CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

BEQUEST

OF

STEWART HENRY BURN 7
1943

 

 

 
Cornell University Libra

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ACROSS LOTS
ACROSS LOTS

BY

HORACE LUNT

BOSTON
D LOTHROP COMPANY

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
CoryRIGHT, 1383
BY
D. Loturor Company.

Presswork By Berwick & Smitu, Boston.
TO
Hillis Boyd Allen,

WHOSE FRIENDLINESS AND CHAMPIONSHIP GAVE
DIRECTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT,
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED,

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE, BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.

THESE papers, describing the common objects of Nature
around the ‘‘Hub,” and originally published, from time to
time, in the Popular Science Monthly, Lippincott’s Magazine,
Cottage Hearth, Outing, American Naturalist, Harper’s Young
People, and Our Sunday Afternoon, to all of which publica-
tions the writer owes grateful acknowledgments, have since
been written out at greater length, and now presume again to
start together on their journey.

If these gleanings from wood and field may in any direc-
tion invite young people to use their eyes and ears in exam-
ining and considering the works of Nature, or if ‘‘ children
of larger growth,” whose: circumstances and vocations do
not often permit them to ramble over enchanted grounds,
may be interested for an hour in reading the simple sketches,

the author will feel that they have not been written in vain.

Horace Lunt.
Boston, 1888.
CONTENTS.

I
A MARCH RAMBLE . : , :
IT
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL
III
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES 4
IV
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING
Vv
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS
VI
WONDERS OF POND LIFE : ‘
VII
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE
VIII
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME
IX

CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER .

11

29

63

97

141

169

193

207

227
A MARCH RAMBLE.
ACROSS LOTS

A MARCH RAMBLE.

Marcu, in New England, is the disputable
month between the seasons spring and winter;
the space, as it were, between the picket lines of
both armies, where many battles are fought for the
mastery and power of governing the land. Win-
ter commands Boreas to station his wind batteries
on the bleak Northern hills to belch forth a storm of
snow and hail, and a general frigid icicle charge is
ordered along the whole line until not a vestige of
spring is seen. Then the frost army, wearied with
its fierce onslaught, sleeps, and the vernal force,
driven far southward, turns again its face toward
the foe, insidiously creeps along the flank, and
takes the gray old general in his fancied stronghold
by surprise. There is a peculiar quality in the air,
which tells you it is the breath of spring. The
snow melts on the southern slopes and your eyes

11
12 A MARCH RAMBLE.

get relief by looking on the tufts of green water-
grass along the edges of the stream now set free.
Winter wakes again and marshals his strength, but
his front is not so vigorous. He sullenly retires
before the genial commander of the other side, that
moves slowly but steadily forward to victory and
the vernal equinox.

How large the catkin buds on the willows have
swollen thus early in the season, and how closely
they watch the sun in his march northward!
Divest this poplar bud of its impervious scales and
see with what wonderful tenderness and care the
old dame has clothed the rudimentary blossom. A
mouse’s fur is not finer than this garment that pro-
tects the soft, delicate, larva-like catkin from the
sudden changes peculiar to this season.

At almost every turn in this ramble through the
woods I come upon pictures that the artist might
choose for the canvas. Nature appears to make
no chromatic errors here. Besides the browns and
grays and the different shades of spruces, pines
and hemlocks, she exhibits many exquisite touches
of coloration. The high blackberry stalks are
painted a beautiful purple. The young, lithe
shoots of the willow shine like lacquered brass.
Here is a rare design for a Christmas card: a green-
A MARCH RAMBLE, 13

brier clambering over an ilex; the green and gray
bark and the mingled clusters of blue and bright
red drupes gleaming in the sunlight are very effect-
ive. The persistent bunches of scarlet berries of
the night-shade vine, twining among the bleached,
cream-colored leaves that still adhere to the lower-
most branches of this water beech, viewed against
a background of sky and snow, form one of the
most delicate pictures in this gallery.

Now that the leaves have fallen from this tangled
mass of green-brier (smilax rotundifolia) one can
see the ingenious method it has adopted for climb-
ing trees and bushes for its support. On each per-
sistent petiole grows a pair of long tendrils, now
withered and almost as tough as manilla hemp.
These strings —thousands of fairy fingers —through
the past summer were busy winding around every
convenient branchlet of the ilex, which seems to
be patient under its cumbersome load and resigned
to its fate.

The squirrels are out to-day, both the red and
gray species; they seem to be actually black in
contrast to the immaculate snow along which they
skip almost as rapidly as a bird flies. The im-
prints of their feet show the extraordinary leaps
they sometimes make when startled and on the
14 A MARCH RAMBLE,

home stretch. When at full speed their tracks
are shown thus: --: --: --: and measure five and
six feet at every bound. Here and there through
the woods they have dug holes in the snow for
beech-mast and acorns. Evidently the little ro-
dents knew just where to search for the hidden
treasures, for plenty of shells lie scattered around
at the top of the shaft. The females are busy in
renovating and repairing their old nests in the
thick cedars. The old bark that falls away from
the trunks of these trees offers them abundant
material. It is curious to see them scampering up
and down the trunks, with streamers in their
mouths, and their quick, smart motions, incorpo-
rating the cedar strips within the nest mass. This
abode must be made snug and comfortable for the
shivering litter that within a fortnight will be wrig-
gling in the softly-upholstered inner room.

In the midst of the spray of a prostrate white
birch is quite a large piece of bagging that some
cunning mother rodent has appropriated and fash-
ioned into a comfortable home for the prospective
family. How nicely it is folded and conformed to
the angles of trunk and limbs! The under parts
are whole, but the upper portion, where it has
been gathered in folds, is raveled out and chewed
A MARCH RAMBLE. 15

up finely into a woolly mass, as if Bunny had been
taking lessons in natural philosophy, on the con-
duction of heat, and had learned that the warmth
of her naked litter would not be quickly carried
off through this furry heap.

C tells me the adventure he had with a
mother squirrel which illustrates the ardent mater-

 

nal devotion of these rodents. Two quarter-grown
gray Bunnies had been carried by their mother to
a hole in a shell-bark trunk for safe-keeping and
tender nursing. C

 

» who had an eye to the
main chance, and knew the market value of this
species, had seen the transaction, and, with a ladder,
proceeded to lay siege to the retreat. Having
climbed to the doorway, he put his hand in to capt-
ure his prizes, when it was immediately attacked
by the desperate mother, who tried to bite it, then
struck it with her paw, at the same time making a
noise similar to the spitting of a cat. He at last
succeeded in grasping her nape, and dropped her
to the ground. She at once returned to her charge,
however, and it was not until he had served her
three times in this manner, that he was able to
seize and make off with his young nut-crackers,
followed by the parent, who made several attempts
to spring into his face, or traversed the branches
16 A MARCH RAMBLE.

over his head, all the time barking in the most dis-
tressed manner.

A small company of goldfinches and red-polls
have just flown into a growth of beeches, fluttering
among the branchlets and clinging in all kinds of
positions on the slender twigs, inspecting the sharp,
thorn-like buds and peering into the persistent
last year’s catkins. They hurry from tree to tree
as if they did not expect to find much to eat
here, but had dropped down merely to ascertain
the prospects while on their way to some ever-
green caravansary to obtain shelter for the night.
Presently they light on the snow and leisurely go
hopping off northwestward, picking up crumbs
from the white tablecloth; a scanty meal indeed,
it seems, yet how sleek and plump they look in
their shining olive-brown overcoats, trimmed with
yellow and white. Ah! these finches knew, ages
. before the botanist, how much nourishment was
stored up in the seeds and buds. How silent they
are! It is now no time for song and mirth;
every moment must be spent in supplying their lit-
tle furnaces with a sufficient accumulation of heat.
Many asters and golden-rod, beech and pine-trees
in embryo, burn away in their living ovens to
keep the sturdy little creatures alive and warm.
A MARCH RAMBLE. 17

The meat-eaters, too, are out on their entomo-
logical tours. How eagerly the titmice and wood-
peckers search for the baskets of spiders’ eggs, and
the fat pupas under the bark; knowing as well
where to find them as the most experienced
Esquimaux do the seal and walrus. Look at this
nut-hatch, with ashen blue back and clear white
under parts. It is wonderful how this tree-climber
clings to the trunk so easily. It does not seem pos-
sible that his claws could take sufficient hold on
the bark to sustain him as he lightly hops along
the sides. He apparently makes a superficial in-
spection, and does not remain long on one tree,
flying here and there, as if he had considered before-
hand what particular ones to visit. As he comes
quite near me I observe his short, wide tail which
he seems not to use at any time for a support; and,
unlike the woodpeckers, he has three toes placed
forward, while the hind one is much stouter and
longer then the others, and serves as a prop when
resting head downward, as is his usual habit.

How can these feathered mites endure the rigors
of winter in our Northern woods? Import repre-
sentatives from the family of wood-warblers, for
instance, and let them free, and how quickly they
would perish here —a barren waste to them; for
18 A MARCH RAMBLE.

they do not relish seeds ; the insects are not mov-
ing in hosts, and their weak, slender bills are not
fitted to dig under the bark for dainty morsels.
The sounds heard are of the woods. How
sharply the tack, tack, of the wood-chopper’s axe
comes to your ear, as if conveyed through a tube.
Here a white oak tree, recently sawed squarely and
smoothly from its stump, gives one a good oppor-
tunity to count the annual rings. <A diagram of
seventy circling years is here plainly drawn on
this cross-cut bole, and tells a curious story since it
started out from its shell so long ago. The first
ten years of its life the sapling was weakly and
slim, in consequence of the overshadowing branches
of its elderly neighbors; but after reaching its
teens it began to be more thrifty. From the fif-
teenth to the thirtieth year it grew more rapidly
than at any other period of its existence. Outside
the thirtieth ring, which was the broadest, they
became narrower and more indistinct. The tree
had grown faster on the southwestern side, as
shown by the curious irregular zones. This evi-
dently was due to the milder winds and the genial
influence of the sun’s rays, in the spring, on the
rich, mucilaginous sap. The ducts in the older
layers have become clogged, and seem no longer to
A MARCH RAMBLE, 19

have taken an active part in the circulation; so
this is why the heart-wood first dies and begins
the process of decay from the center, in such kinds
of trees.

The choppers have been cutting and cording
with the oak-wood, some sweet-scented black birch
sticks. How beautifully polished is the bark of
reddish bronze, like cherry-tree bark, and the
inner layer of green liber is as sweet and aromatic
as a checkerberry lozenge, so different from the
disagreeable tannic-acid of the oak.

The voice of the crow yonder is not unpleasing,
for it teaches a lesson of hardihood, perseverance
and cheerfulness. There is a shade of pathos
withal, that appeals to the sympathy. What a
season of starvation has been his, and yet amid all
his hardships how strongly and hopefully he has
“pulled through” the cold winter months. Like
his celebrated ancestor “ Grip,” in Barnaby Rudge,
he possesses the same buoyant spirits. “Never
say die” is uttered in tone, if not in word, with as
much animation. The love of home is strong
within his black breast, and the old pine-tree is the
central point from which this couple for years
have viewed the world, and where now they come
to talk over again the matter of housekeeping.
20 A MARCH RAMBLE.

Over the hemlocks a party of these birds have
gone into hysterics at sight of a hawk which sails
and circles in the air, without seeming to take any
notice of the passionate outbreak, and as if it were
intent on measuring, with its feathered calipers, a
certain extent of country before nightfall. With
a glass can be seen readily its chestnut tail, glis-
tening in the sun, and the silvery gray under parts,
marked with interrupted, faint brown bands. So
it is the red-tailed hen hawk that has spent his
winter in Southern New England, and perhaps has
surveyed a degree thus early to-day. In gracefully
describing its airy circles, the tips of the motion-
less wings are bent upward, and at a certain angle
of vision the bird is like a huge bracket against
the sky.

A chipmunk is taking a constitutional after the
long burrowing season. It appears to be thirsty
and halts in its scampering over the bowlders,
where the snow has melted, to drink at the little
pools standing in the hollows. How has it man-
aged to wash down the hazel and beech-mast,
acorns and buckwheat in winter quarters? Its
mode of drinking is like that of cats and the car-
nivora in general, excepting the tongue is not pro-
truded so far from the mouth. It touches the tip
A MARCH RAMBLE, 2I

of its nose to the surface and appears to nibble at
the water. How different it is from the common
red or gray squirrel. Its tail, the peculiar longi-
tudinal stripes, the motions, the shorter feet, and
even the trail it leaves behind it in the snow, tells
you that it belongs to another genus in the family
of rodents.

It is not a great climber, rarely ascending tall
trees; yet it likes fresh food in the early spring,
and is out to see how the buds on the red maples
are getting on.

The thorn-like buds on the beech saplings are
larger and farther advanced than those of the older
trees. Is this owing to the impetuous sap of
youth? On the terminal bud of a shell-bark hick-
ory I count fourteen wraps before the tender baby
leaves are laid bare. What wise provision has
been made for these infants, and how admirably
adapted to temper the rapid changes of air are
these coverings, each one as impervious to the
moisture as a rubber blanket, and thickly covered
on the outside with the finest silky floss.

When did the blossom buds of the swamp maples
expand? They were not noticed five days ago!
The large terminal buds of the horse-chestnut, too,
are covered with a coat of varnish, as if Nature’s
22 A MARCH RAMBLE.

craftsmen, that especially attended to this kind
of trees, had suddenly awakened to their duty and
besmeared them through the night. What wise
designing !

It was but yesterday pedestrians were holding on
to their ears, the snow was crisp and the windows
frosted, so cold was the wind. But some time in
the night the spirit of mildness borne along the
air, visited the ornamented panes and wiped off
the water-color pictures. How grateful to the
senses are these rare day-spring messages! The
breath of air moving from the southern Elysian
fields infuses new life and quickens the blood.
Did I imagine it, or really did my nostrils catch just
a whiff of perfume brought by Southern breezes
that had swept over millions of tropical flowers ?

As if I had passed from winter into spring I catch
the notes of the yellow-shafted woodpecker. The
sun has just thawed him out, and the drops of wet,
wet, wet, wet, fall rapidly from his mouth. I hear,
too, the voice of a distant relative of the crow ; the
blue jay. There is a metallic ring in his larynx
that sounds like the far-off blows of a hammer
on an anvil; or, if one stops to analyze it, he discov-
ers withal a mournful intonation, as if he invited
everybody within earshot to pity him because he
A MARCH RAMBLE. 23

could not yet find a plentiful supply of eggs and
young for his hungry maw.

At noon not a cloud is seen, and the sky is of
the deepest blue. Sharply outlined against it, at
this point of vision, are the gray branches of
the hard-wood trees, marking the dome with all
kinds of angles, scrawls, and curves, showing how
from the shoots they have struggled in every con-
ceivable direction to get the light.

The southern slope of the hill along which I
walk, where the snow is melting fast, and the
tiny rills, capillaries in the great water-shed system,
trembling and pulsating in the light, is flecked and
dappled with white and different shades of brown,
and tiny spots of green. The radical leaves of
various perennials are here. I am surprised to see
quite a number of grasshoppers moving about in
almost as lively a manner as in the summer time.
These are the pup, and not the full-grown insect,
for none of them measure more than half an inch
in length, and the rudiments of the wings are just
appearing from behind the lateral pieces of the
dorsal arc. There are two species; a light-brown
and a green kind, belonging to the genus Tragoce-
phala (goat-headed), relating probably to the strik-
ing resemblance their heads bear to those of goats ;
24 A MARCH RAMBLE,

that is, sloping inward and their horns (antenne)
curved backward. It seems singular to me that
this kind of insects should appear so early in the
season, yet the books say they are often seen in
unusually warm days in winter. It is evident that
the eggs deposited last autumn could not have
hatched in the winter, for the ground is frozen,
Probably the larvee appeared last season, and had
undergone several moultings before the severe
weather forced them into the torpid state, from
which it is clearly seen they are easily awakened.

The first song sparrow alights on an alder twig
in the midst of catkin tassels, that give the early
singer a very pretty and appropriate setting. While
contemplating this scene, a bluebird perches on the
telegraph wire, and ripples out a brief sweet spring
message to the confined operator in town. It is
doubtful if the person at the sounders received it.
“ Ce-rue-le-an,” he sings: “ Spring is here! Do you
hear it? Do you hear it?” After which he bends
his head to the wire, as if hearkening for a re-
sponse. It is an agreeable sound to your hibernat-
ing brain; a wavy chime as sweet and mellow and
refreshing to the ear as a diet of fresh berries, or a
mess of pot herbs, from Southern gardens, is to
the taste. Now quickly and without the move-
A MARCH. RAMBLE, 25

ment of the wings he turns upon this slender look-
out, as if operated on by the batteries, and shows
his soiled breast. His purling song has brought a
female near.

What is the cause of this low, musical, continued
noise, not like the distant roar of ocean in the
sea shell, but a murmuring in tenor, perpetually
sounding in your ears —a phantom sound that
suggests the indistinct hum of insects, the chirp-
ing of crickets, or the faint peeping of birds or
frogs? It is heard everywhere, this ghost din, but
it is quickly banished as the ear catches any real
voice of Nature, as the brook’s music, the cawing
of the crows, or even the slightest stir of the air.
Is not this what Thoreau means when he speaks
of the “day song”? Occasionally an imaginary
cricket’s chirp, or a bird’s brief warble seems more
pronounced, and causes one to turn his head to
see the wing that produced it, but it is a vain
search, and leads you on like will-o’-the-wisp, with
the same sound wherever you may go —

‘A stillness, fresh and audible,
As if the hand of music through
The sombre robes of silence drew
A thread of golden gossamer.”
26 A MARCH RAMBLE.

If it is the “ringing in the ear,” I love to fancy
its whisperings and promises of spring; the aérial
particles here thrown into vibrations by the distant
voices southward, which the advancing sun is
wakening into tune.
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.
II.
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

It is now, in the first April days, and indeed all
through the month, curious and interesting to note
the gradual, almost insensible onward movement
and unfolding of the season. The green grass is
creeping everywhere ; first, along the streams and
lowlands, then sprinkling the russet hillsides and
uplands with living verdure. The buds swell as
the hour-hand moves, and the birds unerringly
govern their journey with the earth’s revolution,
and fly up the curvature, keeping a certain distance
from the. retreating snow line, till they shall see it
enter its frigid fastness behind the Arctic Circle.
The red maples and elms are darker against the
sky, and the catkins of the willows and alders and
birches, in sunny places, are nearly ready to give to
the wind their fertilizing dust, so constant are they
and so eager to be on time, before the leaves come

to interpose, and the strong spring breezes subside.
29
30 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

The harmony of this arrangement of the blossom
coming before the leaf is very interesting to con-
template. In many of our large trees and shrubs
this is the case. The alder, willow, walnut, oak,
beech, etc., are catkin-bearing trees. They have
‘ea kinds of flowers, staminate and pistillate, which
are situated either on the same stem or on different
individual plants. Now, if the leaves came first,
they would interfere and to a great extent prevent
the wind from scattering the pollen of the catkins,
which fertilizes the pistillate blossom. Nature has
said to the leaves, “ Wait! do not come yet: the
boughs must be naked, that the wind may have a
free chance to strew the propagating dust on every
fertile flower.”

How carefully Nature has looked after and kept
green the radical leaves of the perennial herbs!
Here is the five-finger, the swamp blackberry-vine,
and some of the composites, as freshly supplied
with chlorophyl as any of the after-leaves will be
a month from this date. The frost, strange as it
may appear, has not affected them: their roots,
stored with starch, keep them ever fresh and ready
with their gainful handicap to begin their race with
the annuals. The thick descending root-stocks of
the skunk cabbage are sending up everywhere in the
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 31

bogs the pink-hooded spathes which sheltered the
round-head clusters of flowers. The bunches of
young violet leaves beside them are doing their
work differently: the blossoms come after the leaf,
and are strangely unlike their neighbors to the
nostrils of humanity; yet in the great economy
of Nature “she knows only vegetable life existing
to a universal and not toa particular end.” The
offensive fetidus is as good in her eyes as the sweet-
scented cucullata, and, like the tender mother she
is, she nourishes each, and knows not the difference
between the repulsive child and the lovely blue-
eyed flower. The first leaves of the Cardamine
(Spring Cress), another inhabitant of the bog, have
grown two or three inches already. I pull up a
cluster of these leaves and learn the secret of its
confidence and smartness. “Stems upright from a
tuberiferous base,” says Grey; and this peculiarity
distinguishes it from all other species in the genus.
These small potato-shaped tubers at the end of the
stem laid by so much starch and plant food the
previous year that it has now a great advantage
over the annuals and laggard perennials that slowly
germinate from fibrous roots or seeds.

On the dry banks and knolls a few of the earliest
perennials, however, have been willing to show their
32 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

blossoms. I am almost surprised to find the deli-
cate, blue-eyed Hepatica peeping out from the dead
mass of fallen leaves; the slender scape and the
fresh new leaves now unfolding are warmly clothed
with soft wool-like hairs, as if Nature feared to send
them forth these uncertain days without their over-
coats. Here, too, are the earliest of the composites ;
plantain, everlastings with their woolly leaves and
inconspicuous flowers, curling out of the brown.
This low cudweed has two kinds of flowers on
different individual stems; on one head I find
a collection of slender tubular flowers in which
the pistils and ovaries are seen, while others bear
nothing but stamens. Food for the smaller honey-
gatherers is scarce, and so this lowly plant has blos-
somed early before the gaudy ones have appeared,
to attract them to its cups, and thus carry the
pollen from one kind to the other.

It is remarkable to what a degree the pond in
Spenser’s Meadow swarms with different living
creatures! The warm rays of the sun have brought
into being, as if by magic, myriads of gnats that
fringe the shore. One can watch through a glass
with deep interest the process of shuffling off their
mortal coils and taking wings to sport above the
water. Here among the species of green confer-
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL, 33

void alge the water-boatman rows or turns its
pearl wing-covers to view and makes attempts at
flight. The large lavender-tinted cyclops, with
egg-panniers attached, are seen, while the bivalved
cypris toils along in its shell like a miniature argo-
naut. I find here a species of aquatic coleoptera,
a little ovate beetle, entirely a stranger to me, which
I have nowhere seen described in the books. Un-
like any of the other beetles noticed, the thorax
seems to project over the abdomen, leaving a space
or groove between this appendage and the beauti-
fully-marked bronzed-and-black wing-covers. In
this channel, where it carries its bubble very con-
veniently, play the long, slender posterior legs
so active in propelling the creature through the
water. These beetles are able to remain a long
time beneath the surface, and, unlike those of the
genus Dysticus, do not swim up and then turn
round to obtain their supply of air, but simply let
go the objects to which they cling, and, without
using their paddles, rise, tail first, remaining an
instant only to perform that wonderful operation,
and then scamper down again to feed on the decay-
ing matter at the bottom of the pond.

The toads have rolled themselves out of their
mud blankets, and begun their Easter festival and
34 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

song, and the bull frogs are chuckling for the first
time, as though they were congratulating each
other, in true batrachian language, on their fine
condition after the long winter’s imprisonment in
mud; or had found a prize in the water. Some
of the huge fellows have actually hopped on the
banks to sun themselves and tempt the epicures ;
and as I come upon them suddenly they express
their alarm by uttering sharply a short squeak or
yip, followed instantly by a heavy plunge into the
water. They are more strictly aquatic than the
other species, never appearing at a great distance
from their native pond or stream. Three weeks
from now these waters will be full of corpulent,
squirming tadpoles, hiding themselves in the mud,
where daily miracles will be performed; the chang-
ing of the gill-breathing fish into the highest form
of air-breathing amphibians. In the evening’s still-
ness is heard the musical cheap, cheap, of the
pickerel frogs the most pleasing note of batrachian
musicians. The water chimes and tinkles with their
chanting, as if hundreds of tiny silver bells were
ringing here and there over itssurface. The power
in the toads and frogs to produce such sounds is
extraordinary, for, unlike many of the vertebrates,
the larynx is in a rudimentary state. The males
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL, 35

only are the minstrels, and, with their capacious air
sacks and wide mouths, may be called the cornet
and trombone players.

The pond has given up its turtles, that at a dis-
tance appear like black dabs of mud scattered along
the grassy, sunny banks. They are of the painted
or swamp species (chrysemys picta), and the earliest
to respond to the sun’s warmth, in which they will
lie for hours to bask. They are watchful and alert,
keeping their necks stretched out and their heads
continually uplifted to catch the sight or sound of
suspicious objects. In one place where the bank
slopes conveniently, nine of them have huddled
together, and it is curious to see them turn their
golden-spotted heads simultaneously like a squad
of well-drilled soldiers, at the command of right or
left dress, on hearing an unusual noise. As I rise
from my hiding-place they all rush pell-mell down the
bank, their shells rattling as they tumble over each
other in their frantic haste to escape. A moment
after the water is studded with heads, and as they
see nothing to alarm them, they almost immediately
crawl up and crowd themselves on to the same spot
as before, their backs now varnished with wet, that
brings out more clearly the yellow borders of the
dorsal plates, and the blood-red and black blotches
36 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

and marks on the sides, looking like Chinese char-
acters. I count thirty-eight pieces on the carapace,
twenty-five of which are in smaller squares, nicely
jointed and forming the margin.

Now comes a day when the head of the weather-
vane points northward, and, although the sun shines,
the wind, blowing from off the northern snows, shuts
off the heat, and the numberless pulleys in Nature’s
shops seem nearly motionless. How suddenly the
serenaders in the swamps put away their trumpets,
and went to sleep under their mud blankets again!
The strong wind roars through the branches of the
hard-wood trees, and sighs in the pines and hem-
locks. The dead, dry leaves underfoot are playing
all sorts of antics. Here comes a host of them up
the wood-road, racing with each other, in various
methods of locomotion, sliding along on their sur-
faces, rolling on their edges, tumbling, stems over
tips and tips over stems, as if they were eager to
reach a certain goal at a given time. Some are as
erratic in their scampering as the red squirrels, and
in particular places flocks of them suddenly rise up
and fly away on the wind’s wings, like so many
startled birds. In the lee of a pile of odorous pine,
I find for a while an excellent shelter, and inhale
the fragrance of the resinous blood that oozes from
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 37

the squarely cut sticks, and shines like glass and
amber beads. Under a stone roof I disturb a pair
of beetles that are like bits of shining metal sud-
denly come to life, and scamper off in opposite
directions. Over head a pair of tiny kinglets move
about on the high limbs, like huge flies. Had these
little travelers, too, been duped by the delusive
April-fool weather, and begun their journey north-
ward too early? As they fluttered among the
twigs it seemed they searched in vain for insects,
and were getting back to milder air again.

A typical April soon follows, with alternating
sunshine and gentle showers ; the kind of weather
to make May-flowers and violets. From a shelter-
ing hemlock I see the soft rain fall straight down
on a patch of birch saplings, washing the young
bark, and stringing the twigs with diamond drops
of the first water. Anon the sun looks out from
the parted cloud curtains, and lights up these
globules with blue, green and gold, and sparkling
white. A column of wild geese are flying a half-
mile overhead. Their “honking,” from this dis-
tance, sounds as if they were laughing and joking
with their file-leader, like a battalion of cavalry-
men. Through the glass I can see their com-
mander now and then slightly turn his head from
38 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

side to side, as if he were keeping a sharp lookout
for the welfare of his troops, and had a world of
trouble on his mind. How perfectly is the align-
ment of that arrow-head maintained, each indi-
vidual in the flight preserving the “regulation ”
distance, as a company of well-drilled soldiers.
Why do they fly in two lines, approximating to a
point, if not for the purpose of rendering their
progress easier, by cleaving the air as the prow of
a ship cuts the waters of the ocean? Looking at
the strong, steady flight of these navigators with
their compasses in their heads, and studying the
chart below them, as they sail along, one is inclined
to believe that the goose should not be the syno-
nym of stupidity and dullness. It would be curi-
ous to know toward what peculiar northern lake
or river they are heading, or have in their minds.
Is it Memphremagog or St. Lawrence, or is it some
river farther northward along the Labrador coast?

A few sullen days are interspersed when the
hands on the dial of the month are moved back-
ward and seem to frighten the young spring away.
The wind, blowing from the icebergs of the high
northern seas, brings in its breath and scatters in
its track, rheumatism and other diseases that the
New Englander is heir to. Even the jays and
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL, 39

woodpeckers are silent, and the red-wings in
the swamps have ceased their mellifluous sug-er-
le-e-e, for awhile. Sometimes an entire week of
cold ends suddenly in a furious, blinding snow
storm, that hurls the little icy needles and pellets
on the traveler, and as night shuts down he finds
himself floundering along “in the depths of spring.”

