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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT
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HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

 

 

 
 
Ribersive Coition

THE WRITINGS OF
JOHN BURROUGHS
VOLUME I

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THE V/RITINGS OF
JOHN BURROUGHS

Riverside Cdition

  
    

 
     
  
 
 

 
 

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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO
WAKE-ROBIN

BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Riversive Press, Cambridge
1895

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Copyright, 1871, 1876, 1895,
By JOHN BURROUGHS.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. 8. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co,
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

Tuis is mainly a book about the Birds, or more
properly an invitation to the study of Ornithology,
and the purpose of the author will be carried out in
proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest
of the reader in this branch of Natural History.

Though written less in the spirit of exact science
than with the freedom of love and old acquaintance,
yet I have in no instance taken liberties with facts,
or allowed my imagination to influence me to the
extent of giving a false impression or a wrong color-
ing. I have reaped my harvest more in the woods
than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful
and conscientious record of actual observations and
experiences, and is true as it stands written, every
word of it. But what has interested me most in
Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery ;
that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and
wild sports, and which I could carry with me in my
eye and ear wherever I went.

I cannot answer with much confidence the poet’s
inquiry,

“Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?”
vi PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

but I have done what I could to bring home the
“earth and the sky” with the sparrow I heard
“singing at dawn on the alder bough.” In other
words, I have tried to present a live bird, —a bird
in the woods or the fields, — with the atmosphere
and associations of the place, and not merely a
stuffed and labeled specimen.

A more specific title for the volume would have
suited me better; but not being able to satisfy my-
self in this direction, I cast about for a word thor-
oughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book,
which I hope I have found in ‘‘ Wake-Robin,” the
common name of the white Trillium, which blooms
in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all
the birds.
CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION : ‘ ee a ae ee
I. Toe RETURN OF THE Brrps. . > . 4 Z
Il. In tot HemMitocks . ‘ . is i ‘ « wT
III. THe ADIRONDACKS . a ‘ a: ox . * 69
IV. Brrps’-Nests ‘ ‘ i é . a * - 938
V. SPRING AT THE CAPITAL : . . . . 127
VI. Bircn Browsines . wo ee. WP. 8 - 157
VI. Tue Biuesrrp 3 w . . . . a 189
VIII. Tue Inviration . * stp var Se « « « BOL

InDEX ‘ ‘< 7 ° . . : * . 227

The frontispiece was etched by W. H. W. Bicknell after a
daguerreotype of Mr. Burroughs taken in 1857, when he was
twenty years old. The vignette was etched by Sidney L. Smith.
INTRODUCTION

In coming before the public with a newly made
edition of my writings, what can I say to my reader
at this stage of our acquaintance that will lead to
a better understanding between us? Probably no-
thing. We understand each other very well already.
I have offered myself as his guide to certain matters
out of doors, and to a few matters indoors, and he
has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on
the whole, been better pleased with me than I had
any reason to expect. For this I am duly grateful ;
why say more? Yet, now that I am upon my feet,
so to speak, and palaver is the order, I will keep on
a few minutes longer.

It is now nearly a quarter of a century since my
first book, “‘ Wake-Robin,” was published. I have
lived nearly as many years in the world as I had
lived when I wrote its principal chapters. Other
volumes have followed, and still others. When
asked how many there are, I often have to stop
and count them up. I suppose the mother of a
large family does not have to count up her children
to say how many there are. She sees their faces
all before her. It is said of certain savage tribes
x INTRODUCTION

who cannot count above five, and yet who own
flocks and herds, that every native knows when he
has got all his own cattle, not by counting, but by
remembering each one individually.

The savage is with his herds daily; the mother
has the love of her children constantly in her heart;
but when one’s book goes forth from him, in a sense
it never returns. It is like the fruit detached from
the bough. And yet to sit down and talk of one’s
books as a father might talk of his sons, who had
left his roof and gone forth to make their own way
in the world, is not an easy matter. The author’s
relation to his book is a little more direct and per-
sonal, after all, more a matter of will and choice,
than a father’s relation to his child. The book
does not change, and, whatever its fortunes, it re-
mains to the end what its author made it. The
son is an evolution out of a long line of ancestry,
and one’s responsibility for this or that trait is often
very slight; but the book is an actual transcript of
his mind, and is wise or foolish according as he made
it so. Hence I trust my reader will pardon me if I
shrink from any discussion of the merits or demerits
of these intellectual children of mine, or indulge
in any very confidential remarks with regard to
them.

But without vanity I think I may praise their
new make-up. My publishers have my thanks, and
I trust those of my readers, for the thought and
INTRODUCTION xi

pains they have bestowed upon them. It looks
like a work of love. At last the volumes, so far
as the art of book-making is concerned, seem like
a ripe product. They please the eye and hand
like mellow fruit. There is nothing harsh or crude
about them. My ideal book is one that is gentle
and submissive to the hand, that yields itself freely,
that does not snap at you when you open it, or
show any haste or ill-temper in any way. Softness,
flexibility, clearness, and a look of ease and good-
will about the page, — these to me are the virtues
of the material make-up of books, and these virtues,
it seems to me, this new edition has.

I cannot bring myself to think of my books as
“works,” because so little “work” has gone to the
making of them. It has all been play. I have
gone a-fishing, or camping, or canoeing, and new
literary material has been the result. My corn has
grown while I loitered or slept. The writing of
the book was only a second and finer enjoyment
of my holiday in the fields or woods. Not till the
writing did it really seem to strike in and become
part of me.

A friend of mine, now an old man, who spent
his youth in the woods of northern Ohio, and who
has written many books, says, ‘I never thought of
writing a book till my self-exile, and then only to
reproduce my old-time life to myself.” The writ-
ing probably cured or alleviated a sort of homesick-
xii INTRODUCTION

ness. Such in a great measure has been my own
ease. My first book, “ Wake-Robin,” was written
while I was a government clerk in Washington. It
enabled me to live over again the days I had passed
with the birds and in the scenes of my youth. I
wrote the book sitting at a desk in front of an iron
wall. I was the keeper of a vault in which many
millions of bank-notes were stored. During my
long periods of leisure I took refuge in my pen.
How my mind reacted from the iron wall in front
of me, and sought solace in memories of the birds
and of summer fields and woods! Most of the
chapters of “Winter Sunshine” were written at
the same desk. The sunshine there referred to is
of a richer quality than is found in New York or
New England.

Since I left Washington in 1873, instead of an
iron wall in front of my desk, I have had a large
window that overlooks the Hudson and the wooded
heights beyond, and I have exchanged the vault for
a vineyard. Probably my mind reacted more vigor-
ously from the former than it does from the latter.
The vineyard winds its tendrils around me and
detains me, and its loaded trellises arg more pleas-
ing to me than the closets of greenbacks.

The only time there is a suggestion of an iron
wall in front of me is in winter, when ice and snow
have blotted out the landscape, and I find that it is
in this season that my mind dwells most fondly
INTRODUCTION xiii

upon my favorite themes. Winter drives a man
back upon himself, and tests his powers of self-enter-
tainment.

Do such books as mine give a wrong impression
of Nature, and lead readers to expect more from a
walk or a camp in the woods than they usually get ?
I have a few times had occasion to think so. I am
not always aware myself how much pleasure I have
had in a walk till I try to share it with my reader.
The heat of composition brings out the color and
the flavor. We must not forget the illusions of all
art. If my reader thinks he does not get from Na-
ture what I get from her, let me remind him that
he can hardly know what he has got till he defines
it to himself as I do, and throws about it the witch-
ery of words. Literature does not grow wild in
the woods. Every artist does something more than
copy Nature; more comes out in his account than
goes into the original experience.

Most persons think the bee gets honey from the
flowers, but she does not: honey is a product of
the bee; it is the nectar of the flowers with the bee
added. What the bee gets from the flower is sweet
water: this she puts through a process of her own
and imparts to it her own quality; she reduces the
water and adds to it a minute drop of formic acid.
It is this drop of herself that gives the delicious
sting to her sweet. The bee is therefore the type
of the true poet, the true artist. Her product
xiv INTRODUCTION

always reflects her environment, and it reflects some-
thing her environment knows not of. We taste the
clover, the thyme, the linden, the sumac, and we
also taste something that has its source in none of
these flowers.

The literary naturalist does not take liberties
with facts; facts are the flora upon which he lives.
The more and the fresher the facts the better. I
can do nothing without them, but I must give them
my own flavor. I must impart to them a quality
which heightens and intensifies them.

To interpret Nature is not to improve upon her:
it is to draw her out; it is to have an emotional
intercourse with her, absorb her, and reproduce her
tinged with the colors of the spirit.

If I name every bird I see in my walk, describe
its color and ways, etc., give a lot of facts or details
about the bird, it is doubtful if my reader is inter-
ested. But if I relate the bird in some way to
human life, to my own life,—show what it is to
me and what it is in the landscape and the season,
—then do I give my reader a live bird and not a
labeled specimen.

J. B.
WAKE-ROBIN

I
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS

PRING in our northern climate may fairly be
said to extend from the middle of March to the
middle of June. At least, the vernal tide continues
to rise until the latter date, and it is not till-after
the summer solstice that the shoots and twigs begin
to harden and turn to wood, or the grass to lose
any of its freshness and succulency. °
It is this period that marks the‘ return of the’
birds, — one or two of the more hardy or half-domes-
ticated species, like the song sparrow and the blue-
bird, usually arriving in March, while the rarer and
more brilliant wood-birds bring up the procession in
June. But each stage of the advancing season
gives prominence to certain species, as to certain
flowers. The dandelion tells me when to look for
the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect
the wood-thrush, and when I have found the wake-
robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugu-
rated. With me this flower is associated, not
merely with the awakening of Robin, for he has
2 WAKE-ROBIN

been awake some weeks, but with the universal
awakening and rehabilitation of nature.

Yet the coming and going of the birds is more or
less a mystery and a surprise. We go out in the
morning, and no thrush or vireo is to be heard; we
go out again, and every tree and grove is musical;
yet again, and all is silent. Who saw them come?
Who saw them depart?

This pert little winter wren, for instance, darting
in and out the fence, diving under the rubbish here
and coming up yards away, — how does he manage
with those little circular wings to compass degrees
and zones, and arrive always in the nick of time?
Last August I saw him in the remotest wilds of
the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as usual;
a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted
by the same hardy little busybody. Does he travel
by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood to
wood? or has that compact little body force and
courage to brave the night and the upper air, and
so achieve leagues at one pull?

And yonder bluebird with the earth tinge on his
breast and the sky tinge on his back, —did he
come down out of heaven on that bright March
morning when he told us so softly and plaintively
that, if we pleased, spring had come? Indeed,
there is nothing in the return of the birds more
curious and suggestive than in the first appearance,
or rumors of the appearance, of this little blue-coat.
The bird at first seems a mere wandering voice in
the air: one hears its call or carol on some bright
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 3

March morning, but is uncertain of its source or
direction; it falls like a drop of rain when no
cloud is visible; one looks and listens, but to no
purpose. The weather changes, perhaps a cold
snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week
before I hear the note again, and this time or the
next perchance see the bird sitting on a stake in
the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his
mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent;
the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point,
call and warble more confidently and gleefully.
Their boldness increases till one sees them hovering
with a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-
buildings, peeping into dove-cotes and stable win-
dows, inspecting knotholes and pump-trees, intent
only on a place to nest. They wage war against
robins and wrens, pick quarrels with swallows, and
seem to deliberate for days over the policy of tak-
ing forcible possession of one of the mud-houses of
the latter. But as the season advances they drift
more into the background. Schemes of conquest
which they at first seemed bent upon are aban-
doned, and they settle down very quietly in their
old quarters in remote stumpy fields.

Not long after the bluebird comes the robin,
sometimes in March, but in most of the Northern
States April is the month of the robin. In large
numbers they scour the fields and groves. You
hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on
the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry
leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air
4 WAKE-ROBIN

is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy
and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each
other through the air, diving and sweeping among
the trees with perilous rapidity.

In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-play
pursuit, —sugar-making, — a pursuit which still
lingers in many parts of New York, as in New
England, — the robin is one’s constant companion.
When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you
meet him at all points and hear him at all hours.
At sunset, on the tops of the tall maples, with look
heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment,
he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid
the stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth,
with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no
fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year.
It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion,
How round and genuine the notes are, and how
eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utter-
ance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly broken,
and the remembrance of it afar off.

Robin is one of the most native and democratic
of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems
much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants,
as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak,
with their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy,
frolicsome, neighborly, and domestic in his habits,
strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is the pioneer
of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer
artists whose coming he heralds and in a measure
prepares us for.
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 5

I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in
one respect, — the building of his nest. Its coarse
material and rough masonry are creditable neither
to his skill as a workman nor to his taste as an
artist. I am the more forcibly reminded of his
deficiency in this respect from observing yonder
hummingbird’s nest, which is a marvel of fitness
and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged
gem, —the body of it composed of a white, felt-
like substance, probably the down of some plant or
the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping
with the branch on which it sits by minute tree-
lichens, woven together by threads as fine and frail
as gossamer. From Robin’s good looks and musi-
cal turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of
equal fitness and elegance. At least I demand of
him as clean and handsome a nest as the king-
bird’s, whose harsh jingle, compared with Robin’s
evening melody, is as the clatter of pots and kettles
beside the tone of a flute. I love his note and
ways better even than those of the orchard starling
or the Baltimore oriole; yet his nest, compared
with theirs, is a half-subterranean hut contrasted
with a Roman villa. There is something courtly
and poetical in a pensile nest. Next to a castle in
the air is a dwelling suspended to the slender branch
of a tall tree, swayed and rocked forever by the
wind. Why need wings be afraid of falling? Why
build only where boys can climb? After all, we
must set it down to the account of Robin’s demo-
cratic turn: he is no aristocrat, but one of the
6 WAKE-ROBIN

people; and therefore we should expect stability in
his workmanship, rather than elegance.

Another April bird, which makes her appearance
sometimes earlier and sometimes later than Robin,
and whose memory I fondly cherish, is the phcebe-

‘bird, the pioneer of the flycatchers. In the inland
farming districts, I used to notice her, on some
' bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her
arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude,
from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet,
you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick
note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song
sparrow; and Phoebe’s clear, vivacious assurance of
her veritable bodily presence among us again is wel-
comed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her
lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air,
ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I sus-
pect, as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up
in some way for the deficiency of her musical per-
formance. If plainness of dress indicates powers of
song, as it usually does, then Phoebe ought to be
unrivaled in musical ability, for surely that ashen-
gray suit is the superlative of plainness; and that
form, likewise, would hardly pass for a “ perfect
figure” of a bird. The seasonableness of her com-
ing, however, and her civil, neighborly ways, shall
make up for all deficiencies in song and plumage.
After a few weeks Phoebe is seldom seen, except as
she darts from her moss-covered nest beneath some
bridge or shelving cliff.

Another April comer, who arrives shortly after
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 7

Robin-redbreast, with whom he associates both at
this season and in the autumn, is the gold-winged
woodpecker, alias “high-hole,” alias “flicker,”
alias “yarup.” He is an old favorite of my boy-
hood, and his note to me means very much. He
announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated
from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in
the fence, —a thoroughly melodious April sound.
I think how Solomon finished that beautiful de-
scription of spring, ‘And the voice of the turtle is
heard in the land,” and see that a description of
spring in this farming country, to be equally char-
acteristic, should culminate in like manner, — “ And
the call of the high-hole comes up from the wood.”

It is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not
seem to imply an answer, but rather to subserve
some purpose of love or music. It is “ Yarup’s”
proclamation of peace and goodwill to all. On
looking at the matter closely, I perceive that most
birds, not denominated songsters, have, in the
spring, some note or sound or call that hints of a
song, and answers imperfectly the end of beauty
and art. As a “livelier iris changes on the bur-
nished dove,” and the fancy of the young man
turns lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin,. so
the same renewing spirit touches the “silent sing-
ers,” and they are no longer dumb; faintly they
lisp the first syliables of the marvelous tale. Wit-
ness the clear, sweet whistle of the gray-crested
titmouse, — the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch, —
the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird, —
a

8 WAKE-ROBIN

the long, rich note of the meadowlark, — the whis-
tle of the quail, — the drumming of the partridge,
— the animation and loquacity of the swallows,
and the like. Even the hen has a homely, con-
tented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire
to fill the night with music. All birds are incipi-
ent or would-be songsters in the spring. I find
corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing
of the cock. The flowering of the maple is not so
obvious as that of the magnolia; nevertheless, there
is actual inflorescence.

Few writers award any song to that familiar little
sparrow, the Socialis ; yet who that has observed
him sitting by the wayside, and repeating, with
devout attitude, that fine sliding chant, does not
recognize the neglect? Who has heard the snow-
bird sing? Yet he has a lisping warble very savory
to the ear. I have heard him indulge in it even in
February.

Even the cow bunting feels the musical tendency,
and aspires to its expression, with the rest. Perched
upon the topmost branch beside his mate or mates,
—for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two
or three demure little ladies in faded black beside
him, — generally in the early part of the day, he
seems literally to vomit up his notes. Apparently
with much labor and effort, they gurgle and blub-
ber up out of him, falling on the ear with a pecul-
iar subtile ring, as of turning water from a glass
bottle, and not without a certain pleasing cadence.

Neither is the common woodpecker entirely in-
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 9

sensible to the wooing of the spring, and, like the
partridge, testifies his appreciation of melody after
quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the
woods on some clear, still morning in March, while
the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in
the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by
long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub.
It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the
utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we listen
with pleasure; and, as it comes to my ear oftener
at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate
the author of it from the imputation of any gastro-
nomic motives, and credit him with a genuine musi-
cal performance.

It is to be expected, therefore, that ‘“yellow-
hammer ” will respond to the general tendency, and
contribute his part to the spring chorus. His April
call is his finest touch, his most musical expres-
sion.

I recall an ancient maple standing sentry to a
large sugar-bush, that, year after year, afforded
protection to a brood of yellow-hammers in its
decayed heart. A week or two before the nesting
seemed actually to have begun, three or four of
these birds might be seen, on almost any bright
morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed
branches. Sometimes you would hear only a gen-
tle persuasive cooing, or a quiet confidential chat-
tering, — then that long, loud call, taken up by
first one, then another, as they sat about upon the
naked limbs, — anon, a sort of wild, rollicking
10 WAKE-ROBIN

laughter, intermingled with various cries, yelps,
and squeals, as if some incident had excited their
mirth and ridicule. Whether this social hilarity
and boisterousness is in celebration of the pairing
or mating ceremony, or whether it is only a sort of
annual “house-warming ” common among high-holes
on resuming their summer quarters, is a question
upon which I reserve my judgment.

Unlike most of his kinsmen, the golden-wing
prefers the fields and the borders of the forest to
the deeper seclusion of the woods, and hence, con-
trary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his
subsistence from the ground, probing it for ants
and crickets. He is not quite satisfied with being
a woodpecker. He courts the society of the robin
and the finches, abandons the trees for the meadow,
and feeds eagerly upon berries and grain. What
may be the final upshot of this course of living is
a question worthy the attention of Darwin. Will
his taking to the ground and his pedestrian feats
result in lengthening his legs, his feeding upon
berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his
voice, and his associating with Robin put a song
into his heart?

Indeed, what would be more interesting than the
history of our birds for the last two or three centu-
ries? There can be no doubt that the presence of
man has exerted a very marked and friendly influ-
ence upon them, since they so multiply in his
society. The birds of California, it is said, were
mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 11

if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear
him. Where did the bobolink disport himself
before there were meadows in the North and rice-
fields in the South? Was he the’ same lithe,
merry-hearted beau then as now? And the spar-
row, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem
so indigenous to the open fields and so averse to
the woods, —we cannot conceive of their existence
in a vast wilderness and without man.

But to return. The song sparrow, that univer-
sal favorite and firstling of the spring, comes before
April, and its simple strain gladdens all hearts,

May is the month of the swallows and the
orioles. There are many other distinguished arri-
vals, indeed nine tenths of the birds are here by
the last week in May, yet the swallows and orioles
are the most conspicuous. The bright plumage of
the latter seems really like an arrival from the
tropics. I see them dash through the blossoming
trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant
warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and
chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath
the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprout-
ing woods; the long, tender note of the meadow-
lark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset,
from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand
voices of the hylas. May is the transition month,
and exists to connect April and June, the root with
the flower. °

With June the cup is full, our hearts are satis-
fied, there is no more to be desired. The perfec-
12 WAKE-ROBIN

tion of the season, among other things, has brought
the perfection of the song and plumage of the
birds. The master artists are al’ here; and the
expectations excited by the robin and the song
sparrow are fully justified. The thrushes have all
come; and I sit down upon the first rock, with
hands full of the pink azalea, to listen. With me,
the cuckoo does not arrive till June; and often
the goldfinch, the kingbird, the scarlet tanager
delay their coming till then. In the meadows the
bobolink is in all his glory; in the high pastures
the field sparrow sings his breezy vesper-hymn;
and the woods are unfolding to the music of the
thrushes.

The cuckoo is one of the most solitary birds of
our forests, and is strangely tame and quiet, appear-
ing equally untouched by joy or grief, fear or
anger. Something remote seems ever weighing
upon his mind. His note or call is as of one lost
or wandering, and to the farmer is prophetic of
rain. Amid the general joy and the sweet assur-
ance of things, I love to listen to the strange clair-
voyant call. Heard a quarter of a mile away, from
out the depths of the forest, there is something
peculiarly weird and monkish about it. Words- -
worth’s lines upon the European species apply
equally well to ours: —

“© blithe new-comer ! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird ?
Or but a wandering voice ?
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 13

“While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear !
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near !
“Thrice welcome, darling of the spring !
Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery.”

The black-billed is the only species found in my
locality, the yellow-billed abounds farther south.
Their note or call is nearly the same. The former
| sometimes suggests the voice of a turkey. The call
of the latter may be suggested thus: k-k-h-k-k-kow,
kow, kow-ow, how-ow.

The yellow-billed will take up his stand in a
tree, and explore its branches till he has caught
every worm. He sits on a twig, and with a pecul-
lar swaying movement of his head examines the
surrounding foliage. When he discovers his prey,
he leaps upon it in a fluttering manner.

In June the black-billed makes a tour through
the orchard and garden, regaling himself upon the
canker-worms. At this time he is one of the
tamest of birds, and will allow you to approach
within a few yards of him. I have even come
within a few feet of one without seeming to excite
his fear or suspicion. He is quite unsophisticated,
or else royally indifferent.

The plumage of the cuckoo is a rich glossy
brown, and is unrivaled in beauty by any other
neutral tint with which I am acquainted. It is
also remarkable for its firmness and fineness.
14 WAKE-ROBIN

Notwithstanding the disparity in size and color,
the black-billed species has certain peculiarities that
remind one of the passenger pigeon. His eye, with
its red circle, the shape of his head, and his
motions on alighting and taking flight, quickly sug-
gest the resemblance; though in grace and speed,
when on the wing, he is far inferior. His tail
seems disproportionately long, like that of the red
thrush, and his flight among the trees is very still,
contrasting strongly with the honest clatter of the
robin or pigeon.

Have you heard the song of the field sparrow?
If you have lived in a pastoral country with broad
upland pastures, you could hardly have missed
him, Wilson, I believe, calls him the grass finch,
and was evidently unacquainted with his powers of
song. ‘The two white lateral quills in his tail, and
his habit of running and skulking a few yards in
advance of you as you walk through the fields, are
sufficient to identify him. Not in meadows or
orchards, but in high, breezy pasture-grounds, will
you look for him. His song is most noticeable
after sundown, when other birds are silent; for
which reason he has been aptly called the vesper
sparrow. The farmer following his team from the
field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song
is not so brisk and varied as that of the song spar-
row, being softer and wilder, sweeter and more
plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of the
latter to the sweet vibrating chant of the wood
sparrow, and you have the evening hymn of the
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 15

vesper-bird, —the poet of the plain, unadorned
pastures. Go to those broad, smooth, uplying
fields where the cattle and sheep are grazing, and
sit down in the twilight on one of those warm,
clean stones, and listen to this song. On every
side, near and remote, from out the short grass
which the herds are cropping, the strain rises.
Two or three long, silver notes of peace and rest,
ending in some subdued trills and quavers, consti-
tute each separate song. Often you will catch only
one or two of the bars, the breeze having blown the
minor part away. Such unambitious, quiet, un-
conscious melody! It is one of the most character-
istic sounds in nature. The grass, the stones, the
stubble, the furrow, the quiet herds, and the warm
twilight among the hills, are all subtly éxpressed in
this song; this is what they are at last capable of.
The female builds a plain nest in the open field,
without so much as a bush or thistle or tuft of
grass to protect it or mark its site; you may step
upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground.
But the danger from this source, I presume, the
bird considers less than that from another. Skunks
and foxes have a very impertinent curiosity, as
Finchie well knows; and a bank or hedge, or a
rank growth of grass or thistles, that might prom-
ise protection and cover to mouse or bird, these
cunning rogues would be apt to explore most thor-
oughly. The partridge is undoubtedly acquainted
with the same process of reasoning; for, like the
vesper-bird, she, too, nests in open, unprotected
16 WAKE-ROBIN

places, avoiding all show of concealment, — coming
from the tangled and almost impenetrable parts of
the forest to the clean, open woods, where she can
command all the approaches and fly with equal ease
in any direction.

Another favorite sparrow, but little noticed, is
the wood or bush sparrow, usually called by the
ornithologists Spizella pusilla. Its size and form
is that of the socialis, but is less distinctly marked,
being of a duller redder tinge. He prefers remote
bushy heathery fields, where his song is one of the
sweetest to be heard. It is sometimes very notice-
able, especially early in spring. I remember sit-
ting one bright day in the still leafless April woods,
when one of these birds struck up a few rods from
me, repeating its lay at short intervals for nearly
an hour. It was a perfect piece of wood-music,
and was of course all the more noticeable for being
projected upon such a broad unoccupied page of
silence. Its song is like the words, fe-o, fe-o, fe-o,
few, few, few, fee fee fee, uttered at first high and —
leisurely, but running very rapidly toward the close,
which is low and soft.

Still keeping among the unrecognized, the white-
eyed vireo, or flycatcher, deserves particular men-
tion. The song of this bird is not particularly
sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard
and shrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but
for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of
imitation, he is unsurpassed by any of our northern
birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic,
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 17

but, as stated, not especially musical; Chick-a-re’r-
chick, he seems to say, hiding himself in the low,
dense undergrowth, and eluding your most vigilant
search, as if playing some part in a game. But in
July or August, if you are on good terms with the
sylvan deities, you may listen to a far more rare
and artistic performance. Your first impression
will be that that cluster of azalea, or that clump of
swamp-huckleberry, conceals three or four different
songsters, each vying with the others to lead the
chorus. Such a medley of notes, snatched from
half the songsters of the field and forest, and uttered
with the utmost clearness and rapidity, I am sure
you cannot hear short of the haunts of the genuine
mockingbird. If not fully and accurately repeated,
there are at least suggested the notes of the robin,
wren, catbird, high-hole, goldfinch, and song spar-
row. The pip, pip, of the last is produced so
accurately that I verily believe it would deceive the
bird herself; and the whole uttered in such rapid
succession that it seems as if the movement that
gives the concluding note of one strain must form
the first note of the next. The effect is very rich,
and, to my ear, entirely unique. The performer is
very careful not to reveal himself in the mean time;
yet there is a conscious air about the strain that
impresses me with the idea that my presence is
understood and my attention courted. A tone of
pride and glee, and, occasionally, of bantering jocose-
ness, is discernible. I believe it is only rarely, and
when he is sure of his audience, that he displays
18 WAKE-ROBIN

his parts in this manner. You are to look for him,
not in tall trees or deep forests, but in low, dense
shrubbery about wet places, where there are plenty
of gnats and mosquitoes.

The winter wren is another marvelous songster,
in speaking of whom it is difficult to avoid super-
latives. He is not so conscious of his powers and
go ambitious of effect as the white-eyed flycatcher,
yet you will not be less astonished and delighted on
hearing him. He possesses the fluency and copious-
ness for which the wrens are noted, and besides
these qualities, and what is rarely found conjoined
with them, a wild, sweet, rhythmical cadence that
holds you entranced. I shall not soon forget that
perfect June day, when, loitering in a low, ancient
hemlock wood, in whose cathedral aisles the cool-
ness and freshness seems perennial, the silence was
suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and gushing,
and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness,
that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy
was the little minstrel, that I came twice to the
woods before I was sure to whom I was listening.
In summer he is one of those birds of the deep
northern forests, that, like the speckled Canada
warbler and the hermit thrush, only the privileged
ones hear.

The distribution of plants in a given locality is
not more marked and defined than that of the birds.
Show a botanist a landscape, and he will tell you
where to look for the lady’s-slipper, the columbine, or
the harebell. On the same principles the ornitholo-
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 19

gist will direct you where to look for the greenlets,
the wood sparrow, or the chewink. In adjoining
counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland,
but possessing a different geological formation and
different forest-timber, you will observe quite a
different class of birds. In a land of the beech and
sugar maple I do not find the same songsters that I
know where thrive the oak, chestnut, and laurel.
In going from a district of the Old Red Sandstone
to where I walk upon the old Plutonic Rock, not
fifty miles distant, I miss in the woods the veery,
the hermit thrush, the chestnut-sided warbler, the
blue-backed warbler, the green-backed warbler, the
black and yellow warbler, and many others, and
find in their stead the wood thrush, the chewink,
the redstart, the yellow throat, the yellow-breasted
flycatcher, the white-eyed flycatcher, the quail, and
the turtle dove.

In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the
distribution is very marked. South of the village
I invariably find one species of birds, north of it
another. In only one locality, full of azalea and
swamp-huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the
hooded warbler. In a dense undergrowth of spice-
bush, witch-hazel, and alder, I meet the worm-eat-
ing warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with
heath and fern, with here and there a chestnut and
an oak, I go to hear in July the wood sparrow, and
returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure to

. find the water-thrush.
Only one locality within my range seems to pos-
20 WAKE-ROBIN

sess attractions for all comers. Here one may study
almost the entire ornithology of the State. It is
a rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now
fast relapsing into the wildness and freedom of
nature, and marked by those half-cultivated, half-
wild features which birds and boys love. It is
bounded on two sides by the village and highway,
crossed at various points by carriage-roads, and
threaded in all directions by paths and byways,
along which soldiers, laborers, and truant. school-
boys are passing at all hours of the day. It is so
far escaping from the axe and the bush-hook as to
have opened communication with the forest and
mountain beyond by straggling lines of cedar, laurel,
and blackberry. The ground is mainly occupied
with cedar and chestnut, with an undergrowth, in
many places, of heath and bramble. The chief
feature, however, is a dense growth in the centre,
consisting of dogwood, water-beech, swamp-ash,
alder, spice-bush, hazel, etc., with a network of
smilax and frost-grape. A little zigzag stream, the
draining of a swamp beyond, which passes through
this tanglewood, accounts for many of its features
and productions, if not for its entire existence.
Birds that are not attracted by the heath, or the
cedar and chestnut, are sure to find some excuse for
visiting this miscellaneous growth in the centre.
Most of the common birds literally throng this idle-
wild; and I have met here many of the rarer spe-
cies, such as the great-crested flycatcher, the soli-
tary warbler, the blue-winged swamp warbler, the
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 21

worm-eating warbler, ‘the fox sparrow, etc. The
absence of all birds of prey, and the great number of
flies and insects, both the result of proximity to the
village, are considerations which no hawk-fearing,
peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly; hence the
popularity of the resort.

But the crowning glory of all these robins, fly-
catchers, and warblers is the wood thrush. More
abundant than all other birds, except the robin and
catbird, he greets you from every rock and shrub.
Shy and reserved when he first makes his appear-
: . ance in May, before the end of June he is tame and
familiar, and sings on the tree over your head, or
on the rock a few paces in advance. A pair even
built their nest and reared their brood within ten or
twelve feet of the piazza of a large summer-house in
the vicinity. But when the guests commenced to
arrive and the piazza to be thronged with gay
crowds, I noticed something like dread and forebod-
ing in the manner of the mother bird; and from
her still, quiet ways, and habit of sitting long and
silently within a few feet of the precious charge, it
seemed as if the dear creature had resolved, if pos-
sible, to avoid all observation.

/ If we take the quality of melody as the test, the
wood thrush, hermit thrush, and the veery thrush
stand at the head of our list of songsters.

Phe mockingbird undoubtedly possesses the
greatest range of mere talent, the most varied exec-
utive ability, and never fails to surprise and delight
one anew at each hearing; but being mostly an
22 WAKE-ROBIN

imitator, he never approaches the serene beauty and
sublimity of the hermit thrush. The word that
best expresses my feelings, on hearing the mocking-
bird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one
of surprise and incredulity. That so many and
such various notes should proceed from one throat
is a marvel, and we regard the performance with
feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing
the astounding feats of the athlete or gymnast, —
and this, notwithstanding many of the notes imi-
tated have all the freshness and sweetness of the
originals. The emotions excited by the songs of
these thrushes belong to a higher order, springing as
they do from our deepest sense of the beauty and
harmony of the world.

The wood thrush is worthy of all, and more than
all, the praises he has received; and considering
the number of his appreciative listeners, it is not a
little surprising that his relative and equal, the
hermit thrush, should have received so little notice.
Both the great ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon,
are lavish in their praises of the former, but have
little or nothing to say of the song of the latter.
Audubon says it is sometimes agreeable, but evi-
dently has never heard it. Nuttall, I am glad to
find, is more discriminating, and does the bird
fuller justice.

It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and secluded
habits, being found in the Middle and Eastern
States, during the period of song, only in the deep-
est and most remote forests, usually in damp and
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 23

swampy localities. On this account the people in
the Adirondack region call it the “Swamp Angel.”
Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the com-
parative ignorance that prevails in regard to it.

The cast of its song is very much like that of the
wood thrush, and a good observer might easily con-
found the two. But hear them together and the
difference is quite marked: the song of the hermit
is in a higher key, and is more wild and ethereal.
His instrument is a silver horn which he winds in
the most solitary places. The song of the wood
thrush is more golden and leisurely. Its tone
comes near to that of some rare stringed instrument.
One feels that perhaps the wood thrush has more
compass and power, if he would only let himself
out, but on the whole he comes a little short of the
pure, serene, hymn-like strain of the hermit.

Yet those who have heard only the wood thrush
may well place him first on the list. He is truly
a royal minstrel, and, considering his liberal distri-
bution throughout our Atlantic seaboard, perhaps
contributes more than any other bird to our sylvan
melody. One may object that he spends a little
too much time in tuning his instrument, yet his
careless and uncertain touches reveal its rare com-
pass and power.

He is the only songster of my acquaintance, ex-
cepting the canary, that displays different degrees
of proficiency in the exercise of his musical gifts.
Not long since, while walking one Sunday in the
edge of an orchard adjoining a wood, I heard one
24 WAKE-ROBIN

that so obviously and unmistakably surpassed all
his rivals, that my companion, though slow to
notice such things, remarked it wonderingly; and
with one accord we paused to listen to so rare a
performer. It was not different in quality so much
as in quantity. Such a flood of it! Such copious-
ness! Such long, trilling, accelerating preludes!
Such sudden, ecstatic overtures would have intoxi-
cated the dullest ear. He was really without a
compeer, —a master-artist. Twice afterward I was
conscious of having heard the same bird.

The wood thrush is the handsomest species of
this family. In grace and elegance of manner he
has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air, and
such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and
movement! He is a poet in very word and deed.
His carriage is music to the eye. His performance
of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or pick-
ing a worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of
wit or eloquence. Was he a prince in the olden
time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere
to him in his transformation? What a finely pro-
portioned form! How plain, yet rich, his color, —
the bright russet of his back, the clear white of his
breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It
may be objected to Robin that he is noisy and
demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a branch
with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred
suspicion. The mavis, or red thrush, sneaks and
skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest alders;
the catbird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a

°F
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 25

sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows
his inhospitality by espying your movements like
a Japanese. The wood thrush has none of these
under-bred traits. He regards me unsuspiciously, or
avoids me with a noble reserve, —or, if I am quiet
and incurious, graciously hops toward me, as if to
pay his respects, or to make my acquaintance. I
have passed under his nest within a few feet of his
mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch
eying me sharply, but without opening his beak;
but the moment I raised my hand toward his de-
fenseless household his anger and indignation were
beautiful to behold.

What a noble pride he has! Late one October,
after his mates and companions had long since gone
south, I noticed one for several successive days in
the dense part of this next-door wood, flitting noise-
lessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing pen-
ance for some violation of the code of honor. By
many gentle, indirect approaches, I perceived that
part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The
sylvan prince could not think of returning to court
in this plight, and so, amid the falling leaves and
cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding his time.

The soft, mellow flute of the veery fills a place
in the chorus of the woods that the song of the ves-
per sparrow fills in the chorus of the fields. It has
the nightingale’s habit of singing in the twilight,
as indeed have all our thrushes. Walk out toward
the forest in the warm twilight of a June day, and
when fifty rods distant you will hear their soft,
26 WAKE-ROBIN

reverberating notes rising from a dozen different
throats.

It is one of the simplest strains to be heard, —as
simple as the curve in form, delighting from the
pure element of harmony and beauty it contains,
and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of
it, — thus contrasting strongly with such rollicking,
hilarious songsters as the bobolink, in whom we are
chiefly pleased with the tintinnabulation, the verbal
and labial excellence, and the evident conceit and
delight of the performer.

