and remarkably unobtrusive, without sharpness or
emphasis; a trill not altogether unlike the pine-creeping warbler's, but
less matter-of-fact and business-like. I used to listen to it before I
rose in the morning, and it was to be heard at intervals all day long.
Occasionally it was given in an absent-minded, meditative way, in a kind
of half-voice, as if the happy creature had no thought of what he was
doing. Then it was at its best, but one needed to be near the singer.
In a clearing back of the hotel, but surrounded by the forest, were
always a goodly company of birds, among the rest a family of
yellow-bellied woodpeckers; and in a second similar place were
white-throated sparrows, Maryland yellow-throats, and chestnut-sided
warblers, the last two feeding their young. Immature warblers are a
puzzling set. The birds themselves have no difficulty, I suppose; but
seeing young and old together, and noting how unlike they are, I have
before now been reminded of Launcelot Gobbo's saying, "It is a wise
father that knows his own child."
While traversing the woods between these two clearings I saw, as I
thought, a chimney swift fly out of the top of a tree which had been
broken off at a height of twenty-five or thirty feet. I stopped, and
pretty soon the thing was repeated; but even then I was not quick enough
to be certain whether the bird really came from the stump or only out of
the forest behind it. Accordingly, after sounding the trunk to make sure
it was hollow, I sat down in a clump of raspberry bushes, where I should
be sufficiently concealed, and awaited further developments. I waited
and waited, while the mosquitoes, seeing how sheltered I was from the
breeze, gathered about my head in swarms. A winter wren at my elbow
struck up to sing, going over and over with his exquisite tune; and a
scarlet tanager, also, not far off, did what he could--which was
somewhat less than the wren's--to relieve the tedium of my situation.
Finally, when my patience was well-nigh exhausted,--for the afternoon
was wearing away and I had some distance to walk,--a swift flew past me
from behind, and, with none of that poising over the entrance such as is
commonly seen when a swift goes down a chimney, went straight into the
trunk. In half a minute or less he reappeared without a sound, and was
out of sight in a second. Then I picked up my rubber coat, and with a
blessing on the wren and the tanager, and a malediction on the
mosquitoes (so unjust does self-interest make us), started homeward.
Conservatives and radicals! Even the swifts, it seems, are divided into
these two classes. "Hollow trees were good enough for our fathers; who
are we that we should assume to know more than all the generations
before us? To change is not of necessity to make progress. Let those who
will, take up with smoky chimneys; for our part we prefer the old way."
Thus far the conservatives; but now comes the party of modern ideas.
"All that is very well," say they. "Our ancestors were worthy folk
enough; they did the best they could in their time. But the world moves,
and wise birds will move with it. Why should we make a fetish out of
some dead forefather's example? _We_ are alive now. To refuse to take
advantage of increased light and improved conditions may look like
filial piety in the eyes of some: to us such conduct appears nothing
better than a distrust of the Divine Providence, a subtle form of
atheism. What are chimneys for, pray? And as for soot and smoke, we were
made to live in them. Otherwise, let some of our opponents be kind
enough to explain why we were created with black feathers."
So, in brief, the discussion runs; with the usual result, no doubt, that
each side convinces itself.
We may assume, however, that these old-school and new-school swifts do
not carry their disagreement so far as actually to refuse to hold
fellowship with one another. Conscience is but imperfectly developed in
birds, as yet, and they can hardly feel each other's sins and errors of
belief (if indeed these things be two, and not one) quite so keenly as
men are accustomed to do.
After all, it is something to be grateful for, this diversity of habit.
We could not spare the swifts from our villages, and it would be too bad
to lose them out of the Northern forests. May they live and thrive, both
parties of them.
I am glad, also, for the obscurity which attends their annual coming and
going. Whether they hibernate or migrate, the secret is their own; and
for my part, I wish them the wit to keep it. In this age, when the world
is in such danger of becoming omniscient before the time, it is good to
have here and there a mystery in reserve. Though it be only a little
one, we may well cherish it as a treasure.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] The guide-book allows two hours for the mile and a half on Owl's
Head, while it gives only an hour and a half for the three miles up
Mount Clinton--from the Crawford House.
