OP 
 
 BBOTT 
 
 JUi0i.«^«^ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap...l Copyright No... 
 
 L15 8 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
BY CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT 
 
 The Frekdom of the Fields. With Fron- 
 tispiece by Alice Barber Stephens, and 
 three photogravures. Buckram, orna- 
 mental, |!i.50 
 
 Travels in a Trek-Top. With Frontispiece 
 by Alice Barber Stephens, and three photo- 
 gravures. Buckram, ornamental, 51.50 
 Abbott's Fireside and Forest Library 
 
 The Freedom of the Fields and Travels 
 IN A Tree- Top. Two volumes in a box. 
 i2mo. Buckram, ornamental, $3.00 
 
 Recent Rambles; Or, In Touch with Na- 
 ture. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00 
 
 The Hermit of Nottingham. A novel. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, ornamental, ^1.25 
 When the Cbnturv was New. A novel. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 
 A Colonial Wooing. A novel. i2mo. 
 
 Cloth, $1.00 
 
 Bird-Land Echoes. Profusely illustrated by 
 
 William Everett Cram. Crown Svo. Cloth, 
 
 gilt top, ga.oo 
 The Birds About Us. Illustrated. i2mo. 
 
 Cloth, 52.00 
 
 Abbotfs Bird Library. 
 The Birds About Us and Bird-Land 
 
 Echoes. Two volumes in a box. i2mo. 
 
 Cloth, gilt top, 54.00 
 
TRAVELS IN 
 A TREE-'TOP 
 
TRAVELS IN 
 
 TREE -TOP BY 
 
 CHARLES C.Abbott 
 
 J.B.LIPPINCOTT CO. 
 PHILADELPHIA 1^9^ 
 
 i.. 
 
 
 ^X^'JX-'^ 
 
 .'V' 
 
<S) 
 
 
 Copyright, 1894 and 1897, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. LippiNcoTT Company. 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 Travels in a Tree-top 9 
 
 A Hunt for the Pyxie 6i 
 
 The Coming of the Birds 71 
 
 The Building of the Nest 83 
 
 Corn-stalk Fiddles 97 
 
 The Old Kitchen Door 103 
 
 Up the Creek 109 
 
 A Winter-Night's Outing 119 
 
 Wild Life in Water 125 
 
 An Old-fashioned Garden 133 
 
 An Indian Trail 147 
 
 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 155 
 
 A Day's Digging 167 
 
 Drifting 173 
 
 Footprints 187 
 
 B^es and Buckwheat 195 
 
 Dead Leaves . 203 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Page 
 An Old-fashtoned Garden . . Frontispiece 
 
 By Alice Barber Stephens 
 
 V The Chesapeake Oak 22 
 
 V The Old Drawbridge, Crosszvick's Creek 116 
 The Camp- Fire 187 
 
CHAPTER FIRST 
 
 TRAVELS IN A TREE'TOP 
 
 PEARLY mist shut out the river, 
 the meadows, and every field for 
 miles. I could not deteft the ripple 
 of the outgoing tide, and the heartiest songster 
 sent no cheerful cry above the wide-spreading 
 and low-lying cloud ; but above all this silent, 
 desolate, and seemingly deserted outlook there 
 was a wealth of sunshine and a canopy of 
 deep-blue sky. Here and there, as islands in 
 a boundless sea, were the leafy tops of a few 
 tall trees, and these, I fancied, were tempting 
 regions to explore. Travels in a tree-top — 
 surely, here we have a bit of novelty in this 
 worn-out world. 
 
 Unless wholly wedded to the town, it is not 
 cheering to think of the surrounding country 
 as worn out. It is but little more than two 
 centuries since the home-seeking folk of other 
 lands came here to trick or trade with the 
 
 9 
 
lo Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 Indians, wild as the untamed world wherein 
 they dwelt ; and now we look almost in vain 
 for country as Nature fashioned it. Man may 
 make of a desert a pleasant place, but he also 
 unmakes the forest and bares the wooded hills 
 until as naked and desolate as the fire-swept 
 ruins of his own construftion. It is but a 
 matter of a few thousand cart-loads of the hill 
 moved to one side, and the swamp that the 
 farmer dreads because it yields no dollars is ob- 
 literated. He has never considered its wealth 
 of suggestiveness. ** A fig for the flowers and 
 vermin. I must plant more corn." 
 
 But here and there the tall trees are still 
 standing, and their tops are an untravelled 
 country. I climbed an oak this cool mid- 
 summer morning; clambered beyond the 
 mists, which were rolling away as I seated 
 myself far above the ground, safe from intru- 
 sion, and resting trustfully on yielding branches 
 that moved so gently in the passing breeze that 
 I scarcely perceived their motion. 
 
