balsam boughs against the night. Plenty of small balsams grew all
about, and we soon had a huge pile of their branches in the old hut.
What a transformation, this fresh green carpet and our fragrant bed,
like the deep-furred robe of some huge animal wrought in that dingy
interior! Two or three things disturbed our sleep. A cup of strong
beef-tea taken for supper disturbed mine; then the porcupines kept
up such a grunting and chattering near our heads, just on the other
side of the log, that sleep was difficult. In my wakeful mood I was
a good deal annoyed by a little rabbit that kept whipping in at our
dilapidated door and nibbling at our bread and hardtack. He persisted
even after the gray of the morning appeared. Then about four o'clock
it began gently to rain. I think I heard the first drop that fell. My
companions were all in sound sleep. The rain increased, and gradually
the sleepers awoke. It was like the tread of an advancing enemy which
every ear had been expecting. The roof over us was of the poorest, and
we had no confidence in it. It was made of the thin bark of spruce
and balsam, and was full of hollows and depressions. Presently these
hollows got full of water, when there was a simultaneous downpour of
bigger and lesser rills upon the sleepers beneath. Said sleepers, as
one man, sprang up, each taking his blanket with him; but by the time
some of the party had got themselves stowed away under the adjacent
rock, the rain ceased. It was little more than the dissolving of
the nightcap of fog which so often hangs about these heights. With
the first appearance of the dawn I had heard the new thrush in the
scattered trees near the hut,—a strain as fine as if blown upon a
fairy flute, a suppressed musical whisper from out the tops of the
dark spruces. Probably never did there go up from the top of a great
mountain a smaller song to greet the day, albeit it was of the purest
harmony. It seemed to have in a more marked degree the quality of
interior reverberation than any other thrush song I had ever heard.
Would the altitude or the situation account for its minor key?
Loudness would avail little in such a place. Sounds are not far heard
on a mountain-top; they are lost in the abyss of vacant air. But amid
these low, dense, dark spruces, which make a sort of canopied privacy
of every square rod of ground, what could be more in keeping than this
delicate musical whisper? It was but the soft hum of the balsams,
interpreted and embodied in a bird's voice.
It was the plan of two of our companions to go from Slide over into
the head of the Rondout, and thence out to the railroad at the little
village of Shokan, an unknown way to them, involving nearly an all-day
pull the first day through a pathless wilderness. We ascended to the
topmost floor of the tower, and from my knowledge of the topography of
the country I pointed out to them their course, and where the valley
of the Rondout must lie. The vast stretch of woods, when it came into
view from under the foot of Slide, seemed from our point of view very
uniform. It swept away to the southeast, rising gently toward the
ridge that separates Lone Mountain from Peak-o'-Moose, and presented a
comparatively easy problem. As a clue to the course, the line where the
dark belt or saddle-cloth of spruce, which covered the top of the ridge
they were to skirt, ended, and the deciduous woods began, a sharp,
well-defined line was pointed out as the course to be followed. It led
straight to the top of the broad level-backed ridge which connected two
higher peaks, and immediately behind which lay the headwaters of the
Rondout. Having studied the map thoroughly, and possessed themselves
of the points, they rolled up their blankets about nine o'clock, and
were off, my friend and myself purposing to spend yet another day and
night on Slide. As our friends plunged down into that fearful abyss,
we shouted to them the old classic caution, "Be bold, be bold, _be not
too_ bold." It required courage to make such a leap into the unknown,
as I knew those young men were making, and it required prudence. A
faint heart or a bewildered head, and serious consequences might have
resulted. The theory of a thing is so much easier than the practice!
The theory is in the air, the practice is in the woods; the eye, the
thought, travel easily where the foot halts and stumbles. However, our
friends made the theory and the fact coincide; they kept the dividing
line between the spruce and the birches, and passed over the ridge
into the valley safely; but they were torn and bruised and wet by the
showers, and made the last few miles of their journey on will and pluck
alone, their last pound of positive strength having been exhausted in
making the descent through the chaos of rocks and logs into the head of
the valley. In such emergencies one overdraws his account; he travels
on the credit of the strength he expects to gain when he gets his
dinner and some sleep. Unless one has made such a trip himself (and I
have several times in my life), he can form but a faint idea what it
is like,—what a trial it is to the body, and what a trial it is to
the mind. You are fighting a battle with an enemy in ambush. How those
miles and leagues which your feet must compass lie hidden there in
that wilderness; how they seem to multiply themselves; how they are
fortified with logs, and rocks, and fallen trees; how they take refuge
in deep gullies, and skulk behind unexpected eminences! Your body not
only feels the fatigue of the battle, your mind feels the strain of the
undertaking; you may miss your mark; the mountains may outmanœuvre
you. All that day, whenever I looked upon that treacherous wilderness,
I thought with misgivings of those two friends groping their way there,
and would have given something to have known how it fared with them.
