distilled honey; and that once when Pindar lay asleep the bees dropped
honey upon his lips. In the Old Testament the food of the promised
Immanuel was to be butter and honey (there is much doubt about the
butter in the original), that he might know good from evil; and
Jonathan's eyes were enlightened, by partaking of some wood or wild
honey: "See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because
I tasted a little of this honey." So far as this part of his diet
was concerned, therefore, John the Baptist, during his sojourn in the
wilderness, his divinity school-days in the mountains and plains of
Judea, fared extremely well. About the other part, the locusts, or, not
to put too fine a point on it, the grasshoppers, as much cannot be said,
though they were among the creeping and leaping things the children
of Israel were permitted to eat. They were probably not eaten raw, but
roasted in that most primitive of ovens, a hole in the ground made hot
by building a fire in it. The locusts and honey may have been served
together, as the Bedas of Ceylon are said to season their meat with
honey. At any rate, as the locust is often a great plague in Palestine,
the prophet in eating them found his account in the general weal, and
in the profit of the pastoral bees; the fewer locusts, the more flowers.
Owing to its numerous wild-flowers and flowering shrubs, Palestine
has always been a famous country for bees. They deposit their honey in
hollow trees as our bees do when they escape from the hive, and in holes
in the rocks as ours do not. In a tropical or semi-tropical climate
bees are quite apt to take refuge in the rocks, but where ice and snow
prevail, as with us, they are much safer high up in the trunk of a
forest tree.
The best honey is the product of the milder parts of the temperate zone.
There are too many rank and poisonous plants in the tropics. Honey from
certain districts of Turkey produces headache and vomiting, and that
from Brazil is used chiefly as medicine. The honey of Mount Hymettus
owes its fine quality to wild thyme. The best honey in Persia and in
Florida is collected from the orange blossom. The celebrated honey of
Narbonne in the south of France is obtained from a species of rosemary.
In Scotland good honey is made from the blossoming heather.
California honey is white and delicate and highly perfumed, and now
takes the lead in the market. But honey is honey the world over; and the
bee is the bee still. "Men may degenerate," says an old traveler, "may
forget the arts by which they acquired renown; manufactories may fail,
and commodities be debased, but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the
wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of the bee, will continue
without change or derogation."
II. SHARP EYES AND OTHER PAPERS
CONTENTS
SHARP EYES
THE APPLE
A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH
WINTER NEIGHBORS
NOTES BY THE WAY.
I. The Weather-wise Muskrat
II. Cheating the Squirrels
III. Fox and Hound
IV. The Woodchuck
SHARP EYES.
Noting how one eye seconds and reinforces the other, I have often amused
myself by wondering what the effect would be if one could go on opening
eye after eye to the number say of a dozen or more. What would he see?
Perhaps not the invisible--not the odors of flowers nor the fever
germs in the air--not the infinitely small of the microscope nor the
infinitely distant of the telescope. This would require, not more eyes
so much as an eye constructed with more and different lenses; but would
he not see with augmented power within the natural limits of vision? At
any rate some persons seem to have opened more eyes than others, they
see with such force and distinctness; their vision penetrates the
tangle and obscurity where that of others fails like a spent or impotent
bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open? how many did Henry
Thoreau? how many did Audubon? how many does the hunter, matching his
sight against the keen and alert sense of a deer or a moose, or a fox
or a wolf? Not outward eyes, but inward. We open another eye whenever we
see beyond the first general features or outlines of things--whenever
we grasp the special details and characteristic markings that this mask
covers. Science confers new powers of vision.
Whenever you have learned to discriminate the birds, or the plants, or
the geological features of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes
were added.
Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright what he sees.
The facts in the life of Nature that are transpiring about us are like
written words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. Or the
writing is in cipher and he must furnish the key. A female oriole was
one day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse
from the horse stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls,
scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable, dark
and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding what she wanted
outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and was presently captured by
the farmer. What did she want? was the query. What, but a horsehair
for her nest which was in an apple-tree near by; and she was so bent on
having one that I have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the
horse's tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined
her nest and found it sewed through and through with several long horse
hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the hair was found.
Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic scenes,
are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our eyes are
sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw this little comedy
played among some English sparrows and wrote an account of it in his
newspaper; it is too good not to be true: A male bird brought to his
box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow
and much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered his
gratulations over it he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and
seized the feather,--and here the wit of the bird came out, for instead
of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and
hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home, and when her neighbor
returned with his mate was innocently employed about her own affairs.
The proud male, finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a high
state of excitement, and, with wrath in his manner and accusation on
his tongue, rushed into the cot of the female. Not finding his goods and
chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around a while, abusing
everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and then went away
as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd
thief went and brought the feather home and lined her own domicile with
it.
I was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young
one in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada or
harvest-fly, and after bruising it a while on the ground flew with it
to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. It was a large
morsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability to
dispose of it, for she stood near and watched its efforts with great
solicitude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, but made
no head way in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him and flew
to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly.
Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to say, "There, try it
now," and sympathized so thoroughly with his efforts that she repeated
many of his motions and contortions. But the great fly was unyielding,
and, indeed, seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the beak that held
it. The young bird fluttered and fluttered and screamed, "I'm stuck, I'm
stuck," till the anxious parent again seized the morsel and carried
it to an iron railing, where she came down upon it for the space of a
minute with all the force and momentum her beak could command. Then
she offered it to her young a third time, but with the same result as
before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she was at the
ground as soon as the cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew
some distance to a high board fence where she sat motionless for some
moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken,
the male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and I thought
rather curtly, "Give me that bug," but she quickly resented his
interference and flew farther away, where she sat apparently quite
discouraged when I last saw her.
The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recurring to him.
His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a new chapter in the
progress of the season; things are never quite the same after one has
heard that note. The past spring the males came about a week in advance
of the females. A fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard all
the time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within ear-shot, and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly,
then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a
plaintive, far-away manner. He would half open his wings, and twinkle
them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she
had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole
in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine
confidential warble,--the old, old story. But the female flew to a near
tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got
some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in the
old tree, and promised unremitting devotion, but the other said "nay,"
and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going, or rather heard
her distant note, he dropped his stuff, and cried out in a tone that
said plainly enough, "Wait a minute. One word, please," and flew swiftly
in pursuit. He won her before long, however, and early in April the pair
were established in one of the four or five boxes I had put up for them,
but not until they had changed their minds several times. As soon as
the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their parents'
care, they began another nest in one of the other boxes, the female, as
usual, doing all the work, and the male all the complimenting.
A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird was a white cat
that sometimes followed me about. The cat had never been known to catch
a bird, but she had a way of watching them that was very embarrassing to
the bird. Whenever she appeared, the mother bluebird would set up that
pitiful melodious plaint. One morning the cat was standing by me, when
the bird came with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted
above me to survey the place before going into the box. When she saw the
cat, she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could not keep her
hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came eddying down, till
not half her original burden remained. After the cat had gone away, the
bird's alarm subsided, till, presently seeing the coast clear, she flew
quickly to the box and pitched in her remaining straws with the greatest
precipitation, and, without going in to arrange them, as was her wont,
flew away in evident relief.
In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much nearer the
house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or golden-shafted
woodpeckers, took up their abode. A knot-hole which led to the decayed
interior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as clean as a
squirrel would have done it. The inside preparations I could not
witness, but day after day, as I passed near, I heard the bird hammering
away, evidently beating down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the
cavity. The chips were not brought out, but were used rather to
floor the interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather
nest-carvers.
The time seemed very short before the voices of the young were heard in
the heart of the old tree,--at first feebly, but waxing stronger day by
day until they could be heard many rods distant. When I put my hand upon
the trunk of the tree, they would set up an eager, expectant chattering;
but if I climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the
unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clambered up to
the orifice to receive their food. As but one could stand in the opening
at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this
position. It was a very desirable one aside from the advantages it had
when food was served; it looked out upon the great shining world, into
which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air
must have been a consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's
dwelling is not sweet. When the parent birds came with food the young
one in the opening did not get it all, but after he had received a
portion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one, he
would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evidently
outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life, was two or three days
in advance of them. His voice was loudest and his head oftenest at the
window. But I noticed that when he had kept the position too long,
the others evidently made it uncomfortable in his rear, and, after
"fidgeting" about a while, he would be compelled to "back down." But
retaliation was then easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments
at that lookout. They would close their eyes and slide back into the
cavity as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
This bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest. For two days
before that event he kept his position in the opening most of the time
and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old ones abstained from
feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to encourage his exit. As I
stood looking at him one afternoon and noting his progress, he suddenly
reached a resolution,--seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,--and
launched forth upon his untried wings. They served him well and carried
him about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another, till only
one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to him, and for one
day he called and called till our ears were tired of the sound. His
was the faintest heart of all. Then he had none to encourage him from
behind. He left the nest and clung to the outer bowl of the tree, and
yelped and piped for an hour longer; then he committed himself to his
wings and went his way like the rest.
A young farmer in the western part of New York, who has a sharp,
discriminating eye, sends me some interesting notes about a tame
high-hole he once had.
