Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 61723-h.htm or 61723-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61723/pg61723-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61723/61723-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/jackminerbirdsso00mine_0
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
[Illustration]
JACK MINER AND THE BIRDS
[Illustration:
JACK MINER HIMSELF
_Photo by his friend Frank Scott Clark, Detroit_]
[Illustration]
JACK MINER AND THE BIRDS
And Some Things I Know about Nature
By
JACK MINER
of Kingsville, Ontario, Canada
Toronto
The Ryerson Press
NOTE—This volume is copyrighted, as noted below. Parties are warned
against the unwarranted reproduction of photographs or articles from
it. Application for permission for such reproduction should be made
to Manly F. Miner, Kingsville, Ontario, Canada.
Printed in Canada
by the Ryerson Press
Copyright, Canada, 1923
by Jack Miner
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface
Introduction
CHAPTER
I. “Who is Jack Miner?” 1
II. My First Pets 4
III. Market Hunting 6
IV. Our Faithful Dogs 8
V. Bob White Quail 10
VI. Raising English or Ring-necked Pheasants in Canada 19
VII. The Natural Enemies of our Birds 22
VIII. Some Things I have Known Cannibal Birds to Do 25
IX. Weasels, and How to Destroy Them 31
X. Robins 36
XI. The Bluebirds 41
XII. Woodpeckers 45
XIII. The Swallow Family 47
XIV. Wild Duck Hunting 52
XV. Knowledge and Ways of the Wild Duck 58
XVI. Do Birds Return to Their Same Homes? 63
XVII. Birds as Missionary Messengers 68
XVIII. How Wild Ducks Conceal Their Nests 72
XIX. My Last Distinguished Family of Pet Ducks 75
XX. Ducks’ Love Soon Ceases 79
XXI. The Migration of Ducks 81
XXII. Can Birds Smell? 88
XXIII. The Canada Goose 92
XXIV. Nesting Canada Geese 109
XXV. Our Model Canada Goose 113
XXVI. Do Birds Have a Language? 118
XXVII. The Career of Jack Johnson 123
XXVIII. The Migration of Our Canada Goose 130
XXIX. Catching and Tagging the Wild Goose 142
XXX. Game Protection 147
XXXI. Creating a Bird Sanctuary 151
XXXII. Our Native Swans 158
XXXIII. The Line of Migration 162
XXXIV. Inquiries and Answers 163
XXXV. Sportsmanship 172
XXXVI. Conclusion 178
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Jack Miner Himself Frontispiece
Wild Geese at my Home
Looking Over Esau’s Line Fence at the Writer 2
Quail Self-serving Feed-rack 12
Hawk and Owl Trap 13
Shelter and Feeding place for Quail 14
Quail Egg-shells, After Hatching 15
Young Quail, Just Four Weeks Old 17
Eating from the Hand that once Held the Gun 17
Under Side of Weasel Trap and Harbor 34
Jasper Feeding the Robins 39
Snowball 40
Tile Bird Houses 42
“Why Didn’t You Knock Before You Opened the Door?” 43
The English Sparrows’ Victims 44
How the Woodpecker Gets the Worm 46
The Martin “Castle” 51
Old Duck and Young Waiting at the Gate 60
Katie Feeding out of My Hand 64
Polly and Delilah 66
Showing Both Sides of Aluminum Tags 70
Puzzle: Find the Duck’s Nest 73
Where the Duck’s Nest Was 73
Duck, with Young, Crossing the Field 74
The Mulberry Family 76
Map Showing Migration of the Ducks 86
The Canada Goose 93
Total Flock of Geese, 1909 99
The Flock of Geese, 1910 100
The Flock of Geese, 1911 102
David and Jonathan 103
The Death of Jonathan 104
Geese Rising from the Pond 106
On Guard 110
A Gallant Veteran 111
With the Little Ones Between 112
Faithful After Death 127
Map Showing Migration of the Geese 131
The Indian Achimaya 136
Indian Woman, Fort George 137
Returned Duck and Goose Tags 141
My First Successful Catch of Wild Geese 143
A Big Catch in the Big Net 145
Children with Bird houses, Peterborough, Ontario 150
Geese in Flight at the North Pond 152
Geese on the South Pond 153
Scotch Pines 156
These were “Wild” Swans 159
Wild Wing-tipped Swans 161
Martin House 169
I Love the Birds, and They Have Come to Me 175
I Plant Roses, and They Arch My Path with Fragrant Bloom 176
But Best of All, I Love Boys, and Boys Love Me in Return 177
PREFACE
Long and intimate acquaintance with the author of this book must be my
apology for attempting to write a brief introduction. Meeting Jack Miner
for the first time in 1888, I was at once impressed with his striking
personality. I found myself instinctively attracted to him, and a
cordial friendship sprang up between us, which grew in intimacy as the
years passed. Although lacking in academic culture, his manner was
decidedly urbane, and it was not long before I discerned beneath his
rough exterior an enshrined soul.