 How much depends upon our point of view ! 
 
 \ The woodland path may not be charming if 
 
 the undergrowth too closely shuts us in. In 
 
 all we do, we seek a wider vision than our 
 
 arm's length.^ There may be nothing better 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 1 1 
 
 beyond than at our feet, but we never believe 
 it. It is as natural to ask of the distant as 
 of the future. They are closely akin. Here 
 in the tree-top my wants were supplied. I 
 was only in the least important sense cribbed, 
 cabined, and confined. 
 
 Wild life, as we call it, is very discrimi- 
 nating, and that part of it which notices him 
 at all looks upon man as a land animal ; one 
 that gropes about the ground, and awkwardly 
 at that, often stumbling and ever making more 
 noise than his progress calls for ; but when 
 perched in a tree, as an arboreal creature, he 
 is to be studied anew. So, at least, thought 
 the crows that very soon discovered my lofty 
 quarters. How they chattered and scolded ! 
 They dashed near, as if with their ebon wings 
 to cast a spell upon me, and, craning their glossy 
 necks, spoke words of warning. My indif- 
 ference was exasperating at first, and then, as 
 I did not move, they concluded I was asleep, 
 dead, or a dummy, like those in the corn- 
 fields. The loud expostulations gave place 
 to subdued chatterings, and they were about 
 to leave without further investigation, when, 
 by the pressure of my foot, I snapped a dead 
 twig. I will not attempt description. Per- 
 
12 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 haps to this day the circumstance is discussed 
 in corvine circles. 
 
 [ It is difficult to realize the freedom of flight. 
 Twisting and turning with perfeft ease, adapt- 
 ing their bodies to every change of the fitful 
 wind, these crows did not use their wings 
 with that incessant motion that we need in 
 using our limbs to walk, but floated, rose and 
 fell, as if shadows rather than ponderable 
 bodies.^ Until we can fly, or, rather, ride 
 in flying-machines, we cannot hope to know 
 much of this flight-life of birds, and it is the 
 better part of their lives. But it was some- 
 thing to-day to be with even these crows in 
 the air. Following their erratic flight from 
 such a point of view, I seemed to be flying. 
 We are given at times to wonder a great deal 
 about birds, and they have equal reason to 
 constantly consider us. Who can say what 
 these crows thought of me ? All I can offer 
 to him who would solve the problem is that 
 their curiosity was unbounded, and this is 
 much if their curiosity and ours are akin. Of 
 course they talked. Garner need not have 
 gone to Africa to prove that monkeys talk, 
 and no one can question that crows utter more 
 than mere alarm-cries. 
 
Travels in a Tree- top 13 
 
 A word more concerning crows. What so 
 absurd, apparently, as this ? 
 
 " A single crow betokens sorrow, 
 Two betoken mirth, 
 Three predift a fiineral, 
 And four a birth." 
 
 Yet it is a very common saying, being re- 
 peated whenever a few, or less than five, fly 
 over. It is repeated mechanically, of course, 
 and then forgotten, for no one seems to worry 
 over one or three crows as they do when a 
 looking-glass breaks or the dropped fork sticks 
 up in the floor. Seems to worry, and yet I 
 strongly suspeft a trace of superstition lingers 
 in the mind of many a woman. Those who 
 will not sit as one of thirteen at a table are 
 not dead yet. Can it be that all this weak- 
 ness is only more concealed than formerly, 
 but none the less existent ? 
 
 I watched the departing crows until they 
 were but mere specks in the sky, and heard, 
 or fancied I heard, their cawing when half a 
 mile away. It is ever a sweet sound to me. 
 It means so much, recalls a long round of jolly 
 years ; and what matters the quality of a sound 
 if a merry heart prompts its utterance ? 
 
14 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 I was not the only occupant of the tree ; 
 there were hundreds of other and more aftive 
 travellers, who often stopped to think or con- 
 verse with their fellows and then hurried on. 
 I refer to the great, shining, black ants that 
 have such a variety of meaningless nicknames. 
 Its English cousin is asserted to be ill-tem- 
 pered, if not venomous, and both Chaucer 
 and Shakespeare refer to them as often mad 
 and always treacherous. I saw nothing of 
 this to-day. They were ever on the go and 
 always in a hurry. They seemed not to dis- 
 sociate me from the tree ; perhaps thought 
 me an odd excrescence and of no importance. 
 No one thinks of himself as such, and I forced 
 myself upon the attention of some of the hur- 
 rying throng. It was easy to intercept them, 
 and they grew quickly frantic ; but their fel- 
 lows paid no attention to such as I held cap- 
 tive for the moment. I had a small paper 
 box with me, and this I stuck full of pin-holes 
 on every side and then put half a dozen of 
 the ants in it. Holding it in the line of the 
 insefts' march, it immediately became a source 
 of wonderment, and every ant that came by 
 stopped and parleyed with the prisoners. A 
 few returned earthward, and then a number 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 15 
 
