the high-hole has developed in my vicinity, one which I have never
noticed or heard of elsewhere. It drills into buildings and steeples
and telegraph poles, and in some instances makes itself a serious
nuisance. One season the large imitation Greek columns of an unoccupied
old-fashioned summer residence near me were badly marred by them. The
bird bored into one column, and finding the cavity—a foot or more
across—not just what it was looking for, cut into another one, and
still into another. Then he bored into the ice-house on the premises,
and in the sawdust filling between the outer and inner sheathing found
a place to his liking. One bird seemed like a monomaniac, and drilled
holes up and down and right and left as if possessed of an evil spirit.
It is quite probable that if a high-hole or other woodpecker should go
crazy, it would take to just this sort of thing, drilling into seasoned
timber till it used its strength up. The one I refer to would cut
through a dry hemlock board in a very short time, making the slivers
fly. The sound was like that of a carpenter's hammer. It may have been
that he was an unmated bird, a bachelor whose suit had not prospered
that season, and who was giving vent to his outraged instincts in
drilling these mock nesting-places.
XVII
THE WAYS OF SPORTSMEN
I have often had occasion to notice how much more intelligence the bird
carries in its eye than does the animal or quadruped. The animal will
see you, too, if you are moving, but if you stand quite still even the
wary fox will pass within a few yards of you and not know you from a
stump, unless the wind brings him your scent. But a crow or a hawk
will discern you when you think yourself quite hidden. His eye is as
keen as the fox's sense of smell, and seems fairly to penetrate veils
and screens. Most of the water-fowl are equally sharp-eyed. The chief
reliance of the animals for their safety, as well as for their food,
is upon the keenness of their scent, while the fowls of the air depend
mainly upon the eye.
A hunter out in Missouri relates how closely a deer approached him one
day in the woods. The hunter was standing on the top of a log, about
four feet from the ground, when the deer bounded playfully into a glade
in the forest, a couple of hundred yards away. The animal began to feed
and to move slowly toward the hunter. He was on the alert, but did
not see or scent his enemy. He never took a bite of grass, says the
sportsman, without first putting his nose to it, and then instantly
raising his head and looking about.
In about ten minutes the deer had approached within fifty yards of
the gunner; then the murderous instinct of the latter began to assert
itself. His gun was loaded with fine shot, but he dared not make a move
to change his shells lest the deer see him. He had one shell loaded
with No. 4 shot in his pocket. Oh! if he could only get that shell into
his gun.
The unsuspecting deer kept approaching; presently he passed behind
a big tree, and his head was for a moment hidden. The hunter sprang
to his work; he took one of the No. 8 shells out of his gun, got his
hand into his pocket, and grasped the No. 4. Then the shining eyes of
the deer were in view again. The hunter stood in this attitude five
minutes. How we wish he had been compelled to stand for five hundred!
Then another tree shut off the buck's gaze for a moment; in went the
No. 4 shell into the barrel and the gun was closed quickly, but there
was no time to bring it to the shoulder. The animal was now only thirty
yards away. His hair was smooth and glossy, and every movement was full
of grace and beauty. Time after time he seemed to look straight at the
hunter, and once or twice a look of suspicion seemed to cross his face.
The man began to realize how painful it was to stand perfectly still on
the top of a log for fifteen minutes. Every muscle ached and seemed
about to rebel against his will. If the buck held to his course he
would pass not more than fifteen feet to one side of the gun, and the
man that held it thought he might almost blow his heart out.
There was one more tree for him to pass behind, when the gun could be
raised. He approached the tree, rubbed his nose against it, and for a
moment was half hidden behind it. When his head appeared on the other
side the gun was pointed straight at his eye—and with only No. 4 shot,
which could only wound him, but could not kill him.
The deer stops; he does not expose his body back of the fore leg, as
the hunter had wished. The latter begins to be ashamed of himself, and
has about made up his mind to let the beautiful creature pass unharmed,
when the buck suddenly gets his scent, his head goes up, his nostrils
expand, and a look of terror comes over his face. This is too much for
the good resolutions of the hunter. Bang! goes the gun, the deer leaps
into the air, wheels around a couple of times, recovers himself and is
off in a twinkling, no doubt carrying, the narrator says, a hundred
No. 4 shot in his face and neck. The man says: "I've always regretted
shooting at him."
