The man who hunts with gun or camera has his reward. He has also his
labors, vexations, and failures; and these are the price he pays for
his success. The man who hunts without either gun or camera has, it
seems to me, a much greater reward, and has it without price. Of him
more than any other Nimrod may be said what a returned missionary from
Africa said of his first congregation, "They are a contented folk,
clothed with the sunlight and fed by gravitation." Hunting without a
gun is, therefore, the sport of a peaceful man, a man who goes to the
woods for rest and for letting his soul grow, and who after a year of
worry and work is glad to get along without either for a little
season. As he glides over the waterways in his canoe, or loafs
leisurely along the trail, he carries no weight of gun or tripod or
extra plates. Glad to be alive himself, he has no pleasure in the
death of the wild things. Content just to see and hear and understand,
he has no fret or sweat to get the sun just right and calculate his
exact thirty-foot distance and then to fume and swear, as I have heard
good men do, because the game fidgets, or the clouds obscure the sun,
or the plates are not quick enough, or--beginning of sorrows!--because
he finds after the game has fled that the film he has just used on a
bull moose had all its good qualities already preëmpted by a landscape
and a passing canoe.
[Illustration: "The bear and her cubs are gathering blueberries in
their greedy, funny way"]
I have no desire to decry any kind of legitimate hunting, for I have
tried them all and the rewards are good. I simply like hunting
without a gun or camera better than all other forms of hunting for
three good reasons: first, because it is lazy and satisfying, perfect
for summer weather; second, because it has no troubles, no vexations,
no disappointments, and so is good for a man who has wrestled long
enough with these things; and third, because it lets you into the life
and individuality of the wild animals as no other hunting can possibly
do, since you approach them with a mind at ease and, having no
excitement about you, they dare to show themselves natural and
unconcerned, or even a bit curious about you to know who you are and
what you are doing. It has its thrills and excitements too, as much or
as little as you like. To creep up through the brûlée to where the
bear and her cubs are gathering blueberries in their greedy, funny
way; to paddle silently upon a big moose while his head is under water
and only his broad antlers show; to lie at ease beside the trail
flecked with sunlight and shadow and have the squirrels scamper across
your legs, or the wild bird perch inquisitively upon your toe,
or--rarest sight in the woods in the early morning--to have a fisher
twist by you in intense, weasel-like excitement, puzzling out the
trail of the hare or grouse that passed you an hour ago; to steal
along the waterways alone on a still dark night and open your jack
silently upon ducks or moose or mother deer and her fawns,--there is
joy and tingle enough in all these things to satisfy any lover of the
woods. There is also wisdom to be found, especially when you remember
that these are individual animals that no human eyes have ever before
looked upon, that they are different every one, and that at any moment
they may reveal some queer trick or trait of animal life that no
naturalist has ever before seen.
Last summer, just below my camp on Matagammon, was a little beach
between two points surrounded by dense woods that the deer seemed to
love better than any other spot on the whole lake. When we first
arrived the deer were close about our camp. From the door we could
sometimes see them on the lake shore, and every evening at twilight
they would steal up shyly to eat the potato and apple parings.
Gradually the noises of camp drove them far back on the ridges, though
on stormy nights they would come back when the camp was still and all
lights out. From my tent I would hear cautious rustlings or the crack
of a twig above the drip and pour of raindrops on my tent-fly, and
stealing out in the darkness would find two or three deer, generally a
doe and her fawns, standing under the split roof of our woodshed to
escape the pelting rain.
The little beach was farther away, across an arm of the lake and out
of sight and sound of our camp, so the deer never deserted it, though
we watched them there every day. Just why they liked it I could never
discover. A score of beaches on the lake were larger and smoother,
and a dozen at least offered better feeding; but the deer came here in
greater numbers than anywhere else. Near-by was a great wild meadow,
with dense hiding-places on the slopes beyond, where deer were
numerous. Before the evening feeding began in the wild meadow they
would come out to this little beach and play for an hour or so; and I
have no doubt the place was a regular playground, such as rabbits and
foxes and crows, and indeed most wild animals, choose for their hours
of fun.
Once, at early twilight, I lay in hiding among some old roots at the
end of this little beach, watching a curious game. Eight or ten deer,
does and fawns and young spike bucks, had come out into the open and
were now running rapidly in three circles arranged in a line, so, oOo.
