_TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP_
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A pearly mist shut out the river, the meadows, and every field for
miles. I could not detect the ripple of the outgoing tide, and the
heartiest songster sent no cheerful cry above the wide-spreading and
low-lying cloud; but above all this silent, desolate, and seemingly
deserted outlook there was a wealth of sunshine and a canopy of
deep-blue sky. Here and there, as islands in a boundless sea, were the
leafy tops of a few tall trees, and these, I fancied, were tempting
regions to explore. Travels in a tree-top—surely, here we have a bit of
novelty in this worn-out world.
Unless wholly wedded to the town, it is not cheering to think of the
surrounding country as worn out. It is but little more than two
centuries since the home-seeking folk of other lands came here to trick
or trade with the Indians, wild as the untamed world wherein they dwelt;
and now we look almost in vain for country as Nature fashioned it. Man
may make of a desert a pleasant place, but he also unmakes the forest
and bares the wooded hills until as naked and desolate as the fire-swept
ruins of his own construction. It is but a matter of a few thousand
cart-loads of the hill moved to one side, and the swamp that the farmer
dreads because it yields no dollars is obliterated. He has never
considered its wealth of suggestiveness. “A fig for the flowers and
vermin. I must plant more corn.”
But here and there the tall trees are still standing, and their tops are
an untravelled country. I climbed an oak this cool midsummer morning;
clambered beyond the mists, which were rolling away as I seated myself
far above the ground, safe from intrusion, and resting trustfully on
yielding branches that moved so gently in the passing breeze that I
scarcely perceived their motion.
How much depends upon our point of view! The woodland path may not be
charming if the undergrowth too closely shuts us in. In all we do, we
seek a wider vision than our arm’s length. There may be nothing better
beyond than at our feet, but we never believe it. It is as natural to
ask of the distant as of the future. They are closely akin. Here in the
tree-top my wants were supplied. I was only in the least important sense
cribbed, cabined, and confined.
Wild life, as we call it, is very discriminating, and that part of it
which notices him at all looks upon man as a land animal; one that
gropes about the ground, and awkwardly at that, often stumbling and ever
making more noise than his progress calls for; but when perched in a
tree, as an arboreal creature, he is to be studied anew. So, at least,
thought the crows that very soon discovered my lofty quarters. How they
chattered and scolded! They dashed near, as if with their ebon wings to
cast a spell upon me, and, craning their glossy necks, spoke words of
warning. My indifference was exasperating at first, and then, as I did
not move, they concluded I was asleep, dead, or a dummy, like those in
the corn-fields. The loud expostulations gave place to subdued
chatterings, and they were about to leave without further investigation,
when, by the pressure of my foot, I snapped a dead twig. I will not
attempt description. Perhaps to this day the circumstance is discussed
in corvine circles.
It is difficult to realize the freedom of flight. Twisting and turning
with perfect ease, adapting their bodies to every change of the fitful
wind, these crows did not use their wings with that incessant motion
that we need in using our limbs to walk, but floated, rose and fell, as
if shadows rather than ponderable bodies. Until we can fly, or, rather,
ride in flying-machines, we cannot hope to know much of this flight-life
of birds, and it is the better part of their lives. But it was something
to-day to be with even these crows in the air. Following their erratic
flight from such a point of view, I seemed to be flying. We are given at
times to wonder a great deal about birds, and they have equal reason to
constantly consider us. Who can say what these crows thought of me? All
I can offer to him who would solve the problem is that their curiosity
was unbounded, and this is much if their curiosity and ours are akin. Of
course they talked. Garner need not have gone to Africa to prove that
monkeys talk, and no one can question that crows utter more than mere
alarm-cries.
A word more concerning crows. What so absurd, apparently, as this?
“A single crow betokens sorrow,
Two betoken mirth,
Three predict a funeral,
And four a birth.”
Yet it is a very common saying, being repeated whenever a few, or less
than five, fly over. It is repeated mechanically, of course, and then
forgotten, for no one seems to worry over one or three crows as they do
when a looking-glass breaks or the dropped fork sticks up in the floor.
Seems to worry, and yet I strongly suspect a trace of superstition
lingers in the mind of many a woman. Those who will not sit as one of
thirteen at a table are not dead yet. Can it be that all this weakness
is only more concealed than formerly, but none the less existent?
I watched the departing crows until they were but mere specks in the
sky, and heard, or fancied I heard, their cawing when half a mile away.
It is ever a sweet sound to me. It means so much, recalls a long round
of jolly years; and what matters the quality of a sound if a merry heart
prompts its utterance?
I was not the only occupant of the tree; there were hundreds of other
and more active travellers, who often stopped to think or converse with
their fellows and then hurried on. I refer to the great, shining, black
ants that have such a variety of meaningless nicknames. Its English
cousin is asserted to be ill-tempered, if not venomous, and both Chaucer
and Shakespeare refer to them as often mad and always treacherous. I saw
nothing of this to-day. They were ever on the go and always in a hurry.
They seemed not to dissociate me from the tree; perhaps thought me an
odd excrescence and of no importance. No one thinks of himself as such,
and I forced myself upon the attention of some of the hurrying throng.