I should think he would. But a man in the woods, with a gun in his
hand, is no longer a man—he is a brute. The devil is in the gun to
make brutes of us all.
If the game on this occasion had been, say a wild turkey or a grouse,
its discriminating eye would have figured out the hunter there on that
log very quickly. This manly exploit of the Western hunter reminds me
of an exploit of a Brooklyn man, who last winter killed a bull moose in
Maine. It was a more sportsmanlike proceeding, but my sympathies were
entirely with the moose. The hero tells his story in a New York paper.
With his guides, all armed with Winchester rifles, he penetrated far
into the wilderness till he found a moose yard. It was near the top of
a mountain. They started one of the animals and then took up its trail.
As soon as the moose found it was being followed, it led right off in
hopes of outwalking its enemies. But they had snow-shoes and he did
not; they had food and he did not. On they went, pursued and pursuers,
through the snow-clogged wilderness, day after day. The moose led them
the most difficult route he could find.
At night the men would make camp, build a fire, eat and smoke, and
roll themselves in their blankets and sleep. In the morning they would
soon come up to the camping-place of the poor moose, where the imprint
of his great body showed in the snow, and where he had passed a cold,
supperless night.
On the fifth day the moose began to show signs of fatigue; he rested
often, he also tried to get around and behind his pursuers and let them
pass on. Think how inadequate his wit was to cope with the problem—he
thought they would pass by him if he went to one side.
On the morning of the sixth day he had made up his mind to travel no
farther, but to face his enemies and have it out with them. As he heard
them approach, he rose up from his couch of snow, mane erect, his look
fierce and determined. Poor creature, he did not know how unequal the
contest was. How I wish he could at that moment have had a Winchester
rifle, too, and had known how to use it. There would have been fair
play then. With such weapons as God had given him he had determined to
meet the foe, and if they had had only such weapons as God had given
them, he would have been safe. But they had weapons which the devil
had given them, and their deadly bullets soon cut him down, and now
probably his noble antlers decorate the hall of his murderer.
XVIII
TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS
I
To teach young people or old people how to observe nature is a good
deal like trying to teach them how to eat their dinner. The first
thing necessary in the latter case is a good appetite; this given,
the rest follows very easily. And in observing nature, unless you
have the appetite, the love, the spontaneous desire, you will get
little satisfaction. It is the heart that sees more than the mind. To
love Nature is the first step in observing her. If a boy had to learn
fishing as a task, what slow progress he would make; but as his heart
is in it, how soon he becomes an adept.
The eye sees quickly and easily those things in which we are
interested. A man interested in horses sees every fine horse in the
country he passes through; the dairyman notes the cattle; the bee
culturist counts the skips of bees; the sheep-grower notes the flocks,
etc. Is it any effort for the ladies to note the new bonnets and the
new cloaks upon the street? We all see and observe easily in the line
of our business, our tasks, our desires.
If one is a lover of the birds, he sees birds everywhere, plenty of
them. I think I seldom miss a bird in my walk if he is within eye or
ear shot, even though my mind be not intent upon that subject. Walking
along the road this very day, feeling a cold, driving snow-storm, I
saw some large birds in the top of a maple as I passed by. I do not
know how I came to see them, for I was not in an ornithological frame
of mind. But I did. There were three of them feeding upon the buds of
the maple. They were nearly as large as robins, of a dark ash-color,
very plump, with tails much forked. What were they? My neighbor did
not know; had never seen such birds before. I instantly knew them to
be pine grosbeaks from the far north. I had not seen them before for
ten years. A few days previously I had heard one call from the air as
it passed over; I recognized the note, and hence knew that the birds
were about. They come down from the north at irregular intervals,
and are seen in flocks in various parts of the States. They seem
just as likely to come mild winters as severe ones. Later in the day
the birds came about my study. I sat reading with my back to the
window when I was advised of their presence by catching a glimpse
of one reflected in my eye-glasses as it flew up from the ground to
the branch of an apple-tree only a few feet away. I only mention the
circumstance to show how quick an observer is to take the hint. I was
absorbed in my reading, but the moment that little shadow flitted
athwart that luminous reflection of the window in the corner of my
glasses, something said "that was a bird." Approaching the window, I
saw several of them sitting not five feet away. I could inspect them
perfectly. They were a slate-color, with a tinge of bronze upon the
head and rump. In full plumage the old males are a dusky red. Hence
these were all either young males or females. Occasionally among these
flocks an old male may be seen. It would seem as if only a very few
of the older and wiser birds accompanied these younger birds in their
excursions into more southern climes.
