[Illustration]

I noticed that he left many nuts on the bushes, but when I investigated

I found a worm in each nut--a good reason for rejecting them; but as

the husks seemed perfect, how did Bismarck know the worms were there?

I think his keen scent was the secret. By the sense of smell he could

tell a wormy from a sound nut. So could I after the nut was smashed,

but not before.

After the hazelnuts, beechnuts were gathered. But right here

competition was too great for the squirrels. The blue jays haunted the

beech groves, and could load up with from twelve to eighteen nuts, then

could use their wings against the squirrels' legs, so the latter were

usually short on beechnuts.

The acorn followed the beechnut crop, and as the woods of Cape Ann

are made up mostly of oak-trees, there were usually nuts enough for

Bismarck's family and to spare.

Besides being a hard worker, Bismarck proved to me, in many ways, that

he was quick-witted and resourceful. A sweet acorn-tree near my cabin

was loaded with nuts. Beneath the limbs on the south side was a carpet

of pine-needles, while under the limbs on the north side grew a dense

mass of brambles and catbriers. Bismarck did not drop a nut into the

mass of briers, but carried each nut--one at a time--to the clear side

before dropping it. Could human intelligence do more?

[Illustration]

When Bismarck and his mate had stowed away food enough for winter, they

made a winter nest in the pine-tree that grew above the storehouse. In

the new nest the whole family passed the winter after the manner of red

squirrels.

The two baby squirrels for the most of the harvest-time remained in

the nest or on the hemlock-tree in which the nest was located. Now and

then they followed the mother to a nut-tree, but were so noisy that I

imagine the fear of enemies caused the discreet mother to drive them

home.

When the family storehouse was well filled, Bismarck stored a few nuts

in the hole at the cabin. I think he would have stored more if it had

not been for the alert wood-mice. He hid a great many nuts around

boulders and trees. These nuts were used in the winter, and often

lasted until late in the spring. In the spring, when the nuts started

to grow, Bismarck dug them up, bit off the sprouts, and buried them

again.

When the nut crop is a failure, the squirrels are face to face with a

famine. Long before the nut season approaches the squirrels know that

they must depend on other food for the winter's supply. During one year

of failure I carefully noted how Bismarck conducted himself, knowing

that he would teach me how the red squirrel provides food when his main

supply is cut off. When September warned the squirrels that the season

for providing food for winter was on, Bismarck turned his attention

to the corn in the dooryard. Years before he had stored corn, when he

was obliged to compete with the blue jays and chipmunks. The latter

could carry away from fourteen to nineteen grains, while Bismarck's

load was but two grains. He soon evened things up by hiding corn in the

dooryard, or near it. When the supply was exhausted, and the blue jays

and chipmunks had disappeared, Bismarck would dig up his corn and carry

it home. It was sharp practice, but the squirrel was justified, when

we consider the circumstances. For several years prior to the famine,

Bismarck had dropped the habit of storing corn, and only gnawed out the

germ, leaving the mutilated grain for the blue jays and chipmunks. Now

Bismarck undertook to store corn, hiding it as of old, but I vetoed the

act, by withholding the corn. The squirrel then turned his attention

to a black cherry-tree, and with the aid of a chipmunk, soon stripped

it of fruit. I think the chipmunk gathered the fruit for the stone. He

gathered an enormous quantity, and surely could not make use of the

soft part. The red squirrel may have gathered for immediate use and

also for a winter supply.

Bismarck's next move was a great surprise. I caught him carrying bones

to his storehouse.

[Illustration]

One summer I saw Bismarck sitting on a stone wall, apparently eating a

bone. After he got through he hid the bone in the wall. I found that

the bone was old and partly decayed. I smashed up similar bones, and

Bismarck seemed to relish a meal three or four times a week, but I

never knew him to store bones for winter use before. His next move was

to attack the pine-cones. These were gathered while quite green. They

were left on the ground three or four days and then carried, whole, to

the family storehouse--a great quantity was stored under stumps, trees,

and boulders. The hemlock-cones were gathered later, but were husked at

the foot of the tree on which they grew.