Inheriting, as I did, a passion for dog and gun, I cultivated his
friendship, and many delightful days have we spent together afield. I
was a novice in woodcraft; he taught me to hunt and shoot. Many a bird
fell to his gun for which I took full credit in those early days, until,
on one occasion, when I had made, as I thought, a particularly clever
kill, I glanced over my shoulder as I heard him say: “Good Shot,
Doctor!” only to see him hurriedly slipping a shell into the smoking
breech of his gun. I said: “Did you shoot, Jack?” and his face betrayed
guilt as he replied: “Take more time, Doctor. If you hit a bird fair at
that distance, you will have nothing to pick up!” I was shooting too
soon, and of course missing. He had got on to my time, and was now and
then dropping a bird, apparently to my gun, to give me confidence.
What impressed me most, perhaps, in the days of my novitiate was the
determination with which he pursued a wounded bird. He would spend an
hour ferreting out a cripple rather than leave it to die in misery, or
become the prey of its natural enemies, owls, hawks or vermin. He
invariably repiled the logs and brush he had dislodged in his efforts to
retrieve a wounded bird. And this is but one evidence that a keen sense
of justice, a full regard for the rights of all living creatures, are
conspicuous traits in Jack Miner’s character.
Years passed. Until now he had held aloof from church and social life in
the community. Then trouble came. Trouble, that so often floors the weak
man, is the strong soul’s opportunity to reveal itself. Thus it proved
in Jack Miner’s case. Death robbed his family circle of three of its
members in a comparatively brief period of time. Of an exceptionally
emotional and sympathetic nature, his grief was overwhelming. Something
had to move, or break. Gradually he came over to the allies, and became
active in social and Sunday school work. All his dormant virtues seemed
bursting with life, and latent genius sprang into activity. He pursued
his hobby of making friends with the birds with a zeal, as it were,
begotten of despair. Steadily he plodded on in the face of financial
burdens, in spite of the discouraging indifference of the many, and in
defiance of the more malignant opposition of the few.
Ultimately he secured possession of the entire Miner homestead. He
procured thousands of evergreen trees from the Government, and using
native trees as well, prosecuted his work of beautifying his
surroundings, until he had transformed what was an ordinary farm of two
hundred acres, without one attractive feature, into a place which would
arrest the attention of the passer-by, and which formed a veritable
paradise for birds and waterfowl. Inheriting a love of the beautiful
from his mother, he has developed his home surroundings into a bower of
lilacs and roses. I venture to say that there is no spot in Western
Ontario, if indeed in the entire Province, that attracts to itself,
season after season, the thousands of visitors—distinguished men and
women of Canada and the United States—that come to see the Miner Bird
Sanctuary.
As a lad, however, he did not see exactly eye to eye with his mother. Of
what use was an old, battered spoon, the sole surviving member of a set
of pewter, that had been in the family for generations? He would convert
it into smooth, round bullets, and make it contribute to the upkeep of
the table. So one night the spoon went into the melting-pot, to appear
in a few days on the table in the form of savory venison steak, and Mrs.