One views the landscape, the next bright morn-
ing, as a battle-field whereon the winter fought.
A general survey, indeed, gives it a desolate aspect.
The springing grasses appear winter-killed and
wrapped in winding-sheets. But if the scene is
studied in detail, one soon discovers that the vernal
army has conquered, or is pressing forward in a
noiseless but irresistible counter-charge. The
blackbird has already sounded his bugle for the
advance, the snow slinks away and flows off in
rills and streams of cold, colorless blood. Patches
of emerald, banners of the spring’s forces, are first
seen in the swamps, so bright and vivid, in contrast
to the surrounding whiteness. At high noon the
ensign of winter is rent in many places and lies in
shreds, like strips of white cloth, along the shady
sides of walls and thickets, and flocks of those lit-
tle camp-followers, the fox-sparrows, are scratching
lustily, half in the snow and half on the bare
40 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

ground, as if they found something especially
yelishing in such places.

The strength shown in those wire-like legs is
truly marvelous. The method of scratching seems
not to be like that of the hen. He brings both of
his feet forward at the same time, then as quickly
as if worked by springs, and in a way only known
to him, both claws are suddenly jerked backward,
making the leaves fly off far behind.

There is one having a real feast down amongst
the water-soaked leaves, but he works so hard with
his little legs that he is panting. He has the
sensible habit of taking long resting spells, when
he seems to listen to some far-off sound, or per-
chance is musing on the journey he perforce must
take, in a few days, to the higher latitudes. A
finch of marked characteristics is he. When en-
gaged in searching for food, he gives his whole
attention and strength to the work. He is done
up in bright colors for a sparrow; the clear white
and reddish-brown blotches on the breast and
flanks, with the cinnamon on the back, remind one
of the best-dressed species of the Thrush family ;
indeed, Swainson must have been struck with the
resemblance to them, for he has given the same
specific name that Linnzus has given to the red
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL, 4!

wing thrush (iliaca), referring probably to the con-
spicuous markings on the sides and hinder parts
of these birds.

The sun, the great time measure, each day gains
in power and brings on a fuller tide of life, that
rushes up through countless veins of tree trunks,
and tender blades and stems. “I am the resurrec-
tion and the life!” it potently whispers to seed
and rootlet, to egg and pupa; and to the hiberna-
tors everywhere, “ Awake, come forth!”

April has again leaped into May. All day long
the southern breeze seems to have come from the
heated equator, passing through different strata
of coolness till it reached us rightly tempered to
ethereal mildness. There is a hazy, “dreamy,
magical light” pervading the atmosphere that cor-
responds to our pleasant October days, but with
the peculiar spring odors, — the earthy scents fur-
nished by the disturbing ploughshares and the
aromatic smoke of burning apple-wood, raspberry
and blackberry-bushes.

The quick, vibratory motion of the heated air,
rising from certain spots in the fields, especially
of the hill-tops, can readily be seen with the glass.
When viewed against a background of shrubbery
of tree-trunks, these quivering atoms are seen
42 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

plainer, and resemble the trembling shadows of
wavelets and water ripples under bridges and
around docks. At times, the puffs of wind blow
the dancing atoms away, as it would a swarm of
gnats, that again appear when the wind subsides.

The apple-orchards are trimmed, the first spring’s
work on the farm. How bright and fresh the chips
and squarely-cut ends of the twigs appear, in con-
trast to the dark bark, and how rich the perfume
of the oil of pyrus! It is the fragrance peculiar
to certain cottage hearths. A chimney on R ’s

 

hill in winter and spring always emits an incense
of burning apple-tree wood. The air is spiced with
it, and retains the scent as the perfume of cologne
is retained in a kerchief. The full, rich, mellow
alto of the red-wing, like the first liquid note of the
bobolink, is suited to the day. Even that crow’s
note yonder, corresponds with the pleasant spring
sunshine. There is not a hint of his usually harsh
voice in it, but a contented, satisfied ca-ca-ca-ca,
repeated at regular intervals and quite rapidly, as
if the bird, for once, had his crop full, and was at
peace with all the world. This cannot be his love-
note, for it is heard occasionally throughout the
open season.

The day is so warm that the robin, whose voice
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 43

for a week has been a half-regretful chirp, mounts
a high branch, after a bountiful repast from the
spongy meadows, and, with a crop full of wriggling
worms, gives his love song— the champion robin
singer! His tone and articulation was different
from others noticed. He seemed to sing in his
best voice, sphere-sphere, then chewy chewy. It
was a clear case of showing off his talent to his
lady love. Both had left the common occupation
of the meadows and ascended the holy of holies.
Their Pecksniffian character had been entirely cast
aside and they had assumed more of the nature
and quality of their relatives the thrushes. Later
I heard their soft murmurings or bird whisperings
in another tree, where I concluded the maiden had
said Yes. Amongst a thick growth of young
beeches by the stream, a small brown bird is flitting
about on the ground and creeping among the dry
leaves in such an uncommon, whimsical, mouse-like
way, that my inquisitiveness is at once aroused.
Moving nearer to obtain a better view it suddenly
skulks into a bunch of pine brush towards which
I cautiously approach. Soon the little oddity
emerges from its retreat, but finding me so near it
becomes confused and flies so low, rapidly and
irregularly over the brush heap, as to appear for
44 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

an instant not like a bird but an indistinct zigzag
streak, and vanishes again in the mass of dry pine
leaves, where it remains long enough to compose
itself and then flies off to another covert, which is
sufficiently open for me to secure a rear view of a
globular bunch of feathers, a little dark, pot-shaped

.bird, with two slender wires for the legs, and a
short, narrow, turned-up tail for the handle. This
I am quite sure. is the winter wren (TZroglodytes
hiemalis), and is a stranger in these parts excepting
in the spring and fall migrations. As it turns its
head in watchful attitude, I observe a rather long,
tapering bill, and a streak of light brown over the
eye.

As I walk along the fields I scare up troops of
birds, most of them sparrows, or finches that pro-
bably arrived on the owl train last night. These
sparrows are interesting if one possesses the na-
turalist’s curious eyes to note their manifold
habits and markings. They are among the har-
diest winners in the bird’s life-race, all retaining
that peculiar sparrow quality which must have, in
some remote period, prevailed in a strong ancestral
type, now, through the law of variation, changed
into many genera and species.

Probably these same birds, not two weeks ago,
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 45

were foraging by the streams that feed the Santee
and Roanoke Rivers. To the casual observer
these emigrants now seen appear to be of the same
species; yet if he notes closely through the glass
their marking, and watches carefully the difference
in the manner of feeding, he will be interested in
knowing that there are two kinds; the swamp-
sparrow (Melospiza palustris), and thesong-sparrow
(Melospiza melodia). The crown of the swamp-
sparrow is chestnut, while that of the song-spar-
row is brownish-red, with a medial stripe of dull
gray. The former has a jet-black forehead, which
is lacking in the latter. The breast of the song-
sparrow is whitish, with clearly-defined dark-brown
streaks, and a spot nearly in the centre. . This
ornament his first cousin does not have, but a
plain ashy front, with only a few dull streaks near
the wings, and just a hint of yellow on the sides.
For a month after their arrival here, before the
seeds have well grown, both species love to forage
by this stream, as they are doing to-day. The
song-sparrow hops along the shore, looking into
all the hollows and openings in the banks, which
he has inspected a hundred times before, but
where each time he finds an overlooked seed or
grub. While engaged in his meals, he does not
46 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

care to wet his stockings. His relative, however,
is half-aquatic in his habits, apparently caring no
more for the water than the real long-legged
waders. Here is one at this moment standing
almost up to his feathers on a submerged rock,
flirting over the soaked dead leaves which have
been caught by a small snag, and ludicrously scan-
ning their surfaces for bits of mollusks and water-
beetles. It is peculiar that these birds of the same
genus should entertain such distinct views of the
world and mankind. Later in the season the
swamp-sparrow hastens to the low ground, where
he is suspicious and distrustful, seldom showing
himself excepting in times of anxiety, but skulking
here and there among the rank weeds and sedges,
occasionally uttering his cheap-cheap, as though
he were treating you with sneers. The other bird
is as open and free from reserve and cheerful as
the sunshine, occupying every rock and bush and
fence, on which the persistent little songster, from
early spring to late fall, pours from his inexhausti-
ble throat the softest, sweetest melodies.

The yellow-hammers are playing in many keys
on their xylophones, for the entertainment of their
lady-loves. How they make the woods echo!
When one drums on some dead resonant limb, his
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 47

head moves so quickly up and down, that it is only
at the beginning and the ending of the perform-
ance that any motion is perceived, although the
ear readily catches each rapidly repeated tap. By
this drumming he appears to reach the climax of
passionate excitement and fine frenzy. Then he
rests awhile as if the operation was painful and
he feared a concussion of the brain. The battles of
rival males, considering how well armed they are,
appear to be the most insipid affairs. Their actions
are exceedingly whimsical and fantastic, as if they
had tapped, and tarried too long at a wine cask.
Here two tipsy fellows have been clinging to an
oak trunk for five minutes or more, uttering sub-
dued “peops,” and keeping the trunk between
them as if one was afraid and the other dared not
engage in combat. Doubtless the female from
some tree has witnessed this odd proceeding, for
one lopes through the branches, to an elm in the
field, and is immediately followed by these sham
duelists, that are now more animated in their
manifestations. They droop their wings and
spread their pointed tail-feathers like fans; they
alight on the ground and confront each other,
holding up their sharp bills, as fencers would their
rapiers before they begin to thrust and parry;
48 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

then they play up and down in the air like two
monstrous ephemerids. All these antics are per-
formed for the entertainment of Mademoiselle
Flicker, who with her nice discrimination, and in
her own sweet good time will choose the cleverest
of these crazed acrobats for her husband. How
clean and fresh their plumage looks! Presently
one flies off in the meadow and probes for worms.
He gives several quick stabs with his sharp bill
into the soft earth as though it was a tree
trunk, and then remains motionless for some time,
with head down, evidently to impale the mor-
sel with his barbed tongue. He hops along slowly
and awkwardly, as if he had not yet learned per-
fectly the trade of the robins, that now lift their
heads proudly and stare at him, as if to say, “ Why
are you trespassing on our domains?” Is it not
curious that a bird whose feet are adapted for
climbing trees, and clinging to the trunks with
rigid tail-feathers, to help support its body, and a
beak especially formed to obtain its grub from
under the bark, should have thus far changed its
habits, and be found hopping about on the grass
lands like the thrushes? Perhaps this high hole is’
in a transitional state, and is, at each succeeding
generation, deviating from the true woodpecker
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 49

type into some other form, which it is gradually
finding out is best suited to sustain it in the great
struggle for existence.

Another harbinger of the warm days, which I
see the sun has limbered and set in motion, is
that pretty butterfly (Vanessa antiopa) with purple
wings so beautifully marked with yellow borders
and blue spots. It is the first butterfly of the
season. While most of the species hibernate in
the pupal state, and take to themselves wings later
in the year, this particular kind crawls, as a per-
fect insect, into some shelter during the coldest
weather, and remains torpid until such days as
this bring it back to cheerful life once more. AI-
though the table of sweets has not yet been spread,
I doubt not that its long tongue will find some-
thing tasteful among the birches toward which it
is winging its bird-like way.

Besides the Vanessa, two other butterflies have
appeared: the common brimstone, wabbling over
the meadows, and another with rusty wings, moy-
ing with a quick, jerky flight, now among the low
shrubs, and then rapidly ascending like a dead
leaf, blown by a whirlwind high among the beech
branches where the nymph becomes suddenly in-
visible.
50 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

From the cracked bark high up on these birches
oozes the exuberant sap that drops on the dead
leaves beneath like the drippings of rain after a
shower.

What is this mysterious power that sends the
juices rushing up through countless tubes into
every extremity of these living creatures? We
listen in vain for the heart-throb within their
wooden breasts, yet life blood flows silently through
the arteries and veins, making new wood and liber.
The heart indeed is inactive, but if our ears were
sufficiently acute, we could catch the sounds of
the working of many machines under ground sup-
plying the porous roots with water, acids and
earthy salts, which being properly mixed with
sugar, mucilage, and protoplasm contained in the
root, forms the true sap. This engine is called
endosmose. But the force which causes the circu-
lation in every branch and twig, is not a pushing
one from below, but a lifting one, many millions
of miles above us, indeed, the great source of light
and life, the sun. Even from the tips of those
buds the moisture in invisible streams, drawn
upward into the air, leaving behind certain organic
matter in the leaves, and the sap in them being
denser, soaks up the thinner fluid in the cells
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 51

below; these, in turn, drawing from still lower
cells, and so on, thus effecting a steady flow
upward, from the little fibers underground, to the
smallest tooth-point of the leaf above. Veritable
fountains are these trees, which are now beginning
to throw up green spray and clouds of blossom.
Those sessile clusters of bright yellow flowers on
the spice bush (Lindera Benzoin) are very pretty
and conspicuous against the almost black bark of
that shrub. It is the earliest non-catkin-bearing
shrub of this woodland. The aromatic blossoms
have the odor of an apothecary shop, and appear
several weeks before the leaves. A simple magni-
fier discloses the curious arrangement of the flower
which has really no corolla, it being the six parted
calyx which is so brightly yellow, and which answers
the purpose of attracting the honey and pollen
gatherers. The flowers are not all perfect on each
individual plant. On some there is a majority of
pistillate blossoms with a great many abortive
stamens crowded around the well-developed ovary
and stigma; while on other branches there is a
larger number of flowers having nine complete
stamens, but no pistil. The anthers have two cells,
the doors of which are already opened and turned
over the apex of the anther, with the pollen grains
52 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL,

adhering to the surface, thus spreading out to the
bees tables heaped up with breadstuffs; food indis-
pensable, for the nourishment of the helpless larva
at home. How have these insects found their way
to this bread mart, which is perhaps a mile away
from their hives? What special intelligence told
them that on this particular morning the few
flowers of this allspice were ready for harvesting ?
Do they not search for their food, as persons for
maple sap; guided by their many powerful eye-
lenses, and aided by nice auditory organs and keen
scent?

I see their legs sag by means of the burdensome
weight, as they fly before a cluster or fascicle, to
inspect each little flower. If one does not suit
them, they suddenly drop or move sideways to
another, as if struck by some invisible force. How
wide awake they are on this sunny day! Their
many faceted eyes have perhaps multiplied me
into a crowd. If I approach them too closely they
change their places in a good-natured sort of a
way, as if they did not have the power to send me
off in disgraceful retreat. There is a character
displayed in their manner of flying that denotes
an intelligence beyond that of the clumsy blue-
bottle or the aimless butterflies.
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 53

Insects are now more plentiful, and venture on
longer flights. Moths are sensitive to the cool air,
but many are coming out of their crevice homes
only to be entrapped by the marauding spiders,
that have already swung from shrub to shrub their
suspension bridges, the ropes of which, as you stand
in a favorable light, shine with all the colors of the
rainbow. Blue-bottles and other species of flies
that have curious life histories, are buzzing around
on this sunny slope, and lapping up the sap that
oozes from the bruised beech trunks and newly cut
maple stumps. Here is one that. has invited inspec-
tion by alighting on my sleeve; a large plump fellow
that has shown himself so soon after the frosts.
He is of the woods and fields, and has a wilder
appearance than the common house-fly. His legs
and body are quite thickly beset with stout black
bristles, the upper parts of thorax and abdomen
are delicately checkered with gray and black, while
the segments below are of dull greenish yellow.
This species is in the genus Tachina; many of
them lay their eggs on beetles and caterpillars,
gluing them to the bodies of their victims with an
adhesive substance that is proof against moisture
or friction.

Notice a colony of sand bees flying low over the
54 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

sandy railroad bed. Here is a busybody that has
just begun to sink its shaft almost perpendicularly
close to the iron track. With what earnestness it
sets to work with mandible and tarsi, as though it
had determined to take a short cut to peep at some
entomological antipodean. In a minute or two it
has buried itself, and I can just see the tip of its
abdomen, when suddenly it backs out, bringing
with its feet the loosened grains of sand and fling-
ing them well out from the hole. In this way it
continues to work, remaining longer and longer
each time it enters the shaft, the task becoming
more difficult as it bores with “tooth and nail”
deeper into the earth. One of these passages has
been sunk to the depth of fifteen inches, slightly
inclined from the perpendicular, and as round as if
it had been bored with a gimlet. Following this,
I unearthed a female that appeared confused, as
she dropped from her burrow, where probably she
had just begun glazing and fitting up her first cell
for the egg.

The queen humble-bee, dressed in her best yellow
satin gown, has ventured out for the first time, and
immediately sets to work to find a suitable loca-
tion for her home. Probably every member of the
household except her royal self perished as the
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 55

cold weather of last autumn came on. How busily
she hums as she flies low over the ground, describ-
ing all sorts of lines and curves and angles; now
dropping into a dry tussock of grass, now hovering
for an instant over a bunch of dead leaves by a
stump, and looking with all the many thousand
eyes in her precious head for a deserted mouse
nest, or a cavity among the surface roots, or a
favorable spot where she may dig a cave in which
to lay her eggs, that the royal lineage may be
preserved! She appears to be a very careful and
particular queen. Can it be that she is embarrassed
and impatient under my watching, pretending to
be busy and thus trying to lead me astray? Prob-
ably this is the fact, for after observing her closely
a long time, she finally becomes discouraged, gives
an angry voice to her wings as she circles near,
then suddenly darts away, a moving speck through
the trees, and is instantly lost to sight.

In this swamp, overgrown with alders, festooned
with drooping catkins and spice bushes, tipped
with golden buds, I am suddenly halted by the
flight of a hermit thrush that had been feeding
within ten feet of my path. With the exception
of the robins he is the earliest of the thrushes.
He is only seen in the vicinity of the Capitol
56 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

of Massachusetts during his migration North and
eastward.

Now that he is passing through, it is time to
observe him. The name of swamp robin, which
is sometimes given him, is an appropriate one, for
in his ramblings among the hummocks and sod-
dened leaves in search of food, he bears a strong
resemblance to our common red-breast. When he
essays long distances, he glides over the ground,
then halting suddenly, lifts his body almost in an
upright position. How alert he appears, standing
with drooped wings and eye dilated with curiosity!
Like the robin, he has a way of turning back fre-
quently in his path, or of hopping off abruptly at
oblique or right angles to capture some dainty
morsel. I note the dusky olive coat, with just a
shade of green woven in the fabric, and some rust
on the tail, rump, and edges of the wings, as if the
garment had begun to fade. His white breast is
dashed with dark-brown spots, as if he had bespat-
tered it with mud. Now a whim seizes him, and
he runs like a mad bird up on the higher lands,
under the trees and round the ledges. In such
localities I suspect he often departs from the robin
method of foraging, and scratches, sometimes, as
the wood thrushes do. Although I did not catch
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 57

him in the act, the leaves have been disturbed on
the sunny side of a large rock, where, for a while,
he has been hiding. In his wanderings he is as
dumb as a stuffed specimen, not even a chuck
escapes him. His flute notes, like those of the
signal horn of Munchausen’s postilion, are yet
frozen in his throat, and it needs the summer’s
heat, his native forests, and the inspiration of the
tender passion, to melt them into the flowing,
liquid melody of song.

Zodlogists say that the birds have many charac-
teristics of the reptiles, indicating their close rela-
tionship. To the superficial observer it would
seem almost absurd to place this pretty thrush so
near a brood of half-grown striped snakes (Hutenia
sirtalis) that have been drawn up from their cold,

“damp hibernacle by the warm rays of the sun.
How easily and noiselessly these reptilian rills glide
along, bending their flexible bodies conveniently to
every inequality in their path; the color of their
skins so nicely harmonizing with surrounding ob-
jects that it is difficult to follow them with your
eyes. One, as I followed it, soon became fatigued,
and refused to crawl any farther, but immediately
put itself in a defensive attitude by resting on
several of its coils, and raising its head as if to
58 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL,

strike; so closely does this harmless species imi-
tate the venomous kind. How accurately the
broad scales on the under parts overlap each other,
like those of a fish; and in lack of fin, wing or
limb, how ingeniously Nature has turned them to
account as a means of locomotion! These creat-
ures no doubt are preying on the frogs and mice
which are, also, out to get a sun-bath. Here one
little rodent runs nervously back and forth across
the shallow pools. It has so many enemies, above,
below, and on all sides, that it appears confused
and puzzled how to take care of its precious little
body.

How different are these rodents from the red
and gray squirrels that are out in goodly numbers
feeding on the elm blossoms!

They all appear to have been well-kept through
the winter. Here comes a sleek fellow down this
trunk; he stops in his descent to eye me, and
remains as motionless as a stuffed specimen fixed
to the bark, clinging to it with his hind feet, which
are turned completely round, as if his joints. were
worked like swivels. Now he starts, as if the
motionless model had been acted upon by some
electrical machine; tilts his tail, and scampers over
the mosses and dead leaves; gives short sniffs at
LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 59

empty acorn-shells, and hurries on confusedly from
one object to another, every movement expressing
his sense of insecurity while on the ground, finally
arrives at the foot of another elm, and, after look-
ing up, apparently to ascertain the kind of tree it
is, runs up the trunk so quickly as to appear like
a moving streak of bark, and settles down on the
opposite side of a topmost branch nibbling a tender
bud.

They are great gymnasts, and, when startled,
make valiant leaps. It seems hardly possible that
muscles and sinews could send them from spray to
spray so far apart, and that this should be accom-
plished by the mere force of the will. Ah! but
sometimes they fail. I have seen one miss his
foothold and fall forty feet, striking the ground
with a heavy blow, where he lay for an instant like
aclod. I can hardly think that such adventures
can be natural; yet this fellow obviously had the
physical ability to endure just such “short stops ”
as this, for he afterward glided along the ground
as though nothing ailed him, and was soon up
another tree.

April 30: The rain of yesterday, and the warm
sun to-day beating down on the pines and hem-
locks, has made a rich, sweet odor, inhaled in
60 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL.

Nature’s temples. A steeping process is now
going on, and the balsam-laden vapors seem health-
ful to breathe. As I walk among the trees I catch
for the first time the shrill, small, tin-whistle voice
of the black-throated green warbler, saying “ Few-
few, few-day-few.” He seems to make it an espe-
cial duty, a business which engages his whole care
and attention, to visit every tree and branch, and
by the brief ceremony of head-lifting and religious
chant, to dedicate each anew to the sacred use of
song. The melody has a peculiar fitness and
quality to these evergreens and seems to regulate
and put them in good order once more, after being
for so long a time void of cheerfulness.

How elegant he appears in the midst of these
common seed-eaters! his voice has the true sylvan
quality, and his delicate feet never touch the vul-
gar earth. He is a bird of the boughs and spray;
a Laureate singer that has appeared, as if by acci-
dent, in the society of these mobbish groundlings. °
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.
III.
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

THE sun, more than a month past the vernal
equinox, has with his skillful rays well advanced
the work of lifting up the blades and unfolding
the compact packages of leaves. What a spell is
being wrought by the great magician on the tender
foliage of yonder growths of oaks and maples, pre-
senting, before the full share of chlorophyl is
gained, a beautiful array of colors, which only the
autumn’s work surpasses !

Young leaves of delicate pink, maroon, honey-
yellow, and the various shades of green, appear in
the distance like a mist of many hues settled on a
spray.

On the southern side of this shelving ledge,
wherever a crevice holds a pinch of earth, some
kind of plant, that has a liking for such localities,
has appropriated it and sprung up like magic.

When did these columbines blossom? How art-
63
64 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

fully the crow-foots and smaller Solomon’s-seal
have managed to force themselves upon your
notice until to-day, when the warm sun has com-
manded them to rise up and flaunt their red and
green banners above the walls and ramparts of
their fortress !

It is a time, too, for the singing of birds; each
day brings some new arrival; the hardy finches
long since appeared, but the interesting families of
wood-warblers must needs wait until now, when
crawling and flying insects abound to furnish them
with proper food.

Walking by some willows that fringe a stream,
I come upon a flock of well-dressed strangers, —
some golden-rumped warblers that are flitting rest-
lessly here and there among the branches; their
coats are bluish-gray, streaked with black, each
having a single yellow button behind, and sleeves
trimmed with yellow lace; a crown of gold adorns
their heads; their vests are black, in striking con-
trast to the immaculate bosoms. After a fort-
night’s sojourn here, they will pass northward to
the Canadas, where they will spend the summer
season. Their manner of catching insects is simi-
lar to the tyrants’, but the flight is not so pro-
longed, nor do they return to the same post of
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 65

observation as is the habit of those birds. They
cling to the twigs and peer into the bursting buds,
not unlike the titmice, or fly down in the meadow
and go hopping along through the grass after the
manner of the sparrows. I know of no other bird
whose habits are so varied. When they attempt
longer flights, the course is zigzag, acting as if
confused, or like the erratic movements of a kite,
-when falling to the ground. Oftentimes they
turn back again to the tree from which they
started, as though they had forgotten to inspect a
certain branch just then seen. This warbler is not
at all cautious or suspicious. A lack of shyness is
noticeable among birds that pass northward to
breed. This is the case with the white-throated
sparrows, which have lately arrived and are feed-
ing along the hillsides under the beeches and white
oaks. As you approach them, they merely perch
on the lower limbs, waiting patiently for you to go
on. Is this tameness due to the fact that people
in the countries, both North and South, where these
birds visit, do not molest them as does the in-
quiring Yankee? And are they slow to learn by
experience that man is a more dangerous animal
than the cows or sheep among which they evidently
feel secure ?
66 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

This is the first day of the “ chippy ” on these
grounds, although the books say he should have
been here three weeks ago. Perhaps these few
individuals are tardy from lingering too long
around more southern doorsteps and locomotives.
One “teeters” ona young oak spray very near,
and ripples the air with his sharp cricket-like voice
and rapidly vibrating tongue. What a wee bit of
feathers to wing his way so far from his Southern
home, and what an interesting journey, if the true
history of it could be written !

At what particular date did he first feel the
migratory impulse strong enough to begin the
flight northward? What dooryards did he visit;
the streets of what villages or cities did he forage
through? Is this the locality he has remembered,
and where he intends to build his nest, or has he,
under his chestnut crown, the memory of a snug
little spot a hundred miles farther east or north?
These are some of the questions that are put to
my adventurous little stranger, but he only lifts
his head and shakes from his ashen breast the
answer into such broken fragments as to make it
altogether unintelligible.

In company is one bird with the same family
resemblance, but with such different specific man-
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 67

ners and markings that it at once attracts attention.
Directing the field-glass, my only weapon, toward
it, I find it has a yellowish streak above the eye,
two broad dark bands and a medial light line over
the crown, gray above, with breast thickly spat-
tered with black, mud-colored spots and stripes.
The tail is quite short, and slightly forked. It
seems unwilling to use its wings, its long legs
enabling it to keep a few yards ahead of me.
Sometimes it walks slowly when passing through
high tussocks of grass for seeds and insects, then
it will hop along swiftly like other sparrows, or
jump up to glean the seeds of last year’s heads,
or run away like a sandpiper when it suddenly be-
thinks itself that it is too near for safety. As I
follow it closely, it at last becomes uneasy and
suspicious, and finally takes to its wings, alighting
in a low apple-tree some distance away, where it
remains a minute or.two in silence, to reflect upon
the situation before again descending to its terres-
trial pursuits. It is the Savannah sparrow, and
is the only individual seen, as if it had in its
migration been blown away from its fellows and
had fallen in the midst of these social chippies,
that appear not at all displeased with the distin-
guished stranger.
68 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

The little cheebeck, though he arrived nearly a
week ago, forces himself on my notice for the first
time. As a musician, he is not a success. He
perches on a twig overhead and utters his monoto-
nous note, chebeck-chebeck, jerking his head and
tail at the same time, as if it was the greatest
effort for him to say as much as this. He has
the air of a sick bird, till you have looked into
his round, full, bright eye, when this impression is
at once dispelled. So far as I have observed, he
does not capture the flying insects, like his cousins,
the pewees and kingbirds, but flits from tree to tree,
without returning again to the same post of obser-
vation. Once or twice I caught him looking among
the leaves and twigs for food.

What peculiarity is it, in the constitution of a

_few of our birds, that causes an entire change of
color in their plumage during the breeding-season ?
Evidently there is some special quality in the
nature of the blood that sends the dye-stuff out to
the feathers, as air and light operate upon the
young leaves of the oaks and walnuts at the time
of their unfolding. A male goldfinch flutters up
from the pathway, apparently disabled by the
unusually backward and severe moulting, and tries
to hide himself among some yellowish, stained
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES, 69

stones, which harmonize nearly with his own hue.
After much awkward scrambling, I capture the
nervous little fellow, and pause to note carefully
his changing suit. The wings and tail have be-
come quite black, yet on some of the feathers there
remains the brownish tint which characterizes his
winter dress. The black patch, absent in the cold
season, is beginning to appear on his crown; the
tips of the yellow feathers about this region are
washed with some dark coloring matter, showing
that the designer marked in outline the general
pattern before completing the work. The yellow-
ish-gray and ashy-brown plumage of the rest of the
body is fast ripening into lemon. Not only are
the feathers changing, but the bill, which is gray-
ish during his nomadic months, has now become
flesh-color, previous to its passing into buff-yellow,
seen in his full summer uniform.