I hardly know whether I am more pleased or
annoyed with the catbird. Perhaps she is a little
too common, and her part in the general chorus a
little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the
note of another bird, she is sure to be prompted to
the most loud and protracted singing, drowning all
other sounds; if you sit quietly down to observe a
favorite or study a new-comer, her curiosity knows
no bounds, and you are scanned and ridiculed from
every point of observation. Yet I would not miss
her; I would only subordinate her a little, make
her less conspicuous,

She is the parodist of the woods, and there is
ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical under-
tone in her lay, as if she were conscious of mimick-
ing and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambi-
tious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private,
she yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the
sylvan minstrels, as if she had taken up music only
to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 27

robins and thrushes. In other words, she seems to
sing from some outward motive, and not from in-
ward joyousness. She is a good versifier, but not
a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without
fine touches, but destitute of any high, serene mel-
ody, her performance, like that of Thoreau’s squir-
rel, always implies a spectator.

There is a certain air and polish about her strain,
however, like that in the vivacious conversation of
a well-bred lady of the world, that commands re-
spect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong,
and that simple structure of dead twigs and dry
grass is the centre of much anxious solicitude. Not
long since, while strolling through the woods, my
attention was attracted to a small densely grown
swamp, hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and
the everlasting smilax, from which proceeded loud
cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some
terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored
minstrel. On effecting an entrance, which, how-
ever, was not accomplished till I had doffed coat
and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to
the thorns and brambles, and, looking around me
from a square yard of terra firma, I found myself
the spectator of a loathsome yet fascinating scene.
Three or four yards from me was the nest, beneath
which, in long festoons, rested a huge black snake;
a bird two thirds grown was slowly disappearing
between his expanded jaws. As he seemed uncon-
scious of my presence, I quietly observed the pro-
ceedings. By slow degrees he compassed the bird
28 WAKE-ROBIN

about with his elastic mouth; his head flattened,
his neck writhed and swelled, and two or three un-
dulatory movements of his glistening body finished
the work. Then he cautiously raised himself up,
his tongue flaming from his mouth the while, curved
over the nest, and, with wavy, subtle motions, ex-
plored the interior. I can conceive of nothing
more overpoweringly terrible to an unsuspecting
family of birds than the sudden appearance above
their domicile of the head and neck of this arch-
enemy. It is enough to petrify the blood in their
veins. Not finding the object of his search, he
came streaming down from the nest to a lower limb,
and commenced extending his researches in other
directions, sliding stealthily through the branches,
bent on capturing one of the parent birds. That a
legless, wingless creature should move with such
ease and rapidity where only birds and squirrels
are considered at home, lifting himself up, letting
himself down, running out on the yielding boughs,
and traversing with marvelous celerity the whole
length and breadth of the thicket, was truly surpris-
ing. One thinks of the great myth of the Tempter
and the “cause of all our woe,” and wonders if the
Arch One is not now playing off some of his pranks
before him. Whether we call it snake or devil
matters little. I could but admire his terrible
beauty, however; his black, shining folds, his easy,
gliding movement, head erect, eyes glistening,
tongue playing like subtle flame, and the invisible
means of his almost winged locomotion.
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 29

The parent birds, in the mean while, kept up
the most agonizing cry, —at times fluttering furi-
ously about their pursuer, and actually laying hold
of his tail with their beaks and claws, On being
thus attacked, the snake would suddenly double
upon himself and follow his own body back, thus
executing a strategic movement that at first seemed
almost to paralyze his victim and place her within
his grasp. Not quite, however. Before his jaws
could close upon the coveted prize the bird would
tear herself away, and, apparently faint and sob-
bing, retire to a higher branch. His reputed pow-
ers of fascination availed him little, though it is
possible that a frailer and less combative bird might
have been held by the fatal spell. Presently, as
he came gliding down the slender body of a lean-
ing alder, his attention was attracted by a slight
movement of my arm; eying me an instant, with
that crouching, utter, motionless gaze which I be-
lieve only snakes and devils can assume, he turned
quickly, —a feat which necessitated something like
crawling over his own body, —and glided off
through the branches, evidently recognizing in me
a representative of the ancient parties he once so
cunningly ruined. A few moments after, as he lay
carelessly disposed in the top of a rank alder, try-
ing to look as much like a crooked branch as his
supple, shining form would admit, the old vengeance
overtook him. I exercised my prerogative, and a
well-directed missile, in the shape of a stone,
brought him looping and writhing to the ground.
30 WAKE-ROBIN

After I had completed his downfall and quiet had
been partially restored, a half-fledged member of
the bereaved household came out from his hiding-
place, and, jumping upon a decayed branch, chirped
vigorously, no doubt in celebration of the victory.

Till the middle of July there is a general equi-
librium; the tide stands poised; the holiday spirit
is unabated. But as the harvest ripens beneath the
long, hot days, the melody gradually ceases. The
young are out of the nest and must be cared for,
and the moulting season is at hand. After the
cricket has commenced to drone his monotonous
refrain beneath your window, you will not, till
another season, hear the wood thrush in all his
matchless eloquence. .The bobolink has become
careworn and fretful, and blurts out snatches of his
song between his scolding and upbraiding, as you
approach the vicinity of his nest, oscillating between
anxiety for his brood and solicitude for his musical
reputation. Some of the sparrows still sing, and
oceasionally across the hot fields, from a tall tree
in the edge of the forest, comes the rich note of
the scarlet tanager. This tropical-colored bird loves
the hottest weather, and I hear him even in dog-
days.

The remainder of the summer is the carnival of
the swallows and flycatchers. Flies and insects,
to any amount, are to be had for the catching; and
the opportunity is well improved. See that sombre,
ashen-colored pewee on yonder branch. A true
sportsman he, who never takes his game at rest,
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 81

but always on the wing. You vagrant fly, you
purblind moth, beware how you come within his
range! Observe his attitude, the curious move-
ment of his head, his “eye in a fine frenzy roll-
ing, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to
heaven.”

His sight is microscopic and his aim sure.
Quick as thought he has seized his victim and is
back to his perch. There is no strife, no pursuit,
—one fell swoop and the matter is ended. That
little sparrow, as you will observe, is less skilled.
It is the Socialis, and he finds his subsistence prop-
erly in various seeds and the larve of insects,
though he occasionally has higher aspirations, and
seeks to emulate the pewee, commencing and end-
ing his career as a flycatcher by an awkward chase
after a beetle or “miller.” He is hunting around
in the grass now, I suspect, with the desire to in-
dulge this favorite whim. There!—the opportu-
nity is afforded him. Away goes a little cream-
colored meadow-moth in the most tortuous course
he is capable of, and away goes Socialis in pursuit.
The contest is quite comical, though I dare say it
is serious enough to the moth. The chase contin-
nes for a few yards, when there is a sudden rush-
ing to cover in the grass, —then a taking to wing
again, when the search has become too close, and
the moth has recovered his wind. Socialis chirps
angrily, and is determined not to be beaten. Keep-
ing, with the slightest effort, upon the heels of the
fugitive, he is ever on the point of halting to snap
82 WAKE—ROBIN

him up, but never quite does it, and so, between
disappointment and expectation, is soon disgusted,
and returns to pursue his more legitimate means of
subsistence.

In striking contrast to this serio-comic strife of
the sparrow and the moth, is the pigeon hawk’s
pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a
race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of
wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every
nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consterna-
tion on the part of the bird, tacking to the right
and left, and making the most desperate efforts to
escape, and such silent determination on the part of
the hawk, pressing the bird so closely, flashing and
turning, and timing his movements with those of
the pursued as accurately and as inexorably as if
the two constituted one body, excite feelings of the
deepest concern. You mount the fence or rush out
of your way to see the issue. The only salvation
for the bird is to adopt the tactics of the moth,
seeking instantly the cover of some tree, bush, or
hedge, where its smaller size enables it to move
about more rapidly. These pirates are aware of
this, and therefore prefer to take their prey by one
fell swoop. You may see one of them prowling
through an orchard, with the yellowbirds hovering
about him, crying, Pi-ty, pi-ty, in the most de-
sponding tone; yet he seems not to regard them,
knowing, as do they, that in the close branches they
are as safe as if in a wall of adamant.

August is the month of the high-sailing hawks.
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 33

The hen-hawk is the most noticeable. He likes
the haze and calm of these long, warm days. He
is a bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease.
How beautiful and majestic are his movements!
So self-poised and easy, such an entire absence of
haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles and
spirals, such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occa-
sionally, such daring aerial evolutions!

With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating
his pinions, he mounts and mounts in an ascending
spiral till he appears a mere speck against the sum-
mer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings
half-closed, like a bent bow, he will cleave the air
almost perpendicularly, as if intent on dashing
himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearing
the ground he suddenly mounts again on broad,
expanded wing, as if rebounding upon the air, and
sails leisurely away. It is the sublimest feat of
the season. One holds his breath till he sees him
rise again.

If inclined to a more gradual and less precipi-
tous descent, he fixes his eye on some distant point
in the earth beneath him, and thither bends his
course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed
and boldness. You see his path down the heavens,
straight as a line; if near, you hear the rush of his
wings; his shadow hurtles across the fields, and in
an instant you see him quietly perched upon some
low tree or decayed stub in a swamp or meadow,
with reminiscences of frogs and mice stirring in his
maw.
34 WAKE-ROBIN

When the south wind blows, it is a study to see
three or four of these air-kings at the head of the
valley far up toward the mountain, balancing and
oscillating upon the strong current; now quite sta-
tionary, except a slight tremulous motion like the
poise of a rope-dancer, then rising and. falling in
long undulations, and seeming to resign themselves
passively to the wind; or, again, sailing high and
level far above the mountain’s peak, no bluster and
haste, but, as stated, occasionally a terrible earnest-
ness and speed. Fire at one as he sails overhead,
and, unless wounded badly, he will not change his
course or gait. :

His flight is a perfect picture of repose in mo-
tion, It strikes the eye as more surprising than
the flight of the pigeon and swallow even, in that
the effort put forth is so uniform and delicate as to
escape observation, giving to the movement an air
of buoyancy and perpetuity, the effluence of power
rather than the conscious application of it.

The calmness and dignity of this hawk, when
attacked by crows or the kingbird, are well worthy
of him. He seldom deigns to notice his noisy and
furious antagonists, but deliberately wheels about
in that aerial spiral, and mounts and mounts till
his pursuers grow dizzy and return to earth again.
It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of an
unworthy opponent, rising to heights where the
braggart is dazed and bewildered and loses his reck-
oning! I am not sure but it is worthy of imitation.

But summer wanes, and autumn approaches.
THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 35

The songsters of the seed-time are silent at the
reaping of the harvest. Other minstrels take up
the strain. It is the heyday of insect life. The
day is canopied with musical sound. All the songs
of the spring and summer appear to be floating,
softened and refined, in the upper air. The birds,
in a new but less holiday suit, turn their faces
southward. The swallows flock and go; the bobo-
links flock and go; silently and unobserved, the
thrushes go. Autumn arrives, bringing’ finches,
warblers, sparrows, and kinglets from the north,
Silently the procession passes. Yonder hawk, sail-
ing peacefully away till he is lost in the horizon,
is a symbol of the closing season and the departing
birds.

1863.
II
IN THE HEMLOCKS

Mo people receive with incredulity a state-

ment of the number of birds that annually
visit our climate. Very few even are aware of half
the number that spend the summer in their own
immediate vicinity. We little suspect, when we
walk in the woods, whose privacy we are intruding
upon, — what rare and elegant visitants from Mex-
ico, from Central and South America, and from the
islands of the sea, are holding their reunions in the
branches over our heads, or pursuing their pleasure
on the ground before us.

I recall the altogether admirable and shining
family which Thoreau dreamed he saw in the upper
chambers of Spaulding’s woods, which Spaulding
did not know lived there, and which were not put
out when Spaulding, whistling, drove his team
through their lower halls. They did not go into
society in the village; they were quite well; they
had sons and daughters; they neither wove nor
spun; there was a sound as of suppressed hilarity.

I take it for granted that the forester was only
saying a pretty thing of the birds, though I have
observed that it does sometimes annoy them when
38 WAKE-ROBIN

Spaulding’s cart rumbles through their house. Gen-
erally, however, they are as unconscious of Spaul-
ding as Spaulding is of them.

Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood,
I counted over forty varieties of these summer vis-
itants, many of them common to other woods in
the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these
ancient solitudes, and not a few that are rare in
any locality. It is quite unusual to find so large
a number abiding in one forest, —and that not a
large one, — most of them nesting and spending the
summer there. Many of those I observed commonly
pass this season much farther north. But the geo-
graphical distribution of birds is rather a climatical
one. The same temperature, though under differ-
ent parallels, usually attracts the same birds; differ-
ence in altitude being equivalent to the difference
in latitude. A given height above the sea-level
under the parallel of thirty degrees may have the
same climate as places under that of thirty-five de-
grees, and similar flora and fauna. At the head-
waters of the Delaware, where I write, the latitude
is that of Boston, but the region has a much greater
elevation, and hence a climate that compares better
with the northern part of the State and of New
England. Half a day’s drive to the southeast brings
me down into quite a different temperature, with
an older geological formation, different forest tim-
ber, and different birds, — even with different mam-
mals. Neither the little gray rabbit nor the little
gray fox is found in my locality, but the great
IN THE HEMLOCKS 39

northern hate and the red fox. In the last century
a colony of beavers dwelt here, though the oldest
inhabitant cannot now point to even the traditional
site of their dams. The ancient hemlocks, whither
I propose to take the reader, are rich in many
things beside birds. Indeed, their wealth in this
respect is owing mainly, no doubt, to their rank
vegetable growths, their fruitful swamps, and their
dark, sheltered retreats.

Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and
torn by the tanner in his thirst for bark, preyed
upon by the lumberman, assaulted and beaten back
by the settler, still their spirit has never been
broken, their energies never paralyzed. Not many
years ago a public highway passed through them,
but it was at no time a tolerable road; trees fell
across it, mud and limbs choked it up, till finally
travelers took the hint and went around; and now,
walking along its deserted course, I see only the
footprints of coons, foxes, and squirrels.

Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal
upon them. Here she shows me what can be done
with ferns and mosses and lichens. The soil is
marrowy and full of innumerable forests. Standing
in these fragrant aisles, I feel the strength of the
vegetable kingdom, and am awed by the deep and
inscrutable processes of life going on so silently about
me.

No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these
solitudes. The cows have half-hidden ways through
them, and know where the best browsing is to be
40 WAKE-ROBIN

had. In spring the farmer repairs to their border-
ing of maples to make sugar; in July and August
women and boys from all the country about pene-
trate the old Barkpeelings for raspberries and black-
berries; and I know a youth who wonderingly
follows their languid stream casting for trout.

In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright
June morning go I also to reap my harvest, — pur-
suing a sweet more delectable than sugar, fruit more
savory than berries, and game for another palate
than that tickled by trout.

June, of all the months, the student of ornithol-
ogy can least afford to lose. Most birds are nesting
then, and in full song and plumage. And what is
a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the
stranger to speak? It seems to me that I do not
know a bird till I have heard its voice; then I
come nearer it at once, and it possesses a human
interest to me. I have met the gray-cheeked thrush
in the woods, and held him in my hand; still I do
not knowhim. The silence of the cedar-bird throws
a mystery about him which neither his good looks
nor his petty larcenies in cherry time can dispel.
A bird’s song contains a clew to its life, and estab-
lishes a sympathy, an understanding, between itself
and the listener.

I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks
through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods
distant, I hear all along the line of the forest
the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful
and happy as the merry whistle of a schoolboy.
IN THE HEMLOCKS 41

He is one of our most common and widely dis-
tributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour
of the day, in any kind of weather, from May to
August, in any of the Middle or Eastern districts,
and the chances are that the first note you hear will
be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the
deep forest or in the village grove, — when it is too
hot for the thrushes or too cold and windy for the
warblers, —it is never out of time or place for this
little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In
the deep wilds of the Adirondacks, where few birds
are seen and fewer heard, his note was almost con-
stantly in my ear. Always busy, making it a point
never to suspend for one moment his occupation to
indulge his musical taste, his lay is that of industry
and contentment. There is nothing plaintive or
especially musical in his performance, but the senti-
ment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness,
Indeed, the songs of most birds have some human
significance, which, I think, is the source of the
delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink
to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow’s, faith;
the bluebird’s, love; the catbird’s, pride; the white-
eyed flycatcher’s, self-consciousness; that of the
hermit thrush, spiritual serenity: while there is
something military in the call of the robin.

The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by
some writers, but is much more of a worm-eater,
and has few of the traits or habits of the Muscicapa
or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the
warbling vireo, and the two birds are often con-
42 WAKE-ROBIN -

founded by careless observers. Both warble in the
same cheerful strain, but the latter more continu-
ously and rapidly. The red-eye is a larger, slimmer
bird, with a faint bluish crown, and a light line
over the eye. His movements are peculiar. You
may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring
the under side of the leaves, peering to the right
and left, now flitting a few feet, now hopping as
many, and warbling incessantly, occasionally in a
subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite
distance. "When he has found a worm to his liking,
he turns lengthwise of the limb and bruises its head
with his beak before devouring it.

As I enter the woods the slate-colored snowbird
starts up before me and chirps sharply. His protest
when thus disturbed is almost metallic in its sharp-
ness. He breeds here, and is not esteemed a snow-
bird at all, as he disappears at the near approach
of winter, and returns again in spring, like the
song sparrow, and is not in any way associated with
the cold and the snow. So different are the habits
of birds in different localities. Even the crow does
not winter here, and is seldom seen after December
or before March.

The snowbird, or “black chipping-bird,” as it
is known among the farmers, is the finest architect
of any of the ground-builders known to me. The
site of its nest is usually some low bank by the
roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation,
with a partially concealed entrance, the exquisite
structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are plen-
IN THE HEMLOCKS 43

tifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest
great symmetry and firmness as well as softness.

Passing down through the maple arches, barely
pausing to observe the antics of a trio of squirrels,
— two gray ones and a black one, —I cross an an-
cient brush fence and am fairly within the old hem-
locks, and in one of the most primitive, undisturbed
nooks. In the deep moss I tread as with muffled
feet, and the pupils of my eyes dilate in the dim,
almost religious light. The irreverent red squivrels,
however, run and snicker at my approach, or mock
the solitude with their ridiculous chattering and
frisking.

This nook is the chosen haunt of the winter
wren. ‘This is the only place and these the only
woods in which I find him in this vicinity. His
voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some
marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very
strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remark-
able degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I think
of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You
may know it is the song of a wren, from its gush-
ing lyrical character; but you must needs look sharp
to see the little minstrel, especially while in the
act of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground
and the leaves; he never ascends the tall trees, but
keeps low, flitting from stump to stump and from
root to root, dodging in and out of his hiding-
places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious
eye. He has a very pert, almost comical look.
His tail stands more than perpendicular: it points
44 WAKE-ROBIN

straight toward his head. He is the least ostenta-
tious singer I know of. He does not strike an.
attitude, and lift up his head in preparation, and,
as it were, clear his throat; but sits there. on a log
and pours out his music, looking straight before
him, or even down at the ground. As a songster,
he has but few superiors. I do not hear him after
the first week in July.

While sitting on this soft-cushioned log, tasting
the pungent acidulous wood-sorrel, the blossoms of
which, large and pink-veined, rise everywhere above
the moss, a rufous-colored bird flies quickly past,
and, alighting on a low limb a few rods off, salutes
me with “Whew! Whew!” or “Whoit! Whoit! ”
almost as you would whistle for your dog. I see
by his impulsive, graceful movements, and his dimly
speckled breast, that it is a thrush. Presently he
utters a few soft, mellow, flute-like notes, one of
the most simple expressions of melody to be heard,
and scuds away, and I see it is the veery, or Wil-
son’s thrush. “He is the least of the thrushes in
size, being about that of the common bluebird, and
he may be distinguished from his relatives by the
dimness of the spots upon his breast. The wood
thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a white
ground; in the hermit, the spots run more into
‘lines, on a ground of a faint bluish white; in the
veery, the marks are almost obsolete, and a few rods
off his breast presents only a dull yellowish appear-
ance. / To get a good view of him you have only to
sit down in his haunts, as in such cases he seems
equally anxious to get a good view of you.
IN THE HEMLOCKS 45

From those tall hemlocks proceeds a very fine
insect-like warble, and occasionally I see a spray
tremble, or catch the flit of a wing. J watch and
watch till my head grows dizzy and my neck is in
danger of permanent displacement, and still do not
get a good view. Presently the bird darts, or, as
it seems, falls down a few feet in pursuit of a fly
or a moth, and I see the whole of it, but in the
dim light am undecided. It is for such emergen-
cies that I have brought my gun. A bird in the,
hand is worth half a dozen in the bush, even for
ornithological purposes; and no sure and rapid pro-
gress can be made in the study without taking life,|
without procuring specimens. This bird is a war-.
bler, plainly enough, from his habits and manner;|
but what kind of warbler? Look on him and name,
him: a deep orange or flame-colored throat and
breast; the same color showing also in a line over
the eye and in his crown; back variegated black
and white. The female is less marked and bril-
liant. The orange-throated warbler would seem to
be his right name, his characteristic cognomen; but
no, he is doomed to wear the name of some discov-
erer, perhaps the first who robbed his nest or rifled
him of his mate, — Blackburn; hence Blackburnian
warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for

¢

in these dark evergreens his throat and breast show .

like flame. He has a very fine warble, suggesting
that of the redstart, but not especially musical. I
find him in no other woods in this vicinity.

I am attracted by another warble in the same

ee
46 WAKE-—ROBIN

locality, and experience a like difficulty in getting
a good view of the author of it. It is quite a
noticeable strain, sharp and sibilant, and sounds
well amid the old trees. In the upland woods of
beech and maple it is a more familiar sound than
in these solitudes. On taking the bird in hand,
one cannot help exclaiming, ‘‘ How beautiful!” So
tiny and elegant, the smallest of the warblers; a
delicate blue back, with a slight bronze-colored tri-
angular spot between the shoulders; upper mandible
black; lower mandible yellow as gold; throat yel-
low, becoming a dark bronze on the breast. Blue
yellow-back he is called, though the yellow is much
nearer a bronze. He is remarkably delicate and
beautiful, —the handsomest as he is the smallest
of the warblers known to me. It is never with-
out surprise that I find amid these rugged, savage
aspects of nature creatures so fairy and delicate.
But such is the law. Go to the sea or climb the
mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest
you will find likewise the fairest and the most deli-
cate. The greatness and the minuteness of nature
pass all understanding.

Ever since I entered the woods, even while lis-
tening to the lesser songsters, or contemplating the
silent forms about me, a strain has reached my ears
from out the depths of the forest that to me is the
finest sound in nature, —the song of the hermit
thrush. I often hear him thus a long way off,
sometimes over a, quarter of a mile away, when
only the stronger and more perfect parts of his
IN THE HEMLOCKS 47

music reach me; and through the general chorus of
wrens and warblers I detect this sound rising pure
and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height
were slowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This
song appeals to the sentiment of the beautiful in
me, and suggests a serene religious beatitude as no
other sound in nature does. It is perhaps more of
an evening than a morning hymn, though I hear it
at all hours of the day. It is very simple, and I
can hardly tell the secret of its charm. ‘O spheral,
spheral!” he seems to say; “O holy, holy! O clear
away, clear away! O clear up, clear up!” inter-
spersed with the finest trills and the most delicate
preludes. It is not a proud, gorgeous strain, like
the tanager’s or the grosbeak’s; suggests no pas-
sion or emotion, — nothing personal, — but seems
to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one
attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace
and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest souls
may know. A few nights ago I ascended a moun-
tain to see the world by moonlight, and when near
the summit the hermit commenced his evening
hymn a few rods from me. Listening to this
strain on the lone mountain, with the full moon
just rounded from the horizon, the pomp of your
cities and the pride of your civilization seemed tri-
vial and cheap.

I have seldom known two of these birds to be
singing at the same time in the same locality, rival-
ing each other, like the wood thrush or the veery.
Shooting one from a tree, I have observed another
48 WAKE-ROBIN

take up the strain from almost the identical perch
in less than ten minutes afterward. Later in the
day, when I had penetrated the heart of the old
Barkpeeling, I came suddenly upon one singing from
a low stump, and for a wonder he did not seem
alarmed, but lifted up his divine voice as if his
privacy was undisturbed. I open his beak and find
the inside yellow as gold. I was prepared to find
it inlaid with pearls and diamonds, or to see an
angel issue from it.

He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am
acquainted with scarcely any writer on ornithology
whose head is not muddled on the subject of our
three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either
their figures or their songs. A writer in the “ At-
lantic’”’} gravely tells us the wood thrush is some-
times called the hermit, and then, after describing
the song of the hermit with great beauty and cor-
rectness, coolly ascribes it to the veery! The new
Cyclopedia, fresh from the study of Audubon, says
the hermit’s song consists of a single plaintive note,
and that the veery’s resembles that of the wood
thrush! The hermit thrush may be easily identified
by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown be-
coming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from
his wing placed beside one from his tail on a dark
ground presents quite a marked contrast.

I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in
the thin layer of mud. When do these creatures
travel here? I have never yet chanced to meet

1 For December, 1858.
IN THE HEMLOCKS 49

one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a
woodcock ; here, a squirrel or mink; there, a skunk;
there, a fox. What a clear, nervous track reynard
makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a
little dog, —it is so sharply cut and defined! A
dog’s track is coarse and clumsy beside it. There
is as much wildness in the track of an animal as in
its voice. Is a deer’s track like a sheep’s or a
goat’s? What winged-footed fleetness and agility
may be inferred from the sharp, braided track of
the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in
nature is the best discipline. How wood-life sharp-
ens, the senses, giving a new power to the eye, the
ear, the nose! And are not the rarest and most
exquisite songsters wood-birds ?

Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with
the pensive, almost pathetic note of the wood
pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers, and
are easily identified. They are very characteristic
birds, have strong family traits and pugnacious dis-
positions. They are the least attractive or elegant
birds of our fields or forest. Sharp-shouldered,
big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, of
little elegance in flight or movement, with a dis-
agreeable flirt of the tail, always quarreling with
their neighbors and with one another, no birds are
so little calculated to excite pleasurable emotions in
the beholder, or to become objects of human inter-
est and affection. The kingbird is the best dressed
member of the family, but he is a braggart; and,
though always snubbing his neighbors, is an arrant
50 WAKE-ROBIN

coward, and shows the white feather at the slightest
display of pluck in his antagonist. I have seen him
turn tail to a swallow, and have known the little
pewee in question to whip him beautifully. From
the great-crested to the little green flycatcher, their
ways and general habits are the same. Slow in
flying from point to point, they yet have a wonder-
ful quickness, and snap up the fleetest insects with
little apparent effort. There is a constant play of
quick, nervous movements underneath their outer
show of calmness and stolidity. They do not scour
the limbs and trees like the warblers, but, perched
upon the middle branches, wait, like true hunters,
for the game to come along. ‘There is often a very
audible snap of the beak as they seize their prey.

The wood pewee, the prevailing species in this
locality, arrests your attention by his sweet, pathetic
cry. There is room for it also in the deep woods,
as well as for the more prolonged and elevated
strains.

Its relative, the phobe-bird, builds an exquisite
nest of moss on the side of some shelving cliff or
overhanging rock, ‘The other day, passing by a
ledge near the top of a mountain in a singularly
desolate locality, my eye rested upon one of these
structures, looking precisely as if it grew there, so
in keeping was it with the mossy character of the
rock, and I have had a growing affection for the
bird ever since. The rock seemed to love the nest
and to claim it as its own. I said, what a lesson
in architecture is here! Here is a house that was
IN THE HEMLOCKS 51

built, but with such loving care and such beautiful
adaptation of the means to the end, that it looks
like a product of nature. The same wise economy
is noticeable in the nests of all birds. No bird
could paint its house white or red, or add aught for
show.

At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of
the woods, I come suddenly upon a brood of screech
owls, full grown, sitting together upon a dry, moss-
draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I
pause within four or five yards of them and am look-
ing about me, when my eye alights upon these gray,
motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some
with their backs and some with their breasts toward.
me, but every head turned squarely in my direction.
Their eyes are closed to a mere black line; through
this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking
themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and
grotesque, and suggests something impish and un-
canny. It is a new effect, the night side of the
woods by daylight. After observing them a mo-
ment I take a single step toward them, when, quick
as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude
is changed, they bend, some this way, some that,
and, instinct with life and motion, stare wildly
around them. Another step, and they all take
flight but one, which stoops low on the branch, and
with the look of a frightened cat regards me for a
few seconds over its shoulder. They fly swiftly
and. softly, and disperse through the trees. I shoot
one, which is of a tawny red tint, like that figured
52 WAKE-ROBIN

by Wilson. It is a singular fact that the plumage
of these owls presents two totally distinct phases,
which “have no relation to sex, age, or season,”
one being an ashen gray, the other a bright rufous.

Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the
woods, I am amused with the golden-crowned thrush,
—which, however, is no thrush at all, but a war-
bler. He walks on the ground ahead of me with
such an easy gliding motion, and with such an
unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking his head like
a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening
his pace, that I pause to observe him. I sit down,
he pauses to observe me, and extends his pretty
ramblings on all sides, apparently very much en-
grossed with his own affairs, but never losing sight
of me. But few of the birds are walkers, most
being hoppers, like the robin.

Satisfied that I have no hostile intentions, the
pretty pedestrian mounts a limb a few feet from the
ground, and gives me the benefit of one of his musi-
cal performances, a sort of accelerating chant. Com-
mencing in a very low key, which makes him seem
at a very uncertain distance, he grows louder and
louder till his body quakes and his chant runs into
a shriek, ringing in my ear with a peculiar sharp-
ness. This lay may be represented thus: ‘‘ Teacher,
teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER, THACHER /” —
the accent on the first syllable and each word uttered
with increased force and shrillness. No writer with
whom I am acquainted gives him credit for more
musical ability than is displayed in this strain.
IN THE HEMLOCKS 53

Yet in this the half is not told. He has a far rarer
song, which he reserves for some nymph whom he
meets in the air. Mounting by easy flights to the
top of the tallest tree, he launches into the air with
a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain
of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of
song, —clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the gold-
finch’s in vivacity, and the linnet’s in melody.
This strain is one of the rarest bits of bird melody
to be heard, and is oftenest indulged in late in the
afternoon or after sundown. Over the woods, hid
from view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest
strain. In this song you instantly detect his rela-
tionship to the water-wagtail, — erroneously called
water-thrush, — whose song is likewise a sudden
burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthful
joyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some
unexpected good fortune. For nearly two years this
strain of the pretty walker was little more than a
disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by it
as Thoreau by his mysterious night-warbler, which,
by the way, I suspect was no new bird at all, but
one he was otherwise familiar with. The little bird
himself seems disposed to keep the matter a secret,
and improves every opportunity to repeat before you
his shrill, accelerating lay, as if this were quite
enough and all he laid claim to. Still, I trust I
am betraying no confidence in making the matter
public here. I think this is preéminently his love-
song, as I hear it oftenest about the mating season.
I have caught half-suppressed bursts of it from two
54 WAKE-ROBIN

males chasing each other with fearful speed through
the forest.

Turning to the left from the old road, I wander
over soft logs and gray yielding débris, across the
little trout brook, until I emerge in the overgrown
Barkpeeling, — pausing now and then on the way
to admire a small, solitary white flower which rises
above the moss, with radical, heart-shaped leaves,
and a blossom precisely like the liverwort except
in color, but which is not put down in my botany,
—or to observe the ferns, of which I count six
varieties, some gigantic ones nearly shoulder-high.

At the foot of a rough, scraggy yellow birch, on a
bank of club-moss, so richly inlaid with partridge-
berry and curious shining leaves— with here and
there in the bordering a spire of the false winter-
green strung with faint pink flowers and exhaling
the breath of a May orchard —that it looks too
costly a couch for such an idler, I recline to note
what transpires. The sun is just past the meridian,
' and the afternoon chorus is not yet in full tune.
Most birds sing with the greatest spirit and vivacity
in the forenoon, though there are occasional bursts
later in the day in which nearly all voices join;
while it is not till the twilight that the full power
and solemnity of the thrush’s hymn is felt.

My attention is soon arrested by a pair of hum-
mingbirds, the ruby-throated, disporting themselves
in a low bush a few yards from me. The female
takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exult-
ingly as the male, circling above, dives down as if
IN THE HEMLOCKS 55

to dislodge her. Seeing me, he drops like a feather
on a slender twig and in a moment both are gone.
Then, as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are
all atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed,
and analyze the chorus of warblers, thrushes, finches,
and flycatchers; while, soaring above all, a little
withdrawn and alone rises the divine soprano of the
hermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding
from the top of yonder birch, and which unpracticed
ears would mistake for the voice of the scarlet tana-
ger, comes from that rare visitant, the rose-breasted
grosbeak. It is astrong, vivacious strain, a bright
noonday song, full of health and assurance, indi-
cating fine talents in the performer, but not genius.
As I come up under the tree he casts his eye down
at me, but continues his song. This bird is said to
be quite common in the Northwest, but he is rare
in the Eastern districts. His beak is disproportion-
ately large and heavy, like a huge nose, which
slightly mars his good looks; but Nature has made
it up to him ina blush rose upon his breast, and
the most delicate of pink linings to the under side
of his wings. His back is variegated black and
white, and when flying low the white shows con-
spicuously. If he passed over your head, you would
note the delicate flush under his wings.

That bit of bright scarlet on yonder dead hem-
lock, glowing like a live coal against the dark back-
ground, seeming almost too brilliant for the severe
northern climate, is his relative, the scarlet tanager.
I occasionally meet him in the deep hemlocks, and
56 WAKE-ROBIN

know no stronger contrast in nature. I almost fear
he will kindle the dry limb on which he alights.
He is quite a solitary bird, and in this section seems
to prefer the high, remote woods, even going quite
to the mountain’s top. Indeed, the event of my
last visit to the mountain was meeting one of these
brilliant creatures near the summit, in full song.
The breeze carried the notes far and wide. He
seemed to enjoy the elevation, and I imagined his
song had more scope and freedom than usual. When
he had flown far down the mountain-side, the breeze
still brought me his finest notes. In plumage he
is the most brilliant bird we have. The bluebird
is not entirely blue; nor will the indigo-bird bear a
close inspection, nor the goldfinch, nor the summer
redbird. But the tanager loses nothing by a near
view; the deep scarlet of his body and the black
of his wings and tail are quite perfect. This is his
holiday suit; in the fall he becomes a dull yellowish
green, — the color of the female the whole season.
One of the leading songsters in this choir of the
old Barkpeeling is the purple finch or linnet. He
sits somewhat apart, usually on a dead hemlock, and
warbles most exquisitely. He is one of our finest
songsters, and stands at the head of the finches, as
the hermit at the head of the thrushes. His song
approaches an ecstasy, and, with the exception of the
winter wren’s, is the most rapid and copious strain
to be heard in these woods. It is quite destitute
of the trills and the liquid, silvery, bubbling notes
that characterize the wren’s; but there runs through
IN THE HEMLOCKS 57

it a round, richly modulated whistle, very sweet and
very pleasing. The call of the robin is brought in
at a certain point with marked effect, and, throughout,
the variety is so great and the strain so rapid that the
impression is as of two or three birds singing at the
same time. He is not common here, and I only
find him in these or similar woods. His color is
peculiar, and looks as if it might have been imparted
by dipping a brown bird in diluted pokeberry juice.
Two or three more dippings would have made the
purple complete. The female is the color of the
song sparrow, a little larger, with heavier beak, and
tail much more forked.

In a little opening quite free from brush and
trees, I step down to bathe my hands in the brook,
when a small, light slate-colored bird flutters out of
the bank, not three feet from my head, as I stoop
down, and, as if severely lamed or injured, flutters
through the grass and into the nearest bush. As I
do not follow, but remain near the nest, she chips
sharply, which brings the male, and I see it is the
speckled Canada warbler. I find no authority in
the books for this bird to build upon the ground,
yet here is the nest, made chiefly of dry grass, set in
a slight excavation in the bank not two feet from
the water, and looking a little perilous to anything
but ducklings or sandpipers. There are two young
birds and one little speckled egg just pipped. But
how is this? what mystery is here? One nestling
is much larger than the other, monopolizes most of
the nest, and lifts its open mouth far above that
58 WAKE-ROBIN

of its companion, though obviously both are of the
same age, not more than a day old. Ah! I see;
he old trick of the cow bunting, with a stinging
human significance. Taking the interloper by the
nape of the neck, I deliberately drop it into the
: water, but not without a pang, as I see its naked
| form, convulsed with chills, float down stream.
Cruel? So is Nature cruel. I take one life to
1 “\save two. In less than two days this pot-bellied
‘intruder would have caused the death of the two
lrightful occupants of the nest; so I step in and
‘tum things into their proper channel again.
\ It is a singular freak of nature, this instinct
which prompts one bird to lay its eggs in the nests
of others, and thus shirk the responsibility of rear-
ing its own young. The cow buntings always re-
sort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects
upon their numbers it is evident that these little
tragedies are quite frequent. In Europe the paral-
lel case is that of the cuckoo, and occasionally our
own cuckoo imposes upon a robin or a thrush in
the same manner. The cow bunting seems to have
no conscience about the matter, and, so far as I
have observed, invariably selects the nest of a bird
smaller than itself. Its egg is usually the first to
hatch; its young overreaches all the rest when food
is brought; it grows with great rapidity, spreads
and fills the nest, and the starved and crowded
occupants soon perish, when the parent bird removes
their dead bodies, giving its whole energy and care
to the foster-child.
IN THE HEMLOCKS 59

The warblers and smaller flycatchers are gener-
ally the sufferers, though J sometimes see the slate-
colored snowbird unconsciously duped in like man-
ner; and the other day, in a tall tree in the woods,
I discovered the black-throated green-backed warbler
devoting itself to this dusky, overgrown foundling.
An old farmer to whom I pointed out the fact was
much surprised that such things should happen in
his woods without his knowledge.