"Did you ever notice," says he, "that the high-hole never eats anything
that he cannot pick up with his tongue? At least this was the case with
a young one I took from the nest and tamed. He could thrust out his
tongue two or three inches, and it was amusing to see his efforts to eat
currants from the hand. He would run out his tongue and try to stick it
to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tongue around it like
a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. But he never succeeded,
the round fruit would roll and slip away every time. He never seemed to
think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was in constant use to find
out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-hole in a board or any
similar hole was carefully explored. If he was held near the face he
would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust his tongue into it. In
this way he gained the respect of a number of half-grown cats that were
around the house. I wished to make them familiar to each other, so there
would be less danger of their killing him. So I would take them both on
my knee, when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes, and leveling
his bill as carefully as a marksman levels his rifle, he would remain so
a minute when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was held
by the cats to be very mysterious: being struck in the eye by something
invisible to them. They soon acquired such a terror of him that they
would avoid him and run away whenever they saw his bill turned in their
direction. He never would swallow a grasshopper even when it was placed
in his throat; he would shake himself until he had thrown it out of his
mouth. His 'best hold' was ants. He never was surprised at anything, and
never was afraid of anything. He would drive the turkey gobbler and
the rooster. He would advance upon them holding one wing up as high as
possible, as if to strike with it, and shuffle along the ground toward
them, scolding all the while in a harsh voice. I feared at first that
they might kill him, but I soon found that he was able to take care of
himself. I would turn over stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he
would lick up the ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going
into his mouth unceasingly. I kept him till late in the fall, when he
disappeared, probably going south, and I never saw him again."
My correspondent also sends me some interesting observations about the
cuckoo. He says a large gooseberry bush standing in the border of an old
hedgerow, in the midst of open fields, and not far from his house, was
occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and, after
an interval of a year, for two seasons more. This gave him a good chance
to observe them. He says the mother-bird lays a single egg, and sits
upon it a number of days before laying the second, so that he has seen
one young bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg
all in the nest at once. "So far as I have seen, this is the settled
practice,--the young leaving the nest one at a time to the number of six
or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of the dove in many
respects. When nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-feathers
as long as darning-needles, without a bit of plumage on them. They part
on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. With its
curious feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but
handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, as many young
birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when touched." He also
notes the unnatural indifference of the mother-bird when her nest and
young are approached. She makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near
branch in apparent perfect unconcern.
These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the cuckoo
is occasionally found in the nests of other birds, raise the inquiry
whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the European
species, which always foists its egg upon other birds; or whether, on
the other hand, it is not mending its manners in this respect. It has
but little to unlearn or to forget in the one case, but great progress
to make in the other. How far is its rudimentary nest--a mere platform
of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds--from the deep, compact, finely
woven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a
gulf between its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its
irregular manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like
our cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of interesting
things as he goes about his work. He one day saw a white swallow, which
is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a sparrow he thinks, fly against
the side of a horse and fill his beak with hair from the loosened coat
of the animal. He saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter
escaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early
spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in
air, approach each other, extend a claw, and, clasping them together,
fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft again.
He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of love, and that the
hawks were toying fondly with each other.
He further relates a curious circumstance of finding a humming-bird in
the upper part of a barn with its bill stuck fast in a crack of one of
the large timbers, dead, of course, with wings extended, and as dry as a
chip. The bird seems to have died as it had lived, on the wing, and its
last act was indeed a ghastly parody of its living career. Fancy this
nimble, flashing sprite, whose life was passed probing the honeyed
depths of flowers, at last thrusting its bill into a crack in a dry
timber in a hayloft, and, with spread wings, ending its existence.
When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk for insects
about cattle and moving herds in the field. My farmer describes how
they attended him one foggy day, as he was mowing in the meadow with a
mowing-machine. It had been foggy for two days, and the swallows were
very hungry, and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of his
machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like a brood
of hungry chickens. He says there was a continued rush of purple wings
over the "cut-bar," and just where it was causing the grass to tremble
and fall. Without his assistance the swallows would doubtless have gone
hungry yet another day.
Of the hen-hawk, he has observed that both male and female take part in
incubation. "I was rather surprised," he says, "on one occasion, to
see how quickly they change places on the nest. The nest was in a tall
beech, and the leaves were not yet fully out. I could see the head and
neck of the hawk over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk
coming down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alight
near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest, his mate
getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being hit; it seemed
almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I hardly see how they can
make such a rush on the nest without danger to the eggs."
The king-bird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will worry a bear. It
is by his persistence and audacity, not by any injury he is capable of
dealing his great antagonist. The king-bird seldom more than dogs the
hawk, keeping above and between his wings, and making a great ado; but
my correspondent says he once "saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's
back. The hawk flew as fast as possible, and the king-bird sat upon his
shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,"--tweaking his
feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-catcher,
has one well known peculiarity: he appears never to consider his nest
finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My alert correspondent
one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion skin and make off with it,
either deceived by it or else thinking it a good substitute for the
coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon the nest of a
whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest,--two elliptical
whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My foot was within a
yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I wondered what a sharp eye
would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the bird, so I
came to the place many times and had a look. It was always a task to
separate the bird from her surroundings though I stood within a few feet
of her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with his eye,
as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and leaves, and bits of
black or dark-brown bark, were all exactly copied in the bird's plumage.
And then she did sit so close, and simulate so well a shapeless decaying
piece of wood or bark! Twice I brought a companion, and guiding his eye
to the spot, noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in
full view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the bird
returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a few inches of
her eggs, and then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly upon them.