pretty as that of the goldfinch. The goldfinches stay with us in lorn
flocks and clad in a dull-olive suit throughout the winter. In May the
males begin to put on their bright summer plumage. This is the result
of a kind of superficial moulting. Their feathers are not shed, but
their dusky covering or overalls are cast off. When the process is only
partly completed, the bird has a smutty, unpresentable appearance. But
we seldom see them at such times. They seem to retire from society.
When the change is complete, and the males have got their bright
uniforms of yellow and black, the courting begins. All the goldfinches
of a neighborhood collect together and hold a sort of musical festival.
To the number of many dozens they may be seen in some large tree,
all singing and calling in the most joyous and vivacious manner. The
males sing, and the females chirp and call. Whether there is actual
competition on a trial of musical abilities of the males before the
females or not I do not know. The best of feeling seems to pervade the
company; there is no sign of quarreling or fighting; "all goes merry as
a marriage bell," and the matches seem actually to be made during these
musical picnics. Before May is passed the birds are seen in couples,
and in June housekeeping usually begins. This I call the ideal of
love-making among birds, and is in striking contrast to the squabbles
and jealousies of most of our songsters.
I have known the goldfinches to keep up this musical and love-making
festival through three consecutive days of a cold northeast rain-storm.
Bedraggled, but ardent and happy, the birds were not to be dispersed by
wind or weather.
All the woodpeckers, so far as I have observed, drum up their mates;
the male advertises his wants by hammering upon a dry, resonant
limb, when in due time the female approaches and is duly courted and
won. The drumming of the ruffed grouse is for the same purpose; the
female hears, concludes to take a walk that way, approaches timidly,
is seen and admired, and the match is made. That the male accepts the
first female that offers herself is probable. Among all the birds the
choice, the selection, seems to belong to the female. The males court
promiscuously; the females choose discreetly. The grouse, unlike the
woodpecker, always carries his drum with him, which is his own proud
breast; yet, if undisturbed, he selects some particular log or rock
in the woods from which to sound forth his willingness to wed. What
determines the choice of the female it would be hard to say. Among
song-birds, it is probably the best songster, or the one whose voice
suits her taste best. Among birds of bright plumage, it is probably
the gayest dress; among the drummers, she is doubtless drawn by some
quality of the sound. Our ears and eyes are too coarse to note any
differences in these things, but doubtless the birds themselves note
differences.
Birds show many more human traits than do quadrupeds. That they
actually fall in love admits of no doubt; that there is a period of
courtship, during which the male uses all the arts he is capable of
to win his mate, is equally certain; that there are jealousies and
rivalries, and that the peace of families is often rudely disturbed
by outside males or females is a common observation. The females,
when they come to blows, fight much more spitefully and recklessly
than do the males. One species of bird has been known to care for the
young of another species which had been made orphans. The male turkey
will sometimes cover the eggs of his mate and hatch and rear the brood
alone. Altogether, birds often present some marked resemblances in
their actions to men, when love is the motive.
Mrs. Martin, in her "Home Life on an Ostrich Farm," relates this
curious incident:—
"One undutiful hen—having apparently imbibed advanced
notions—absolutely refused to sit at all, and the poor husband,
determined not to be disappointed of his little family, did all the
work himself, sitting bravely and patiently day and night, though
nearly dead with exhaustion, till the chicks were hatched out. The next
time this pair of birds had a nest, the cock's mind was firmly made up
that he would stand no more nonsense. He fought the hen [kicked her],
giving her so severe a thrashing that she was all but killed, and this
Petruchio-like treatment had the desired effect, for the wife never
again rebelled, but sat submissively."
In the case of another pair of ostriches of which Mrs. Martin tells,
the female was accidentally killed, when the male mourned her loss for
over two years, and would not look at another female. He wandered up
and down, up and down, the length of his camp, utterly disconsolate.