Their concern was probably less than my own, because they were more
ignorant of what was before them. Then there was just a slight shadow
of a fear in my mind that I might have been in error about some points
of the geography I had pointed out to them. But all was well, and the
victory was won according to the campaign which I had planned. When
we saluted our friends upon their own doorstep a week afterward, the
wounds were nearly all healed and the rents all mended.
When one is on a mountain-top, he spends most of the time in looking at
the show he has been at such pains to see. About every hour we would
ascend the rude lookout to take a fresh observation. With a glass I
could see my native hills forty miles away to the northwest. I was
now upon the back of the horse, yea, upon the highest point of his
shoulders, which had so many times attracted my attention as a boy.
We could look along his balsam-covered back to his rump, from which
the eye glanced away down into the forests of the Neversink, and on
the other hand plump down into the gulf where his head was grazing or
drinking. During the day there was a grand procession of thunder-clouds
filing along over the northern Catskills, and letting down veils of
rain and enveloping them. From such an elevation one has the same view
of the clouds that he does from the prairie or the ocean. They do not
seem to rest across and to be upborne by the hills, but they emerge
out of the dim west, thin and vague, and grow and stand up as they get
nearer and roll by him, on a level but invisible highway, huge chariots
of wind and storm.
In the afternoon a thick cloud threatened us, but it proved to be the
condensation of vapor that announces a cold wave. There was soon a
marked fall in the temperature, and as night drew near it became pretty
certain that we were going to have a cold time of it. The wind rose,
the vapor above us thickened and came nearer, until it began to drive
across the summit in slender wraiths, which curled over the brink and
shut out the view. We became very diligent in getting in our night
wood, and in gathering more boughs to calk up the openings in the hut.
The wood we scraped together was a sorry lot, roots and stumps and
branches of decayed spruce, such as we could collect without an axe,
and some rags and tags of birch bark. The fire was built in one corner
of the shanty, the smoke finding easy egress through large openings on
the east side and in the roof over it. We doubled up the bed, making it
thicker and more nest-like, and as darkness set in, stowed ourselves
into it beneath our blankets. The searching wind found out every
crevice about our heads and shoulders, and it was icy cold. Yet we fell
asleep, and had slept about an hour when my companion sprang up in an
unwonted state of excitement for so placid a man. His excitement was
occasioned by the sudden discovery that what appeared to be a bar of
ice was fast taking the place of his backbone. His teeth chattered, and
he was convulsed with ague. I advised him to replenish the fire, and to
wrap himself in his blanket and cut the liveliest capers he was capable
of in so circumscribed a place. This he promptly did, and the thought
of his wild and desperate dance there in the dim light, his tall form,
his blanket flapping, his teeth chattering, the porcupines outside
marking time with their squeals and grunts, still provokes a smile,
though it was a serious enough matter at the time. After a while, the
warmth came back to him, but he dared not trust himself again to the
boughs; he fought the cold all night as one might fight a besieging
foe. By carefully husbanding the fuel, the beleaguering enemy was kept
at bay till morning came; but when morning did come, even the huge root
he had used as a chair was consumed. Rolled in my blanket beneath a
foot or more of balsam boughs, I had got some fairly good sleep, and
was most of the time oblivious to the melancholy vigil of my friend. As
we had but a few morsels of food left, and had been on rather short
rations the day before, hunger was added to his other discomforts. At
that time a letter was on the way to him from his wife, which contained
this prophetic sentence: "I hope thee is not suffering with cold and
hunger on some lone mountain-top."
Mr. Bicknell's thrush struck up again at the first signs of dawn,
notwithstanding the cold. I could hear his penetrating and melodious
whisper as I lay buried beneath the boughs. Presently I arose and
invited my friend to turn in for a brief nap, while I gathered some
wood and set the coffee brewing. With a brisk, roaring fire on, I left
for the spring to fetch some water, and to make my toilet. The leaves
of the mountain goldenrod, which everywhere covered the ground in the
opening, were covered with frozen particles of vapor, and the scene,
shut in by fog, was chill and dreary enough.
