SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY.
I need not weary the reader with details of our farming proceedings,
which differed in no respect from the now well-known routine of bush
life. I will, however, add one or two notices of occurrences which may
be thought worth relating. We were not without wild animals in our bush.
Bears, wolves, foxes, racoons, skunks, mink and ermine among beasts;
eagles, jays, many kinds of hawks, wood-peckers, loons, partridges and
pigeons, besides a host of other birds, were common enough. Bears' nests
abounded, consisting of a kind of arbour which the bear makes for
himself in the top of the loftiest beech trees, by dragging inwards all
the upper branches laden with their wealth of nuts, upon which he feasts
at leisure. The marks of his formidable claws are plainly visible the
whole length of the trunks of most large beech-trees. In Canada West the
bear is seldom dangerous. One old fellow which we often encountered,
haunted a favourite raspberry patch on the road-side; when anybody
passed near him he would scamper off in such haste that I have seen him
dash himself violently against any tree or fallen branch that might be
in his way. Once we saw a bear roll himself headlong from the forks of
a tree fully forty feet from the ground, tumbling over and over, but
alighting safely, and "making tracks" with the utmost expedition.
An Englishman whom I knew, of a very studious temperament, was strolling
along the Medonte road deeply intent upon a volume of Ovid or some other
Latin author, when, looking up to ascertain the cause of a shadow which
fell across his book, he found himself nearly stumbling against a huge
brown bear, standing erect on its hind legs, and with formidable paw
raised ready to strike. The surprise seems to have been mutual, for
after waiting a moment or two as if to recognise each other's features
should they meet again, the student merely said "Oh! a bear!" coolly
turned on his heel, plunged into his book again, and walked slowly back
toward the village, leaving Bruin to move off at leisure in an opposite
direction. So saith my informant.
Another friend, when a youth, was quail-shooting on the site of the City
of Toronto, which was nothing but a rough swampy thicket of cedars and
pines mixed with hardwood. Stepping hastily across a rotten pine log,
the lad plumped full upon a great fat bear taking its siesta in the
shade. Which of the two fled the fastest is not known, but it was
probably the animal, judging by my own experience in Sunnidale.
Wolves often disturbed us with their hideous howlings. We had a
beautiful liver and white English setter, called Dash, with her two
pups. One night in winter, poor Dash, whom we kept within doors, was
excited by the yelping of her pups outside, which appeared to be alarmed
by some intruder about the premises. A wolf had been seen prowling near,
so we got out our guns and whatever weapon was handy, but incautiously
opened the door and let out the slut before we were ourselves quite
dressed. She rushed out in eager haste, and in a few seconds we heard
the wolf and dog fighting, with the most frightful discord of yells and
howls that ever deafened the human ear. The noise ceased as suddenly as
it had begun. We followed as fast as we could to the scene of the
struggle, but found nothing there except a trampled space in the snow
stained with blood, the dog having evidently been killed and dragged
away. Next morning we followed the track further, and found at no great
distance another similar spot, where the wolf had devoured its victim so
utterly, that not a hair, bone, nor anything else was left, save the
poor animal's heart, which had been flung away to a little distance in
the snow. Beyond this were no signs of blood. We set a trap for the
wolf, and tracked him for miles in the hope of avenging poor Dash, but
without effect. This same wolf, we heard afterwards, was killed by a
settler with a handspike, to our great satisfaction.
Among our neighbours of the Sunnidale settlement was a married couple
from England, named Sewell, very well-conducted and industrious. They
had a fair little child under two years old, named Hetty, whom we often
stopped to admire for her prettiness and engaging simplicity. They also
possessed, and were very proud of, several broods of newly-hatched
chickens, some of which had been carried off by an immense falcon, which
would swoop down from the lofty elm-trees still left standing in the
half-chopped clearing, too suddenly to be easily shot. One day Hetty was
feeding the young chickens when the hawk pounced upon the old hen, which
struggled desperately; whereupon little Hetty bravely joined in the
battle, seized the intruder by the wings from behind and held him fast,
crying out loudly, "I've got him, mother!" It turned out, after the hawk
was killed, that it had been blind of one eye.
In the spring of 1834, we had with infinite labour managed to clear off
a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched
its growth with the most intense anxiety, until it attained a height of
ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears. Already the exquisite
pleasure of eating bread the product of our own land, and of our own
labour, was present to our imaginations, and the number of bushels to be
reaped, the barn for storage, the journeys to mill, were eagerly
discussed. But one day in August, occurred a hail-storm such as is
seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell
upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones measuring two and a
half inches in diameter, seven and a half in circumference, covered the
ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was utterly destroyed,
and with it all our sanguine hopes of plenty for that year. I have
preserved a tracing which I made at the time, of one of those
hailstones. The centre was spherical, an inch in girth, from which
laterally radiated lines three fourths of an inch long, like the spokes
of a wheel, and outside of them again a wavy border resembling the
undulating edge of pie crust. The superficial structure of the whole,
was much like that of a full blown rose. A remarkable hail-storm
occurred in Toronto, in the year 1878, but the stones, although similar
in formation, were scarcely as bulky.