In the middle was a big circle some fifteen feet in diameter, and at
opposite sides were two smaller circles less than half the diameter of
the first, as I found afterwards by measuring from the tracks. Around
one of these small circles the deer ran from right to left
invariably; around the other they ran from left to right; and around
the big middle circle they ran either way, though when two or three
were running this circle together, while the others bounded about the
ends, they all ran the same way. As they played, all the rings were in
use at once, the two small end rings being much more used than the big
one. The individual deer passed rapidly from one ring to the others,
but--and here is the queerest part of it all--I did not see a single
deer, not even one of the fawns, cut across the big circle from one
end ring to the other. After they were gone the rings showed clearly
in the sand, but not a single track led across any of the circles.
The object of the play was simple enough. Aside from the fun, the
young deer were being taught to twist and double quickly; but what
the rules of the game were, and whether they ran in opposite circles
to avoid getting dizzy, was more than I could discover, though the
deer were never more than thirty yards away from me and I could watch
every move clearly without my field-glasses. That the game and some
definite way of playing it were well understood by the deer no one
could doubt who watched this wonderful play for five minutes. Though
they ran swiftly, with astonishing lightness and grace, there was no
confusion. Every now and then one of the does would leap forward and
head off one of her fawns as he headed into the big ring, when like a
flash he would whirl in his tracks and away with a _bl-r-r-t!_ of
triumph or dissatisfaction. Once a spike buck, and again a doe with
two well-grown fawns, trotted out of the woods and, after watching the
dizzy play for a moment, leaped into it as if they understood
perfectly what was expected. They played this game only for a few
minutes at a time; then they would scatter and move up and down the
shore leisurely and nose the water. Soon one or two would come back,
and in a moment the game would be in full swing again, the others
joining it swiftly as the little creatures whirled about the rings,
exercising every muscle and learning how to control their graceful
bodies perfectly, though they had no idea that older heads had planned
the game for them with a purpose.
Watching them thus at their play, the meaning of a curious bit of deer
anatomy became clear. A deer's shoulder is not attached to the
skeleton at all; it lies loosely inside the skin, with only a bit of
delicate elastic tissue joining it to the muscles of the body. When a
deer was headed suddenly and braced himself in his tracks, the body
would lunge forward till the fore legs seemed hung almost in the
middle of his belly. Again, when he kicked up his heels, they would
seem to be supporting his neck, far forward of where they properly
belonged. This free action of the shoulder is what gives the wonderful
flexibility and grace to a deer's movements, just as it takes and
softens all the shock of falling in his high-jumping run among the
rocks and over the endless windfalls of the wilderness.
In the midst of the play, and after I had watched it for a full
half-hour, there was a swift rustle in the woods on my right, and I
caught my breath sharply at sight of a magnificent buck standing half
hid in the underbrush. There were two or three big bucks with splendid
antlers that lived lazily on the slopes above this part of the lake,
and that I had been watching and following for several weeks. Unlike
the does and fawns and young bucks, they were wild as hawks and
selfish as cats. They rarely showed themselves in the open, and if
surprised there with other deer they bounded away at the first sight
or sniff of danger. Does and little fawns, when they saw you, would
instantly stamp and whistle to warn the other deer before they had
taken the first step to save themselves or investigate the danger; but
the big bucks would bound or glide away, according to the method of
your approach, and in saving their own skins, as they thought, would
have absolutely no concern for the safety of the herd feeding near
by.--And that is one reason why, in a natural state, deer rarely allow
the bucks and bulls to lead them.
The summer laziness was still upon these big bucks; the wild fall
running had not seized them. Once I saw a curious and canny bit of
their laziness. I had gone off with a guide to try the trout at a
distant lake. While I watched a porcupine and tried to win his
confidence with sweet chocolate--a bad shot, by the way--the guide
went on far ahead. As he climbed a ridge, busy with thoughts of the
dim blazed trail he was following, I noticed a faint stir in some
bushes on one side, and through my glass I made out the head of a big
buck that was watching the guide keenly from his hiding. It was in the
late forenoon, when deer are mostly resting, and the lazy buck was
debating, probably, whether it were necessary for him to run or not.