Presently the birds left the apple-bough that nearly brushed my window,
and, with a dozen or more of their fellows that I had not seen, settled
in a Norway spruce a few yards away, and began to feed upon the buds.
They looked very pretty there amid the driving snow. I was flattered
that these visitants from the far north should find entertainment on
my premises. How plump, contented, and entirely at home they looked.
But they made such havoc with the spruce buds that after a while I
began to fear not a bud would be left upon the trees; the spruces would
be checked in their growth the next year. So I presently went out to
remonstrate with them and ask them to move on. I approached them very
slowly, and when beside the tree within a few feet of several of them,
they heeded me not. One bird kept its position and went on snipping
off the buds till I raised my hand ready to seize it, before it moved
a yard or two higher up. I think it was only my white, uncovered hand
that disturbed it. Indeed,
"They were so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness was shocking to me."
The snow was covered with the yellow chaffy scales of the buds and
still the birds sifted them down, till I was compelled to "shoo" them
away, when they moved to a tree nearer the house beneath which they
left more yellow chaff upon the snow.
The mind of an observer is like a gun with a hair trigger—it goes at a
touch, while the minds of most persons require very vigorous nudging.
You must take the hint and take it quickly if you would get up any
profitable intimacy with nature. Above all, don't jump to conclusions;
look again and again; verify your observations. Be sure the crow is
pulling corn, and not probing for grubs, before you kill him. Be sure
it is the oriole purloining your grapes, and not the sparrows, before
you declare him your enemy. I one day saw hummingbirds apparently
probing the ripe yellow cheeks of my finest peaches, but I was not
certain till I saw a bird hovering over a particular peach, and then
mounting upon a ladder I examined it, when sure enough, the golden
cheek was full of pin-holes. The orioles destroy many of my earliest
pears, but it required much watching to catch them in the very act. I
once saw a phœbe-bird swoop down upon a raspberry bush and carry a
berry to a rail on a near fence, but I did not therefore jump to the
conclusion that the phœbe was a berry-eater. What it wanted was the
worm in the berry. How do I know? Because I saw it extract something
from the berry and fly away.
A French missionary, said to have been a good naturalist, writing
in this country in 1634, makes this curious statement about our
hummingbird: "This bird, as one might say, dies, or, to speak more
correctly, puts itself to sleep in the month of October, living
fastened to some little branchlet of a tree by the feet, and wakes
up in the month of April when the flowers are in abundance, and
sometimes later, and for that cause is called in the Mexican tongue the
'Revived.'" How could the good missionary ever have been led to make
such a statement? The actual finding of the bird wintering in that way
would have been the proof science demands, and nothing short of that.
A boy in the interior of the State wrote to me the other day that while
in the field looking after Indian arrow-heads he had seen a brown and
gray bird with a black mark running through the eye, and that the bird
walked instead of hopped. He said it had a high, shrill whistle and
flew like a meadowlark. This boy is a natural observer; he noted that
the bird was a walker. Most of the birds hop or jump, keeping both feet
together. This boy heard his bird afterward in the edge of the evening,
and "followed it quite a ways, but could not get a glimpse of it." He
had failed to note the crest on its head and the black spot on its
breast, for doubtless his strange bird was the shore lark, a northern
bird, that comes to us in flocks in the late fall or early winter, and
in recent years has become a permanent resident of certain parts of New
York State. I have heard it in full song above the hills in Delaware
County, after the manner of the English skylark, but its song was a
crude, feeble, broken affair compared with that of the skylark. These
birds thrive well in confinement. I had one seven months in a cage
while living in Washington. It was disabled in the wing by a gunner,
who brought it to me. Its wound soon healed; it took food readily; it
soon became tame, and was an object of much interest and amusement.