At last he mated again with a most magnificent hen, who ruled him
tyrannically; he became the most hen-pecked, or rather hen-kicked of
husbands.
V
NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE
The best lesson I have had for a long time in the benefits of
contentment, and of the value of one's own nook or corner of the world,
however circumscribed it may be, as a point from which to observe
nature and life, comes to me from a prairie correspondent, an invalid
lady, confined to her room year in and year out, and yet who sees
more and appreciates more than many of us who have the freedom of a
whole continent. Having her permission, why should I not share these
letters with my readers, especially since there are other house-bound
or bed-bound invalids whom they may reach, and who may derive some
cheer or suggestion from them? Words uttered in a popular magazine like
"The Century" are like the vapors that go up from the ground and the
streams: they are sure to be carried far and wide, and to fall again as
rain or dew, and one little knows what thirsty plant or flower they may
reach and nourish. I am thinking of another fine spirit, couch-bound in
one of the northern New England States, who lives in a town that bears
the same name as that in which my Western correspondent resides, and
into whose chamber my slight and desultory papers have also brought
something of the breath of the fields and woods, and who in return has
given me many glimpses of nature through eyes purified by suffering.
Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of
nature in her milder and more familiar forms. The feminine character,
the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness,
etc., are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the
masculine mind.
My Western correspondent sees existence as from an altitude, and sees
where the complements and compensations come in. She lives upon the
prairie, and she says it is as the ocean to her, upon which she is
adrift, and always expects to be, until she reaches the other shore.
Her house is the ship which she never leaves. "What is visible from
my window is the sea, changing only from winter to summer, as the sea
changes from storm to sunshine. But there is one advantage,—messages
can come to me continually from all the wide world."
One summer she wrote she had been hoping to be well enough to renew her
acquaintance with the birds, the flowers, the woods, but instead was
confined to her room more closely than ever.
"It is a disappointment to me, but I decided long ago that the wisest
plan is to make the best of things; to take what is given you, and make
the most of it. To gather up the fragments, that nothing may be lost,
applies to one's life as well as to other things. Though I cannot walk,
I can think and read and write; probably I get my share of pleasure
from sources that well people are apt to neglect. I have learned that
the way to be happy is to keep so busy that thoughts of self are forced
out of sight; and to live for others, not for ourselves.
"Sometimes, when I think over the matter, I am half sorry for well
people, because, you see, I have so much better company than they can
have, for I have so much more time to go all over the world and meet
all the best and wisest people in it. Some of them died long ago to
the most of people, but to me they are just as much alive as they
ever were; they give me their best and wisest thoughts, without the
disagreeable accompaniments others must endure. Other people use their
eyes and ears and pens for me; all I have to do is to sit still and
enjoy the results. Dear friends I have everywhere, though I am unknown
to them; what right have I to wish for more privileges than I have?"
There is philosophy for you,—philosophy which looks fate out of
countenance. It seems that if we only have the fortitude to take the
ills of life cheerfully and say to fortune, "Thy worst is good enough
for me," behold the worst is already repentant and fast changing to the
best. Love softens the heart of the inevitable. The magic phrase which
turns the evil spirits into good angels is, "I am contented." Happiness
is always at one's elbow, it seems, in one disguise or another; all one
has to do is to stop seeking it afar, or stop _seeking_ it at all, and
say to this unwelcome attendant, "Be thou my friend," when, lo! the
mask falls, and the angel is disclosed. Certain rare spirits in this
world have accepted poverty with such love and pride that riches at
once became contemptible.
My correspondent has the gift of observation. In renouncing self, she
has opened the door for many other things to enter. In cultivating the
present moment, she cultivates the present incident. The power to see
things comes of that mental attitude which is directed to the now and
the here: keen, alert perceptions, those faculties that lead the mind
and take the incident as it flies. Most people fail to see things,
because the print is too small for their vision; they read only the
large-lettered events like the newspaper headings, and are apt to miss
a part of these, unless they see in some way their own initials there.