We were now not long in squaring an account with Slide, and making
ready to leave. Round pellets of snow began to fall, and we came
off the mountain on the 10th of June in a November storm and
temperature. Our purpose was to return by the same valley we had come.
A well-defined trail led off the summit to the north; to this we
committed ourselves. In a few minutes we emerged at the head of the
slide that had given the mountain its name. This was the path made by
visitors to the scene; when it ended, the track of the avalanche began;
no bigger than your hand, apparently, had it been at first, but it
rapidly grew, until it became several rods in width. It dropped down
from our feet straight as an arrow until it was lost in the fog, and
looked perilously steep. The dark forms of the spruce were clinging
to the edge of it, as if reaching out to their fellows to save them.
We hesitated on the brink, but finally cautiously began the descent.
The rock was quite naked and slippery, and only on the margin of the
slide were there any boulders to stay the foot, or bushy growths to
aid the hand. As we paused, after some minutes, to select our course,
one of the finest surprises of the trip awaited us: the fog in our
front was swiftly whirled up by the breeze, like the drop-curtain at
the theatre, only much more rapidly, and in a twinkling the vast gulf
opened before us. It was so sudden as to be almost bewildering. The
world opened like a book, and there were the pictures; the spaces were
without a film, the forests and mountains looked surprisingly near;
in the heart of the northern Catskills a wild valley was seen flooded
with sunlight. Then the curtain ran down again, and nothing was left
but the gray strip of rock to which we clung, plunging down into the
obscurity. Down and down we made our way. Then the fog lifted again.
It was Jack and his beanstalk renewed; new wonders, new views, awaited
us every few moments, till at last the whole valley below us stood in
the clear sunshine. We passed down a precipice, and there was a rill of
water, the beginning of the creek that wound through the valley below;
farther on, in a deep depression, lay the remains of an old snow-bank;
Winter had made his last stand here, and April flowers were springing
up almost amid his very bones. We did not find a palace, and a hungry
giant, and a princess, etc., at the end of our beanstalk, but we found
a humble roof and the hospitable heart of Mrs. Larkins, which answered
our purpose better. And we were in the mood, too, to have undertaken an
eating bout with any giant Jack ever discovered.
Of all the retreats I have found amid the Catskills, there is no other
that possesses quite so many charms for me as this valley, wherein
stands Larkins's humble dwelling; it is so wild, so quiet, and has such
superb mountain views. In coming up the valley, you have apparently
reached the head of civilization a mile or more lower down; here the
rude little houses end, and you turn to the left into the woods.
Presently you emerge into a clearing again, and before you rises the
rugged and indented crest of Panther Mountain, and near at hand, on a
low plateau, rises the humble roof of Larkins,—you get a picture of
the Panther and of the homestead at one glance. Above the house hangs a
high, bold cliff covered with forest, with a broad fringe of blackened
and blasted tree-trunks, where the cackling of the great pileated
woodpecker may be heard; on the left a dense forest sweeps up to the
sharp spruce-covered cone of the Wittenberg, nearly four thousand
feet high, while at the head of the valley rises Slide over all. From
a meadow just back of Larkins's barn, a view may be had of all these
mountains, while the terraced side of Cross Mountain bounds the view
immediately to the east. Running from the top of Panther toward Slide
one sees a gigantic wall of rock, crowned with a dark line of fir. The
forest abruptly ends, and in its stead rises the face of this colossal
rocky escarpment, like some barrier built by the mountain gods. Eagles
might nest here. It breaks the monotony of the world of woods very
impressively.
I delight in sitting on a rock in one of these upper fields, and seeing
the sun go down behind Panther. The rapid-flowing brook below me fills
all the valley with a soft murmur. There is no breeze, but the great
atmospheric tide flows slowly in toward the cooling forest; one can see
it by the motes in the air illuminated by the setting sun: presently,
as the air cools a little, the tide turns and flows slowly out. The
long, winding valley up to the foot of Slide, five miles of primitive
woods, how wild and cool it looks, its one voice the murmur of the
creek! On the Wittenberg the sunshine lingers long; now it stands up
like an island in a sea of shadows, then slowly sinks beneath the wave.
