apple-tree one fall four or five years ago. This he occupied till the
following spring when he abandoned it. The next fall he began a hole
in an adjoining limb, later than before, and when it was about half
completed a female took possession of his old quarters. I am sorry to
say that this seemed to enrage the male, very much, and he persecuted
the poor bird whenever she appeared upon the scene. He would fly at her
spitefully and drive her off. One chilly November morning, as I passed
under the tree, I heard the hammer of the little architect in his
cavity, and at the same time saw the persecuted female sitting at
the entrance of the other hole as if she would fain come out. She was
actually shivering, probably from both fear and cold. I understood the
situation at a glance; the bird was afraid to come forth and brave the
anger of the male. Not till I had rapped smartly upon the limb with my
stick did she come out and attempt to escape; but she had not gone ten
feet from the tree before the male was in hot pursuit, and in a few
moments had driven her back to the same tree, where she tried to
avoid him among the branches. A few days after, he rid himself of his
unwelcome neighbor in the following ingenious manner: he fairly scuttled
the other cavity; he drilled a hole into the bottom of it that let in
the light and the cold, and I saw the female there no more. I did not
see him in the act of rendering this tenement uninhabitable; but one
morning, behold it was punctured at the bottom, and the circumstances
all seemed to point to him as the author of it. There is probably no
gallantry among the birds except at the mating season. I have frequently
seen the male woodpecker drive the female away from the bone upon the
tree. When she hopped around to the other end and timidly nibbled it,
he would presently dart spitefully at her. She would then take up
her position in his rear and wait till he had finished his meal. The
position of the female among the birds is very much the same as that of
woman among savage tribes. Most of the drudgery of life falls upon her,
and the leavings of the males are often her lot.
My bird is a genuine little savage, doubtless, but I value him as a
neighbor. It is a satisfaction during the cold or stormy winter nights
to know he is warm and cosy there in his retreat. When the day is bad
and unfit to be abroad in; he is there too. When I wish to know if he
is at home, I go and rap upon his tree, and, if he is not too lazy or
indifferent, after some delay he shows his head in his round doorway
about ten feet above, and looks down inquiringly upon me--sometimes
latterly I think half resentfully, as much as to say, "I would thank you
not to disturb me so often." After sundown, he will not put his head
out any more when I call, but as I step away I can get a glimpse of him
inside looking cold and reserved. He is a late riser, especially if it
is a cold or disagreeable morning, in this respect being like the fowls;
it is sometimes near nine o'clock before I see him leave his tree. On
the other hand, he comes home early, being in if the day is unpleasant
by four P. M. He lives all alone; in this respect I do not commend his
example. Where his mate is I should like to know.
I have discovered several other woodpeckers in adjoining orchards, each
of which has a like home and leads a like solitary life. One of them has
excavated a dry limb within easy reach of my hand, doing the work also
in September. But the choice of tree was not a good one; the limb was
too much decayed, and the workman had made the cavity too large; a chip
had come out, making a hole in the outer wall. Then he went a few
inches down the limb and began again, and excavated a large, commodious
chamber, but had again come too near the surface; scarcely more than the
bark protected him in one place, and the limb was very much weakened.
Then he made another attempt still farther down the limb, and drilled in
an inch or two, but seemed to change his mind; the work stopped, and
I concluded the bird had wisely abandoned the tree. Passing there one
cold, rainy November day, I thrust in my two fingers and was surprised
to feel something soft and warm: as I drew away my hand the bird came
out, apparently no more surprised than I was. It had decided, then, to
make its home in the old limb; a decision it had occasion to regret, for
not long after, on a stormy night, the branch gave way and fell to the
ground.
"When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
and down will come baby, cradle and all."