Here a quartette of these birds have just perched
on a spray of arrow-wood, asif it had suddenly
burst into yellow blossoms, and give me a song.
Possibly they may not have practiced together a
long time, for they seemed out of tune, and I could
not understand the words; yet they have remark-
ably good voices, that much resemble the canary,
to which they are closely connected. With what
70 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

easy stages they approach the stream, now hopping
down a twig that grows there for the purpose, now
nicely choosing a convenient stone to step upon,
and finally plunge into the water and revel in the
baptism. After a while they retire, uttering their
ta-ché-ter-che, as though that note was the motive
power which governed their undulating flight, the
second syllable being emphasized as they begin to
rise on each succeeding wave, and growing fainter
with the downward inclination. I believe none of
our common birds “set up housekeeping ” so late
in the season as they. Six weeks or more after
their arrival is spent in a round of pleasure, while
waiting for some of the earliest thistles to furnish
them down for upholstering their rooms.

There are scores of dime museums in this grove
of hemlocks, to which on the mere asking the pro-
prietors will admit you. One comes upon curi-
osities so unexpectedly here! Knock off the bark
of a stump, which the weather for years has been
loosening for you, and how amazed and confused
appear the inhabitants, that never want the light
and choose to thrive in this dank, unseemly place !
How swiftly that myriapod scampers away on its
thirty legs, as though the sunlight caused it the
most severe pain, and hastens to seek its dark,
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 71

moist retreat to find relief! Another dark-brown
species (Julus Canadensis), although it has so
many legs that they appear to the unassisted eye
like hairs thickly covering the under parts, is very
slow in its movements, and thinks it finds pro-
tection in its coils. Here a gross larva of a beetle,
upon which these creatures feed, slowly lifts its
head to inquire the cause of this disturbance, while
a slimy newt wriggles out from its crevice, where
probably it was born and has since lived upon the
inmates of this decayed tenement.

While I have been inspecting this stump, my
ear has caught the sharp voice of a pine-warbler
thrown down from some of these tall evergreens
near by. He has a preference for just such locali-
ties as this; and whenever his neighborhood is
approached he is sure to greet one with his eager
and shrill salutation, which, after all, may leave
some doubt in the mind as to its heartfelt sincerity.
I remain motionless a long time under the tree
upon which he is gleaning, in the vain endeavor to
capture him with the glass, but the thick foliage
and his harmonizing color render it almost as diffi-
cult a task as searching for the proverbial needle.
His eye is on me, however, and if I stir about he
at once utters his sharp syllabic protest — che-che-
72 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

che — very rapidly, as if he were hurling into the
air a throatful of vibrating hair-springs. A mo-
ment after this performance I catch for an instant
a dark speck flitting to another tree and clinging
like a true creeper on its trunk and hopping around
the whorl of limbs, showing the yellow-and-white
under parts and the dark-green head and back.
The black-throated green warbler is here, too;
his song is spun out from his larynx exceedingly
fine, but sharp and piercing withal, indicating the
excellent lung-capacity of the performer. It begins
with the syllables ta-te-te-te, uttered rapidly, and
ending with sweet-tu, long drawn out and sound-
ing not unlike a boy’s round tin whistle. Among
these tall evergreens he loves to feed. Here and
there through them the sprays tremble as he pecks
at the tender tips and devours the insects which
have flown or crawled so high to extract the early
sweets. Occasionally he visits the open hard-wood
growths, as if he wished to spice his usual diet
with the peculiar viands that these trees afford.
Standing in a favorable light, I notice that the
yellow feathers on the head are liberally mixed
with verdigris, the wing-coverts and tail almost
olive-brown, and the throat and chin covered with
a triangular black patch, clearly defined, as if a
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES, 73

piece of velvet of that shape and color had been
pasted there.

What an odd chap is this creeper, clinging to
the trunks of trees and running round them as
easily as if he were climbing a spiral stairway !
He is as much at home on the side of a trunk as
on a bough. I wonder if he roosts perpendicu-
larly! No bird in these parts, with the exception
of the black-polled warbler, is marked nearly like
him, with black and white streaks so mixed, and
yet so distinct. He is a mixture of the creepers
and warblers, with a voice not unpleasing in the
general concert. I suspect the cow-buntings are
looking to see where this bird chooses his building
site, for a small flock—two males and two females
—have just flown into a cedar near by. These
tramps have the characteristics of the human
variety, roaming about from place to place, wait-
ing to break into and forestall the homes of the
creepers and other birds smaller than themselves.
They are dressed elegantly, are these vagabonds ;
the wives with the spring pattern of drab so neatly
fitting their trim forms, that they dislike to dis-
arrange them in the common household drudgery
of incubation. Their movements are whimsical
and ignoble, as though they were half-ashamed of
74 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

their mean actions, and they go skulking about
the woods in small companies, chuckling among
themselves over their latest trick. Their behavior
is in striking contrast to the Wilsons and wood-
thrushes that are moving about here in a noble
and dignified way — the real ladies and gentlemen
of the woods.

A week later nearly all the birds have arrived.
Some have only remained here a few days while
on their way, by easy stages, to more northern lati-
tudes, while other migrants have lingered longer,
as if with half a mind to make this pleasant wood
their home. The redstart, chestnut-sided and yel-
low warbler have come to stay. The Maryland
yellow-throat sings, seph-she-did-it, seph-she-did-t,
in the lowlands, and the golden crown salutes you
with his peculiar chant.

The vireo begins at once his questioning query-
query-o-query-ee in his clear, echoing, musical voice,
but sounding fainter as I walk away from his cir-
cuit.

The chestnut-sided warbler defiantly lifts his
head, and widely opens his beak when he sings, as
if he challenged the clouds and winds to do their
worst. Cat-birds are flying silently and suspiciously
among the bushes. The wood thrushes are tuning
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 75

their fifes in the copses, and the valiant little tit-
mice have changed their hearty, convivial notes to
melancholy and plaintive pipes. There are but
few of our birds whose notes are so completely
transposed and voices so entirely altered, as the
sprightly chickadee, when the season of love-mak-
ing arrives. From the brave busybody, he has
lapsed into the love-sick troubador.

Even the black-polled warbler, which is usually
among the last of the migrants, has come a few
days before his time, as if some distress was driv-
ing him northward. Viewing him in the distance,
without a glass, he might be mistaken for the
black-and-white creeper, but drawing him closer,
you at once see a marked dissimilarity. He wears
a head-dress much after the pattern and color of
the chickadee, with a liberal sprinkling of ash
among the black streaks above, and a wash of
greenish yellow on the primary quills and tail
coverts. He searches the cedars frequently for
his food, choosing the spray rather than the trunk.
Sometimes he flies out of the tree to capture some
insect that has escaped his bill. He seems to ex-
amine every twig, turning and twisting his head
sideways and underneath the limbs, with the most
exquisite grace, as he continually climbs towards
76 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

the topmost branch, from which, after reaching it,
he suddenly flutters downward through the leaves,
like a wounded bird, to begin another tour of
inspection.

The general observer and, sometimes, the orni-
thologist is apt to confound one kind of bird with
another in this family of wood-warblers, on account
of the similarity of color and marking; especially
is this the case with the females of many species.
There are quite a number of these little lady birds
of different genera even, that are dressed in olive,
green and yellow, and unless one notes carefully
the minute characteristics, such as the form of the
bill, the shape of the tail, the length of the wing,
etc., he will often be led astray. For example: how
much the female Maryland yellow-throat resembles
‘the female of the black-throated blue warbler that
has just now arrived, and is feeding among the
willows. The sexes in the genus Dendroica are
usually of the same marking, the males, however,
being of a brighter color, as though Nature had
given them higher rank; but in this species ( Caeru-
lescens) there is a striking exception to the general
rule; the male is very different. He has a gray-
ish-blue back and crown, the sides of his head and
his breast are of the deepest black, in contrast to
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 77

the immaculate under parts; while his wife is
olive green above, and yellowish beneath.

There is a peculiarity in their movements when
you come to know them, though it can hardly be
described. These seen to-day confine themselves
to the lower branches; oftentimes starting from
the trunk, and hopping along the entire length of
the bough, inspecting every square inch of bark,
till they come to the farthest spray, where they
flutter among the leaves, and revel in the banquet
of insects spread out before them.

One can scarcely hear their note, it is such a
ghost of a voice; a mere whisper, as if the reeds
in their clarinet wind-pipes had become disar-
ranged and out of tune. The yellow rump has
much the same kind of bronchial trouble.

Halting for a moment, in my rambles, to admire
this pretty picture of red columbines that have
grown in a crevice of a ledge, and blossomed in
such brilliant relief against the gray moss, I am
conscious of a small bunch of feathers moving
along the branches of a young oak near by. It is
the blue yellow-back warbler. Linnzus and Bona-
parte examined him early in this century, and
labeled him Parus Americana, probably because
they fancied his manners were more like the tit-
78 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES,

mouse or chickadee than any other member of the
family. He is not so restless as many of his
cousins are. As he stands on the limb, his wire
legs braced to reach for an insect in a bunch of
young leaves, I observe his uniform. An ashen
coat, with a patch of yellowish green on the back,
and a bright yellow breast marked with a rather
broad stripe of chestnut near the throat. Why he
does not have a liking for the woods in eastern
Massachusetts, after May, but hurries Northward
to make his nest, is a mystery that he has not yet
communicated to man.

From the edge of the wood I look out upon the
meadow studded with dandelion blossoms ; a green
carpet on which is scattered myriads of gold pieces.
It is a pretty scene with robins and grackles mov-
ing about to enliven it.

Why was this common thrush of ours called the
robin? Perhaps the early colonists gave him his
name on account of his reddish breast and familiar
habits, which reminded them more than any other
bird here of that sociable little creature of the
dearly remembered fields of England. Mr. Ruskin
in describing his robin at home has also given,
perhaps without knowing it, a very good picture
of our bird “as he foots it featly here and there”
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 79

over the fields. But if the redbreast of England
“is the pre-eminent and characteristic hopper, so
light and swift,” ours is the foremost, as a runner
and glider. How quickly and gracefully he meas-
ures off a rod of meadow land! He is as different
from the awkward, noisy jackdaws as the proud
field-marshal beside a company of lumbering,
heavy-footed soldiers. He appears to treat every-
body with lofty airs, and has a peculiarly indif-
ferent manner, when searching for his food, which
you half-suspect to be assumed. His head is
proudly uplifted the most of the time during his
rambles, as though he did not like to be caught in
such a lowly occupation as hunting for worms in
the sod. Here he runs directly up to a burrow, as
if he had been drawn there by a magnet, and
remaining motionless for an instant, then drops his
head half-way to the ground, apparently to listen.
Having made up his mind that the succulent game
is at home, he gives a quick stab with his spear,
and draws out the wriggling prey, which is imme-
diately swallowed. He has the curious habit of
turning off abruptly at right angles, or retracing
his steps a yard or two, as if he had just recalled
to mind a spot where there was likely to live a
squirming tid-bit.
80 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

But what a funny piece of werk these grackles
or crow blackbirds make in hunting for their
food! How much their actions resemble the tame,
mischievous magpie; hopping up with a slight
fluttering of the wings, and falling down on the
victim with the tail spread, and long slender legs
hanging down; turning their heads in the queerest
way; peering into earth-worn burrows, pecking
under the edges of stones, turning over, with their
dextrous bills, the dead leaves, and screwing them-
selves into the most grotesque postures, while
straining at a large fat grub, after the manner of
a dough-overloaded chicken. All at once, at a
given signal, and from no cause that one can dis-
cover, they are off with a whirr, sounding like a
hundred gates turning on rusty hinges. Consider-
ing them as related to such a celebrated family of
singers as starlings and orioles, one is surprised to
hear from them such discordant notes ; yet on cer-
tain occasions, and as if they had learned it from the
redwings, you hear their gur-gle-ee, the last syllable
long drawn out, and very musical and dreamy.

Nature, when she had reached the plan of the
sub-family of Jcterinea, and the particular species
of the Baltimore oriole, after painting the head
and wings black, suddenly paused in her work,
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 81

bethought her of the song she was to put into its
throat, and went searching among her many tints
for a color to match it. She finally selected the
beautiful scarlet-orange, and it is no wonder that
Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, for
whom the specific name is given, chose this hue
for his livery.

Although a fitting bird to survive, and having
an impressive identity and character, there is some
kind of agency at work which makes the oriole a
comparatively rare bird. He is not so abundant
as others of his relatives that visit New England,
excepting the orchard oriole, which is an occa-
sional visitor in the most Southern districts. The
bobolinks outnumber him ten to one, and the red-
wings are in almost as many swarms as he in
couples. Certain it is that he has not the fighting
qualities of the robins, who now stare at him as he
flashes down in their midst, and therefore is not so
capable of defending himself or his property. And
may not his brilliant plumage offer a shining mark
to the many birds of prey?

His song, when he first arrives, has a shade of
sadness in its intonation, the preliminary chirp
sounding like that of a lost chicken; then, after
drooping his head in a dejected manner, and paus-
82 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

ing an instant, he begins the next syllables, which
to me are interpreted thus: Ple-pu-pu pu; the last
seeming to be uttered more rapidly, and having
the very expression of pathos. Weeks afterward,
as he sails over and alights in the meadow, the
tones are different, being now a cheerful ringing
whistle, full of semiquavers at the conclusion, and
difficult to put into any kind of words. The notes
vary in individual birds. Passing across the
Adams’ field, a half-mile away, with the sudden
transitions of the last still lingering in my mind, I
am surprised to hear in the walnut-tree, notes en-
tirely unlike those to which I just now listened.
Che-er-chew chewit-chewit, he seems to sing, yet not
without the usual quirks, which would require a
vivid imagination to arrange into articulate dis-
course. After the season of incubation, when
chance has taken him quite a distance from his
home, his song is not so elaborate or prolonged.
Sometimes he appears in the deep woods, remote
from dwellings, with only a single plaintive note,
as he moves along the higher limbs, and if startled
utters that peculiar guttural sound which reminds
you of the blackbird, and betrays their close rela-
tionship.

His flight and general make-up resemble those

/
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 83

of the other genera in the family. The range,
while upon the ground, is not extensive, and if he
moves any considerable distance he uses his wings.
He hops, instead of the usual walk of many birds
belonging to this group. Once I scared him away,
and at the expiration of ten minutes he was back
again nearly in the same spot. He has the curious
habit of turning first his right flank, and then his
left toward me, at each skip, which is done no
doubt, the more readily to see what I am about.
Now he hides his head in the grass, and digs in
the mud with his sharp, stout spade for beetles
and earth worms, which are an agreeable change of
diet to the usual canker and tent caterpillars.
What skillful beaks these birds have in weaving
the pouch for their nests and fastening them to
the tough, pliant branches of the elm! They have
turned the twine-makers to good account, and their
crocheting, though it is laughable to note the
irregular and unsystematic manner in which it is
performed, is a remarkable piece of work. How
wonderful, too, that they should have the intelli-
gence to reason that, in times of high winds, these
flexible twigs will stand the test! Notwithstand-
ing this precaution, their children oftentimes get
too much rocking, for the storm becoming angry,
84 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

when left alone with the cradle, is apt to overturn
it, and throw the babies headlong on the cold grass
to perish before the nurse has furnished them with
the customary suit of yellow flannel.

How fragrant are the blossoms of this virbur-
num! Its numerous compound cymes are spread
out over its top, like round tables whereon are set
innumerable silver urns, filled with delicious nectar.
Hither the different orders of insects have been
invited to partake of the bountiful repast. The
various families of hymenoptera are here, the bees
and wasps of high and low degree, noisy and in-
toxicated; representatives from the uniformed no-
bility Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths, have
condescended to attend the banquet, while the ill-
mannered blue-bottles and mimic wasps are buzzing
‘round in their midst, lapping up the remnants in
refused goblets. Suddenly a singer arrives upon
the scene, and scatters the wine bibbers in every
direction. It is the yellow-throated vireo (Vireo
flavifrons) who has just flown from a grove of oaks
and beeches hard by, where for a long time he has
entertained me with his truly sylvan notes. His
cheery voice is more frequently heard while he is
moving about in the high trees. Certain it is that
when listened to from such situations the effect
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES, 85

is more pleasing than when he is near you in
the undergrowth, which he often visits to catch the
winged insects which are his principal food. In
more elevated positions, his song has an additional
echoing sound, which is indeed charming, and pos-
sesses the very spirit of the woods. Creé-ra-6-
creé-ra-queér-ra, he says, as he moves along the
branches, occasionally pausing to struggle with a
nimble insect, which his sharp eye readily discovers
among the leaves. This same bird has odd freaks
however, and if you come upon him at such times,
you will be apt to lose your previous exalted opin-
ion of him, and learn that he has an uncouth side
to his nature, which nearly counteracts the effects
of pleasant sounds, usually heard from his throat.
He is a real Paul Pry, and is so imbued with curi-
osity that he seems impertinent, and will chatter
away at you by the hour, in such unpleasing, scold-
ing notes that you wonder how he can manage to
produce tones in such disagreeable contrast. As
his specific name would imply, his front is yellow,
extending down almost to his legs, and then end-
ing abruptly in a clear, bright white, which is the
color of the rest of the underparts. Above on
the head is olive green, changing into ash toward the
tail, and having two white bands on the wings.
86 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

How kindly nature has looked after these fly-
catchers! Beside the quick eye and skillful wing,
she has provided another contrivance by which the
birds can capture with greater facility their victims.
In the family of wood warblers, vireos and tyrant
fly-catchers she has furnished, either abundantly
or sparingly, bristles, which are situated at the
junction of the upper and lower bills, and on the
lores, and which act as a sort of cheval de frise ; so
that, if the bird fails to seize its prey at the first
attempt, it may become entangled within the trap
and recovered. Some of the species in this family,
however, have these rigid hairs very much reduced,
or they may be entirely absent. Individuals with-
out these appendages, it is interesting to observe,
are worm, caterpillar or spider-eating birds. The
black and white creeper for instance, has short
rictal bristles, consequently he inspects the bark
for grub, oftener than he flies to seize his food.
The Maryland yellow throat prefers the fat span-
ners. Some species in the genus Dendroica, as the
myrtle, or yellow-rumped warbler, and the yellow
warbler are quite expert in the art of catching
flies, accordingly the stiff hairs at the gape are
longer and more advantageously arranged, while
in the genera to which the Canada fly-catcher and
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 87

the American redstart belong, the rictal bristles are
nearly the length of the bill, enabling these birds
to sweep into their nets with admirable dexterity
gnats and other small fry upon which they feed.
The family of goat suckers, to which belong the
whip-poor-wills, night-hawks and bull-bats, offers
a striking example of the way in which these rictal
bristles are developed; some species having not
only very long ones but lateral filaments attached
to them, thus forming a perfect net, to entrap the
twilight and night-flying moths.

A lively note is heard in the edge of a birch
thicket. For a long time I have been interested to
know from what kind of throat it proceeds. It
strikes on my ear at the most unexpected seasons,
and in entirely different localities. What a pecul-
iar song itis! Whew! whew! whew! It chirrups
at first in a clear, delicate, sweet whistle, long
drawn out, and then de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de,
uttered faster and more indistinct at the close.
Presently the bird is seen darting into a clump of
cat-briers in which it is playing a game of hide-and-
seek. After awhile it flies boldly out of the tan-
gled mass, but, seeing its interviewer close by,
rustles quickly back. Stooping to look up through
the brambles to obtain a good view of the stranger,
88 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

a pitiful spectacle is presented to me. If an artist
had been here to have caught the spirit of the
scene! A dead bird arrested by the thorns as it
was falling to the ground, its limp head resting on
a bunch of young, tender leaves, and its wings out-
stretched for the last time. This I suspect is the
work of the cruel shrike, although no marks of
violence are seen on its body. Those black and
white stripes, clearly defined on the crown, so
different from the markings on the back, signify
its connection with the genus of finches called
zonotrichia or “striped heads.” The yellow streak
from the base of the bill, along the cheeks to the
middle of the eyes, the white throat, and bars
across the wings, distinguish it from the other
species of the group. It is the white-throated
sparrow or Peabody bird, and this is its mate, no
doubt, now perched overhead, that I have followed
to find bereaved. Were these birds belated in their
journeyings to more northern woods, where the
white throats generally visit, or were they pros-
pecting for a home in this bush?

By the last of May every bird is in full song.
The cat-bird medley to his lady-love is a poor per-
formance when compared to the finer efforts of his
southern cousin, the mocking-bird, and it is comical
THE RETURN. OF THE NATIVES. 89

to hear him stammer through the lesson he has so
imperfectly learned while away in his winter re-
sort. He catches the intonation of the robin per-
fectly, and this seems to be his own opinion, for
he recurs to it very often, but forgets more than
half the notes of that singer, and immediately
lapses into a mess of gibberish that you can make
nothing of. Yet he is so honest and persevering
withal that you feel compelled to applaud, even
while laughing at his blunders.

Half-hidden in the midst of cornels and arrow-
woods, I take my position to observe the different
musicians as they come to bathe and clear their
throats. What voice is that uplifted a. quarter of
a mile away? Not a robin’s, surely; yet it has
in it some of its intonations. Nearer and nearer it
sounds, until I have caught the words, ’Tis very
queer, very ‘cute; as if the artist had witnessed
some extraordinary exhibition or performance and
could not restrain his expression of surprise and
admiration at the spectacle. Presently a bird flies
among the top-most branches of a white oak, like
a firebrand blown from some burning mass, and
gives his discourse in pure, rich tones which corres-
pond to his gorgeous dress. His manner, however,
is quite unostentatious, for he spends much of his
gO THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

time while singing in search of insects among the
leaves, and is apparently unconscious of attracting
any attention. He pauses frequently in his asser-
tions to capture a crawling dainty, but takes up
the burden immediately afterward and carries it
through to the end. Once while singing he sud-
denly stops at the third syllable, apparently to lis-
ten to some far-off sound, and not till he has been
convinced of its import, which occupies him a
number of seconds, does he conclude the refrain
with a relish and peculiar expression noticeable in
persons who have recalled promptly a good thing
almost forgotten. Now he flashes down through
the branches and lights in a shallow part of the
stream to moisten his fluted throat and enjoy a
refreshing bath. As he dips himself in the cooling
water, I almost expect to see a puff of steam rise
up, or a spot of carmine drift past on the current.
His extremities, the wings, legs, and bill, are black,
as if the fire-bearer were undergoing the cooling
process, and the thinner, smaller parts had been
first affected. Now he hops on a bush to preen
his bright feathers and shake his wings.

What a knack all the birds have of fixing them-
selves up after washing! Their beaks are many
tools in one. Besides the chisels, picks, shuttles,
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. gI

and fly-traps, they are most excellent combs and
brushes. Giving his dress a few finishing touches,
he utters in a suppressed tone the word queer as
the key-note to the roundelay, and then mounts
the gallery and goes flying up and down its length,
making the arches ring with his merriment.

The tanager is a rare visitor in the woodlands
hereabouts, and appears to have come by accident
beyond the usual parallel. If he is alluding to the
color that Nature has painted his wife, his words
are indeed significant. I make her acquaintance
for the first time after much maneuvering and
circumvention, as she moves silently and by easy
stages through the young foliage, toward that ex-
ultant call, and am struck with the appearance of
her dull and faded coat. Dusky olive above, with
greenish-yellow underparts. Is it not “ very queer”
and “very cute” also, on the part of the old Dame
to give her a garment that so nicely simulates the
bark and leaves at the time of her nesting? For
if her color had been like that of her mate —a bril-
liant carmine — how quickly her enemies would
find her out.

The male, during the season of incubation, seems
to be aware of his glowing hues, for, it is said,
he seldom visits his home, “or approaches it when
92 THE’ RETURN OF THE NATIVES.

necessary, with a great deal of caution, lest he
should betray his presence.”

A few days after I went again to see my bird,
but not a hide or feather was visible. Had he
become more adventurous and sailed a degree
farther north, or disheartened and so retreated to
southern New England, where company could: be
had for the asking? Or was it probable that
he had come to some untimely end? Death, more
than likely, in the disguise of a flesh-covered taxi-
dermist who loves such shining marks, had stalked
abroad, and, heeding not the gladsome strain, had
gathered him into his coffers.

Once in my visit to the woods I met one of
these “ kings of terrors” among the birds, a cold-
hearted young man improving his short respite
from study, and gratifying his besetting passion.

He was an unerring marksman, for he had ina
leather bag four or five kinds of dead birds, which
were carefully enshrouded in nice white paper
cornucopie. These he politely exhibited, carefully
undoing each parcel, and drawing out his victims
with an air of such anxious solicitude that it would
have been comical had not the occasion been so
sad. Upon inquiring if he had no scruples in re-
gard to bringing down so many heads and mothers
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES. 93

of families, and banishing the hopes of lovers, he
turned on me with surprise and coolly laughed.

The field-glass was a superior instrument to his
gun, I thought; and the live bird, brought so near
that I could observe its actions, was better, in many
instances, than the stiff, unnatural stuffed model.

It is a sacrilege to rob the nest of warblers, fly-
catchers and thrushes, and to shoot them down
mercilessly, for the sake of the mere money that
such prepared specimens will bring. The different
aviaries, museums and rooms for scientific study
are the only places where samples should be on
exhibition. Let the art of painting them supply
the ornaments in our households, and the milliner’s
ingenuity devise some other embellishment than
dead vireos, bluebirds and tanagers.
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.
IV.
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

PassinG along an old dam, now unappropriated
and neglected, where, on either side of it, trees
have since its building grown to maturity, now
watching for awhile the adventurous bream which
approaches the shallow water for gerris and water-
beetles, and whose motions appear to be dull and
heavy by the surfeit of this continual feast, my
eye is arrested by another insect-catcher of the air,
the wood pewee. With what unerring precision it
darts upon some aspiring beetle, and returns to its
observatory on the opposite shore!

This bird is not shy when engaged in its legiti-
mate pursuits, and will allow a very near approach.
His head is continually moving from side to side;
he occasionally stops, however, to preen his breast
feathers, which seem to be always ruffled, or with
uplifted claw to give his crown a series of quick,

spiteful digs, and with droll performance peer un-
97
98 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

der his outstretched wings for a troublesome para-
site. Now he darts off, flying fifty yards away in
a straight line, to gobble an insect which he sees
at that distance, not returning to his post, but to a
sycamore growing on the dam. This is the season
of incubation, and I suspect, considering the good
provider and kind husband that he is, that this
tid-bit just captured is for his consort.

No one, without the aid of the bird, could ex-
pect to find such a nest. How nicely it is saddled
on the end of a horizontal bough, thirty feet from
the ground, so shallow that one can see, even at
this angle of vision, the head and back of the
female as she sits upon it. The couple did not
wander far for their building material, for the nest
is chiefly composed of mosses and thin plates of
old bark that cleave from the young growing liber,
so characteristic of the buttonwood, glued together
with saliva, which Nature has so bountifully sup-

plied to many of the birds. There she sits, evi-

dently not caring whether her nest or her presence
has been discovered. Her head moves about freely,
and once she cannot resist the temptation of flying
off to seize a passing insect, but returns immedi-
ately to her task. Here comes the male once more,
and standing close beside her gives a kiss and a
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 99

beetle in the bargain. He breaks it to her very gal-
lantly, while she, as is her prerogative, receives it
with cool indifference, and bids him go for more.
As he stands on the branch an instant, his back
toward me, and the broad leaves, uplifted by the
wind, let in a sunbeam upon him, I note a shade of
dark green, and the long pointed wings, reaching
down half-way on his tail, which is not so deeply
forked as is that of the olive-sided fly-catcher, a
first cousin, whom he otherwise much resembles.
When he rises I see in this individual an exception
to the general dress of the under parts of this spe-
cies. The pale yellowish tint of the breast is re-
placed by whitish ash. The song is not often
heard, as if he was aware of the melancholy strain,
and had the good sense to consider the feelings of
his mate during the distressed period, and worked
for her crop’s sake instead. Resting on this slope
in the shade of the beech-trees, watching the gam-
bols of a pair of large purple-black butterflies
(Vanessa antiopa) flying high up among the trunks,
attracted there, no doubt, by the nectar that exudes
from the bark, I hear the energetic notes of the
oven-bird or golden-crowned thrush (Siurus aurica-
pillus). Immediately after a little bunch of feath-
ers drops down from a low branch, and goes peck-
100 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

ing here and there on the ground, not a rod from
where I am sitting. He takes long, quick strides,
as he turns his head to look at me, now half-tum-
bling over dead sticks that lay in his path, or get-
ting his long hind claw tangled in the blackberry
vines, and making little exertions to clear himself.
Now he runs swiftly ahead to capture a beetle, or
turns back quickly sideways for some crawling
dainty which nearly escaped his notice. How
much the color is like that of the leaves and
grasses and vines through which he forages! The
upper parts are of dark olive-green, with two dark
streaks on the crown, and a broader brownish-yel-
low one between them, with the breast and sides
of dirty white, streaked with black.