The guide passed rapidly; then to my astonishment the head
disappeared as the buck lay down where he was.
Keeping my eyes on the spot, I followed on the guide's trail. There
was no sign of life in the thicket as I passed, though beyond a doubt
the wary old buck was watching my every motion keenly. When I had gone
well past and still the thicket remained all quiet, I turned gradually
and walked towards it. There was a slight rustle as the buck rose to
his feet again. He had evidently planned for me to follow the steps of
the other man, and had not thought it worth while to stand up. Another
slow step or two on my part, then another rustle and a faint motion of
underbrush--so faint that, had there been a wind blowing, my eye would
scarcely have noticed it--told me where the buck had glided away
silently to another covert, where he turned and stood to find out
whether I had discovered him, or whether my change of direction had
any other motive than the natural wandering of a man lost in the
woods.
That was far back on the ridges, where most of the big bucks loaf and
hide, each one by himself, during the summer. Down at the lake,
however, there were two or three that for some reason occasionally
showed themselves with the other deer, but were so shy and wild that
hunting them without a gun was almost impossible. It was one of these
big fellows that now stood half hid in the underbrush within twenty
yards of me, watching the deer's game impatiently.
A stamp of his foot and a low snort stopped the play instantly, and
the big buck moved out on the shore in full view. He looked out over
the lake, where he had so often seen the canoes of men moving; his
nose tried the wind up shore; eyes and ears searched below, where I
was lying; then he scanned the lake again keenly. Perhaps he had seen
my canoe upturned among the water-grasses far away; more probably it
was the unknown sense or _feel_ of an enemy, which they who hunt with
or without a gun find so often among the larger wild animals, that
made him restless and suspicious. While he watched and searched the
lake and the shores not a deer stirred from his tracks. Some command
was in the air which I myself seemed to feel in my hiding. Suddenly
the big buck turned and glided away into the woods, and every deer on
the shore followed instantly without question or hesitation. Even the
little fawns, never so heedless as to miss a signal, felt something in
the buck's attitude deeper than their play, something perhaps in the
air that was not noticed before, and trotted after their mothers,
fading away at last like shadows into the darkening woods.
On another lake, years before, when hunting in the same way without a
gun, I saw another curious bit of deer wisdom. It must be remembered
that deer are born apparently without any fear of man. The fawns when
found very young in the woods are generally full of playfulness and
curiosity; and a fawn that has lost its mother will turn to a man
quicker than to any other animal. When deer see you for the first
time, no matter how old or young they are, they approach cautiously,
if you do not terrify them by sudden motions, and in twenty pretty
ways try to find out what you are. Like most wild animals that have a
keen sense of smell, and especially like the bear and caribou, they
trust only their noses at first. When they scent man for the first
time they generally run away, not because they know what it means but
for precisely the opposite reason, namely, because there is in the air
a strong scent that they do not know, and that they have not been
taught by their mothers how to meet. When in doubt run away--that is
the rule of nose which seems to be impressed by their mothers upon all
timid wild things, though they act in almost the opposite way when
sight or hearing is in question.
All this is well known to hunters; but now comes the curious
exception. After I had been watching the deer for some weeks at one of
their playgrounds, a guide came into camp with his wife and little
child. They were on their way in to their own camp for the hunting
season. To please the little one, who was fond of all animals, I took
her with me to show her the deer playing. As they were running about
on the shore I sent her out of our hiding, in a sudden spirit of
curiosity, to see what the deer and fawns would do. True to her
instructions, the little one walked out very slowly into the midst of
them. They started at first; two of the old deer circled down
instantly to wind her; but even after getting her scent, the
suspicious man-scent that most of them had been taught to fear, they
approached fearlessly, their ears set forward, and their expressive
tails down without any of the nervous wiggling that is so manifest
whenever their owners catch the first suspicious smell in the air. The
child, meanwhile, sat on the shore, watching the pretty creatures with
wide-eyed curiosity, but obeying my first whispered instructions like
a little hero and keeping still as a hunted rabbit. Two little spotted
fawns were already circling about her playfully, but the third went
straight up to her, stretching his nose and ears forward to show his
friendliness, and then drawing back to stamp his little fore foot
prettily to make the silent child move or speak, and perhaps also to
show her in deer fashion that, though friendly, he was not at all
afraid.