These birds may be seen prowling through all
parts of the woods at this season, watching for an
opportunity to steal their egg into some nest. One
day while sitting on a log I saw one moving by
short flights through the trees and gradually near-
ing the ground. Its movements were hurried and
stealthy. About fifty yards from me it disappeared
behind some low brush, and had evidently alighted
upon the ground.

After waiting a few moments I cautiously walked
in the direction. When about half way I acciden-
tally made a slight noise, when the bird flew up,
and seeing me hurried off out of the woods. Ar-
rived at the place, I found a simple nest of dry
grass and leaves partially concealed under a pros-
trate branch. I took it to be the nest of a sparrow.
There were three eggs in the nest, and one lying
about a foot below it as if it had been rolled out, as
of course it had. It suggested the thought that
perhaps, when the cowbird finds the full comple-
ment of eggs in a nest, it throws out one and de-
posits its own instead. I revisited the nest a few
60 WAKE-—ROBIN

days afterward and found an egg again cast out, but
none had been put in its place. The nest had been
abandoned by its owner and the eggs were stale.

In all cases where I have found this egg, I have
observed both male and female of the cowbird lin-
gering near, the former uttering his peculiar liquid,
glassy note from the tops of the trees.

’ In July the young, which have been reared in
‘the same neighborhood, and which are now of a dull
‘fawn color, begin to collect in small flocks, which
‘grow to be quite large in autumn.

The speckled Canada is a very superior warbler,
having a lively, animated strain, reminding you of
certain parts of the canary’s, though quite broken
and incomplete; the bird, the while, hopping amid
the branches with increased liveliness, and indulg-
ing in fine sibilant chirps, too happy to keep silent.

His manners are quite marked. He has a habit
of courtesying when he discovers you which is very
pretty. In form he is an elegant bird, somewhat
slender, his back of a bluish lead-color becoming
nearly black on his crown: the under part of his
body, from his throat down, is of a light, delicate
yellow, with a belt of black dots across his breast.
He has a fine eye, surrounded by a light yellow ring.

The parent birds are much disturbed by my pres-
ence, and keep up a loud emphatic chirping, which
attracts the attention of their sympathetic neighbors,
and one after another they come to see what has
happened. The chestnut-sided and the Blackbur-
nian come in company. The black and yellow
IN THE HEMLOCKS 61

warbler pauses a moment and hastens away; the
Maryland yellow-throat peeps shyly from the lower
bushes and utters his ‘“Fip! fip!” in sympathy;
the wood pewee comes straight to the tree overhead,
and the red-eyed vireo lingers and lingers, eying
me with a curious, innocent look, evidently much
puzzled. But all disappear again, one by one, ap-
parently without a word of condolence or encourage-
ment to the distressed pair. I have often noticed
among birds this show of sympathy, —if indeed it
be sympathy, and not merely curiosity, or desire to
be forewarned of the approach of a common danger.

An hour afterward I approach the place, find all
still, and the mother bird upon the nest. As I
draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyes growing
large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look.
She keeps her place till I am within two paces of
her, when she flutters away as at first. In the
brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and
the two little nestlings lift their heads without ~be-
ing jostled or overreached by any strange bedfellow.
A week afterward and they were flown away, — so
brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is
that they escape, even for this short time, the skunks
and minks and muskrats that abound here, and that
have a decided partiality for such tidbits.

I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now
threading an obscure cow-path or an overgrown
wood-road; now clambering over soft and decayed
logs, or forcing my way through a network of briers
and hazels; now entering a perfect bower of wild
62 WAKE-ROBIN

cherry, beech, and soft maple; now emerging into a
little grassy lane, golden with buttercups or white
with daisies, or wading waist-deep in, the red rasp-
berry-bushes.

Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown
partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces
from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes
on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the
screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild hen
of the woods call together her brood. At what an
early age the partridge flies! Nature seems to con-
centrate her energies on the wing, making the safety
of the bird a point to be looked after first; and
while the body is covered with down, and no signs
of feathers are visible, the wing-quills sprout and
unfold, and in an incredibly short time the young
make fair headway in flying.

The same rapid development of wing may be
observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water-
fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the
nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook,
I came suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most
beautiful creature, enveloped in a soft gray down,
swift and nimble and apparently a week or two old,
but with no signs of plumage either of body or
wing. And it needed none, for it escaped me by
taking to the water as readily as if it had flown
with wings.

Hark! there arises over there in the brush a soft,
persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and
unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and
IN THE HEMLOCKS 63

watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous
and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the
mother hen. Presently a faint timid “Yeap!”
which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various
directions, —-the young responding. As no danger
seems near, the cooing of the parent bird is soon a
very audible clucking call, and the young move
cautiously in the direction. Let me step never so
carefully from my hiding-place, and all sounds in-
stantly cease, and I search in vain for either parent
or young.
The partridge is one of our most native and char-
acteristic birds. The woods seem good to be in
; where I find him. He gives a habitable air to the
: forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant was
,really at home. The woods where I do not find
him seem to want something, as if suffering from
some neglect of Nature. And then he is such a
splendid success, so hardy and vigorous. I think
he enjoys the cold and the snow. His wings seem
to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the
snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm,
he will complacently sit down and allow himself to
be snowed under. Approaching him at such times,
he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet,
scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes hum-
ming away through the woods like a bomb-shell, —
a picture of native spirit and success.
His drum is one of the most welcome and beau-
tiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees
expanded their buds, when, in the still April morn-
64 WAKE-ROBIN

ings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his
devoted wings. He selects not, as you would pre-
dict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and
crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to
old oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil.
If a log to his taste cannot be found he sets up his
altar on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his
fervent blows. Who has seen the partridge drum?
It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep,
though by much caution and tact it may be done.
He does not hug the log, but stands very erect,
expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows,
pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking
faster and faster till the sound becomes a continu-
ous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than
half a minute. The tips of his wings barely brush
the log, so that the sound is produced rather by the
force of the blows upon the air and upon his own
body as in flying. One log will be used for many
years, though not by the same drummer. It seems
to be a sort of temple and held in great respect.
The bird always approaches on foot, and leaves it
in the same quiet manner, unless rudely disturbed.
He is very cunning, though his wit is not profound.
It is difficult to approach him by stealth; you will
try many times before succeeding; but seem to pass
by him in a great hurry, making all the noise pos-
sible, and with plumage furled he stands as immov-
able as a knot, allowing you a good view, and a good
shot if you are a sportsman.

Passing along one of the old Barkpeelers’ roads
IN THE HEMLOCKS 65

which wander aimlessly about, I am attracted by a
singularly brilliant and emphatic warble, proceeding
from the low bushes, and quickly suggesting the
voice of the Maryland yellow-throat. Presently the
singer hops up on a dry twig, and gives me a good
view. lLead-colored head and neck, becoming nearly
black on the breast; clear olive-green back, and
yellow belly. From his habit of keeping near the
ground, even hopping upon it occasionally, I know
him to be a ground warbler; from his dark breast
the ornithologist has added the expletive mourning,
hence the mourning ground warbler.

Of this bird both Wilson and Audubon confessed
their comparative ignorance, neither ever having
seen its nest or become acquainted with its haunts
and general habits. Its song is quite striking and
novel, though its voice at once suggests the class of
warblers to which it belongs. It is very shy and
wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and studiously
concealing itself from your view. I discover but
one pair here. The female has food in her beak,
but carefully avoids betraying the locality of her
nest. The ground warblers all have one notable
. feature, — very beautiful legs, as white and delicate
as if they had always worn silk stockings and satin
slippers. High tree warblers have dark brown or
black legs and more brilliant plumage, but less
musical ability.

The chestnut-sided belongs to’the latter class.
He is quite common in these woods, as in all the
woods about. He is one of the rarest and hand-
66 WAKE-ROBIN

somest of the warblers; his white breast and throat,
chestnut sides, and yellow crown show conspicuously.
Last year I found the nest of one in an uplying
beech wood, in a low bush near the roadside, where
cows passed and browsed daily. Things went on
smoothly till the cow bunting stole her egg into it,
when other mishaps followed, and the nest was soon
empty. A characteristic attitude of the male dur-
ing this season is a slight drooping of the wings,
and tail a little elevated, which gives him a very
smart, bantam-like appearance. His song is fine
and hurried, and not much of itself, but has its
place in the general chorus.

A far sweeter strain, falling on the ear with the
true sylvan cadence, is that of the black-throated
green-backed warbler, whom I meet at various
points. He has no superiors among the true Syi-
via. His song is very plain and simple, but re-
markably pure and tender, and might be indicated
by straight lines, thus, / 3 the first
two marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, in
the same pitch of voice, and quite unaccented; the
latter marks, the concluding notes, wherein the tone
and inflection are changed. The throat and breast
of the male are a rich black like velvet, his face
yellow, and his back a yellowish green.

Beyond the Barkpeeling, where the woods are
mingled hemlock, beech, and birch, the languid
midsummer note of the black-throated blue-back
falls on my ear. ‘“‘Twea, twea, twea-e-e!” in the
upward slide, and with the peculiar z-ing of summer

 

 
IN THE HEMLOCKS 67

insects, but not destitute of a certain plaintive
cadence. It is one of the most languid, unhurried
sounds in all the woods. I feel like reclining upon
the dry leaves at once. Audubon says he has
never heard his love-song; but this is all the love-
song he has, and he is evidently a very plain hero
with his little brown mistress. He assumes few
attitudes, and is not a bold and striking gymnast,
like many of his kindred. He has a preference for
dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid
the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping
from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeat-
ing now and then his listless, indolent strain. His
back and crown are dark blue; his throat and
breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a
white spot on each wing.

Here and there I meet the black and white creep-
ing warbler, whose fine strain reminds me of hair-
wire. It is unquestionably the finest bird-song to
be heard. Few insect strains will compare with it
in this respect; while it has none of the harsh, brassy
character of the latter, being very delicate and tender.

That sharp, uninterrupted, but still continued
warble, which, before one has learned to discrim-
inate closely, he is apt to confound with the red-
eyed vireo’s, is that of the solitary warbling vireo,
—a bird slightly larger, much rarer, and with a
louder, less cheerful and happy strain. I see him
hopping along lengthwise of the limbs, and note
the orange tinge of his breast and sides and the
white circle around his eye.
' 68 WAKE-ROBIN

But the declining sun and the deepening shadows

admonish me that this ramble must be brought to
a close, even though only the leading characters in
this chorus of forty songsters have been described,
and only a small portion of the venerable old woods
explored. In a secluded swampy corner of the old
Barkpeeling, where I find the great purple orchis in
bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems
never to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the
wonderful display of lichens and mosses that over-
run both the smaller and the larger growths. Every
bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most
rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all,
the long bearded moss festoons the branches or
sways gracefully from the limbs. Every twig looks
a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it.
A young yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal
look, and seems ill at ease under such premature
honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as if by
hands for some solemn festival.
/ Mounting toward the upland again, I pause rey-
erently as the hush and stillness of twilight come
upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest hour of
the day. And as the hermit’s evening hymn goes
up from the deep solitude below me, I experience
that serene exaltation of sentiment of which music,
literature, and religion are but the faint types and
symbols. ,

1865.
Til
THE ADIRONDACKS

HEN I went to the Adirondacks, which was

in the summer of 1863, I was in the first

flush of my ornithological studies, and was curious,

above all else, to know what birds I should find in

these solitudes, — what new ones, and what ones
already known to me.

In visiting vast, primitive, far-off woods one
naturally expects to find something rare and pre-
cious, or something entirely new, but it commonly
happens that one is disappointed. Thoreau made
three excursions into the Maine woods, and, though
he started the moose and caribou, had nothing more
novel to report by way of bird notes than the songs
of the wood thrush and the pewee. This was about
my own experience in the Adirondacks. The birds
for the most part prefer the vicinity of settlements
and clearings, and it was at such places that I saw
the greatest number and variety.

At the clearing of an old hunter and pioneer by
the name of Hewett, where we paused a couple of
days on first entering the woods, I saw many old
friends and made some new acquaintances. The
snowbird was very abundant here, as it had been
70 WAKE-ROBIN

at various points along the route after leaving Lake
George. As I went out to the spring in the morn-
ing to wash myself a purple finch flew up before
me, having already performed its ablutions. I had
first observed this bird the winter before in the
Highlands of the Hudson, where, during several
clear but cold February mornings, a troop of them
sang most charmingly in a tree in front of my
house. The meeting with the bird here in its
breeding haunts was a pleasant surprise. During
the day I observed several pine finches, —a dark
brown or brindlish bird, allied to the common yel-
lowbird, which it much resembles in its manner
and habits. They lingered familiarly about the
house, sometimes alighting in a small tree within
a few feet of it. In one of the stumpy fields I
saw an old favorite in the grass finch or vesper
sparrow. It was sitting on a tall charred stub with
food in its beak. But all along the borders of the
woods and in the bushy parts of the fields there
was a new song that I was puzzled in tracing to the
author. It was most noticeable in the morning and
at twilight, but was at all times singularly secret
and elusive. I at last discovered that it was the
white-throated sparrow, a common bird all through
this region. Its song is very delicate and plaintive,
—a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which dis-
appoints one, however, as it ends when it seems
only to have begun. If the bird could give us the
finishing strain of which this seems only the pre-
lude, it would stand first among feathered songsters.
THE ADIRONDACKS 71

By a little trout-brook in a low part of the woods
adjoining the clearing, I had a good time. pursuing
and identifying a number of warblers, — the speckled
Canada, the black-throated blue, the yellow-rumped,
and Audubon’s warbler. The latter, which was
leading its troop of young through a thick under-
growth on the banks of the creek where insects
were plenty, was new to me.

It being August, the birds were all moulting, and
sang only fitfully and by brief snatches. I remem-
ber hearing but one robin during the whole trip.
This was by the Boreas River in the deep forest.
It was like the voice of an old friend speaking my
name.

From Hewett’s, after engaging his youngest son,
—the “Bub” of the family, —a young man about
twenty and a thorough woodsman, as guide, we
took to the woods in good earnest, our destination
being the Stillwater of the Boreas, —a long, deep,
dark reach in one of the remote branches of the
Hudson, about six miles distant. Here we paused
a couple of days, putting up in a dilapidated lum-
berman’s shanty, and cooking our fish over an old
stove which had been left there. The most note-
worthy incident of our stay at this point was the
taking by myself of half a dozen splendid trout out
of the Stillwater, after the guide had exhausted his
art and his patience with very insignificant results.
The place had a very trouty look; but as the season
was late and the river warm, I knew the fish lay in
deep water from which they could not be attracted.
72 WAKE-ROBIN

In deep water accordingly, and near the head of the
hole, I determined to look for them. Securing a
chub, I cut it into pieces about an inch long, and
with these for bait sank my hook into the head of
the Stillwater, and just to one side of the main cur-
rent. In less than twenty minutes I had landed
six noble fellows, three of them over one foot long
each. The guide and my incredulous companions,
who were watching me from the opposite shore,
seeing my luck, whipped out their tackle in great
haste and began casting first at a respectable dis-
tance from me, then all about me, but without a
single catch. My own efforts suddenly became
fruitless also, but I had conquered the guide, and
thenceforth he treated me with the tone and free-
dom of a comrade and equal.

One afternoon we visited a cave some two miles
down the stream, which had recently been discov-
ered. We squeezed and wriggled through a big
crack or cleft in the side of the mountain, for about
one hundred feet, when we emerged into a large
dome-shaped passage, the abode, during cettain sea-
sons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all
times of primeval darkness. There were various
other crannies and pit-holes opening into it, some
of which we explored. The voice of running water
was everywhere heard, betraying the proximity of
the little stream by whose ceaseless corroding the
cave and its entrance had been worn. ‘This stream-
let flowed out of the mouth of the cave, and came
from a lake on the top of the mountain; this ac-
THE ADIRONDACKS 73

counted for its warmth to the hand, which surprised
us all.

Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. <A
pigeon hawk came prowling by our camp, and the
faint piping call of the nuthatches, leading their
young through the high trees, was often heard.

On the third day our guide proposed to conduct
us to a lake in the mountains where we could float
for deer.

Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged
ascent, which brought us, after an hour’s heavy
climbing, to an elevated region of pine forest, years
before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all
manner of obstacles to our awkward and incum-
bered pedestrianism. The woods were largely pine,
though yellow birch, beech, and maple were com-
mon. ‘The satisfaction of having a gun, should any
game show itself, was the chief compensation to
those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge
would occasionally whir up before us, or a red
squirrel snicker and hasten to his den; else the
woods appeared quite tenantless. The most noted
object was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of
a great race, which presided over a cluster of yel-
low birches, on the side of the mountain.

About noon we came out upon a long, shallow
sheet of water which the guide called Bloody-Moose
Pond, from the tradition that a moose had been
slaughtered there many years before. Looking out
over the silent and lonely scene, his eye was the
first to detect an object, apparently feeding upon lily-
74 WAKE-—ROBIN

pads, which our willing fancies readily shaped into
a deer. As we were eagerly waiting some move-
ment to confirm this impression, it lifted up its
head, and, lo! a great blue heron. Seeing us ap-
proach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnly
across to a dead tree on the other side of the lake,
enhancing rather than relieving the loneliness and
desolation that brooded over the scene. As we
proceeded it flew from tree to tree in advance of us,
apparently loth to be disturbed in its ancient and
solitary domain. In the margin of the pond we}
found the pitcher-plant growing, and here and there.
in the sand the closed gentian lifted up its blue/
head.

In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate
lake, I was conscious of a slight thrill of expecta-
tion, as if some secret of Nature might here be
revealed, or some rare and unheard-of game dis-
turbed. There is ever a lurking suspicion that the
beginning of things is in some way associated with
water, and one may notice that in his private walks
he is led by a curious attraction to fetch all the
springs and ponds in his route, as if by them was
the place for wonders and miracles to happen.
Once, while in advance of my companions, I saw,
from a high rock, a commotion in the water near
the shore, but on reaching the point found only the
marks of a musquash.

Pressing on through the forest, after many adven-
tures with the pine-knots, we reached, about the
middle of the afternoon, our destination, Nate’s
et

Co

THE ADIRONDACKS 75

Pond, —a pretty sheet of water, lying like a silver
mirror in the lap of the mountain, about a mile
long and half a mile wide, surrounded by dark for-
ests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the
one we had just passed, a very picture of unbroken
solitude.
It is not in the woods alone to give one this
impression of utter loneliness. In the woods are
sounds and voices, and a dumb kind of companion-
ship; one is little more than a walking tree himself;
but come upon one of these mountain lakes, and the
wildness stands revealed and meets you face to face.
Water is thus facile and adaptive, that it makes the _
wild more wild, while it enhances culture and art. x
The end of the pond which we approached was
quite shoal, the stones rising above the surface as
in a summer brook, and everywhere showing marks
of the noble game we were in quest of, — foot-
prints, dung, and cropped and uprooted lily-pads.
After resting for a half hour, and replenishing our
game-pouches at the expense of the most respectable
frogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft,
resinous pine-woods, intending to camp near the
other end of the lake, where, the guide assured us,
we should find a hunter’s cabin ready built. A
half hour’s march brought us to the locality, and a
most delightful one it was, —so hospitable and in-
viting that all the kindly and beneficent influences
of the woods must have abided there. In a slight
depression in the woods, about one hundred yards
from the lake, though hidden from it for a hunter’s
76 WAKE-ROBIN

reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth of birch,
hemlock, and pine, with a lining of balsam and fir,
the rude cabin welcomed us. It was of the ap-
proved style, three sides inclosed, with a roof of
bark and a bed of boughs, and a rock in front that
afforded a permanent backlog to all fires. A faint
voice of running water was heard near by, and, fol-
lowing the sound, a delicious spring rivulet was dis-
closed, hidden by the moss and débris as by a new
fall of snow, but here and there rising in little well-
like openings, as if for our special convenience, On
smooth places on the logs I noticed female names
inscribed in a female hand; and the guide told us
of an English lady, an artist, who had traversed
this region with a single guide, making sketches.
Our packs unslung and the kettle over, our first
move was to ascertain in what state of preservation
a certain dug-out might be, which, the guide averred,
he had left moored in the vicinity the summer be-
fore, — for upon this hypothetical dug-out our hopes
of venison rested. After a little searching it was
found under the top of a fallen hemlock, but in a
sorry condition. A large piece had been split out
of one end, and a fearful chink was visible nearly
to the water-line. Freed from the treetop, how-
ever, and calked with a little moss, it floated with
two aboard, which was quite enough for our pur-
pose. A jack and an oar were necessary to com-
plete the arrangement, and before the sun had set
our professor of wood-craft had both in readiness.
From a young yellow birch an oar took shape with
THE ADIRONDACKS 77

marvelous rapidity, — trimmed and smoothed with
a neatness almost fastidious, — no makeshift, but
an instrument fitted for the delicate work it was to
perform.

A jack was made with equal skill and speed. A
stout staff about three feet long was placed upright
in the bow of the boat, and held to its place by a
horizontal bar, through a hole in which it turned
easily: a half wheel eight or ten inches in diameter,
cut from a large chip, was placed at the top, around
which was bent a new séction of birch bark, thus
forming a rude semicircular reflector. Three can-
dles placed within the circle completed the jack.
With moss and boughs seats were arranged, — one
in the bow for the marksman, and one in the stern
for the oarsman. A meal of frogs and squirrels
was a good preparation, and, when darkness came,
all were keenly alive to the opportunity it brought.
Though: by no means an expert in the use of the
gun, —-adding the superlative degree of enthusiasm
to only the positive degree of skill, — yet it seemed
tacitly agreed that I should act as marksman and
kill the deer, if such was to be our luck.

_ After it was thoroughly dark we went down to
make a short trial trip. Everything working to sat-
isfaction, about ten o’clock we pushed out in ear-
nest. For the twentieth time I felt in the pocket
that contained the matches, ran over the part I was
to perform, and pressed my gun firmly, to be sure
there was no mistake. My position was that of
kneeling directly under the jack, which I was to
78 WAKE-ROBIN

light at the word. The night was clear, moonless,
and still. Nearing the middle of the lake, a breeze
from the west was barely perceptible, and noiselessly
we glided before it. The guide handled his oar
with great dexterity; without lifting it from the
water or breaking the surface, he imparted the
steady, uniform motion desired. How silent it
was! The ear seemed the only sense, and to hold
dominion over lake and forest. Occasionally a lily-
pad would brush along the bottom, and stooping
low I could hear a faint murmuring of the water
under the bow: else all was still. Then, almost as
by magic, we were encompassed by a huge black
ring. The surface of the lake, when we had reached
the centre, was slightly luminous from the starlight,
and the dark, even forest-line that surrounded us,
doubled by reflection in the water, presented a
broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The effect
was quite startling, like some huge conjurer’s trick.
It seemed as if we had crossed the boundary-line
between the real and the imaginary, and this was
indeed the land of shadows and of spectres. What
magic oar was that the guide wielded that it could
transport me to such a realm! Indeed, had I not
committed some fatal mistake and left that trusty
servant behind, and had not some wizard of the
night stepped into his place? A slight splashing
in-shore broke the spell and caused me to turn ner-
vously to the oarsman: ‘‘Musquash,” said he, and
kept straight on.

Nearing the extreme end of the pond, the boat
THE ADIRONDACKS 79

gently headed around, and silently we glided back
into the clasp of that strange orbit. Slight sounds
were heard as before, but nothing that indicated the
presence of the game we were waiting for; and we
reached the point of departure as innocent of veni-
son as we had set out.

After an hour’s delay, and near midnight, we
pushed out again. My vigilance and susceptibility
were rather sharpened than dulled by the waiting;
and the features of the night had also deepened and
intensified. Night was at its meridian. The sky
had that soft luminousness which may often be ob-
served near midnight at this season, and the “large
few stars’”” beamed mildly down. We floated out
into that spectral shadow-land and moved slowly on —
as before. The silence was most impressive. Now
and then the faint yeap of some traveling bird
would come from the air overhead, or the wings of
a bat whisp quickly by, or an owl hoot off in the
mountains, giving to the silence and loneliness a
tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore
would startle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly
to the silent figure in the stern.

The end of the lake was reached, and we turned
back. The novelty and the excitement began to
flag; tired nature began to assert her claims; the
movement was soothing, and the gunner slumbered
fitfully at his post. Presently something aroused
me. ‘“There’s a deer,” whispered the guide. The
gun heard, and fairly jumped in my hand. Listen-
ing, there came the cracking of a limb, followed by
80 WAKE —ROBIN

a sound as of something walking in shallow water.
It proceeded from the other end of the lake, over
against our camp. On we sped, noiselessly as ever,
but with increased velocity. Presently, with a
thrill of new intensity, I saw the boat was gradually
heading in that direction, Now, to a sportsman
who gets excited over a gray squirrel, and forgets
that he has a gun on the sudden appearance of a
fox, this was a severe trial. I felt suddenly cramped
for room, and trimming the boat was out of the
question. It seemed that I must make some noise
in spite of myself. “Light the jack,” said a soft
whisper behind me. I fumbled nervously for a
match, and dropped the first one. Another was
drawn briskly across my knee and broke. A third
lighted, but went out prematurely, in my haste to
get it up to the jack. What would I not have
given to see those wicks blaze! We were fast near-
ing the shore, — already the lily-pads began to
brush along the bottom. Another attempt, and the
light took. The gentle motion fanned the blaze,
and in a moment a broad glare of light fell upon
the water in front of us, while the boat remained in
utter darkness.

By this time I had got beyond the nervous point,
and had come round to perfect coolness and compos-
ure again, but preternaturally vigilant and keen. I
was ready for any disclosures; not a sound was
heard. In a few moments the trees alongshore
were faintly visible. Every object put on the
shape of a gigantic deer. A large rock looked just
THE ADIRONDACKS 81

ready to bound away. The dry limbs of a prostrate
tree were surely his antlers.

But what are those two luminous spots? Need
the reader to be told what they were? In a moment
the head of a real deer became outlined; then his
neck and foreshoulders; then his whole body.
There he stood, up to his knees in the water, gazing
fixedly at us, apparently arrested in the movement
of putting his head down for a lily-pad, and evi-
dently thinking it was some new-fangled moon
sporting about there. “Let him have it,” said my
prompter,——and the crash came. There was a
scuffle in the water, and a plunge in the woods.
“He’s gone,” said I. “Wait a moment,” said the
guide, “and I will show you.” Rapidly running
the canoe ashore, we sprang out, and, holding the
jack aloft, explored the vicinity by its light.
There, over the logs and brush, I caught the glim-
mer of those luminous spots again. But, poor
thing! there was little need of the second shot,
which was the unkindest cut of all, for the deer
had already fallen to the ground, and was fast
expiring. The success was but a very indifferent
one, after all, as the victim turned out to be only
an old doe, upon whom maternal cares had evidently
worn heavily during the summer.

This mode of taking deer is very novel and
strange. The animal is evidently fascinated or be-
wildered. It does not appear to be frightened, but
as if overwhelmed with amazement, or under the
82 ‘ WAKE-ROBIN

influence of some spell. It is not sufficiently mas-
ter of the situation to be sensible to fear, or to
think of escape by flight; and the experiment, to
be successful, must be done quickly, before the first
feeling of bewilderment passes.

Witnessing the spectacle from the shore, I can
conceive of nothing more sudden or astounding.
You see no movement and hear no noise, but the
light grows upon you, and stares and stares like a
huge eye from the infernal regions.

According to the guide, when a deer has been
played upon in this manner and escaped, he is not
to be fooled a second time. Mounting the shore,
he gives a long signal snort, which alarms every
animal within hearing, and dashes away.

The sequel to the deer-shooting was a little sharp
practice with a revolver upon a rabbit, or properly
a hare, which was so taken with the spectacle of
the camp-fire, and the sleeping figures lying about,
that it ventured quite up in our midst; but while
testing the quality of some condensed milk that sat
uncovered at the foot of a large tree, poor Lepus
had his spine injured by a bullet.

Those who lodge with Nature find early rising
quite in order. It is our voluptuous beds, and iso-

‘lation from the earth and the air, that prevents us

from emulating the birds and beasts in this respect.

With the citizen in his chamber, it is not morning,
but breakfast-time. The camper-out, however, feels
morning in the air, he smells it, sees it, hears it,
THE ADIRONDACKS 83

and springs up with the general awakening. None
were tardy at the row of white chips arranged on
the trunk of a prostrate tree, when breakfast was
halloed; for we were all anxious to try the venison.
Few of us, however, took a second piece. It was
black and strong.

The day was warm and calm, and we loafed at
leisure. The woods were Nature’s own. It was a
luxury to ramble through them, — rank and shaggy
and venerable, but with an aspect singularly ripe
and mellow. No fire had consumed and no lumber-
man plundered. Every trunk and limb and leaf
lay where it had fallen. At every step the foot
sank into the moss, which, like a soft green snow,
covered everything, making every stone a cushion
and every rock a bed, —a grand old Norse parlor;
adorned beyond art and upholstered beyond skill.

Indulging in a brief nap on a rug of club-moss
carelessly dropped at the foot of a pine-tree, I
woke up to find myself the subject of a discussion
of a troop of chickadees. Presently three or four
shy wood warblers came to look upon this strange
creature that had wandered into their haunts; else
I passed quite unnoticed. ‘

By the lake, I met that orchard beauty, the cedar
waxwing, spending his vacation in the assumed
character of a flycatcher, whose part he performed
with great accuracy and deliberation. Only a month
before I had seen him regaling himself upon cher-
ries in the garden and orchard; but as the dog-days
approached he set out for the streams and lakes, to
84 WAKE-ROBIN

divert himself with the more exciting pursuits of
the chase. From the tops of the dead trees along
the border of the lake, he would sally out in all
directions, sweeping through long curves, alternately
mounting and descending, now reaching up for a
fly high in air, now sinking low for one near the
surface, and returning to his perch in a few moments
for a fresh start.

The pine finch was also here, though, as usual,
never appearing at home, but with a waiting, ex-
pectant air. Here also I met my beautiful singer,
the hermit thrush, but with no song in his throat
now. A week or two later and he was on his jour-
ney southward. This was the only species of thrush
I saw in the Adirondacks. Near Lake Sandford,
where were large tracts of raspberry and wild cherry,
I saw numbers of them. A boy whom we met,
driving home some stray cows, said it was the
“artridge-bird,” no doubt from the resemblance of
its note, when disturbed, to the cluck of the par-
tridge.

Nate’s Pond contained perch and sunfish but no
trout. Its water was not pure enough for trout.
Was there ever any other fish so fastidious as this,
requiring such sweet harmony and perfection of the
elements for its production and sustenance? On
higher ground about a mile distant was a trout
pond, the shores of which were steep and rocky.

Our next move was a tramp of about twelve miles
through the wilderness, most of the way in a drench-
ing rain, to a place called the Lower Iron Works,
THE ADIRONDACKS 85

situated on the road leading in to Long Lake, which
is about a day’s drive farther on. We found a
comfortable hotel here, and were glad enough to
avail ourselves of the shelter and warmth which it
offered. There was a little settlement and some
quite good farms. The place commands a fine view
to the north of Indian Pass, Mount Marcy, and the
adjacent mountains. On the afternoon of our arrival,
and also the next morning, the view was completely
shut off by the fog. But about the middle of the
forenoon the wind changed, the fog lifted and re-
vealed to us the grandest mountain scenery we had
beheld on our journey. There they sat about fif-
teen miles distant, a group of them,— Mount Marcy,
Mount McIntyre, and Mount Golden, the real Adi-
rondack monarchs. It was an impressive sight, ren-
dered doubly so by the sudden manner in which it
was revealed to us by that scene-shifter the Wind.

I saw blackbirds at this place, and sparrows, and
the solitary sandpiper, and the Canada woodpecker,
and a large number of hummingbirds. Indeed, I
saw more of the latter here than I ever before saw
in any one locality. Their squeaking and whirring
were almost incessant.

The Adirondack Iron Works belong to the past.
Over thirty years ago a company in Jersey City
purchased some sixty thousand acres of land lying
along the Adirondack River, and abounding in mag-
netic iron ore. The land was cleared, roads, dams,
and forges constructed, and the work of manufactur-
ing iron begun.
86 WAKE-ROBIN

At this point a dam was built across the Hudson,
the waters of which flowed back into Lake Sand-
ford, about five miles above. The lake itself being
some six miles long, tolerable navigation was thus
established for a distance of eleven miles, to the
Upper Works, which seem to have been the only
works in operation. At the Lower Works, besides
the remains of the dam, the only vestige I saw was
a long low mound, overgrown with grass and weeds,
that suggested a rude earthwork. We were told
that it was once a pile of wood containing hundreds
of cords, cut in regular lengths and corded up here
for use in the furnaces.

At the Upper Works, some twelve miles distant,
quite a village had been built, which was now en-
tirely abandoned, with the exception of a single
family.

A. march to this place was our next undertaking,
The road for two or three miles kept up from the
river and led us by three or four rough, stumpy
farms, It then approached the lake and kept along
its shores. It was here a dilapidated corduroy
structure that compelled the traveler to keep an eye
on his feet. Blue jays, two or three small hawks,
a solitary wild pigeon, and ruffed grouse were seen
along the route. Now and then the lake gleamed
through the trees, or we crossed on a shaky bridge
some of its arms or inlets. After a while we began
to pass dilapidated houses by the roadside. One
little frame house I remembered particularly; the
door was off the hinges and leaned against the
THE ADIRONDACKS 87

jambs, the windows had but a few panes left, which
glared vacantly. The yard and little garden spot
were overrun with a heavy growth of timothy, and
the fences had all long since gone to decay. At
the head of the lake a large stone building projected
from the steep bank and extended over the road.
A little beyond, the valley opened to the east, and
looking ahead about one mile we saw smoke going
up from a single chimney. Pressing on, just as the
sun was setting we entered the deserted village.
The barking of the dog brought the whole family
into the street, and they stood till we came up.
Strangers in that country were a novelty, and we
were greeted like familiar acquaintances.

Hunter, the head, proved to be a first-rate type
of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a
Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six
children, two of them grown-up daughters, — mod-
est, comely young women as you would find any-
where. The elder of the two had spent a winter in
New York with her aunt, which perhaps made her
a little more self-conscious when in the presence of
the strange young men. Hunter was hired by the
company at a dollar a day to live here and see that
things were not wantonly destroyed, but allowed to
go to decay properly and decently. He had a sub-
stantial roomy frame house and any amount of grass
and woodland. He had good barns and kept con-
siderable stock, and raised various farm products,
but only for his own use, as the difficulties of trans-
portation to market some seventy miles distant made
88 WAKE-ROBIN

it no object. He usually went to Ticonderoga on
Lake Champlain once a year for his groceries, etc.
His post-office was twelve miles below at the Lower
Works, where the mail passed twice a week. There
was not a doctor, or lawyer, or preacher within
twenty-five miles. In winter, months elapse with-
out their seeing anybody from the outside world.
In summer, parties occasionally pass through here
on their way to Indian Pass and Mount Marcy.
Hundreds of tons of good timothy hay annually rot
down upon the cleared land.

After nightfall we went out and walked up and
down the grass-grown streets. It was a curious
and melancholy spectacle. The remoteness and sur-
rounding wildness rendered the scene doubly im-
pressive. And the next day and the next the place
was an object of wonder. There were about thirty
buildings in all, most of them small frame houses
with a door and two windows opening into a small
yard in front and a garden in the rear, such as are
usually occupied by the laborers in a country manu-
facturing district. There was one large two-story
boarding-house, a schoolhouse with a cupola and a
bell in it, and numerous sheds and forges, and a
saw-mill. In front of the saw-mill, and ready to
be rolled to their place on the carriage, lay a large
pile of pine logs, so decayed that one could run his
walking-stick through them. Near by, a building
filled with charcoal was bursting open and the coal
going to waste on the ground. The smelting works
were also much crumbled by time. The school-
THE ADIRONDACKS 89

house was still used. Every day one of the daugh-
ters assembles her smaller brothers and sisters there
and school keeps. The district library contained
nearly one hundred readable books, which were
well thumbed.

The absence of society, etc., had made the family
all good readers. We brought them an illustrated
newspaper which was awaiting them in the post-
office at the Lower Works. It was read and reread
with great eagerness by every member of the house-
hold.

The iron ore cropped out on every hand. There
was apparently mountains of it; one could see it in
the stones along the road. But the difficulties met
with in separating the iron from its alloys, together
with the expense of transportation and the failure
of certain railroad schemes, caused the works to be
abandoned. No doubt the time is not distant when
these obstacles will be overcome and this region
reopened.

At present it is an admirable place to go to.
There is fishing and hunting and boating and moun-
tain-climbing within easy reach, and a good roof
over your head at night, which is no small matter.
One is often disqualified for enjoying the woods
after he gets there by the loss of sleep and of proper
food taken at seasonable times. This point attended
to, and one is in the humor for any enterprise.

About half a mile northeast of the village is Lake
Henderson, a very irregular and picturesque sheet
of water, surrounded by dark evergreen forests, and
90 WAKE-ROBIN

abutted by two or three bold promontories with
mottled white and gray rocks. Its greatest extent
in any one direction is perhaps less than a mile. Its
waters are perfectly clear and abound in lake trout.
A considerable stream flows into it which comes
down from Indian Pass.