Such a cavity makes a snug, warm home, and when the entrance is on the
under side if the limb, as is usual, the wind and snow cannot reach
the occupant. Late in December, while crossing a high, wooded mountain,
lured by the music of fox-hounds, I discovered fresh yellow chips
strewing the new-fallen snow, and at once thought of my woodpeckers. On
looking around I saw where one had been at work excavating a lodge in a
small yellow birch. The orifice was about fifteen feet from the ground,
and appeared as round as if struck with a compass. It was on the east
side of the tree, so as to avoid the prevailing west and northeast
winds. As it was nearly two inches in diameter, it could not have been
the work of the downy, but must have been that of the hairy, or else the
yellow-bellied woodpecker. His home had probably been wrecked by some
violent wind, and he was thus providing himself another. In digging out
these retreats the woodpeckers prefer a dry, brittle, trunk, not too
soft. They go in horizontally to the centre and then turn downward,
enlarging the tunnel as they go, till when finished it is the shape of a
long, deep pear.
Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that has
never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit
of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all are
musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. Did
you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the orchard
or from the near woods on that still March or April morning was only
some bird getting its breakfast? It is downy, but he is not rapping at
the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring, and the dry
limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows. Or, later in the season,
in the dense forest or by some remote mountain lake, does that measured
rhythmic beat that breaks upon the silence, first three strokes
following each other rapidly, succeeded by two louder ones with longer
intervals between them, and that has an effect upon the alert ear as
if the solitude itself had at last found a voice--does that suggest
anything less than a deliberate musical performance? In fact, our
woodpeckers are just as characteristically drummers as is the ruffed
grouse, and they have their particular limbs and stubs to which they
resort for that purpose. Their need of expression is apparently just
as great as that of the song-birds, and it is not surprising that they
should have found out that there is music in a dry, seasoned limb which
can be evoked beneath their beaks.
A few seasons ago a downy woodpecker, probably the individual one who is
now my winter neighbor, began to drum early in March in a partly decayed
apple-tree that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of woodland near
me. When the morning was still and mild I would often hear him through
my window before I was up, or by half-past six o'clock, and he would
keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, in this respect
resembling the grouse, which do most of their drumming in the forenoon.
His drum was the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's wrist. The
heart was decayed and gone, but the outer shell was hard and resonant.
The bird would keep his position there for an hour at a time. Between
his drummings he would preen his plumage and listen as if for the
response of the female, or for the drum of some rival. How swift his
head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! His beak
wore the surface perceptibly. When he wished to change the key, which
was quite often, he would shift his position an inch or two to a knot
which gave out a higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to examine his
drum he was much disturbed. I did not know he was in the vicinity,
but it seems he saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to the
neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note demanded
plainly enough what my business was with his drum. I was invading his
privacy, desecrating his shrine, and the bird was much put out. After
some weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; his
urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. Still the drumming
did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. If a mate could be
won by drumming she could be kept and entertained by more drumming;
courtship should not end with marriage. If the bird felt musical before,
of course he felt much more so now. Besides that, the gentle deities
needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as well as in behalf
of the mate. After a time a second female came, when there was war
between the two. I did not see them come to blows, but I saw one female
pursuing the other about the place, and giving her no rest for several
days. She was evidently trying to run her out of the neighborhood. Now
and then she, too, would drum briefly as if sending a triumphant message
to her mate.
The woodpeckers do not each have a particular dry limb to which they
resort at all times to drum, like the one I have described. The woods
are full of suitable branches, and they drum more or less here and
there as they are in quest of food; yet I am convinced each one has its
favorite spot, like the grouse, to which it resorts, especially in the
morning. The sugar-maker in the maple-woods may notice that their
sound proceeds from the same tree or trees about his camp with great
regularity. A woodpecker in my vicinity has drummed for two seasons on
a telegraph pole, and he makes the wires and glass insulators ring.
Another drums on a thin board on the end of a long grape-arbor, and on
still mornings can be heard a long distance.
A friend of mine in a Southern city tells me of a red-headed woodpecker
that drums upon a lightning-rod on his neighbor's house. Nearly every
clear, still morning at certain seasons, he says, this musical rapping
may be heard. "He alternates his tapping with his stridulous call, and
the effect on a cool, autumn-like morning is very pleasing."
The high-hole appears to drum more promiscuously than does the downy. He
utters his long, loud spring call, whick--whick--whick--whick, and then
begins to rap with his beak upon his perch before the last note has
reached your ear. I have seen him drum sitting upon the ridge of the
barn. The log cock, or pileated woodpecker, the largest and wildest of
our Northern species, I have never heard drum. His blows should wake the
echoes.