During the following winter Bismarck looked to me for food. A loaf of

bread was wired to a post near the cabin door, from which he could eat,

while he could not carry it away. One cold, rainy day, he sat by the

bread without eating, and whimpered like a little child. He was telling

me in squirrel language that it was cold, rainy, and almost night,

and that I ought to give him some bread to take home to his family.

I understood his appeal, and passed him a biscuit. He scampered away

chuckling over his good luck. After that, fair or foul, all through

the winter days, he would beg for bread to take home, and always

chuckled when he got it. Perhaps he was laughing at me for being an

easy mark, or it may have been squirrel for "I thank you a thousand

times." However that may be, he was welcome, for I thought of the baby

squirrels starving along on a cone-seed diet.

Bismarck would eat all kinds of meat--even fat pork--but he preferred

cooked meat to raw. While the famine was on he turned his attention to

many kinds of food found in the woods. I made a record of each variety,

and religiously tasted of everything he used. Frozen barberries and

chokeberries were preferred to all others. I found the barberries had

lost much of their usual sourness; the chokeberries were sweet and

palatable. While the former remained on the bushes through the winter,

the latter were soon exhausted, for they were food for quail, grouse,

blue jays, and mice. The berries of the greenbrier, staghorn sumach,

and rosehips were used sparingly. The greenbrier berries had a sweetish

taste; the staghorn sumachs were sour and puckery, while the rosehips

had a pleasant flavor at first, ending in a most disagreeable bitter.

Many mushrooms were caught by an early frost, and remained frozen

through the winter. These were food for Bismarck. He would gnaw out the

under part, or gills, rejecting the rest. I tasted the food, but cannot

say that I care for frozen mushroom.

In the spring pussy-willow buds formed a part of Bismarck's food. I

found the buds nearly tasteless, but they crunched between the teeth

like a crisp cucumber. As spring advanced, creeping wintergreen and

partridge-berries appeared here and there where the sun had melted the

snow, and Bismarck greedily devoured the bright red berries. Later

berries formed the greater part of his food until the hazelnuts were

ripe. Wild apple-trees abound on Cape Ann, and Bismarck attacked the

fruit early in the fall. He destroyed great quantities for the seed,

which was the only part stored for winter use. However, he seemed to

relish an apple, if it was not too sour, and all through the winter he

would eat a Baldwin apple, even to the seeds, at one sitting.

[Illustration]

The history of Bismarck through a year of famine is the history of

other red squirrels on Cape Ann. It is evident that the red squirrel

is famine proof. If the nut crop is a failure, chickaree turns his

attention to other food sources, and by perseverance and hard work is

able to keep the wolf from the door.

For years Bismarck and the blue jays have matched wits. After nesting,

the blue jays would flock to the cabin and impudently appropriate

all the food found in the trees. Bismarck seemed to know that it was

useless to store food longer in this way, so he would bury it beneath

the pine-needles. The jays were soon on to this trick. When I threw a

piece of bread to the squirrel he would start at once to hide it, while

the jays would follow him, keeping in the trees, just out of reach. The

moment he left, the jays would fly down, dig out the bread and carry

it away. It often happened that Bismarck would fool the robbers by

pretending to bury the bread. He would dig a hole, cover it over, pat

down the pine-needles, but would run away with the bread in his mouth.

While the jays were scratching the pine-needles right and left, in a

useless search, Bismarck would hide the bit of bread, and return to

the dooryard for more. He was not so particular if the food was wheat

bread, but if it was his favorite food--doughnut--the jays were fooled

every time.

[Illustration]

Every spring Bismarck taps the trees around the cabin. He begins on the

maples and ends later on the birches. If the tree is small, he taps the

trunk; if large, he works on the limbs. He gnaws through the bark and

into the wood, then clings to the limb or trunk, below the wound, while

he laps the sweet sap. If there is a hollow in the bark into which the

sap flows, Bismarck is sure to find it.

Did the red squirrel learn how to tap trees from the American Indian,

or did the Indian learn from the squirrel?