Miner was left guessing what had become of her precious heirloom.
Jack Miner has built an enduring monument to his patient toil and his
unfaltering confidence in an over-ruling Providence, that will stand for
all time. That this untutored man of the woods is able to entertain and
interest vast concourses of people in our college halls throughout
Canada and the United States, being recalled season after season to our
educational centres as well as to our towns and villages, to deliver his
lectures, is convincing evidence that he has a world message and can
deliver it with compelling force.
I have read “Jack Miner and the Birds” in manuscript form. It is a
remarkable book, by a remarkable man. While it makes no pretensions to
literary excellence, it is free from faults of egotism and verbiage,
often present—almost laconic in style. It contains much valuable
information, expressed in trite and witty language, and will prove a
valuable addition to our works on bird lore.
Of more interest, perhaps, to the average reader will be a brief
narrative of a few episodes in the life of Jack Miner. With
characteristic self-effacement, he has refrained from incorporating in
his book any incident in which he might seem to figure as the hero.
Nevertheless his life has not been without tragic experience and
thrilling adventure.
No sketch of his career, however brief, will do him justice without
reference to his elder brother, Ted, whom Jack regarded with the
profoundest respect and reverence. They played together—if work can be
called play—hunted together, slept together, and lived with and for each
other. As boys they practised shooting with a rifle at snowballs thrown
into the air, at twenty-five yards rise, until they became so expert
that they could break forty-six out of fifty.
In 1898, when the brothers were hunting with a friend in Northern
Quebec, Ted was killed instantly, shot through the head by the
accidental discharge of his companion’s gun, as he was dropping on one
knee to dispatch a wounded and charging bull moose. Imagine the
situation, if you can! Jack came running down the ravine through which
he had driven the moose, confident that the boys had made a kill, only
to meet his friend running toward him, his face pale as death,
frantically shouting: “I have killed Ted!” Though dazed by the shock,
Jack nevertheless realized the necessity of submerging his emotions, for
the occasion demanded sane judgment and prompt action, and the friend
was helpless by reason of his grief. They were twenty-five miles from
the nearest railway station; help must be procured promptly and—it was
up to him. Washing the blood from his dead brother’s face, and pressing
a kiss on his pallid brow, he covered his body with snow, lest the smell
of fresh blood might attract a band of prowling wolves before he could
return, and, leaving him within a dozen feet of the big bull moose he
had shot as he pulled the trigger for the last time, Jack set out for
help. He ran thirteen miles to the nearest settler’s cabin, where he
procured the aid of an old man and his boy. On returning to the scene of
the accident, a litter was improvised on which the body was placed, but
the absence of all trail, and the deep snow, made it impossible to
proceed except in single file, and so Jack took his brother, who weighed
202 pounds, across his shoulders as he would a dead deer, and carried
him almost the entire distance of thirteen miles, while the other three
men cut brush and broke trail. Arriving at the lake they placed Ted’s
body in the bow of a home-made punt, and Jack paddled twelve miles down
the lake in the face of a blinding snowstorm, making the entire distance
in twenty-four hours. From this terrible strain he has never fully
recovered.
Many times he has rescued men lost in the woods. Indeed he has never
once failed to bring his man out alive, although in some cases he had
nothing human to guide him, all trail having been obliterated by heavy
snowfall. For this signal success he takes no credit to himself, but
attributes it to Divine Guidance in answer to his petitions.
On one occasion he was gone from camp forty-eight consecutive hours
without sleep or rest, and with little food, tramping through snow up to
his knees, in search of two men who had strayed in entirely opposite
directions. He brought them both to camp, his hands being frozen during
his adventure.