The cage in which I had hastily put it was formerly a case filled with
stuffed birds. Its front was glass. As it was left out upon the porch
over night, a strange cat discovered the bird through this glass, and
through the glass she plunged and captured the bird. In the morning
there was the large hole in this glass, and the pretty lark was gone. I
have always indulged a faint hope that the glass was such a surprise to
the cat, and made such a racket about her eyes and ears as she sprang
against it, that she beat a hasty retreat, and that the bird escaped
through the break.
II
In May two boys in town wrote to me to explain to them the meaning of
the egg-shells, mostly those of robins, that were to be seen lying
about on the ground here and there. I supposed every boy knew where
most of these egg-shells came from. As soon as the young birds are out,
the mother bird removes the fragments of shells from the nest, carrying
them in her beak some distance, and dropping them here and there. All
our song-birds, so far as I know, do this.
Sometimes, however, these shells are dropped by blue jays after their
contents have been swallowed. The jay will seize a robin's egg by
thrusting his beak into it, and hurry off lest he be caught in the act
by the owner. At a safe distance he will devour the contents at his
leisure, and drop the shell.
The robins, however, have more than once caught the jay in the act.
He has the reputation among them of being a sneak thief. Many and
many a time during the nesting season you may see a lot of robins mob
a jay. The jay comes slyly prowling through the trees, looking for
his favorite morsel, when he is discovered by a vigilant robin, who
instantly rushes at him crying, "Thief! thief!" at the top of his
voice. All the robins that have nests within hearing gather to the spot
and join in the pursuit of the jay, screaming and scolding.
The jay is hustled out of the tree in a hurry, and goes sneaking away
with the robins at his heels. He is usually silent, like other thieves,
but sometimes the birds make it so hot for him that he screams in anger
and disgust.
Of the smaller birds, like the vireos and warblers, the jay will devour
the young. My little boy one day saw a jay sitting beside a nest in a
tree, probably that of the red-eyed vireo, and coolly swallowing the
just hatched young, while the parent birds were powerless to prevent
him. They flew at him and snapped their beaks in his face, but he
heeded them not. A robin would have knocked him off his feet at her
first dive.
One is sometimes puzzled by seeing a punctured egg lying upon the
ground. One day I came near stepping upon one that was lying in the
path that leads to the spring—a fresh egg with a little hole in it
carefully placed upon the gravel. I suspected it to be the work of the
cowbird, and a few days later I had convincing proof that the cowbird
is up to this sort of thing. I was sitting in my summer house with a
book, when I had a glimpse of a bird darting quickly down from the
branches of the maple just above me toward the vineyard, with something
in its beak. Following up my first glance with more deliberate
scrutiny, I saw a female cowbird alight upon the ground and carefully
deposit some small object there, and then, moving a few inches away,
remain quite motionless. Without taking my eyes from the spot, I walked
straight down there. The bird flew away, and I found the object she
had dropped to be a little speckled bird's egg still warm. I saw that
it was the egg of the red-eyed vireo. It was punctured with two holes
where the bird had seized it; otherwise it had been very carefully
handled. For some days I had been convinced that a pair of vireos had a
nest in my maple, but much scrutiny had failed to reveal it to me.
Only a few moments before the cowbird appeared I had seen the happy
pair leave the tree together, flying to a clump of trees lower down the
slope of the hill. The female had evidently just deposited her egg,
the cowbird had probably been watching near by, and had seized it the
moment the nest was vacated. Her plan was of course to deposit one of
her own in its place.
I now made a more thorough search for the nest, and soon found it,
but it was beyond my reach on an outer branch, and whether or not the
cowbird dropped one of her own eggs in place of the one she had removed
I do not know. Certain am I that the vireos soon abandoned the nest,
though they do not always do this when hoodwinked in this way.