A mile south of the village is Lake Sandford.
This is a more open and exposed sheet of water and
much larger. From some parts of it Mount Marcy
and the gorge of the Indian Pass are seen to excel-
lent advantage. The Indian Pass shows as a huge
cleft in the mountain, the gray walls rising on one
side perpendicularly for many hundred feet. This
lake abounds in white and yellow perch and in
pickerel; of the latter single specimens are often
caught which weigh fifteen pounds. There were a
few wild ducks on both lakes. A brood of the
goosander or red merganser, the young not yet able.
to fly, were the occasion of some spirited rowing.
But with two pairs of oars in a trim light skiff, it
was impossible to come up with them. Yet we
could not resist the temptation to give them a chase
every day when we first came on the lake. It
needed a good long pull to sober us down so we
could fish.

The land on the east side of the lake had been
burnt over, and was now mostly grown up with
wild cherry and red raspberry bushes. Ruffed
grouse were found here in great numbers. The
Canada grouse was also common. I shot eight of
the latter in less than an hour on one occasion; the
THE ADIRONDACKS 91

eighth one, which was an old male, was killed with
smooth pebble stones, my shot having run short.
The wounded bird ran under a pile of brush, like a
frightened hen. Thrusting a forked stick down
through the interstices, I soon stopped his breathing.
Wild pigeons were quite numerous also. These
latter recall a singular freak of the sharp-shinned
hawk. A flock of pigeons alighted on the top of a
dead hemlock standing in the edge of aswamp. I
got over the fence and moved toward them across
an open space. I had not taken many steps when,
on looking up, I saw the whole flock again in motion
flying very rapidly around the butt of a hill. Just
then this hawk alighted on the same tree. I
stepped back into the road and paused a moment,
in doubt which course to go. At that instant the
little hawk launched into the air and came as
straight as an arrow toward me. I looked in amaze-
ment, but in less than half a minute he was within
fifty feet of my face, coming full tilt as if he had
sighted my nose. Almost in self-defense I let fly
one barrel of my gun, and the mangled form of the
audacious marauder fell literally between my feet.
Of wild animals, such as bears, panthers, wolves,
wildcats, etc., we neither saw nor heard any in
the Adirondacks. ‘A howling wilderness,” Tho-
reau says, “seldom ever howls. The howling is
chiefly done by the imagination of the traveler.”
Hunter said he often saw bear-tracks in the snow,
but had never yet met Bruin. Deer are more or
less abundant everywhere, and one old sportsman
92 WAKE-ROBIN

declares there is yet a single moose in these moun-

tains. On our return, a pioneer settler, at whose

house we stayed overnight, told us a long adven-

ture he had had with a panther. He related how

it screamed, how it followed him in the brush, how

he took to his boat, how its eyes gleamed from the

shore, and how he fired his rifle at them with fatal

effect. His wife in the mean time took something

from a drawer, and, as her husband finished his re-

cital, she produced a toe-nail of the identical animal

with marked dramatic effect.

_ But better than fish or game or grand scenery, or
any adventure by night or day, is the wordless
intercourse with rude Nature one has on these expe- .
ditions. It is something to press the pulse of our:
old mother by mountain lakes and streams, and |
know what health and vigor are in her veins, and

how regardless of observation she deports herself.

1866.
IV
BIRDS —NESTS

He’ alert and vigilant the birds are, even
when absorbed in building their nests! In an
open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birds |
collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Fol-
lowing the direction in which they fly, I soon dis-
cover the nest placed in the fork of a small soft
maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild
cherry-trees and young beeches. Carefully conceal-
ing myself beneath it, without any fear that the
workmen will hit me with a chip or let fall a tool,
I await the return of the busy pair. Presently I
hear the well-known note, and the female sweeps
down and settles unsuspectingly into the half-fin-
ished structure. Hardly have her wings rested be-
fore her eye has penetrated my screen, and with a
hurried movement of alarm she darts away. In a
moment the male, with a tuft of wool in his beak
(for there is a sheep pasture near), joins her, and
the two reconnoitre the premises from the surround-
ing bushes. With their beaks still loaded, they
move around with a frightened look, and refuse to
approach the nest till I have moved off and lain
down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to
94 WAKE-ROBIN

alight upon the nest, but, still suspecting all is not
tight, quickly darts away again. Then they both
together come, and after much peeping and spying
about, and apparently much anxious consultation,
cautiously proceed to work. In less than half an
hour it would seem that wool enough has been
brought to supply the whole family, real and pro-
spective, with socks, if needles and fingers could be
found fine enough to knit it up. In less than a
week the female has begun to deposit her eggs, —
four of them in as many days, — white tinged with
purple, with black spots on the larger end. After
two weeks of incubation the young are out.

} Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds
i later in the spring than any other, —its nest, in our
northern climate, seldom being undertaken till July.
As with the goldfinch, the reason is, probably, that
suitable food for the young cannot be had at an
earlier period.

Like most of our common species, as the robin,
sparrow, bluebird, pewee, wren, etc., this bird
sometimes seeks wild, remote localities in which to
rear its young; at others, takes up its abode near
that of man. I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one
season, to build in an apple-tree, the branches of
which rubbed against the house. For a day or two
before the first straw was laid, I noticed the pair
carefully exploring every branch of the tree, the
female taking the lead, the male following her with
an anxious note and look. Jt was evident that the
wife was to have her choice this time; and, like
BIRDS’—NESTS 95

one who thoroughly knew her mind, she was pro-
ceeding to take it. Finally the site was chosen
upon a high branch, extending over one low wing
of the house. Mutual congratulations and caresses
followed, when both birds flew away in quest of
building material. That most freely used is a sort
of cotton-bearing plant which grows in old worn-
out fields. The nest is large for the size of the
bird, and very soft. It is in every respect a first-
class domicile.

On another occasion, while walking or rather
sauntering in the woods (for I have discovered that
one cannot run and read the book of nature), my
attention was arrested by a dull hammering, evi-
dently but a few rods off. I said to myself, “Some
one is building a house.” From what I had pre-
viously seen, I suspected the builder to be a red-
headed woodpecker in the top of a dead oak stub
near by. Moving cautiously in that direction, I
perceived a round hole, about the size of that made
by an inch-and-a-half auger, near the top of the
decayed trunk, and the white chips of the workman
strewing the ground beneath. When but a few
paces from the tree, my foot pressed upon a dry
twig, which gave forth a very slight snap. In-
stantly the hammering ceased, and a scarlet head
appeared at the door. Though I remained perfectly
motionless, forbearing even to wink till my eyes
smarted, the bird refused to go on with his work,
but flew quietly off to a neighboring tree. What
surprised me was, that, amid his busy occupation

acne
96 WAKE-ROBIN

down in the heart of the old tree, he should have
been so alert and watchful as to catch the slightest
sound from without.
+ The woodpeckers all build in about the same
‘manner, excavating the trunk or branch of a de-
“cayed tree and depositing the eggs on the fine frag-
ments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though
the nest is not especially an artistic work, — requir-
ing strength rather than skill, —yet the eggs and
the young of few other birds are so completely
housed from the elements, or protected from their
natural enemies, the jays, crows, hawks, and owls.
A tree with a natural cavity is never selected, but
one which has been dead just long enough to have
become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes
in horizontally for a few inches, making a hole per-
fectly round and smooth and adapted to his size,
then turns downward, gradually enlarging the hole,
as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen, twenty
inches, according to the softness of the tree and the
urgency of the mother bird to deposit her eggs.
While excavating, male and female work alternately.
After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty min-
utes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to
an upper limb, utters a loud call or two, when its
mate soon appears, and, alighting near it on the
branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment, then
the fresh one enters the cavity and the other flies
away.

A few days since I climbed up to the nest of the
downy woodpecker, in the decayed top of a sugar
BIRDS’—NESTS 97

maple. For better protection against driving rains,
the hole, which was rather more than an inch in
diameter, was made immediately beneath a branch
which stretched out almost horizontally from the
main stem. It appeared merely a deeper shadow
upon the dark and mottled surface of the bark with
which the branches were covered, and could not be
detected by the eye until one was within a few feet
of it. The young chirped vociferously as I ap-
proached the nest, thinking it was the old one with
food; but the clamor suddenly ceased as I put my
hand on that part of the trunk in which they were
concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarming
them into silence. The cavity, which was about
fifteen inches deep, was gourd-shaped, and was
wrought out with great skill and regularity. The
walls were quite smooth and clean and new.

I shall never forget the circumstance of observing
a pair of yellow-bellied woodpeckers—the most
rare and secluded, and, next to the red-headed, the
most beautiful species found in our woods — breed-
ing in an old, truncated beech in the Beaverkill
Mountains, an offshoot of the Catskills. We had
been traveling, three of us, all day in search of a
trout lake, which lay far in among the mountains,
had twice lost our course in the trackless forest,
and, weary and hungry, had sat down to rest upon
a decayed log. The chattering of the young, and
the passing to and fro of the parent birds, soon
arrested my attention. The entrance to the nest
was on the east side of the tree, about twenty-five
98 WAKE-ROBIN

feet from the ground. At intervals of scarcely a
minute, the old birds, one after another, would
alight upon the edge of the hole with a grub or
worm in their beaks; then each in turn would make
a bow or two, cast an eye quickly around, and by a
single movement place itself in the neck of the
passage. Here it would pause a moment, as if to
determine in which expectant mouth to place the
morsel, and then disappear within. In about half
a minute, during which time the chattering of the
young gradually subsided, the bird would again
emerge, but this time bearing in its beak the ordure
of one of the helpless family. Flying away very
slowly with head lowered and extended, as if anx-
ious to hold the offensive object as far from its
plumage as possible, the bird dropped the unsavory
morsel in the course of a few yards, and, alighting
on a tree, wiped its bill on the bark and moss.
This seems to be the order all day, — carrying in
and carrying out. I watched the birds for an hour,
while my companions were taking their turn in
exploring the lay of the land around us, and noted
no variation in the programme. It would be curi-
ous to know if the young are fed and waited upon
in regular order, and how, amid the darkness and
the crowded state of the apartment, the matter is
so neatly managed. But ornithologists are all silent
upon the subject.

This practice of the birds is not so uncommon
as it might at first seem. It is indeed almost an
invariable rule among all land birds. With wood-
BIRDS’—NESTS 99

peckers and kindred species, and with birds that
burrow in the ground, as bank swallows, kingfishers,
etc., it is a necessity. The accumulation of the
excrement in the nest would prove most fatal to the
young.

But even among birds that neither bore nor mine,
but which build a shallow nest on the branch of a
tree or upon the ground, as the robin, the finches,
the buntings, etc., the ordure of the young is re-
moved to a distance by the parent bird. When
the robin is seen going away from its brood with a
slow heavy flight, entirely different from its manner
a moment before on approaching the nest with a
cherry or worm, it is certain to be engaged in this
office. One may observe the social sparrow, when
feeding its young, pause a moment after the worm
has been given and hop around on the brink of the
nest observing the movements within.

The instinct of cleanliness no doubt prompts the!
action in all cases, though the disposition to a
or concealment may not be unmixed with it.

The swallows form an exception to the rule, the!
excrement being voided by the young over the
brink of the nest. They form an exception, also,
to the rule of secrecy, aiming not so much to con-:
ceal the nest as to render it inaccessible.

Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and
water-fowls.

But to return, Having a good chance to note
the color and markings of the woodpeckers as they
passed in and out at the opening of the nest, I saw

'
100 WAKE-ROBIN

that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or
describing the female of this species with the red
spot upon the head. I have seen a number of pairs
of them, and in no instance have I seen the mother-
bird marked with red.

The male was in full plumage, and I reluctantly
‘shot him for a specimen, Passing by the place
, again next day, I paused a moment to note how

matters stood. I confess it was not without some
compunctions that I heard the cries of the young
birds, and saw the widowed mother, her cares now
doubled, hastening to and fro in the solitary woods.
She would occasionally pause expectantly on the
trunk of a tree and utter a loud call.

It usually happens, when the male of any species
os killed during the breeding season, that the female
} soon procures another mate. There are, most likely,

always a few unmated birds of both sexes within
a given range, and through these the broken links
may be restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forget
which, tells of a pair of fish hawks, or ospreys, that
built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was
so zealous in the defense of the young that it ac-
tually attacked with beak and claw a person who
attempted to climb into his nest, putting his face
and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with
a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to
the ground and killed him. In the course of a few
days the female had procured another mate. But
naturally enough the stepfather showed none of the
‘ spirit and pluck in defense of the brood that had
BIRDS’—NESTS 101

been displayed by the original parent. When dan-
ger was nigh he was seen afar off, sailing around in
placid unconcern.

It is generally known that when either the wild
turkey or domestic turkey begins to lay, and after-
wards to sit and rear the brood, she secludes herself
from the male, who then, very sensibly, herds with
others of his sex, and betakes himself to haunts of
his own till male and female, old and young, meet
again on common ground, late in the fall. But rob
the sitting bird of her eggs, or destroy her tender
young, and she immediately sets out in quest of a
male, who is no laggard when he hears her call,
The same is true of ducks and other aquatic fowls.
The propagating instinct is strong, and surmounts
all ordinary difficulties. No doubt the widowhood
I had caused in the case of the woodpeckers was of
short duration, and chance brought, or the widow
drummed up, some forlorn male, who was not dis-
mayed by the prospect of having a large family of
half-grown birds on his hands at the outset.

I have seen a fine cock robin paying assiduous?
addresses to a female bird as late as the middle of |
July; and I have no doubt that his intentions were '
honorable. I watched the pair for half an hour.
The hen, I took it, was in the market for the second
time that season; but the cock, from his bright,
unfaded plumage, looked like a new arrival. The
hen resented every advance of the male. In vain
he strutted around her and displayed his fine fea-
thers; every now and then she would make at him

t

 
102 WAKE-ROBIN

in a most spiteful manner. He followed her to the
ground, poured into her ear a fine, half-suppressed
warble, offered her a worm, flew back to the tree
again with a great spread of plumage, hopped around
her on the branches, chirruped, chattered, flew gal-
lantly at an intruder, and was back in an instant at
her side. No use, —she cut him short at every
turn.

The dénowement I cannot relate, as the artful
bird, followed by her ardent suitor, soon flew away

‘beyond my sight. It may not be rash to conclude,
however, that she held out no longer than was pru-
; dent.

On the whole, there seems to be a system of
Women’s Rights prevailing among the birds, which,
contemplated from the standpoint of the male, is
quite admirable. In almost all cases of joint inter-
,est, the female bird is the most active. She deter-

‘mines the site of the nest, and is usually the most
absorbed in its construction. Generally, she is more

vigilant in caring for the young, and manifests the
most concern when danger threatens. Hour after
hour I have seen the mother of a brood of blue
grosbeaks pass from the nearest meadow to the tree
that held her nest, with a cricket or grasshopper in
her bill, while her better-dressed half was singing
serenely on a distant tree or pursuing his pleasure
amid the branches.

Yet among the majority of our song-birds the
male is most conspicuous both by his color and
manners and by his song, and is to that extent a
BIRDS’ —NESTS 108

shield to the female. It is thought that the female
is humbler clad for her better concealment during
incubation. But this is not satisfactory, as in some
cases she is relieved from time to time by the male.
In the case of the domestic dove, for instance,
promptly at midday the cock is found upon the
nest. I should say that the dull or neutral tints of
the female were a provision of nature for her greater
safety at all times, as her life is far more precious
to the species than that of the male. The indis-
pensable office of the male reduces itself to little
more than a moment of time, while that of his mate
extends over days and weeks, if not months.?

In migrating northward, the males precede the
females by eight or ten days; returning in the fall,
the females and young precede the males by about
the same time.

After the woodpeckers have’ abandoned their
nests, or rather chambers, which they do after the
first season, their cousins, the nuthatches, chicka-
dees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These

1 A recent English writer upon this subject presents an array
of facts and considerations that do not support this view He
says that, with very few exceptions, it is the rule that, when both
sexes are of strikingly gay and conspicuous colors, the nest is
such as to conceal the sitting bird; while, whenever there is a
striking contrast of colors, the male being gay and conspicuous,
the female dull and obscure, the nest is open and the sitting bird
exposed to view. ‘The exceptions to this rule among European
birds appear to be very few. Among our own birds, the cuckoos
and blue jays build open nests, without presenting any notice-
able difference in the coloring of the two sexes. The same is true
of the pewees, the kingbird and the sparrows, while the common
bluebird, the oriole, and orchard starling afford examples the
other way.
104 WAKE-ROBIN

birds, especially the creepers and nuthatches, have
many of the habits of the Picide, but lack their
powers of bill, and so are unable to excavate a nest
for themselves. Their habitation, therefore, is al-

‘ways second-hand. But each species carries in some

}
{

4
i

soft material of various kinds, or, in other words,

., furnishes the tenement to its liking. The chicka-

dee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a little
mat of a light felt-like substance, which looks as if
it came from the hatter’s, but which is probably
the work of numerous worms or caterpillars. On
this soft lining the female deposits six speckled eggs.

I recently discovered one of these nests in a most
interesting situation, The tree containing it, a
variety of the wild cherry, stood upon the brink of

‘the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray, time-

worn rocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled
the just visible byways of the red fox. The trees
had a half-scared look, and that indescribable wild-
ness which lurks about the tops of all remote moun-
tains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked
down upon the back of the red-tailed hawk as he
flew out over the earth beneath me. Following
him, my eye also took in farms and settlements and
villages and other mountain ranges that grew blue
in the distance.

The parent birds attracted my attention by ap-
pearing with food in their beaks, and by seeming
much put out. Yet so wary were they of revealing
the locality of their brood, or even of the precise
tree that held them, that I lurked around over an
BIRDS’—NESTS 105

hour without gaining a point on them. Finally a
bright and curious boy who accompanied me secreted
himself under a low, projecting rock close to the
tree in which we supposed the nest to be, while I
moved off around the mountain-side. It was not
long before the youth had their secret. The tree,
which was low and wide-branching, and overrun
with lichens, appeared at a cursory glance to con-
tain not one dry or decayed limb. Yet there was
one a few feet long, in which, when my eyes were
piloted thither, I detected a small round orifice.

As my weight began to shake the branches, the
consternation of both old and young was great.
The stump of a limb that held the nest was about
three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel
was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb
I broke in the thin wall, and the young, which
were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the
first time. Presently one of them, with a signifi-
cant chirp, as much as to say, “It is time we were |
out of this,” began to climb up toward the proper |
entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked
around without manifesting any surprise at the
grand scene that lay spread out before him. He
was taking his bearings, and determining how far he
could trust the power of his untried wings to take
him out of harm’s way. After a moment’s pause,
with a loud chirrup, he launched out and made
tolerable headway. The others rapidly followed.
Each one, as it started upward, from a sudden im-
pulse, contemptuously saluted the abandoned nest
with its excrement.

4
(
i
106 WAKE-ROBIN

Though generally regular in their habits and
instincts, yet the birds sometimes seem as whimsi-
cal and capricious as superior beings. One is not
safe, for instance, in making any absolute assertion
as to their place or mode of building. Ground-
‘puilders often get up into a bush, and tree-builders
‘sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock
,of grass. The song sparrow, which is a ground-
builder, has been known to build in the knothole
of a fence rail; and a chimney swallow once got
tired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a
rafter ina hay barn. A friend tells me of a pair
‘of barn swallows which, taking a fanciful turn,
saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that was
pendent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so
well that they repeated the experiment next year.
I have known the social sparrow, or “hairbird,” to
build under a shed, in a tuft of hay that hung
down, through the loose flooring, from the mow
above. It usually contents itself with half a dozen
stalks of dry grass and a few long hairs from a cow’s
tail loosely arranged on the branch of an apple-tree.
‘The rough-winged swallow builds in the wall and
| in old stone-heaps, and I have seen the robin build

i in similar localities. Others have found its nest in
old, abandoned wells. The house wren will build
| in anything that has an accessible cavity, from an
old boot to a bombshell. A pair of them once per-
sisted in building their nest in the top of a certain
pump-tree, getting in through the opening above
the handle. The pump being in daily use, the nest
BIRDS’—NESTS 107

was destroyed more than a score of times. This
jealous little wretch has the wise forethought, when
the box in which he builds contains two compart-
ments, to fill up one of them, so as to avoid the
risk of troublesome neighbors.

The less skillful builders sometimes depart from
their usual habit, and take up with the abandoned
nest of some other species. The blue jay now and
then lays in an old crow’s nest or cuckoo’s nest.
The crow blackbird, seized with a fit of indolence,
drops its eggs in the cavity of a decayed branch.
I heard of a cuckoo that dispossessed a robin of its
nest; of another that set a blue jay adrift. Large,
loose structures, like the nests of the osprey and
certain of the herons, have been found with half a
dozen nests of the blackbird set in the outer edges,
like so many parasites, or, as Audubon says, like
the retainers about the rude court of a feudal baron.

The same birds breeding in a southern climate '
construct far less elaborate nests than when breed-
ing in a northern climate. Certain species of water-
fowl, that abandon their eggs to the sand and the
sun in the warmer zones, build a nest and sit in
the usual way in Labrador. In Georgia, the Balti-
more oriole places its nest upon the north side of
the tree; in the Middle and Eastern States, it fixes
it upon the south or east side, and makes it much
thicker and warmer. JI have seen one from the
South that had some kind of coarse reed or sedge
woven into it, giving it an open-work appearance,
like a basket.
108 WAKE-ROBIN

Very few species use the same material uniformly.
1 have seen the nest of the robin quite destitute of
‘mud, In one instance it was composed mainly of
long black horse-hairs, arranged in a circular man-
ner, with a lining of fine yellow grass; the whole
presenting quite a novel appearance. In another
case the nest was chiefly constructed of a species of
rock moss.
| The nest for the second brood during the same
' season is often a mere makeshift. The haste of
the female to deposit her eggs as the season advances
seems very great, and the structure is apt to be
prematurely finished. I was recently reminded of
this fact by happening, about the last of July, to
meet with several nests of the wood or bush spar-
row in a remote blackberry field. The nests with
eggs were far less elaborate and compact than the
earlier nests, from which the young had flown.
Day after day, as I go to a certain piece of
woods, I observe a male indigo-bird sitting on pre-
‘cisely the same part of a high branch, and singing
in his most vivacious style. As I approach he
ceases to sing, and, flirting his tail right and left
with marked emphasis, chirps sharply. In a low
bush near by, I come upon the object of his solici-
tude, —a thick, compact nest composed largely of
dry leaves and fine grass, in which a plain brown
bird is sitting upon four pale blue eggs.
The wonder is that a bird will leave the appar-
ent security of the treetops to place its nest in the
way of the many dangers that walk and crawl upon
BIRDS —NESTS 109

the ground. There, far up out of reach, sings the ‘
bird; here, not three feet from the ground, are its '
eggs or helpless young. The truth is, birds are the
greatest enemies of birds, and it is with reference
to this fact that many of the smaller species build.

Perhaps the greatest proportion of birds breed
along highways. J have known the ruffed grouse
to come out of a dense wood and make its nest at
the root of a tree within ten paces of the road, |
where, no doubt, hawks and crows, as well as
skunks and foxes, would be less liable to find it
out. Traversing remote mountain-roads through
dense woods, I have repeatedly seen the veery, or
Wilson’s thrush, sitting upon her nest, so near me
that I could almost take her from it by stretching
out my hand. Birds of prey show none of this
confidence in man, and, when locating their nests,
avoid rather than seek his haunts.

In a certain locality in the interior of New York, :
I know, every season, where I am sure to find a)
nest or two of the slate-colored snowbird. It is —
under the brink of a low mossy bank, so near the
highway that it could be reached from a passing
vehicle with a whip. Every horse or wagon or
foot passenger disturbs the sitting bird. She awaits
the near approach of the sound of feet or wheels,
and then darts quickly across the road, barely clear-
ing the ground, and disappears amid the bushes on
the opposite side.

In the trees that line one of the main streets and
fashionable drives leading out of Washington city, '

ne
110 WAKE-ROBIN

and less than half a mile from the boundary, I have \
counted the nests of five different species at one |
time, and that without any very close scrutiny of |
the foliage, while, in many acres of woodland half |
a mile off, I searched in vain for a single nest.
Among the five, the nest that interested me most
was that of the blue grosbeak. Here this bird,
which, according to Audubon’s observations in Lou-
isiana, is shy and recluse, affecting remote marshes
and the borders of large ponds of stagnant water,
had placed its nest in the lowest twig of the lowest
branch of a large sycamore, immediately over a
great thoroughfare, and so near the ground that a
person standing in a cart or sitting on a horse could
have reached it with his hand. The nest was com-
posed mainly of fragments of newspaper and stalks
of grass, and, though so low, was remarkably well
concealed by one of the peculiar clusters of twigs
and leaves which characterize this tree. The nest
contained young when I discovered it, and, though
the parent birds were much annoyed by my loiter-
ing about beneath the tree, they paid little atten-
tion to the stream of vehicles that was constantly
passing. It was a wonder to me when the birds
could have built it, for they are much shyer when
building than at other times. No doubt they
worked mostly in the morning, having the early
hours all to themselves.
» Another pair of blue grosbeaks built in a grave-
ly ard within the city limits. The nest was placed
‘in a low bush, and the male continued to sing at
BIRDS’—NESTS 111

intervals till the young were ready to fly. The
song of this bird is a rapid, intricate warble, like
that of the indigo-bird, though stronger and louder.
Indeed, these two birds so much resemble each
other in color, form, manner, voice, and general
habits that, were it not for the difference in size,
— the grosbeak being nearly as large again as the
indigo-bird, —it would be a hard matter to tell
them apart. The females of both species are clad
in the same reddish-brown suits. So are the young
the first season.

Of course in the deep, primitive woods, also, are
nests; but how rarely we find them! The simple
art of the bird consists in choosing common, neu-
tral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and
various odds and ends, and placing the structure on
a convenient branch, where it blends in color with
its surroundings; but how consummate is this art,
and how skillfully is the nest concealed! We occa-
sionally light upon it, but who, unaided by the
movements of the bird, could find it out? During
the present season I went to the woods nearly every
day for a fortnight without making any discoveries
of this kind, till one day, paying them a farewell
visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. A
black and white creeping warbler suddenly became
much alarmed as I approached a crumbling old
stump in a dense part of the forest. He alighted
upon it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its
sides, and finally left it with much reluctance.
The nest, which contained three young birds nearly

——
112 WAKE-ROBIN

fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot
of the stump, and in such a position that the color
of the young harmonized perfectly with the bits of
bark, sticks, etc., lying about. My eye rested upon
them for the second time before I made them out.
They hugged the nest very closely, but as I put
down my hand they all scampered off with loud
cries for help, which caused the parent birds to
place themselves almost within my reach. The
nest was merely a little dry grass arranged in a
thick bed of dry leaves.

This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on
into a passage of large stately hemlocks, with only
here and there a small beech or maple rising up
into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out
a note which was entirely new to me. It is still
in my ear. Though unmistakably a bird note, it
yet suggested the bleating of a tiny lambkin.
Presently the birds appeared, —a pair of the soli-
tary vireo. They came flitting from point to point,
alighting only for a moment at a time, the male
silent, but the female uttering this strange, tender
note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan
dialect of the human sentiment of maidenly love.
It was really pathetic in its sweetness and childlike
confidence and joy. I soon discovered that the
pair were building a nest upon a low branch a few
yards from me. The male flew cautiously to the
spot and adjusted something, and the twain moved
on, the female calling to her mate at intervals,
love-e, love-e, with a cadence and tenderness in the
BIRDS’—NESTS 118

tone that rang in the ear long afterward. The nest
was suspended to the fork of a small branch, as is
usual with the vireos, plentifully lined with lichens,
and bound and rebound with masses of coarse spider-
webs. There was no attempt at concealment except
in the neutral tints, which made it look like a
natural growth of the dim, gray woods.

Continuing my random walk, I next paused in a
low part of the woods, where the larger trees began
to give place to a thick second-growth that covered
an old Barkpeeling. I was standing by a large
maple, when a small bird darted quickly away from
it, as if it might have come out of a hole near its |
base. As the bird paused a few yards from me, |
and began to chirp uneasily, my curiosity was at/
once excited. When I saw it was the female
mourning ground warbler, and remembered that the
nest of this bird had not yet been seen by any
naturalist, —that not even Dr. Brewer had ever
seen the eggs, —I felt that here was something
worth looking for. So I carefully began the search,
exploring inch by inch the ground, the base and
roots of the tree, and the various shrubby growths
about it, till, finding nothing and fearing I might
really put my foot in it, I bethought me to with-
draw to a distance and after some delay return
again, and, thus forewarned, note the exact point
from which the bird flew. This I did, and, Te-/
turning, had little difficulty in discovering the nest. :
It was placed but a few feet from the maple-tree, ;
in a bunch of ferns, and about six inches from the

4

f

 
114 WAKE-—ROBIN

ground, It was quite a massive nest, composed
entirely of the stalks and leaves of dry grass, with
an inner lining of fine, dark brown roots. The
eggs, three in number, were of light flesh-color,
uniformly specked with fine brown specks. The
cavity of the nest was so deep that the back of the
sitting bird sank below the edge.

In the top of a tall tree, a short distance farther

on, I saw the nest of the red-tailed hawk, —a large

_mass of twigs and dry sticks. The young had

flown, but still lingered in the vicinity, and, as I
approached, the mother bird flew about over me,
squealing in a very angry, savage manner. Tufts
of the hair and other indigestible material of the
common meadow mouse lay around on the ground
beneath the nest.

As I was about leaving the woods my hat almost
brushed the nest of the red-eyed vireo, which hung
basket-like on the end of alow, drooping branch of
the beech. I should never have seen it had the
bird kept her place. It contained three eggs of the
bird’s own, and one of the cow bunting. The
strange egg was only just perceptibly larger than
the others, yet three days after, when I looked into
the nest again and found all but one egg hatched,
the young interloper was at least four times as large
as either of the others, and with such a superabun-
dance of bowels as to almost smother his bedfellows
beneath them. That the intruder should fare the
same as the rightful occupants, and thrive with
them, was more than ordinary potluck; but that it
BIRDS’ —NESTS 115

alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the
rest, is one of those freaks of Nature in which she
would seem to discourage the, homely virtues of
prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have
the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very
successful war nevertheless.

The woods hold not such another gem as the nest
of the hummingbird. The finding of one is an
event to date from. It is the next best thing to
finding an eagle’s nest. I have met with but two,
both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal
branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf,
forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a
half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of
the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree,
caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon
some one’s privacy; and, following it with my eye,
I soon saw the nest, which was in process of con-
struction. Adopting my usual tactics of secreting
myself near by, I had the satisfaction of seeing the
tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted
by her mate.. At intervals of two or three minutes
she would appear with a small tuft of some cottony
substance in her beak, dart a few times through and
around the tree, and alighting quickly in the nest,
arrange the material she had brought, using her
breast as a model.

The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on
the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was dis-
turbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of
her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short

‘
116 WAKE-ROBIN

pause, I had the good luck to see, through an open-
ing in the leaves, the bird return to her nest,
‘which appeared like a mere wart or excrescence on
‘a small branch. The hummingbird, unlike all
‘ others, does not alight upon the nest, but flies into
it. She enters it as quick as a flash, but as light as
any feather. Two eggs are the complement. They
are perfectly white, and so frail that only a woman’s
fingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about
ten days. In a week the young have flown.
' The only nest like the hummingbird’s, and com-
‘parable to it in neatness and symmetry, is that of
the blue-gray gnatcatcher. This is often saddled
‘upon the limb in the same manner, though it is
generally more or less pendent; it is deep and soft,
composed mostly of some vegetable down covered
all over with delicate tree-lichens, and, except that
it is much larger, appears almost identical with the
nest of the hummingbird.
But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we
have left the deep woods, is unquestionably that of
| the Baltimore oriole. It is the only perfectly pen-
sile nest we have. The nest of the orchard oriole
is indeed mainly so, but this bird generally builds
lower and shallower, more after the manner of the
vireos.

The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to
the swaying branches of the tallest elms, making no
attempt at concealment, but satisfied if the position
be high and the branch pendent. This nest would
seem to cost more time and skill than any other
BIRDS’—NESTS 117

bird structure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems
to be always sought after and always found. The
nest when completed assumes the form of a large,
suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm,
and proof against the most driving rain. The
mouth is hemmed or overhanded with horse-hair,
and the sides are usually sewed through and through
with the same.

Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the
bird is not particular as to material, so that it be of
the nature of strings or threads. A lady friend
once told me that, while working by an open win-
dow, one of these birds approached during her
momentary absence, and, seizing a skein of some
kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its half-
finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast
in the branches, and, in the bird’s effort to extri-
cate it, got hopelessly tangled. She tugged away
at it all day, but was finally obliged to content her-
self with a few detached portions. The fluttering
strings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, pass-
ing and repassing, she would give them a spiteful
jerk, as much as to say, “There is that confounded
yarn that gave me so much trouble.”

From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom
I am indebted for other curious facts) sent me this
interesting story of an oriole. He says a friend of
his curious in such things, on observing the bird
beginning to build, hung out near the prospective
nest skeins of many-colored zephyr yarn, which the
eager artist readily appropriated, He managed it
118 WAKE-ROBIN

so that the bird used nearly equal quantities of
various high, bright colors. The nest was made
unusually deep and capacious, and it may be ques-
tioned if such a thing of beauty was ever before
woven by the cunning of a bird.

Nuttall, by far the most genial of American orni-
thologists, relates the following: —

“A female (oriole), which I observed attentively,
carried off to her nest a piece of lamp-wick ten or
twelve feet long. This long string and many other
shorter ones were left hanging out for about a week
before both the ends were wattled into the sides of
the nest. Some other little birds, making use of
similar materials, at times twitched these flowing
ends, and generally brought out the busy Baltimore
from her occupation in great anger.

“T may perhaps claim indulgence for adding a
little more of the biography of this particular bird,
as a representative also of the instincts of her race.
She completed the nest in about a week’s time,
without any aid from her mate, who indeed ap-
peared but seldom in her company and was now
become nearly silent. For fibrous materials she
broke, hackled, and gathered the flax of the as-
clepias and hibiscus stalks, tearing off long strings
and flying with them to the scene of her labors,
She appeared very eager and hasty in her pursuits,
and collected her materials without fear or restraint
while three men were working in the neighboring
walks and many persons visiting the garden. Her
courage and perseverance were indeed truly admir-
BIRDS —NESTS 119

able. If watched too narrowly, she saluted with
her usual scolding, tshrr, tshrr, tshrr, seeing no
reason, probably, why she should be interrupted in
her indispensable occupation.