I believe not many of the birds sing while upon
the ground. They love to mount some kind of
stage, on which to pour out their melodies. But
the golden-crowned hardly thinks it worth his time
to take the pains to fly to a music stand whenever
the inspiration seizes him, but stops his feeding for
a brief interval, lifts up his head an instant before
commencing, as is the habit of some of our best
singers, and utters in a loud clear tone the sylla-
bles Cheat-er cheat-er cheat-er. The song is not like
any other in the woods. Listening to his lay at
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. IOI

noon-time, when the sun’s rays are pouring down
on the mosses, one imagines it is not so sprightly
as in the morning. There appears to be a dragging
of the notes, as though the little songster was
worn out with the heat, and although he may be
very near you in shade, the first syllables seem to
come from a distance, showing his great powers
of ventriloquism, gradually sounding nearer and
louder, until he reaches the climax. This is his
commonplace humming after all, for Mr. Board-
man, a close observer of the birds, says he has
another song at times, so rare and beautiful that
but few know it as from that bird.

His nest is not far from here, for when I happen
in this vicinity his song is sure to be heard. He
likes just such a place as this — shaded slopes near
a stream. As you walk along you see hundreds
of depressions, little hollows under the roots,
crevices in the ledges, and hide-away places gen-
erally in which you would choose to locate a nest,
but thus far it has escaped my search. How
shrewd these birds are in concealing their homes,
not only from the sight of man, but often, as they
must, from the sharper cow bunting, whose special
instinct it is to intrude upon them, and from the
numerous greedy prowlers that go nosing round,
102 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

both night and day, for just such morsels as the
nests of these ground-builders offer.

The general intelligence of birds, considering
their comparatively low position in the scale of
creation, seems to me remarkable. How alert they
have learned to be on account of these surround-
ing dangers! How many little schemes they invent
to deceive you! This same golden-crowned is a
curious bird. He likes to be near you, though he
does not want you to be aware of it; so he flies
swiftly past, far enough, he probably thinks, for
you to lose sight of him, when he makes a detour,
and finally comes back again along another air
line, and flits behind a rock a few yards away, with
the probable satisfaction that he has completely
outwitted his vexatious follower, and can watch
you at his leisure without being observed himself.

It is amusing also to observe the acuteness of
these crows, whose young are nested in a tall pine
near by. Only a stifled suppressed scolding croak
escapes them now, as though it was hard for them
to keep in so long. If they could give a few loud
disagreeable caws it would be such a relief; but it
behooves them to be silent, that their enemies’
attention may not be directed to this one place on
earth wherein is centered all of their affection.
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 103

Two small birds, with ashen heads and oliva-
ceous backs, and breasts of reddish-yellow, flutter
down as noiselessly as butterflies, close to my
rather uncomfortable position in a patch of green-
briers and blackberry vines. They have taken me
by surprise, and almost before that feeling has
been replaced by inquiry they have moved off
again in their nervous way, flying in all kinds of
places, now down to the ground, or zigzagging
among the shrubs, or smacking with their bills
among the leaves, as they glean in the highest
branches of the elms and willows. At length one,
with undulating flight, wings its way to a small
cedar, and hides in the thick foliage. The move-
ment is so different from the usual manner of pro-
ceeding from bush to tree, that one suspects a
subject of great importance possesses the bird, and
watches sharply for developments. Sure enough,
there in the horizontal fork of a limb, not fifteen
feet high, the American redstart (Setophaga ruti-
cilla), the red-tailed insect eater, has laid the foun-
dation for a nest. From a human standpoint, the
locality is not well chosen; situated as it is quite
near a wood-path, and in full view of every young
rambler who may feel disposed to rob. Though
placed in this opening, how nicely the general
104. WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

colors of the material of which it is composed har-
monize with that of the bark of the limb! No one
without the aid of the bird would discover it, it is
such a wee bit of a construction, and so accurately
fitted among the smaller twigs. How busy the
little worker is! Though taking observations quite
near, she does not appear in any way disconcerted,
but works on as if her very existence depended
upon completion of the nest in a given period of
time. Here she tugs for a bit of lichen, which will
match well with her home surroundings. There
she flies down in the swamp for a particular bit of
sodden last year’s plant-stem to suit a certain de-
fective place in the side; she knows where it
belongs. The dead branch of a willow, almost
denuded of bark, which the rain and sun, year
after year, whips into fine cottony nesting stuff,
offers material, and to this she often goes for rift-
ing pieces. MHalf-flying and hopping along its
length, she searches for a loose end, and when it
is found, stops, and having secured a fast hold with
her beak, gives a sturdy upward pull, which evi-
dently requires all her strength to remove the
bleached strip, and flies with it to her home.

She always builds from the inside, never placing
material on the nest while standing outside of it.
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 105

The cavity must be looked after and nicely turned
and pressed to fit her precious little body, so she gets
in and squats and turns round and round with out-
spread tail and wings, tucking in here and there,
and fastening with saliva the stray ends, and hug-
ging with her chin and bill the outside edges
against her breast. The delicate structure is pro-
gressing rapidly, and the female appears to be the
chief architect and worker. If the male comes, it
is only to flaunt himself before her and disappear.
These are evidently young birds, for on the occa-
sional visits of the male I notice the color is simi-
lar to his wife. His tail coverts and tail, however,
are darker with perhaps a deeper orange-red on
the sides of the breast; he will have to wait a
year or two before he puts on the uniform of black
and red that older male birds wear.

In a week the nest is finished; the upper parts
are slightly drawn in and compactly thatched.
Now that the task is off her mind, she appears
more cautious, and uses many little devices; flut-
tering among the lower branches or flying into
the farthest side of the tree and skulking up to
the nest, with the hope that her skillful maneuver-
ing has been successful in eluding my vigils. As
I approach the nest she utters a sharp Chip, chip,
106 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

precisely like the note of the hair bird, but does
not manifest any extraordinary signs of distress.
She remains at her post of trust till the last second,
and then eyes me keenly from one of the branches
above, as if she had the conscious power to pre-
vent me from stealing away her home. It is a
deep cavity, upholstered with fine grasses and a
few horse-hairs, on which rest already two tiny
eggs, the ends of which are very unequal, tapering
quite acutely from the larger part. The ground
color is white, blotched with reddish brown, as if
the bird had rubbed on them some of the coloring
of her breast. I dare not breathe on the sacred
things lest the parent consider them poluted, and
forsake the dearest spot to her on earth. No fear
of her! Sensible to the last, she seems to have
comprehended the object of my visit, for hardly
have I withdrawn a reasonable distance when she
again flies to her nest, and with a cant of her head,
as she stands on the edge, says: “ There, you big
fellow, I trust you are satisfied with your ‘investi-
gations. Now leave me to finish my work in
peace.”

In this thick clump of high blueberry bushes,
interlaced and overgrown with greenbriers, Madam
Cat-bird has improvidently made her home. While
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 107

looking through the interstices of leaves and sprays
from the other side, to observe the devoted actions
of the pair, I discover another odlogist, but with
more hostile intentions than the writer. A small
striped coachwhip snake has laid the several por-
tions of its lithe body conveniently along the twigs
and there remains as motionless as any part of the
bush. After watching it for a time, I make vari-
ous noises to ascertain to what extent it can be
affected by sound, and seeing that it does not stir
from its resting place, I slightly shake the bush,
when it lowers its head, darts out its forked tongue,
but seems unwilling to move. Nature has given
to its skin the general hue of the bark, and prob-
ably it instinctively remains in this position, rely-
ing more for protection on the harmony of color
and being at rest than upon escape by any other
means. Just as I am about to take more vigorous
measures for its removal, the bush is struck by a
sudden breeze, which appears like a palpable inter-
vention, while the serpent takes advantage of it,
and glides through the tangled mass out of reach.

The cat-birds hereabouts are as abundant as
robins in the meadows. An hour’s search would,
no doubt, bring to light half a dozen nests. That
cat-like mew is a curious note for a bird to sound ;
108 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

the “ Maltese ” color withal has a strange, uncanny
semblance to the felines, and you almost expect to
hear the peculiar hiss whenever they are disturbed ;
dispositions differ, however, in individuals. Ihave
startled from her nest a female that remained
unusually quiet; even as I put my face within a
foot of her beautiful emeralds she only looks at me
solicitously from a neighboring bush. Curiously
enough her husband is like her. Perhaps this is
an experienced pair, that have had many adven-
tures with heartless odlogists and wood-faring boys,
and thus realize the utter uselessness of making a
bustle over the affair.

An interesting exhibition of a swarm of gnats,
just out of their pupal state, playing up and down
over a particular stone in the wall like jets of water
in a small fountain — dispersing instantly as I
strike my hands together in their midst, and reap-
pearing over the same stone, again to commence
their sport— has engaged my attention, and fur-
nished a side-entertainment, so to speak, until a
bird-note to which I had never before listened
reaches my ear. At first itis heard at a distance,
but, as the singer approaches, the strain is rich
and clear, and I become absorbed in the melody.
Presently a bird flies:from the copse yonder toa
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 109

tree near by, and, with the positions of serenaded
and serenader reversed, pours out a heart-song, in
six short stanzas, uttered at intervals of half a
minute, which is interpreted thus :—

‘* Chee — cheer — cheer —
Chip along — cheer — cheer!”

The words are pronounced with the tongue of a
foreigner, it is true, and seem broken; but, con-
sidering the artist’s recent arrival from Guatemala,
he has succeeded admirably in mastering the lan-
guage. At first, the song is begun in a low tone,
as if the musician were doubtful how he might
proceed; but, as he advances, it reaches a raptu-
rous climax, and then falls down into the common-
place ending almost as it began, faltering and
inarticulate.

Looking up, I see a spot of white, red, and black
among the leaves. Although I have seen the bird
at a distance many times, this is my first real intro-
duction to the rose-breasted grossbeak. Knowing
what he is after, I seek a covert to allow him free
use of the stream, on the banks of which he soon
appears, and, wading into the depths, where is
reflected the carmine on his front, scoops up with
deep, broad bill the water needed to clear his
IIO WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

throat after such a fine performance. He is a rare
minstrel in this woodland, and, indeed, throughout
this part of New England, not more than a pair or
two appearing or being established in the same
locality, which is generally near a stream of water
or in the neighborhood of swampy tracts, for these
birds are consummate bathers, and love to have
houses with convenient bathrooms attached.
Indeed, he is so full of life and good cheer that
he is fairly running over with music; one is re-
minded of the bobolink, which probably is the only
bird hereabouts that surpasses him in spinning out
his melody to such a joyous length. By his reck-
less, imprudent singing he leads me into the
thicket and directly to the tree whereon his nest
is placed. A small, pliant birch, easily bent by
every breeze, supports a mere bunch of sticks that
appears to have been lodged in the branches by
accident; and over this rude structure, which he
calls his home, he has been tuned to sing its praises.
It being such a simple nest, either the male or female
must be on guard to prevent the eggs from rolling
out. During the period of incubation Nature has
told the husband to relieve his wife occasionally of
the household services, but has evidently forgotten
to bestow one apparently essential quality — that
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. III

is, silence. He is hilarious, even while engaged in
his responsibilities, and thus, by his incessant sing-
ing, is apt to betray his presence to passing marau-
ders. How curious are the ways of Nature, in this
example of the male sitting on the eggs! I be-
lieve not many of our birds have this instinct,
although the husbands are usually thoughtful in
providing their mates with food during this tedious
season.

As I bend the slender tree, and stand on tiptoe
to extract an egg from the shallow cavity, his
joyous note is changed to one of anxiety. If you
pause, however, to analyze it, you will find nothing
disagreeable in his alarm. He cannot scold you
away, for his larynx is not formed to produce
harsh sounds, like the cat-bird, robin, or even the
sparrow to which he is more closely related. This
seed, which I trust will blossom into a rose-breasted
songster, is rather large for the size of the bird
— firm-shelled, and colored similarly to many of
the finches ; namely, a dull, greenish-blue, covered
thickly with light-brown blotches. What a pretty
thing is a bird’s egg, so exquisitely moulded, so
uniquely painted and figured by the handiwork of
Nature, and presenting such a nice adaptation of
means to the end in view! What harmony and
II2 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

wise designing of the propagation of birds is seen in
this delicate structure! If their manner of breed-
ing was like that of mammals how soon would the
feathered tribe become extinct! These mature
ova are deposited in nests “ that serve as external
organs, indispensable to the development of the
immature young.” Lightness of body must be
looked after, that they may be enabled to fly
through the air, or move among the branches or on
the ground with that quick, alert motion, so char-
acteristic of these creatures, and so necessary for
them to capture their prey.

The female is dressed in a much plainer suit of
brown. Two white stripes, one above and one
below the eye, are all she can boast of as head
ornamentation, with some sprinkling of saffron
about the wings. She is a wise-appearing bird,
and does not wear her heart upon her sleeve like
her unwary husband.

It would be interesting to know the circum-
stances under which Linneus classified our rose-
breasted groosbeak, and gave him the name by
which he should be known thereafter to all the
nations of the world. The generic Zamelodia
singifies singing melody which is very appropriate ;
and the specific “ Ludoviciana,” Louisiana, or re-
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 113

lating to Ludovicus. It is likely that Louis the
Fourteenth was meant, as that King of France
took much interest in scientific matters, and in-
vited many of the leading men of science of his
day to visit his country. Among them was proba-
bly the great Swedish naturalist, who named the
bird partly after Louisiana — which was at that
time a more extended province than the present
State, and where these beautiful songsters are
plentiful — partly out of respect for the French
monarch, with whom he must have had pleasant
associations.

But it seems pitiful thus to break in upon. this
brilliant songster’s happiness, and detain him so
long in the present exigency; so I move out of
his way, after teaching him a lesson — which he,
no doubt, will soon forget — that silence, at the
proper time, is the better part of wisdom.

This low ground, where the swamp-roses and tall
meadow rue blossom in profusion, is the favor-
ite building-place of the Maryland yellow-throat.
Here is one at this moment, the female, moving
among the bushes apparently in an anxious state
of mind, now darting in and out of sight, now
alighting on a twig not ten feet away, her wings
quivering with fright or anger, and uttering that
114 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

peculiar scolding Chip! which expresses so much
distress and solicitude, and which has the power
and eloquence behind it to arrest your steps for
a time, however good your intentions may be in
searching for the nest. Surely it cannot be far
away. The male has arrived with a spanner in
his beak, which does not prevent him from chatter-
ing his discomfort at my near approach. A small
bird he is, with upper parts much the color of the
bark of the shrubs; the breast greenish yellow,
with a broad band of black covering the cheeks,
and a narrower light one above it. This orna-
ment the female does not have, and she is some-
what smaller.

The application and meaning of the technical
term (Geothylpis trichas) by which the yellow-throat
is designated in scientific books is, says Coues,
“obscure, its only pertinence being in geo-, earth,
signifying the humility of this bird of brake and
brier.”

Keeping a sharp lookout, I see the pair flit down
among the sedges, the white tops of the meadow
rue trembling as they push against the stout stems,
and go skulking here and there among the tussocks
of rushes where their nest is concealed. Approach-
ing cautiously, and tenderly pushing aside every
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. I15

culm and stem, I at last discover their home, ex-
quisitely placed in a tuft of sedge, some of the
spears of which are bent over it so as to form a
regular canopy. Ornithologists say that the nest
is often built over at the top, with a hole for the
entrance. This one has no such contrivance, the
thick, overbending sedges answering as a dome
and portal. The foundation is composed of dead
leaves and coarse grasses, very compact, as if the
architects were aware of the dampness of the sit-
uation, and had taken the necessary precautions to
prevent the eggs from spoiling before hatching-
time. The cavity is quite deep and wide for the
size of the bird, and has the unusual though sparse
lining of horse-hair. There are two eggs in the
nest, and though I read from no authority that
the general ground-color should be of a flesh-tint,
it is certainly true of these, the larger end being
covered thickly with dark purple and brown
blotches. Bending the spikes over the nest again,
as naturally as a clumsy hand could perform such
a delicate task, I went away, trusting that the dis-
turbed pair had comprehended my purpose of
merely looking in upon them. But it was of no
use; their nice sense of the proprieties had been
disturbed, and a week afterward the ogre had the
116 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

remorse of gazing into the deserted home from
which the songs, confined in their little round
prisons, were never to be set free.

The streams and swamps offer more attractive
entertainment, at this season, than the dry uplands.
Every bird in the vicinity comes here to slake its
thirst and bathe. Here is a merry skating carnival
of gerris, and a larger party of whirligig water-
beetles dodging about in every direction, but never
appearing to collide, as they pounce upon the
drowning flies, or the twisting, jerking larve of
the gnat. Down through the thick alders and
overhanging sprays of sambucus the red-eyed vireo
flits from water to twig and from twig to water,
striking it with her wings, and sipping it as she
flutters over the stream. I am inclined to believe
that this may be the manner in which all birds be-
longing to this group perform their ablutions and
quench their thirst. They are not groundlings,
and shun the earth as the swallows do the foliage.

Following the line of flight with the glass, up
to an overhanging branch of the willow, the object
lens rests accidently on the nearly-finished nest
with the builder just arrived. I hardly dare to
breathe, as I see her red eye dilate with alarm, and
the quick turning of the head in every direction,
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. II17

before she begins again the work of upholstering
her apartment. Now she seems half-assured that
all is right, and begins to peck here and there
around her nest, possibly to deposit a new supply
of saliva, and to see if the guys are well secured,
after which she commences a series of movements
curious to observe: turning around with out-
stretched wings and spreading tail, crouching low,
and seeming to press the new material into shape.
Looking at her actions for a brief space of time,
one would suppose that she could not accomplish,
with these movements, such a nice, delicate bit of
architecture; but, as the blacksmith’s light blows
on the shapeless mass of iron forms it into the
required shape, so every motion about her house-
building has been an effective one. How skillfully
she has incorporated into the bottom of the nest
some of the leaves and twigs of the branch on
which it is suspended, exhibiting a nice adroitness
in concealing her home from the view of the
passer-by !

As she flies off and alights upon a lower limb
near by, eying me with an expression which is as
plain as words,—‘“ What are you doing here?
You have no right to molest me,” I cannot allow
the opportunity to pass, notwithstanding her
118 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

rebukes, without noticing her color. Above, a
dark olive-green, and as seen from this angle, with
some of the quills edged with greenish yellow.
The under parts pure white, crown dark ash, and
a dark streak along the side of the head, from the
base of the beak, with a light one above it.

The spirit of maternity has whispered to her
again, and she darts off through the thick alders,
and in ten seconds is lost to view. Iam surprised
that she does not sooner return, for the most diffi-
cult part of her building is finished, and she has
now only to collect fine grasses and pine leaves for
the lining. What keeps her away? Five, ten,
fifteen minutes pass, and still she does not come.
Has she flown up in the orchard for her diet of
worms? Just at the moment she is not expected,
her flight, as noiseless as that of time, is seen pass-
ing up through the leaves, approaching her nest,
not by easy stages, as many birds, but directly to
it; while her mate, whom she has brought with
her, has begun his rt-re-o-cre-chit, cre-chit in a neigh-
boring tree.

Mr. John Burroughs, whose writings have the
true sylvan ring —to read them is next to walk-
ing in the woods—says, in describing his song,
that it is “The lay of industry and contentment,
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. II9Q

and the sentiment expressed is eminently that of
cheerfulness.”

His brother, the warbling vireo, much resembles
him in color, oftener frequenting the orchards and
cultivated lands, and has a note almost exactly
like the purple finch, perhaps not so clear and
loud, but with the same religious intonations.

As this boggy tract becomes narrower, the land
is made higher by the gradual and continual: de-
posit of silt from the stream above, and so the cat-
tails are replaced by patches of sweet flag and
flower-de-luce, until finally, as you proceed, the
sedges grow, and the army of elders, viburnums,
cornels, alders and swamp roses have thrown out
their skirmish lines, and planted their standards at
the heels of the retreating columns of the aquatic
herbs, which wave their swords and pikes over their
shoulders as they slowly retire from the on-coming
foe.

Probably in this swamp, there are more long-
billed marsh wrens than can be found in any other
particular locality within a radius of thirty miles,
and as you walk along the shore, you scare up, at
almost every rod, a pair or two of these singular
birds, that show their rusty brown backs and
wings, as they flutter above the reeds for half a
120 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

minute and then settle down again in their hiding-
places, uttering that peculiar note, which can be
compared to the piping of the tree toad—a kind
of bubbling sound heard from no other bird throat.

Everything needed for building material can
here be found. The stout stems of the cat-o-nine-
tails furnish the pillars, on which the nests of these
wrens are firmly supported; the dry last year’s
leaves supply the timber for the frame-work, and
the bundles of soft hairs that grow on the dense
spikes offer a bountiful quantity of chintzing stuff
and lining. No mud is used about the nests.
How long has this been an exception to the gen-
eral habits of the species, and when did they learn
to utilize the copious down for plastering, in place
of the ordinary cement? What a curious nest!
it is the size and shape of the cocoanut. On the
side is a hole three fourths of an inch wide, most
skillfully worked, the ends of the coarse sedge
leaves well tucked in around the edges and made
strong, as if these wise wrens were aware of the
necessity of having the threshold especially com-
pact and well finished to prevent it from wearing
out, by the contact of their sharp claws, while
passing to and from the nest. It is also a remark-
able sign of bird intelligence, that over their door-
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 121

way they construct a kind of gablet or projection,
so that rain may not fall within the house; and
that the entrance is always placed on the southern
side to protect eggs and tender young from the
north winds, which sometimes sweep along this
reedy plain. The habit of building their nests
within a rod or two of the higher land and never
far out in the middle of the swamp, also indicates
a great deal of prudence and forethought. They
have placed them near the shore to lessen the
chances of danger to their children when starting
out from their home. They must be carefully
watched in their first lessons of flying. A wrong
curve of the weak wing, or a failure in catching a
cat-tail spike, with their feeble claws, would send
them headlong into the water to perish.

The eggs of the long-billed marsh wren are five,
and small for the size of the bird, not being more
than twice as large as a horticultural bean, and so
thickly covered with mahogany-brown spots as to
almost hide the light ground-color, with a ring of
chocolate around the larger end.

A long, natural hedgerow of cat-briers separates,
now as I advance, the bog from the higher wood-
lands, climbing over and obstructing the growth
of shrubs and young trees, and forming excellent
I22 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

hiding-places for those kinds of birds whose in-
stincts have taught them to build their nests away
from their cannibal relations, the crows and jays.
As I stand before this barricade of sharp thorns,
looking down the long line of glistening young
leaves, I catch a few sharp notes that are thrown
down to me from a little minstrel perched in the
branch of a small oak near by. Stich-er-stich-er,
stich-er-herchief, it seems to say, the music being
violently shaken from its throat, as if a certain
quantity must be disposed of before the season
ends.

This is the chestnut-sided warbler (Dendreca
Pennsylvanica), and evidently his home is con-
cealed close by in the bushes, for he appears ill
at ease, notwithstanding his song; elevating his
tail and dropping his wings so that they almost
touch the branch. It is curious to watch his
movements. He is not at all acute in leading you
from his nest, and if he resorts to any trickery it
is most awkwardly performed; while many of the
sharper birds have a way of dropping suddenly
from their flight, and fluttering into the bushes
like butterflies, a distance from their nests, and
skulking up to them unobserved, the chestnut-
sided descends directly to the spot, telling you
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 123

plainly enough where his home is hidden. Here,
in the fork of a young choke-cherry tree, which
grows with others i a clump half-covered with
green-briers, the nest is placed. In it are three
panting young birds, which, at the slightest noise
or movement, immediately lift up their heavy,
shot-eyed heads, and open wide their yellow-edged
bills, waiting patiently for the dainty spanner to
be put in their red mouths. How admirably suited
is the posture to receive their food! Nature, it
seems, could not have devised a better plan. The
day-old chick is not more adroit in scratching, or
the young mammal more ready to seek its fountain
of milk, than these blind, helpless nestlings in ad-
justing their hungry little gullets to receive the
pliant worm. The nest, which is composed of
grasses and plant-strips, interwoven with spiders’
webs, as it approached the well-turned, cup-like
cavity, resembled in model that of the yellow war-
bler’s. It is much worn. A large rent appears on
one side, and some of the fastenings have yielded
to the extra weight, letting it down, so that the
young seem in danger of rolling out. But the
birds, to prevent further rupture, have lashed
the other side more firmly to the branch by passing
around it many times the tough strips, and cement-
124 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

ing the ends with saliva—a commodity with which
all birds of this kind are provided.

While contemplating this wonderful work the
female arrives, and, though I stand within three
feet of the nest, she does not hesitate to fly upon
it. I move nearer, but the little mother, with val-
orous spirit, remains true to her trust. Her dis-
tressed, anxious expression is painful to look upon.
Her dark eye dilates, as she turns it up to me in
pathetic appeal, until I can endure it no longer
and retire to worship her heroism and give her
peace. The male now comes to present his worm-
offering, which his wife receives gracefully, hold-
ing it fast, while he reaches down again, and,
taking hold, draws it through his beak. This is
evidently to prepare the worm for the young
throats, but while I am in sight she will not stir to
give it to them.

What mystery is this that gives the curious
marking and different coloring to the birds? Look
at his golden crown, so clearly defined against the
black eye, strip, and triangular patch on the side of
the head and along the throat, ending abruptly in
a broad streak of chestnut on the sides, and the
pure white breast. If all this has been effected
through sexual selection, namely, “the more beau-
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 125

tiful males being continually preferred by the
females,” this warbler, since it started out thou-
sands of generations ago a strong and improved
species, has acquired a singular taste, for none of
the birds in our woods are colored nearly like him.
With one or two exceptions, the sexes in this
genus (Dendraeca) are dressed much alike. The
males, however, are done up in brighter colors;
as if Nature had given them the insignia of higher
rank.

How far back in its history did those chestnut
streaks begin to appear? It would be interesting
to know who among the oldest naturalists first
noted this bird, and to compare his account with
that of Baird, who is the authority to-day for its
scientific name. Linneus was the original de-
scriber, as far as we read in the ornithological
books. He gave him the generic name (Motacilia)
—wagtail. Although this warbler does not, I be-
lieve, have the habit of wagging its tail, it moves
it up and down, keeping it erect much of the time,
similar to the wrens; and so this “smart, bantam-
like appearance,” as Burroughs says, must have
struck the great classifier.

It is in this damp, swampy woods that I hear
the half-querulous, half-beseeching chirp of the
126 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

Wilson’s thrush. The note is so different from
that sweet, mellow hymn of his, so irritable and
peevish, yet with such an expression of entreaty
and pleading, that I feel sure of treading near
some -special tussock or bush. Not far away a
tawny bird flies up and eyes me askance from
behind a curtain of leaves as I search for its
home. Here it is, sure enough, saddled on the
trunk of a fallen white cedar. Truly the female
has manifested a great deal of foresight and
“mother wit,” for she has chosen a place over
which bends a branch with thick, heavy spray, as
good an umbrella and protection from the rains and
scorching rays as could have been found in a day’s
flight. The exterior nest, which is mainly com-
posed of small strips of cedar bark, is trimmed
with dead leaves, which hang loosely here and
there about the walls, as if the bird had put them
there for the purpose of simulating a wisp or
shock of leaves lodged among the boughs, or be-
cause the color of them harmonizes so nicely with
her own, thereby lessening the chances of being
seen. The quite deep, well-made cavity is up-
holstered with fine grasses and roots, which give
it a certain springy, elastic nature, necessary for
the prosperity of the eggs and comfort of the nest-
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 127

lings. On this concave mattress, in rich contrast
to the brown nesting stuff, rest three glossy sky-
blue ovals, that enclose the nascent songs. How
beautiful are the eggs of all these thrushes! So
symmetrical and perfectly enameled and painted
with the hue of sapphire! What mysterious chem-
istry is at work within the viscera of these brown
earth-probing, worm-eating birds, that gives the
lime shells such a delicate azure tint?

While contemplating the jewels, the mother
bird lingers near, and occasionally utters her re-
proving, pleading chirp, as if she said: ‘“ Ar’n’t
you ashamed, you bold-faced ogre, to look into my
door? But please don’t rob me of my treasures.”
So heeding her voice I leave her in peace, trusting
that another musical family may be born, to give
to the world additional melody and cheer.