When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some
hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled, and is heard
but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its
bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate.
Wilson was evidently familiar with this vernal drumming of the
woodpeckers, but quite misinterprets it. Speaking of the red-bellied
species, he says: "It rattles like the rest of the tribe on the dead
limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more than
half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed." He
listens rather to hear the drum of his rival or the brief and coy
response of the female; for there are no insects in these dry limbs.
On one occasion I saw downy at his drum when a female flew quickly
through the tree and alighted a few yards beyond him. He paused
instantly, and kept his place, apparently without moving a muscle. The
female, I took it, had answered his advertisement. She flitted about
from limb to limb (the female may be known by the absence of the crimson
spot on the back of the head), apparently full of business of her own,
and now and then would drum in a shy, tentative manner. The male watched
her a few moments and, convinced perhaps that she meant business, struck
up his liveliest tune, then listened for her response. As it came back
timidly but promptly, he left his perch and sought a nearer acquaintance
with the prudent female. Whether or not a match grew out of this little
flirtation I cannot say.
Our smaller woodpeckers are sometimes accused of injuring the apple and
other fruit trees, but the depredator is probably the larger and rarer
yellow-bellied species. One autumn I caught one of these fellows in
the act of sinking long rows of his little wells in the limb of an
apple-tree. There were series of rings of them, one above another, quite
around the stem, some of them the third of an inch across. They are
evidently made to get at the tender, juicy bark, or cambium layer, next
to the hard wood of the tree. The health and vitality of the branch are
so seriously impaired by them that it often dies.
In the following winter the same bird (probably) tapped a maple-tree in
front of my window in fifty-six places; and when the day was sunny, and
the sap oozed out, he spent most of his time there. He knew the good
sap-days, and was on hand promptly for his tipple; cold and cloudy
days he did not appear. He knew which side of the tree to tap, too, and
avoided the sunless northern exposure. When one series of well-holes
failed to supply him, he would sink another, drilling through the bark
with great ease and quickness. Then, when the day was warm, and the sap
ran freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple debauch, sitting there
by his wells hour after hour, and as fast as they became filled sipping
out the sap. This he did in a gentle, caressing manner that was very
suggestive. He made a row of wells near the foot of the tree, and other
rows higher up, and he would hop up and down the trunk as these became
filled. He would hop down the tree backward with the utmost ease,
throwing his tail outward and his head inward at each hop. When the
wells would freeze or his thirst become slaked, he would ruffle his
feathers, draw himself together, and sit and doze in the sun on the side
of the tree. He passed the night in a hole in an apple-tree not far off.
He was evidently a young bird not yet having the plumage of the mature
male or female, and yet he knew which tree to tap and where to tap it.
I saw where he had bored several maples in the vicinity, but no oaks
or chestnuts. I nailed up a fat bone near his sap-works: the downy
woodpecker came there several times a day to dine; the nut-hatch came,
and even the snow-bird took a taste occasionally; but this sap-sucker
never touched it; the sweet of the tree sufficed for him. This
woodpecker does not breed or abound in my vicinity; only stray specimens
are now and then to be met with in the colder months. As spring
approached, the one I refer to took his departure.
I must bring my account of my neighbor in the tree down to the latest
date; so after the lapse of a year I add the following notes. The last
day of February was bright and springlike. I heard the first sparrow
sing that morning and the first screaming of the circling hawks, and
about seven o'clock the first drumming of my little friend. His first
notes were uncertain and at long intervals, but by and by he warmed up
and beat a lively tattoo. As the season advanced he ceased to lodge in
his old quarters. I would rap and find nobody at home. Was he out on a
lark, I said, the spring fever working in his blood? After a time his
drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in the middle of April, ceased
entirely. Had some accident befallen him, or had he wandered away to
fresh fields, following some siren of his species? Probably the latter.