The habits of the red squirrel are rapidly changing in this locality

on account of a foolish State law. The story is quickly told. Ward 8

(city of Gloucester), where my cabin is located, contains over eleven

thousand square acres. Its area is greater than that of the other

seven wards combined. The bulk of the territory of Ward 8 is made up

of woodland and shrubland, the city proper being in the other seven

wards. Ward 8 contains the delightful summer resort known as Magnolia.

This resort derives its name from Magnolia Swamp, the only spot in New

England where magnolia glauca is found in a wild state. The famous

Coffin's Beach is also in this ward.

The General Court four years ago placed a close time of five years on

small game in the territory east of Ward 8. This protects the seven

wards of the city and the town of Rockport. Two years ago the town

of Essex, which joins Ward 8 on the west, was protected, so that the

gunners from a population of about forty thousand are turned loose in

Ward 8. The extermination of nearly all the game, and of great numbers

of song-birds, has been the result of this peculiar legislation.

[Illustration: INDIGO-BIRD.]

All the wild things are desperately wild. The red squirrel if he hears

the report of a gun instantly rushes to a hiding-place. Well he knows

the deadly meaning of the report. He has turned day into night, and now

harvests his nut crop in the night-time. I sleep in the open air, and

during the harvest season I listen for hours to the sound of dropping

nuts which the industrious but wary squirrels are cutting from the

oak-trees around my cabin.

Bismarck is still in the land of the living, although ten years have

passed since he first introduced himself, and requested me to book him

for table board. He has cost me many dollars, while he has not paid a

cent in the coin of the realm. However, I owe him for teaching and am

ready to balance the books and exchange receipts.

[Illustration: OVEN-BIRD.]

I know that my position in relation to the red squirrel's destruction

of song-birds will be sharply criticized by those who believe in the

squirrel's total depravity. But the truth is that I describe wild life

just as I find it, not as some books say I ought to find it. If the

red squirrel was as destructive as reported, there would not be a young

bird reared around my cabin. My notes show that last year the following

named birds nested near my cabin, and probably every nest was known and

visited by the red squirrel:

Number of nests.

Chestnut-sided warbler 3

Black-throated green warbler 1

Oven-bird 2

Vireo 4

Canada fly-catching warbler 1

Robin 2

Towhee-bunting 2

Catbird 1

Wilson's thrush 2

Indigo-bird 1

--

Total 19

A ruffed grouse nest was looted by the crows when it contained but four

eggs, after which the bird resorted to a swamp, and reared a brood.

Several of the nests named were destroyed, but none by the squirrel.

In the light of my observations I cannot consistently denounce the red

squirrel.

[Illustration: BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER.]

V.

CHANGES IN HERMIT-LIFE

For several years I had slept in a hammock without a roof to keep off

the night air. I had found this method inconvenient on account of

stormy nights, when I was obliged to seek the shelter of the cabin. I

overcame the difficulty by putting a tent roof over my hammock. The

sides and ends were open so that I was practically exposed to the night

air. The tent roof protected me on stormy nights, and with this slight

shelter I slept out-doors from April 1st until Christmas, unless there

was a heavy, fall of snow, meantime.

I found it inconvenient to cook my breakfast, and then, after eating

it, go to the city. Why I did so was on account of my coffee habit. I

had tried to find a good cup of coffee in the city and had failed, so

had depended on my own brewing.

One morning I dropped into the little store at the head of Pavilion

Beach, and the proprietor asked me to have a cup of coffee. He piloted

me into a back shop, where he told me that he served a light lunch

with coffee, to the farmers. The coffee was just to my taste, and for

twelve years I patronized the coffee trade in that little back shop.

My note-book shows that during the twelve years I had missed only

eighty mornings. I had paid six hundred and forty-five dollars, during

that time, for my lunch and coffee, and had walked, on account of my

breakfast, seventeen thousand two hundred miles. Whew! It makes me feel

poor and tired to recall it. I do not remember that I remained at home

to breakfast on account of a storm. The eighty mornings which I missed

in the twelve years were accounted for by absence from the city.