“Though the males were now comparatively silent
on the arrival of their busy mates, I could not help
observing this female and a second, continually
vociferating, apparently in strife. At last she was
observed to attack this second female very fiercely,
who slyly intruded herself at times into the same
tree where she was building. These contests were
angry and often repeated. To account for this ani-
mosity, I now recollected that two fine males had
been killed in our vicinity, and I therefore con-
cluded the intruder to be left without a mate; yet
she had gained the affections of the consort of the
busy female, and thus the cause of their jealous
quarrel became apparent. Having obtained the con-
fidence of her faithless paramour, the second female
began preparing to weave a nest in an adjoining
elm by tying together certain pendent twigs as a
foundation. The male now associated chiefly with
the intruder, whom he even assisted in her labor,
yet did not wholly forget his first partner, who called
on him one evening in a low, affectionate tone,
which was answered in the same strain. While
they were thus engaged in friendly whispers, sud-
denly appeared the rival, and a violent recontre
ensued, so that one of the females appeared to be
greatly agitated, and fluttered with spreading wings
as if considerably hurt. The male, though prudently
120 WAKE-ROBIN

neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partial-
ity by flying off with his paramour, and for the rest
of the evening left the tree to his pugnacious con-
sort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and
tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated,
these disputes with the jealous females; and by the
aid of the neighboring bachelors, who are never
‘wanting among these and other birds, peace was at
‘length completely restored by the restitution of the
‘quiet and happy condition of monogamy.”
~ Let me not forget to mention the nest under the
mountain ledge, the nest of the common pewee, —
‘a modest mossy structure, with four pearl-white
; eggs, — looking out upon some wild scene and over-
hung by beetling crags. After all has been said
about the elaborate, high-hung structures, few nests
perhaps awaken more pleasant emotions in the mind
of the beholder than this of the pewee, —the gray,
silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox
and the wolf lurk, and just out of their reach, in a
little niche, as if it grew there, the mossy tenement!
Nearly every high projecting rock in my range
has one of these nests. Following a trout stream
up a wild mountain gorge, not long since, I counted
five in the distance of a mile, all within easy reach,
but safe from the minks and the skunks, and well
housed from the storms. In my native town I
know a pine and oak clad hill, round-topped, with
a bold, precipitous front extending half way around
it. Near the top, and along this front or side,
there crops out a ledge of rocks unusually high and
BIRDS’—NESTS 121

cavernous, One immense layer projects many feet,
allowing a person or many persons, standing upright,
to move freely beneath it. There is a delicious
spring of water there, and plenty of wild, cool air.
The floor is of loose stone, now trod by sheep and
foxes, once by the Indian and the wolf. How I
have delighted from boyhood to spend a summer
day in this retreat, or take refuge there from a sud-
den shower! Always the freshness and coolness,
and always the delicate mossy nest of the phobe-
bird! The bird keeps her place till you are within
a few feet of her, when she flits to a near branch,
and, with many oscillations of her tail, observes you
anxiously. Since the country has become settled,
this pewee has fallen into the strange practice of
occasionally placing its nest under a bridge, hay-
shed, or other artificial structure, where it is sub-
ject to all kinds of interruptions and annoyances.
When placed thus, the nest is larger and coarser.
I know a hay-loft beneath which a pair has regu-
larly placed its nest for several successive seasons,
Arranged along on a single pole, which sags down
a few inches from the flooring it was intended to
help support, are three of these structures, marking
the number of years the birds have nested there.
The foundation is of mud with a superstructure of
moss, elaborately lined with hair and feathers.
Nothing can be more perfect and exquisite than the
interior of one of these nests, yet a new one is built
every season. Three broods, however, are frequently
reared in it,
122 WAKE-ROBIN

The pewees, as a class, are the best architects
| we have. The kingbird builds a nest altogether
! admirable, using various soft cotton and woolen sub-
stances, and sparing neither time nor material to
make it substantial and warm. The green-crested
pewee builds its nest in many instances wholly of
the blossoms of the white oak. The wood pewee
builds a neat, compact, socket-shaped nest of moss
and lichens on a horizontal branch. There is never
a loose end or shred about it. The sitting bird is
largely visible above the rim. She moves her head
freely about and seems entirely at her ease, —a cir-
cumstance which I have never observed in any other
species. The nest of the great-crested flycatcher is
seldom free from snake skins, three or four being
sometimes woven into it.
About the thinnest, shallowest nest, for its situa-
tion, that can be found is that of the turtle dove.
‘A few sticks and straws are carelessly thrown to-
‘gether, hardly sufficient to prevent the eggs from
‘falling through or rolling off. The nest of the pas-
senger pigeon is equally hasty and insufficient, and
the squabs often fall to the ground and perish.
The other extreme among our common birds is fur-
nished by the ferruginous thrush, which collects
together a mass of material that would fill a half-
bushel measure; or by the fish hawk, which adds
to and repairs its nest year after year, till the whole
would make a cart-load.

| One of the rarest of nests is that of the eagle, be-

| cause the eagle is one of the rarest of birds, Indeed,

i

 
BIRDS —NESTS 123

so seldom is the eagle seen that its presence always
seems accidental. It appears as if merely paus-
ing on the way, while bound for some distant
unknown region. One September, while a youth,
I saw the ring-tailed eagle, the young of the golden
eagle, an immense, dusky bird, the sight of which
filled me with awe. It lingered about the hills
for two days. Some young cattle, a two-year-old
colt, and half a dozen sheep were at pasture on a
high ridge that led up to the mountain, and in
plain view of the house. On the second day this
dusky monarch was seen flying about above them.
Presently he began to hover over them, after the
manner of a hawk watching for mice. He then
with extended legs let himself slowly down upon
them, actually grappling the backs of the young
cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they
rushed about the field in great consternation; and
finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his
descents, the whole herd broke over the fence and
came tearing down to the house “like mad.” It
did not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but
was perhaps a stratagem resorted to in order to sep-
arate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged
the cattle very closely. When he occasionally
alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch
could be seen to sway and bend beneath him.
Finally, as a rifleman started out in pursuit of him,
he launched into the air, set his wings, and sailed
away southward. A few years afterward, in Jan-
uary, another eagle passed through the same local-
124 WAKE-ROBIN

ity, alighting in a field near some dead animal, but
tarried briefly.

So much by way of identification, The golden
eagle is common to the northern parts of both hemi-
spheres, and places its eyrie on high precipitous
rocks, A pair built on an inaccessible shelf of rock
along the Hudson for eight successive years. A
squad of Revolutionary soldiers, also, as related by
Audubon, found a nest along this river, and had an
adventure with the bird that came near costing one
of their number his life. His comrades let him
down by a rope to secure the eggs or young, when
he was attacked by the female eagle with such fury
that he was obliged to defend himself with his
knife. In doing so, by a misstroke, he nearly sev-
ered the rope that held him, and was drawn up by
a single strand from his perilous position.

The bald eagle, also, builds on high rocks, accord-
ing to Audubon, though Wilson describes the nest
of one which he saw near Great Egg Harbor, in the
top of a large yellow pine. It was a vast pile of
sticks, sods, sedge, grass, reeds, etc., five or six feet
high by four broad, and with little or no concavity.
It had been used for many years, and he was told
that the eagles made it a sort of home or lodging-
place in all seasons.

The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more
or less repair, for several years. Many of our com-
mon birds do the same. The birds may be divided,
with respect to this and kindred points, into five
general classes. First, those that repair or appro-
BIRDS —NESTS 125

priate the last year’s nest, as the wren, swallow,
bluebird, great-crested flycatcher, owls, eagles, fish
hawk, and a few others. Secondly, those that build
anew each season, though frequently rearing more
than one brood in the same nest. Of these the
phoebe-bird is a well-known example. Thirdly,
those that build a new nest for each brood, which
includes by far the greatest number of species.
Fourthly, a limited number that make no nest of
their own, but appropriate the abandoned nests of
other birds. Finally, those who use no nest at all,
but deposit their eggs in the sand, which is the case
with a large number of aquatic fowls.

1866.
 
Vv

SPRING AT THE CAPITAL

WITH AN EYE TO THE BIRDS

I CAME to Washington to live in the fall of

1863, and, with the exception of a month each
summer spent in the interior of New York, have
lived here ever since.

I saw my first novelty in Natural History the
day after my arrival. As I was walking near some
woods north of the city, a grasshopper of prodigious
size flew up from the ground and alighted in a tree,
As I pursued him, he proved to be nearly as wild
and as fleet of wing as a bird. I thought I had’
reached the capital of grasshopperdom, and that this :
was perhaps one of the chiefs or leaders, or perhaps |
the great High Cock O’lorum himself, taking an.
airing in the fields. I have never yet been able to
settle the question, as every fall I start up a few of
these gigantic specimens, which perch on the trees.
They are about three inches long, of a gray striped
or spotted color, and have quite a reptile look.

The greatest novelty I found, however, was the
superb autumn weather, the bright, strong, electric}
days, lasting well into November, and the general
128 WAKE-ROBIN

mildness of the entire winter. Though the mer-
cury occasionally sinks to zero, yet the earth is
never so seared and blighted by the cold but that
in some sheltered nook or corner signs of vegetable
life still remain, which on a little encouragement
even asserts itself. I have found wild flowers here |
every month in the year; violets in December, a |
single houstonia in January (the little lump of
earth upon which it stood was frozen hard), and a |
tiny, weed-like plant, with a flower almost micro-
scopic in its smallness, growing along graveled walks
and in old plowed fields in February. The liver- ,
wort sometimes comes out as early as the first week |
in March, and the little frogs begin to pipe doubt-
fully about the same time. Apricot-trees are usually
in bloom on All-Fool’s Day and the apple-trees on:
May Day. By August, mother hen will lead forth
her third brood, and I had a March pullet that

{came off with a family of her own in September.
Our calendar is made for this climate. March is
a spring month. One is quite sure to see some
marked and striking change during the first eight or
ten days. This season (1868) is a backward one,
and the memorable change did not come till the
10th.

Then the sun rose up from a bed of vapors, and
seemed fairly to dissolve with tenderness and
warmth, For an hour or two the air was perfectly
motionless, and full of low, humming, awakening
sounds. The naked trees had a rapt, expectant
look. From some unreclaimed common near by
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 129

came the first strain of the song sparrow; so homely,
because so old and familiar, yet so inexpressibly
pleasing. Presently a full chorus of voices arose,
tender, musical, half suppressed, but full of genuine -
hilarity and joy. The bluebird warbled, the robin
called, the snowbird chattered, the meadowlark
uttered her strong but tender note. Over a de-
serted field a turkey buzzard hovered low, and
alighted on a stake in the fence, standing a moment
with outstretched, vibrating wings till he was sure
of his hold. A soft, warm, brooding day. Roads
becoming dry in many places, and looking so good
after the mud and the snow. I walk up beyond
the boundary and over Meridian Hill. To move
along the drying road and feel the delicious warmth
isenough. The cattle low long and loud, and look
wistfully into the distance. I sympathize with
them. Never a spring comes but I have an almost
irresistible desire to depart. Some nomadic or mi-
grating instinct or reminiscence stirs within me. I
ache to be off.

As I pass along, the high-hole calls in the dis-
tance precisely as I have heard him in the North.
After a pause he repeats his summons. ?’ What can
be more welcome to the ear than these early first
sounds! They have such a margin of silence!”

One need but pass the boundary of Washington
city to be fairly in the country, and ten minutes’
walk in the country brings one to real primitive
woods. he town has not yet overflowed its limits
like the great Northern commercial capitals, and
130 WAKE-ROBIN

Nature, wild and unkempt, comes up to its very
threshold, and even in many places crosses it.

The woods, which I soon reach, are stark and
still. The signs of returning life are so faint as to
be almost imperceptible, but there is a fresh, earthy
smell in the air, as if something had stirred here
under the leaves. The crows caw above the wood,
or walk about the brown fields. I look at the gray,
silent trees long and long, but they show no sign.
The catkins of some alders by a little pool have just
swelled perceptibly; and, brushing away the dry
leaves and débris on a sunny slope, I discover the
liverwort just pushing up a fuzzy, tender sprout.
But the waters have brought forth. The little frogs
are musical. From every marsh and pool goes up
their shrill but pleasing chorus. Peering into one
of their haunts, a little body of semi-stagnant water,
I discover masses of frogs’ spawn covering the hot-
tom. I take up great chunks of the cold, quiver-
ing jelly in my hands. In some places there are
gallons of it. A youth who accompanies me won-
ders if it would not be good cooked, or if it could
not be used as a substitute for eggs. It is a perfect
jelly, of a slightly milky tinge, thickly imbedded
with black spots about the size of a small bird’s
eye. When just deposited it is perfectly transparent.
These hatch in eight or ten days, gradually absorb
their gelatinous surroundings, and the tiny tadpoles
issue forth.

In the city, even before the shop-windows have
caught the inspiration, spring is heralded by the
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 131

silver poplars which line all the streets and ave-
nues, After a few mild, sunshiny March days, you
suddenly perceive a change has come over the trees.
Their tops have a less naked look. If the weather
continues warm, a single day will work wonders.
Presently the tree will be one vast plume of gray,
downy tassels, while not the least speck of green
foliage is visible. The first week in April these
long mimic caterpillars lie all about the streets and.
fill the gutters.

The approach of spring is also indicated by the
crows and buzzards, which rapidly multiply in the
environs of the city, and grow bold and demonstra-
tive. The crows are abundant here all winter, but
are not very noticeable except as they pass high in
air to and from their winter quarters in the Virginia
woods. arly in the morning, as soon as it is light
enough to discern them, there they are, streaming
eastward across the sky, now in loose, scattered
flocks, now in thick, dense masses, then singly and
in pairs or triplets, but all setting in one direction,
probably to the waters of Eastern Maryland. To-
ward night they begin to return, flying in the same
manner, and directing their course to the wooded
heights on the Potomac, west of the city. In
spring these diurnal mass movements cease; the
clan breaks up, the rookery is abandoned, and the
birds scatter broadcast over the land. This seems
to be the course everywhere pursued. One would
think that, when food was scarcest, the policy of
separating into small bands or pairs, and dispersing
132 WAKE-ROBIN

over a wide country, would prevail, as a few might
subsist where a larger number would starve. The
truth is, however, that, in winter, food can be had
only in certain clearly defined districts and tracts,
as along rivers and the shores of bays and lakes.

A few miles north of Newburgh, on the Hudson,
the crows go into winter quarters in the same man-
ner, flying south in the morning and returning again
at night, sometimes hugging the hills so close dur-
ing a strong wind as to expose themselves to the
clubs and stones of schoolboys ambushed behind
trees and fences. The belated ones, that come la-
boring along just at dusk, are often so overcome by
the long journey and the strong current that they
seem almost on the point of sinking down whenever
the wind or a rise in the ground calls upon them
for an extra effort.

The turkey buzzards are noticeable about Wash-
ington as soon as the season begins to open, sailing
leisurely along two or three hundred feet overhead,
or sweeping low over some common or open space
where, perchance, a dead puppy or pig or fowl has
been thrown. Half a dozen will sometimes alight
about some such object out on the commons, and,
with their broad dusky wings lifted up to their full
extent, threaten and chase each other, while perhaps
one or two are feeding. Their wings are very large
and flexible, and the slightest motion of them, while
the bird stands upon the ground, suffices to lift its
feet clear. Their movements when in air are very
majestic and beautiful to the eye, being in every
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 133

respect indentical with those of our common hen or
red-tailed hawk. They sail along in the same calm,
effortless, interminable manner, and sweep around
in the same ample spirals. The shape of their
wings and tail, indeed their entire effect against the
sky, except in size and color, is very nearly the
same as that of the hawk mentioned. A dozen at
a time may often be seen high in air, amusing them-
selves by sailing serenely round and round in the
same circle.

They are less active and vigilant than the hawk;
never poise themselves on the wing, never dive and
gambol in the air, and never swoop down upon their
prey; unlike the hawks also, they appear to have no
enemies. The crow fights the hawk, and the king-
bird and crow blackbird fight the crow; but neither
takes any notice of the buzzard. He excites the
enmity of none, for the reason that he molests none.
The crow has an old grudge against the hawk, be-
cause the hawk robs the crow’s nest and carries off
his young; the kingbird’s quarrel with the crow is
upon the same grounds. But the buzzard never
attacks live game, or feeds upon new flesh when old
can be had.

In May, like the crows, they nearly all disappear
very suddenly, probably to their breeding-haunts
near the seashore. Do the males separate from the
females at this time, and go by themselves? At
any rate, in July I discovered that a large number
of buzzards roosted in some woods near Rock Creek,
about a mile from the city limits; and, as they do
134 WAKE-ROBIN

not nest anywhere in this vicinity, I thought they
might be males. JI happened to be detained late in
the woods, watching the nest of a flying squirrel,
when the buzzards, just after sundown, began to
come by ones and twos and alight in the trees near
me. Presently they came in greater numbers, but
from the same direction, flapping low over the
woods, and taking up their position in the middle
branches. On alighting, each one would blow very
audibly through his nose, just as a cow does when
she lies down; this is the only sound I have ever
heard the buzzard make. They would then stretch
themselves, after.the manner of turkeys, and walk
along the limbs. Sometimes a decayed branch
would break under the weight of two or three,
when, with a great flapping, they would take up
new positions. They continued to come till it was
quite dark, and all the trees about me were full. I
began to feel a little nervous, but kept my place.
After it was entirely dark and all was still, I gath-
ered a large pile of dry leaves and kindled it with a
match, to see what they would think of a fire. Not
a sound was heard till the pile of leaves was in full
blaze, when instantaneously every buzzard started.
I thought the treetops were coming down upon me,
so great was the uproar. But the woods were soon
cleared, and the loathsome pack disappeared in the
night. ,

About the first of June I saw numbers of buz-
zards sailing around over the great Falls of the
Potomac.
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 135

A glimpse of the birds usually found here in the
latter part of winter may be had in the following
extract, which I take from my diary under date of
February 4th: —

“Made a long excursion through the woods and
over the hills. Went directly north from the Capi-
tol for about three miles. The ground bare and
the day cold and sharp. In the suburbs, among
the scattered Irish and negro shanties, came sud-
denly upon a flock of birds, feeding about like our
northern snow buntings. Every now and then they
uttered a piping, disconsolate note, as if they had a
very sorry time of it. They proved to be shore
larks, the first I had ever seen. They had the
walk characteristic of all larks; were a little larger
than the sparrow; had a black spot on the breast,
with much white on the under parts of their bodies.
As I approached them the nearer ones paused, and,
half squatting, eyed me suspiciously. Presently,
at a movement of my arm, away they went, flying
exactly like the snow bunting, and showing nearly
as much white.” (I have since discovered that the
shore lark is a regular visitant here in February and
March, when large quantities of them are shot or
trapped, and exposed for sale in the market. Dur-
ing a heavy snow J have seen numbers of them
feeding upon the seeds of various weedy growths in
a large market-garden well into town.) ‘Pressing
on, the walk became exhilarating. Followed a little
brook, the eastern branch of the Tiber, lined with
bushes and a rank growth of green-brier. Sparrows
1386 WAKE-ROBIN

started out here and there, and flew across the little
bends and points. Among some pines just beyond
the boundary, saw a number of American gold-
finches, in their gray winter dress, pecking the pine-
cones. A golden-crowned kinglet was there also, a
little tuft of gray feathers, hopping about as restless
as a spirit. Had the old pine-trees food delicate
enough for him also? Farther on, in some low
open woods, saw many sparrows, — the fox, white-
throated, white-crowned, the Canada, the song, the
swamp, —all herding together along the warm and
sheltered borders. To my surprise, saw a chewink
also, and the yellow-rumped warbler. The purple
finch was there likewise, and the Carolina wren and
brown creeper. In the higher, colder woods not a
bird was to be seen. Returning, near sunset, across
the eastern slope of a hill which overlooked the
city, was delighted to see a number of grass finches
or vesper sparrows, — birds which will be forever
associated in my mind with my father’s sheep pas-
tures. They ran before me, now flitting a pace or
two, now skulking in the low stubble, just as I had
observed them when a boy.”

A month later, March 4th, is this note: —

“After the second memorable inauguration of
President Lincoln, took my first trip of the season.
The afternoon was very clear and warm, — real ver-
nal sunshine at last, though the wind roared like a
lion over the woods. It seemed novel enough to
find within two miles of the White House a simple
woodsman chopping away as if no President was
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 137

being inaugurated! Some puppies, snugly nestled!
in the cavity of an old hollow tree, he said, be-'
longed to a wild dog. I imagine I saw the ‘ wild
dog,’ on the other side of Rock Creek, in a great
state of grief and trepidation, running up and down,
crying and yelping, and looking wistfully over the
swollen flood, which the poor thing had not the |
courage to brave. This day, for the first time, I
heard the song of the Canada sparrow, a soft, sweet
note, almost running into a warble. Saw a small,
black, velvety butterfly with a yellow border to ne
wings. Under a warm bank found two flowers of |
the houstonia in bloom. Saw frogs’ spawn near ;
Piny Branch, and heard the hyla.” a7
Among the first birds that make their appear-
ance in Washington is the crow blackbird. He may
come any time after the 1st of March. The birds
congregate in large flocks, and frequent groves and
parks, alternately swarming in the treetops and fill-
ing the air with their sharp jangle, and alighting
on the ground in quest of food, their polished coats
glistening in the sun from very blackness as they
walk about. There is evidently some music in the
soul of this bird at this season, though he makes
a sad failure in getting it out. His voice always
sounds as if he were laboring under a severe attack
of influenza, though a large flock of them, heard at
a distance on a bright afternoon of early spring,
produce an effect not unpleasing. The air is filled
with crackling, splintering, spurting, semi-musical
sounds, which are like pepper and salt to the ear.
138 WAKE-ROBIN

All parks and public grounds about the city are
full of blackbirds. They are especially plentiful in
the trees about the White House, breeding there
and waging war on all other birds. The occupants
of one of the offices in the west wing of the Treasury
one day had their attention attracted by some object
striking violently against one of the window-panes.
Looking up, they beheld a crow blackbird pausing
in midair, a few feet from the window. On the
broad stone window-sill lay the quivering form of a
purple finch. The little tragedy was easily read,
The blackbird had pursued the finch with such
murderous violence that the latter, in its desperate
efforts to escape, had sought refuge in the Treasury.
The force of the concussion against the heavy plate-
glass of the window had killed the poor thing in-
stantly. The pursuer, no doubt astonished at the
sudden and novel termination of the career of its
victim, hovered a moment, as if to be sure of what
had happened, and made off.

(It is not unusual for birds, when thus threatened

with destruction by their natural enemy, to become |
so terrified as to seek safety in the presence of man. —

I was once startled, while living in a country vil- |
lage, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one;
October day, a quail sitting upon my bed. The
affrighted and bewildered bird instantly started for ‘
the open window, into which it had no doubt been
driven by a hawk.)

The crow blackbird has all the natural cunning
of his prototype, the crow. In one of the inner

\

1
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 139

courts of the Treasury building there is a fountain
with several trees growing near. By midsummer
the blackbirds become so bold as to venture within
this court. Various fragments of food, tossed from
the surrounding windows, reward their temerity.
When a crust of dry bread defies their beaks, they
have been seen to drop it into the water, and, when
it had become soaked sufficiently, to take it out
again.

They build a nest of coarse sticks and mud, the
whole burden of the enterprise seeming to devolve
upon the female. For several successive mornings,
just after sunrise, I used to notice a pair of them
flying to and fro in the air above me as I hoed in
the garden, directing their course, on the one hand,
to a marshy piece .of ground about half a mile dis-
tant, and disappearing, on their return, among the
trees about the Capitol. Returning, the female
always had her beak loaded with building material,
while the male, carrying nothing, seemed to act as
her escort, flying a little above and in advance of
her, and uttering now and then his husky, discor-
dant note. As I tossed a lump of earth up at them,
the frightened mother bird dropped her mortar, and
the pair skurried away, much put out. Later they
avenged themselves by pilfering my cherries,

The most mischievous enemies of the cherries,
however, here as at the North, are the cedar wax-
wings, or “cherry-birds.” How quickly they spy
out the tree! Long before the cherry begins to
turn, they are around, alert and cautious, In small
140 WAKE-ROBIN

flocks they circle about, high in air, uttering their
fine note, or plunge quickly into the tops of remote
trees. Day by day they approach nearer and nearer,
reconnoitring the premises, and watching the grow-
ing fruit. Hardly have the green lobes turned a
red cheek to the sun before their beaks have scarred
it. At first they approach the tree stealthily, on
the side turned from the house, diving quickly into
the branches in ones and twos, while the main flock
is ambushed in some shade-tree not far off. They
are most apt to commit their depredations very early
in the morning and on cloudy, rainy days. As the
cherries grow sweeter the birds grow bolder, till,
from throwing tufts of grass, one has to throw
stones in good earnest, or lose all his fruit. In
June they disappear, following the cherries to the
north, where by July they are nesting in the or-
chards and cedar groves.

Among the permanent summer residents here
(one might say city residents, as they seem more
abundant in town than out), the yellow warbler or
summer yellowbird is conspicuous. He comes about
the middle of April, and seems particularly attached
to the silver poplars. In every street, and all day
long, one may hear his thin, sharp warble. When
nesting, the female comes about the yard, pecking
at the clothes-line, and gathering up bits of thread
to weave into her nest.

Swallows appear in Washington from the first to
the middle of April. They come twittering along
in the way so familiar to every New England boy.
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 141

The barn swallow is heard first, followed in a day
or two by the squeaking of the cliff swallow. The
chimney swallows, or swifts, are not far behind, and
remain here, in large numbers, the whole season.
The purple martins appear in April, as they pass
north, and again in July and August on their re-
turn, accompanied by their young.

The national capital is situated in such a vast
spread of wild, wooded, or semi-cultivated country,
and is in itself so open and spacious, with its parks
and large government reservations, that an unusual
number of birds find their way into it in the course
of the season, Rare warblers, as the black-poll,
the yellow red-poll, and the bay-breasted, pausing
in May on their northward journey, pursue their
insect game in the very heart of the town.

I have heard the veery thrush in the trees near
the White House; and one rainy April morning,
about six o’clock, he came and blew his soft, mel-
low flute in a pear-tree in my garden. The tones
had all the sweetness and wildness they have when
heard in June in our deep northern forests. <A
day or two afterward, in the same tree, I heard for
the first time the song of the ruby-crowned wren,
or kinglet,——the same liquid bubble and cadence
which characterize the wren-songs generally, but
much finer and more delicate than the song of any
other variety known to me; beginning in a fine,
round, needle-like note, and rising into a full, sus-
tained warble, —a strain, on the whole, remarkably
exquisite and pleasing, the singer being all the
142 WAKE-ROBIN

while as busy as a bee, catching some kind of in-
sects. It is certainly one of our most beautiful bird-
songs, and Audubon’s enthusiasm concerning its
song, as he heard it in the wilds of Labrador, is
not a bit extravagant. The song of the kinglet
is the only characteristic that allies it to the wrens.

The Capitol grounds, with their fine large trees
of many varieties, draw many kinds of birds. In
the rear of the building the extensive grounds are
peculiarly attractive, being a gentle slope, warm and
protected, and quite thickly wooded. Here in early
spring I go to hear the robins, catbirds, blackbirds,
wrens, etc. In March the white-throated and white-
crowned sparrows may be seen, hopping about on
the flower-beds or peering slyly from the evergreens.
The robin hops about freely upon the grass, not-
withstanding the keeper’s large-lettered warning,
and at intervals, and especially at sunset, carols from
the treetops his loud, hearty strain.

The kingbird and orchard starling remain the
whole season, and breed in the treetops. The rich,
copious song of the starling may be heard there all
the forenoon. The song of some birds is like scar-
let, — strong, intense, emphatic. This is the char-
acter of the orchard starlings, also of the tanagers
and the various grosbeaks. On the other hand, the
songs of other birds, as of certain of the thrushes,
suggest the serene blue of the upper sky.

In February one may hear, in the Smithsonian
grounds, the song of the fox sparrow. It is a
strong, richly modulated whistle, — the finest spar-
row note I have ever heard.
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 143

A curious and charming sound may be heard here
in May. You are walking forth in the soft morn-
ing air, when suddenly there comes a burst of bobo-
link melody from some mysterious source. A score
of throats pour out one brief, hilarious, tuneful
jubilee and are suddenly silent. There is a strange
remoteness and fascination about it. Presently you
discover its source skyward, and a quick eye will
detect the gay band pushing northward. They
seem to scent the fragrant meadows afar off, and
shout forth snatches of their songs in anticipation.

The bobolink does not breed in the District, but
usually pauses in his journey and feeds during the
day in the grass-lands north of the city. When the
season is backward, they tarry a week or ten days,
singing freely and appearing quite at home. In
large flocks they search over every inch of ground,
and at intervals hover on the wing or alight in the
treetops, all pouring forth their gladness at once,
and filling the air with a multitudinous musical
clamor.

They continue to pass, traveling by night and
feeding by day, till after the middle of May, when
they cease. In September, with numbers greatly
increased, they are on their way back. I am first
advised of their return by hearing their calls at
night as they fly over the city. On certain nights
the sound becomes quite noticeable. I have awak-
ened in the middle of the night, and, through the
open window, as I lay in bed, heard their faint
notes. The warblers begin to return about the
144 WAKE-ROBIN

same time, and are clearly distinguished by their
timid yeaps. On dark, cloudy nights the birds
seem confused by the lights of the city, and appar-
ently wander about above it.

In the spring the same curious incident is re-
peated, though but few voices can be identified. I
make out the snowbird, the bobolink, the war-
blers, and on two nights during the early part of
May I heard very clearly the call of the sandpipers.

Instead of the bobolink, one encounters here, in
the June meadows, the black-throated bunting, a
bird closely related to the sparrows and a very
persistent if not a very musical songster. He
perches upon the fences and upon the trees by the
roadside, and, spreading his tail, gives forth his
harsh strain, which may be roughly worded thus:
fscp fsep, fee fee fee. Like all sounds associated
with early summer, it soon has a charm to the ear
quite independent of its intrinsic merits,

Outside of the city limits, the great point of
interest to the rambler and lover of nature is the
Rock Creek region. | "Rock Creek is a large, rough,
rapid stream, which has its source in the interior
of Maryland, and flows into the Potomac between
Washington and Georgetown. Its course, for five
or six miles out of Washington, is marked by great
diversity of scenery. Flowing in a deep valley,
which now and then becomes a wild gorge with
overhanging rocks and high precipitous headlands,
for the most part wooded; here reposing in long,
dark reaches, there sweeping and hurrying around
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 145

a sudden bend or over a rocky bed; receiving at
short intervals small runs and spring rivulets, which
open up vistas and outlooks to the right and left, of
the most charming description, — Rock Creek has
an abundance of all the elements that make up not
only pleasing but wild and rugged scenery. There:
is, perhaps, not another city in the Union that has,
on its very threshold so much natural beauty and’
grandeur, such as men seek for in remote forests and }
mountains. A few touches of art would convert
this whole region, extending from Georgetown to
what is known as Crystal Springs, not more than
two miles from the present State Department, into
a park unequaled by anything in the world. There
are passages between these two points as wild and
savage, and apparently as remote from civilization,
as anything one meets with in the mountain sources }
of the Hudson or the Delaware. ae

One of the tributaries to Rock Creek within this
limit is called Piny Branch. It is a small, noisy
brook, flowing through a valley of great natural
beauty and picturesqueness, shaded nearly all the
way by woods of oak, chestnut, and beech, and
abounding in dark recesses and hidden retreats.

I must not forget to mention the many springs
with which this whole region is supplied, each the
centre of some wild nook, perhaps the head of a
little valley one or two hundred yards long, through
which one catches a glimpse, or hears the voice, of
the main creek rushing along below.

My walks tend in this direction more frequently

 
146 WAKE —ROBIN

than in any other. Here the boys go, too, troops
of them, of a Sunday, to bathe and prowl around,
and indulge the semi-barbarous instincts that still
lurk within them. Life, in all its forms, is most |
abundant near water. The rank vegetation nurtures
the insects, and the insects draw the birds. The |
first week in March, on some southern slope where
the sunshine lies warm and long, I usually find the |
hepatica in bloom, though with scarcely an inch of |
stalk. In the spring runs, the skunk cabbage pushes
its pike up through the mould, the flower appearing
first, as if Nature had made a mistake.

It is not till about the 1st of April that many
wild flowers may be looked for. By this time the
hepatica, anemone, saxifrage, arbutus, houstonia,
and bloodroot may be counted on. A week later,
the claytonia or spring beauty, water-cress, violets,
a low buttercup, vetch, corydalis, and potentilla
appear. These comprise most of the April flowers,
and may be found in great profusion in the Rock
Creek and Piny Branch region.

In each little valley or spring run, some one spe-,
cies predominates. I know invariably where to look
for the first liverwort, and where the largest and
finest may be found. On a dry, gravelly, half-
wooded hill-slope the _bird’s-foot violet grows in
great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring dis-.
tricts. This flower, which I never saw in the’
North, is the most beautiful and showy of all the
violets, and calls forth rapturous applause from all .
persons who visit the woods. It grows in little

 

 

|

 
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 147

groups and clusters, and bears a close resemblance |

to the pansies of the gardens. Its two purple,
velvety petals seem to fall over tiny shoulders like
a rich cape.

On the same slope, and on no other, I go about
the 1st of May for lupine, or sun-dial, which makes
the ground look blue from a little distance; on the
other or northern side of the slope, the arbutus,
during the first half of April, perfumes the wild-

wood air. A few paces farther on, in the bottom |

of a little spring run, the mandrake shades the
ground with its miniature umbrellas. It begins to
push its green finger-points up through the ground
by the 1st of April, but is not in bloom till the 1st
of May. It has a single white, wax-like flower,
with a sweet, sickish odor, growing immediately

beneath its broad leafy top. By the same run grow |

water-cresses and two kinds of anemones, — the
Pennsylvania and the grove anemone. The blood-
root is very common at the foot of almost every
warm slope in the Rock Creek woods, and, where
the wind has tucked it up well with the coverlid of
dry leaves, makes its appearance almost as soon as
the liverwort. It is singular how little warmth is
necessary to encourage these earlier flowers to put
forth. It would seem as if some influence must
come on in advance underground and get things
ready, so that, when the outside temperature is pro-
pitious, they at once venture out. I have found
the bloodroot when it was still freezing two or three
nights in the week, and have known at least three
148 WAKE-ROBIN

varieties of early flowers to be buried in eight
inches of snow.

Another abundant flower in the Rock Creek re-
gion is the spring beauty. Like most others, it
grows in streaks. A few paces from where your
attention is monopolized by violets or arbutus, it is
arrested by the claytonia, growing in such profusion |
that it is impossible to set the foot down without |
crushing the flowers. Only the forenoon walker
sees them in all their beauty, as later in the day |
their eyes are closed, and their pretty heads drooped
in slumber. In only one locality do I find the
lady’s-slipper, —a yellow variety. The flowers |
that overleap all bounds in this section are the hous- |
tonias. By the 1st of April they are very notice- |
able in warm, damp places along the borders of the |
woods and in half-cleared fields, but by May these |
localities are clouded with them. They become |
visible from the highway across wide fields, and ©
look like little puffs of smoke clinging close to the
ground.

On the 1st of May I go to the Rock Creek or
Piny Branch region to hear the wood thrush.” I
always find him by this date leisurely chanting his
lofty strain; other thrushes are seen now also, or
even earlier, as Wilson’s, the olive-backed, the
hermit, —the two latter silent, but the former
musical.

Occasionally in the earlier part of May I find the
woods literally swarming with warblers, exploring
every branch and leaf, from the tallest tulip to the
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 149

lowest spice-bush, so urgent is the demand for food
during their long northern journeys. At night
they are up and away. Some varieties, as the blue
yellow-back, the chestnut-sided, and the Blackbur-
nian, during their brief stay, sing nearly as freely
as in their breeding-haunts. For two or three
years I have chanced to meet little companies of
the bay-breasted warbler, searching for food in an
oak wood on an elevated piece of ground. They
kept well up among the branches, were rather slow
in their movements, and evidently disposed to tarry
but a short time.

The summer residents here, belonging to this
class of birds, are few. I have observed the black
and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler,
the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-
catcher, breeding near Rock Creek. —_

Of these the Kentucky warbler is by far the most
interesting, though quite rare. I meet with him in
low, damp places in the woods, usually on the steep
sides of some little run. I hear at intervals a clear,
strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently
catch a glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the
ground to take an insect or worm from the under
side of a leaf. This is his characteristic movement.
He belongs to the class of ground warblers, and his
range is very low, indeed lower than that of any
other species with which I am acquainted. He is
on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidly
along, taking spiders and bugs, overturning leaves,
peeping under sticks and into crevices and every
150 WAKE-ROBIN

now and then leaping up eight or ten inches to
take his game from beneath some overhanging leaf
or branch. ‘Thus each species has its range more
or less marked. Draw a line three feet from the
ground, and you mark the usual limit of the Ken-
tucky warbler’s quest for food. Six or eight feet
higher bounds the usual range of such birds as the
worm-eating warbler, the mourning ground warbler,
the Maryland yellow-throat. The lower branches
of the higher growths and the higher branches of
the lower growths are plainly preferred by the black-
throated blue-backed warbler, in those localities
where he is found. The thrushes feed mostly on
and near the ground, while some of the vireos and
the true flycatchers explore the highest branches.
But the warblers, as a rule, are all partial to thick,
rank undergrowths.

The Kentucky warbler is a large bird for the
genus and quite notable in appearance. His back
is clear olive-green, his throat and breast bright
yellow. A still more prominent feature is a black
streak on the side of the face, extending down the
neck.

Another familiar bird here, which I never met
with in the North, is the gnatcatcher, called by
Audubon the blue-gray flycatching warbler. In
form and manner it seems almost a duplicate of the
catbird on a small scale. It mews like a young
kitten, erects its tail, flirts, droops its wings, goes
through a variety of motions when disturbed by
your presence, and in many ways recalls its dusky
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 151

prototype. Its color above is a light gray-blue,
gradually fading till it becomes white on the breast
and belly. It is a very small bird, and has a long,
facile, slender tail. Its song is a lisping, chatter-
ing, incoherent warble, now faintly reminding one
of the goldfinch, now of a miniature catbird, then
of a tiny yellow-hammer, having much variety, but
no unity and little cadence.

Another bird which has interested me here is the
Louisiana water-thrush, called also large-billed water-
thrush, and water-wagtail. It is one of a trio of
birds which has confused the ornithologists much.
The other two species are the well-known golden-
crowned thrush or wood-wagtail, and the northern,
or small, water-thrush.

The present species, though not abundant, is fre-
quently met with along Rock Creek. It is a very
quick, vivacious bird, and belongs to the class of
ecstatic singers. I have seen a pair of these thrushes,
on a bright May day, flying to and fro between two
spring runs, alighting at intermediate points, the
male breaking out into one of the most exuberant,
unpremeditated strains I ever heard. Its song is
a sudden burst, beginning with three or four clear
round notes much resembling certain tones of the
clarionet, and terminating in a rapid, intricate warble.

This bird resembles a thrush only in its color,
which is olive-brown above and grayish white be-
neath, with speckled throat and breast. Its habits,
manners, and voice suggest those of the lark,

CT seldom go the Rock Creek route without being
152 WAKE-ROBIN

amused and sometimes annoyed by the yellow-
breasted chat. This bird also has something of the
manners and build of the catbird, yet he is truly an
original. The catbird is mild and feminine com-
pared with this rollicking polyglot. His voice is
very loud and strong and quite uncanny. No sooner
have you penetrated his retreat, which is usually a
thick undergrowth in low, wet localities, near the
woods or in old fields, than he begins his serenade,
which for the variety, grotesqueness, and uncouth-
ness of the notes is not unlike a country skimmer-
ton. If one passes directly along, the bird may
scarcely break the silence. But pause a while, or
loiter quietly about, and your presence stimulates
him to do his best. He peeps quizzically at you
from beneath the branches, and gives a sharp feline
mew. In a moment more he says very distinctly,
who, who. Then in rapid succession follow notes
the most discordant that ever broke the sylvan si-
lence. Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks
like a duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then
squalls like a fox, then caws like a crow, then mews
like a cat. Now he calls as if to be heard a long
way off, then changes his key, as if addressing the
spectator. Though very shy, and carefully keeping
himself screened when you show any disposition to
get a better view, he will presently, if you remain
quiet, ascend a twig, or hop out on a branch in
plain sight, lop his tail, droop his wings, cock his
head, and become very melodramatic. In less than
half a minute he darts into the bushes again, and
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 153

again tunes up, no Frenchman rolling his r’s so
fluently. C-r-r-r-r-7, —whrr, — that’s it, — chee,
—guack, cluck, — yit-yit-yit, —now hit it, —
tr-r-r-7, — when, — caw, caw, — cut, cut, — tea-
boy, — who, who, —mew, mew, —and so on till
you are tired of listening. Observing one very
closely one day, I discovered that he was limited
to six notes or changes, which he went through in
regular order, scarcely varying a note in a dozen
repetitions. Sometimes, when a considerable dis-
tance off, he will fly down to have a nearer view of
you. And such a curious, expressive flight, — legs
extended, head lowered, wings rapidly vibrating,
the whole action piquant and droll!