The evening call of a robin or a thrush at his vespers makes a marked
impression on the silence and the solitude.
The following day my friend and I pitched our tent in the woods beside
the stream where I had pitched it twice before, and passed several
delightful days, with trout in abundance and wild strawberries at
intervals. Mrs. Larkins's cream-pot, butter-jar, and bread-box were
within easy reach. Near the camp was an unusually large spring, of icy
coldness, which served as our refrigerator. Trout or milk immersed in
this spring in a tin pail would keep sweet four or five days. One night
some creature, probably a lynx or a raccoon, came and lifted the stone
from the pail that held the trout and took out a fine string of them,
and ate them up on the spot, leaving only the string and one head. In
August bears come down to an ancient and now brushy bark-peeling near
by for blackberries. But the creature that most infests these backwoods
is the porcupine. He is as stupid and indifferent as the skunk; his
broad, blunt nose points a witless head. They are great gnawers, and
will gnaw your house down if you do not look out. Of a summer evening
they will walk coolly into your open door if not prevented. The most
annoying animal to the camper-out in this region, and the one he needs
to be most on the lookout for, is the cow. Backwoods cows and young
cattle seem always to be famished for salt, and they will fairly lick
the fisherman's clothes off his back, and his tent and equipage out of
existence, if you give them a chance. On one occasion some wood-ranging
heifers and steers that had been hovering around our camp for some
days made a raid upon it when we were absent. The tent was shut and
everything snugged up, but they ran their long tongues under the tent,
and, tasting something savory, hooked out John Stuart Mill's "Essays on
Religion," which one of us had brought along, thinking to read in the
woods. They mouthed the volume around a good deal, but its logic was
too tough for them, and they contented themselves with devouring the
paper in which it was wrapped. If the cattle had not been surprised at
just that point, it is probable the tent would have gone down before
their eager curiosity and thirst for salt.
The raid which Larkins's dog made upon our camp was amusing rather
than annoying. He was a very friendly and intelligent shepherd dog,
probably a collie. Hardly had we sat down to our first lunch in camp
before he called on us. But as he was disposed to be too friendly, and
to claim too large a share of the lunch, we rather gave him the cold
shoulder. He did not come again; but a few evenings afterward, as we
sauntered over to the house on some trifling errand, the dog suddenly
conceived a bright little project. He seemed to say to himself, on
seeing us, "There come both of them now, just as I have been hoping
they would; now, while they are away, I will run quickly over and know
what they have got that a dog can eat." My companion saw the dog get
up on our arrival, and go quickly in the direction of our camp, and he
said something in the cur's manner suggested to him the object of his
hurried departure. He called my attention to the fact, and we hastened
back. On cautiously nearing camp, the dog was seen amid the pails in
the shallow water of the creek investigating them. He had uncovered the
butter, and was about to taste it, when we shouted, and he made quick
steps for home, with a very "kill-sheep" look. When we again met him
at the house next day he could not look us in the face, but sneaked
off, utterly crestfallen. This was a clear case of reasoning on the
part of the dog, and afterward a clear case of a sense of guilt from
wrong-doing. The dog will probably be a man before any other animal.
III
BIRDS' EGGS
"Admire the bird's egg and leave it in its nest" is a wiser forbearance
than "Love the wood-rose and leave it on its stalk." We will try to
leave these eggs in the nest, and as far as possible show the bird and
the nest with them.
The first egg of spring is undoubtedly a hen's egg. The domestic fowls,
not being compelled to shift for themselves, and having artificial
shelter, are not so mindful of the weather and the seasons as the wild
birds. But the hen of the woods and the hen of the prairie, namely, the
ruffed and the pinnated grouse, do not usually nest till the season is
so far advanced that danger from frost is past.
The first wild egg, in New York and New England, is probably that of
an owl, the great horned owl, it is said, laying as early as March.
They probably shelter their eggs from the frost and the snow before
incubation begins. The little screech owl waits till April, and seeks
the deep snug cavity of an old tree; the heart of a decayed apple-tree
suits him well. Begin your search by the middle of April, and before
the month is past you will find the four white, round eggs resting upon
a little dry grass or a few dry leaves in the bottom of a long cavity.