I would leave my cabin, summer or winter, at half-past five o'clock,

so I could sit down to breakfast in the back shop about six.

In the winter months it was dark at half-past five in the morning, but

that did not disturb me. I did not use a lantern because I would not

be bothered with it, and for another reason. It made one a bright and

shining object for early ghouls or tramps.

For some years past I have discontinued my early morning tramps, but

I love to recall the persistence with which I clung to habit. Those

early walks afforded me much pleasure and some hardships. During the

spring months the frogs and birds enlivened my morning walk with music.

The bird-music along the route to the city was divided according to

locality. Before leaving the cabin, from early daylight, there would be

a variety of bird-songs. In numbers the veery led all the rest. Then

followed the red-eyed vireo. After these, I could hear only one song

each of the following species:

[Illustration]

Catbird, towhee-bunting, chestnut-sided warbler, robin, black-throated

green warbler, oven-bird, wood-thrush, and warbling-vireo. Indigo-birds

and cedar-birds some years could be added to the list, but they are

erratic birds, and cannot be depended upon.

[Illustration: CEDAR-BIRD.]

[Illustration: THE NEW CABIN.]

My route to the city was along the deserted old highway. When I had

climbed the first hill (where my new cabin now stands), I could

overlook a rugged territory where the fire and axe had exterminated the

large trees, leaving a low, shrubby growth, just suited to the needs

of the birds. The songs of the catbird, towhee-bunting, and robin were

heard here, and, strange to tell, in a distant corner of the territory,

could be heard the loud carol of the song-sparrow. A few pairs of these

birds had changed their nesting site from pasture to shrub-land. I knew

that these sparrows were descendants of my pet birds, Wabbles and his

first wife. They were born in the woods, and so reared their children

in the same surroundings.

The frog-pond was just beyond the hill, and when the toads and frogs

did not drown their music, birds could be heard singing from morning

till night during the nesting season.

There was a colony of Maryland yellowthroats near this spot, and the

sprightly song could be heard from May 1st to the middle of July. I

have heard the song in September.

[Illustration: MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT.]

A short distance from the frog-pond, on the left, there is another

pond, or shoal bog, where frogs and red-winged blackbirds appear to own

the earth or water. Still farther along the old highway, on the right,

there is a walled-in territory, called the "Sheep Pasture." I think I

could carry the grass in this so-called pasture in my hands. A mass of

boulders and bed-rock, set off by barberry-bushes, comprises the view,

but this rugged pasture (?) is the home of the field-sparrow (_Spizella

agrestis_). This sparrow is not so common as the song-sparrow and

bay-winged bunting.

[Illustration: RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS.]

I consider it a rare treat to listen to this sweet singer. I made it

a practice, during the season of song, to stop by this old pasture,

not only to hear the sparrow, but a brown thrush as well. The thrush

occupied the other side of the old highway, and when he saw me coming,

he would mount to the top of a small tree and sing so long as I

remained to listen.

Farther along on the old road, a pair of redstarts could be found every

spring. The male did his singing in a wild apple-tree. From this spot,

down "Slaughter-house Hill," to Western Avenue, I found song-sparrows

to be the prevailing bird. There were a few chestnut-sided warblers,

robins, and catbirds.

The birds I have mentioned, that nest along the old road, look upon me

with friendly eyes as I pass. When they return in the spring, they give

a greeting which I understand, because the notes are in a higher key,

and are never repeated through the summer. While passing daily over the

road I have made it a practice to talk to the birds, so many of them,

not all, greet me as before mentioned.

[Illustration: SWAMP SONG-SPARROW.]

[Illustration: BROWN THRUSH]

The brown thrush is usually more demonstrative than other birds. His

greeting is almost like the shrill cry of a small boy. Two years ago,

when rounding a turn in the old road, I saw four thrushes before me. I

stopped to observe them, when I heard behind me the laugh of a boy. I

glanced back, but saw no one. Again I heard the laugh, and this time

I located the sound over the wall, and started to call, when a male

thrush flew to the top of a small cherry-tree, and, after laughing as

before, gave me a song. This thrush was my old friend just returned

from the South, and when he saw me looking at his mates, he called out

to let me know where to find him.