[26] To bear out what has been said in the text concerning the abundance
of ferns at Owl's Head, I subjoin a list of the species observed;
premising that the first interest of my trip was not botanical, and that
I explored but a very small section of the woods:--
_Polypodium vulgare._
_Adiantum pedatum._
_Pteris aquilina._
_Asplenium Trichomanes._
_A. thelypteroides._
_A. Filix-foemina._
_Phegopteris polypodioides._
_P. Dryopteris._
_Aspidium marginale._
_A. spinulosum_, variety undetermined.
_A. spinulosum_, var. _dilatatum_.
_A. Goldianum._
_A. acrostichoides._
_A. aculeatum_, var. _Braunii_.
_Cystopteris bulbifera._
_C. fragilis._
_Onoclea struthiopteris._
_O. sensibilis._
_Woodsia Ilvensis._
_Dicksonia punctilobula._
_Osmunda regalis._
_O. Claytoniana._
_O. cinnamomea._
_Botrychium lanceolatum._
_B. matricariæfolium._
_B. ternatum._
_B. Virginianum._
[27] This bird (_Siurus nævius_) is remarkable for the promptness with
which he sets out on his autumnal journey, appearing in Eastern
Massachusetts early in August. Last year (1884) one was in my door-yard
on the morning of the 7th. I heard his loud chip, and looking out of the
window, saw him first on the ground and then in an ash-tree near a crowd
of house sparrows. The latter were scolding at him with their usual
cordiality, while he, on his part, seemed under some kind of
fascination, returning again and again to walk as closely as he dared
about the blustering crew. His curiosity was laughable. Evidently he
thought, considering what an ado the sparrows were making, that
something serious must be going on, something worth any bird's while to
turn aside for a moment to look into. The innocent recluse! if he had
lived where I do he would have grown used to such "windy congresses."
[28] After all that has been said about the "pathetic fallacy," so
called, it remains true that Nature speaks to us according to our mood.
With all her "various language" she "cannot talk and find ears too." And
so it happens that some, listening to the black-throated green warbler,
have brought back a report of "_Cheese, cheese, a little more cheese_."
Prosaic and hungry souls! This voice out of the pine-trees was not for
them. They have caught the rhythm but missed the poetry.
A MONTH'S MUSIC
And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.
COLERIDGE.
A MONTH'S MUSIC.
The morning of May-day was bright and spring-like, and should have been
signalized, it seemed to me, by the advent of a goodly number of birds;
but the only new-comer to be found was a single black-and-white creeper.
Glad as I was to see this lowly acquaintance back again after his seven
months' absence, and natural as he looked on the edge of Warbler Swamp,
bobbing along the branches in his own unique, end-for-end fashion, there
was no resisting a sensation of disappointment. Why could not the wood
thrush have been punctual? _He_ would have made the woods ring with an
ode worthy of the festival. Possibly the hermits--who had been with us
for several days in silence--divined my thoughts. At all events, one of
them presently broke into a song--the first _Hylocichla_ note of the
year. Never was voice more beautiful. Like the poet's dream, it "left my
after-morn content."
It is too much to be expected that the wood thrush should hold himself
bound to appear at a given point on a fixed date. How can we know the
multitude of reasons, any one of which may detain him for twenty-four
hours, or even for a week? It is enough for us to be assured, in
general, that the first ten days of the month will bring this master of
the choir. The present season he arrived on the 6th--the veery with him;
last year he was absent until the 8th; while on the two years preceding
he assisted at the observance of May-day.
All in all, I must esteem this thrush our greatest singer; although the
hermit might dispute the palm, perhaps, but that he is merely a
semi-annual visitor in most parts of Massachusetts. If perfection be
held to consist in the absence of flaw, the hermit's is unquestionably
the more nearly perfect song of the two. Whatever he attempts is done
beyond criticism; but his range and variety are far less than his
rival's, and, for my part, I can forgive the latter if now and then he
reaches after a note lying a little beyond his best voice, and withal is
too commonly wanting in that absolute simplicity and ease which lend
such an ineffable charm to the performance of the hermit and the veery.
Shakespeare is not a faultless poet, but in the existing state of public
opinion it will hardly do to set Gray above him.
In the course of the month about which I am now writing (May, 1884) I
was favored with thrush music to a quite unwonted degree. With the
exception of the varied thrush (a New-Englander by accident only) and
the mocking-bird, there was not one of our Massachusetts representatives
of the family who did not put me in his debt. The robin, the brown
thrush, the cat-bird, the wood thrush, the veery, and even the hermit
(what a magnificent sextette!)--so many I counted upon hearing, as a
matter of course; but when to these were added the Arctic thrushes--the
olive-backed and the gray-cheeked--I gladly confessed surprise. I had
never heard either species before, south of the White Mountains; nor, as
far as I then knew, had anybody else been more fortunate than myself.