Here by the wooded bank, while gathering the
true and false Solomon’s-seal, one having its green-
ish, bell-like flowers in nodding axillary clusters,
the other with white, small blossoms in terminal
racemes, I am startled by a ruffled grouse that has
risen with explosive sound from her place of con-
cealment, not ten feet away, and whirrs off to the
woods like a solid shot. She is seen only for an
instant, so rapid is her flight, and appears as if a
128 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

bit of the surroundings had suddenly taken wings
and tail, so nicely does her color simulate the
rocks, dead leaves and trunks of trees. Close by
the foot of a chestnut-tree, and moulded between
the roots, that curve and twist above the ground,
is her nest, containing a good round dozen of drab-
buff eggs. To all appearances it is the cradle of a
sea-bright fowl, that, with wild instincts, had wan-
dered from the barnyard and stolen her nest in the
woods. How accurately placed are these dumb
quiescent chicks within the cavity! No human
hand could have packed them so nicely. They
must be thus arranged that not a single egg may
be left out in the cold while she is sitting.

I cannot resist the temptation of once more
stealthily peeping in on her, while returning from
an afternoon ramble. There she is at the conse-
crated spot, and sacrificing at her altar. She is as
motionless as a “ prepared specimen,” and so snugly
crouched within the nest that nothing but her head,
a part of her breast, and her gray-banded tail, which
is bolt upright against the tree-trunk, can be seen
at the distance of a rod.

What are her thoughts as she sits there through
the long days and nights? Is it possible that she
sleeps amidst so many anxieties? How the sun
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 129

burns her, and the wet leaves, in rainy weather,
drip, drip on her devoted back. Those horrid
guns and that barking dog, how dreadfully they
echo through the woods! Perhaps that is a weasel
nosing about there in the dark !

Among these dangers, there is something that
tells her to keep those germs beneath her warm
for eighteen days, before they will find a voice
and take to themselves legs to run away.

Further on the alders have taken the places of
chestnut,. oak and evergreen. While wading
through the tall meadow rue and rough tangled
bed-straw, inhaling the nauseous odor of the carrion
flower, which grows here abundantly, and brushing
away the mosquitoes that rise up at every step, in
sufficient numbers to draw out your last drop of
blood, I have scared from her nest the black-billed
cuckoo. She flies away to an alder, uttering a few
guttural notes as an alarm, and then remains quiet,
but watching me very closely from her covert.
The nest is a rude affair, the outside being com-
posed of quite large dead twigs with leaves inter-
mingled. It is laid carelessly on the branches of a
prostrate arrow-wood, and hidden by the tangled
mass of weeds growing around it. Some little
attention is paid to the upholstering of the shallow
130 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

cavity, by chinking the fissures and openings with
willow down. On this hard bed are laid three
eggs, elliptical in form, and very light blue, as if
the sun had faded them out. Evidently the setting
fever is already upon her, yet her full complement
has not been laid. The habit of laying while incu-
bating is peculiar to this bird, so that eggs and
nestlings in various stages of development, in the
same nest, are often seen.

Partly concealed by the thick shrubbery, not
twenty feet away, the male anxiously watches, his
red eye glistening in the light like a round bit of
colored glass, while his long tail continually moves
up and down, as if he was trying to maintain his
balance on the twig. Occasionally he gives me a
specimen of his ventriloquism; opening wide his
beak, he vomits out his harsh notes, like the turkey
gobbler.

It is a queer sound and, though not sharp, can
be heard even clearer a half-mile away, than when
you are quite near him.

How many of the birds build near wood-roads
and cow-paths! Even those that are secluded and
love the deep woods, prefer to locate their houses
where man or beast occasionally passes by, as if
there was some law or impulse that drew them
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 131

close to such places. Food may be more abundant,
or they may feel a certain sense of security, for
however discreet they may appear, when they see
you, I imagine that half of this shyness may be
assumed, and that they are inclined to your society,
if you are not over-curious and too inquisitive.
How often these creatures play “peep-o” with you
behind a screen of leaves !

All birds seem to understand each other’s alarm-
notes, although they may belong to a different
genus, and there is something that causes them
to congregate from all quarters whenever it is
sounded; for birds, like the higher bipeds, are of
an inquiring turn of mind, and the same motive
prompts them, I believe, to gather at any unusual
occurrence in their precincts, which collects a
crowd at a fire, or any other excitement in the
streets of a city.

At such times you realize the number and
variety of birds that, a moment before, were hid-
den and silent all around you. Here a female
oriole, startled by the close proximity of a meadow-
mouse, that like herself has come down to the
stream to drink, flies up scolding terribly at the
spectacle, and instantly the other birds gather
around to inquire the reason of this consternation.
132 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

The cedar-birds appear suddenly on the spot, silent
but observing. The song-sparrow hops upon a
twig, from his washing, preens his speckled breast,
and curiously eyes his brilliant neighbor. The
yellow warbler holds up her head from behind an
alder-leaf and goes skulking through the thick
foliage. The indigo-bird looks upon the scene
from the lofty spray of yonder elm, and begins a
song, when a puff of wind blows him off and cuts
it short. The brown thresher, last to come, flies
across the opening, flaunts his long tail as he
alights on a low branch, and utters a few croaks.
Then all is silent as before.

From the middle to the last of June most of
the birds have hungry families to maintain. Ex-
cepting in the morning and evening chorus not
much time is spent in singing, so busy are they in
searching for the particular kind of food necessary
for the sustenance and growth of their children.
These soft, smooth, fat spanners that are now
measuring the leaves and hanging by their webs
everywhere among the trees, have come just at the
right time. There are hundreds of different kinds
and sizes from which to choose, so that all tastes
and throats are suited. Though the naked species
of caterpillars are considered a more dainty dish
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 133

and are eagerly sought after by the birds, they
seem to be as abundant as the hairy crawlers,
which, I believe, are generally avoided at this sea-
son. So Nature in her harmony and completeness
has ordered that these geometrids and other tasteful
kinds should be over-prolific, that her stores may
be well supplied with this prepared bird-infant
food.

At this time, when they have the care of a
houseful of hungry nestlings, I frequently in my
walks start from the ground, at unexpected mo-
ments, pairs of those curiously striped birds called
the black-and-white creepers. Although they are
not shy, they have so many little artifices and
stratagems by which to deceive whenever you hap-
pen within the neighborhood of their nests, that
the needle in the stack is almost as easy to find.
The female, which is the bravest and most ready
to face danger, as is the case with other species, I
believe, showing the more ardent and devoted love,
immediately begins her maneuvering by flying
straight at my face, as if she would lance my eyes
with her sharp beak and at once end the whole
matter. But this practice is soon discontinued,
and she lights on the ground not three feet away,
chipping sharply and quivering her wings, or flies
134 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

to the nearest bush where she flutters among the
leaves and climbs up the twigs like some huge
black-and-white moth. How expressive of the
severest anxiety and concern are all these move-
ments, and what distress and solicitude is told in
that single note! Yet the greater part of this ado
is only fuss and feathers and consummate acting
—acting so true to life and full of feeling that it
often causes me while witnessing it, to move aside
to see if I have not already crushed her roof. The
drama, however, is soon played out, and the feath-
ered tragedian flies off the stage and hides herself
in the side scenes of the greenroom. Although
the search is long and diligent, the nest is still a
secret known only to the builders. The perform-
ance never appears twice in the same locality. If,
however, you chance to be within a few rods of it
the next day, the monodrame is again taken up
and rehearsed with the same spirit and passion as
before. Many of the ground-builders, and those
that make their nests in low places, display re-
markable skill and ingenuity in trying to deceive
and lead you astray. The towhee bunting is very
successful in doing this, and the golden crown pos-
sesses wonderful adroitness and cunning in hood-
winking intrusive visitors.
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 135

This barberry bush has character and a signifi-
cance now that a belated yellow warbler has
selected it for a building site, and is busily engaged
in fashioning her exquisite cup-like nest in the
midst of its thorny branches. From a human
standpoint she seems to be a very improvident
bird, for she has chosen a bush growing close to a
foot-path, where scores of young marauders are
daily passing, and it is reasonable to predict that
their sharp eyes will soon discover it, and accom-
plish their mischievous work of plunder before
the full complement of eggs is laid. I have often
noticed a tendency in these birds to place their
nests in exposed situations. They appear to have
a kind of trustfulness in man which is truly
pathetic when you consider how surely it will be
betrayed by these barbarians. Oftentimes the
female will choose a spot in the immediate vicinity
of the last rifled nest and, without the least cau-
tion or forethought, proceed to turn out, in open
sight, with the same neat workmanship, another
delicate structure.

I have known a yellow warbler to build three
successive nests all within an area of a dozen rods,
before a favorable issue rewarded her efforts.

But this one that I watch this afternoon works
136 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING,

on as hopefully as though nothing wrong were to
happen. The female alone is the builder; her
mate occasionally appears on the scene, but it is
only to show himself or perhaps bring to her a
sweet morsel from his extensive larder whenever
he thinks of the hard time his wife is having. She
visits her half-finished home often, but does not
remain long, performing with haste a series of
pickings and pressings, using her wings much in
forming the perfect curvature, and hugging with
her chin and bill the outer edges against her
rounded breast, that the cavity may be moulded to
it. She searches diligently for material near at
hand — small strips of barberry-bark, willow-down,
and tufts from the cotton-grass. How many
laborious explorations have been required to con-
centrate all these into the little bunch of gray
nesting-stuff, and fashion it so accurately in the
junction of the three branchlets !

Curious to know at what time she left her work
for the day, and whether or not she rested on her
nest at night, I continued to watch her long after
sunset, but now her visits were few and far be-
tween. At last, just as a chapel bell at “early
candle-light”” began its summons to the evening
prayer-meeting, she circled near me and flew into
WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 137

a thick cedar, where probably her mate was wait-
ing to praise her, and was seen no more. Then I
approached reverently, and gazed with admiration
on this work which the sweet spirit of maternity
had prompted.

The retiring sun darkens these aisles, and the
heavier air seems to hold the fragrance of the
bush grasses and foliage nearer the earth. Picking
my way through the viburnums, where I find three
species, the sheepberry, dentatwm, and withrod, all
now in full bloom, I discover the cause of this
scolding of two swamp sparrows flitting through
the bushes at my approach. Ah! here is the little
fellow, not two weeks from the egg, perched on a
twig, not daring to move upon his uncertain legs
or weaker wings. How stupidly he stares at
everything around him; then drawing in his head
and half-closing his eyes, bides his time of strength
and song.

The purple finch has instituted a vesper service
on yonder branch; a Maryland yellow-throat peers
at me through the foliage, but is silent, and like a
sexton seems to admonish me to move in reverence
during the holy hour. Near at hand, in the trees,
the robins were talking to one another like chick-
ens going to roost. Softer bird-whisperings were
138 WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING.

heard, not querulous, as they settled themselves on
the cedars, and bade each other good-night. The
wood-thrush is the songster, the rara avis chorister
in this temple. It is not until evening that his
throat is properly cleared for the performance;
the bird seems to be inspired by his own hymn;
it is expressive of delicate and refined thought,
and awakens the poetic and spiritual sentiment in
the mind of the listener.

The deepening shadows bring out the ghostly
night-moths winging abroad to be preyed upon by
the whip-poor-wills.

Standing in the road, and looking back in the
lingering twilight upon the dark mass lifting itself
beyond the nearer fields, I would that some power
other than imagination be given me, to see dis-
tinctly the situation of each little songster, now
silent and at rest, in there among the leaves.
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-
BUILDERS.
Vv.
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

THE birds of prey, or Robbers, as they are called,
possess many characteristics analogous to those
carnivorous quadrupeds the cats; the upper man-
dible always curved in this order, forming a sharp,
strong hook for the purpose of tearing the flesh of
their victims, and the generally retractile talons,
by which to seize their quarry, comparing with the
teeth and claws of the leopards and panthers.

Their mode of attack also resembles that of the
Felide in many respects; likened to their velvet
paws are the soft pliant wings of hawks and owls,
so that while flying they may draw near their
nimble prey without being heard. Their strength,
quickness and grace of motion, and even their
strange screaming voices, are all suggestive of the
tigers and ocelots; as if Nature had armed these
rapacious creatures to destroy all animals less fortu-

nate than themselves in weapons of self-defence.
141
142 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

As this class of birds do not take much pains in
dressing their food at the time of eating, but swal-
low feathers, hair, bones and all, Nature has pro-
vided a skillful contrivance within the muscular
stomach, which separates the indigestible parts,
and rolls them up into wads or pellets, to be
thrown up after the disuniting process has been
completed.

Notwithstanding the weakness these robbers
have for a tender chicken now and then, they
render good service to the agriculturist as his
“man at arms,” by ridding the meadows of mice
and other vermin, which, but for them and the
house cat that takes occasional strolls, would soon
swarm the field, destroying the grass roots and
girdling the apple-trees. As a proof of their use-
fulness to the farmer, a curious naturalist examined
a certain number of these pellets and found them
to be the remains of mice, moles and insects with
a very small proportion of those of birds.

We often come upon specimens of these aérial
highwaymen, descended to earth, perched on some
fence or stump, where they remain apparently
unconscious of surrounding dangers, and stupid
from excessive feeding. My correspondent, Mr.
W. B. Allen, a close observer of the birds, has
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 143

given me in a letter from Maine, such a graphic
description of a marsh hawk while in this gorged
condition, that I cannot resist the impulse of quot-
ing from it. He says :—

“T soon caught sight of my marsh hawk perched
on a broken birch about five feet from the ground.
I have no doubt his nest was near, but the bog was
so flooded by the rains that I gave up the attempt
to reach it. Meanwhile the bird sat hunched up
in true falcon fashion, looking stupidly from side
to side, occasionally uttering his cry, which resem-
bles the magnified twitter of a sparrow. He was
evidently disgusted with the rain and wind which
now and then blew his feathers the wrong way,
and made him look extremely foolish. As I ad-
vanced he shrugged his shoulders like a French-
man crying Oui, oui, owt, and ruffled up his draggled
plumage with such a disconsolate expression, and
with apparent unwillingness to leave his post, that
I took pity on him and disturbed him no further.”

One of the smallest and most common of our
falcons is the sparrow hawk (Falco Sparverius) ; a
bird of strong peculiarities, sleek, trim, and a
winner in life’s race. Although in the breeding
season, and in the midst of household cares, he
generally preys on the grasshoppers, crickets and
144 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS,

other insects, he loves to vary his diet occasionally
with a small chicken pie in payment for his ser-
vices, or to rob the fields of a cheerful song by
dealing a death-blow to some unsuspecting sparrow
that is winging its way across the meadows.

No other bird causes such commotion in the
poultry-yard or in the household as he. Every
one knows his skulking propensities; how with
noiseless wings he lurks here and there among out-
buildings and orchard trees, ready to pounce on
some industrious brood. His coming like a thief
is the event of the day on the quiet farm. He is
such an airy sprite that no one has seen him but
the cowardly hens that suddenly leave their
scratching and with outstretched heads run for the
nearest covert, while the lordly rooster follows
more slowly, sounds his alarm note, and assumes
an heroic air, as though he was not afraid of all the
hawks in the world. Meanwhile the poor, bust-
ling mother-hen, with her downy responsibilities,
spreads out her wings, ruffles all the feathers on
her body, and tries to look as large and as ferocious
as possible. But it is a vain show! What can she
do with that brisk, lithe, clean-cut plunderer above
her? Before she has, in her agitation, half-turned
round, those long, narrow wings have carried down
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 145

the fatal claws which close into the tender flesh
of the plumpest chick in the flock and bear it off
triumphantly.

By this time the news has been communicated
to the family at dinner (for our freebooter seems
to choose such occasions to perpetrate his crimes)
and there is a general uprising from the table, and
a rush to the windows and doors, but before Ben
can have a chance with his gun to end the life of
the insidious marauder, he has vanished like an
apparation into the neighboring thicket, to feast at
leisure on the game that perchance a short time
before, in its turn, had seized a helpless angle
worm. Thus it is in Nature: “She arms and
equips an animal to find its place and living in
the world, and arms and equips another animal to
destroy it.”

But there is one little bird in the orchard that
does not appear to be afraid of our winged pirate.
The kingbird, if not a raptor, is at least a tyrant,
a petty tyrant, a veritable monitor of the air, that
plagues the life of the larger birds. What a fierce
eye he has, set in a head-dress so ruffled and care-
lessly worn! He has an irritable temper, too, and
the least interference with him sets his head on
fire at once. Either for some real or fancied
146 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

wrong, he pursues his foe with wrathful frenzy
and persistency, flying above and darting down on
his enemy with such fury that the hawk is glad to
flee with all possible haste from the well-defended
precinct.

Another well-dressed robber of the woods and
orchards is the blue jay. He loves at times to
scream like the hawk. To the human ear, the
imitation is very close, but the hawks discriminate
more nicely, and know that it is not genuine.
Two families of the same trade can never agree.
The falcon does not like to be widely advertised,
or to sail under false colors, and so very often the
dandy hypocrite pays dearly for his dissemblance.
This small blue crow, however, is a talented bird,
with a flexible trachea, and can upon occasion
resort to other notes almost as sweet as those of
thrushes. Willie, Willie, he says very plaintively,
vee-e-e-la, vlee-ee-vlee-ce, as though he were playing
ona flute. He has withal a Pecksniffian appear-
ance, an air of injured innocence, as if it were
uncharitable to impute to him the crime of break-
ing up a score of homes in as many days. And
so this morning he flashes through the woods,
and, standing on a bough, attempts to lecture the
birds in his soft persuasive voice which indeed
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 147

would be very effective to his listeners did they
not know what a consummate knave he is.

During the recital of these sweet sounds no
one with an eye to the charms of graceful move-
ment would gaze upon him, for in his most
pathetic parts he performs such painful, awkward,
clownish contortions as to detract at once from
the pleasure received through. the sense of hearing
and leads you to the belief that all he utters is
mere cant.

The robins and cat-birds know him “ to the very
heart of loss,” and take every opportunity to break
in upon his sweet beguiling discourse with beak
and claw. Sometimes a dozen male red-breasts
will organize a raiding party to hustle him from
his rostrum, diving at him furiously and plying
with their bills such heavy strokes that he is
forced to fly down and out, shamefully seeking
some safer covert, and never resenting the abuse
that is put upon him.

If one loves to watch a bird of graceful flight,
he should betake him to the mouth of some large
salt-water river, or to the ocean’s shore where the
seagulls float to and fro over the waves, or drift
like foam before the wind. Here, too, he will
surely find that magnificent falcon of the seas, the
148 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.,

American osprey. He has a proud, stately bear-
ing as he prowls far above the waves in airy circles,
and sails with easy sweep of his powerful wings
against the wind, ready to fall on some surface-
loving fish. A distant view of one, seen through
a glass, has the appearance of a large horizontal
bracket against the gray clouds.

I have often thought this bird loved the sport of
fishing. He never appears to be in a hurry or
impatient, but plies his trade in quiet contempla-
tion. The complete angler is he who knows his
favorite species, and the best wind and weather in
which they can be caught. At times he makes a
sudden plunge down through the air, but on com-
ing near the surface of the water rises up again
and resumes his sailing, as if he delighted to
see his game scamper away from his sharp hooks.
When he has caught a fish to his taste he imme-
diately proceeds to the shore, flying slowly and
laboriously along, like some large heavily-laden
craft, with his quarry held lengthwise or parallel
to his body, so that it may present the least resist-
ance to the air, and no more impediment to flight
than is necessary.

Who, by studying the philosophy of sailing, has
had the problem fully explained? It is a note-
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 149

worthy and curious fact that insects, gnats, dragon-
flies, moths, etc., have larger wings, in proportion
to their size and weight, than the sailing birds,
such as the ospreys, eagles and albatrosses. None
of the smaller birds can long sustain themselves
in the air without the beating of their pinions;
but these heavy weights can scale and soar for
hours without any apparent movement of the
wing, in some mysterious way which they have
not seen fit to divulge to man.

The example of the flying kite has often been
quoted; namely, “the string and hand are to the
kite what the weight of the bird is to the inclined
plane of the wing,” but no one has ever beheld
that interesting toy perform such wonderful aérial
tricks as these remarkable kings of the air.

The osprey, or fish-hawk as he is often called in
New England, is the only species in the genus
Pandion. The male is larger than the female.
This is an exception to the majority of cases in
the hawk tribe. In some species the difference in
the measurement of the sexes is very great; the
husband being three or four sizes smaller than the
wife, and by no means as attractive in plumage.

There is a large, white mufiled robber, a native
of the Arctic regions, who in winter makes incur-
150 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS,

sions into many towns in New England, and his
advent is sure to be the subjest of conversation for
nine days at least, at the corner grocery and among
the young hunters of the village. “Bob,” without
a gun of course, had seen one down in the pines,
and “Nat,” cutting across the “Nicky lot,” had
scared one from a scraggy apple-tree, that glided
away as silently as a ghost, and was soon lost in
the snowy landscape. A lot of large feathers
scattered under the turkey roost next morning,
and a missing fowl, told too plainly that the spec-
tre in the form of the snowy owl had appeared
in the moonlight night and carried off the flower
of the flock.

For this crime and also for the love of hunting,
no peace is given to Snowy who, innocently enough,
reared as he is in the North where birds are not
domesticated, considers all game as legitimate.
Before the season ends, the boys have succeeded
in trapping him, or in obtaining his skin, which
when stuffed is placed in their museum or on the
mantel as a proof of their skill and valor.

If he is as well mounted as Mr. Field’s white
owl, he is certainly a curiosity. His large yellow
eyes in front, firmly fixed in their sockets so that
they can be turned in any direction only as the
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. I51

head is moved, staring out from the mass of head
feathers, give him the air of being very wise.
The long, thick, loral hairs completely hiding the
bill, and reaching on each side along the cheeks,
like a heavy mustache, the thick body feathers and
the pure, snow-white plumage of the legs and toes,
like good, thick stockings, testify how thoughtful
Nature has been in wrapping him up to withstand
the Arctic’s cold.

One of the most cruel of our feathered cut-
throats is the butcher-bird (Lantus borealis). Orni-
thologists have placed him as the connecting link
between the sweet-voiced vieros and the seed-eat-
ing finches, but by some strange perversion he has
taken to the road as a highwayman and murderer,
and all the bird-preaching in the world will not
correct his strongly-confirmed bad habits.

He breeds northward. In winter he journeys to
Middle and Southern New England, where game is
more abundant, and is seen lurking about fields
and orchards, and even in the cities, to prey on
those feathered metropolitans, the English spar-
rows. At times he lights on the telegraph wires
and the topmost twigs of the highest trees, as if
he was amusing himself by trying to know how
well he could keep his balance on such uncertain
I52 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

perches. His flight, like that of the hawks and
owls, is gliding and noiseless, but unlike those
robbers he lacks the strong talons, and depends on
his powerful beak to commit his murders.

One afternoon a few winters ago, at Hillside, we
saw from the window one of the most pitiless bird
tragedies of the season.

“Oh! do come here and see these two little birds
playing in the snow,” said one who was always
watching for rare, unusual things in Nature, even
for four and five-leaved clover. “ Aren’t they
playing?”

There in the front yard, under our very eyes, a
bold butcher in ashen coat and black mask, had
flown down and was chasing an English sparrow
round the elm trunk and through the lilac bushes.
The fun, however, appeared to be all on the side
of the larger bird, who evidently before our com-
ing had wounded the wing joint of poor finchy.
The latter made several vain, painful attempts at
flight, skulked between the fence slats, hopped for
dear life to the stone wall and crouched beneath
the lower rocks. But the endeavor to escape
proved ineffectual. The ruthless murderer always
on its track held that stout, sharp black knife over
his quivering victim, and when at last he had sat-
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 153

isfied his cat-like love of torturing his helpless
prey for torture’s sake, he gave it the fatal blow,
seized it in his strong gape and bore it away to his
shambles.

It is interesting also to consider the breeding
habits of the different birds, the various styles of
their houses and the crafts and trades that Nature
has taught the many species. The little auks, the
stormy petrels, kingfishers and bank swallows are
miners. The nut-hatches, woodpeckers, and many
of the titmice, with their sharp chisels, hammer
away on some decayed trunk in the woods for days
together, till their log cabin is finished. With few
exceptions the swallows are masons and plasterers,
and fix their adobe houses in the most dexterous
manner on projecting cliffs and eaves of barns.
The vireos and orioles are bag and basket makers.
The grebes and water-hens are raft-builders and
moor their floating homes to some strong-rooted
aquatic plant. There are also tailors, and weavers,
and platform-makers among these feathered archi-
tects. A few of the birds, however, such as the
foolish guillemots, night-hawks, and some of the
wise owls, have lived from generation to genera-
tion without learning the art of nest-building.

Wherever a rock is found that simulates the
154 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS,

color of their eggs, or any cavity, either natural or
artificial that offers itself, these winged tramps
‘appropriate it, and then, without any upholstering
or fixing up they deposit their eggs and rear their
young. On the other hand, how many of the
birds are not skilled workmen, but are true artists!
That the sense of the beautiful in them is well-
developed is evident from the fact that many spe-
cies ornament the exterior of the nest with wreaths
and rosettes of moss and lichen. The well-known
habit of the bower-bird of Australia, that collects
objects of brilliant color, such as shells, feathers,
etc., arranging and re-arranging them before the
entrance of its bazaar bower, is a remarkable in-
stance of the real esthetic taste of birds. The
humming-bird, too, is a gay little artist, and no
wonder, with its slender needle bill and deft wings
which enables it to rest on the air, or dart like an
electric spark here and there around its tiny her-
mitage, tricking it up with bright bits of moss and
fern, plant-down and lichen, and making it a per-
fect type of bird architecture. It would be en-
trancing to behold such a spectacle.

There are three or four of the characteristic
builders that I wish more particularly to describe
to you, the first being the bank swallow or sand
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 155

martin (Cotile riparia): “a twitterer or prattler
by the banks of streams.” As has been already
stated, the swallows, with a few exceptions, are
masons and cementers, but here is a little artisan
that has taken to the ways of the miners, and digs
a tunnel sometimes of an extraordinary length,
in the sand banks, at the end of which it forms an
oven-like apartment for the eggs. What has caused
this species to depart from the usual swallow-
method of nest building?

Ages ago, under peculiar circumstances, it is
probable that the bird discovered that picking was
better for it than plastering; so here it is at the
present time with trade well learned. How hard
it works! It seems impossible that such a short,
small beak and slender claws could perforate the
solid, sandy bluffs at such remarkable depths as
these birds have been known to reach. There are
recorded tunnels nine feet long, although the usual
length is not much over two feet. The reason of
this great difference in the length of burrows made
by the same species is, that whenever they dig in
pebbly embankments they often in the passage
come upon small stones; these, the sagacious miner
considers, should it locate its nest near them, would
prove disastrous if by accident they should fall on
156 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.,

the eggs or young; so it continues its work, until it
finds a place free from impending danger. Often-
times, however, after having dug a short distance
and met with obstructions, it abandons the work,
and commences in a new place. I have seen many
such beginnings along the banks of the Piscataqua
River in the vicinity of Fox Point, N. H., where
large numbers of this species make their homes.

In preparing for a fresh start it clings perpen-
dicularly to the cliff and buries its long claws in
the sand, as if to secure a suitable fulcrum; then
with its short brad-awl-like beak goes to work with
a will. The whole body seems to be in violent
agitation and moves slowly, like an eccentric in an
engine, as it rapidly picks from the centre outward.
Both the male and the female, I believe, are en-
gaged in this work, as is usually the case with
those birds that take extra pains in preparing a
nesting-place. In a week, or perhaps more if the
sand is hard and the tunnel is long, the mining is
completed and the pair proceed to upholster the
nest cavity with hay and feathers, ready for the
five pure white eggs and the young miners which,
if their house is dark and moist, are made comfort-
able and warm by the bountiful supply of insect
food brought to them by their parents.
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 157

There is a little titmouse (Psaltriparus minimus)
that plays on its lute in the woods along the Pacific
coast, and may well be classed among the Refined
Builders. Itis a skillful artist, and its nest-making
habits are quite different from those of its relatives
who inhabit the woods and orchards of the Eastern
States. It employs its beak as a shuttle rather
than a chisel. The house is very large for the
size of the bird, and in general outline resembles a
sack eight or nine inches in length and three in
diameter, suspended from the fork of some lower
branch. The exterior is ornamented with tinseled
spangles of moss and lichens nicely interwoven
with fibrous roots. The cavity, six inches long
and half an inch wide, is softly and thickly quilted
with willow down and feathers, a fitting receptacle
for the delicate, pearly shells that imprison the
embryo minstrels.