I once met a gentleman on the train who told me about a brood of quails
that had hatched out under his observation. He was convinced that the
mother quail had broken the shells for the young birds. He sent me one
of the shells to convince me that it had been broken from the outside.
At first glance it did appear so. It had been cut around near the large
end, with the exception of a small space, as if by regular thrusts or
taps from a bird's beak, so that this end opened like the lid of a box
on a hinge, and let the imprisoned bird escape. What convinced the
gentleman that the force had been applied from the outside was that the
edges of the cut or break were bent in.
If we wish rightly to interpret nature, to get at the exact truth of
her ways and doings, we must cultivate what is called the critical
habit of mind; that is, the habit of mind that does not rest with mere
appearances. One must sift the evidence, must cross-question the facts.
This gentleman was a lawyer, but he laid aside the cunning of his
craft in dealing with this question of these egg-shells.
The bending in, or the indented appearance of the edge of the shells
was owing to the fact that the thin paper-like skin that lines the
interior of the shell had dried and shrunken, and had thus drawn the
edges of the shell inward. The cut was made by the beak of the young
bird, probably by turning its head from right to left; one little point
it could not reach, and this formed the hinge of the lid I have spoken
of. Is it at all probable that if the mother bird had done this work
she would have left this hinge, and left it upon every egg, since the
hinge was of no use? The complete removal of the cap would have been
just as well.
Neither is it true that the parent bird shoves its young from the nest
when they are ready to fly, unless it be in the case of doves and
pigeons. Our small birds certainly do not do this. The young birds will
launch out of their own motion as soon as their wings will sustain
them, and sometimes before. There is usually one of the brood a little
more forward than its mates, and this one is the first to venture
forth. In the case of the bluebird, chickadee, high-hole, nuthatch, and
others, the young are usually a day or two in leaving the nest.
The past season I was much interested in seeing a brood of chickadees,
reared on my premises, venture upon their first flight. Their heads
had been seen at the door of their dwelling—a cavity in the limb of a
pear-tree—at intervals for two or three days. Evidently they liked
the looks of the great outside world; and one evening, just before
sundown, one of them came forth. His first flight was of several yards
to a locust, where he alighted upon an inner branch, and after some
chirping and calling proceeded to arrange his plumage and compose
himself for the night. I watched him till it was nearly dark. He did
not appear at all afraid there alone in the tree, but put his head
under his wing and settled down for the night as if it were just what
he had always been doing. There was a heavy shower a few hours later,
but in the morning he was there upon his perch in good spirits.
I happened to be passing in the morning when another one came out. He
hopped out upon a limb, shook himself, and chirped and called loudly.
After some moments an idea seemed to strike him. His attitude changed,
his form straightened up, and a thrill of excitement seemed to run
through him. I knew what it all meant; something had whispered to the
bird, "Fly!" With a spring and a cry he was in the air, and made good
headway to a near hemlock. Others left in a similar manner during that
day and the next, till all were out.
Some birds seem to scatter as soon as they are out of the nest. With
others the family keeps together the greater part of the season. Among
birds that have this latter trait may be named the chickadee, the
bluebird, the blue jay, the nuthatch, the kingbird, the phœbe-bird,
and others of the true flycatchers.
One frequently sees the young of the phœbe sitting in a row upon a
limb, while the parents feed them in regular order. Twice I have come
upon a brood of young but fully fledged screech owls in a dense hemlock
wood, sitting close together upon a low branch. They stood there like a
row of mummies, the yellow curtains of their eyes drawn together to a
mere crack, till they saw themselves discovered. Then they all changed
their attitudes as if an electric current had passed through the branch
upon which they sat. Leaning this way and that, they stared at me like
frightened cats till the mother took flight, when the young followed.
The family of chickadees above referred to kept in the trees about my
place for two or three weeks. They hunted the same feeding-ground over
and over, and always seemed to find an abundance. The parent birds did
the hunting, the young did the calling and the eating. At any hour in
the day you could find the troop slowly making their way over some part
of their territory.