There was one buck in the group, a three-year-old with promising
antlers. At first he was the only deer that showed any fear of the
little visitor; and his fear seemed to me to be largely a matter of
suspicion, or of irritation that anything should take away the herd's
attention from himself. The fall wildness was coming upon him, and he
showed it by restless fidgeting, by frequent proddings of the does
with his antlers, and by driving them about roughly and unreasonably.
Now he approached the child with a shake of his antlers, not to
threaten her, it seemed to me, but rather to show the other deer that
he was still master, the Great Mogul who must be consulted upon all
occasions. For the first time the little girl started nervously at
threatening motion, I called softly to her to keep still and not be
afraid, at the same time rising up quietly from my hiding-place.
Instantly the little comedy changed as the deer whirled in my
direction. They had seen men before and knew what it meant. The white
flags flew up over the startled backs, and the air fairly bristled
with whistling _h-e-e-e-yeu_, _he-u's_ as deer and fawns rose over the
nearest windfalls like a flock of frightened partridges and plunged
away into the shelter of the friendly woods.
There are those who claim that the life of an animal is a mere matter
of blind instinct and habit. Here on the shore before my eyes was a
scene that requires a somewhat different explanation.
Though deer are the most numerous and the most interesting animals to
be hunted without a gun, they are by no means the only game to fill
the hunter's heart full and make him glad that his game bag is empty.
Moose are to be found on the same waters, and in the summer season, if
approached very slowly and quietly, especially in a canoe, they show
little fear of man. Last summer, as I stole down the thoroughfare into
Matagammon, a cow moose and her calf loomed up before me in the narrow
stream. I watched her awhile silently, noting her curious way of
feeding,--now pulling up a bite of lush water-grass, now stretching
her neck and her great muffle to sweep off a mouthful of water-maple
leaves, first one then the other, like a boy with two apples; while
the calf nosed along the shore and paid no attention to the canoe,
which he saw perfectly but which his mother did not see. After
watching them a few minutes I edged across to the opposite bank and
drifted down to see if it were possible to pass without disturbing
them. The calf was busy with something on the bank, the mother deep in
the water-grass as I drifted by, sitting low in the canoe. She saw me
when abreast of her, and after watching me a moment in astonishment
turned again to her feeding. Then I turned the canoe slowly and lay to
leeward of them, within ten yards, watching every significant motion.
The calf was nearer to me now, and the mother by a silent command
brought him back and put him on the side away from me; but the little
fellow's curiosity was aroused by the prohibition, and he kept peeking
under his mother's belly, or twisting his head around over her hocks,
to see who I was and what I was doing. But there was no fear manifest,
and I backed away slowly at last and left them feeding just where I
had found them.
In curious contrast was the next meeting. It was on the little beaver
stream below Hay Lake, a spot as wild as any dream of Doré, and a
famous feeding-ground for moose and deer. I was fishing for trout when
a mother moose came up-stream among the bilberry and alder bushes. I
had stopped casting and sat low in my canoe, and she did not see me
until abreast of me, within twenty feet. Then she swung her huge head
carelessly in my direction, and went on as if I were of no more
account than one of the beaver houses on the shore. Ten steps behind
her came a calf. The leaves had scarcely closed on her flanks when he
put his head out of the bushes and came plump upon me. With a squeal
and a jump like a startled deer he plunged away through the bushes,
and I heard the mother swing round in a crashing circle to find him
and to know what had frightened him. Ten minutes later, as I sat very
still in the same spot, a huge head was thrust out of the bushes where
the calf had disappeared. Below it, pressing close against his
mother's side, was the head of the little one, looking out again at
the thing that had frightened him. He had brought her back to see, and
was now plainly asking _What is it, mother? what is it?_ though there
was never a sound uttered. And there they stayed for a full minute,
while none of us moved a muscle, before they drew back silently and
disappeared, leaving only a double line of waving, quivering bush
tops, like the trail of a huge snake, to tell me where they had gone.