It was easy to intercept them, and they grew quickly frantic; but their
fellows paid no attention to such as I held captive for the moment. I
had a small paper box with me, and this I stuck full of pin-holes on
every side and then put half a dozen of the ants in it. Holding it in
the line of the insects’ march, it immediately became a source of
wonderment, and every ant that came by stopped and parleyed with the
prisoners. A few returned earthward, and then a number came together,
but beyond this I could see nothing in the way of concerted action on
the part of the ants at large looking towards succoring their captive
fellows. Releasing them, these detained ants at once scattered in all
directions, and the incident was quickly forgotten. Where were these
ants going, and what was their purpose? I wondered. I was as near the
tree’s top as I dared to go, but the ants went on, apparently to the
very tips of the tiniest twigs, and not one that I saw came down laden
or passed up with any burden. It is not to be supposed they had no
purpose in so doing, but what? There is scarcely an hour when we are not
called upon to witness just such aimless activity,—that is, aimless so
far as we can determine.
Nothing molested these huge black ants, although insect-eating birds
came and went continually. One lordly, great-crested fly-catcher eyed
them meditatively for some seconds, and then my identity suddenly dawned
upon him. His harsh voice, affected by fear, was more out of tune than
ever, and, coupled with his precipitant flight, was very amusing. The
bird fell off the tree, but quickly caught himself, and then, as usual,
curiosity overcame fear. Students of bird-ways should never forget this.
The fly-catcher soon took a stand wherefrom to observe me, and, if
intently staring at me for thirty seconds was not curiosity, what shall
we call it? Is it fair to explain away everything by calling it mere
coincidence? It is a common practice, and about as logical as the old
cry of “instinct” when I went to school. To have said, when I was a boy,
that a bird could think and could communicate ideas to another of its
kind, would have brought down ridicule upon my head out of school, and
brought down something more weighty if the idea had been expressed in a
“composition.” I speak from experience.
To return to the cheerier subject of curiosity in birds: our large hawks
have it to a marked degree, and advantage can be taken of this fact if
you wish to trap them. I have found this particularly true in winter,
when there is a general covering of the ground with snow. Food, of
course, is not then quite so plenty, but this does not explain the
matter. An empty steel trap on the top of a hay-stack is quite as likely
to be tampered with as when baited with a mouse. The hawk will walk all
around it, and then put out one foot and touch it here and there. If we
can judge from the bird’s actions, the question, What is it, anyway? is
running through its mind. I once played a trick upon a splendid black
hawk that had been mousing over the fields for half the winter. It often
perched upon a stack of straw instead of the lone hickory near by. Early
one morning I placed a plump meadow-mouse on the very top of the stack,
to which I had attached a dozen long strands of bright-red woollen yarn
and a bladder that I had inflated. This was secured to the mouse by a
silk cord, and all were so concealed by the snow and straw that the hawk
noticed the mouse only. The bird was suspicious at first: it was too
unusual for a mouse not to move when a hawk hovered above it. Then the
bird alighted on the stack and walked about the mouse, pecking at it
once, but not touching it. Then putting out one foot, he seized it with
a firm grip, the talons passing through the carcass, and at the same
time spread his wings and moved slowly towards the lone hickory that
towered near by. I was near enough to see every movement. It was evident
that the hawk did not look down at first, and saw nothing of the
streaming threads and bobbing bladder; but it did a moment later, and
then what a quickening of wings and hasty mounting upward! The hawk was
frightened, and gave a violent jerk with one foot, as if to disengage
the mouse, but it was ineffectual. The sharp claws had too strong a
hold, and the effect was only to more violently bob the bladder. Then
the hawk screamed and dashed into the trees near by, and was out of
sight.
A curious and disappointing occurrence, while sitting aloft, was the
frequent discovery of my presence by birds and their sudden right-about
movement and departure. Occasionally I could see them coming as if
directly towards me, but their keen eyes noticed the unusual object, and
they would dart off with a promptness that showed how completely at home
they were while on the wing. Even the bluebirds, usually so tame, had
their misgivings, and came to rest in other trees. But if the birds were
not always about and above me, there were many below, and the sweet song
of the wood-robin from the tangled underbrush seemed clearer and purer
than when sifted through a wilderness of leaves.
It was not until noon that the wood and open fields became silent or
nearly so, for the red-eye came continually, and, whether insect-hunting
in the tree or on the wing, it seemed never to cease its singing, or
querulous cry, which more aptly describes its utterance. To hear this
sound throughout a long summer day is depressing, particularly if you
hear nothing else, for the steady hum of insect-life hardly passes for
sound. It was only when I listened for it that I was aware that millions
of tiny creatures were filling the air with a humming that varied only
as the light breeze carried it away or brought it nearer and clearer
than before. There is a vast difference between absolute and comparative
or apparent silence. The former is scarcely ever a condition of the open
country unless during a still, cold winter night, and never of one of
our ordinary woodland tracts. We do find it, however, in the cedar
swamps and pine-land, even during summer. I have often stood in “the
pines” of Southern New Jersey and tried to detect some sound other than
that of my own breathing, but in vain. Not a twig stirred. The dark
waters of the pools were motionless; even the scattered clouds above
were at rest. It was to be absolutely alone, as if the only living
creature upon earth. But ere long a gentle breeze would spring up, there
was a light and airy trembling of the pines, and the monotone of a
whispered sigh filled the forest. Even this was a relief, and what a joy
if some lonely bird passed by and even lisped of its presence! The
_dee-dee_ of a titmouse at such a time was sweeter music than the choral
service that heralds the coming of a bright June morning.
At noon, the day being torrid, there was comparative silence, and yet as
I looked about me I saw ceaseless activity in a small way. The ants were
still journeying, and red admiral and yellow swallow-tailed butterflies
came near, and the latter even passed high overhead and mingled with the
chimney-swifts. Had I been on the ground, walking instead of waiting, I
should have sought some sheltered spot and rested, taking a hint from
much of the wild life I was watching.