seed-sowers in the forest. It is a prolific seed-producer and has a
remarkable hoarding characteristic,--that of keeping its cones closed
and holding on to them for years. Commonly a forest fire kills trees
without consuming them. With the lodge-pole the fire frequently burns
off the needles, leaving the tree standing, but it melts the
sealing-wax on the cones. Thus the fire releases these seeds and they
fall upon a freshly fire-cleaned soil,--a condition for them most
favorable.
Although the cherry is without wings or a flying-machine of its own,
it is rich enough to employ the rarest transportation in the world.
With attractively colored and luscious pulp it hires many beautiful
birds to carry it to new scenes. On the wings of the mockingbird and
the hermit thrush,--what a happy and romantic way in which to seek the
promised land!
Many kinds of pulp-covered seeds that are attractive and delicious
when ripe are unpleasant to the taste while green; this protective
measure guards them against being sown before they are ready or ripe.
The instant persimmons are ripe, the trees are full of opossums which
disseminate the ready-to-grow seeds; but Mr. 'Possum avoids the green
and puckery persimmons!
The big tree is one of the most fruitful of seed-bearers. In a single
year one of these may produce some millions of fertile seeds. These
mature in comparatively small cones and, each seed being light as air,
they are sometimes carried by high winds across ridges and ravines
before being dropped to the earth.
The honey locust uses a peculiar device to secure wind assistance in
pushing afar its long, purplish pods with their heavy beanlike seeds.
This pod is not only flattened but crooked and slightly twisted.
Dropping from the tree in midwinter, it often lands upon crusted snow.
Here on windy days it becomes a kind of crude ice-boat and goes
skimming along before the wind; with its flattened, twisted surface it
ever presents a boosting-surface to the breeze.
The ironwood tree launches its seeds each seated in the prow of a tiny
boat, which floats or careers away upon the invisible ocean of air,
sinking, after a rudderless voyage, to the earth. The attachment to
some seeds is bladder- or balloon-like; tied helplessly to this, the
seed is cast forth briefly to wander with the wandering winds.
The linden, or basswood, tree uses a monoplane for buoyancy. The
basswood attaches or suspends a number of seeds by slender threads to
the centre of a leaf; in autumn when this falls it resists gravity for
a time and ofttimes with its clinging cargo alights far from the tree
which sent it forth.
Burr- or hook-covered seeds may become attached to the backs of
animals and thus be transported afar. One day in Colorado I disturbed
a black bear in some willows more than a mile from the woods; as he
ran over a grassy ridge three or four pine cones that had been hooked
and entangled in his hair went spinning off. Seeds sometimes are
internationally distributed by becoming attached by some sticky
substance--pitch or dried mud--to the legs or feathers of birds.
Cottonwood seed often has a long ride, though generally a fruitless
one, by alighting in the hair of some animal. Sometimes a cone or nut
becomes wedged between the hoofs of an animal and is carried about for
days; taken miles before it is dropped, it grows a lone tree far from
the nearest grove.
Though the witch-hazel is no longer invested with eerie charms, it
still has its own peculiar way of doing things. It chooses to bloom
alone in the autumn, just at the time its seeds are ripe and
scattering. Assisted by the frost and the sun, it scatters its
shotlike seeds with a series of snappy little explosions which fling
them twelve to twenty feet from the capsule in which they ripen.
The mangrove trees of Florida germinate their seeds upon the tree and
then drop little plants off into the water; here winds and currents
may move them hither and yon as they blindly explore for a
rooting-place.
The cocoanut tree covers its nuts with a kind of "excelsior" which
prevents their breaking upon the rocks. This also facilitates the
floating and transportation of the nut in the sea. When the breakers
have flung it upon rocks or broken reefs, here its fibrous covering
helps it cling until the young roots grow and anchor it securely.
Thus endlessly during all the seasons of the year the trees are sowing
their ripened seed and sending them forth, variously equipped, blindly
to seek a place in which they may live, perpetuate the species, and
extend the forest.