On the same stream I got the famous bull of the expedition. I was
paddling along silently when I turned a bend, and a huge dark bulk
loomed suddenly out of the water dead ahead of the canoe. In front of
the dark bulk two great antlers, the biggest I ever saw in Maine,
reached up and out. The rest of his head was under water groping for
lily roots, and my first exultant thought was that one might drive the
canoe between the tips of those great antlers without touching them,
so big and wide were they. Instead I sent the canoe swiftly forward
till his head began to come up, when I crouched low and watched him,
so near that every changing expression of his huge face and keen
little eyes was seen perfectly without my glasses. He saw me instantly
and dropped the root he had pulled up, and his lower jaw remained
hanging in his intense wonder. Not so much who I was, but how on earth
I got there so silently seemed to be the cause of his wonder. He took
a slow step or two in my direction, his ears set forward stiffly
and his eyes shining as he watched me keenly for the slightest motion.
Then he waded out leisurely, climbed the bank, which was here steep,
and disappeared in the woods. As he vanished I followed him, close
behind, and watched his way of carrying his huge antlers and lifting
his legs with a high step, like a Shanghai rooster, over the
windfalls. Of all the moose that I have ever followed, this was the
only one whose head seemed too heavy for comfort. He carried it low,
and nursed his wide antlers tenderly among the tree trunks and alder
stems. They were still in the velvet, and no doubt the rude scraping
of the rough branches made him wince unless he went softly. At last,
finding that I was close at his heels, he turned for another look at
me; but I slipped behind a friendly tree until I heard him move on,
when I followed him again. Some suspicion of the thing that was on his
trail, or it may be some faint eddy of air with the danger smell in
it, reached him then; he laid his great antlers back on his shoulders,
moose fashion, and lunged away at a terrific pace through the woods.
I could fancy his teeth gritting and his eyes at squint as some
snapping branch whacked his sensitive antlers and made him grunt with
the pain of it. But the fear behind was all-compelling, and in a
moment I had lost him in the shadow and silence of the big woods.
[Illustration: "Lunged away at a terrific pace"]
It was that same night, I think,--for my notes make no change of time
or place,--that I had another bit of this hunting which fills one's
soul with peace and gives him a curious sense of understanding the
thoughts and motives of the Wood Folk. I was gliding along in my canoe
in the late twilight over still water, in the shadow of the wild high
meadow-grass, when a low quacking and talking of wild ducks came to my
ears. I pushed the canoe silently into the first open bogan in the
direction of the sounds till I was so near that I dared not go another
foot, when I rose up cautiously and peered over the grass tops. There
were perhaps thirty or forty of the splendid birds--four or five
broods at least, and each brood led by its careful mother--that had
gathered here for the first time from the surrounding ponds where
they had been hatched. For two or three days past I had noticed the
young broods flying about, exercising their wings in preparation for
the long autumn flights. Now they were all gathered on a dry mud-flat
surrounded by tall grass, playing together and evidently getting
acquainted. In the middle of the flat were two or three tussocks on
which the grass had been trampled and torn down. There was always a
duck on each of these tussocks, and below him were four or five more
that were plainly trying to get up; but the top was small and had room
for but one, and there was a deal of quacking and good-natured
scrambling for the place of vantage. It was a game, plainly enough,
for while the birds below were trying to get up the little fellow on
top was doing his best to keep them down. Other birds scampered in
pairs from one side of the flat to the other; and there was one
curious procession, or race,--five or six birds that started abreast
and very slowly, and ended with a rush and a headlong dive into the
grasses of the opposite shore. Here and there about the edges of the
playground an old mother bird sat on a tussock and looked down on the
wild unconscious play, wiggling her tail in satisfaction and anon
stretching her neck to look and listen watchfully. The voices of the
playing birds were curiously low and subdued, reminding me strongly of
some Indian children that I had once seen playing. At times the
quacking had a faint ventriloquous effect, seeming to come from far
away, and again it ceased absolutely at a sign from some watchful
mother, though the play went steadily on, as if even in their play
they must be mindful of the enemies that were watching and listening
everywhere to catch them.