The chat is an elegant bird, both in form and
color. Its plumage is remarkably firm and compact.
Color above, light olive-green; beneath, bright yel-
low; beak, black and strong. :

The cardinal grosbeak, Or Virginia redbird, is
quite common in the same localities, though more
inclined to seek the woods. It is much sought
after by bird-fanciers, and by boy gunners, and
consequently is very shy. This bird suggests a
British redcoat; his heavy, pointed beak, his high
cockade, the black stripe down his face, the expres-
sion of weight and massiveness about his head and
neck, and his erect attitude, give him a decided
soldier-like appearance; and there is something of
the tone of the fife in his song or whistle, while
his ordinary note, when disturbed, is like the clink
of a sabre. Yesterday, as I sat indolently swing-
154 WAKE-ROBIN

ing in the loop of a grapevine, beneath a thick
canopy of green branches, in a secluded nook by a
spring run, one of these birds came pursuing some
kind of insect, but a few feet above me. He
hopped about, now and then uttering his sharp
note, till, some moth or beetle trying to escape, he
broke down through the cover almost where I sat,
The effect was like a firebrand coming down through
the branches. Instantly catching sight of me, he
darted away much alarmed. The female is tinged
with brown, and shows but little red except when
she takes flight.

By far the most abundant species of woodpecker
about Washington is the red-headed. It is more
common than the robin. Not in the deep woods,
but among the scattered dilapidated oaks and groves,
on the hills and in the fields, I hear almost every
day his uncanny note, kir-rr, ktr-r-r, like that of
some larger tree-toad, proceeding from an oak grove
just beyond the boundary. He is a strong-scented
fellow, and very tough. Yet how beautiful, as he
flits about the open woods, connecting the trees by
a gentle are of crimson and white! This is another
bird with a military look. His deliberate, dignified
ways, and his bright uniform of red, white, and
steel-blue, bespeak him an officer of rank.

Another favorite beat of mine is northeast of the
city. Looking from the Capitol in this direction,
scarcely more than a mile distant, you see a broad
green hill-slope, falling very gently, and spreading
into a large expanse of meadow-land. The summit,
SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 155

if so gentle a swell of greensward may be said to
have a summit, is covered with a grove of large
oaks; and, sweeping back out of sight like a man-
tle, the front line of a thick forest bounds the sides.
This emerald landscape is seen from a number of
points in the city. Looking along New York
Avenue from Northern Liberty Market, the eye
glances, as it were, from the red clay of the street,
and alights upon this fresh scene in the distance.
It is a standing invitation to the citizen to come
forth and be refreshed. As I turn from some hot,
hard street, how inviting it looks! I bathe my
eyes in it as in a fountain. Sometimes troops of
cattle are seen grazing upon it. In June the gath-
ering of the hay may be witnessed. When the
ground is covered with snow, numerous stacks, or
clusters of stacks, are still left for the eye to con-
template.

The woods which clothe the east side of this hill,
and sweep away to the east, are among the most
charming to be found in the District. The main
growth is oak and chestnut, with a thin sprinkling |
of laurel, azalea, and dogwood. It is the only lo-
cality in which I have found the dogtooth violet |
in bloom, and the best place I know of to gather |
arbutus. On one slope the ground is covered with
moss, through which the arbutus trails its glories.

Emerging from these woods toward the city, one
sees the white dome of the Capitol soaring over the
green swell of earth immediately in front, and lift-
ing its four thousand tons of iron gracefully and
156 WAKE-ROBIN

lightly into the air. Of all the sights in Washing-
ton, that which will survive longest in my memory
is the vision of the great dome thus rising cloud- |
like above the hills, |

1868.
VI
BIRCH BROWSINGS

eee region of which I am about to speak lies in
the southern part of the State of New York,
and comprises parts of three counties, — Ulster,
Sullivan, and Delaware. [Jt is drained by tributa-
ties of both the Hudson and Delaware, and, next to
the Adirondack section, contains more wild land
than any other tract in the State. The mountains
which traverse it, and impart to it its severe north-
ern climate, belong properly to the Catskill range.
On some maps of the State they are called the Pine
Mountains, though with obvious local impropriety,
as pine, so far as I have observed, is nowhere found
upon them. “Birch Mountains” would be a more
characteristic name, as on their summits birch is
the prevailing tree. They are the natural home of.
the black and yellow birch, which grow here to:
unusual size. On their sides beech and maple
abound; while, mantling their lower slopes and |
darkening the valleys, hemlock formerly enticed /
the lumberman and tanner. * Except in remote or’
inaccessible localities, the latter tree is now almost
never found. In Shandaken and along the Esopus
it is about the only product the country yielded, or
158 WAKE-ROBIN

is likely to yield. Tanneries by the score have
arisen and flourished upon the bark, and some of
them still remain. Passing through that region the
present season, I saw that the few patches of hem-
lock that still lingered high up on the sides of the
mountains were being felled and peeled, the fresh
white bowls of the trees, just stripped of their bark,
being visible a long distance.

Among these mountains there are no sharp peaks,
or abrupt declivities, as in a volcanic region, but
long, uniform ranges, heavily timbered to their sum-
mits, and delighting the eye with vast, undulating
horizon lines. Looking south from the heights about
the head of the Delaware, one sees, twenty miles
away, a continual succession of blue ranges, one be-
hind the other. If a few large trees are missing
on the sky line, one can see the break a long dis-
tance off.

Approaching this region from the Hudson River
side, you cross a rough, rolling stretch of country,
skirting the base of the Catskills, which from a
point near Saugerties sweep inland; after a drive
of a few hours you are within the shadow of a high,
bold mountain, which forms a sort of butt-end to
this part of the range, and which is simply called
High Point. To the east and southeast it slopes
down rapidly to the plain, and looks defiance toward
the Hudson, twenty miles distant; in the rear of
it, and radiating from it west and northwest, are
numerous smaller ranges, backing up, as it were,
this haughty chief.
BIRCH BROWSINGS 159

From this point through to Pennsylvania, a dis-
tance of nearly one hundred miles, stretches the
tract of which I speak. It is a belt of country from
twenty to thirty miles wide, bleak and wild, and
but sparsely settled. The traveler on the New
York and Erie Railroad gets a glimpse of it.

Many cold, rapid trout streams, which flow to
all points of the compass, have their source in the
small lakes and copious mountain springs of this
region. The names of some of them are Mill
Brook, Dry Brook, Willewemack, Beaver Kill, Elk
Bush Kill, Panther Kill, Neversink, Big Ingin,
and Callikoon. Beaver Kill is the main outlet on
the west. It joins the Delaware in the wilds of
Hancock. The Neversink lays open the region to
the south, and also joins the Delaware. To the
east, various Kills unite with the Big Ingin to form
the Esopus, which flows into the Hudson. Dry
Brook and Mill Brook, both famous trout streams,
from twelve to fifteen miles long, find their way
into the Delaware.

The east or Pepacton branch of the Delaware }
itself takes its rise near here in a deep pass between \
the mountains. I have many times drunk at a |
copious spring by the roadside, where the infant ;
river first sees the light. A few yards beyond, the
water flows the other way, directing its course |
through the Bear Kill and Schoharie Kill into the |
Mohawk.

Such game and wild animals as still linger in the
State are found in this region. Bears occasionally
160 WAKE-ROBIN

make havoc among the sheep. The clearings at the
head of a valley are oftenest the scene of their dep-
redations.

Wild pigeons, in immense numbers, used to breed
regularly in the valley of the Big Ingin and about
the head of the Neversink. The treetops for miles
were full of their nests, while the going and coming
of the old birds kept up a constant din. But the
gunners soon got wind of it, and from far and near
were wont to pour in during the spring, and to
slaughter both old and young. This practice soon
had the effect of driving the pigeons all away, and
now only a few pairs breed in these woods,

Deer are still met with, though they are becom-

ing scarcer every year. Last winter near seventy.

head were killed on the Beaver Kill alone. I heard.

of one wretch, who, finding the deer snowbound, |

walked up to them on his snowshoes, and one morn- '
ing before breakfast slaughtered six, leaving their ‘

carcasses where they fell. There are traditions of;

persons having been smitten blind or senseless when’
about to commit some heinous offense, but the fact,
that this villain eseaped without some such visita-.
tion throws discredit on all such stories.

a
}

The great attraction, however, of this region, is |

the brook trout, with which the streams and lakes
abound. The water is of excessive coldness, the

thermometer indicating 44° and 45° in the springs, |

and 47° or 48° in the smaller streams. The trout
are generally small, but in the more remote branches
their number is very great. In such localities the

-
BIRCH BROWSINGS 161

fish are quite black, but in the lakes they are of a
lustre and brilliancy impossible to describe.

These waters have been much visited of late years
by fishing parties, and the name of Beaver Kill is
now a potent word among New York sportsmen.

One lake, in the wilds of Callikoon, abounds in
a peculiar species of white sucker, which is of excel-
lent quality. It is taken only in spring, during
the spawning season, at the time “when the leaves ,
are as big as a chipmunk’s ears.” The fish run up ;
the small streams and inlets, beginning at nightfall, ;
and continuing till the channel is literally packed
with them, and every inch of space is occupied. :
The fishermen pounce upon them at such times, and
scoop them up by the bushel, usually wading right |
into the living mass and landing the fish with their
hands. A small party will often secure in this
manner a wagon load of fish. Certain conditions of
the weather, as a warm south or southwest wind,
are considered most favorable for the fish to run.

Though familiar all my life with the outskirts of
this region, I have only twice dipped into its wilder
portions. Once in 1860 a friend and myself traced
the Beaver Kill to its source, and encamped by
Balsam Lake. A cold and protracted rainstorm
coming on, we were obliged to leave the woods
before we were ready. Neither of us will soon for-
get that tramp by an unknown route over the moun-
tains, incumbered as we were with a hundred and
one superfluities which we had foolishly brought
along to solace ourselves with in the woods; nor
162 WAKE-ROBIN

that halt on the summit, where we cooked and ate
our fish in a drizzling rain; nor, again, that rude
log house, with its sweet hospitality, which we
reached just at nightfall on Mill Brook.

In 1868 a party of three of us set out for a
brief trouting excursion to a body of water called
Thomas’s Lake, situated in the same chain of moun-
tains. On this excursion, more particularly than
on any other I have ever undertaken, I was taught
how poor an Indian I should make, and what a
ridiculous figure a party of men may cut in the
woods when the way is uncertain and the mountains
high. ;

We left our team at a farmhouse near the head
of the Mill Brook, one June afternoon, and with
knapsacks on our shoulders struck into the woods
at the base of the mountain, hoping to cross the
range that intervened between us and the lake by
sunset. We engaged a good-natured but rather
indolent young man, who happened to be stopping
at the house, and who had carried a knapsack in
the Union armies, to pilot us a couple of miles
into the woods so as to guard against any mistakes
at the outset. It seemed the easiest thing in the
world to find the lake. The lay of the land was
so simple, according to accounts, that I felt sure I
could go to it in the dark. “Go up this little
brook to its source on the side of the mountain,”
they said. “The valley that contains the lake
heads directly on the other side.” What could be
easier! But on a little further inquiry, they said
BIRCH BROWSINGS 163

we should “bear well to the left”? when we reached
the top of the mountain. This opened the doors
again; ‘“‘bearing well to the left” was an uncertain
performance in strange woods. We might bear so
well to the left that it would bring us ill, But
why bear to the left at all, if the lake was directly
opposite? Well, not quite opposite; a little to the
left. There were two or three other valleys that
headed in near there. We could easily find the
right one. But to make assurance doubly sure, we
engaged a guide, as stated, to give us a good start,
and go with us beyond the bearing-to-the-left point.
He had been to the lake the winter before and knew
the way. Our course, the first half hour, was along
an obscure wood-road which had been used for draw-
ing ash logs off the mountain in winter. There was
some hemlock, but more maple and birch. The
woods were dense and free from underbrush, the
ascent gradual. Most of the way we kept the voice
of the creek in our ear on the right. I approached
it once, and found it swarming with trout. The
water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a
while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a
mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-cov-
ered rocks and stones, and with much labor and
puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity.
Every mountain has its steepest point, which is
usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose,
with the providence that makes the darkest hour(
just before day. It is steep, steeper, steepest, till!
you emerge on the smooth level or gently rounded
164 WAKE-ROBIN

space at the top, which the old ice-gods polished
off so long ago.

We found this mountain had a hollow in its back
where the ground was soft and swampy. Some
gigantic ferns, which we passed through, came
nearly to our shoulders. We passed also several
patches of swamp honeysuckles, red with blossoms.

Our guide at length paused on a big rock where
the Jand began to dip down the other way, and con-
cluded that he had gone far enough, and that we
would now have no difficulty in finding the lake.
“Tt must lie right down there,” he said, pointing
with his hand. But it was plain that he was not
quite sure in his own mind. He had several times
wavered in his course, and had shown considerable
embarrassment when bearing to the left across the
summit. Still we thought little of it. We were
full of confidence, and, bidding him adieu, plunged
down the mountain-side, following a spring run that
we had no doubt led to the lake.

In these woods, which had a southeastern expos-
ure, I first began to notice the wood thrush. In
coming up the other side I had not seen a feather
of any kind, or heard a note. Now the golden
trillide-de of the wood thrush sounded through the
silent woods. While looking for a fish-pole about
half way down the mountain, I saw a thrush’s nest
in a little sapling about ten feet from the ground.

After continuing our descent till our only guide,
the spring run, became quite a trout brook, and its
tiny murmur a loud brawl, we began to peer anx-
BIRCH BROWSINGS 165

iously through the trees for a glimpse of the lake,
or for some conformation of the land that would
indicate its proximity. An object which we vaguely
discerned in looking under the near trees and over
the more distant ones proved, on further inspection,
to be a patch of plowed ground. Presently we
made out a burnt fallow near it. This was a wet
blanket to our enthusiasm. No lake, no sport, no
trout for supper that night. The rather indolent
young man had either played us a trick, or, as
seemed more likely, had missed the way. "We were
particularly anxious to be at the lake between sun-
down and dark, as at that time the trout jump
most freely.

Pushing on, we soon emerged into a stumpy field,
at the head of a steep valley, which swept around
toward the west. About two hundred rods below
us was a rude log house, with smoke issuing from
the chimney. A boy came out and moved toward
the spring with a pail in his hand. We shouted to
him, when he turned and ran back into the house
without pausing to reply. In a moment the whole
family hastily rushed into the yard, and turned
their faces toward us. If we had come down their
chimney, they could not have seemed more aston-
ished. Not making out what they said, I went
down to the house, and learned to my chagrin that
we were still on the Mill Brook side, having crossed
only a spur of the mountain. We had not borne
sufficiently to the left, so that the main range,
which, at the point of crossing, suddenly breaks off
166 WAKE-ROBIN

to the southeast, still intervened between us and
the lake. We were about five miles, as the water
runs, from the point of starting, and over two from
the lake. We must go directly back to the top of
the range where the guide had left us, and then, by
keeping well to the left, we would soon come to a
line of marked trees, which would lead us to the
lake. So, turning upon our trail, we doggedly be-
gan the work of undoing what we had just done, —
in all cases a disagreeable task, in this case a very
laborious one also. It was after sunset when we
turned back, and before we had got half way up
the mountain it began to be quite dark. We were
often obliged to rest our packs against trees and take
breath, which made our progress slow. Finally a
halt was called, beside an immense flat rock which
had paused in its slide down the mountain, and we
prepared to encamp for the night. A fire was built,
the rock cleared off, a small ration of bread served
out, our accoutrements hung up out of the way of
the hedgehogs that were supposed to infest the
locality, and then we disposed ourselves for sleep.
If the owls or porcupines (and I think I heard one
of the latter in the middle of the night) reconnoitred
our camp, they saw a buffalo robe spread upon a
rock, with three old felt hats arranged on one side,
and three pairs of sorry-looking cowhide boots pro-
truding from the other.

When we lay down, there was apparently not a,
mosquito in the woods; but the “no-see-ems,” as|
Thoreau’s Indian aptly named the midges, soon |
BIRCH BROWSINGS 167

found us out, and after the fire had gone down
annoyed us much. My hands and wrists suddenly
began to smart and itch in a most unaccountable
manner, My first thought was that they had been
poisoned in some way. Then the smarting ex-
tended to my neck and face, even to my scalp,
when I began to suspect what was the matter. So,
wrapping myself up more thoroughly, and stowing
my hands away as best I could, I tried to sleep,
being some time behind my companions, who ap-
peared not to mind the “no-see-ems.” I was fur-
ther annoyed by some little irregularity on my side
of the couch. The chambermaid had not beaten it
up well. One huge lump refused to be mollified,
and each attempt to adapt it to some natural hol-
low in my own body brought only a moment’s re-
‘lief. But at last I got the better of this also and
slept. Late in the night I woke up, just in time
to hear a golden-crowned thrush sing in a tree near
by. It sang as loud and cheerily as at midday, and -
I thought myself after all, quite in Iuck. Birds
occasionally sing at night, just as the cock crows. |
I have heard the hairbird, and the note of the\
kingbird; and the ruffed grouse frequently drums ;
at night. .
At the first faint signs of day a wood-thrush sang,
a few rods below us. Then after a little delay, as
the gray light began to grow around, thrushes broke
out in full song in all parts of the woods. I thought
I had never before heard them sing so sweetly.
Such a leisurely, golden chant! — it consoled us for
168 WAKE-ROBIN

all we had undergone. It was the first thing in
order, —the worms were safe till after this morning
chorus. I judged that the birds roosted but a few
feet from the ground. In fact, a bird in all cases
roosts where it builds, and the wood thrush occu-
pies, as it were, the first story of the woods.

There is something singular about the distribu-
tion of the wood thrushes. At an earlier stage of
my observations I should have been much surprised
at finding it in these woods. Indeed, I had stated
in print on two occasions that the wood thrush was ,
not found in the higher lands of the Catskills, but |
that the hermit thrush and the veery, or Wilson’s |
thrush, were common. It turns out that this state-
ment is only half true. The wood thrush is found
also, but is much more rare and secluded in its hab-
its than either of the others, being seen only during
the breeding season on remote mountains, and then
only on their eastern and southern slopes. I have
never yet in this region found the bird spending
the season in the near and familiar woods, which is
directly contrary to observations I have made in
other parts of the State. So different are the hab-
its of birds in different localities.

As soon as it was fairly light we were up and
ready to resume our march. A small bit of bread-!

and-butter and a swallow or two of whiskey was all,
we had for breakfast that morning. Our supply of \
each was very limited, and we were anxious to save
a little of both, to relieve the diet of trout to which

we looked forward.
BIRCH BROWSINGS 169

At an early hour we reached the rock where we
had parted with the guide, and looked around us
into the dense, trackless woods with many misgiv-
ings. To strike out now on our own hook, where
the way was so blind and after the experience we
had just had, was a step not to be carelessly taken.
The tops of these mountains are so broad, and a
short distance in the woods seems so far, that one
is by no means master of the situation after reach-
ing the summit. And then there are so many spurs
and offshoots and changes of direction, added to the
impossibility of making any generalization by the
aid of the eye, that before one is aware of it he is
very wide of his mark.

I remembered now that a young farmer of my
acquaintance had told me how he had made a long
day’s march through the heart of this region, with-
out path or guide of any kind, and had hit his
mark squarely. He had been barkpeeling in Cal-
likoon, —a famous country for bark, — and, having
got enough of it, he desired to reach his home on
Dry Brook without making the usual circuitous jour-
ney between the two places. To do this necessi-
tated a march of ten or twelve miles across several
ranges of mountains and through an unbroken for-
est, —a hazardous undertaking in which no one
would join him. Even the old hunters who were
familiar with the ground dissuaded him and pre-
dicted the failure of his enterprise. But having
made up his mind, he possessed himself thoroughly
of the topography of the country from the aforesaid
170 WAKE-ROBIN

hunters, shouldered his axe, and set out, holding
a straight course through the woods, and turning
aside for neither swamps, streams, nor mountains,
When he paused to rest he would mark some object
ahead of him with his eye, in order that on getting
up again he might not deviate from his course. His
directors had told him of a hunter’s cabin about
midway on his route, which if he struck he might
be sure he was right. About noon this cabin was
reached, and at sunset he emerged at the head of
Dry Brook.

After looking in vain for the line of marked
trees, we moved off to the left in a doubtful, hesi-
tating manner, keeping on the highest ground and
blazing the trees as we went. We were afraid to
go down hill, lest we should descend too soon; our
vantage-ground was high ground. A thick fog com-
ing on, we were more bewildered than ever. Still
we pressed forward, climbing up ledges and wading
through ferns for about two hours, when we paused
by a spring that issued from beneath an immense
wall of rock that belted the highest part of the
mountain. There was quite a broad plateau here,
and the birch wood was very dense, and the trees
of unusual size.

After resting and exchanging opinions, we all
concluded that it was best not to continue our search
incumbered as we were; but we were not willing to
abandon it altogether, and I proposed to my com-
panions to leave them beside the spring with our
traps, while I made one thorough and final effort to
BIRCH BROWSINGS 171

find the lake. If I succeeded and desired them to
come forward, I was to fire my gun three times; if
I failed and wished to return, I would fire it twice,
they of course responding.

So, filling my canteen from the spring, I set out
again, taking the spring run for my guide. Before
I had followed it two hundred yards it sank into
the ground at my feet. I had half a mind to be
superstitious and to believe that we were under a
spell, since our guides played us such tricks. How-
ever, I determined to put the matter to a further
test, and struck out boldly to the left. This seemed
to be the keyword, —to the left, to the left. The
fog had now lifted, so that I could form a better
idea of the lay of the land. Twice I looked down
the steep sides of the mountain, sorely tempted to
risk a plunge. Still I hesitated and kept along on
the brink. As I stood on a rock deliberating, I
heard a crackling of the brush, like the tread of
some large game, on a plateau below me. Suspect-
ing the truth of the case, I moved stealthily down,
and found a herd of young cattle leisurely browsing.
We had several times crossed their trail, and had
seen that morning a level, grassy place on the top
of the mountain, where they had passed the night.
Instead of being frightened, as I had expected, they
seemed greatly delighted, and gathered around me
as if to inquire the tidings from the outer world, —
perhaps the quotations of the cattle market. They
came up to me, and eagerly licked my hand, clothes,
and gun. Salt was what they were after, and they
172 WAKE-ROBIN

were ready to swallow anything that contained the |
smallest percentage of it. They were mostly year-
lings and as sleek as moles. They had a very gamy
look. We were afterwards told that, in the spring,
the farmers round about turn into these woods their
young cattle, which do not come out again till fall. \
They are then in good condition, —not fat, like
grass-fed cattle, but trim and supple, like deer.
Once a month the owner hunts them up and salts
them. They have their beats, and seldom wander
beyond well-defined limits. It was interesting to
see them feed. They browsed on the low limbs
and bushes, and on the various plants, munching at
everything without any apparent discrimination.
They attempted to follow me, but I escaped them
by clambering down some steep rocks. I now
found myself gradually edging down the side of the
mountain, keeping around it in a spiral manner,
and scanning the woods and the shape of the ground
for some encouraging hint or sign. Finally the
woods became more open, and the descent less rapid.
The trees were remarkably straight and uniform in
size. Black birches, the first I had seen, were very
numerous. I felt encouraged. Listening atten-
tively, I caught, from a breeze just lifting the droop-
ing leaves, a sound that I willingly believed was
made by a bullfrog. On this hint, I tore down
through the woods at my highest speed. Then I
paused and listened again. This time there was no
mistaking it; it was the sound of frogs. Much
elated, I rushed on. By and by I could hear them
BIRCH BROWSINGS 1738

as I ran. Pthrung, pthrung, croaked the old
ones; pug, pug, shrilly joined in the smaller fry.

Then I caught, through the lower trees, a gleam
of blue, which I first thought was distant sky. A
second look and I knew it to be water, and in a
moment more I stepped from the woods and stood
upon the shore of the lake. I exulted silently.
There it was at last, sparkling in the morning sun,
and as beautiful as a dream. It was so good to
come upon such open space and such bright hues,
after wandering in the dim, dense woods! ‘The eye
is as delighted as an escaped bird, and darts glee-
fully from point to point.

The lake was a long oval, scarcely more than a
mile in circumference, with evenly wooded shores,
which rose gradually on all sides. After contem-
plating the scene for a moment, I stepped back into
the woods, and, loading my gun as heavily as I
dared, discharged it three times. The reports
seemed to fill all the mountains with sound. The
frogs quickly hushed, and I listened for the re-
sponse. But no response came. Then I tried
again and again, but without evoking an answer.
One of my companions, however, who had climbed
to the top of the high rocks in the rear of the spring,
thought he heard faintly one report. It seemed an
immense distance below him, and far around under
the mountain. I knew I had come a long way,
and hardly expected to be able to communicate with
my companions in the manner agreed upon. I
therefore started back, choosing my course without
174 WAKE-ROBIN

any reference to the circuitous route by which I had
come, and loading heavily and firing at intervals.
I must have aroused many long-dormant echoes
from a Rip Van Winkle sleep. As my powder got
low, I fired and halloed alternately, till I came near
splitting both my throat and gun. Finally, after I
had begun to have a very ugly feeling of alarm and
disappointment, and to cast about vaguely for some
course to pursue in the emergency that seemed near
at hand, —namely, the loss of my companions now
I had found the lake, —a favoring breeze brought
me the last echo of a response. I rejoined with
spirit, and hastened with all speed in the direction
whence the sound had come, but, after repeated
trials, failed to elicit another answering sound.
This filled me with apprehension again. I feared
that my friends had been misled by the reverbera-
tions, and I pictured them to myself hastening in
the opposite direction. Paying little attention to
my course, but paying dearly for my carelessness
afterward, I rushed forward to undeceive them.
But they had not been deceived, and in a few
moments an answering shout revealed them near at
hand. I heard their tramp, the bushes parted, and
we three met again.

In answer to their eager inquiries, I assured them
that I had seen the lake, that it was at the foot of
the mountain, and that we could not miss it if we
kept straight down from where we then were.

My clothes were soaked with perspiration, but I
shouldered my knapsack with alacrity, and we began
BIRCH BROWSINGS 175

the descent, I noticed that the woods were much
thicker, and had quite a different look from those
[had passed through, but thought nothing of it, as I
expected to strike the lake near its head, whereas
I had before come out at its foot. We had not gone
far when we crossed a line of marked trees, which
my companions were disposed to follow. It inter-
sected our course nearly at right angles, and kept
along and up the side of the mountain. My impres-
sion was that it led up from the lake, and that by
keeping our own course we should reach the lake
sooner than if we followed this line.

About half way down the mountain, we could see
through the interstices the opposite slope. I en-
couraged my comrades by telling them that the lake
was between us and that, and not more than half a
mile distant. We soon reached the bottom, where
we found a small stream and quite an extensive
alder swamp, evidently the ancient bed of a lake. I
explained to my half-vexed and half-incredulous com-
panions that we were probably above the lake, and
that this stream must lead to it. “Follow it,” they
said; “we will wait here till we hear from you.”

So I went on, more than ever disposed to believe
that we were under a spell, and that the lake had
slipped from my grasp after all. Seeing no favor-
able sign as I went forward, I laid down my accou-
trements, and climbed a decayed beech that leaned
out over the swamp and promised a good view from
the top. As I stretched myself up to look around
from the highest attainable branch, there was sud-
176 WAKE-ROBIN

denly a loud crack at the root. With a celerity
that would at least have done credit to a bear, I
regained the ground, having caught but a momen-
tary glimpse of the country, but enough to convince
me no lake was near. Leaving all incumbrances
here but my gun, I still pressed on, loath to be
thus baffled. After floundering through another
alder swamp for nearly half a mile, I flattered my-
self that I was close on to the lake. I caught sight
of a low spur of the mountain sweeping around like
a half-extended arm, and I fondly imagined that
within its clasp was the object of my search. But
I found only more alder swamp. After this region
was cleared, the creek began to descend the moun-
tain very rapidly. Its banks became high and nar-
row, and it went whirling away with a sound that
seemed to my ears like a burst of ironical laughter.
I turned back with a feeling of mingled disgust,
shame, and vexation. In fact I was almost sick,
and when I reached my companions, after an ab-
sence of nearly two hours, hungry, fatigued, and
disheartened, I would have sold my interest in
Thomas’s Lake at a very low figure. For the first
time, I heartily wished myself well out of the
woods. Thomas might keep his lake, and the en-
chanters guard his possession! I doubted if he had
ever found it the second time, or if any one else
ever had.

My companions, who were quite fresh, and who
had not felt the strain of baffled purpose as I had,
assumed a more encouraging tone. After I had
BIRCH BROWSINGS 177

rested a while, and partaken sparingly of the bread
and whiskey, which in such an emergency is a great
improvement on bread and water, I agreed to their
proposition that we should make another attempt.
As if to reassure us, a robin sounded his cheery call
near by, and the winter wren, the first I had heard
in these woods, set his music-box going, which
fairly ran over with fine, gushing, lyrical sounds.
There can be no doubt but this bird is one of our
finest songsters. If it would only thrive and sing
well when caged, like the canary, how far it would
surpass that bird! It has all the vivacity and ver-
satility of the canary, without any of its shrillness,
Its song is indeed a little cascade of melody.

We again retraced our steps, rolling the stone, as
it were, back up the mountain, determined to com-
mit ourselves to the line of marked trees, These
we finally reached, and, after exploring the country
to the right, saw that bearing to the left was still
the order. The trail led up over a gentie rise of
ground, and in less than twenty minutes we were
in the woods I had passed through when I found
the lake. The error I had made was then plain;
we had come off the mountain a few paces too far
to the right, and so had passed down on the wrong
side of the ridge, into what we afterwards learned
was the valley of Alder Creek.

‘We now made good time, and before many minutes
I again saw the mimic sky glance through the trees.
As we approached the lake a solitary woodchuck,
the first wild animal we had seen since entering the
178 WAKE-ROBIN

woods, sat crouched upon the root of a tree a few
feet from the water, apparently completely non-
plussed by the unexpected appearance of danger on
the land side. All retreat was cut off, and he
looked ‘his fate in the face without flinching. I
slaughtered him just as a savage would have done,
and from the same motive, —I wanted his carcass
to eat.

The mid-afternoon sun was now shining upon
the lake, and a low, steady breeze drove the little
waves rocking to the shore. A herd of cattle were
browsing on the other side, and the bell of the
leader sounded across the water. In these solitudes
its clang was wild and musical.

To try the trout was the first thing in order. |
On a rude raft of logs which we found moored at.
the shore, and which with two aboard shipped about 1
a foot of water, we floated out and wet our first fly,
in Thomas’s Lake; but the trout refused to jump, |
and, to be frank, not more than a dozen and a half
were caught during our stay. Only a week pre-
vious, a party of three had taken in a few hours all
the fish they could carry out of the woods, and had
nearly surfeited their neighbors with trout. But
from some cause they now refused to rise, or to
touch any kind of bait: so we fell to catching the
sunfish, which were small but very abundant. Their
nests were all along shore. A space about the size
of a breakfast-plate was cleared of sediment and
decayed vegetable matter, revealing the pebbly bot-
tom, fresh and bright, with one or two fish suspended
BIRCH BROWSINGS 179

over the centre of it, keeping watch and ward. If
an intruder approached, they would dart at him
spitefully. These fish have the air of bantam cocks,
and, with their sharp, prickly fins and spines and
scaly sides, must be ugly customers in a hand-to-
hand encounter with other finny warriors. To a
hungry man they look about as unpromising as hem-
lock slivers, so thorny and thin are they; yet there
is sweet meat in them, as we found that day.

Much refreshed, I set out with the sun low in
the west to explore the outlet of the lake and try
for trout there, while my companions made further
trials in the lake itself. The outlet, as is usual
in bodies of water of this kind, was very gentle and
private. The stream, six or eight feet wide, flowed
silently and evenly along for a distance of three or
four rods, when it suddenly, as if conscious of its
freedom, took a leap down some rocks. Thence, as
far as I followed it, its descent was very rapid
through a continuous succession of brief falls like
so many steps down the mountain. Its appearance
promised more trout than I found, though I re-
turned to camp with a very respectable string.

Toward sunset I went round to explore the inlet,
and found that as usual the stream wound leisurely
through marshy ground. The water being much
colder than in the outlet, the trout were more plen-
tiful. As I was picking my way over the miry ,
ground and through the rank growths, a ruffed |
grouse hopped up on a fallen branch a few paces
before me, and, jerking his tail, threatened to take }
180 WAKE-—ROBIN

flight. But as I was at that moment gunless and
remained stationary, he presently jumped down and
walked away.

A seeker of birds, and ever on the alert for
some new acquaintance, my attention was arrested,
on first entering the swamp, by a bright, lively
song, or warble, that issued from the branches over-
head, and that was entirely new to me, though
there was something in the tone of it that told me
the bird was related to the wood-wagtail and to the
water-wagtail or thrush. The strain was emphatic
and quite loud, like the canary’s, but very brief.
The bird kept itself well secreted in the upper
branches of the trees, and for a long time eluded my
eye. I passed to and fro several times, and it
seemed to break out afresh as I approached a cer-
tain little bend in the creek, and to cease after I
had got beyond it; no doubt its nest was somewhere
in the vicinity. After some delay the bird was
sighted and brought down. It proved to be the
small, or northern, water-thrush (called also the New
York water-thrush), —a new bird to me. In size it
was noticeably smaller than the large, or Louisiana,
water-thrush, as described by Audubon, but in other
respects its general appearance was the same. It
was a great treat to me, and again I felt myself in
luck.

This bird was unknown to the older ornitholo-
gists, and is but poorly described by the new. It
builds a mossy nest on the ground, or under the
edge of a decayed log. A correspondent writes me
BIRCH BROWSINGS 181

that he has found it breeding on the mountains
in Pennsylvania. The large-billed water-thrush is
much the superior songster, but the present species
has a very bright and cheerful strain. The speci-
men I saw, contrary to the habits of the family,
kept in the treetops like a warbler, and seemed to
be engaged in catching insects.

The birds were unusually plentiful and noisy
about the head of this lake; robins, blue jays, and
woodpeckers greeted me with their familiar notes.
The blue jays found an owl or some wild animal a
short distance above me, and, as is their custom on
such occasions, proclaimed it at the top of their
voices, and kept on till the darkness began to gather
in the woods.

I also heard here, as I had at two or three other
points in the course of the day, the peculiar, reso-
nant hammering of some species of woodpecker upon
the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of
the kind I had ever before heard, and, repeated
at intervals through the silent woods, was a very
marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiarity
was the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it
the character of a premeditated performance. There
were first three strokes following each other rapidly,
then two much louder ones with longer intervals
between them. JI heard the drumming here,
and the next day at sunset at Furlow Lake, the
source of Dry Brook, and in no instance was the
order varied. There was melody in it, such as a
woodpecker knows how to evoke from a smooth,
182 WAKE-ROBIN

dry branch. It suggested something quite as pleas-
ing as the liveliest bird-song, and was if anything
more woodsy and wild. As the yellow-bellied wood-
pecker was the most abundant species in these
woods, I attributed it to him. It is the one sound
that still links itself with those scenes in my mind.

At sunset the grouse began to drum in all parts
of the woods about the lake. I could hear five at
one time, thump, thump, thump, thump, thr-r-r-
r-r-r-rr, Jt was a homely, welcome sound. As I
returned to camp at twilight, along the shore of the
lake, the frogs also were in full chorus. The older
ones ripped out their responses to each other with
terrific force and volume. I know of no other ani-
mal capable of giving forth so much sound, in pro-
portion to its size, as a frog. Some of these seemed
to bellow as loud as a two-year-old bull. They
were of immense size, and very abundant. No
frog-eater had ever been there. Near the shore we
felled a tree which reached far out in the lake.
Upon the trunk and branches the frogs had soon
collected in large numbers, and gamboled and
splashed about the half-submerged top, like a parcel
of schoolboys, making nearly as much noise.

After dark, as I was frying the fish, a panful of
the largest trout was accidentally capsized in the
fire. With rueful countenances we contemplated
the irreparable loss our commissariat had sustained
by this mishap; but remembering there was virtue
in ashes, we poked the half-consumed fish from the
bed of coals and ate them, and they were good.
BIRCH BROWSINGS 183

We lodged that night on a brush-heap and slept
soundly. The green, yielding beech-twigs, covered
with a buffalo robe, were equal to a hair mattress.
The heat and smoke from a large fire kindled in the
afternoon had banished every ‘‘no-see-em” from
the locality, and in the morning the sun was above
the mountain before we awoke.

I immediately started again for the inlet, and
went far up the stream toward its source. A fair
string of trout for breakfast was my reward. The
cattle with the bell were at the head of the valley,
where they had passed the night. Most of them
were two-year-old steers. They came up to me and
begged for salt, and scared the fish by their impor-
tunities.