[Illustration: BALTIMORE ORIOLE.]

Along Western Avenue the tall elms harbored many singers. The Baltimore

orioles' loud notes could be heard above other bird-songs. Linnets,

chipping-sparrows, bluebirds, and bay-winged-buntings were scattered

along the route to the city. When I had reached the sea-wall, the gulls

were the birds to attract my attention. Some were seen skimming the

surface of the water, while others were anchored in large rafts. The

gulls appeared to be fearless, and swung to and fro near the beach,

but, just the same, the crafty birds did not approach near enough for

a shot. They knew how far the modern gun could shoot, and gauged their

flight accordingly. Whenever one desired to cross the highway to the

marshes beyond, it would rise above gunshot before making the attempt.

Besides the keen sense which the gulls possess, they carry themselves

with true dignity.

From the first of April to the middle of November I looked every

morning for my "lone fisherman." There was a stake near the drawbridge

which a belted kingfisher had preëmëpted. For six years this feathered

fisherman held that stake, while he had to face almost all the travel

in and out of the city. The nest was in a clay-bank that overhung the

beach near Stage Fort.

It is needless for me to tell that I derived great pleasure from my

daily association with the birds that nested along my route to the city.

[Illustration: BELTED KINGFISHER, WATCHING.]

[Illustration: KINGFISHER, STRIKING.]

The hardships which I have mentioned were encountered in the winter

months, when storms prevailed. Cold starlight mornings were my delight.

If there was snow on the ground it added a new pleasure. I always

enjoyed the keen, cutting air. Sometimes there were storms in the

morning with rain or snow. At times, the wind would blow such a furious

gale on the Cut, that it would make it nearly impossible to reach my

haven. When safely housed at last, I always felt satisfied with myself,

because of my victory over the elements. One storm forced me to remain

in the city overnight. The storm had died out, but had created a sea

such as is seldom seen even on the Cape. I went over to Bass Rocks, to

see the waves break, and did not get back to Western Avenue until near

night. I found the street full of snow and sea-water. I waded nearly

to the drawbridge and then mounted the sea-wall. I soon found that the

large waves broke over the wall, and with force enough to wash me

overboard, so I turned back. The street was closed to travel afterward,

by the city officials.

[Illustration: KINGFISHER LIFTING HIS CATCH.]

During the summer weather I saw many strange sights when taking my

morning walk. One morning, a pasture-rabbit tore along the old road as

if he were racing for life. He passed me without turning his head, and

was out of sight around a turn in the path before I had recovered from

my surprise. While I was looking, he came back, jumping high and long;

after he had got by the turn, and nearly to my feet, he gave a great

jump sideways, and landed in a clump of weeds. Just then a stoat came

in sight on the rabbit's trail. His leaps were not expended in the air,

but were swift, long, and near the ground. It was evident that the poor

rabbit had no chance to escape from such a supple, bloodthirsty foe

without help. When the stoat was out of sight, the rabbit again took

to the road. He passed me, then turned into the woods. Whether he knew

it or not, it was the best thing to do. It left the hermit to face his

relentless foe. Perhaps the birds had told the rabbit that the hermit

was a friend. The stoat came back, hunting both sides of the road. He

understood just how he had been tricked. When he found the trail in the

weeds, he circled around until satisfied that the rabbit had returned

to the road. When we met, he seemed surprised, but he tried to pass,

spitting spitefully to frighten me. I drove him back, and managed to

keep him from the rabbit's trail until it was too cold to follow.

I expect that this rescue established my reputation with the rabbits,

for from time to time they came into my dooryard when chased by a mink

or stoat. Whenever it occurs on Sunday there are visitors present, who

are invariably excited for the welfare of the rabbit.

The stoat is the large weasel. It turns white in the winter, and is

then the ermine.

[Illustration: The Hermit's Wild Friends]