As I rose a bit higher to see some birds that were very near me but
screened by the meadow-grass, my foot touched a paddle and rattled it
slightly. A single quack, different from all others, followed
instantly, and every bird stopped just where he was and stretched his
neck high to listen. One mother bird saw me, though I could not tell
which one it was until she slipped down from her bog and waddled
bravely across in my direction. Then a curious thing happened, which I
have often seen and wondered at among gregarious birds and animals. A
signal was given, but without any sound that my ears could detect in
the intense twilight stillness. It was as if a sudden impulse had been
sent out like an electric shock to every bird in the large flock. At
the same instant every duck crouched and sprang; the wings struck down
sharply; the flock rose together as if flung up from a pigeon trap,
and disappeared with a rush of wings and a hoarse tumult of quacking
that told every creature on the great marsh that danger was afoot.
Wings flapped loudly here and there; bitterns squawked; herons
croaked; a spike buck whistled and jumped close at hand; a passing
musquash went down with a slap of his tail and a plunge like a falling
rock. Then silence settled over the marsh again, and there was not a
sound to tell what Wood Folk were abroad in the still night, nor what
business or pleasure occupied them.
Formerly caribou might be found on these same waterways, and they are
the most curious and interesting game that can be hunted without a
gun; but years ago a grub destroyed all the larches on which the
wandering woodland caribou depend largely for food. The deer, which
are already as many as the country can support in winter, take care of
the rest of the good browse, so that there was nothing left for the
caribou but to cross over the line into New Brunswick, where larches
are plenty and where there is an abundance of the barren moss that can
be dug up out of the snow. Better still, if one is after caribou, is
the great wilderness of northern Newfoundland, where the caribou spend
the summer and where from a mountain top one may count hundreds of
the splendid animals scattered over the country below in every
direction. And hunting them so, with the object of finding out the
secrets of their curious lives,--why, for instance, each herd often
chooses its own burying-ground, or why a bull caribou loves to pound a
hollow stump for hours at a time,--this is, to my mind, infinitely
better sport than the hunt for a head where one waylays them on their
paths of migration, the paths that have been sacred for untold
generations, and shoots them down as they pass like tame cattle.
To the hunter without a gun there is no close season on any game, and
a doe and her fawns are better hunting than a ten-point buck. By land
or water he is always ready; there are no labors for effects, except
what he chooses to impose upon himself; no disappointments are
possible, for whether his game be still or on the jump, shy as a
wilderness raven or full of curiosity as a blue jay, he always finds
something to stow away in his heart in the place where he keeps things
that he loves to remember. All is fish that comes into his net, and
everything is game that catches the glance of his eye in earth or air
or water. Now it is the water-spiders--skaters the boys call
them--that play a curious game among the grass stems, and that have
more wonderful habits than the common balloon spiders which sometimes
turned Jonathan Edwards' thoughts from the stern, unlovable God of his
theology to the patient, care-taking Servant of the universe that some
call Force, and others Law, and that one who knew Him called The
Father, alike among the lilies of the field and in the cities of men.
Now it is an otter and her cubs playing on the surface, that sink when
they see you and suddenly come up near your canoe, like a log shot up
on end, and with half their bodies out of water to see better say
_w-h-e-e-e-yew!_ like a baby seal to express their wonder at such a
queer thing in the water. Now it is a mother loon taking her young on
her back as they leave the eggs, and carrying them around the lake
awhile to dry them thoroughly in the sun before she dives from under
them and wets them for the first time; and you must follow a long
while before you find out why. Now it is a bear and her cubs--I
watched three of them for an hour or more, one afternoon, as they
gathered blueberries. At first they champed them from the bushes,
stems, leaves and all, just as they grew. Again, when they found a
good bush, a little one with lots of berries, they would bite it off
close to the ground, or tear it up by the roots, and then taking it by
the stem with both paws would pull it through their mouths from one
side to the other, stripping off every berry and throwing the useless
bush away. Again they would strike the bushes with their paws,
knocking off a shower of the ripest berries, and then scrape them all
together very carefully into a pile and gobble them down at a single
mouthful. And whenever, in wandering about after a good bush, one of
the cubs spied the other busy at an unusually good find, it gave one a
curious remembrance of his own boyhood to see the little fellow rush
up whimpering to get his share before all the bushes should be
stripped clean.
That was good hunting. It made one glad to let even this rare prowler
of the woods go in peace. And that suggests the very best thing that
can be said for the hunter without a gun:--"The wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for him," for something of the gentle
spirit of Saint Francis comes with him, and when he goes he leaves no
pain nor death nor fear of man behind him.