We finished our bread that morning, and ate
every fish we could catch, and about ten o’clock
prepared to leave the lake. The weather had been
admirable, and the lake was a gem, and I would
gladly have spent a week in the neighborhood; but
the question of supplies was a serious one, and
would brook no delay.

When we reached, on our return, the point where
we had crossed the line of marked trees the day
before, the question arose whether we should still
trust ourselves to this line, or follow our own trail
back to the spring and the battlement of rocks on
the top of the mountain, and thence to the rock
where the guide had left us. We decided in favor
of the former course. After a march of three
quarters of an hour the blazed trees ceased, and we
184 WAKE-ROBIN

concluded we were near the point at which we had
parted with the guide. So we built a fire, laid
down our loads, and cast about on all sides for some
clew as to our exact locality. Nearly an hour was
consumed in this manner and without any result.
I came upon a brood of young grouse, which di-
verted me for a moment. ‘The old one blustered
about at a furious rate, trying to draw all attention
to herself, while the young ones, which were un-
able to fly, hid themselves. She whined like a dog
in great distress, and dragged herself along appar-
ently with the greatest difficulty. As I pursued
her, she ran very nimbly, and presently flew a few
yards. Then, as I went on, she flew farther and
farther each time, till at last she got up, and went
humming through the woods as if she had no inter-
est in them. I went back and caught one of the
young, which had simply squatted close to the
leaves. I took it up and set it on the palm of my
hand, which it hugged as closely as if still upon the
ground. I then put it in my coatsleeve, when it
ran and nestled in my armpit.

When we met at the sign of the smoke, opinions
differed as to the most feasible course. There was
no doubt but that we could get out of the woods;
but we wished to get out speedily, and as near as
possible to the point where we had entered. Half
ashamed of our timidity and indecision, we finally
tramped away back to where we had crossed the line
of blazed trees, followed our old trail to the spring
on the top of the range, and, after much searching
BIRCH BROWSINGS 185

and scouring to the right and left, found ourselves
at the very place we had left two hours before.
Another deliberation and a divided council. But
something must be done. It was then mid-after-
noon, and the prospect of spending another night
on the mountains, without food or drink, was not
pleasant. So we moved down the ridge. Here
another line of marked trees was found, the course
of which formed an obtuse angle with the one we
had followed. It kept on the top of the ridge for
perhaps a mile, when it entirely disappeared, and
we were as much adrift as ever. Then one of the
party swore an oath, and said he was going out of
those woods, hit or miss, and, wheeling to the right,
instantly plunged over the brink of the mountain.
The rest followed, but would fain have paused and
ciphered away at their own uncertainties, to see if
a certainty could not be arrived at as to where we
would come out. But our bold leader was solving
the problem in the right way. Down and down
and still down we went, as if we were to bring up
in the bowels of the earth. It was by far the
steepest descent we had made, and we felt a grim
satisfaction in knowing that we could not retrace
our steps this time, be the issue what it might. As
we paused on the brink of a ledge of rocks, we
chanced to see through the trees distant cleared
land. A house or barn also was dimly descried.
This was encouraging; but we could not make out
whether it was on Beaver Kill or Mill Brook or
Dry Brook, and did not long stop to consider where
186 WAKE-ROBIN

it was. We at last brought up at the bottom of a
deep gorge, through which flowed a rapid creek that
literally swarmed with trout. But we were in no
mood to catch them, and pushed on along the chan-
nel of the stream, sometimes leaping from rock to
rock, and sometimes splashing heedlessly through
the water, and speculating the while as to where
we should probably come out. On the Beaver Kill,
my companions thought; but, from the position of
the sun, I said, on the Mill Brook, about six miles
below our team; for I remembered having seen, in
coming up this stream, a deep, wild valley that led
up into the mountains, like this one. Soon the
banks of the stream became lower, and we moved
into the’ woods. Here we entered upon an obscure
wood-road, which presently conducted us into the
midst of a vast hemlock forest. The land had a
gentle slope, and we wondered why the lumbermen
and barkmen who prowl through these woods had
left this fine tract untouched. Beyond this the
forest was mostly birch and maple.

‘We were now close to the settlement, and began
to hear human sounds. One rod more, and we
were out of the woods. It took us a moment to
comprehend the scene. Things looked very strange
at first; but quickly they began to change and to
put on familiar features. Some magic scene-shift-
ing seemed to take place before my eyes, till, in-
stead of the unknown settlement which I at first
seemed to look upon, there stood the farmhouse at
which we had stopped two days before, and at the
BIRCH BROWSINGS 187

same moment we heard the stamping of our team in
the barn. We sat down and laughed heartily over
our good luck. Our desperate venture had resulted
better than we had dared to hope, and had shamed
our wisest plans. At the house our arrival had
been anticipated about this time, and dinner was
being put upon the table.

It was then five o’clock, so that we had been in
the woods just forty-eight hours; but if time is only
phenomenal, as the philosophers say, and life only
in feeling, as the poets aver, we were some months,
if not years, older at that moment than we had been
two days before. Yet younger, too, — though this
be a paradox, —for the birches had infused into us
some of their own suppleness and strength.

1866.
VII
THE BLUEBIRD

"WyHes Nature made the bluebird she wished
to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so
she gave him the color of the one on his back and
the hue of the other on his breast, and ordained
that his appearance in spring should denote that the
strife and war between these two elements was at
an end. He is the peace-harbinger; in him the
celestial and terrestrial strike hands and are fast
friends. He means the furrow and he means the
warmth; he means all the soft, wooing influences
of the spring on the one hand, and the retreating
footsteps of winter on the other.

It is sure to be a bright March morning when
you first hear his note; and it is as if the milder in-
fluences up above had found a voice and let a word
fall upon your ear, so tender is it and so prophetic,
a hope tinged with a regret.

“ Bermuda! Bermuda! Bermuda!” he seems
to say, as if both invoking and lamenting, and,
behold! Bermuda follows close, though the little
pilgrim may be only repeating the tradition of his
race, himself having come only from Florida, the
Carolinas, or even from Virginia, where he has
190 WAKE-ROBIN

found his Bermuda on some broad sunny hillside
thickly studded with cedars and persimmon-trees.

In New York and in New England the sap starts
up in the sugar maple the very day the bluebird
arrives, and sugar-making begins forthwith. The
bird is generally a mere disembodied voice; a rumor
in the air for two or three days before it takes visi-
ble shape before you. The males are the pioneers,
and come several days in advance of the females.
By the time both are here and the pair have begun
to prospect for a place to nest, sugar-making is
over, the last vestige of snow has disappeared, and
the plow is brightening its mould-board in the new
furrow.

The bluebird enjoys the preéminence of being the
first bit of color that cheers our northern landscape.
The other birds that arrive about the same time —
the sparrow, the robin, the phcebe-bird—are clad
in neutral tints, -gray, brown, or russet; but the
bluebird brings one of the primary hues and the
divinest of them all.

This bird also has the distinction of answering
very nearly to the robin redbreast of English mem-
ory, and was by the early settlers of New England
christened the blue robin.

It is a size or two larger, and the ruddy hue of
its breast does not verge so nearly on an orange, but
the manners and habits of the two birds are very
much alike. Our bird has the softer voice, but
the English redbreast is much the more skilled
musician, He has indeed a fine, animated warble,
THE BLUEBIRD 191

heard nearly the year through about English gar-
dens and along the old hedge-rows, that is quite
beyond the compass of our bird’s instrument. On
the other hand, our bird is associated with the
spring as the British species cannot be, being a
winter resident also, while the brighter sun and sky
of, the New World have given him a coat that far
surpasses that of his transatlantic cousin.

It is worthy of remark that among British birds
there is no blue bird. The cerulean tint seems
much rarer among the feathered tribes there than
here. On this continent there are at least three
species of the common bluebird, while in all our
woods there is the blue jay and the indigo-bird, —
the latter so intensely blue as to fully justify its
name. ‘There is also the blue grosbeak, not much
behind the indigo-bird in intensity of color; and
among our warblers the blue tint is very common.

It is interesting to know that the bluebird is not
confined to any one section of the country; and that
when one goes West he will still have this favorite
with him, though a little changed in voice and
color, just enough to give variety without marring
the identity.

The Western bluebird is considered a distinct spe-
cies, and is perhaps a little more brilliant and showy
than its Eastern brother; and Nuttall thinks its
song is more varied, sweet, and tender. Its color
approaches to ultramarine, while it has a sash of
chestnut-red across its shoulders, — all the effects, I
suspect, of that wonderful air and sky of California,
192 WAKE-ROBIN

and of those great Western plains; or, if one goes a
little higher up into the mountainous regions of the
West, he finds the Arctic bluebird, the ruddy brown
on the breast changed to greenish blue, and the
wings longer and more pointed; in other respects
not differing much from our species.

The bluebird usually builds its nest in a hole in
a stump or stub, or in an old cavity excavated by a
woodpecker, when such can be had; but its first
impulse seems to be to start in the world in much
more style, and the happy pair make a great show
of house-hunting about the farm buildings, now half
persuaded to appropriate a dove-cote, then discussing
in a lively manner a last year’s swallow’s nest, or
proclaiming with much flourish and flutter that they
have taken the wren’s house, or the tenement of
the purple martin; till finally nature becomes too
urgent, when all this pretty make-believe ceases,
and most of them settle back upon the old family
stumps and knotholes in remote fields, and go to
work in earnest,

In such situations the female is easily captured
by approaching very stealthily and covering the
entrance to the nest. The bird seldom makes any
effort to escape, seeing how hopeless the case is,
and keeps her place on the nest till she feels your
hand closing around her. I have looked down into
the cavity and seen the poor thing palpitating with
fear and looking up with distended eyes, but never
moving till I had withdrawn a few paces; then she
tushes out with a cry that brings the male on the
THE BLUEBIRD 193

scene in a hurry. He warbles and lifts his wings
beseechingly, but shows no anger or disposition to
scold and complain like most birds. Indeed, this \
bird seems incapable of uttering a harsh note, or ae
doing a spiteful, ill-tempered thing.

The ground-builders all have some art or device
to decoy one away from the nest, affecting lameness,
a crippled wing, or a broken back, promising an
easy capture if pursued. The tree-builders depend
upon concealing the nest or placing it beyond reach.
But the bluebird has no art either way, and its nest
is easily found.

About the only enemies the sitting bird or the
nest is in danger of are snakes and squirrels. I
knew of a farm-boy who was in the habit of putting
his hand down into a bluebird’s nest and taking out
the old bird whenever he came that way. One day
he put his hand in, and, feeling something peculiar,
withdrew it hastily, when it was instantly followed
by the head and neck of an enormous black snake.
The boy took to his heels and the snake gave chase,
pressing him close till a plowman near by came to
the rescue with his ox-whip.

There never was a happier or more devoted hus-
band than the male bluebird is. But among nearly
all our familiar birds the serious cares of life seem
to devolve almost entirely upon the female. The
male is hilarious and demonstrative, the female ‘
serious and anxious about her charge. The male is
the attendant of the female, following her wherever |
she goes. He never leads, never directs, but only |
194 WAKE-ROBIN
i

i

seconds and applauds. If his life is all poetry and |
\ \
J |

romance, hers is all business and prose. She has
no pleasure but her duty, and no duty but to look
after her nest and brood. She shows no affection
for the male, no pleasure in his society; she only
tolerates him as a necessary evil, and, if he is
killed, goes in quest of another in the most busi-
ness-like manner, as you would go for the plumber
or the glazier. In most cases the male is the or-
namental partner in the firm, and contributes little
of the working capital. There seems to be more
equality of the sexes among the woodpeckers, wrens,
and swallows; while the contrast is greatest, per-
haps, in the bobolink family, where the courting is
done in the Arab fashion, the female fleeing with all
her speed and the male pursuing with equal precipi-
tation; and were it not for the broods of young birds
that appear, it would be hard to believe that the in-
tercourse ever ripened into anything more intimate.

With the bluebirds the male is useful as well as
ornamental. He is the gay champion and escort of
the female at all times, and while she is sitting he
feeds her regularly. It is very pretty to watch
them building their nest. The male is very active
in hunting out a place and exploring the boxes and
cavities, but seems to have no choice in the matter
and is anxious only to please and encourage his
mate, who has the practical turn and knows what
will do and what will not. After she has suited
herself he applauds her immensely, and away the
two go in quest of material for the nest, the male
THE BLUEBIRD 195

acting as guard and flying above and in advance of
the female. She brings all the material and does
all the work of building, he looking on and encour-
aging her with gesture and song. He acts also as
inspector of her work, but I fear is a very partial
one. She enters the nest with her bit of dry grass
or straw, and, having adjusted it to her notion, with-
draws and waits near by while he goes in and looks
it over. On coming out he exclaims very plainly,
“ Excellent! excellent!” and away the two go
again for more material.

The bluebirds, when they build about the farm
buildings, sometimes come in conflict with the swal-
lows. The past season I knew a pair to take forci-
ble possession of the domicile of a pair of the latter,
—the cliff species that now stick their nests under
the eaves of the barn. The bluebirds had been
broken up in a little bird-house near by, by the rats
or perhaps a weasel, and being no doubt in a bad
humor, and the season being well advanced, they
made forcible entrance into the adobe tenement of
their neighbors, and held possession of it for some
days, but I believe finally withdrew, rather than
live amid such a squeaky, noisy colony. I have
heard that these swallows, when ejected from their
homes in that way by the phoebe-bird, have been
known to fall to and mason up the entrance to the
nest while their enemy was inside of it, thus having
a revenge as complete and cruel as anything in
human annals.

The bluebirds and the house wrens more fre-
196 WAKE-ROBIN

quently come into collision. A few years ago I
put up a little bird-house in the back end of my
garden for the accommodation of the wrens, and
every season a pair have taken up their abode there.
One spring a pair of bluebirds looked into the tene-
ment and lingered about several days, leading me
to hope that they would conclude to occupy it.
But they finally went away, and later in the season
the wrens appeared, and, after a little coquetting,
were regularly installed in their old quarters and
were as happy as only wrens can be.

One of our younger poets, Myron Benton, saw a
little bird

“Ruffled with whirlwind of his ecstasies,”’

which must have been the wren, as I know of no
other bird that so throbs and palpitates with music
as this little vagabond. And the pair I speak of
seemed exceptionably happy, and the male had a
small tornado of song in his crop that kept him
“ruffled” every moment in the day. But before
their honeymoon was over the bluebirds returned.
I knew something was wrong before I was up in
the morning. Instead of that voluble and gushing
song outside the window, I heard the wrens scold-
ing and crying at a fearful rate, and on going out
saw the bluebirds in possession of the box. The
poor wrens were in despair; they wrung their hands
and tore their hair, after the wren fashion, but
chiefly did they rattle out their disgust and wrath
at the intruders. I have no doubt that, if it could
THE BLUEBIRD 197

have been interpreted, it would have proven the
rankest and most voluble Billingsgate ever uttered.
For the wren is saucy, and he has a tongue in his
head that can outwag any other tongue known to me.

The bluebirds said nothing, but the male kept an
eye on Mr. Wren; and, when he came too near,
gave chase, driving him to cover under the fence,
or under a rubbish-heap or other object, where the
wren would scold and rattle away, while his pursuer
sat on the fence or the pea-brush waiting for him to
reappear.

Days passed, and the usurpers prospered and the
outcasts were wretched; but the latter lingered
about, watching and abusing their enemies, and
hoping, no doubt, that things would take a turn,
as they presently did. The outraged wrens were
fully avenged. The mother bluebird had laid her
full complement of eggs and was beginning to set,
when one day, as her mate was perched above her
on the barn, along came a boy with one of those
wicked elastic slings and cut him down with a peb-
ble. There he lay like a bit of sky fallen upon the
grass. The widowed bird seemed to understand
what had happened, and without much ado disap-
peared next day in quest of another mate. How
she contrived to make her wants known, without
trumpeting them about, I am unable to say. But I
presume the birds have a way of advertising that
answers the purpose well. Maybe she trusted to
luck to fall in with some stray bachelor or bereaved
male who would undertake to console a widow of
e

198 WAKE-ROBIN

one day’s standing. I will say, in passing, that
there are no bachelors from choice among the birds;
they are all rejected suitors, while old maids are
entirely unknown. ‘There is a Jack to every Jill;
and some to boot.

The males, being more exposed by their song and
plumage, and by being the pioneers in migrating, |
seem to be slightly in excess lest the supply fall,
short, and hence it sometimes happens that a few
are bachelors perforce; there are not females enough:
to go around, but before the season is over there are
sure to be some vacancies in the marital ranks, .
which they are called on to fill.

In the mean time the wrens were beside them-
selves with delight; they fairly screamed with joy.
If the male was before “ruffled with whirlwind of
his ecstasies,” he was now in danger of being rent
asunder. He inflated his throat and caroled as
wren never caroled before. And the female, too,
how she cackled and darted about! How busy they
both were! Rushing into the nest, they hustled
those eggs out in less than a minute, wren time.
They carried in new material, and by the third day
were fairly installed again in their old quarters; but
on the third day, so rapidly are these little dramas
played, the female bluebird reappeared with another
mate. Ah! how the wren stock went down then!
What dismay and despair filled again those little
breasts! It was pitiful. They did not scold as
before, but after a day or two withdrew from the gar-
den, dumb with grief, and gave up the struggle.
THE BLUEBIRD 199

The bluebird, finding her eggs gone and her nest
changed, seemed suddenly seized with alarm and
shunned the box; or else, finding she had less need
for another husband than she thought, repented her
rashness and wanted to dissolve the compact. But
the happy bridegroom would not take the hint, and,
exerted all his eloquence to comfort and reassure
her. He was fresh and fond, and until this be-
reaved female found him I am sure his suit had not
prospered that season. He thought the box just
the thing, and that there was no need of alarm, and
spent days in trying to persuade the female back.
Seeing he could not be a stepfather to a family, he
was quite willing to assume a nearer relation. He
hovered about the box, he went in and out, he
called, he warbled, he entreated; the female would
respond occasionally and come and alight near, and
even peep into the nest, but would not enter it, and
quickly flew away again. Her mate would reluc-
tantly follow, but he was soon back, uttering the
most confident and cheering calls. If she did not
come he would perch above the nest and sound his
loudest notes over and over again, looking in the
direction of his mate and beckoning with every
motion. But she responded less and less frequently.
Some days I would see him only, but finally he gave
it up; the pair disappeared, and the box remained
deserted the rest of the summer.

1867.
Vir
THE INVITATION

you ago, when quite a youth, I was ram-

bling in the woods one Sunday, with my
brothers, gathering black birch, wintergreens, etc.,
when, as we reclined upon the ground, gazing
vaguely up into the trees, I caught sight of a bird,
that paused a moment on a branch above me, the
like of which I had never before seen or heard of.
It was probably the blue yellow-backed warbler, as
I have since found this to be a common bird in
those woods; but to my young fancy it seemed like
some fairy bird, so curiously marked was it, and so
new and unexpected. I saw it a moment as the
flickering leaves parted, noted the white spot on its
wing, and it was gone. How the thought of it
clung to me afterward! It was a revelation. It
was the first intimation I had had that the woods
we knew so well held birds that we knew not at all.
Were our eyes and ears so dull, then? There was
the robin, the blue jay, the bluebird, the yellow-
bird, the cherry-bird, the catbird, the chipping-
bird, the woodpecker, the high-hole, an occasional
redbird, and a few others, in the woods or along
their borders, but who ever dreamed that there were
202 WAKE-ROBIN

still others that not even the hunters saw, and
whose names no one had ever heard?

‘When, one summer day, later in life, I took my
gun and went to the woods again, in a different
though perhaps a less simple spirit, I found my
youthful vision more than realized. There were,
indeed, other birds, plenty of them, singing, nest-
ing, breeding, among the familiar trees, which I
had before passed by unheard and unseen.

It is a surprise that awaits every student of orni-
thology, and the thrill of delight that accompanies
it, and the feeling of fresh, eager inquiry that fol-
lows, can hardly be awakened by any other pursuit.
Take the first step in ornithology, procure one new
specimen, and you are ticketed for the whole voy-
age. There is a fascination about it quite overpow-
ering. It fits so well with other things, — with
fishing, hunting, farming, walking, camping-out, —
with all that takes one to the fields and woods.
One may go a blackberrying and make some rare dis-
covery; or, while driving his cow to pasture, hear a
new song, or make a new observation. Secrets lurk
on all sides. There is news in every bush. Ex-
pectation is ever on tiptoe. What no man ever
saw before may the next moment be revealed to
you. What a new interest the woods have! How
you long to explore every nook and corner of them!
You would even find consolation in being lost in
them. You could then hear the night birds and
the owls, and, in your wanderings, might stumble
upon some unknown specimen.
THE INVITATION 203

In all excursions to the woods or to the shore,
the student of ornithology has an advantage over
his companions. He has one more resource, one
more avenue of delight. He, indeed, kills two
birds with one stone and sometimes three. If
others wander, he can never go out of his way.
His game is everywhere. The cawing of a crow
makes him feel at home, while a new note or a new
song drowns all care. Audubon, on the desolate
coast, of Labrador, is happier than any king ever
was; and on shipboard is nearly cured of his sea-
sickness when a new gull appears in sight.

One must taste it to understand or appreciate its
fascination. The looker-on sees nothing to inspire
such enthusiasm. Only a little feathers and a half-
musical note or two; why all this ado? “Who
would give a hundred and twenty dollars to know
about the birds?” said an Eastern governor, half
contemptuously, to Wilson, as the latter solicited
a subscription to his great work. Sure enough.
Bought knowledge is dear at any price. The most
precious things have no commercial value. It is
not, your Excellency, mere technical knowledge of
the birds that you are asked to purchase, but a new
interest in the fields and woods, a new moral and
intellectual tonic, a new key to the treasure-house
of nature. Think of the many other things your
Excellency would get, —the air, the sunshine, the
healing fragrance and coolness, and the many re-
spites from the knavery and turmoil of political
life.
204 WAKE-ROBIN

Yesterday was an October day of rare brightness
and warmth. I spent the most of it in a wild,
wooded gorge of Rock Creek. A persimmon-tree
which stood upon the bank had dropped some of its
fruit in the water. As I stood there, half-leg deep,
picking them up, a wood duck came flying down
the creek and passed over my head. Presently it
returned, flying up; then it came back again, and,
sweeping low around a bend, prepared to alight in
a still, dark reach in the creek which was hidden
from my view. As I passed that way about half
an hour afterward, the duck started up, uttering its
wild alarm note. In the stillness I could hear the
whistle of its wings and the splash of the water
when it took flight. Near by I saw where a rac-
coon had come down to the water for fresh clams,
leaving his long, sharp track in the mud and sand.
Before I had passed this hidden stretch of water, a
pair of those mysterious thrushes, the gray-cheeked,
flew up from the ground and perched on a low
branch.
Who can tell how much this duck, this footprint
in the sand, and these strange thrushes from the
far north, enhanced the interest and charm of the
autumn woods?
{Ornithology cannot be satisfactorily learned from
\ the books. The satisfaction is in learning it from
/nature. One must have an original experience with
i the birds. The books are only the guide, the invi-
‘tation, Though there remain not another new spe-

cies to describe, any young person with health and
THE INVITATION 205

enthusiasm has open to him or her the whole field
anew, and is eligible to experience all the thrill and
delight of original discoverers.

But let me say, in the same breath, that the
books can by no manner of means be dispensed
with. A copy of Wilson or Audubon, for refer-

ence and to compare notes with, is invaluable. In ‘

lieu of these, access to some large museum or col-
lection would be a great help. In the beginning,
one finds it very difficult to identify a bird from
any verbal description. Reference to a colored
plate, or to a stuffed specimen, at once settles the
matter. This is the chief value of the books; they
are charts to sail by; the route is mapped out, and
much time and labor thereby saved. First find
your bird; observe its ways, its song, its calls, its
flight, its haunts; then shoot it (mot ogle it with a
glass), and compare with Audubon. In this way
the feathered kingdom may soon be conquered.

The ornithologists divide and subdivide the birds
into a great many orders, families, genera, species,
etc., which, at first sight, are apt to confuse and
discourage the reader. But any interested person
can acquaint himself with most of our song-birds
by keeping in mind a few general divisions, and
observing the characteristics of each. By far the
greater number of our land-birds are either warblers,
vireos, flycatchers, thrushes, or finches.

The warblers are, perhaps, the most puzzling.
These are the true Sylvia, the real wood-birds.
They are small, very active, but feeble songsters,

ola ee
206 WAKE-ROBIN

and, to be seen, must be sought for. In passing
through the woods, most persons have a vague con-
sciousness of slight chirping, semi-musical sounds
in the trees overhead. In most cases these sounds
proceed from the warblers. Throughout the Middle
and Eastern States, half a dozen species or so may
be found in almost every locality, as the redstart,
the Maryland yellow-throat, the yellow warbler
(not the common goldfinch, with black cap, and
black wings and tail), the hooded warbler, the black
and white creeping warbler; or others, according to
the locality and the character of the woods. In
pine or hemlock woods, one species may predomi-
nate; in maple or oak woods, or in mountainous
districts, another. The subdivision of ground war-
blers, the most common members of which are the
Maryland yellow-throat, the Kentucky warbler, and
the mourning ground warbler, are usually found in
low, wet, bushy, or half-open woods, often on and
always near the ground. The summer yellowbird,
or yellow warbler, is not now a wood-bird at all,
being found in orchards and parks, and along streams
and in the trees of villages and cities.

As we go north the number of warblers increases,
till, in the northern part of New England, and in
the Canadas, as many as ten or twelve varieties
may be found breeding in June. Audubon found
the black-poll warbler breeding in Labrador, and
congratulates himself on being the first white man
who had ever seen its nest. When these warblers
pass north in May, they seem to go singly or in
THE INVITATION 207

pairs, and their black caps and striped coats show
conspicuously. When they return in September
they are in troops or loose flocks, are of a uniform
dull drab or brindlish color, and are very fat. They
scour the treetops for a few days, almost eluding
the eye by their quick movements, and are gone.

According to my own observation, the number of
species of warblers which one living in the middle
districts sees, on their return in the fall, is very
small compared with the number he may observe
migrating north in the spring.

The yellow-rumped warblers are the most notice-
able of all in the autumn. They come about the
streets and garden, and seem especially drawn to
dry, leafless trees. They dart spitefully about,
uttering a sharp chirp. In Washington I have seen
them in the outskirts all winter.

Audubon figures and describes over forty differ-
ent warblers. More recent writers have divided
and subdivided the group very much, giving new
names to new classifications. But this part is of
interest and value only to the professional orni-
thologist.

The finest songster among the Sylvia, according
to my notions, is the black-throated greenback.
Its song is sweet and clear, but brief.

The rarest of the species are Swainson’s warbler,
said to be disappearing; the cerulean warbler, said
to be abundant about Niagara; and the mourning
ground warbler, which I have found breeding about
the head-waters of the Delaware, in New York.
208 WAKE-ROBIN

The vireos, or greenlets, are a sort of connecting
link between the warblers and the true flycatchers,
and partake of the characteristics of both.

The red-eyed vireo, whose sweet soliloquy is one
of the most constant and cheerful sounds in our
woods and groves, is perhaps the most noticeable
and abundant species. The vireos are a little larger
than the warblers, and are far less brilliant and
variegated in color.

There are five species found in most of our woods,
namely, the red-eyed vireo, the white-eyed vireo,
the warbling vireo, the yellow-throated vireo, and
the solitary vireo, —the red-eyed and warbling be-
ing most abundant, and the white-eyed being the
most lively and animated songster. I meet the lat-
ter bird only in the thick, bushy growths of low,
swampy localities, where, eluding the observer, it
pours forth its song with a sharpness and a rapidity
of articulation that are truly astonishing. This
strain is very marked, and, though inlaid with the
notes of several other birds, is entirely unique. The
iris of this bird is white, as that of the red-eyed is
red, though in neither case can this mark be distin-
guished at more than two or three yards. In most
cases the-iris of birds is a dark hazel, which passes
for black.

The basket-like nest, pendent to the low branches
in the woods, which the falling leaves of autumn
reveal to all passers, is, in most cases, the nest of
the red-eyed, though the solitary constructs a simi-
lar tenement, but in much more remote and secluded
localities.
THE INVITATION 209

Most birds exhibit great alarm and distress, usually
with a strong dash of anger, when you approach
their nests; but the demeanor of the red-eyed, on
such an occasion, is an exception to this rule. The
parent birds move about softly amid the branches
above, eying the intruder with a curious, innocent
look, uttering, now and then, a subdued note or
plaint, solicitous and watchful, but making no dem-
onstration of anger or distress.

The birds, no more than the animals, like to be
caught napping; but I remember, one autumn day,
of coming upon a red-eyed vireo that was clearly
oblivious to all that was passing around it. It was
a young bird, though full grown, and it was taking
its siesta on a low branch in a remote heathery
field. Its head was snugly stowed away under its
wing, and it would have fallen an easy prey to the
first hawk that came along. I approached noise-
lessly, and when within a few feet of it paused to
note its breathings, so much more rapid and full

than our own. A bird has greater lung capacity |

than any other living thing, hence more animal
heat, and life at a higher pressure. When I reached

out my hand and carefully closed it around the |
winged sleeper, its sudden terror and consternation |

almost paralyzed it. Then it struggled and cried
piteously, and when released hastened and hid itself
in some near bushes. I never expected to surprise
it thus a second time.

The flycatchers are a larger group than the vireos,
with stronger-marked characteristics. They are not
210 WAKE-ROBIN

properly songsters, but are classed by some writers
as sereechers. Their pugnacious dispositions are
well known, and they not only fight among them-
selves but are incessantly quarreling with their
neighbors. The kingbird, or tyrant flycatcher,
might serve as the type of the order.

The common or wood pewee excites the most
pleasant emotions, both on account of its plaintive
note and its exquisite mossy nest.

The phoebe-bird is the pioneer of the flycatchers,
and comes in April, sometimes in March. It comes
familiarly about the house and outbuildings, and
usually builds beneath hay-sheds or under bridges.

The flycatchers always take their insect prey on
the wing, by a sudden darting or swooping move-
ment; often a very audible snap of the beak may
be heard.

These birds are the least elegant, both in form
and color, of any of our feathered neighbors. They
have short legs, a short neck, large heads, and
broad, flat beaks, with bristles at the base. They
often fly with a peculiar quivering movement of
the wings, and when at rest some of the species
oscillate their tails at short intervals.

There are found in the United States nineteen
species. In the Middle and Eastern districts, one
may observe in summer, without any special search,
about five of them, namely, the kingbird, the
pheebe-bird, the wood pewee, the great crested fly-
catcher (distinguished from all others by the bright
ferruginous color of its tail), and the small green-
crested flycatcher.
THE INVITATION 211

The thrushes are the birds of real melody, and
will afford one more delight perhaps than any other
class. The robin is the most familiar example.
Their manners, flight, and form are the same in
each species. See the robin hop along upon the
ground, strike an attitude, scratch for a worm, fix
his eye upon something before him or upon the
beholder, flip his wings suspiciously, fly straight to
his perch, or sit at sundown on some high branch
caroling his sweet and honest strain, and you have
seen what is characteristic of all the thrushes.
Their carriage is preéminently marked by grace,
and their songs by melody.

Beside the robin, which is in no sense a wood-
bird, we have in New York the wogd thrush, the
hermit thrush, the veery, or Wilson’s thrush, the
olive-backed thrush, and, transiently, one or two
other species not so clearly defined.

The wood thrush and the hermit stand at the
head as songsters, no two persons, perhaps, agree-
ing as to which is the superior.

Under the general head of finches, Audubon de-
scribes over sixty different birds, ranging from the
sparrows to the grosbeaks, and including the bunt-
ings, the linnets, the snowbirds, the crossbills, and
the redbirds.

We have nearly or quite a dozen varieties of the
sparrow in the Atlantic States, but perhaps no more
than half that number would be discriminated by
the unprofessional observer. The song sparrow,
which every child knows, comes first; at least, his.
212 WAKE-—ROBIN

voice is first heard. And can there be anything
more fresh and pleasing than this first simple strain
heard from the garden fence or a near hedge, on
some bright, still March morning?

The field or vesper sparrow, called also grass
finch and bay-winged sparrow, a bird slightly
larger than the song sparrow and of a lighter gray
color, is abundant in all our upland fields and pas-
tures, and is a very sweet songster. It builds upon
the ground, without the slightest cover or protec-
tion, and also roosts there. Walking through the
fields at dusk, I frequently start them up almost
beneath my feet. When disturbed by day, they fly
with a quick, sharp movement, showing two white
quills in the tail. The traveler along the coun-
try roads disturbs them earthing their wings in the
soft dry earth, or sees them skulking and flitting
along the fences in front of him. They run in
the furrow in advance of the team, or perch upon
the stones a few rods off. They sing much after
sundown, hence the aptness of the name vesper
sparrow, which a recent writer, Wilson Flagg, has
bestowed upon them.

In the meadows and low, wet lands the savanna
sparrow is met with, and may be known by its fine,
insect-like song; in the swamp, the swamp sparrow.

The fox sparrow, the largest and handsomest spe-
cies of this family, comes to us in the fall, from
the North, where it breeds. Likewise the tree or
Canada sparrow, and the white-crowned and white-
throated sparrows.
THE INVITATION 213

The social sparrow, alias “hairbird,” alias “red-
headed chipping-bird,” is the smallest of the spar-
rows, and, I believe, the only one that builds in
trees.

The finches, as a class, all have short conical
bills, with tails more or less forked. The purple
finch heads the list in varied musical ability.

Beside the groups of our more familiar birds
which I have thus hastily outlined, there are numer-
ous other groups, more limited in specimens but
comprising some of our best known songsters. The
bobolink, for instance, has properly no congener.
The famous mockingbird of the Southern States
belongs to a genus which has but two other repre-
sentatives in the Atlantic States, namely, the cat-
bird and the long-tailed or ferruginous thrush.

The wrens are a large and interesting family, and
as songsters are noted for vivacity and volubility.
The more common species are the house wren, the
marsh wren, the great Carolina wren, and the winter
wren, the latter perhaps deriving its name from the
fact that it breeds in the North. It is an exquisite
songster, and pours forth its notes so rapidly, and
with such sylvan sweetness and cadence, that it
seems to go off like a musical alarm.

Wilson called the kinglets wrens, but they have
little to justify the name, except that the ruby-
crown’s song is of the same gushing, lyrical charac-
ter as that referred to above. Dr. Brewer was en-
tranced with the song of one of these tiny minstrels
in the woods of New Brunswick, and thought he
214 WAKE-ROBIN

had found the author of the strain in the black-poll
warbler. He seems loath to believe that a bird so
small as either of the kinglets could possess such
vocal powers. It may indeed have been the winter
wren, but from my own observation I believe the
ruby-crowned kinglet quite capable of such a perform-
ance.

But I must leave this part of the subject and ,
hasten on. “As to works on ornithology, Audu-
bon’s, though its expense puts it beyond the reac
of the mass of readers, is by far the most full and
accurate. His drawings surpass all others in accu+
racy and spirit, while his enthusiasm and devotion
to the work he had undertaken have but few paral-
lels in the history of science. His chapter on the
wild goose is as good as a poem. One readily over-
looks his style, which is often verbose and affected,
in consideration of enthusiasm so genuine and pur-
pose so single. ;

There has never been a keener eye than Audu-
bon’s, though there have been more discriminative
ears. Nuttall, for instance, is far more happy in
his descriptions of the songs and notes of birds, and
more to be relied upon. / Audubon thinks the song
of the Louisiana water-thrush equal to that of the
European nightingale, and, as he had heard both
birds, one would think was prepared to judge. Yet
he has, no doubt, overrated the one and underrated
the other. The song of the water-thrush is very
brief, compared with the philomel’s, and its quality
is brightness and vivacity, while that of the latter
THE INVITATION 215

bird, if the books are to be credited, is melody and
harmony. Again, he says the song of the blue
grosbeak resembles the bobolink’s, which it does
about as much as the color of the two birds resem-
bles each other; one is black and white and the
other is blue. The song of the wood-wagtail, he
says, consists of a ‘‘short succession of simple notes
beginning with emphasis and gradually falling.”
The truth is they run up the scale instead of down,
beginning low and ending in a shriek.

Yet, considering the extent of Audubon’s work,
the wonder is the errors are so few. I can at this
moment recall but one observation of his, the con-
trary of which I have proved to be true. In his
account of the bobolink he makes a point of the fact
that, in returning south in the fall, they do not
travel by night as they do when moving north in
the spring. In Washington I have heard their calls
as they flew over at night for four successive au-
tumns. As he devoted the whole of a long life to
the subject, and figured and described over four
hundred species, one feels a real triumph on finding
in our common woods a bird not described in his
work. I have seen but two. Walking in the
woods one day in early fall, in the vicinity of West
Point, I started up a thrush that was sitting on the
ground. It alighted on a branch a few yards off,
and looked new to me. I thought I had never
before seen so long-legged a thrush. I shot it, and
saw that it was a new acquaintance. Its peculiarities
were its broad, square tail; the length of its legs,
216 WAKE-ROBIN

which were three and three quarters inches from
the end of the middle toe to the hip-joint; and the
deep uniform olive-brown of the upper parts, and
the gray of the lower. It proved to be the gray-
cheeked thrush, named and first described by Pro-
fessor Baird. But little seems to be known con-
cerning it, except that it breeds in the far north,
even on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. I would
go a good way to hear its song.