Another bird that I had under observation also left his winter-quarters
in the spring. This, then, appears to be the usual custom. The wrens and
the nut-hatches and chickadees succeed to these abandoned cavities, and
often have amusing disputes over them. The nut-hatches frequently pass
the night in them, and the wrens and chickadees nest in them. I have
further observed that in excavating a cavity for a nest the downy
woodpecker makes the entrance smaller than when he is excavating his
winter-quarters. This is doubtless for the greater safety of the young
birds.
The next fall, the downy excavated another limb in the old apple-tree,
but had not got his retreat quite finished, when the large hairy
woodpecker appeared upon the scene. I heard his loud click, click, early
one frosty November morning. There was something impatient and angry
in the tone that arrested my attention. I saw the bird fly to the tree
where downy had been at work, and fall with great violence upon the
entrance to his cavity. The bark and the chips flew beneath his
vigorous blows, and before I fairly woke up to what he was doing, he had
completely demolished the neat, round doorway of downy. He had made a
large ragged opening large enough for himself to enter. I drove him away
and my favorite came back, but only to survey the ruins of his castle
for a moment and then go away. He lingered about for a day or two and
then disappeared. The big hairy usurper passed a night in the cavity,
but on being hustled out of it the next night by me, he also left, but
not till he had demolished the entrance to a cavity in a neighboring
tree where downy and his mate had reared their brood that summer, and
where I had hoped the female would pass the winter.
NOTES BY THE WAY.
I. THE WEATHER-WISE MUSKRAT
I am more than half persuaded that the muskrat is a wise little animal,
and that on the subject of the weather, especially, he possesses some
secret that I should be glad to know. In the fall of 1878 I noticed that
he built unusually high and massive nests. I noticed them in several
different localities. In a shallow, sluggish pond by the roadside,
which I used to pass daily in my walk, two nests were in process of
construction throughout the month of November. The builders worked only
at night, and I could see each day that the work had visibly advanced.
When there was a slight skim of ice over the pond, this was broken up
about the nests, with trails through it in different directions where
the material had been brought. The houses were placed a little to one
side of the main channel, and were constructed entirely of a species of
coarse wild grass that grew all about. So far as I could see, from first
to last they were solid masses of grass, as if the interior cavity or
nest was to be excavated afterward, as doubtless it was. As they emerged
from the pond they gradually assumed the shape of a miniature mountain,
very bold and steep on the south side, and running down a long gentle
grade to the surface of the water on the north. One could see that the
little architect hauled all his material up this easy slope, and thrust
it out boldly around the other side. Every mouthful was distinctly
defined. After they were two feet or more above the water, I expected
each day to see that the finishing stroke had been given and the work
brought to a close. But higher yet, said the builder. December drew
near, the cold became threatening, and I was apprehensive that winter
would suddenly shut down upon those unfinished nests. But the wise
rats knew better than I did; they had received private advices from
headquarters that I knew not of. Finally, about the 6th of December, the
nests assumed completion; the northern incline was absorbed or carried
up, and each structure became a strong massive cone, three or four
feet high, the largest nest of the kind I had ever seen. Does it mean a
severe winter? I inquired. An old farmer said it meant "high water,"
and he was right once, at least, for in a few days afterward we had the
heaviest rainfall known in this section for half a century. The creeks
rose to an almost unprecedented height. The sluggish pond became a
seething, turbulent watercourse; gradually the angry element crept up
the sides of these lake dwellings, till, when the rain ceased, about
four o'clock they showed above the flood no larger than a man's hat.
During the night the channel shifted till the main current swept over
them, and next day not a vestige of the nests was to be seen; they
had gone down-stream, as had many other dwellings of a less temporary
character. The rats had built wisely, and would have been perfectly
secure against any ordinary high water, but who can foresee a flood? The
oldest traditions of their race did not run back to the time of such a
visitation.
Nearly a week afterward another dwelling was begun, well away from the
treacherous channel, but the architects did not work at it with much
heart; the material was very scarce, the ice hindered, and before the
basement-story was fairly finished, winter had the pond under his lock
and key.
In other localities I noticed that where the nests were placed on the
banks of streams, they were made secure against the floods by being
built amid a small clump of bushes. When the fall of 1879 came, the
muskrats were very tardy about beginning their house, laying the
corner-stone--or the corner-sod-about December 1st, and continuing the
work slowly and indifferently. On the 15th of the month the nest was not
yet finished. This, I said, indicates a mild winter; and, sure enough,
the season was one of the mildest known for many years. The rats had
little use for their house.