It was one night in November following, when our axeman, William
Whitelaw, who had risen from bed at eleven o'clock to fetch a new log
for the fire shouted to us to come out and see a strange sight. Lazily
we complied, expecting nothing extraordinary; but, on getting into the
cold frosty air outside, we were transfixed with astonishment and
admiration. Our clearing being small, and the timber partly hemlock, we
seemed to be environed with a dense black wall the height of the forest
trees, while over all, in dazzling splendour, shone a canopy of the
most brilliant meteors, radiating in all directions from a single point
in the heavens, nearly over-head, but slightly to the north-west. I have
since read all the descriptions of meteoric showers I could find in our
scientific annals, and watched year after year for a return of the same
wonderful vision, but neither in the records of history nor otherwise,
since that night, have I read of or seen anything so marvellously
beautiful. Hour after hour we gazed in wonder and awe, as the radiant
messengers streamed on their courses, sometimes singly, sometimes in
starry cohorts of thousands, appearing to descend amongst the trees
close beside us, but in reality shooting far beyond the horizon. Those
who have looked upwards during a fall of snow will remember how the
large flakes seem to radiate from a centre. Thus I believe astronomers
account for the appearance of these showers of stars, by the
circumstance that they meet the earth full in its orbit, and so dart
past it from an opposite point, like a flight of birds confronting a
locomotive, or a storm of hail directly facing a vessel under full
steam. No description I have read has given even a faint idea of the
reality as I saw it on that memorable night. From eleven p.m. to three
in the morning, the majestic spectacle continued in full glory,
gradually fading away before the approach of daybreak.
We often had knotty and not very logical discussions about the origin of
seeds, and the cause of the thick growth of new varieties of plants and
trees wherever the forest had been burnt over. On our land, and
everywhere in the immediate neighbourhood, the process of clearing by
fire was sure to be followed by a spontaneous growth, first of fire-weed
or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick
as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine-trees had stood for
a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a
thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety. Our
Celtic friends, most of whom were pious Presbyterians, insisted that a
new creation of plants must be constantly going on to account for such
miraculous growth. To test the matter, I scooped up a panful of black
soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of
cherry-stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest. The cause
of this surprising accumulation of seed was not far to find. A few miles
distant was a pigeon-roost. In spring, the birds would come flying round
the east shore of Lake Huron, skirting the Georgian Bay, in such vast
clouds as to darken the sun; and so swiftly that swan-shot failed to
bring them down unless striking them in rear; and, even then, we rarely
got them, as the velocity of their flight impelled them far into the
thicket before falling. These beautiful creatures attacked our crops
with serious results, and devoured all our young peas. I have known
twenty-five pigeons killed at a single shot; and have myself got a
dozen by firing at random into a maple-tree on which they had alighted,
but where not one had been visible.
The pigeon-roost itself was a marvel. Men, women and children went by
the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up
the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches
of trees broken off by the weight of their roosting comrades overhead.
The women skinned the birds, cut off their plump breasts, throwing the
remainder away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping. To
these pigeons we were, doubtless, indebted for our crop of young
cherry-trees.
Where there was so much seed, a corresponding crop might be expected;
and dense thickets of choke-cherry trees grew up in neglected clearings
accordingly. Forcing my way through one of these, I found myself
literally face to face with a garter snake five feet long, which was
also in search of cherries, and had wriggled its way to the upper
branches of a young tree ten feet high. Garter snakes, however, are as
harmless as frogs, and like them, are the victims of a general
persecution. In some places they are exceedingly numerous. One summer's
evening I was travelling on foot from Holland Landing to Bradford,
across the Holland river, a distance of three miles, nearly all marsh,
laid with cedar logs placed crosswise, to form a passable road. The sun
was nearing the horizon; the snakes--garter chiefly, but a few
copperhead and black--glided on to the logs to bask apparently in the
sunshine, in such numbers, that after vainly trying to step across
without treading on them, I was fain to take to flight, springing from
log to log like some long-legged bird, and so escaping from the
unpleasant companionship.[3]
One of the most perplexing tasks to new settlers is that of keeping
cows. "Bossy" soon learns that the bush is "all before her where to
choose," and she indulges her whims by straying away in the most
unexpected directions, and putting you to half-a-day's toilsome search
before she can be captured. The obvious remedy is the cow-bell, but even
with this tell-tale appendage, the experienced cow contrives to baffle
your vigilance. She will ensconce herself in the midst of a clump of
underbrush, lying perfectly still, and paying no heed to your most
endearing appeals of "Co' bossy, co' bossy," until some fly-sting
obliges her to jerk her head and betray her hiding-place by a single
note of the bell. Then she will deliberately get up, and walk off
straight to the shanty, ready to be milked.
[Footnote 3: It is affirmed that in two or three localities in Manitoba,
garter snakes sometimes congregate in such multitudes as to form ropes
as thick as a man's leg, which, by their constant writhing and twining
in and out, present a strangely glittering and moving spectacle.]