Yet the birds themselves were seemingly unaware of doing anything new or
noteworthy. This was especially the case with the olive-backs; and after
listening to them for three days in succession I began to suspect that
they _were_ doing nothing new,--that they had sung every spring in the
same manner, only, in the midst of the grand May medley, my ears had
somehow failed to take account of their contribution. Their fourth (and
farewell) appearance was on the 23d, when they sang both morning and
evening. At that time they were in a bit of swamp, among some tall
birches, and as I caught the familiar and characteristic notes--a brief
ascending spiral--I was almost ready to believe myself in some primeval
New Hampshire forest; an illusion not a little aided by the frequent
lisping of black-poll warblers, who chanced just then to be remarkably
abundant.
It was on the same day, and within a short distance of the same spot,
that the Alice thrushes, or gray-cheeks, were in song. Their music was
repeated a good many times, but unhappily it ceased whenever I tried to
get near the birds. Then, as always, it put me in mind of the veery's
effort, notwithstanding a certain part of the strain was quite out of
the veery's manner, and the whole was pitched in decidedly too high a
key. It seemed, also, as if what I heard could not be the complete song;
but I had been troubled with the same feeling on previous occasions, and
a friend whose opportunities have been better than mine reports a
similiar experience; so that it is perhaps not uncharitable to conclude
that the song, even at its best, is more or less broken and amorphous.
In their Northern homes these gray-cheeks are excessively wild and
unapproachable; but while traveling they are little if at all worse than
their congeners in this respect,--taking short flights when disturbed,
and often doing nothing more than to hop upon some low perch to
reconnoitre the intruder.
At the risk of being thought to reflect upon the acuteness of more
competent observers, I am free to express my hope of hearing the music
of both these noble visitors again another season. For it is noticeable
how common such things tend to become when once they are discovered. An
enthusiastic botanical collector told me that for years he searched far
and near for the adder's-tongue fern, till one day he stumbled upon it
in a place over which he had long been in the habit of passing. Marking
the peculiarities of the spot he straightway wrote to a kindred spirit,
whom he knew to have been engaged in the same hunt, suggesting that he
would probably find the coveted plants in a particular section of the
meadow back of his own house (in Concord); and sure enough, the next
day's mail brought an envelope from his friend, inclosing specimens of
_Ophioglossum vulgatum_, with the laconic but sufficient message,
_Eureka!_ There are few naturalists, I suspect, who could not narrate
adventures of a like sort.
One such befell me during this same month, in connection with the wood
wagtail, or golden-crowned thrush. Not many birds are more abundant than
he in my neighborhood, and I fancied myself pretty well acquainted with
his habits and manners. Above all, I had paid attention to his
celebrated love-song, listening to it almost daily for several summers.
Thus far it had invariably been given out in the afternoon, and on the
wing. To my mind, indeed, this was by far its most interesting feature
(for in itself the song is by no means of surpassing beauty), and I had
even been careful to record the earliest hour at which I had heard
it--three o'clock P. M. But on the 6th of May aforesaid I detected a
bird practicing this very tune in the morning, and from a perch! I set
the fact down without hesitation as a wonder,--a purely exceptional
occurrence, the repetition of which was not to be looked for. Anything
might happen once. Only four days afterwards, however, at half-past six
in the morning, I had stooped to gather some peculiarly bright-colored
anemones (I can see the patch of rosy blossoms at this moment, although
I am writing by a blazing fire while the snow is falling without), when
my ear caught the same song again; and keeping my position, I soon
descried the fellow stepping through the grass within ten yards of me,
caroling as he walked. The hurried warble, with the common _Weechee_,
_weechee_, _weechee_ interjected in the midst, was reiterated perhaps a
dozen times,--the full evening strain, but in a rather subdued tone. He
was under no excitement, and appeared to be entirely by himself; in
fact, when he had made about half the circuit round me he flew into a
low bush and proceeded to dress his feathers listlessly. Probably what I
had overheard was nothing more than a rehearsal. Within a week or two he
would need to do his very best in winning the fair one of his choice,
and for that supreme moment he had already put himself in training. The
wise-hearted and obliging little beau! I must have been the veriest
churl not to wish him his pick of all the feminine wagtails in the wood.