The titmice are prolific layers, and this species,
the smallest of the family, is not an exception to
the rule; oftentimes as many as nine eggs are
found in one of these decorated bags. Like all
members of this group they are social, convivial
little bodies, and, as if trusting in man and other
odlogists, appear to take no pains in concealing
their large and conspicuous nests.
158 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

In striking contrast to the Refined Builders are
the savage architects or Platform Makers. The
falcons, hawks and eagles are of this class, and
the golden eagle may be considered the master
mechanic among the tribe. What a ferocious burg-
lar is this robber in the mountains! So completely
armed is it with falcons and hooks, that when it
essays the tender occupation of home-building, its
murderous weapons seem to be out of place, and
so, at the best, it makes of it an awkward piece of
work. High up on the projecting shelf of some
rocky crag its nest is placed. Both the male and
female are engaged in carrying the material for the
foundation. This is composed of sticks, usually
quite long and oftentimes more than an inch in
diameter. As is the habit of all the tribe, it takes
the timber in the talons, never in the beak, and
holding it lengthwise with the body, that it may
not impede the flight more than possible, bears it
aloft. Hovering over the eyrie it drops its load.
Little attention is paid to adornment. Mass and
thickness to withstand the wind storm and to
protect the eggs and eaglets from the chill and
dampness of the rocks are the only points to be
looked after. This plain heap of sticks made level
on the top, and covered with soft lining, the king
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 159

of birds is content to call his home, and here in its
lofty stronghold, year after year, if undisturbed, it
returns, and with more or less repairing of the old
house, rears again its young.

The eggs have very thick shells and are usually
three, though sometimes not more than two are
laid. They are dull white, and many specimens
are blotched with brown. In the breeding season
these robbers are noisy, as if protesting against the
home restraint. What a wild, savage scream is
that sent forth from its carnivorous throat! “like a
prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through
a crevice in the sky.” It is the counterpart of the
howl of the wolf or the screech of the panther; a
voice that suggests excessive pain and tearing of
flesh. I imagine at such times the hare leaps
swiftly to its covert and the doe becomes anxious
for the safety of her young and tender fawn.

All of the grebes have interesting habits. Al-
though they are great water lovers and very skill-
ful swimmers and divers, they do not have webbed
feet like the ducks, gulls, petrels, and many other
water fowl. The toes are connected only at the
base, but are widely margined on the inner side
with tough skin, rounded and broader at the nail-
like claws, each resembling an oar blade.
160 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS.

Their summer resorts are in the high northern
latitudes. In their migrations a few of them re-
main within the limits of the United States, but
the majority pass further on —to the Hudson Bay
country and the Arctic Ocean coast, where they
frequent the shallow borders of lakes, rivers and
deluged marshes, among the reeds and sedges, to
build their nests. The mother grebe is very awk-
ward on the land. It is impossible for her to walk
gracefully. She moves by jerks, as if she was fet-
tered. Her legs are situated so far behind that
she can keep her balance only by sitting upright,
like the auks and penguins. As it is difficult for
her to move around readily on the land she takes
to the water, where she is perfectly free to build
her floating raft. This is composed of reeds,
rushes and other aquatic plants, thickly matted
together and slightly raised above the surface of
the water. After the boat is finished and well
anchored to prevent it from being carried away by
the winds or currents, the builder makes a shallow
cavity on the top and lays four light green eggs.
During the season of incubation, which lasts a
month, she is tossed about on the wavelets, keep-
ing a sharp lookout for minks, otters, and other
furry fishers and egg-eaters that abound in these
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. I61

creeks and lakes. Indeed it is an anxious time to
her, amidst so many enemies, and she is forced
to resort to artful dodges to evade them. When
alarmed by an intruder she quickly covers the eggs
by material constantly at hand, and then quietly
slides overboard, and sinks so gradually that not the
least stirring of the water is visible. This is her
usual habit, although she has a quicker method of
concealing herself when occasion requires it. She
is capable of remaining under water more than
five minutes, during which time she has paddled
along the lake or river bottom out of danger, and
then she rises cautiously, allowing only her nostrils
and eyes to be raised above the surface while tak-
ing breath and observations. In due time, if no
accident has occurred, the pretty little downy
young are toddling about on deck, uttering faint
peeps, not unlike ducklings, and stretching out
their curiously speckled and striped heads and
necks, as if to inquire the meaning of the sudden
light. The floating home, by being in the water
so long, has become leaky and uncomfortable, so
the mother takes her children on her back that
they may bask in the sunlight and be strength-
ened. They must be fed also, so before diving
she carefully tucks them under her wings, placing
162 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS,

them in such a way that their heads are toward
her tail and resting on her body. “Hold your
breaths!” she says in gentle grebe baby-talk, and
away they go to the bottom. Here she skurries
after the darting minnows, or stops to gobble up
some delicious insect larva, or feeds on the juicy
water plants and alge growing abundantly on
these submerged grounds. What a strange ride,
and how long the grebe chicks remain beneath the
water! Evidently their breathing organs are so
formed by Nature that the usual necessity of fre-
quent respiration is not required.

After two or three weeks schooling in the art of
diving and feeding, the young are left to shift for
themselves, and the parent bird day by day be-
comes less attentive, until finally she casts off the
tufts of bright feathers on her neck, and all house-
hold responsibilities, till the next year.

Far out to sea, in the southern latitudes of the
Indian Ocean, more than a thousand miles from
the continent of Africa or Australia, lies an unin-
habited island named Desolation or Kerguelen.
Ships passing on their way from Europe or the
United States to Melbourne sail quite near this
lonely land and sometimes enter Christmas Har-
bor, at the northern end, for fresh supplies of
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 163

water. Here, if the sailors visit it at any time
between the months of October and January, they
will see vast numbers of the wandering albatross
describing graceful curves high in air, or sweeping
down on the table-land where their curious nests
are placed.

The albatross, if it is a great wanderer, is also a
lover of home and has an excellent memory, for
after five months’ voyaging over many leagues of
the dreary ocean’s waste it always returns at the
end of that time to the land of its birth, and occu-
pies year after year the same abode.

It is an odd nest that this remarkable bird
makes. It is in the shape of a half-cone, and this
is the manner in which it is constructed: after a
heavy fall of rain has softened the earth, both the
male and the female go to work with a will, dig-
ging with their strong bills a circular ditch six
feet round, pushing up the mud, mingled with
grass, nearer and nearer the centre of the circle,
pounding and shaping the mass with their spades
into a solid mound two feet high; at the top is a
shallow cavity in which the mother albatross lays
only one white egg.

And now begins a long, tedious season of incu-
bation. More than two months is required to
164 WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS,

hatch out the young, which at first appears a mov-
ing white ball of the finest silky down. It grows
slowly, remaining in the nest for many weeks,
carefully watched and fed by the parents, who
take turns in going to sea to capture small tender
squids and jelly-fish for the helpless squab. At
last, as if urged by some mysterious force, the
father and mother suddenly desert their child, and
wander for many months over the “trackless
ocean,” far out of sight of land, but never, except
by accident, visiting the Northern Pacific or Atlan-
tic, where other species of this genus are found.
It does not like to fly by night. It is a beautiful
spectacle to see it stooping with extended wings
from the cloudless sky, and touching the waves
with almost the lightness of a feather, as it settles
down amongst the patches of floating seaweed or
in the wake of ships, to feed upon mollusks and
shell-fish, or the offal thrown out by the sailors.
What keeps the baby albatross from starving
during the long absence of its parents is a question
that has never been answered. For a long time it
is not able to fly, and therefore cannot obtain its
food in the usual manner of older birds. It is
possible that it derives its sustenance from the sur-
plus fat stored in its body during the first two
WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 165

months of excessive feeding, or rambles over the
table-land in search of whatever it yields of worms
and snails. It is certain that it manages in some
way to thrive, for when found “it is lively and in
good condition.”

When the old birds again return from their long
voyage, the young albatross, that appears to re-
member its parents, immediately proceeds to caress
them by pecking with its hard hooked bill their
heads until that portion between the beak and the
eyes is bare of feathers, sore and bloody. This
rough kind of fondling is endured for a short time,
as if they wished to make amends for their negli-
gence, and then the youth is harshly turned away,
while these old mariners at once begin to repair
the same nest for another season of housekeeping.
When they again set sail, the child of the previous
year, that has now attained snfficient strength of
wing, accompanies them, to be in turn taught the
mysteries of the sea; and after a long and stormy
voyage over unknown waters and strange coasts it
will return to this island of Desolation, there to
choose a mate and rear a little one to take its part
in the restless life which the albatross seems to
love so well.
WONDERS OF POND LIFE.
VI.
WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

THE microscope is a wonderful instrument.
Few purchases will afford so much enjoyment, for
after you have learned to use it, it will bring to
light thousands of curious minute living animals
and plants which, in your oddest dreams, you
never thought of.

One who looks through it into a drop of water
thickly populated, looks into another world, as it
were; for under the objective appear some of the
lowest forms of life, from mere masses of gelatine,
moving along upon the glass slide, which may be-
long either to the animal or vegetable kingdom, up
to the tiny specimens of Crustacea, the water fleas.

Let’s go to the pond, down by the willows, this
beautiful morning. It is as good a place as any to
obtain the tiny wonders, although life is every-
where: in the air, on the earth, flying and crawl-

ing; even the mould on this stick, which we pick
169
170 WONDERS OF POND LIFE,

up on our way, is a collection of living plants that
bear fruit; where creatures, perhaps, are crawling
among the branches — creatures so small as to be
invisible to the naked eye, but which thé micro-
scope would reveal.

In place of hooks, lines and baskets we bring
two or three wide-mouthed vials and a good dip-
net, for we are after smaller curiosities than bream
and perch, which seem to be having a kind of
dumb carousal in their little world as we approach
the shore.

Do you notice this green scum on the surface,
around the edge of the pond? Yes, you have seen
it a hundred times before. It looks like litter and
the commonest filth, does it not? Yet, believe me,
this rubbish, as you might call it, is composed of
fresh growing plants floating or rolling about in
the still or slowly-running water, and getting their
nourishment from it, as other plants get their food
from the earth. These kinds of plants belong to a
family called Algw, which really means seaweed,
and is so named because so many species grow in
the ocean ; but those we see in ponds and streams
are so very small that the microscope is needed to
tell us how curiously they are put together.

Let us now fill our vials with this “ green stuff,”
WONDERS OF POND -LIFE. 171

making sweeps with our nets as we walk around
the shores, gathering in not only plants, but green
forms of animal life, and hasten home to inspect
our booty. To enjoy a few of the interesting things
that we see in our walk, each one should be pro-
vided with a microscope.

Hold up a vial to the light and look at those
little green balls, scarcely a thirtieth of an inch in
diameter, rolling round and round in the water,
like mimic worlds in space. Let us catch one or
two of them with your dipping tube, and place
them carefully in a singie drop on the glass slide

or “live box.”

Now look down through the in-
strument, and see how large it has suddenly grown.
This is Volvox globator (rolling ball). It looks now
like a crystal ball, covered over with a delicate net-
work. At the corners of the meshes are seen
bright green specks, like small shining emerald
beads. We will screw on to the end of the tube
another object-glass, which seems to make this
revolving globe still larger, and find that these
green specks are not specks at all, but little club-
shaped bodies, each having two very fine hairs or
cilia, as they are called, attached to them, which
are continually moving, and which serve as paddles
to propel the globe through the water.
172 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

These green bodies, of which the Volvox is com-
posed, are incorrectly called Zoospores, from Zoon,
an animal, and Sporos, a seed, and have the power
of moving round so lively from place to place, that
at first it seems impossible to believe that they are
not animals; but after a great deal of talk among
learned persons it has been at last decided that
these curious objects are plants, and belong to
that great family (Algae) of which we have spoken.

How do these plants grow? At certain times
each one of these Zoospores, or moving seeds, have
buds growing from them, or are divided into two
parts, and each of these two parts becomes in its
turn the parent of other cells which change into
moving seeds, and, being very social little bodies,
gather themselves in little round balls within the
larger globe. There are nine of these small green
spheres in the one we see, which, if nothing had
happened to them, would finally have burst through
the walls of the mother plant, and started off on
their rolling excursions to rear in turn other fam-
ilies. Both the parent plant and her children have
openings or pores through which the water flows,
giving them the food and air they need. These
we cannot see because our instrument is not of
sufficient power.
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 17%

But we will not speak to-day of other interesting
kinds that might be seen in this curious Algz
family, for there are a few odd specimens in animal
life in this museum, to which we must allude. A
drop that clings to this speck of half-decayed vege-
tation, taken from a bottle, must surely be rich in
animalcules. The live-box is a necessary imple-
ment to spread the drop over the slide at a uniform
thickness. A power of two hundred diameters is
quite sufficient for our present purpose. Now let
us place it in position, draw the curtain aside and
look in. Here is the Amcba, “named in honor of
a fabled god who could be either animal, vegetable
or mineral in his nature,” that looks as if a small
portion of the white of an egg had been placed on
the glass, and some magician had given it the
power of locomotion. Such bodies as these must
have stretched themselves along under the waters
in the beginning of things. It is continually
changing its shape. Now rolling itself up in a
ball, now pushing out fingers here and there, so
that the whole mass is sinuated in every possible
design. There is something remarkable, too, in
the manner in which it obtains its food. It feels
along with its fingers until, for instance, a diatom
is reached, when it gradually surrounds it, and
174 WONDERS OF POND LIFE,

appropriates its substance. Why does it reject
one object and accept another for its living? Can
such a gross lump of jelly think ?

In another part of the field appears a creature,
perhaps a notch higher in the scale, called the
Rhizopod (root-foot), which looks at first as if a
number of smal? white worms had tied their heads
together, and carried about with them a regular
hexagonal shell. It is very slow in its movements,
and the load seems to be heavy. These sarcode
feet, extended in all directions, inclose small black
granules which move in certain courses, and are
considered to be similar to the grains of sap which
circulate in the cells of plants.

Attached to this decayed stalk just above the
rhizopod is a curious inhabitant of the drop, named
the vorticella, or bell animalcule — tied to an
india rubber string! How greedily it feeds! Sit-
uated at the rim of the bell are small hairs, or cilia,
which seem to be revolving rapidly, making a cur-
rent on which is carried to its mouth smaller
infusoria, or whatever may be suitable for food.
Think of such a creature becoming alarmed! I
tap my finger on the stage, when instantly, quicker
than our eyes can follow, the animal is jerked
back by the strongly contractile cord, the cilia are

~
WONDERS OF POND LIFE, 175

motionless and the big mouth closed. Immedi-
ately after the elastic string begins slowly to un-
coil, but not until it is straightened to its full
length does the wide mouth open as before.

Just now I am quite sure a vorticella shot
across the field, minus its flexible stalk. Let me
move the slide to bring it into view. Yes, here it
is; evidently a young one has lately broken away
from the parent stem, and is casting about to fix
for itself a local habitation. While it is prospect-
' ing, an opportunity is offered to examine the crea-
ture at this stage of its inexperience. It is now
provided with a second fringe of small hairs at the
base of the bell, so that it may be propelled through
its little world of troubled waters. It was your
bad fortune, O, Vorticella, to wander near when
this drop was confined. Alas! it will soon evap-
orate, and leave you a dust mote, to be blown
hither and thither until some favorable breeze
shall at last restore you to your native ditch.

Here is an interesting little worm-like creature,
named the Rotifer or wheel animalcule, crawling
along after the style of the spanners or leeches.
Now it fastens its tail on the glass, by means of
two sucking disks, and lengthening itself out
like a spy-glass begins to feed. Two wheels. con-
176 WONDERS OF POND LIFE,

cealed until now, are suddenly thrust forward, and
seem to revolve as steadily and rapidly as a pulley
on the shaft. These two circles of whirling cilia
are placed one on each side of the mouth, and
move in opposite directions, disturbing the water
for some distance in front of the animal, and draw-
ing toward it a raft of small diatoms, which it
crushes with a mouth that opens and shuts with
the regularity of a heart-beat.

The rotifer is comparatively a highly-organized
inhabitant of this museum, and its perfect trans-
parency enables one to see the internal structure,
such as the alimentary canal, eggs, and the process
of digestion. It has eyes, too, though I am forced
to believe its vision cannot be very extended, and
even with this lens I am unable to discover any
gleam of intelligence.

Drawing the slide a sixteenth of an inch to the
left brings us to another region as yet unexplored.
Ah! here is a form stretching its long neck clear
across the field, and apparently pecking amongst
the spiral vessels which the partly decomposed
vegetable reveals. Now it draws in its head,
arches its neck and continues to make quick but
feeble thrusts at a passing throng of monads. The
likeness is so striking that it has been named the
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 177

swan animalcule. In a favorable light one can see
the cilia moving on parts of its body, which may
be compared to feathers, thus adding still more to
the general resemblance.

What is this transparent bag of cells gliding over
the glass? It has a long lash in front, and seems
to be earnestly seeking for something which, so
far as one can see, it never finds. At last, as if
angry with its ill luck, it fastens its cilium to the
glass, lifts its body and begins to whirl around
in a most fantastic manner. Exhausted with its
efforts (if such a thing can be weary), it remains
motionless for some time and then resumes its end-
less search. May not this be the larval condition
of some higher infusorial life ?

No vertebrates appear as living microscopical
objects, such as very small fish, swimming around
in the live-box. With the exception of a few
water-mites, the only representatives of the larger,
higher animals which are comparatively nearer the
reptiles, are the water fleas, so called, no doubt,
from the fact that many of the species move
through the water with a jerky motion, and bear
some resemblance to the insects.

The most common species in the order Entomos-
traca (insect shelled), and one which can be found
178 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

in every ditch, is the Cyclops quadricornis. What
along, hard name for such a small creature! Itis
certainly two hundred times longer than the animal
when seen with the unassisted eye, and means the
one-eyed water-flea with four horns. These horns
or feelers, you see, are all placed up near the head,
and are used while swimming, as well as to touch
things, as you do with your fingers. It has a
single bright red eye in the middle of the head,
and at the base of the pear-shaped body, near the
forked tail, are two egg sacks (for this is a mother
Cyclops) filled with eggs, which she carries with
her until they are hatched. The young do not
look like their mother. They have no tail; only
joint segments at first; and the feelers are placed
on the side of their square little bodies as legs.

As to Cypris, looking like a tiny clam hardly
larger than a pin’s head speeding through the
water until you have magnified it, and Daphnia,
the branched, horned water-flea, throwing up its
arms as if astonished at the situation in which it
is so suddenly placed, these are both near relatives
to Mrs. Cyclops. Although moving with a quick,
jerky motion, they are not insects, as their common
names would imply, but belong to the same class
of animals as the shrimps, lobsters and crabs.
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 179

As the astronomer, pointing to the heavens an
inferior telescope, can with some satisfaction view
many of the planets in the solar system, yet when
he desires to reach further finds it insufficient, so
with this objective we only receive hints of what
is beyond, and wonder at the infinitude of the
minute things in Nature.

Beside these minute forms of life, that can only
be studied with the aid of the microscope, there
are many larger curiosities, which if confined in
an aquarium, and watched through a simple mag-
nifier, will afford one many hours of delightful
entertainment.

The crew of that wonderful sub-marine ship
of Jules Verne’s imagination never encountered
more surprising creatures than one can collect in
a day’s search in any pond or stream within a
radius of ten miles of the metropolis. The gigan-
tic mollusk seen by Nemo at the bottom of the
ocean would be less amazing to me than the larve
of the May-fly, the common caddis-worm, which
have the curious instinct of building for them-
selves millions of homes for the protection of
their dainty bodies against the crafty and greedy
fish. There are several species, two of which we
will at once put under our glass. They are work-
180 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

ing amid a thousand perils; here a playful shiner
swims up noiselessly to nibble, but the stone mason
suddenly quits his labor and goes in. The danger
being over, it cautiously shows its head again and
resumes the occupation of clutching with its man-
dibles and feet small grains of sand, actually turn-
ing each grain over and over, as the workman in
building a stone wall will turn a rock in his hands
to decide its best fitting-place. Then with water-
proof cement (saliva) it places grain after grain
around the end of the case until it is completed.
In this little round stone house it crawls along on
the bottom of the tank, comparatively safe, proving
too much even for a fish’s curiosity, but at the
expense of a very heavy burden, and, when in its
native stream, eking out a most precarious exist-
ence of two years.

The other species under our observation is quite
small and not so clumsy. Its house is made of
short, narrow strips of grass, pasted together by
the animal, and arranged in regular spirals. From
it appear the head and two pairs of legs, by which
it propels itself through the water, always main-
taining a perpendicular position, and waltzing up
to the surface in a most comical manner. We will
rob this fellow of his home. The creature offers
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 181

some resistance, of course, but by careful maneu-
vering the burglary is committed without taking
life. The interior is richly upholstered with fine
spun silk, which no doubt secures the animal
within the case, and prevents its tender body from
rubbing too hard against the coarse material of
which it is composed. On each side of the body
are six pairs of leaf-like gills, connecting with air
tubes by which this most interesting larva breathes.
After viewing its forlorn condition, we thrust it on
the cold mercies of the aquarium, wherein it imme-
diately sets about prospecting for another house.

What curious insects are these water-boatmen !
Look up through the water at them. A few play-
ful but masterly exhibitions of their skill, and they
arrive opposite the judge’s stand, lying on their
backs. How much their wing-covers resemble a
miniature canoe, water-tight, and shining like bur-
nished silver! Evidently they are preparing for
the start; see, one of them is cleaning its paddles
and brushing its keel, as

— ‘wet flies twist their thighs
When they wipe their heads and eyes.”

Look on deck with the magnifier!
182 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

Their hind legs, which they move to propel their
boat-like bodies through the water, precisely as a
single rower propels a boat, are very long and made
broad, like oar-blades, by the thick, long hairs.

What finely constructed row-locks! Old as the
world, and never patented! There they go. How
nicely they feather their oars — why, Hanlon never
dreamed of such a stroke.

Here is a white leech, measuring its slow length
along the side of the tank. Has any naturalist
noticed this species? What wonderful maternal
forbearance and affection! Fourteen little young
leeches, all very much attached (literally) to their
loving mother.

Twisted around the stem of a water-cress is the
Gordiuz aquaticus, or hair-worm. This specimen
is one foot long, and no larger than a common hair
of a horse’s mane or tail. It is continually in
motion; now tying itself into a complicated knot,
now straightening itself out to its full length.
The general belief that they are transformed horse-
hairs is incorrect. The history of their develop-
ment from the egg is most interesting. After
hatching, the larva escapes into the water and casts
about to find some neighboring aquatic fly-maggot,
upon which it fastens itself and finally penetrates
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 183

the body by means of spines on its head. Here it
lives as a boarder, inclosed in a tight sack until
some hungry minnow passing by, gulps down the
larva, young hair-worm and all. No sooner has
the process of digestion set it free from its sack
within the body of the maggot than it begins to
make another bag for itself within the lining of
the fish’s intestines, where it lives five or six
months. At the end of this period it is cast forth
into its world of waters, remaining in a quiet con-
dition until it has grown two inches or more in
length, when it turns a rusty color and begins to
move as we see it now.

Along the borders of the stream, amongst sub-
merged grasses and half-decayed plants, we bring
up the larve of that hawk of insects, the dragon-
fly. It is no less ferocious in its mask than when
shooting and zigzagging along over the surface of
its former dwelling-place. If we wish to preserve
our other specimens we must put it in solitary
confinement. Notwithstanding its ugliness in ap-
pearance and action, it is very entertaining to
examine with the glass.

As in the perfect dragon-fly this larva has large,
bulging eyes necessary to seek its prey in the
water. Seen from beneath, one would not suspect
184 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

that this slowly crawling creature could be so fero-
cious, for it seems not to have any arm by which
to capture and seize insects and other water-loving
animals that come in its way. But if some unwary
creature happens within striking distance, how
quickly the pupal dragon extends its long, sharp
forceps, that had been carefully concealed behind a
smooth mask, and, darting swiftly toward it, seizes
and holds it with a firm grasp. This pincher is
really the under lip of the young insect, lengthened
and fitted to clutch its victim, but when not in use
it is folded up and completely hidden from view.

I have seen it in a bottle with a mud-minnow
twice its size. At first it moved very slowly and
cautiously along on the bottom until it had come
within the proper distance, when with a spring
like a flash it pounced upon the unfortunate fish,
seized it with its extended, nipper-like jaws, and
shook it as a terrier shakes a rat. The struggle
was of short duration. The minnow lay panting
within the vise-like grip, while its life juices flowed
into the insatiable maw of the dragon.

The manner in which it propels itself through
the water is very curious. It actually breathes
itself along! The process of respiration is carried
on by trachea or pores situated in the tail, where
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 185

the water usually is taken in and expelled slowly,
but when seeking its prey, forced out as by a
squirt-gun, which carries the animal along with
the swiftness of an arrow.

The beetles living in the water are really curious.
It is interesting to watch their habits as they go
paddling round in the glass tank, as busy as on the
first day of their captivity; now swimming here
and there as briskly as some of their land relatives
run, now diving to the bottom to roll up portions
of silt, or to rest on some accommodating snail,
which is making its daily tour of inspection along
the sides. The gentle vegetable-feeding carp or
the smaller dace do not disturb their wanderings,
but live with them as a happy family, apparently
regarding them as the rightful occupant. How
nicely has far-seeing Nature modified the different
genera of Coleoptera she intended to be aquatic!
One pair of legs are altered into oars, or covered
with stiff hairs, by which they propel their boat-
like bodies through the water, while the wing-
covers, and the fine pubescence on the abdomen,
and in some species on the thorax, are especially
adapted to hold the film or bubble of air for respi-
ration; thus enabling these creatures to remain a
long time under water to obtain their food.
186 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

The representatives cf two tribes of these aqua-
tic beetles are now under our observation. Here
is one rising to the surface with a bit of meat in
its tarsi twice as large as itself. Its store of air
is exhausted, and it must needs be replenished
before it has completed its meal. How it ever
manages to lift the hinder part of its body clear
from the water is more than we can tell, but such
is the fact. Then slightly raising its wing-covers
it admits the air between them and the abdomen,
tightly pressing the last segment against the elytrop
at the close of the operation, thus forming a perfect
air-tight cavity, and confining the new supply to
be breathed up through tubes situated along the
sides of the body. Now it skurries away to the
bottom to recommence its work as a scavenger,
creeping into every nook and corner, peeping into
the doorway of the caddis-worm’s house, or lying
in wait to pounce upon the mussel whenever it
shows its dainty foot outside its shell. I have
watched it thus for fifteen minutes before it again
rose to the surface to lay in another light, but
valuable cargo of air.

Another beetle in this tank, of the same family,
but belonging to a different genus, is the Gyrinus,
or whirliwig, a surface-swimmer, never diving to
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 187

the bottom excepting when very much alarmed,
and then quickly taking its bubble with it, it
descends like a pebble thrown into the water by a
sling, striking its chitinous shell against the glass
with such force as to be distinctly heard. After
awhile it clings to the spray of a submerged water-
cress, remaining ten minutes in this position, and
affording us an excellent opportunity of noting the
difference of structure in the genera. Unlike
the Dyticus, the first pair of legs are long, and the
hinder pair are very short and changed into oars,
and what is still more singular, it has four eyes,
two above and two below, by which the insect can
sight its prey or enemies in the air or water.
Some flies are thrown in the tank. How it goes
at them, tearing away the legs and wings with its
sharp mandibles, and lapping in the life-giving
juices — a prisoner’s fare indeed.

A species of beetle, from the family Hydrophilus,
which I suspect to be a vegetable feeder, and per-
haps not more than half-aquatic, moves around
awkwardly in the aquarium. It is able, however,
to remain a long time under water, for its entire
under part is covered with a thin bubble which
looks as if a lining of quicksilver had been put
there. The longer hind legs are not flattened into
188 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

blades, but are provided only with a few stiff hairs ;
consequently he is a bad oarsman, and when, made
so light by the air surrounding it, it tries to reach
the bottom it tumbles, and only three out of five
strokes are successful. Upon removing one of
these creatures from the tank and placing it back
downward on my hand, the shining breastplate
instantly disappears, and by the assistance of the
lens I discover that the thorax and abdomen is
clothed with exceeding fine hairs. Is it not these
hairs that prevent the bubble from breaking while
the beetle moves through the water? The poor
insect struggles hard to regain its natural position.
The legs are slender and weak, and can hardly
bear its body. It crawls feebly along over my
palm. No, it could never gain a living on the
ground. It is only at home on submerged water
plants, so let me replace it quickly, and observe
its method of putting on again the corselet of steel.
Land of wonders! It is done as if by magic. On
the instant it strikes the surface the armor appears
as before.

Now we will draw up slowly one that clings to
this half-eaten stem, so that part only of the bug
touches the water. The supply of air is taken in
at the head, I am sure. By so working the club.
WONDERS OF POND LIFE. 189

shaped antenna and legs, the bubble is formed and
made to stick fast to fine hairs on the under sur-
face, and then extended underneath the wing-
covers. So completely is it surrounded with air
that a white line, in contrast to the rich dark bronze,
is seen filling up the space at the junction of head
and body.