It is well that nature sows seeds like a spendthrift. So many are the
chances against the seed, so numerous are the destroying agencies, so
few are the places in reach that are unoccupied, that perhaps not
more than one seed in a million ever germinates, and hardly one tree
in a thousand that starts to grow ever attains maturity. Through sheer
force of numbers and continuous seed-scattering, the necessarily
random methods of nature produce results; and where opportunity opens,
trees promptly extend their holdings or reclaim a territory from which
they have been driven.
Many times I have wandered through the coniferous forests in the
mountains when the seeds were ripe and fluttering thick as snowflakes
to the earth. Visiting ridges, slopes, and cañons, I have watched the
pines, firs, and spruces closing a year's busy, invisible activity by
merrily strewing the air and the earth with their fruits,--seeding for
the centuries to come. One breathless autumn day I looked up into the
blue sky from the bottom of a cañon. The golden air was as thickly
filled with winged seeds as a perfect night with stars. A light local
air-current made a milky way across this sky. Myriads of becalmed and
suspended seeds were fixed stars. Some of the seeds, each with a filmy
wing, hurried through elliptical orbits like comets as they settled
to the earth; while innumerable others, as they came rotating down,
were revolving through planetary orbits in this seed-sown field of
space. Now and then a number of cones on a fir tree collapsed and
precipitated into space a meteoric shower of slow-descending seeds and
a hurried zigzag fall of heavier scales. Occasionally on a ridge-top a
few of the lighter seeds would come floating upward through an
air-chimney as though carried in an invisible smoke-column.
One windy day I crossed the mountains when a gale was driving millions
of low-flying seeds before it. Away they swept down the slope, to
whirl widely and flutter over the gulch where the wind-current dashed
against the uprising mountain beyond. Most of the seeds were flung to
the earth along the way or dropped in the bottom of the gulch; a few,
however, were carried by the swift uprushing current up and across the
mountain and at last scattered on the opposite side.
When the last seed of the year has fallen, how thickly the woodland
regions are sown broadcast with seeds! Only a few of these will have
landed in a hospitable place. The overwhelmingly majority fell in the
water to drown or on rock ledges or other places to starve or wither.
The few fortunate enough to find unoccupied and fertile places will
still have to reckon with devouring insects and animals. How different
may be the environment of two seedlings sprung from seeds grown on the
selfsame tree! On their commencement day two little atoms of life may
be separated by the wind: one finds shelter and fertile earth; the
other roots in a barely livable place on the cold, stormbeaten heights
of timber-line. Both use their inherent energy and effort to the
utmost. One becomes a forest monarch; the other a dwarf, uncouth and
ugly.
In a Mountain Blizzard
In a Mountain Blizzard
At the close of one of our winter trips, my collie Scotch and I
started across the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains in face
of weather conditions that indicated a snowstorm or a blizzard before
we could gain the other side. We had eaten the last of our food
twenty-four hours before and could no longer wait for fair weather. So
off we started to scale the snowy steeps of the cold, gray heights a
thousand feet above. The mountains already were deeply snow-covered
and it would have been a hard trip even without the discomforts and
dangers of a storm.
I was on snowshoes and for a week we had been camping and tramping
through the snowy forests and glacier meadows at the source of Grand
River, two miles above the sea. The primeval Rocky Mountain forests
are just as near to Nature's heart in winter as in summer. I had found
so much to study and enjoy that the long distance from a food-supply,
even when the last mouthful was eaten, had not aroused me to the
seriousness of the situation. Scotch had not complained, and appeared
to have the keenest collie interest in the tracks and trails, the
scenes and silences away from the haunts of man. The snow lay seven
feet deep, but by keeping in my snowshoe tracks Scotch easily followed
me about. Our last camp was in the depths of an alpine forest at an
altitude of ten thousand feet. Here, though zero weather prevailed, we
were easily comfortable beside a fire under the protection of an
overhanging cliff.
After a walk through woods the sun came blazing in our faces past the
snow-piled crags on Long's Peak, and threw slender blue shadows of the
spiry spruces far out in a white glacier meadow to meet us. Rëentering
the tall but open woods, we saw, down the long aisles and limb-arched
avenues, a forest of tree columns, entangled in sunlight and shadow,
standing on a snowy marble floor.