The small type of the lives of bird and beast about her is easily read
by this cheerful invalid. "To understand that the sky is everywhere
blue," says Goethe, "we need not go around the world;" and it would
seem that this woman has got all the good and pleasure there is in
natural history from the pets in her room, and the birds that build
before her window. I had been for a long time trying to determine
whether or not the blue jay hoarded up nuts for winter use, but had not
been able to settle the point. I applied to her, and, sitting by her
window, she discovered that jays do indeed hoard food in a tentative,
childish kind of way, but not with the cunning and provident foresight
of the squirrels and native mice. She saw a jay fly to the ground with
what proved to be a peanut in its beak, and carefully cover it up with
leaves and grass. "The next fall, looking out of my own window, I saw
two jays hiding chestnuts with the same blind instinct. They brought
them from a near tree, and covered them up in the grass, putting but
one in a place. Subsequently, in another locality, I saw jays similarly
employed. It appears to be simply the crow instinct to steal, or to
carry away and hide any superfluous morsel of food." The jays were
really planting chestnuts instead of hoarding them. There was no
possibility of such supplies being available in winter, and in spring
a young tree might spring from each nut. This fact doubtless furnishes
a key to the problem why a forest of pine is usually succeeded by a
forest of oak. The acorns are planted by the jays. Their instinct for
hiding things prompts them to seek the more dark and secluded pine
woods with their booty, and the thick layer of needles furnishes an
admirable material with which to cover the nut. The germ sprouts and
remains a low slender shoot for years, or until the pine woods are cut
away, when it rapidly becomes a tree.
My correspondent thinks the birds possess some of the frailties of
human beings; among other things, ficklemindedness. "I believe they
build nests just for the fun of it, to pass away the time, to have
something to chatter about and dispute over." (I myself have seen a
robin play at nest-building late in October, and have seen two young
bluebirds ensconce themselves in an old thrush's nest in the fall
and appear to amuse themselves like children, while the wind made
the branch sway to and fro.) "Now my wrens' nest is so situated that
nothing can disturb them, and where I can see it at any time. They have
often made a nest and left it. A year ago, during the latter part of
May, they built a nest, and in a few days they kicked everything out
of the box and did the work all over again, repeating the operation
all July, then left the country without accomplishing anything
further. This season they reared one brood, built another nest, and,
I think, laid one or more eggs, idled around a few weeks, and then
went away." (This last was probably a "cock-nest," built by the male
as a roosting-place.) "I have noticed, too, that blue jays build their
apology for a nest, and abandon it for another place in the same tree."
Her jays and wrens do not live together on the most amicable terms.
"I had much amusement while the jay was on the nest, watching the
actions of the wrens, whose nest was under the porch close by the oak.
Perched on a limb over the jay, the male wren sat flirting his tail and
scolding, evidently saying all the insulting things he could think of;
for, after enduring it for some time, the jay would fly off its nest in
a rage, and, with the evident intention of impaling Mr. Wren with his
bill, strike down vengefully and—find his bill fast in the bark, while
his enemy was somewhere else, squeaking in derision. They kept that up
day after day; but the wren is too lively to be caught by a large bird.
"I have never had the opportunity to discover whether there was any
difference in the dispositions of birds of the same species; it would
take a very close and extended observation to determine that; but I
do know there is as much difference between animals as between human
beings in that respect. Horses, cats, dogs, squirrels, all have their
own individuality. I have had five gray squirrels for pets, and even
their features were unlike. Fred and Sally were mates, who were kept
shut up in their cages all the time. Fred was wonderfully brave, would
strut and scold until there was something to be afraid of, then would
crouch down behind Sally and let her defend him, the sneak! He abused
her shamefully, but she never resented it. Being the larger, she could
have whipped him and not half tried; but she probably labored under
the impression, which is shared by some people, that it is a wife's
duty to submit to whatever abuse the husband chooses to inflict. Their
characters reminded me so strongly of some people I have seen that I
used to take Fred out and whip him regularly, as a sort of vicarious
punishment of those who deserved it. Chip was a gentle, pretty
squirrel, fond of being petted, spent most of her time in my pocket or
around my neck, but she died young; probably she was too good to live.