 came together, but beyond this I could see 
 nothing in the way of concerted aftion on the 
 part of the ants at large looking towards suc- 
 coring their captive fellows. Releasing them, 
 these detained ants at once scattered in all di- 
 reftions, and the incident was quickly forgot- 
 ten. Where were these ants going, and what 
 was their purpose ? I wondered. I was as 
 near the tree's top as I dared to go, but the 
 ants went on, apparently to the very tips of 
 the tiniest twigs, and not one that I saw came 
 down laden or passed up with any burden. 
 It is not to be supposed they had no purpose 
 in so doing, but what ? There is scarcely an 
 hour when we are not called upon to witness 
 just such aimless adlivity, — that is, aimless so 
 far as we can determine. 
 
 Nothing molested these huge black ants, 
 although inseft-eating birds came and went 
 continually. One lordly, great-crested fly- 
 catcher eyed them meditatively for some sec- 
 onds, and then my identity suddenly dawned 
 upon him. His harsh voice, afFefted by fear, 
 was more out of tune than ever, and, coupled 
 with his precipitant flight, was very amusing. 
 The bird fell off the tree, but quickly caught 
 himself, and then, as usual, curiosity overcame 
 
1 6 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 fear. Students of bird-ways should never for- 
 get this. The fly-catcher soon took a stand 
 wherefrom to observe me, and, if intently 
 staring at me for thirty seconds was not curi- 
 osity, what shall we call it? Is it fair to 
 explain away everything by calling it mere 
 coincidence ? It is a common praftice, and 
 about as logical as the old cry of " instin£t" 
 when I went to school. To have said, when 
 I was a boy, that a bird could think and could 
 communicate ideas to another of its kind, 
 would have brought down ridicule upon my 
 head out of school, and brought down some- 
 thing more weighty if the idea had been ex- 
 pressed in a " composition." I speak from 
 experience. 
 
 To return to the cheerier subject of curi- 
 osity in birds : our large hawks have it to a 
 marked degree, and advantage can be taken of 
 this fadt if you wish to trap them. I have 
 found this particularly true in winter, when 
 there is a general covering of the ground with 
 snow. Food, of course, is not then quite so 
 plenty, but this does not explain the matter. 
 An empty steel trap on the top of a hay-stack 
 is quite as likely to be tampered with as when 
 baited with a mouse. The hawk will walk 
 
Travels in a Tree- top 17 
 
 all around it, and then put out one foot and 
 touch it here and there. If we can judge from 
 the bird's aftions, the question. What is it, 
 anyway ? is running through its mind. I once 
 played a trick upon a splendid black hawk that 
 had been mousing over the fields for half the 
 winter. It often perched upon a stack of 
 straw instead of the lone hickory near by. 
 Early one morning I placed a plump meadow- 
 mouse on the very top of the stack, to which 
 I had attached a dozen long strands of bright- 
 red woollen yarn and a bladder that I had in- 
 flated. This was secured to the mouse by a 
 silk cord, and all were so concealed by the 
 snow and straw that the hawk noticed the 
 mouse only. The bird was suspicious at first : 
 it was too unusual for a mouse not to move 
 when a hawk hovered above it. Then the 
 bird alighted on the stack and walked about 
 the mouse, pecking at it once, but not touch- 
 ing it. Then putting out one foot, he seized 
 it with a firm grip, the talons passing through 
 the carcass, and at the same time spread his 
 wings and moved slowly towards the lone 
 hickory that towered near by. I was near 
 enough to see every movement. It was evi- 
 dent that the hawk did not look down at first, 
 b z* 
 
1 8 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 and saw nothing of the streaming threads and 
 bobbing bladder; but it did a moment later, 
 and then what a quickening of wings and 
 hasty mounting upward ! The hawk was 
 frightened, and gave a violent jerk with one 
 foot, as if to disengage the mouse, but it was 
 ineiFeftual. The sharp claws had too strong 
 a hold, and the efFeft was only to more vio- 
 lently bob the bladder. Then the hawk 
 screamed and dashed into the trees near by, 
 and was out of sight. 
 