[Illustration: ON GRAND RIVER, MIDDLE PARK, IN WINTER]
We were on the Pacific slope, and our plan was to cross the summit
by the shortest way between timber-line and timber-line on the
Atlantic side. This meant ascending a thousand feet, descending an
equal distance, traveling five miles amid bleak, rugged environment.
Along the treeless, gradual ascent we started, realizing that the last
steep icy climb would be dangerous and defiant. Most of the snow had
slid from the steeper places, and much of the remainder had blown
away. Over the unsheltered whole the wind was howling. For a time the
sun shone dimly through the wind-driven snow-dust that rolled from the
top of the range, but it disappeared early behind wild, windswept
clouds.
After gaining a thousand feet of altitude through the friendly forest,
we climbed out and up above the trees on a steep slope at timber-line.
This place, the farthest up for trees, was a picturesque, desolate
place. The dwarfed, gnarled, storm-shaped trees amid enormous
snow-drifts told of endless, and at times deadly, struggles of the
trees with the elements. Most of the trees were buried, but here and
there a leaning or a storm-distorted one bent bravely above the
snows.
At last we were safely on a ridge and started merrily off, hoping to
cover speedily the three miles of comparatively level plateau.
How the wind did blow! Up more than eleven thousand feet above the
sea, with not a tree to steady or break, it had a royal sweep. The
wind appeared to be putting forth its wildest efforts to blow us off
the ridge. There being a broad way, I kept well from the edges. The
wind came with a dash and heavy rush, first from one quarter, then
from another. I was watchful and faced each rush firmly braced.
Generally, this preparedness saved me; but several times the wind
apparently expanded or exploded beneath me, and, with an upward toss,
I was flung among the icy rocks and crusted snows. Finally I took to
dropping and lying flat whenever a violent gust came ripping among the
crags.
There was an arctic barrenness to this alpine ridge,--not a house
within miles, no trail, and here no tree could live to soften the
sternness of the landscape or to cheer the traveler. The way was amid
snowy piles, icy spaces, and windswept crags.
The wind slackened and snow began to fall just as we were leaving the
smooth plateau for the broken part of the divide. The next mile of way
was badly cut to pieces with deep gorges from both sides of the ridge.
The inner ends of several of these broke through the centre of the
ridge and extended beyond the ends of the gorges from the opposite
side. This made the course a series of sharp, short zigzags.
We went forward in the flying snow. I could scarcely see, but felt
that I could keep the way on the broken ridge between the numerous
rents and cañons. On snowy, icy ledges the wind took reckless
liberties. I wanted to stop but dared not, for the cold was intense
enough to freeze one in a few minutes.
Fearing that a snow-whirl might separate us, I fastened one end of my
light, strong rope to Scotch's collar and the other end to my belt.
This proved to be fortunate for both, for while we were crossing an
icy, though moderate, slope, a gust of wind swept me off my feet and
started us sliding. It was not steep, but was so slippery I could not
stop, nor see where the slope ended, and I grabbed in vain at the few
icy projections. Scotch also lost his footing and was sliding and
rolling about, and the wind was hurrying us along, when I threw myself
flat and dug at the ice with fingers and toes. In the midst of my
unsuccessful efforts we were brought to a sudden stop by the rope
between us catching over a small rock-point that was thrust up through
the ice. Around this in every direction was smooth, sloping ice; this,
with the high wind, made me wonder for a moment how we were to get
safely off the slope. The belt axe proved the means, for with it I
reached out as far as I could and chopped a hole in the ice, while
with the other hand I clung to the rock-point. Then, returning the axe
to my belt, I caught hold in the chopped place and pulled myself
forward, repeating this until on safe footing.
In oncoming darkness and whirling snow I had safely rounded the ends
of two gorges and was hurrying forward over a comparatively level
stretch, with the wind at my back boosting along. Scotch was running
by my side and evidently was trusting me to guard against all
dangers. This I tried to do. Suddenly, however, there came a fierce
dash of wind and whirl of snow that hid everything. Instantly I flung
myself flat, trying to stop quickly. Just as I did this I caught the
strange, weird sound made by high wind as it sweeps across a cañon,
and at once realized that we were close to a storm-hidden gorge. I
stopped against a rock, while Scotch slid in and was hauled back with
the rope.