"Dick, lazy and a glutton, also died young, from over-eating. Chuck,
the present pet, has Satan's own temper—very ugly—but so intelligent
that she is the plague of our lives, though at the same time she is
a constant source of amusement. It is impossible to remain long angry
with her, however atrocious her crimes are. We are obliged to let
her run loose through the house, for, when shut up, she squeals and
chatters and rattles her cage so we can't endure it. From one piece
of mischief to another as fast as she can go, she requires constant
watching. She knows what is forbidden very well, for, if I chance to
look at her after she has been up to mischief, she quickly drops down
flat, spreads her tail over her back, looking all the time so very
innocent that she betrays herself. If I go towards her, she springs on
my back, where I cannot reach her to whip her. She never bites _me_,
but if others tease her she is very vicious. When I tease her, she
relieves her feelings by biting any one else who happens to be in the
room; and it is no slight matter being bitten by a squirrel's sharp
teeth. Knowing that the other members of the family are afraid of her,
she amuses herself by putting nuts in their shoes, down their necks, or
in their hair, then standing guard, so that if they remove the nuts she
flies at them.
"Chuck will remember an injury for months, and take revenge whenever
opportunity offers. She claims all the nuts and candy that come into
the house, searching Mr. B——'s pockets _on Sundays_, never on other
days. I don't see how she distinguishes, unless from the fact that he
comes home early on that day. Once, when she caught one of the girls
eating some of her nuts, she flew at her, bit her, and began carrying
off the nuts to hide as fast as she could. For months afterward she
would slip slyly up and bite the girl. She particularly despises my
brother, he teases her so, and gives her no chance to bite; so she gets
even with him by tearing up everything of his she can find,—his books,
his gloves, etc.; and if she can get into the closet where I keep the
soiled clothing, she will select such articles as belong to him, and
tear them up! And she has a wonderful memory; never forgets where
she puts things; people whom she has not seen for several years she
remembers.
"She had the misfortune to have about two inches of her tail cut off,
by being caught in the door, which made it too short to be used for
wiping her face; it would slip out of her hands, making her stamp her
feet and chatter her teeth with anger. By experimenting, she found by
backing up in a corner it was prevented from slipping out of her reach.
Have had her five years; wonder how long their lives usually are? One
of my neighbors got a young squirrel, so young that it required milk;
so they got a small nursing-bottle for it. Until that squirrel was over
a year old, whenever he got hungry he would get his bottle and sit and
hold it up as if he thought that quite the proper way for a squirrel
to obtain his nourishment. It was utterly comical to see him. We have
no black squirrels; a few red ones, and a great many gray ones of
different kinds."
I was much interested in her pet squirrel, and made frequent inquiries
about it. A year later she writes: "My squirrel still lives and rules
the house. She has an enemy that causes her much trouble,—a rat that
comes into the wood-shed. I had noticed that, whenever she went out
there, she investigated the dark corners with care before she ventured
to play, but did not understand it till I chanced to be sitting in the
kitchen door once, as she was digging up a nut she had buried. Just as
she got it up, a great rat sprung on her back; there ensued a trial of
agility and strength to see which should have that nut. Neither seemed
to be angry, for they did not attempt to bite, but raced around the
shed, cuffing each other at every opportunity; sometimes one had the
nut, sometimes the other. I regret to say my squirrel, whenever she
grew tired, took a base advantage of the rat by coming and sitting
at my feet, gnawing the nut, and plainly showing by her motions her
exultation over her foe. Finally the rat became so exasperated that he
forgot prudence, and forced her to climb up on my shoulder.