On another occasion, when hunting moose in Northern Quebec, at about
three o’clock in the afternoon, he heard in the distance signal shots of
distress. It gets dark early and suddenly in the North in November, but
Jack immediately broke into a run, never stopping until, just at dusk,
he came up to a young guide, standing guard over a man fallen in the
snow. This was a well-to-do gentleman who had joined a hunting party,
but was overcome by the strain of the unusual fatigue. His clothing had
become saturated with the wet snow, his limbs lost all sense of feeling,
and he fell, unable to move hand or foot. Jack Miner gave the rifles to
the guide, hoisted the man, who weighed 185 pounds, on his shoulders,
and carried him to an old lumber camp five miles distant in less than
two hours. Other members of the party arrived, a fire was made, and hot
coffee, hot flannels, and much rubbing, eventually brought feeling into
the benumbed limbs. By morning the man was able to walk. As so often
happens, the most solemn occasion is not without its spark of humor.
When all immediate danger seemed to have passed and enquiry was made as
to the whereabouts of the rifles, the guide, with the utmost sangfroid,
said: “I left them stacked back in the woods at the scene of the
tragedy!” Since no one but Jack would brave the dangers of the dark and
the swollen river which had to be crossed on a fallen tree, it was up to
him to retrieve the guns, and he did it.
He was never so happy as when studying the lives and habits of the wild
creatures, whether it was the timid field mouse or the lordly moose, the
socially inclined Chickadee or the elusive Canada goose. Thus did he lay
the foundation of the success he has achieved as a hunter and
naturalist.
In traversing the forest his sense of location and direction is akin to
that of the denizens of the woods. When an Indian caches his game,
intending to return for it at some future time, he blazes trees and
breaks twigs to guide him back. Jack Miner was never known to blaze a
tree nor break a twig for the purpose of locating a dead moose or a
beaver-trap. He can follow a trail all day long to every point of the
compass, and at nightfall turn his face directly toward camp. If on the
following day he wishes to return to any spot visited the day before he
will go to it with a directness and accuracy almost uncanny.
Years before he ever set foot in the northern woods he and Ted planned
annual hunting excursions. They were the pioneers of big game hunting in
Essex County, and while it is true that Jack Miner has killed car loads
more game than any other man in Western Ontario, it must be remembered
he never wasted a pound of meat, nor kept more than perhaps ten per
cent. of his kill for his own use, but gave it away to rich and poor
alike. He organized moose dinners for charitable purposes, even buying
meat on one occasion when he had not enough of his own to supply the
tables.
So did Jack Miner, the boy dreamer, become Jack Miner, noted naturalist,
popular lecturer, and Canada’s Famous Birdman.
—J. EARLE JENNER, M.D.
[Illustration:
WILD GEESE AT MY HOME
These birds belong to you as much as they do to me. They winter on the
South-East Coast, and nest on Hudson Bay. In fact the only bird in
this bunch that belongs to me is the lady to the left of the two in
the lower photograph.]
INTRODUCTION
My reason, dear reader, for writing this book, I will assure you is not
to expose my A, B, C education, but simply because my many friends have
requested me to put into book form at least a portion of my interesting
experiences.
For years I have simply ignored such requests; but the more I thought
about it, the more seriously it appealed to me. So this morning I loaded
up chair, stove, tent, etc., and made my way to the woods, where I am at
home, and away from the wires of communication and the honk of the
automobiles, and even the enquiring voice of my little boy. I have run
away from them all and have pitched my tent in the woods.
As I was out gathering wood for the camp-fire I quietly looked around,
and a few remnants of old stumps are still visible where I helped to cut
the virgin timber, the forest that provided a home and shelter for the
raccoon that I once hunted by night, and the birds, from quail to the
wild turkey, that I hunted by day. About one hundred yards to the east
of where I am sitting is where I split my big toe with a nine-pound
broad-axe while hewing railroad ties when I was but fourteen years of
age. But Nature is helping me to replace a little, and the second-growth
trees are from thirty to fifty feet high.
A hawk has disturbed the Bob-Whites that are increasing in numbers very
rapidly, and the sweet tones of their familiar voices are making this
old spot fairly ring. In fact the very atmosphere seems so full of cheer
that when I entered the tent and sat down to write, I first whispered a
few words of silent prayer of thankfulness, and asked God to guide my
untrained hand so that you will understand my meaning.