What elegant fish are the dace, dressed in light
changeable silk! the belles of the apartment, and
managing their trains with exquisite grace. Here
are three species: the black-nosed, red fin and
pond shiner, each making its own peculiar curve
in the water.

The gold carp are the domestic bodies, notwith-
standing their gaudy dress, and are always at
home. It is said they first came from China —
from some lake in the Celestial Kingdom —toa
pond in New Hampshire! How many generations
span it, and by what curious chain of circumstances
did their progeny find this little sheet of water in
the Granite State ?

Although these particular specimens of which
we speak were taken from the wild waters, the old
instinct of contentment in captivity is still appar-
ent. Their faces are not so solemn as those of
the other inmates. They peer at you through the
190 WONDERS OF POND LIFE.

glass sides, and then turn away with a wiggle of
satisfied curiosity.

Do not fish sleep? Going to my tank at night
I find them still, and near the bottom. Even the
mites of mud minnows that are on the surface
during the day sink down to rest their weary fins
and tails.
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE.
Vi.
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE.

BETWEEN a swampy woodland tract, and the
higher pasture lands, a half-tumbled-down wall,
with boards over the top nailed to the trunks of
trees that happen to grow on the line, makes a
convenient highway for a species of ants that
have nested in an old wild-cherry stump that
forms one of the posts. Hither I have come out
this afternoon to watch the passers-by, to observe
the manners and customs, the style of salutation
on the road, and the occupation of this intelligent
little colony.

About sixty feet from the settlement is a small
water-beech tree that forms another post, and to
this many are directing their footsteps, or from it
returning to their domicile. There must be some
attraction for them in this tree, so I have taken
my stand in its shade to ascertain, if it is possible,

what it is. On the trunk some are going up,
193
194 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE,

while others that seem to have obtained what they
searched for, are coming down, and after getting
on the straight road, without wandering or turning
back, hurry as fast as their little legs can carry
them, toward their cherrywood house. Incident.
ally I have reached up to gather a spray whereto
is attached one of those peculiar nut-tassels, made
conspicuous by the foliaceous bracts, and find it
fairly alive with small green aphides or water-beech
lice. On the under parts of the leaves around the
twigs, in the cups surrounding the nutlets, are
these parasites in myriads, drawing the life juices
from them, which by some chemical process in
their abdominal retorts is changed into a saccharine
substance called honey-dew.

Ages since the ants, that are very fond of sweet
things, discovered this fact, and handed it down
from swarm to swarm, and so these sprightly fel-
lows to-day are visiting their confectionary stores
among the leaves. This species of aphides are
green and wingless, having two tubes on the hind
part of the body, from which exudes the sweet
substance the ants are so fond of.

Here comes one down, its pouch distended with
the extract of hornbeam. Let me time it and
ascertain its pedestrian powers. Sixty feet of
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE, 195

boards, with breaks here and there, where it will
have to travel out of its course, with a strong
breeze blowing “dead ahead,” and an occasional
leaf brushing its pathway! Notwithstanding these
obstacles it performs the journey in two minutes
and a quarter. This is at the rate of twenty-one
thousand six hundred feet per day! A person to
accomplish such a distance, in proportion to the
size, would travel faster than a railway train.
Putting a drop of syrup midway between stations,
the most of the little colonists passed on without
noticing it. A few halted an instant, as if sur-
prised to find this strange substance in their way,
and then continued their journey to the land of
more delectable sweets. Only one out of the
many on the thoroughfare, stopped to drink. This
one began immediately to lap it up with its maxil-
lary and labial palpi, as a starved cat would milk,
and did not leave the bountiful repast until its
abdomen had become thoroughly stretched, when
it turned back to the cherry-stump, having forgot-
ten all about the objective hornbeam.

It was droll to see individuals, as they met on
the road, salute each other with their antenne.
This interchanging of civilities appeared to occur
only when they came upon each other in direct
196 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE.

line, when they would stand up almost erect, and
crossing their feelers for a few seconds would seem
to communicate. It would be interesting to know
the nature of that brief conversation. The little
pantomimists appeared to express affection for one
another, and to signify that life and its prospects
were bright. Beyond this my dull sense did not
comprehend the subtle language, and I shall re-
main in ignorance whether a certain herd of aphides
on the southern part of the tree yielded more food
than those upon other branches, or what measures
the workers had adopted at the last meeting. The
purpose of plunder was strongly fixed within their
little heads, and it was impossible to induce them
to turn back, and go in the direction from whence
they came, unless a helpless pupa was placed across
their pathway, when they would appear astonished
at finding prey so easily, and, eagerly seizing it with
their sharp mandibles, hurry away to their home.
The sense of sight in ants, at least in this spe-
cies, is deficient, I am convinced from the fact
that they did not appear to be aware of the prox-
imity of others until they happened to collide.
Also at times, on another part of the road, when
they chanced upon a dead branch or upon the twig
that rested on the fence, they would wander up
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE, 197

and down its length apparently lost and bewildered.
Their sense of touch, in consequence, is very acute,
and it is evident that they feel their way more
readily than they see it.

Here in the pasture a few yards from this noise-
less but busy street, I have turned over a large
stone that was deeply embedded in the soil. The
event must have appeared to the bustling city be-
neath like a destroying cyclone or an earthquake.
Squadrons and workers are hurrying in hot haste
and confusion through roadways, under the arches,
down the tunnels; never since they were a munici-
pality has such a calamity visited them. Pres-
ently, however, as if by some controlling influence,
order comes from this turmoil, and the hitherto
panic-stricken inhabitants have suddenly bethought
them of their helpless babes that are lying there
in bunches exposed to the fierce rays of the sun.
These must be removed to the galleries below, so
all now have gone to work with a will, and the
busy scene presented to view is one of marvelous
interest. See this fellow tug at a sack which con-
tains a pupa three times as large as himself! Now
he holds it fast with his sharp mandibles, and
staggers away with it over the uneven surface, as
a small but sinewy porter would carry up-stairs a
198 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE,

large trunk or a bulky mattress. See him hold it
up over his head, that it may not drag on the
rough pieces of earth and thus injure the chrysa-
lis! Now he falls down from a clump of pellets,
but still clutches his precious burden, and hastens
on to the mouth of the shaft, where he lays it
down, “cuts” it round, adjusts it properly, and
finally disappears with it down the covered way.
Not one alone, but hundreds are working in this
manner with all their might. Great interests are
at stake; the emergency must be met or so many
ants are lost to the world.

As one looks upon such a spectacle he is lost
in admiration, and cannot believe that the little
creatures are mere automatons, but that they are
guided by an intelligence strangely akin to human
reason. Indeed, was it not the wisest man who
advised certain classes of his fellow-beings to study
these insects and be wise?

It is curious to watch the busy, intelligent ways
of these sand bees. Although they are not so
social as the higher types of bees, yet they love to
be neighborly, and so have established a flourish-
ing little city of two or three hundred underground
dwellings along the sides and at the foot of this
hillock. Two or three individuals that have lately
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE. 199

concluded to settle here are actively engaged in
digging out their tunnels, while the majority of
the inhabitants are hard at work in gathering bee
bread for their prospective families. Arrivals and
departures are taking place almost every minute,
and the scene presented is as orderly and busi-
ness-like as any well-regulated and enterprising
human community. It is interesting to observe
how well each member knows its own home.
Many of them fly directly to it, while a few, not
so discriminating perhaps, appear to search for a
long time, describing all sorts of curves and angles
among the doorways, sometimes lighting and
crawling in a neighbor’s house, but immediately
re-appearing. Here one coming from its hole stops
at the mouth, and seems to take note of the sur-
roundings, and then darts rapidly out of sight.
Evidently she flew a long distance for a particular
kind of pollen, for an hour passed before she
returned.

It strikes one as intensely interesting that this
tiny winged miner should have the memory of a
special little tunnel in this sandy pasture, and that
she should be guided to it with unerring certainty.
What has guided her hither? Was it an instinct-
ive sense of direction, or was she led here by
200 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE,

observing landmarks — the particular heights and
shapes of certain young white birches that grow
along the way by her habitation ?

To answer these questions I have determined to
try a few experiments. Capturing one in a wide-
mouthed vial as she came from her home, I carried
her carefully in a dark pocket, at the distance of
three hundred yards and set her free. Although
the prison door was turned away from her home,
she did not attempt to fly farther off, but quickly
ascended in an oblique direction and toward the
place from which we had started and, of course,
was instantly lost to sight. Immediately retracing
my steps I was soon stationed at her doorway,
which had been previously marked, awaiting her
return. In twenty minutes she was back, humming
on a high key, and after making a few wild flour-
ishes around me, which plainly indicated a dis-
turbed state of mind, she flew to her door with her
baskets well filled with bread.

I then cdught another that seemed to be un-
usually acute and sharp-sighted, and carried her
off blindfolded a quarter of a mile. In just an
hour she returned, not showing so much excite-
ment, as if she had half-forgotten her adventure.

Thinking perhaps the path chosen was that
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE, 201

selected by the bees while bread-gathering, and
wishing to be convinced whether or not they
found their way by the general instinctive sense of
locality, or had gradually learned certain routes, I
kidnaped still another buzzer, and keeping her in
the dark, excepting when it became necessary to
give her air, walked leisurely to the hemlock
woods a half-mile distant, and in an opposite direc-
tion from that taken in making the two previous
experiments. Among the trees, after being impris-
oned for an hour, I set her free with best wishes
of a safe return. For three hours I watched her
doorway. Some of the busybodies as they arrived
circled near the opening, but did not go in. As
the day was nearly done and my watching tedious,
I abandoned the post, not without some compunc-
tions, resolved to visit the burrow the next morn-
ing. It being pleasant, the bread-winners were
improving each shining hour. The few slender
pieces of grass spears that had been placed over
the hole had been pushed aside, and soon my bee
appeared as brisk and as nimble-winged as ever.
Sure enough, under such adverse circumstances,
she had found her way back, probably late in the
afternoon.

Cases are on record of honey-bees wandering far
202 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE,

away and returning, but they do it with their own
sweet wills, and have the use of their many eyes
along the way; but here is an instance of an
insect, lower in the scale, blindfolded and carried
toa locality where, it is safe to say, she never visited
before, returning safe and sound. It would have
been interesting to have followed her through all
her winding ways. Her long absence indicated
sharp searching, and sharp searching means an
active operation of mind.

This city with its busy hum is not without its
robbers and murderers, in the form of the tiger
beetles, that have come here to excavate their
tunnels like their peaceable, enterprising neigh-
bors. They are among the swiftest in the order
Coleoptera, and veritable tigers in their predaceous
habits. Their large eyes, sharp-toothed mandibles
and long, slender legs, especially fit them for the
trade of killing and making off with their plunder.
Their larvee, too — ugly-looking babies — as soon as
they have attained a certain age crawl at the mouths
of their burrows, where they lie in wait, ready to
pounce on any unwary stroller that may come
within their reach. These tiger beetles somewhat
resemble that other family of runners (Carabide)
so common under stones, where they hide in the
A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE. 203

day-time but stalk abroad at night on their rapaci-
ous errands. Their wings, however, are imper-
fectly developed, some having merely pieces of
weak, flimsy gauze folded under the wing covers,
and never used. But the tigers are day highway-
men and very rapid in flight. While examining a
specimen, I am struck with the ingenious mechan-
ism of its wing. Beside the basal joint there is
a hinge situated about midway on each side of the
three outer veins, enabling the insect to fold it at
will, and with the nicety and accuracy of a fan,
beneath the bony covers, which protect the deli-
cate gossamer structure while the beetle is digging
in the ground.

A specimen imprisoned in a vial is observed
with interest. Its color and markings harmonize
well with that of the sand on which it runs. The
manner in which it laps up the criminal’s fare of
bread and water is remarkable. How many im-
plements it has about its mouth to prepare its
food for swallowing; knives and forks, brushes,
squeezers and hooks, all of which it uses contin-
ually. <A fly is thrown in, when it instantly seizes
it and begins the work of extracting the juices
by the constant horizontal movement of its jaws,
and the manipulation of its lip feelers. Its little
204 A BUSY CITY AND THOROUGHFARE.

brush-like tongue is pushed into the softer parts
of its victim, while now and then it presses the
whole mass close in its mouth and appears to
suck the viscera into its own. This operation
lasts for five minutes, perhaps, when it suddenly
disengages itself and nothing but the empty shell
of the fly is left.
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.
VIII.
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.

THESE days of autumn when the earth is show-
ing signs of drowsiness, and is turning her cheek
farther and farther from the sun for a winter’s nap,
are as incomparable as those of June.

Now is the fruitage and fulfillment of what was
promised months ago, and the leaves in their dying
glory whisper to us their parting words as they
fall, “ We have lived only to make the seed, in
which we shall breathe again.”

As I walk across-lots I am struck with the vari-
ous and ingenious methods the different plants
have adopted to scatter their seeds. Here is an
army of golden-rods and asters, milk-weeds and
epilobiums, holding aloft on their wand-like stems
millions of seeds, to which are attached balloons,
parachutes and wings, that the wind at the proper
time may carry them miles away. I wave one of

these wands, when, as if by magic, hundreds of the
207
208 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME,

winged grains go sailing through the air like the
flight of insects. Here, too, are hooks, barbs and
prickles that cling to the dress of passers-by or to
the hairs of cattle, and thus are carried away to be
rubbed off and deposited in some other locality.
Other seeds artfully hide themselves in luscious,
brilliant wrappings that the birds may be attracted
to them. Strawberries, raspberries, and the early
drupes have scattered their seeds by this process ;
but the various cornels, honeysuckles, greenber-
ries, rose and spice bushes, the bright red fruit-
clusters of the winter-berry, the purple panicles
of the prim, that feast the eyes of the autumn
rambler, are still waiting patiently for the snows to
put an embargo on other supplies near the ground.

The outcrop of conglomerate yonder is beauti-
fully variegated with the different shades of moss
and lichen green. From its base spring wreaths
of fronds of the evergreen rock-fern. It is the
only species hereabouts that does not fade with the
year. How regularly the cinnamon-colored fruit-
dots are disposed on the under surface of the pin-
nules, as if by artificial design! These are the
only flowers such plants are capable of producing.
The simple magnifier is not of sufficient power to
disclose the wonderful structure of these minute
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME, 209

seed or spore cases, but look at them through the
microscope, and you will look into a museum
which shows the curious method that Nature has
invented to sow broadcast these sporules, that
appear like little puffs of fine dust as they fly from
the ruptured sacks. What has torn open these
cysts or pods? On the upper sides and half-way
round them, grows a jointed, elastic filament, which,
as it matures, is more and more inclined to become
straight, till finally it suddenly springs upward,
tearing transversely the membranaceous sack on
the under side, and scattering the contents.

How often, at this season, in the woods, do we
come upon that strange shrub, bearing its blossoms
even while its leaves are falling, and the seeds,
formed the previous year, are bursting from their
pods! The blossoms of the witch-hazel is the rear
guard of the army of the flowers. Oftentimes as
late as the first half of the first winter month, when
the frosts have rendered the sap dull and torpid,
the inflorescence of this exceptional plant im-
presses the stroller as untimely and out of place.
It has a medicinal, potent appearance. The long,
crinkled, strap-shaped petals along the slender
twigs suggest the intwisting serpents and wings
of Mercury’s wand. No wonder the sorcerer as-
210 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.

cribed to it the power of communicating with hid-
den metals and waters underground.

Another example of seed wrapping, and one with
which Nature has taken much pains, is the apple.
A tree loaded with the shining, sun-painted fruit
is a gorgeous spectacle in the autumn landscape.
Often in our walks across wooded pasture lands
we come upon what are called in New England
Indian orchards. They perhaps grew from the
seeds of an agreeable “chance acquaintance ” that
had touched the palates of the dusky hunters, who
knew not the fact since discovered, that not more
than one seed in ten thousand will produce a fruit
so desirable, or like the original.

What tricks these apples of old orchards play on
mankind! How fair this specimen that I hold in
my hand, is to look upon! Its sides are beauti-
fully polished, and its cheeks are ruddy with the
vigor which its undomestic, savage life gives. No
worm-holes mar its beauty. The coddling moths
knew, if the stroller did not, that underneath the
fair skin the heart was too harsh and ill-tempered to
nourish her tender larva child, and so passed it by,
and did not lay her eggs on the tempting calyx.
On the ground are spread circles of white and red
and yellow fruit. The crickets are epicureans and
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 21!

eat sparingly at these tables. The cows wander
by and pick a few; their eyes have not the half-
shut, tranquil appearance seen when crushing a
toothsome morsel, but are wide open and sparkle
as the pome cracks under the pressure of their
jaws, and the sour, acrid juice falls on the tongue.
These creatures are now the real planters of apple-
trees in out-of-the-way places, and some day by
chance may drop a seed that shall take root and
bear apples such as the world has never seen or
tasted, and which the nursery men would go a
long way to obtain.

The old, neglected orchards still found in almost
every New England town, are interesting spots to
visit at the harvest time. Much of the fruit is
half-civilized, as it were, but the trees are hon-
ored with appropriate names. I recall such an
orchard, where every tree in it was spoken of as
kind of out-door members of the family, by the
household, as the horse or dog might be.

The Boundmarks, as its name implies, stands
close to the wall that divides the lots; a large, tall
tree bearing diminutive but well-cooked pericarps,
with green and maroon skins, and half-sweet and
half-sour flesh.

The sour crabs is a smaller tree with large,
212 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME,

fair, symmetrical apples, but with a pulp that, if
eaten, would prevent one from whistling for a
weék. They have about the stems a bluish cast,
a kind of morose, acerb appearance, which at once
warns you not to taste them. Then there is the
mother’s apple, that suggests a close relation-
ship to the far-famed modern Porter; yellowish,
egg-shaped, but with a deeper blush on the cheek,
and a prominent ridge running lengthwise round
the fruit, as if it hinted to the owner, “cut me in
two here, and give half to your friend.” The
pomes named the oaks growing on another tree
that stands near a sturdy acorn-bearer, might have
honored some old Roman garden, they are so pecu-
liarly rounded and tasteful. Their light green sides
are broadly streaked with vermilion, and the cells
within bursting and running over with spicy juice.
Under the red wax is the banqueting place of the
crickets and naked slugs. The rind has a greasy
feel, and is of such a dark rich crimson that this
coloring matter permeates the mealy, granulated tis-
sue nearly to the core. The bitter sweets and the
sugar sweets grow close together, but the chemists
of the soil and air have poured from their secret
reservoirs, into the woody tubes and fibers of each,
a different kind of mixture, which makes the fruit
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 213

of one a bonbon, and of the other a pill of worm-
wood. The whites might well have been named
the corpse apple, their cheeks are so pallid. All
the sunshine of the Indian Summer has not the
power to bring the glow of health on them. The
meat has a sickish taste, too, producing a nausea
if eaten too freely. But what a relish Nature has
given to this water core; as if she had wrapped
up a bit of iced sherbert close to the carpels!
The tree that bears it stands by the roadside, and
so enjoys a village reputation. The children fill
their pockets with it, and those of larger growth
stop their teams and alight to taste the fruit that
is not forbidden them.

Thus throughout the orchard of more than a hun-
dred trees, each one bears its own peculiar fruit;
varieties so strongly marked, and presenting such
distinct characteristics, as to lead one almost to
the belief that they are incipient species of a large
and extensive genus.

The fact that the wild apple presents so many
individual differences, and that the seeds of each
produce a new variety, is a curious and interesting
one. No other fruit or berry in the family Ros-
acee has, I believe, such a natural tendency to vary.
Nature has in this case given us an exhibition of
214 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME,

her originality, and fashioned and colored, spiced
and seasoned to her heart’s content.

Cut with your scalpel all the flesh of this pome
from the core, so that the skeleton only remains,
and admire the beautiful arrangement of the car-
pels! Each one of them is attached to strings that
are tied together so regularly at the stem and calyx,
as to form a five-rayed star. Notice the texture
of the cell walls, as tough and transparent and im-
pervious as mica scales. Nature must have a ten-
der care of these germ leaves, so she has not only
shut them up closely in cartilaginous boxes, but
has packed them away in brown cases until such
time as she can find a suitable spot for their
vegetation. Take off the leathery wrappings,
beginning at the smaller end, and you will see
the rudimentary trunk already pushing out from
the folds, as if impatient to know its fate.

Perchance this pure white starchy embryo, which
I now hold up on a pin’s point, under other circum-
stances would have grown to a stately tree, and
borne fruit distinguished among all other kinds
for its excellent flavor; and thus perhaps have I
robbed the world of an apple whose palatable flesh
and praises would have been on the tongues of
millions. How readily the white lobes split into
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 215

halves which, if undisturbed, would have developed
into green leaves. Have these germ leaves now
in them the mysterious inherent properties to
originate a variety unlike the parent tree, or would
it have needed the many influences and effects
during the growth to have produced a new form?
It is a mystery that none can fathom. How richly
seasoned are they with the essence of Pyrus, the
oil of apple, and as tasteful as almond meat.

A. P. De Candolle, the Swiss botanist, says,—
“ The country in which the apple appears to be the
most indigenous is the region lying between Tre-
bizond and Ghilan ” — provinces in Asiatic Turkey
and Persia — “ where small wild forests are still to
be found.” By what chain of curious circum-
stances, both of natural and artificial sowing, did
this fruit find its way northward through Europe,
and finally across the waters of the Atlantic to the
shores of the New World? The pastoral Aryans
had perhaps cultivated it in the fertile valleys of
Western Asia, and from there it may have been
conveyed by the Romans into the Western Em-
pire, of which France, Spain and England were a
part. In later years, the early navigators of these
countries must have brought the seeds across the
ocean, as did the Puritans and non-conformists —
216 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.

possibly from the garden of Woolsthorpe, where
Newton was told about the laws of gravitation —
planting them about their new homes. By its
sterling qualities, man from the early ages has nat-
uralized and domesticated this fruit, and its course
with civilization has been westward, till it com-
pleted a circle round the globe.

It would be interesting to know how far back in
the history of the world originated the game of
“ naming the seeds,” or of throwing the apple-peel-
ing over the right shoulder. Hundreds and thou-
sands of years, I venture to say; before the modern
“ Huldies ” and “ Zekles ” attended the apple bees ;
customs that perhaps prevailed in the kitchens of
the Lake Dwellers and Aryans, and have been
handed down from parent to child through many
generations ; changed to serve and harmonize with
time and place until they have reached us, that
are not yet entirely emancipated from the old
credulities and superstitions.

The fields of maize, ripe and abounding with
the rich, heavy fruitage, are beautiful pictures in
the mellow autumn days to the poetical observer
of Nature, and offer to the harvest-home, as well,
a standard of value equal to that of gold. The
long spikes bend over like horns of plenty, filled
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 217

to the brim with yellow nuggets ready to be
poured into the bin. Indian corn is a paragon of
beauty and excellence among the cereals, and a
unique species in the family. Not a single spear
of it has been found growing wild by our bota-
nists, and it is safe to conclude that it would have
long ago become extinct, had not some tribe of
Indians, or perhaps more ancient people, knowing
its nutritious qualities, saved it from annihilation
by improvement and culture. Unlike oats, barley,
wheat, rye, and many other species in this impor-
tant grass family, it is unprovided with barbs,
bracts, awns and other appendages by which their
grains are dispersed. The kernels are firmly fixed
on the cob, and when the ears fall to the ground,
the germs of the large seeds only would be eaten
by many animals, or if they were picked up by the
birds, the process of digestion renders them unfit
for germination. Under these conditions such a
serviceable cereal was destined to be lost to the
world. It is interesting to imagine what might
have been the forms and types of other fruits and
grains that were not fit to survive in their wild
state, and long since fell out of the race, but which
could have been saved from destruction, as was
this maize of ours by cultivation. The Indian
218 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.

corn was indigenous to the American continent,
and the only species now in the genus Zea; no
other grass is nearly like it. It stands apart, cast
in a different mould, and a king among them all.
The conditions of soil, climate and culture have,
indeed, changed it into many varieties. In the
stalk, ear and grain there is a wide difference
between the stinted, red pop kind and the gigantic
Kansas Dent; or a Brazilian specimen with ears
no larger than a common little finger, and ker-
nels the size of mustard seeds, besides a Peruvian
variety with grains an inch in length. The cobs
may be either long and tapering, or short and
blunt, with kernels of various colors, sizes and
shapes ; soft, smooth or wrinkled, but all having
that specific quality of Mays, which attracted
many hundreds of years ago, the attention of some
wise savage, to whom we should be grateful for
preserving such valuable grain.

The names of several favorite varieties in differ-
ent localities in New England are suggestive of
their origin, and show how highly they were val-
ued and cultivated, even by the half-civilized
tribes of Indians. There is a golden Sioux or
Northern Yellow Flint, obtained of the Sioux
Indians of Canada. The ears are twelve-rowed,
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 219

with medium-sized grains and compactly set. The
King Philip, or eight-rowed Yellow, with long
slender cobs and large broad kernels, was raised
by the Wampanoags long before the landing of
the Pilgrims, and proved a greater benefit to man-
kind than their arrow-heads or tomahawks. The
Rhode Island White Flint, which many of our
Eastern farmers esteem, was probably a legacy of
the Narragansetts. The kernels are broad, and
the flour made from them is nearly as white as
that of wheat. The Tuscarora corn is another
white variety. Our familiar sugar succotash, or
pappoon corn, so delicious when boiled or roasted
in its milk, was, no doubt, as its latter name would
imply, the only confectionary eaten by the Indian
babies. It is said to have been “cultivated by the
Susquehannas, and was brought to Massachu-
setts in 1779, by Captain Richard Bagnal on his
return from the expedition against the tribes of
the Six Nations, under the command of General
Sullivant.” When ripe, the grains are thin and
wrinkled, and contain a good supply of sugar and
phosphate, but a small quantity of starch. From
cultivation and hybridizing, have come two kinds
of sweet corn; the white cob and the red cob.
The cob of the latter variety, when stripped of its
220 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME,

kernels, looks as if it had been stained in poke-berry
juice; the stalks and mid-ribs of the blades too
are veneered with a beautiful polished, maroon-
colored cuticle, and the sap is remarkable for its
sweetness.

The brilliant hues of many varieties of corns
are quite curious. How often Nature is inclined
to paint them blue and purple, to streak them
with yellow and red, or double dye them with that
deep rich pigment that suggests a spike adorned
with garnets or rubies. This glowing beauty,
however, is accidental, and only skin deep, for if
the hull is removed, the light or yellowish farina-
ceous substance is seen as in the common kinds
that have transparent coverings.

The rice, or squirrel tooth, has perhaps a greater
tendency to paint its kernels in lively colors than
all other kinds. A heap of husked ears on the
floor presents a striking and beautiful appearance.
It contains, also, more oil than other kinds, and on
this depends its famous popping qualities. Per-
haps this variety comes nearer the wild type, and
something like it may have been brought by the
Indian savages of Peru to Manco Capac and his
sister Mama Oello, the first of the Incas and the
children of the sun, who taught them to cultivate
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 221

it and other plants, “and to live like rational men,
and not like brutes.”

Nature has her arithmetic as well, and whispers
it to every stalk of maize. As if by the process of
calculation the ranks of kernels are invariably
arranged along the pithy receptacle in even num-
bers. Hight, ten, twelve, fourteen, eighteen, twenty,
and so on—as many as forty rows in some
varieties have been counted. Disrobe this long
spike, carefully noting the manner in which the
beautifully pink-tinted husks overlap each other,
and the soft, silky texture of those growing next
the corn. How accurately placed are the grains
on the cob, each one almost as firmly set as a tooth
in the gum. Their crowns are rounded and
brightly polished, and their sides and edges regu-
larly beveled to fit into their sockets. At the
base of each kernel is a little cavity or pit in a
radial line from the centre of the cob, and always
on the side toward its tip, that contains the embryo
plant. From these still adhere the long silken fil-
aments that hang out from the point of the husks,
now in a brownish tuft, but freshly green last
summer, when on the tips of these delicate fibres
dropped the pollen grains from the tassels above,
and taking a kind of root or tube sank down,
222 FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME.

down, into the loose tissue of the threads, as root-
lets sink into the soft earth, until they reached the
embryo sac. There a miracle was performed that
changed the ovule into a kernel, exquisitely fin-
ished as we see it now.