The gorge had been encountered between two out-thrusting side gorges,
and between these in the darkness I had a cold time feeling my way
out. At last I came to a cairn of stones which I recognized. The way
had been missed by only a few yards, but this miss had been nearly
fatal.
Not daring to hurry in the darkness in order to get warm, I was
becoming colder every moment. I still had a stiff climb between me and
the summit, with timber-line three rough miles beyond. To attempt to
make it would probably result in freezing or tumbling into a gorge. At
last I realized that I must stop and spend the night in a snow-drift.
Quickly kicking and trampling a trench in a loose drift, I placed my
elk-skin sleeping-bag therein, thrust Scotch into the bag, and then
squeezed into it myself.
I was almost congealed with cold. My first thought after warming up
was to wonder why I had not earlier remembered the bag. Two in a bag
would guarantee warmth, and with warmth a snow-drift on the crest of
the continent would not be a bad place in which to lodge for the
night.
The sounds of wind and snow beating upon the bag grew fainter and
fainter as we were drifted and piled over with the latter. At the same
time our temperature rose, and before long it was necessary to open
the flap of the bag slightly for ventilation.
At last the sounds of the storm could barely be heard. Was the storm
quieting down, or was its roar muffled and lost in the deepening cover
of snow, was the unimportant question occupying my thoughts when I
fell asleep.
Scotch awakened me in trying to get out of the bag. It was morning.
Out we crawled, and, standing with only my head above the drift, I
found the air still and saw a snowy mountain world all serene in the
morning sun. I hastily adjusted sleeping-bag and snowshoes, and we set
off for the final climb to the summit.
The final one hundred feet or so rose steep, jagged, and ice-covered
before me. There was nothing to lay hold of; every point of vantage
was plated and coated with non-prehensible ice. There appeared only
one way to surmount this icy barrier and that was to chop toe and hand
holes from the bottom to the top of this icy wall, which in places was
close to vertical. Such a climb would not be especially difficult or
dangerous for me, but could Scotch do it? He could hardly know how to
place his feet in the holes or on the steps properly; nor could he
realize that a slip or a misstep would mean a slide and a roll to
death.
Leaving sleeping-bag and snowshoes with Scotch, I grasped my axe and
chopped my way to the top and then went down and carried bag and
snowshoes up. Returning for Scotch, I started him climbing just ahead
of me, so that I could boost and encourage him. We had gained only a
few feet when it became plain that sooner or later he would slip and
bring disaster to both. We stopped and descended to the bottom for a
new start.
Though the wind was again blowing a gale, I determined to carry him.
His weight was forty pounds, and he would make a top-heavy load and
give the wind a good chance to upset my balance and tip me off the
wall. But, as there appeared no other way, I threw him over my
shoulder and started up.
Many times Scotch and I had been in ticklish places together, and more
than once I had pulled him up rocky cliffs on which he could not find
footing. Several times I had carried him over gulches on fallen logs
that were too slippery for him. He was so trusting and so trained that
he relaxed and never moved while in my arms or on my shoulder.
[Illustration: SNOW AND SHADOW]
Arriving at the place least steep, I stopped to transfer Scotch from
one shoulder to the other. The wind was at its worst; its direction
frequently changed and it alternately calmed and then came on like
an explosion. For several seconds it had been roaring down the slope;
bracing myself to withstand its force from this direction, I was about
moving Scotch, when it suddenly shifted to one side and came with the
force of a breaker. It threw me off my balance and tumbled me heavily
against the icy slope.
Though my head struck solidly, Scotch came down beneath me and took
most of the shock. Instantly we glanced off and began to slide
swiftly. Fortunately I managed to get two fingers into one of the
chopped holes and held fast. I clung to Scotch with one arm; we came
to a stop, both saved. Scotch gave a yelp of pain when he fell beneath
me, but he did not move. Had he made a jump or attempted to help
himself, it is likely that both of us would have gone to the bottom of
the slope.