Let me assure you I will be as brief as possible. And while I am very
thankful to my many friends who have offered to write it for me if I
would only dictate it, yet I firmly believe the majority of readers will
enjoy these facts right from the awkward hand of Jack Miner better than
if they were polished too much. While it may read very unreasonable, yet
please don’t forget that outside of a little joke I may attempt to
crack, the rest is all facts gathered from personal experience and
observation, and I assure you these views are not second-hand, as I am a
very poor reader and have never read a book through in my life.
—J. M.
Jack Miner and the Birds
CHAPTER I.
_Who is Jack Miner?_
Now, as you have this book in your hands and have looked at the name of
the writer, and possibly flipped over a few pages, glancing at the
interesting illustrations, etc., I imagine I can see you raise your
head, as your eyelids come down for an instant. “Who is Jack Miner? Who
is Jack Miner?” This thought repeatedly flashes through your mind.
Well, let me assure you of this fact, that Jack Miner is not Old Bill
Miner, nor Jesse James, and although I have been raised in the woods,
that is no evidence that I have split feet and antlers. But I will admit
there has been many a time in my life that if you could have seen me you
would have thought you were looking over Esau’s line fence.
However, just who I am is a question I am not prepared to answer, as it
is not a history of my life I am supposed to be writing; but in a few
brief words will say that my dear mother’s people that are in America
are a good, self-sacrificing, respectable, God-fearing people. And my
father never had but one full sister; yet, he said, where he lacked in
quantity he made up in quality. Father and mother were both born in
Leicestershire, England. As to my father, I know he was a truthful,
honest man, and, according to his own story, he was raised on the toe of
a step-father’s boot. A few years after he graduated from this lofty
position, he followed mother and her people to America, and eventually
overtook them in the good old State of Ohio, and on the 10th day of
April, 1865, I was born, bare-foot. According to my oldest brother’s
statement, father was at that time quite down-hearted over the fact that
his old favorite yellow tom-cat had been coming home absent for about
two weeks, and he had given up all hope; but as soon as I arrived and he
saw my complexion, he took me out and laid me in brother’s arms, and as
he raised up he clapped his hands together, quite cheerful, and said,
“Ted, we’ll call him John Thomas.” John Thomas it really is.
Fortunately, my friends have shortened it down to just Jack.
[Illustration:
LOOKING OVER ESAU’S LINE FENCE AT THE WRITER
Photograph taken in 1907 while on a Moose Hunt.]
We were very poor financially, and as I was second-oldest boy in a
family of ten children, I had to put a shoulder to the wheel and help
roll the bread-wagon. The result is I was educated for ditching, cutting
cord-wood, and splitting rails. In the spring of 1878 father decided to
migrate, and at the age of thirteen I was liberated here in Canada, a
sportman’s paradise. I took to the woods as naturally as a park hare,
and I know I was father’s favorite because he always called me to build
the fire in the morning, and when the other boys would lodge a tree I
have often heard him shout, “Come out and come away from it! You’ll get
’urt! Leave it w’ile Jack comes; ’e’ll go hunder and cut it down.” If we
were splitting rails, father always set the wedges, permitting me to
handle the maul.
Father and mother enjoyed life together nearly sixty years and put up
with the mingled enjoyment and annoyance of us ten children. How some of
father’s teachings still ring in my ears! When I have gone to him with
complaints about others he has often said, “Shut up; I don’t want to
’ear it. But if you have some of your own failings to tell, let’s ’ear
’um.” Yes, he was always short but to the point. One piece of advice
that he gave us boys I have always tried to practise; that was: whenever
we grabbed hold of anything and found it was red-hot, to drop it.
But now let me lay these smiling facts aside for a few seconds and close
my introduction to you in real earnest. For, outside of unavoidable
sadness, my life has been one continuous round of enjoyment made up of
failures and disappointments and dark, stormy clouds, which have been
completely trampled out of existence by success that in every case
exceeded my expectations, and has caused the sun to shine so brightly
that it has illumined my path clear up to the Great Divide, and given me
an imaginary glimpse of the beautiful Beyond.