Owls' eggs are inclined to be spherical. You would expect to see a big,
round-headed, round-eyed creature come out of such an egg.
The passenger pigeon nests before danger from frost is passed; but as
it lays but two eggs, probably in two successive days, the risks from
this source are not great, though occasionally a heavy April snow-storm
breaks them up.
Which is the earliest song-bird's egg? One cannot be quite so certain
here, as he can as to which the first wild flower is, for instance;
but I would take my chances on finding that of the phœbe-bird
first, and finding it before the close of April, unless the season
is very backward. The present season (1883) a pair built their nest
under the eaves of my house, and deposited their eggs, the last
days of the month. Some English sparrows that had been hanging
around, and doubtless watching the phœbes, threw the eggs out and
took possession of the nest. How shrewd and quick to take the hint
these little feathered John Bulls are! With a handful of rattling
pebble-stones I told this couple very plainly that they were not
welcome visitors to my premises. They fled precipitately. The next
morning they appeared again, but were much shyer. Another discharge
of pebbles, and they were off as if bound for the protection of the
British flag, and did not return. I notice wherever I go that these
birds have got a suspicion in their heads that public opinion has
changed with regard to them, and that they are no longer wanted.
The eggs of the phœbe-bird are snow-white, and when, in threading
the gorge of some mountain trout brook, or prowling about some high,
overhanging ledge, one's eye falls upon this mossy structure planted
with such matchless art upon a little shelf of the rocks, with its
complement of five or six pearl-like eggs, he is ready to declare it
the most pleasing nest in all the range of our bird architecture. It
was such a happy thought for the bird to build there, just out of the
reach of all four-footed beasts of prey, sheltered from the storms
and winds, and, by the use of moss and lichens, blending its nest so
perfectly with its surroundings that only the most alert eye can detect
it. An egg upon a rock, and thriving there,—the frailest linked to the
strongest, as if the geology of the granite mountain had been bent into
the service of the bird. I doubt if crows, or jays, or owls ever rob
these nests. Phœbe has outwitted them. They never heard of the bird
that builded its house upon a rock. "Strong is thy dwelling-place, and
thou puttest thy nest in a rock."
The song sparrow sometimes nests in April, but not commonly in our
latitude. Emerson says, in "May-Day:"—
"The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed,
Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves,
Secure the osier yet will hide
Her callow brood in mantling leaves."
But the sparrow usually prefers to wait till the snow-drift is gone.
I have never found the nest of one till long after the last drift had
disappeared from the fields, though a late writer upon New England
birds says the sparrow sometimes lays in April, when snow is yet upon
the ground.
The sparrow is not a beautiful bird except in our affections and
associations, and its eggs are not beautiful as eggs go,—four or five
little freckled spheres, that, like the bird itself, blend well with
the ground upon which they are placed.
The eggs of the "chippie," or social sparrow, are probably the most
beautiful of sparrow eggs, being of a bright bluish green with a ring
of dark purple spots around the larger end.
Generally there is but little relation between the color of the bird
and the color of its egg. For the most part, the eggs of birds that
occupy open, exposed nests are of some tint that harmonizes well with
the surroundings. With the addition of specks of various hue, they are
rendered still less conspicuous. The eggs of the scarlet tanager are
greenish blue, with faint brown or purplish markings. The blackbird
lays a greenish blue egg also, with various markings. Indeed, the
favorite ground tint of the birds that build open nests is a greenish
blue; sometimes the blue predominates, sometimes the green; while the
eggs of birds that build concealed nests, or lay in dark cavities, are
generally white, as is the case with the eggs of all our woodpeckers,
for instance. The eggs of the bluebird are bluish white.
Among the flycatchers, the nest of the phœbe is most concealed, at
least from above, and her eggs are white, while those of nearly all
the other species are more or less tinted and marked. The eggs of the
hummingbird are white, but the diminutiveness of their receptacle is a
sufficient concealment. Another white egg is that of the kingfisher,
deposited upon fish-bones at the end of a hole in the bank eight or
nine feet long. The bank swallow also lays white eggs, as does the
chimney swallow, the white-bellied swallow, and the purple martin. The
eggs of the barn swallow and cliff swallow are more or less speckled.
In England the kingfisher (smaller and much more brilliantly colored
than ours), woodpeckers, the bank swallow, the swift, the wryneck
(related to the woodpecker), and the dipper also lay white eggs.