As for the pink anemones, they had done me a double kindness, in
requital for which I could only carry them to the city, where, in their
modesty, they would have blushed to a downright crimson had they been
conscious of one-half the admiration which their loveliness called
forth.
Before the end of the month (it was on the morning of the 18th) I once
more heard the wagtail's song from the ground. This time the affair was
anything but a rehearsal. There were two birds,--a lover and his
lass,--and the wooing waxed fast and furious. For that matter, it looked
not so much like love-making as like an aggravated case of assault and
battery. But, as I say, the male was warbling, and not improbably (so
strange are the ways of the world), if he had been a whit less
pugnacious in his addresses, his lady-love, who was plainly well able
to take care of herself, would have thought him deficient in
earnestness. At any rate, the wood wagtail is not the only bird whose
courtship has the appearance of a scrimmage; and I believe there are
still tribes of men among whom similar practices prevail, although the
greater part of our race have learned, by this time, to take somewhat
less literally the old proverb, "None but the brave deserve the fair."
Love, it is true, is still recognized as one of the passions (in theory
at least) even among the most highly civilized peoples; but the tendency
is more and more to count it a _tender_ passion.
While I am on the subject of marriage I may as well mention the
white-eyed vireo. It had come to be the 16th of the month, and as yet I
had neither seen nor heard anything of this obstreperous genius; so I
made a special pilgrimage to a certain favorite haunt of his--Woodcock
Swamp--to ascertain if he had arrived. After fifteen minutes or more of
waiting I was beginning to believe him still absent, when he burst out
suddenly with his loud and unmistakable _Chip-a-weé-o_. "Who are _you_,
now?" the saucy fellow seemed to say, "Who are _you_, now?" Pretty soon
a pair of the birds appeared near me, the male protesting his affection
at a frantic rate, and the female repelling his advances with a snappish
determination which might have driven a timid suitor desperate. He
posed before her, puffing out his feathers, spreading his tail, and
crying hysterically, _Yip, yip, yaah_,--the last note a downright whine
or snarl, worthy of the cat-bird. Poor soul! he was well-nigh beside
himself, and could not take _no_ for an answer, even when the word was
emphasized with an ugly dab of his beloved's beak. The pair shortly
disappeared in the swamp, and I was not privileged to witness the upshot
of the battle; but I consoled myself with believing that Phyllis knew
how far she could prudently carry her resistance, and would have the
discretion to yield before her adorer's heart was irremediably broken.
In this instance there was no misconceiving the meaning of the action;
but whoever watches birds in the pairing season is often at his wit's
end to know what to make of their demonstrations. One morning a linnet
chased another past me down the road, flying at the very top of his
speed, and singing as he flew; not, to be sure, the full and copious
warble such as is heard when the bird hovers, but still a lively tune. I
looked on in astonishment. It seemed incredible that any creature could
sing while putting forth such tremendous muscular exertions; and yet, as
if to show that this was a mere nothing to him, the finch had no sooner
struck a perch than he broke forth again in his loudest and most
spirited manner, and continued without a pause for two or three times
the length of his longest ordinary efforts. "What lungs he must have!" I
said to myself; and at once fell to wondering what could have stirred
him up to such a pitch of excitement, and whether the bird he had been
pursuing was male or female. _He_ would have said, perhaps, if he had
said anything, that that was none of my business.
What I have been remarking with regard to the proneness of newly
discovered things to become all at once common was well illustrated for
me about this time by these same linnets, or purple finches. One rainy
morning, while making my accustomed rounds, enveloped in rubber, I
stopped to notice a blue-headed vireo, who, as I soon perceived, was
sitting lazily in the top of a locust-tree, looking rather disconsolate,
and ejaculating with not more than half his customary voice and
emphasis, _Mary Ware!--Mary Ware!_ His indolence struck me as very
surprising for a vireo; still I had no question about his identity (he
sat between me and the sun) till I changed my position, when behold! the
vireo was a linnet. A strange performance, indeed! What could have set
this fluent vocalist to practicing exercises of such an inferior,
disconnected, piecemeal sort? Within the next week or two, however, the
same game was played upon me several times, and in different places. No
doubt the trick is an old one, familiar to many observers, but to me it
had all the charm of novelty.