"In an extract from a London paper I see it asserted that birds and
snakes cannot taste. As to the snakes I cannot say, but I know birds
can taste, from observing my canary when I give him something new to
eat. He will edge up to it carefully, take a bit, back off to meditate;
then, if he decides he likes it, he walks up boldly and eats his fill.
But if there is anything disagreeable in what I offer him, acid, for
instance, there is such a fuss! He scrapes his bill, raises and lowers
the feathers on the top of his head, giving one the impression that he
is making a wry face. He cannot be induced to touch it a second time.
"I have taught him to think I am afraid of him, and how he tyrannizes
over me, chasing me from place to place, pecking and squeaking! He
delights in pulling out my hair. When knitting or crocheting, he tries
to prevent my pulling the yarn by standing on it; when that fails, he
takes hold with his bill and pulls with all his little might."
Some persons have a special gift or quality that enables them to
sustain more intimate relations with wild creatures than others. Women,
as a rule, are ridiculously afraid of cattle and horses turned loose in
a field, but my correspondent, when a young girl, had many a lark with
the prairie colts. "Is it not strange," she says, "that a horse will
rarely hurt a child, or any person that is fond of them? To see a drove
of a hundred or even a hundred and fifty unbroken colts branded and
turned out to grow up was a common occurrence then [in her childhood].
I could go among them, catch them, climb on their backs, and they never
offered to hurt me; they seemed to consider it _fun_. They would come
up and touch me with their noses, and prance off around and around me;
but just let a man come near them, and they were off like the wind."
All her reminiscences of her early life in Iowa, thirty years ago, are
deeply interesting to me. Her parents, a Boston family, moved to that
part of the State in advance of the railroads, making the journey from
the Mississippi in a wagon. "My father had been fortunate enough to
find a farm with a frame house upon it (the houses were mostly log
ones) built by an Englishman whose homesickness had driven him back to
England. It stood upon a slight elevation in the midst of a prairie,
though not a very level one. To the east and to the west of us, about
four miles away, were the woods along the banks of the streams. It was
in the month of June when we came, and the prairie was tinted pink with
wild roses. From early spring till late in the fall the ground used to
be so covered with some kinds of flowers that it had almost as decided
a color as the sky itself, and the air would be fragrant with their
perfume. First it is white with 'dog-toes' [probably an orchid], then
a cold blue from being covered with some kind of light-blue flower;
next come the roses; in July and August it is pink with the 'prairie
pink,' dotted with scarlet lilies; as autumn comes on, it is vivid
with orange-colored flowers. I never knew their names; they have woody
stalks; one kind that grows about a foot high has a feathery spray of
little blossoms [goldenrod?]. There are several kinds of tall ones;
the blossom has yellow leaves and brown velvety centres [cone-flower,
or rudbeckia, probably, now common in the East]. We youngsters used to
gather the gum that exuded from the stalk. Every one was poor in those
days, and no one was ashamed of it. Plenty to eat, such as it was. We
introduced some innovations in that line that shocked the people here.
We used _corn meal_; they said it was only fit for hogs. Worse than
that, we ate 'greens,'—weeds, they called them. It does not seem
possible, but it is a fact, that with all those fertile acres around
them waiting for cultivation, and to be had almost for the asking,
those people (they were mainly Hoosiers) lived on fried salt pork
swimming in fat, and hot biscuit, all the year round; no variety, no
vegetables, no butter saved for winter use, no milk after cold weather
began, for it was too much trouble to milk the cows—_such_ a shiftless
set! And the hogs they raised,—you should have seen them! 'Prairie
sharks' and 'razor-backs' were the local names for them, and either
name fitted them; long noses, long legs, bodies about five inches
thick, and no amount of food would make them fat. They were allowed
to run wild to save the trouble of caring for them, and when the
pork-barrel was empty they _shot_ one.