The associations of husking festivals and apple
bees are pleasantly related; voluntary, gratuitous
aid is offered by neighbors, chiefly among the
younger members, for the sake of fun, and to
gratify the sociable nature. Yes, it is interesting
to consider from what different sources have sprung
the myths, customs and traditions in each of these
gatherings. Ah, the old-time huskings! On the
fork handle, suspended from the mow, is the lan-
tern, shedding its light on the row of hard-handed
and brown-faced beaux and maidens with lips and
cheeks aglow, like the ears of ruby maize. Mid
laughter, song, story and the rejoicing at the
finding of a “red ear;” mid the rustling husks,
cracking knobs, and the sound of that plenteous
outpouring from the ashen cornucopia into the
rack or on the drying floor, the large heap melts
away like snow wreaths before the sun. Mean-
while the supper of corn-bread and beans is pre-
pared, and thither the farmer leads his Arcadian
retinue, who attack the good things with a cheer
FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME, 223

corresponding to their eariler merriment and gay-
ety. Then homeward in couples they go, singing
under the bright harvest moon, in company with
those pale little seranaders, the crickets, that pul-
sate and chirp, Curate, curate, curate! in perfect
time, like a host of violinists under the direction
of a mysterious and invisible leader. It is a
monotonous and melancholy strain that fits itself
to the fading year, yet soothing and restful withal,
like a lullaby that sings the retiring world to sleep.
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.
IX.

CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

WINTER, although it offers shorter commons to
the observing rambler than other seasons of the
year, nevertheless invests the fields and woods
with many peculiarly interesting phases of nature,
which he can ill afford to lose sight of. In spring,
summer or autumn, during his walks his imagina-
tion and memory are crowded with thousands of
wonderful sights and events in plant and insect
life; but now the page on which he was so en-
gaged is nearly sealed by the snow and ice, and so
he perforce must adjust a nicer pair of glasses, and
look sharply about him, in order to gratify the
desire to learn what this apparently blank white
cover may have written upon it.

There are days when the earth is circumscribed
with blue and silver. The azure vault without a
cloud, and a wide stretch of pearly lustre below;

a sprinkling comes before the cold, and with icy
227
228 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

polishers launders the immaculate drapery. With
a glass, the sheen of the ice varnish on the hill-
sides, ten miles away, is visible, and the spots
among the evergreens glow like white flames.
The yellowish reflections and the sharply outlined
blue shadows of objects on the enameled landscape
are at different angles, and present a striking ap-
pearance. The trees are made of glass, bedecked
with gems that quickly change as if by magic,
from amethysts to emeralds, sapphires to rubies,
and again to opals and pearls.

A fairy land indeed. In the evenings the moon
rises early and, like a genial warder, glides through
the galleries and chambers, again polishing the
floors and lighting up the tree chandeliers with
millions of diamond jets. In the distance on the
white fields and hills rests a dim light, as if in the
full light of the sun they were viewed through a
piece of delicately azure-tinted glass; the ever-
greens, in striking contrast, appear almost black
with their distinct clear-cut shadows, while here
and there, in relief, like crimson checks in alabas-
ter, gleam the ruddy cheerful lights of evening
lamps.

Truly, in winter, even, there is much to interest
one who walks across lots. Pretty pictures, cun-
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 229

ning devices, and elegant views of architecture to
those who have eyes to see them.

Look at this southern hillside, studded with slim,
middle-aged hickories, maples and-oaks, basking in
the lustre of the winter’s sunshine! A declivity of
purple spray above, rising up against the dark blue
sky, while the whitened slope beneath is scrawled
with the shadows of trunks and boughs. Stop for
a moment in a sheltered place, where the light
breeze has not disturbed the snow, to contemplate
this low patch of straggling green-brier. Every
thorn, tendril and stem has caught the flakes as
they fell, until the tangled mass appears now like a
huge piece of whitest coral. Here is a half-buried
clump of sumacs, as if a herd of reindeer had shed
their horns. Along the side of the hill by the
edge of the woods, where there are various eddy-
ing winds, the snow-lines are crinkled in as many
curious and fantastic shapes as there are freaks in
the weather-vane.

The gently moving air stings quite keenly the
ears and face as you walk against it. I have
taken refuge for awhile on the leeward side of a
huge bowlder of conglomerate or pudding-stone,
which at a distance, through the trees, resembles a
large hay-stack, so regular is it in outline. What
230 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

an ancient landmark is here, and what a marvelous
history is chiseled on its sides; surpassing in antiq-
uity the Egyptian hieroglypic writings, and record-
ing events that happened before man appeared on
earth. What agency was at work in the long ages
past, that brought this mass of rock and landed it
here where the forest now stands? From what
place, and how far was it brought? Its measure-
ment in length and height is nearly twenty feet,
and fifteen feet in breadth. Nine thousand cubic
feet of solid rock carried along by a great glacier
that evidently once pushed its long, icy tongue
over the land, far southward, down to the sea.
This is not, however, an erratic block, as the
geologists say, for beneath the soil everywhere in
this section, and for many miles north and south
from here, stretches a narrow belt of this same kind
of conglomerate — compressed clays and sands into
which pebbles have been incorporated, like raisins
ina pudding. It may be presumed that this belt
of pudding stone was once the bottom of a long
river, or arm of the sea, and into this body of water,
for ages, gravel and silt from the surrounding hills
had flowed. At last, by some sudden or gradual
upheaval, the land is raised, deep strata of mud
mixed with shingle appear, showing how century
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 231

after century the squeezing and pressing agency
has been going on, until the whole mass is again
changed to a concrete ledge.

Although the inscriptions on this ancient monu-
ment have not been effaced, many of the charac-
ters are undecipherable, and the true history of it
cannot be written. A large white-oak has grown
so closely to one of its corners that the trunk has
become distorted, and grates on the pebble-plums
at every puff of the wind, as if the rock and the
tree were telling each other secrets.

On the top of this monument the wind sifts a
magnificent heap of gems, broken stars, needles,
prisms, that must be melted down and return in
vapor to the cabinet above before they can be
formed into perfect shapes again.

In these cedars, the locks of woolly snow that
have lodged in the thick leaves are blown off by.
little whirlwinds that now and then roll silently
along, and scatter millions of powdery crystals
through the air, looking like puffs of white smoke.
How comfortable these evergreens appear in their
well-woven garments of green! It is a relief to
look on them, this cold white day, they give such
a fresh, cheerful aspect to the winter’s landscape.
These spruces are the typical trees, high north-
232 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

ward and on the mountains, as though Nature had
assigned to them the drudgery of enlivening the
scenery in bleak and barren spots.

The brook below the hill that flows from a warm
spring has a melodious gurgle; the ice casing here
and there along its course, over and between the
stones, is a kind of sounding-board that propagates
the merriment, making it more musical than in
summer. Pry off some of these ice casings with
your cane and observe the different exquisite pat-
terns of cut-glass dishes! Note also in places how
the large drops or fragments of water have by
chance become detached from the main body of
the stream, and appear like inflated leeches, push-
ing out their heads and attenuating their bodies
into filaments of quicksilver, as if feeling for the
most convenient channel for escape. The rim of
the warm spring above is ornamented with frost-
work of curious and beautiful forms. What won-
derful phenomena! Take up a tuft of grass
whereon the crystals have accumulated, and in a
sheltered place, directly “in the eye of the sun,”
see with your magnifier how the hexagons, stars
and prisms with which the miniature but gorgeous
spires of the ice palaces are made, gradually melt
away. There totters a steeple. There a delicately
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 233

wrought pinnacle bends over, breaks off at the base
and adheres to the grass blade. There a star flies
away and vanishes in the air. Rhomboidal blocks
are dislocated and tumble down, till nothing is
left of the beautiful architecture but the tiny
drops of water clinging to the stems.

The birds that brought this cousin to the olive,
named the privet or prim, have not lived in vain,
for its persistent panicles of shining black drupes
supply food to many hungry stomachs and crops
during the snow embargo. A partridge has been
feeding on the berries, some of the pulps and
skins have fallen from the bill on the snow, stain-
ing it with the rich purple oil. Some seed-eating
finches have lightly printed the snow around a dry
primrose stalk, and broken off the grain-bin covers
for a meal.

Everywhere there are signs of a hard struggle
for existence. Everything that projects above the
snow is thoroughly inspected, that it may furnish
some seed or grub to sustain life. It is the severe
extremity to which these animals are put that
develops the sharpest eyes and claws -and the
keenest senses to enable them to search for and
find their food, and only the more vigorous sur-
vive. The owner of that melancholy scream, the
234 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

blue jay, is a hardy “winner in life’s race,” albeit
he is complaining bitterly of his hard lot. The
bright plumage and discontented voice brings a bit
of spring into these winter solitudes.

In these cedars, where the robbers love to visit,
are often seen large tussocks, formed by thickly,
growing twigs, where the dry, needle-like leaves
have fallen off and lodged in their midst.

These tufts prove excellent caravansaries for
the winter birds, for beside the shelter they give,
they are generally quite well supplied with the
larve of certain insects, and in many of them are
found hoards of chestnuts and acorns, evidently
stored there in the autumn by the jays and wood-
peckers that have noted in their memoranda the
locality of these granaries, and so visit them in
the days of shorter commons. Sometimes a last
year’s nest will be packed full of edibles — cairns
established by the provident birds or squirrels
that know as well as the wisest weather prophet
the coming of a snowy day.

Among the birds that visit the cedars at this
season, none are more successful in bearing its
severity than the singular wax-wings, or cedar
birds. They come in squads of fifties or hundreds
to settle in the spray and feed on the pungent,
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 235

aromatic drupes so bountifully spread out before
them. How bright and smooth their plumage
looks! The broad black velvet eye-stripe and
head-crests give them the appearance of being
well-protected from the weather by fur caps and
ear-muffs. Nature must have been in a freakish
mood when she gave her attention to the dressing
of these birds, for, beside the narrow, sharply-
defined yellow band across the tail, the males have
on each of the tips of the secondary wing quills a
strange, horn-like appendage, that resembles bits
of red sealing-wax, or crimson buttons on the backs
of their chocolate-colored overcoats, as if they were
marks of higher rank. At times they huddle to-
gether in the shaggy trees or roost in rows along
the branches to warm their feet, wing-shoulder
touching wing-shoulder, and utter faint notes of
sympathy while combing with their beaks their
plump shining breasts. They must keep their
ovens well supplied with carbon, so whenever they
think of the delicious “frozen thaws,” one after
another will fly out from the flock, stuff themselves,
and then return to the wax-wing association, as if
they knew that in union there was strength and
mutual advantage during these winter days. They
open their bills so wide that it seems as if their
236 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

heads were nearly split in two, and swallow the
fruit with such a gustful relish that it creates in
the looker-on an appetite for the same kind of din-
ner. At this season these birds are very erratic in
their wanderings. One might visit the woods every
day for a fortnight without seeing hide or feather of
the Bohemians. Why they are placed by natural-
ists among the chatterers is not quite clear, for
they are the most silent of birds; even when talk-
ing with each other, only the softest whisper is
heard.

Perhaps their irregular and sudden appearance
may be accounted for from the fact that they are
only raiders, after all, from the great feathered
army southward, and, in love of adventure, make
occasional dashes into the enemy’s country, like
cavalry squads, to reconnoiter and note the pros-
pects of a spring’s campaign; or, perchance they
are driven by the snow from the shores of Lake
Winnipeg and Hudson’s Bay; for even in those
high latitudes, as far as the wooded country ex-
tends, they may be found.

The mention of the northern regions reminds
me of those hardy little buntings or snow-flakes
which inhabit the shores of the Polar Sea in the
‘breeding season. When the streams and ponds
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 237

are sealed with ice, and the snow is too deep for
them to obtain their food, that consists of seeds
from aquatic and land plants, they wander south-
ward, sometimes as far as the Middle States. It
is usually during the first months of winter that
they are seen in New England, skimming and
whirling over the half-buried stubble like veritable
snow-flakes driven about by the wind. They fly
in compact flocks, and their dark streaked backs
are quite conspicuous against the snow. Each
company appears to be governed by a leader which
evidently is a restless bird, for they never remain
a long time in one locality. Now they settle down
in a patch of weeds, and run along as swift as
sandpipers on their black wire-like legs, and stretch
their necks to peck at the seed pods; then off they
go with a whirr, as if they had found nothing, or
feared that the oil-in their wing joints would be-
come chilled. It is interesting to watch them,
they are so wild and free to roam over the snowy
waste, picking up their dinners anywhere from the
North Pole to the fortieth parallel.

Where are their bivouacs at night? In the thick,
sheltering copses perhaps, or under the lee of some
projecting bank, where, huddled together, they
dream, perchance, of feeding on the shores of the
238 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

Northern seas. Would it not be an entrancing
spectacle to witness such a cluster of animated
snowballs ?
There is another hardy little seed-eater which
often stops with us all through the cold season,
as well as in the summer-time. By the first of
November the goldfinch has changed his bright
lemon-colored suit for a brown and yellowish-green
coat that he wears through the winter. Even
his bill, that in the breeding season is buff-yel-
low, has been painted dark brown. He is wrapped
up so differently, the color of his plumage appear-
ing to have changed the contour of the body, and
the condition of the season often putting him in
such diverse situations, that it is at times quite
difficult to make him out. He is found clinging
to the slender spray of the birches and alders in all
sorts of uncomfortable positions, apparently amus-
ing himself by pecking at the last year’s catkins,
pulling off scale after scale, flirting them away
with his bill, and turning his head to see them
float off in the breeze and settle on the snow.
Sometimes the lesser red poll, another brave,
weather-proof little visitant from the North, is
found in his company, perhaps because he is a near
relative. The shape of his tail, wings and bill are
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 239

much the same as those of the goldfinch, but a
great deal of the plumage on the back and flanks
appear as if scorched, and he wears a carmine
closely-fitting scull-cap. They appear to be very
happy together in these winter solitudes, and often
go bounding through the air like so many egg-
shells tossed along by high waves and heavy winds.

The trunk-climbers too, titmice, nut-hatches,
woodpeckers and creepers, are successful. They
have full swing of our Northern woods in winter,
and have hastily colonized, for the purpose of
social interests and pleasures. How curious it is
that these birds, representing as many families,
but with similar habits of feeding, never flocking
with their own kind, should, as the cold weather
approaches, at last be impelled by some new influ-
ence to seek the companionship of strangers, and
feel the need of sympathy while struggling for a
livelihood.

Ah! here is a small flock of chickadees (Parus
atricapillus), that I have surprised climbing about
on the trunk of this patriarchal willow. The black-
capped titmouse is a real Mark Tapley among
birds, and actually seems to be less joyous in the
midst of summer sunshine and foliage than when
the cold winds whirl the snows of winter before
240 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

his door. How wonderful it is that such a wee
bit of a bird “should come out so strong under cir-
cumstances that would make many of the other
birds miserable”! One would suppose a good
cold breath from Jack Frost would whiff the life
from them. It is true they are wrapped in the
best kind of overcoats, with black caps drawn over
their ears, and good chest-protectors. But what
in the world of wonders saves those little wires of
legs and claws? What fiery hearts they must
have in their breasts to force the blood-corpuscles
through the tendons in the coldest days! What
pleasant, convivial, round-headed little fellows they
are, calling to one another from their holes in the
trees, living on the best of terms with their neigh-
bors, and arranging picnic-parties with the downy
woodpecker and other next-door friends. If the
day is favorable the invitation is accepted. Hairy
comes from his log cabin when the sun is high, for
he is not an early riser at this season of the year.
The bright white spots of this woodpecker
glisten as if the snow covered it, and had only
been partly shaken off by the rapidly moving head
and wings. At times it appears to be as restless
as the wood warblers, flying hither and thither
about the higher branches as though it were seek-
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 241

ing for winged insects. Sometimes it perches hori-
zontally on a bough, but this evidently is not an
easy position, for it quickly resumes the perpen-
dicular, for which its organization is especially
adapted. It hammers on a tree, at first striking
a few rapid, steady blows; then raises its head
higher or farther away from the trunk, to deal
heavier strokes, as if impatient with the persistent
bark.

The yellow hammer, from his four-story window,
cries “ Peop!” The flight seems not to have the
free and easy lope of the summertime. The brown
creepers are blowing their tiny trumpets.

What an odd bit of feathers is this little Certhia
Jfamiliaris as he moves around the hickory trunk,
as if climbing a spiral stairway. It is the only
species in the genus that visits our New England
woods. Although it has all the clinging and climb-
ing facilities, sharp claws nearly as long as the
toes, and rigid shafts for tail feathers, it never
turns round or drops down on the trunk. The bill
is long, slim, and decurved; not fitted to chisel the
wood, but employing it rather as a pair of tweezers,
to extract the grub or eggs hid down in the crev-
ices and behind the loose patches of bark. It is
difficult to keep track of him, he is such an agile
242 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

little climber, and so much the color of the tree.
In certain favorable positions I see the gleam of
his pure white breast —as though Nature thought
it not worth her trouble to paint the underparts a
protective hue, his legs are so short — and his body
pressed closely to the bole. When he moves away,
he flies directly to the foot of another tree, and
begins his upward search.

The nut-hatches, with hoarse voices, are saying,
“Humph! humph!” as if disgusted with the
scanty fare these upright tables afford. Their
scolding is in striking contrast to their sprightly,
good-natured gymnastics as they move lightly
here and there on the sides of the trunks, heads
downwards and sideways, gleaning what the super-
ficial creeper leaves behind. Into the fissures and
crevices of the bark have crawled troops of ants
that lay huddled together in their winter's sleep.
Thousands of fat grubs, plump sacks of spider’s
eggs, numerous wood mites and aphides have been
nicely stowed away in almost every cranny and
crease, just for the purpose of feeding, it would
seem, these hungry little feathered bark-searchers
and meat-eaters.

It is a wonder that the store of parasites is not
exhausted before the winter is ended, there are so
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 243

many keen eyes peering, and so many tools, made
with such nicety, continually at work picking,
prying, boring, chiseling and probing at these bark-
covered warehouses.

Thoreau says, “When you have weathered
January, you get into the Gulf Stream of winter
and nearer the shores of Spring.” The old re-
volver hastens now to turn her cheek more directly
toward the round winter fire, far off in the south-
ern skies. It is on such days we contemplate it
with awe and reverence, as did those worshipers
in the olden time. Thou Sun, father of all that
live, say we, that distributes to us the seasons, that
supports and sustains us, and swings us around
in space as with thy thumb and finger, do not sever
the cord that binds us to thee, but in thine own
good time send thy rays, in turn to shine directly
on this zone, that it may again be clothed with a
vesture of green, and yield us abundant harvests!

In Feburary many spring-like days are thrown
down to us. The chains of stern King Frost are
unbound, and the ice and snow transformed, run
singing toward their home. The streams are like
pennants of changeable silk, trembling with shin-
ing lustre. Looking along their length, from the
sun, where the water runs over shallows, the dark
244 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

ripples are edged with bronze that curl and un-
dulate like water snakes, while the little tufts of
green grass, mingled with the blue, white and pur-
ple pebbles, their colors intensified by the running
water, give the bed a brilliant, variegated appear-
ance. Over the flowing water a few ephemerids are
sporting in the sun, so soon have they felt its in-
fluence. The species are quite small, and resemble
gnats when flying. Their wings are grayish white,
with numerous black veins, and their slender
bodies have two appendages at the end. By this
stream a musk-rat has been using his chisels in a
fresh green willow branch lately blown down. The
notches in it are clearly cut, showing marks like
those made by a small, keen carpenter’s gouge.
Was he gnawing it for food, or cutting logs for
his lodgings, like the beaver? The bark is nibbled
only where the deep cuttings were made. One
twig a half-inch in diameter has been gnawed
in two. Here where the pussy willows grow I
notice many of the terminal buds have grown to
an unnatural size, and resemble small pine cones
with the scales closed. This is the work of that
little female gall-fly (Cecidomyia rigide). Curi-
ously enough, she invariably chooses the topmost
bud on which to lay her eggs. When the bud was
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 245

growing last spring, she flew to it, and with her
ovipositor poisoned the living tissues, and, in some
mysterious way, caused this strange deformation
that is now the home of the larva or maggot.
What a snug little cock-loft of a bedroom it is!
The roof and sides are made impervious to the wet
and cold by the imbricated, varnished and woolly
scales. Here the sleeping grub on its mast-head
outrides a hundred winter storms, and waits for
the April sun to wake it up and give it wings, that
it may fly away to perform miracles like its ances-
try. By tearing off carefully course after course
of the concave shingles one may bring to light a
little salmon-colored worm lodged within the four
narrower scales in the centre of the bud. Here it
is wrapped up in a thin, transparent coverlet, the
head toward the base of the bud, and so deeply
buried in the woody end that it is difficult to de-
tach it without rupturing the body. The position
in which it is placed would lead one to believe that
it may, at certain stages of its growth, draw what
little moisture and food it needs from the twig.
There is a woody flavor in the air that was not
perceived a few days ago. The little brownish-
yellow cones on the twigs of the white cedars
(Cupressus thyoides) are already quite conspicuous.
246 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

The scales of the catkins as yet are firmly closed,
and must have been formed last summer, as were
those on the common alder and birch. What has
prevented them from freezing? How curious it is
that Nature, although apparently she has taken no
pains to protect these naked buds, should be so
particular in other flower germs like those of the
willow and hickory, to wrap them up in warm
furry blankets! The flower scales of these hardy
aments are closely crowded together and seem not
to want any extra clothing. They even grow
slowly on these sunny winter days, so eager are
they to be on time in the early spring.

How readily the last year’s birds’ nests are
found now in situations least expected or foreseen
in the summer! They have a neglected and
weather-stained appearance like abandoned human
dwellings with no cheer or system about the door.
Here is a wood-thrush’s home, that the couple
were so anxious about in June. In this leafless
shrub a warbler’s nest half-torn away, and filled
with a sodden mass of dead sticks, leaves and rose-
berry skins, has truly a pathetic aspect, when one
reflects on the associations connected with it last
season. Where are now the birds that were born
in this little cavity? Will they return to this
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 247

wood another year? What persons in the South
have heard or seen them? As you look into these
deserted homes you have a curious longing to
know the complete history of the little feathered
lives.

In these days the owls, perhaps, fly a little far-
ther north. One that has been wounded and left
to its fate by some rambling huntsman, I find to
be the short-eared species, a kind partly migratory
and less common in New England than many
others.

How queer is this family of birds with faces,
and oftentimes with ear-tufts, like many of the
mammals! The colors of fulvous and brown har-
monize well with the hue of dead leaves and dark
brown branches among which they sit motionless
during the winter days, dreaming of midnight
suppers.

It is interesting to note the soft, lax plumage
which Nature has given this specimen, that it
might glide silently through the air, and stealthily
approach the unwary night-prowling mice which
probably have been its only prey during the season.
These, evidently, it has not found in abundance,
for its body is almost as light as the feathers that
cover it. Itis also curious to compare the wings
248 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

of this noiseless flier with that of the grouse, which
perhaps is the loudest of all the birds in flight. Nat-
ure has performed a better and more finished piece of
work for the owl. One is a short, clumsy cutlass,
beside the long keen pliant rapier. How carefully
she has lapped the broad primary quills over each
other, “so that no accident or pressure of wind may
leave a gap anywhere,” while those of the grouse
are so loosely overlaid that one viewing the wing
edgewise can see between each feather. The shafts
in the raptor are more flexible, and the lateral
filaments or lamine are softer than those of the
scratcher. The rounded downy tips of the first
wing-quills are particularly noticeable. Even the
narrow sides of the first two primaries are emargi-
nate or edged with short segments, like the teeth
of a comb, so precise has the old Dame been in
making this wing suitable to perform the duty for
which it was intended.

But the February heavens are not niggardly of
their snows, and usually before they pass away, a
good full share is sifted down to us. Sometimes
the meshes of the sieve are small, and the bounti-
ful suppy of crystal grains are as fine as sand.
Sometimes the air-fairies belabor the earth with
little woolly pellets, or shoot from their tiny bows
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 249

a flight of needle crystals, or fling down a shower
of stars or feathers. The month has many types
of snow-storms, but the most beautiful of all is the
kind that is seen now. “It has no fight in it,” as
Lowell says. As soft as whispers the light flakes
are shaken down through the still air, each one
falling in its appointed place over the wide stretch
of fields and woods —a real shower of stars. I
view them with the magnifier as they lightly fall
on my sleeve; always six-rayed, but variously orna-
mented with the most exquisite filigree.

How busy have the fairies been on this day in
arranging the molecules of water in so many inde-
scribable forms of beauty! What infinite design-
ing is shown by the great Architect in shaping
such an endless diversity of stellar patterns, so
regularly fashioned that it seems erroneous to say
that the work is performed by the blind forces of
Nature. Here an elegantly-wrought design has
just been handed down by an unseen emissary of
the sky. It must not be breathed upon, lest the
minute particles, so systematically placed, be dis-
solved into a round drop of water. At regular
angles the six-needle crystals cross each other for
the framework on which are attached laterally
other rays of definite lengths, so nicely graduated
250 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

and at such regular intervals as to appear like the
skeleton of a pinnately-veined leaf. In the centre
is a small star of embossed silver, placed over the
point where the converging needles meet; its
shorter rays alternate with those of the principal
structure. This choice setting appears whiter than
the other parts and scatters the light from its many
glittering facets. Here is a wheel of six plain,
fragile spokes that has fallen from the lapidary so
far above, yet none of its parts are broken. Here
is a spangle of club-shaped rays with a hexagon
scale in the centre, and here a bunch of frosted
moss-fern leaves. Are the airy fays so pleased with
my attention to their handiwork that, eager to fur-
nish new designs, they fling them down so fast that
the delicate crystals strike against each other and
become distorted and irregular masses of snow ?

How evenly they are placed over the land; as
mosses grow on the damp, shady forest’s floor!
Not a spear or twig that is without its coverlet of
wool. Does the squirrel hear the tufts of down
as they tick, tick, on his leafy roof high up in the
walnut-tree ; or the wood-mouse think of the path:
he perforce must shovel before his door?

All day long, and perhaps half the night, their
soft white feathers have continued to fall, when
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 251

suddenly the wind from another quarter draws
aside the dark curtains overhead, unveils the stars,
and the morning sun shines again on the fair white
landscape. There is a calm, peaceful rest pervad-
ing the face of Nature. A wide stretch of immacu-
late splendor. Every line and angle covered with
white robes, arranged in the most graceful curves
and folds, beset with glittering spangles and orna-
mented with embroidery of evergreens and the
various figures of the hard wood spray. Stories
as entertaining as the Arabian Nights or Gulliver’s
Travels are printed on the white plastic page after
the storm, if the stroller will read the mystic letters.

I note the tracks of various prowlers in the
woods. A rabbit has lately passed along, making
indentations in the snow at regular intervals, as if
he had been surveying or pacing off a certain por-
tion of this lot for himself. Further on the lines
appear more numerous; cross and re-cross each
other, and are tangled in such a knot that it would
be a hopeless task to find the creatures’ homes.
They seem to have gone everywhere, and arrived
at no particular place.

Here a mouse has crocheted its way to a half-
buried branch, dug several feet under the snow,
and come out again to continue its meshing across
252 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER.

the path to the stone wall, where it has rooted for
worms and seeds, leaving marks like the trail of
a small snake. A troop of gray squirrels have
been scuffling under a walnut-tree, like young
human nutting-parties, for the largest and sound-
est fruit. They are the only rodents hereabouts
that keep good hours. As soon as it is dark under
the trees they all are carefully tucked up in their
warm nests, while the rabbits and mice have just
begun their travels. One of these branch vaulters
appeared comical enough as it sat in the open win-
dow in the third story of its shag-bark house. Its
nose and forepaws were resting on the sill, and its
round eyes were like jet-black buttons set in the
midst of fur. A male, perchance, that believed
might was right, and thought this tree good win-
ter quarters for a bachelor, had picked a quarrel
with the original owner, the High-hole, and the
tooth conquered the bill.

What is the purpose of the long, bushy tails of
squirrels, if it is not that of steering themselves
while vaulting among the branches, or using them
as kinds of parachutes to prevent the rapidity of
descent when they chance to miss their hold and
fall to the ground, thus imitating as well as they
can their relatives, the flying species? One, as it
CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 253

scampers over the snow, holds its tail erect, and
slightly curled at the tip, quite different from the
position in which it is held while streaming along
its arboreal highway, or while leisurely nosing
under the trees for mast. No other rodent has
such a brushlike appendage. In these woods
there is a most severe competition between the
red and gray squirrels, in which the latter seems
to be gaining the victory. Not a specimen of the
red kind appears even in the mildest days. He
loves to eat his corn and crack his nuts at home in
the winter, and so I believe lays up a larger store
‘than his hardy gray cousin.

The frosting of the huge brown loaf is waxy,
adhesive and in suitable condition for balls and
statuary for the boys. A lump of it rolled along,
hungrily laps up small sticks and leaves, and
makes a clean brown path behind. How quickly
a crumb accumulates into a mass of four or five
hundred pounds, showing the immense weight
that has been laid over the area of New England
in so short a time. Millions of tons! If it had
fallen suddenly, in one enormous ball, would not
the earth have trembled, and been drawn in a
marked degree from its orbit ?