Again, in the fall of 1880, while the weather-wise were wagging their
heads, some forecasting a mild, some a severe winter, I watched with
interest for a sign from my muskrats. About November 1st, a month
earlier than the previous year, they began their nest, and worked at it
with a will. They appeared to have just got tidings of what was coming.
If I had taken the hint so palpably given, my celery would not have been
frozen in the ground, and my apples caught in unprotected places.
When the cold wave struck us, about November 20th, my four-legged
"I-told-you-so's" had nearly completed their dwelling; it lacked only
the ridge-board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give
it a finished look. But this it never got. The winter had come to stay,
and it waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the
last days of December must have astonished even the wise muskrats in
their snug retreat. I approached their nest at this time, a white mound
upon the white, deeply frozen surface of the pond, and wondered if
there was any life in that apparent sepulchre. I thrust my walking-stick
sharply into it, when there was a rustle and a splash into the water,
as the occupant made his escape. What a damp basement that house has, I
thought, and what a pity to rout out a peaceful neighbor out of his bed
in this weather and into such a state of things as this! But water does
not wet the muskrat; his fur is charmed, and not a drop penetrates
it. Where the ground is favorable, the muskrats do not build these
mound-like nests, but burrow into the bank a long distance, and
establish their winter-quarters there.
Shall we not say, then, in view of the above facts, that this little
creature is weather-wise? The hitting of the mark twice might be
mere good luck; but three bull's-eyes in succession is not a mere
coincidence; it is a proof of skill. The muskrat is not found in the Old
World, which is a little singular, as other rats so abound there, and
as those slow-going English streams especially, with their grassy banks,
are so well suited to him. The water-rat of Europe is smaller, but of
similar nature and habits. The muskrat does not hibernate like some
rodents, but is pretty active all winter. In December I noticed in my
walk where they had made excursions of a few yards to an orchard for
frozen apples. One day, along a little stream, I saw a mink track amid
those of the muskrat; following it up, I presently came to blood and
other marks of strife upon the snow beside a stone wall. Looking in
between the stones, I found the carcass of the luckless rat, with its
head and neck eaten away. The mink had made a meal of him.
II. CHEATING THE SQUIRRELS.
FOR the largest and finest chestnuts I had last fall I was indebted to
the gray squirrels. Walking through the early October woods one day, I
came upon a place where the ground was thickly strewn with very large
unopened chestnut burs. On examination I found that every bur had been
cut square off with about an inch of the stem adhering, and not one
had been left on the tree. It was not accident, then, but design. Whose
design? The squirrels'. The fruit was the finest I had ever seen in the
woods, and some wise squirrel had marked it for his own. The burs were
ripe, and had just begun to divide, not "threefold," but fourfold, "to
show the fruit within." The squirrel that had taken all this pains had
evidently reasoned with himself thus: "Now, these are extremely fine
chestnuts, and I want them; if I wait till the burs open on the tree the
crows and jays will be sure to carry off a great many of the nuts before
they fall; then, after the wind has rattled out what remain, there are
the mice, the chipmunks, the red squirrels, the raccoons, the grouse, to
say nothing of the boys and the pigs, to come in for their share; so I
will forestall events a little; I will cut off the burs when they have
matured, and a few days of this dry October weather will cause everyone
of them to open on the ground; I shall be on hand in the nick of time to
gather up my nuts." The squirrel, of course, had to take the chances of
a prowler like myself coming along, but he had fairly stolen a march on
his neighbors. As I proceeded to collect and open the burs, I was
half prepared to hear an audible protest from the trees about, for I
constantly fancied myself watched by shy but jealous eyes. It is an
interesting inquiry how the squirrel knew the burs would open if left to
know, but thought the experiment worth trying.
The gray squirrel is peculiarly an American product, and might serve
very well as a national emblem. The Old World can beat us on rats and
mice, but we are far ahead on squirrels, having five or six species to
Europe's one.
III. FOX AND HOUND.