Gripping Scotch with one hand and clinging to the icy hold with the
other, I shuffled about until I got my feet into two holes in the icy
wall. Standing in these and leaning against the ice, with the wind
butting and dashing, I attempted the ticklish task of lifting Scotch
again to my shoulder--and succeeded. A minute later we paused to
breathe on the summit's icy ridge, between two oceans and amid seas of
snowy peaks.
A Midget in Fur
A Midget in Fur
The Frémont squirrel is the most audacious and wide-awake of wild folk
among whom I have lived. He appears to be ever up and doing, is
intensely in earnest at all times and strongly inclined to take a
serious view of things. Both the looks and manners of Mr. Frémont,
_Sciurus fremonti_, proclaim for him a close relationship with the
Douglas squirrel of California and the Pacific coast, the squirrel
immortalized by John Muir.
His most popular name is "Pine Squirrel," and he is found through the
pine and spruce forests of the Rocky Mountains and its spur ranges,
between the foothills and timber-line; a vertical, or altitudinal,
range of more than a mile. He assumes and asserts ownership of the
region occupied. If you invade his forests he will see you first and
watch you closely. Often he does this with simple curiosity, but more
often he is irritated by your presence and issues a chattering
protest while you are still at long range. If you continue to approach
after this proclamation, he may come down on a low limb near by and
give you as torrential and as abusive a "cussing" as trespasser ever
received from irate owner.
Yet he is most ridiculously small to do all that he threatens to do.
Of course he brags and bluffs, but these become admirable qualities in
this little fellow who will ably, desperately defend his domain
against heavy odds of size or numbers. Among the squirrels of the
world he is one of the smallest. He is clad in gray and his coat
perceptibly darkens in winter. His plumy tail, with a fringe of white
hairs, is as airy as thistledown. He always appears clean and
well-groomed.
Though in many ways a grizzly in miniature and apparently as untamable
as a tiger, the Frémont quickly responds to kind advances. Near my
cabin a number became so tame that they took peanuts from my hand,
sometimes even following me to the cabin door for this purpose.
These squirrels occasionally eat mushrooms, berries, and the inner
bark of pine twigs, but they depend almost entirely upon conifer nuts
or seeds, the greater part of these coming from the cones of pines and
spruces. They start harvesting the cones in early autumn, so as to
harvest all needed food for winter before the dry, ripened cones open
and empty their tiny seeds. Deftly they dart through the tree-tops
almost as swiftly as a hummingbird and as utterly indifferent to the
dangers of falling. With polished blades of ivory they clip off the
clinging, fruited cones. Happy, hopeful, harvest-home sounds the cones
make as they drop and bounce on the dry floor of the autumn woods.
Often a pair work together, one reaping the cones with his ivory
cutters and the other carrying them home, each being a sheaf of grain
of Nature's bundling.
When harvesting alone, Mr. Frémont is often annoyed by the chipmunks.
These little rascals will persist in stealing the fallen cones,
despite glaring eyes, irate looks, and deadly threats from the angry
harvester above. When finally he comes tearing down to carry his
terrible ultimatums into effect, the frightened chipmunks make haste
to be off, but usually some one is overtaken and knocked sprawling
with an accompanying rapid fire of denunciation.
One day I watched a single harvester who was busily, happily working.
He cut off a number of cones before descending to gather them. These
scattered widely like children playing hide-and-seek. One hid behind a
log; another bounced into some brush and stuck two feet above the
ground, while two others scampered far from the tree. The squirrel
went to each in turn without the least hesitation or search and as
though he had been to each spot a dozen times before.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF THE FRÉMONT SQUIRREL
On the Little Cimarron]
A squirrel often displays oddities both in the place selected for
storing the cones and the manner of their arrangement. Usually the
cones are wisely hoarded both for curing and for preservation, by
being stored a few in a place. This may be beneath a living tree or in
an open space, placed one layer deep in the loose forest litter
scarcely below the general level of the surface. They are also stowed
both in and upon old logs and stumps. Sometimes they are placed in
little nests with a half-dozen or so cones each; often there are a
dozen of these in a square yard. This scattering of the sap-filled
cones, together with the bringing of each into contact with dry
foreign substances, secures ventilation and assists the sappy cones to
dry and cure; if closely piled, many of these moist cones would be
lost through mould and decay.