The present season I met with a pair of them
near Washington, as mentioned above. In size
this bird approaches the wood thrush, being larger
than either the hermit or the veery; unlike all
other species, no part of its plumage has a tawny
or yellowish tinge. The other specimen was the
northern or small water-thrush, cousin-german to
the oven- bird and half brother to the Louisiana
water-thrush or wagtail. J found it at the head of
a remote mountain lake among the sources of the
Delaware, where it evidently had a nest. It usually
breeds much farther north. It has a strong, clear
warble, which at once suggests the song of its con-
gener. JI have not been able to find any account of
this particular species in the books, though it seems
to be well known.

More recent writers and explorers have added to
Audubon’s list over three hundred new species, the
greater number of which belong to the northern
and western parts of the continent. Audubon’s
observations were confined mainly to the Atlantic
and Gulf States and the adjacent islands; hence the
THE INVITATION 217

Western or Pacific birds were but little known to
him, and are only briefly mentioned in his works.

It is, by the way, a little remarkable how many
of the Western birds seem merely duplicates of the
Eastern. Thus, the varied thrush of the West is
our robin, a little differently marked; and the red-
shafted woodpecker is our golden-wing, or high-
hole, colored red instead of yellow. There is also
a Western chickadee, a Western chewink, a West-
ern blue jay, a Western meadowlark, a Western
snowbird, a Western bluebird, a Western song spar-
row, Western grouse, quail, hen-hawk, etc.

One of the most remarkable birds of the West
seems to be a species of skylark, met with on the
plains of Dakota, which mounts to the height of
three or four hundred feet, and showers down its
ecstatic notes. It is evidently akin to several of
our Eastern species.

A correspondent, writing to me from the country
one September, said: “I have observed recently a
new species of bird here. They alight upon the
buildings and fences as well as upon the ground.
They are walkers.” In a few days he obtained
one, and sent me the skin. It proved to be what
I had anticipated, namely, the American pipit, or
titlark, a slender brown bird, about the size of the
sparrow, which passes through the States in the fall
and spring, to and from its breeding haunts in the
far north, They generally appear by twos and
threes, or in small loose flocks, searching for food
on banks and plowed ground. As they fly up, they
218 WAKE-ROBIN

show two or three white quills in the tail, like the
vesper sparrow. Flying over, they utter a single
chirp or cry every few rods. They breed in the
bleak, moss-covered rocks of Labrador. It is re-
ported that their eggs have also been found in Ver-
mont, and I feel quite certain that I saw this bird
in the Adirondack Mountains in the month of
August. The male launches into the air, and gives
forth a brief but melodious song, after the manner
of all larks. They are walkers. This is a charac-
teristic of but few of our land-birds. By far the
greater number are hoppers. Note the track of the
common snowbird; the feet are not placed one in
front of the other, as in the track of the crow or
partridge, but side and side. The sparrows, thrushes,
warblers, woodpeckers, buntings, etc., are all hop-
pers. On the other hand, all aquatic or semi-aquatic
birds are walkers. The plovers and sandpipers and
snipes run rapidly. Among the land-birds, the
grouse, pigeons, quails, larks, and various blackbirds
walk. The swallows walk, also, whenever they use
their feet at all, but very awkwardly. The larks
walk with ease and grace. Note the meadowlark
strutting about all day in the meadows.

Besides being walkers, the larks, or birds allied
to the larks, all sing upon the wing, usually poised or
circling in the air, with a hovering, tremulous flight.
The meadowlark occasionally does this in the early
part of the season. At such times its long-drawn
note or whistle becomes a rich, amorous warble.

The bobolink, also, bas both characteristics, and,
THE INVITATION 219

notwithstanding the difference of form and build,
etc., is very suggestive of the English skylark, as
it figures in the books, and is, no doubt, fully its
equal as a songster.

Of our small wood-birds we have three varieties
east of the Mississippi, closely related to each other,
which I have already spoken of, and which walk,
and sing, more or less, on the wing, namely, the
two species of water-thrush or wagtails, and the
oven-bird or wood-wagtail. The latter is the most
common, and few observers of the birds can have
failed to notice its easy, gliding walk. Its other
lark trait, namely, singing in the air, seems not to
have been observed by any naturalist. Yet it is
a well-established characteristic, and may be verified
by any person who will spend a half hour in the
woods where this bird abounds on some June after-
noon or evening. I hear it very frequently after
sundown, when the ecstatic singer can hardly be
distinguished against the sky. I know of a high,
bald-top mountain where I have sat late in the after-
noon and heard them as often as one every minute.
Sometimes the bird would be far below me, some-
times near at hand; and very frequently the singer
would be hovering a hundred feet above the sum-
mit. He would start from the trees on one side of
the open space, reach his climax in the air, and
plunge down on the other side. Its descent after
the song is finished is very rapid, and precisely like
that of the titlark when it sweeps down from its
course to alight on the ground.

J
220 WAKE-ROBIN

I first verified this observation some years ago.
I had long been familiar with the song, but had
only strongly suspected the author of it, when, as I
was walking in the woods one evening, just as the
leaves were putting out, I saw one of these birds
but a few rods from me. I was saying to myself,
half audibly, ‘Come, now, show off, if it is you;
I have come to the woods expressly to settle this
point,” when it began to ascend, by short hops and
flights, through the branches, uttering a sharp, pre-
liminary chirp. I followed it with my eye; saw
it mount into the air and circle over the woods; and
saw it sweep down again and dive through the
trees, almost to the very perch from which it had
started.

As the paramount question in the life of a bird
is the question of food, perhaps the most serious
troubles our feathered neighbors encounter are early |
in the spring, after the supply of fat with which:
Nature stores every corner and by-place of the sys-
tem, thereby anticipating the scarcity of food, has’
been exhausted, and the sudden and severe changes
in the weather which occur at this season make
unusual demands upon their vitality. No doubt
many of the earlier birds die from starvation and
exposure at this season. Among a troop of Canada
sparrows which I came upon one March day, all of
them evidently much reduced, one was so feeble
that I caught it in my hand.

During the present season, a very severe cold
spell the first week in March drove the bluebirds
THE INVITATION 221

to seek shelter about the houses and outbuildings.
As night approached, and the winds and the cold
increased, they seemed filled with apprehension and
alarm, and in the outskirts of the city came about
the windows and doors, crept behind the blinds,
clung to the gutters and beneath the cornice, flitted
from porch to porch, and from house to house,
seeking in vain for some safe retreat from the cold.
The street pump, which had a small opening just
over the handle, was an attraction which they could
not resist, And yet they seemed aware of the in-
security of the position; for no sooner would they
stow themselves away into the interior of the pump,
to the number of six or eight, than they would rush
out again, as if apprehensive of some approaching
danger. ‘Time after time the cavity was filled and
refilled, with blue and brown intermingled, and as
often emptied. Presently they tarried longer than
usual, when I made a sudden sally and captured
three, that found a warmer and safer lodging for
the night in the cellar.

In the fall, birds and fowls of all kinds become
very fat. The squirrels and mice lay by a supply
of food in their dens and retreats, but the birds, to
a considerable extent, especially our winter resi-
dents, carry an equivalent in their own systems, in
the form of adipose tissue. I killed a red-shoul-
dered hawk one December, and on removing the
skin found the body completely encased in a coat-
ing of fat one quarter of an inch in thickness.
Not a particle of muscle was visible. This coating
222 WAKE-ROBIN

not only serves as a protection against the cold, but
supplies the waste of the system when food is scarce
or fails altogether.

The crows at this season are in the same condi-
tion. It is estimated that a crow needs at least half
a pound of meat per day, but it is evident that for
weeks and months during the winter and spring they
must subsist on a mere fraction of this amount. I
have no doubt a crow or hawk, when in their fall
condition, would live two weeks without a morsel
of food passing their beaks; a domestic fowl will
do as much. One January I unwittingly shut a
hen under the door of an outbuilding, where not
a particle of food could be obtained, and where
she was entirely unprotected from the severe cold.
When the luckless Dominick was discovered, about
eighteen days afterward, she was brisk and lively,
but fearfully pinched up, and as light as a bunch of
feathers. The slightest wind carried her before it.
But by judicious feeding she was soon restored.

The circumstance of the bluebirds being embold-
ened by the cold suggests the fact that the fear of
man, which now seems like an instinct in the birds,
is evidently an acquired trait, and foreign to them
in a state of primitive nature. very gunner has
observed, to his chagrin, how wild the pigeons
become after a few days of firing among them; and,
to his delight, how easy it is to approach near his
game in new or unfrequented woods. Professor
Baird? tells me that a correspondent of theirs visited

1 Then at the head of the Smithsonian Institution.
THE INVITATION 223

a small island in the Pacific Ocean, situated about
two hundred miles off Cape St. Lucas, to procure
specimens. The island was but a few miles in
extent, and had probably never been visited half a
dozen times by human beings. The naturalist found
the birds and water-fowls so tame that it was but
a waste of ammunition to shoot them. Fixing a
noose on the end of a long stick, he captured them
by putting it over their necks and hauling them to
him. In some cases not even this contrivance was
needed. A species of mockingbird in particular,
larger than ours and a splendid songster, made
itself so familiar as to be almost a nuisance, hopping
on the table where the collector was writing, and
scattering the pens and paper. Highteen species
were found, twelve of them peculiar to the island.

Thoreau relates that in the woods of Maine the
Canada jay will sometimes make its meal with the
lumbermen, taking the food out of their hands.

Yet, notwithstanding the birds have come to et
upon man as their natural enemy, there can be littl
doubt that civilization is on the whole favorable
to their increase and perpetuity, especially to the
smaller species. With man come flies and eel
and insects of all kinds in greater abundance; new
plants and weeds are introduced, and, with the
clearing up of the country, are sowed broadcast over
the land.

The larks and snow buntings that come to us
from the north subsist almost entirely upon the
seeds of grasses and plants; and how many of our
224 WAKE-ROBIN

more common and abundant species are field-birds,
and entire strangers to deep forests?

In Europe some birds have become almost domes-
ticated, like the house sparrow; and in our own
country the cliff swallow seems to have entirely
abandoned ledges and shelving rocks, as a place to
nest, for the eaves and projections of farm and
other outbuildings.

After one has made the acquaintance of most of
the land-birds, there remain the seashore and its
treasures. How little one knows of the aquatic
fowls, even after reading carefully the best authori-
ties, was recently forced home to my mind by the _
following circumstance: I was spending a vacation
in the interior of New York, when one day a
stranger alighted before the house, and with a cigar
box in his hand approached me as I sat in the door-
way. Iwas about to say that he would waste his
time in recommending his cigars to me, as I never
smoked, when he said that, hearing I knew some-
thing about birds, he had brought me one which
had been picked up a few hours before in a hay-
field near the village, and which was a stranger to
all who had seen it. As he began to undo the box
I expected to see some of our own rarer birds, per-
haps the rose-breasted grosbeak or Bohemian chat-
terer. Imagine, then, how I was taken aback when
I beheld instead a swallow-shaped bird, quite as
large as a pigeon, with forked tail, glossy black
above and snow-white beneath. Its parti-webbed
feet, and its long graceful wings, at a glance told
THE INVITATION 225

that it was a sea-bird; but as to its name or habitat
I must defer my answer till I could get a peep into
Audubon, or some large collection.

The bird had fallen down exhausted in a meadow,
and was picked up just as the life was leaving its
body. The place must have been one hundred and
fifty miles from the sea as the bird flies. As it
was the sooty tern, which inhabits the Florida Keys,
its appearance so far north and so far inland may
be considered somewhat remarkable. On removing
the skin I found it terribly emaciated. It had no
doubt starved to death, ruined by too much wing.
Another Icarus. Its great power of flight had made
it bold and venturesome, and had carried it so far
out of its range that it starved before it could return.

The sooty tern is sometimes called the sea-swal-
low on account of its form and power of flight. It
will fly nearly all day at sea, picking up food from
the surface of the water. There are several species
of terns, some of them strikingly beautiful.

1868.
INDEX

Adirondacks, the, 41; camping in,
69-92.

Alder, 20, 130.

Alder Creek, 177.

Anemone, 146.

Anemone, grove, 147.

premong, | Pennsylvania, 147.
ple,

a euekk, 128.

Arbutus, 146, 147, 155.

Ash, swamp, 20.

‘Audubon, John James, 22, 65, 67,
107, 110, 124, 142, 150, 203, 207,
211 his “ornithological work, 2142

Autumn, approach and arrival of,
34, 35.

Azalea, 155.
Azalea, pink, 12.

Baird, Prof. Spencer F., 216, 222.

Balsam Lake, 161

aig Vincent, 117.

Bats, 7!

Bear, Mack (Ursus americanus), 91,
1

Beaver (Castor co 39,

Beaver Kill, 15:

Beaverkill Mountains, 97.

Beech, 73, 157.

Beech, water, 20.

Big Ingin River, 159.

Birch, black, 157, 172.

Birch, yellow, 68, 78, 76, 157.

Birds, coming and going of ee
spring songs of songless, 7, 8 ; in:
fluence of civilization upon their
habits, 10, 11, 223, 224; distribu-
tion of, 18-21; gradual cessation
of song in summer, 30; geograph-
ical distribution dependent on the
climate, 38; voices of, 40; hu-
man significance of their songs,
41; development of the wings in
young, 62; sanitary system among,
98, 99; second marriages among,
100-102, 198; women’s rights

 

among, 102, 103; plumage in its
relation to concealment, 102,
103 ; order of migration of,
103 ; irregularity in nesting habits
of, 106-109; nests for second
broods, 108; location of nests
with a view to safety, 108, 109;

the greatest enemies of, 109;
their confidence in man, 109,
110, 138, 222-224; in the city of
Washington, 109-111 ; conceal-
ment of nests in the woods, 111;
a classification as to certain nest-
ing habits, 124, 125; migrating
at night, 143,144; feeding ranges
of various, 150; blue, 191; art
in protecting their nests, 193; di-
vision of the useful and the or-
namental qualities between the
sexes, 193, 194; excess of males
among, 198 ; delights of the
study of, 201-' “204; books on, 204,
205, 214-216 ; representatives of
the principal families of, 205-214 ;
Western duplicates of Eastern,
217; walking and hopping, 218;
the food question, 220-223; pro-
tected from the cold by fat, 221,
222; fear of man an acquired
trait, 222, 223; on an uninhabited
aeland, 223 ; of the seashore, 224,

25.

Birds of prey, 109.

Blackberry, 20.

Blackbird, crow, or purple grackle
(Quiscalus quiscula), 1373; chas-
ing a purple finch, 138 ; habits of,
138, 139; notes of, 137 ; nest of,
107, 139.

Blackbirds, 218.

Bloodroot, 146, 147.

Bloody-Moose Pond, 73.

Bluebird (Sialia sialis), arrival in
spring, 1-3, 189, 190; 56, 103 n.;
compared with the English robin,
190, 191; its Western congeners,
191, 192; nest-building, 194, 195;
228

usurping a wren’s nest, 196, 197 ;
afemale loses her mate and finds
a new one, 197, 198; hostilities
renewed by the wrens, 198; de-
spair, 199; seeking shelter in cold
weather, 220, 221; notes of, 2, 3,
6, 7, 41, 129, 189-193; nest of,
192-199.

Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus),
12, 30, 35; migrating through
Washington, 143, 144, 215; 213;
Audubon on the migrations of,
215 ; 218; notes of, 26, 30, 41, 143,
215, 218, 219.

Boreas River, 71.

Brewer, Dr. Thomas M., 213.

Bene (Rana catesbiana), 172,
1

Bunting, black-throated, or dickcis-
sel (Spiza americana), 144 ; notes
of, 144.

Bunting, snow (Plectrophenax ni-
valis), 223.

Buttercup, 146,

Butterfly, 137.

Buzzard, turkey, or turkey vulture
(Cathartes aura), 129, 131; habits
of, 132, 133 ; a roost, 133, 134,

Cabbage, skunk, 146.
, Callikoon, 161, 169.

Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal.

Catbird (Galeoscoptes carolinensis),
24; habits of, 26,27; adventure
with a black snake, 27-30; 142,
152, 213 ; notes of, 26, 27, 41; nest
of, 27-30.

Catskill Mountains, camping in,
157-187.

Cattle in the woods, 171, 172, 178,
183.

Cave, a visit to a, 72.

Cedar, 20.

Cedar-bird, or Cedar waxwing
(Ampelis cedrorum), 40; catch-
ing flies, 83,,84; as cherry-eaters,
139, 140; nest of, 93-95, 140.

Chat, yellow-breasted (Icteria vi-
rens), habits and appearance of,
152, 153; notes of, 152, 153,

Cherry, wild, 90.

Chestnut, 20, 155.

Chewink, or towhee (Pipilo ery-
throphthalmus), 19, 25, 136.

Chickadee (Parus atricapillus), 83 ;
a brood of young, 105; nest of,
103-105.

eo or spring beauty, 146,

Corydalis, 146.

 

INDEX

Cow bunting, or cowbird (Molothrus
ater), 8; breeding habits of, 58-
60; 114, 115; notes of, 8.

Creeper, brown (Certhia familiaris
americana), 136.

Cricket, 30.

Crow, American (Corvus ameri-
canus), 42, 130, 218; in winter,
181, 132, 222; amount of food re-
quired by, 222.

Cuckoo, 58, 103 n., 107.

Cuckoo, black-billed (Coccyzus ery-
oes 12-14; notes of,

, 13.

Cuckoo, European, Wordsworth’s
lines to, 12, 13; 58.

Cuckoo, yellow-billed (Coccyzus
americanus), 13 ; notes of, 13.

Dandelion, 1.

Deer, Virginia (Cariacus virginia-
nus), floating for, 73-82 ; 91, 160.

Delaware River, head-waters of, 38,
157, 159.

Dickcissel. See
throated.

Dog, a wild, 137.

Dogwood, 20, 155.

Dove, turtle, or mourning dove
(Zenaidura macroura), 19; nest
of, 122.

Dry Brook, 159, 169, 170.

Duck, wood (Aiz sponsa), 204.

Bunting, black-

Eagle, bald (Haliceetus leucocepha-
lus), nest of, 124.

Eagle, golden (Aquila chrysaétos),
123, 124; nest of, 124.

Esopus, 157, 159.

Finch, grass. See Sparrow, field.

Finch, pine, or pine siskin (Spinus
pinus), 70, 84.

Finch, purple, or linnet (Carpoda-
cus purpureus), 56, 67, 70, 136,
138 ; notes of, 56, 57, 213.

Finches, characteristics of the fam-
iy, and of certain species, 211-

Fishing, a good catch, 71, 72.

Flagg, Wilson, 212.

Flicker. See Woodpecker, golden-
winged.

Flowers, wild, in Washington in
winter, 128 ; in spring near Wash-
ington, 146-148.

Flycatcher, great crested (Myiar-
eius crinitus), 20, 210; nest of,

Flycatcher, green-crested, or green-
INDEX

crested pewee (Empidonaz vi-
rescens), 210; nest of, 122.

Flycatcher, white-eyed. See Vireo,
white-eyed.

Flycatchers, characteristics of, 49,
50; as nest-builders, 122; 150;
characteristics of the family, and
of certain species, 209, 210.

Fox, gray (Urocyon cinereo-argen-
tatus), 38.

Fox, red (Vulpes vulpes, var. ful-
vus), 39; track of, 49; 104.

Frogs, 128, 130; spawn of, 130, 137 ;
172, 178, 182. See Bullfrog and
Hyla.

Gentian, closed, 74.

Gnatcatcher, blue-gray (Polioptila
cerulea), 149-151; notes of, 150,
151; nest of, 116.

Goldfinch, American, or yellow-bird
(Spinus tristis), arrival of, 12; 32,
56, 136, 206; nest of, 94.

Grackle, purple. See Blackbird,
crow.

Grape, frost, 20.

Grasshoppers, large, 127.

Great Egg Harbor, 124.

Grosbeak, blue (Guiraca cerulea),
102, 110; resemblance to the in-
digo-bird, 111; notes of, 110, 111,
215; nest of, 102, 110.

Grosbeak, cardinal, or Virginia red-
bird, or cardinal (Cardinalis car-
aay 153, 154; notes of, 153,

Grosbeak, rose-breasted (Habia lu-
doviciana), 55; notes of, 55.

Grosbeaks, songs of, 142.

Grouse, 218.

Grouse, ruffed. See Partridge.

Guides, in the Adirondacks, 71, 72;
in the Catskills, 162-165.

Hairbird. See Sparrow, social. -

Hare, northern (Lepus america-
nus), 39, 82.

Hawk, fish, or American osprey
(Pandion haliaétus carolinensis),
conduct of a stepfather, 100, 101;
neat of, 100, 107.

Hawk, hen, soaring of, 33, 34.

Hawk, pigeon, pursuing a small
bird, 32; 73.

Hawk, red-shouldered (Buteo lin-
eatus), 221.

Hawk, red-tailed (Buteo borealis),
104, 114; nest of, 114.

Hawk, sharp-shinned (Accipiter ve-
lox), 91.

 

229

Hazel, 20.

Hemlock, 39, 68, 157, 158.

Hen, domestic, 8, 128, 222.
Hepatica, or liver-leat, or liverwort,

, 146,

Heron, great blue (Ardea hero-
dias), 74..

Herons, 107.

Hewett’s, in the Adirondacks, 69-71.

High-hole. See Woodpecker, golden-
winged.

Honeysuckle, swamp, 164.

Houstonia, 128, 137, 146, 148.

Hummingbird, ruby-throated (Tro-
chilus colubris), 54, 55, 85, 115,
ay notes of, 85; nest of, 5, 115,

Hunter, an Americanized Irishman,
87, 88, 91.

Byla, 187. ;
yla, Pickering’s, or peeping frog
(Hyla pickeringit), 11.

Indian Pass, 88, 90.

Indigo-bird (Passerina cyanea), 56 ;
its resemblance to the blue gros-
beak, 111; notes of, 108, 111;
nest of, 108.

Tron ore, 89.

Jacking for deer, 77-82.
Jay, blue (Cyanocitta cristata), 86,
103 n., 181 ; notes of, 181; nest of,

107.

Jay, Canada (Perisoreus canaden-

sis), 223,

Tulys bird music gradually ceasing
in, 30.

June, an important month with or-
nithologists, 40.

Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), 5;
arrival of, 12; 49, 50, 103 n., 142,
210; notes of, 5, 167; nest of, 122.

Kinglet, golden-crowned (Regulus
satrapa), 136.

Kinglet, ruby-crowned (Regulus
calendula), notes of, 141, 142, 213,

214,
Kinglets, 213,

Lady’s-slipper, yellow, 148.

Lake, a search for a, 162-187.

Lake Henderson, 89, 90.

Lakes, wildness of mountain, 74, 75.

Lake Sandford, 84, 86, 90.

Lark, shore, or horned lark (Oto-
coris alpestris), 185, 218, 223;
notes of, 135.
230

Larks and their allies, characteris-
tics of, 218,

Laurel, 20, 155.

Liver-leaf. See Hepatica.

Liverwort. See Hepatica.

Lower Iron Works, 84-86.

Lupine, or sun-dial, 147.

Mandrake, 147.

Maple, 73, 157.

Maple, sugar, 190.

Maple-sugar making, 190.

March, at Washington, 128.

Martin, purple (Progne subis), 141.

May, the month of swallows and
Orioles 11; the transition month,

Meadowlark (Sturnella magna),
218 ; notes of, 8, 11, 129.

Merganser, red-breasted (Mergan-
ser serrator), a brood of, 90.

Mice, 221

Midges, or no-see-ems, 166, 167.

Mill Brook, 159, 162.

Mockingbird Qhims, polyglottos),
213; notes of, 21,

Mockingbird, doothe species of,

223.
mre (Alce alces, var. americanus),
2.

Morning in camp, 82.

Mount Golden, 85.

Mount Marcy, 85.

Mount McIntyre, 85.

Muskrat, or musquash (Fiber zibe-
thicus), 74, 78.

Nate’s Pond, 74-84.

Neversink River, 159.

Nightingale, song of, 214.

Nuthatch (Sita), notes of, 7, 73;
nest of, 103, 104.

Nuttall, Thomas, 22, 118, 214.

Oak, 155.

Orchis, great purple, 68.

Oriole, Baltimore (Icterus galbula),
11, {03n.; domestic troubles, 118-
120 ; nest of, 107, 116-120.

Oriole, orchard, See Starling, or-
chard.

Ornithology, delights of the study,
201-204 books on, 204, 205, 214-

Osprey. See Hawk, fish.

Owl, screech (Megascops asio), a
brood of young, 51; dichroma-
tism of, 52.

Owls, 8, 79.

 

INDEX

Fanther, American (Felis concolor),

Partridge, or ruffed grouse (Bonasa
umbellus), with a brood of young,
62, 63, 184; habits of, 63, 64; 73,
86, 90, 91, 179, 180, ‘O18; drum.
ming of, 8, Ww 63, 64, 167, 182;
notes of, 62, 63, 184; nest of, 15,

Pepacton River, 159,
Perch,
Perch, white (Morone americana),

Perch, yellow (Perca flavescens),

Persimmon-tree, 204.

Pewee. See Pheebe-bird.

Pewee, green-crested.
catcher, green-crested.

Pewee, wood (Contopus virens),

1, 103 n. ; ngves. of, 49, 50, 210;
nest of, 122, 2:

Pheebe-bird, - ‘pewee (Sayornis
phebe), arrival of, 6; 195, 210;
notes of, 6; nest of, 50, 51, 120,
121, 210.

Pickerel, 90.

Pigeon, ‘wild, or passenger pigeon
CEN Ectopistes " migratorius), 86, 91,
160, 222; nest of, 122, 160.

Pigeons, 99, 218.

Pine, 73.

Piny Branch, walks in the region of,
145-154,

See Fly-

Pipit, American, or titlark (Anthus
pensilvanicus), 217-219 ; notes of,
218; nest of, 218.

Pitcher-plant, 14.

Plovers, 218.

Poplar, silver, 131.

Porcupine, Canada, or hedgehog
(Zrethizon dorsatus), 166.

Potentilla, 146.

Quail, or bob-white (Colinus virgin-
danus), 19, 218; notes of, 8.

Rabbit, gray (Lepus sylvaticus), 38.
Haccone: or coon (Procyon lotor),
39.

Raspberry, red, 90.

Red-bird, summer, or summer tan-
ager (Piranga rubra), 66.

Red-bird, Virginia. See Grosbeak,

Reds oe ha, la), 19,
edstart (Seto a ruticilla), 19,
149, 206. ee )

Robin (Merula migratoria), arrival
of, 3; habits of, 4, 24; 7, 71, 99;
INDEX

courtship of, 101, 102; 142, 181,
211; notes of, 3-5, 41, 129, 142,
177, 211; nest of, 5, 106, 108.

en Creek, rambles about, 144-154,

Sandford Lake, 84, 86, 90.

Sandpiper, a young, 62.

Sandpiper, solitary (Zotanus soli-
tarius), 85.

Sandpipers, 144, 218.

Saxifrage, 146.

Smilax, 20.

Snake, black, attacking a catbird’s
Test, 27-30; boy surprised by a,

Snipes, 218.

Snowbird, or slate-colored junco
(Junco hyemalis), 42, 59, 69, 144,
218 ; notes of, 8, 42, 129; nest of,

Sparrow, bush. See Sparrow, wood.

Sparrow, Canada, or tree sparrow,
(Spizella monticola), 136, 212,
220; notes of, 137.

Sparrow, English. See Sparrow,
house.

Sparrow, field, or vesper sparrow,
or grass finch (Podcetes gramt-
neus), 14, 70, 136; habits and ap-
pearance of, 212; notes of, 12,14,
15, 212; nest of, 15, 212. See,
also, Sparrow, wood.

Sparrow, fox, (Passerella iliaca),
21, 136, 212; notes of, 142.

Sparrow, house, or English (Passer
domesticus), 224.

Sparrow, savanna (Ammodramus
sandwichensis savanna), 212;
notes of, 212.

Sparrow, social, or chipping spar-
row, or chippie, or hairbird (Spi-
zella socialis), chasing a moth,
31; 213; notes of, 8,167; nest of,
106, 213.

Sparrow, song (Melospiza fasciata),
1; arrival of, 11; 136; notes of,
g, At, 41, 129, 211, 212; nest of,

Sparrow, swamp (Melospiza geor-
giana), 136, 212.

Sparrow, tree. See Sparrow, Can-
ada.

Sparrow, vesper. See Sparrow,
field.

Sparrow, white-crowned (Zonotri-
chia leucophrys), 136, 142, 212.
Sparrow, white-throated (Zonotri-
chia albicollis), 70, 136, 142, 212;

notes of, 70.

 

231

Sparrow, wood, or bush sparrow, or
field sparrow, (Spizella pusilla),
16,19; notes of, 16.

Sparrows, 103 n., 218.

Spice-bush, 20.

Spring, its duration in the North, 1.

Spring beauty. See Claytonia.

Squirrel, black (Sciurus carolinen-
sis, var. leucotis), 43.

Squirrel, gray (Sciurus earolinen-
sis, var. leucotis), 43.

Squirrel red (Sciwrus hudsonicus),

1 13.

Squirrels, 221.

Starling, orchard, or orchard oriole
(Icterus spurius), 103 n.; notes of,
142; nest of, 116.

Sucker, white, 161.

Sun-dial. See Lupine.

Sunfish, 84, 178, 179.

Swallow, barn (Chelidon erythro-
gaster), 141; nest of, 106.

Swallow, chimney, or chimney swift
(Cheetura pelagica), 141; nest of,
106.

Swallow, cliff (Petrochelidon luni-
Jrons), 141, 195; notes of, 141,
195 ; nest of, 195, 224.

Swallow, rough-winged (Stelgidop-
teryx serripennis), nest of, 106.

Swallows, 1, 8, 11, 99,140, 218.

Tanager, scarlet (Piranga erythro-
melas), arrival of, 12; 55, 56;
notes of, 30, 56, 142.

Tanager, summer. See Red-bird,

ne s jul
ern, soot; terna fuliginosa
294, 095, si

Terns, 225.

Thomas’s Lake, a trouting excursion
to, 162-187.

Thoreau; Henry D., 37, 53, 69, 91,

Thrush, golden-crowned, or wood-
wagtail, or oven-bird (Seiurus,
aurocapillus), 52, 53, 151, 219,
nat 3 notes of, 52, 53, 167, 215, 219,

Thrush, gray-cheeked (Turdus alt-
cic), 40, 204, 215, 216.

Thrush, hermit (Zurdus aonasch-
kee pallasii), 18, 19, 44, 84, 148,
211; notes of, 21-23, 41, 46-48,
55, 68, 211.

Thrush, olive-backed, or Swainson’s
thrush (Turdus ustulatus swain-
Sonii), 148, 211.

Thrush, red, or mavis, or ferrugi-
nous thrush, or brown thrasher
232

(Harporhynchus rufus), 24, 213;
nest of, .

Thrush, varied (Hesperocichla ne-
via), 217.

Thraeh, Wilson’s. See Veery.

Thrush, wood (Turdus mustelinus),
1, 19; habits of, 21-25 ; 30, 44,
47, 148; distribution in the Cats-
kills, 168, 211; notes of, 21-24,
148, 164, 167, 168, 211; nest of,
21, 25, 164.

Thrushes, songs of certain, 142;
feed mostly on or near the ground,
150; characteristics of the family,
and of certain species, 211; hop-
pers, 218.

Titlark. See Pipit, American.

Titmouse, gray-crested, or tufted
titmouse (Parus bicolor), notes
of, 7.

Tracks, in the mud, 48, 49.

Trout, brook (Salvelinus fontina-
lis), T1, 72, 84, 160.

Trouting excursions, 162-187.

Turkey, domestic, 101.

Toe, wild (Meleagris gallopavo),

Upper Iron Works, 86-90.

Veery, or Wilson’s thrush (Turdus
JSuscescens), 19, 44, 47, 141, 148,
211; notes of, 21, 25, 26, 44, 109,
141.

Vetch, 146.

Village, a deserted, 86-89.

Violet, bird’s-foot, 146, 147.

Violet, dog’s-tooth, 1, 155.

Violets, 128, 146.

Vireo, red-eyed (Vireo olivaceus),
habits of, 40-42; 61, 208, 209; a
young one caught napping, 209 ;
notes of, 40-42, 208, 209; nest of,
114, 208.

Vireo, solitary, or blue-headed_ vi-
reo (Vireo solitarius), 67, 112,
208; notes of, 67, 112; nest of,
112, 113, 208.

Vireo, warbling (Vireo gilvus), 41,
208; notes of, 42.

Vireo, white-eyed, or white-eyed
flycatcher (Vireo noveboracensis),
16-19, 208; notes of, 16, 17, 41,

Vireo, yellow-throated, or yellow-
breasted flycatcher (Vireo flavi-
Srons), 19, 208.

Vireos, 150; characteristics of the

iacaily and of individuals, 208,

 

INDEX

Wagtail. See Water-thrush dnd
Thrush, golden-crowned.

Wake-robin, 1.

Walking and hopping, 218.

Warbler, Audubon’s (Dendroica
audubont), 71.

Warbler, bay-breasted (Dendroica
castanea), 141, 149.

Warbler, black and white (Mniotila
varia), a brood of young, 111,
112; 149, 206; notes of, 67; nest
of, 111, 112.

Warbler, black and yellow, o7 mag-
nolia warbler (Dendroica macu-
losa), 19, 60.

Warbler, Blackburmian (Dendroica
blackburnie), 45, 60, 149 ; notes
of, 45, 149.

Warbler, black-poll (Dendroica
striata), 141, 206, 207.

Warbler, black-throated blue, or
blue-backed warbler (Dendroica
cerulescens), 19; habits and ap-
pearance of, 66, 67 ; 71, 150 ; notes
of, 66, 67.

Warbler, black-throated green, or

green-backed warbler (Dendroica
werent y 19, 59, 66; notes of, 66,
7

Warbler, blue-winged (Helmintho-
phila pinus), 20.

Warbler, blue yellow-backed, or
parula warbler (Compsothlypis
americana), 46, 149, 201; notes
of, 46, 149.

Warbler, Canada (Sylvania cana-
densis), 18, 57; appearance and
habits of, 60, 61; 71; notes of, 57,
60; nest of, 57, 58, 61.

Warbler, cerulean (Dendroica ceru-
lea), 207.

Warbler, chestnut-sided (Dendroica
pensylvanica), 19, 60, 66, 149;
notes of, 66, 149; nest of, 66.

Warbler, hooded (Sylvania mi-
trata), 19, 206.

Warbler, Kentucky (Geothlypis for-
mosa), habits and appearance of,
149, 150 ; 206; notes of, 149.

Warbler, mourning (Geothlypis
philadelphia), 65, 150, 206, 207 ;
notes of, 65; nest of, 113, 114.

Warbler, Swainson’s (Helinaia
swainsonii), 207.

Warbler, worm-eating (Helmithe-
rus vermivorus), 19, 21, 149, 150.
Warbler, yellow (Dendroica es-

tiva), 140, 206 ; notes of, 140 ; nest
of, 140.
Warbler, yellow red-poll, or yellow
INDEX

palm warbler (Dendroica palma-
rum hypochrysea), 141

Warbler, yellow-rumped, or myrtle
warbler (Dendroica coronata), 71,
136, 207.

Warblers, colors of their legs, 65;

migrating through Washington,

143, 144, 148, 149; feeding ranges
of, 150; remarks. on the family
and its " representatives, 205-207 ;
hoppers, 218.

Washington, ps C., birds in, 109-
111; 127-156.

‘Water-cress, 146, 147,

‘Water-fowl, 99, 401, 107, 223.

Water-thrush, Louisiana, or ect
billed (Seiurus motacilla),

_ 151, 219; notes of, 151, 181, ots”

Water- thrush, Northern (Seiurus

noveboracensis), 151, 180, 181,
216, 219; notes of, 180, 181, 216;
neat of, 180.

Wien Alexander, 22, 65, 124, 203,

ine aa false, 54.
Webdstndk: e Arctomys monax), 177,

Woodpecker, downy (Dryobates
pubescens), drumming of, 9; nest
of, 96, 97.

Woodpecker, golden-winged, or
high-hole, or flicker, or yarup, or
yellow-hammer (Colaptes aura-
tus), arrival of a3 habits of, 9, 10 ;
notes of, 7, 9, 1 0,1

Woodpecker, red-headed (Melaner-

 

233

pes erythrocephalus), 154; notes
of, 154; nest of, 95.

Woodpecker, red-shafted, or red-

oe flicker (Colaptes cafer),
T.

Woodpecker, yellow-bellied, or yel-
low-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapi-
cus varius), waiting on its young,
Paik 98; 99-101, 182; nest of, 97-

Woodpeckers, nests of, 96, 103;
Seung of, 181, 182; hoppers,

Wood: wegtall See Thrush, golden-
crowned.

Wren, Carolina (Thryothorus ludo-
vicianus), 136, 213.

Wren, house (Zroglodytes aédon),
difficulty with a pair of bluebirds,
195-198, 213; notes of, 196-198;
nest 106, 107.

Wren, ruby-crowned. See Kinglet,
ruby-crowned.

Wren, winter (Troglodytes hiema-
lis), 2, 18; habits of, 43, 44; 213;
notes of, 18, 43, 44, 177, 213.

Wrens, characteristics of the fam-
ily, and of certain species, 213.

Yarup. See Woodpecker, golden-
winged.

Yellow-hammer.
golden-winged.

Yellow-throat, Maryland (Geothly-
pis trichas), 19, 61, 160, 206;
notes of, 61.

See Woodpecker,
 
. seein
Peete ee ee
SER Eee Se,