 A curious and disappointing occurrence, 
 while sitting aloft, was the frequent dis- 
 covery of my presence by birds and their 
 sudden right-about movement and departure. 
 Occasionally I could see them coming as if di- 
 redlly towards me, but their keen eyes noticed 
 'the unusual objedl, and they would dart off 
 with a promptness that showed how com- 
 pletely at home they were while on the wing. 
 Even the bluebirds, usually so tame, had 
 their misgivings, and came to rest in other 
 trees. But if the birds were not always about 
 and above me, there were many below, and the 
 sweet song of the wood-robin from the tangled 
 underbrush seemed clearer and purer than 
 when sifted through a wilderness of leaves. 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 19 
 
 It was not until noon that the wood and 
 open fields became silent or nearly so, for the 
 red-eye came continually, and, whether inseft- 
 hunting in the tree or on the wing, it seemed 
 never to cease its singing, or querulous cry, 
 which more aptly describes its utterance. To 
 hear this sound throughout a long summer day 
 is depressing, particularly if you hear nothing 
 else, for the steady hum of inseft-life hardly 
 passes for sound. It was only when I lis- 
 tened for it that I was aware that millions of 
 tiny creatures were filling the air with a hum- 
 ming that varied only as the light breeze car- 
 ried it away or brought it nearer and clearer 
 than before. There is a vast diff'erence be- 
 tween absolute and comparative or apparent 
 silence. The former is scarcely ever a con- 
 dition of the open country unless during a 
 still, cold winter night, and never of one of 
 our ordinary woodland trafts. We do find it, 
 however, in the cedar swamps and pine-land, 
 even during summer. I have often stood in 
 **the pines" of Southern New Jersey and 
 tried to dete£b some sound other than that 
 of my own breathing, but in vain. Not 
 a twig stirred. The dark waters of the pools 
 were motionless ; even the scattered clouds 
 
20 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 above were at rest. It was to be absolutely 
 alone, as if the only living creature upon 
 earth. But ere long a gentle breeze would 
 spring up, there was a light and airy trem- 
 bling of the pines, and the monotone of a 
 whispered sigh filled the forest. Even this 
 was a relief, and what a joy if some lonely bird 
 passed by and even lisped of its presence ! 
 The dee-dee of a titmouse at such a time was 
 sweeter music than the choral service that 
 heralds the coming of a bright June morning. 
 At noon, the day being torrid, there was 
 comparative silence, and yet as I looked about 
 me I saw ceaseless aftivity in a small way. 
 The ants were still journeying, and red ad- 
 miral and yellow swallow-tailed butterflies 
 came near, and the latter even passed high 
 overhead and mingled with the chimney- 
 swifts. Had I been on the ground, walking 
 instead of waiting, I should have sought some 
 sheltered spot and rested, taking a hint from 
 much of the wild life I was watching. 
 
 AT NOONTIDE. 
 Where cluster oaks and runs the rapid brook, 
 
 Repose the jutting rocks beneath the ferns ; 
 Here seeks the thrush his hidden leafy nook, 
 
 And wandering squirrel to his hole returns. 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 21 
 
 Afar the steaming river slowly wends 
 Its tortuous way to mingle with the sea 5 
 
 No cheerful voice its languid course attends ; 
 The blight of silence rests upon the lea. 
 
 Where the wide meadow spreads its wealth of weeds, 
 Where the rank harvest waves above the field, 
 
 The testy hornet in his anger speeds, 
 
 And stolid beetle bears his brazen shield. 
 
 Give them the glowing, fiery world they love. 
 Give me the cool retreat beside the stream ; 
 
 While sweeps the sun the noontide sky above. 
 Here would I linger with the birds and dream. 
 
 And now what of the tree itself? Here 
 I have been the better part of a long fore- 
 noon, and scarcely given this fine young oak 
 a thought. A young oak, yet a good deal 
 older than its burden ; an oak that was an 
 acorn when the century was new, and now 
 a sturdy growth full sixty feet high, straight 
 of stem to its undermost branches and shapely 
 everywhere. Such trees are not remarkable 
 of themselves, though things of beauty, but 
 at times how suggestive ! Think of pre- 
 Columbian America ; then there were oaks to 
 make men marvel. " There were giants in 
 those days." Occasionally we meet with 
 
0.2 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 them even now. A year ago I camped on 
 the shore of Chesapeake Bay near an oak 
 that measured eighteen feet six inches in 
 circumference four feet from the ground, and 
 in St. Paul's church-yard, not a great way 
 off, are five big oaks, one of which is twenty 
 feet around shoulder high from the roots. 
 Such trees are very old. The church-yard 
 was enclosed two centuries ago, and these 
 were big trees then, and so older by far than 
 any monument of white men on the continent, 
 except possible traces of the Norsemen. If 
 a tree such as this in which I have been sit- 
 ting is full to overflowing with suggestiveness, 
 how much more so a noble patriarch like that 
 upon the bay shore ! It is usually not easy to 
 realize the dimensions of a huge tree by 
 merely looking at it, but this mammoth im- 
 pressed one at first sight. The branches were 
 themselves great trees, and together cast a cir- 
 cular patch of shade, at noon, three paces 
 more than one hundred feet across. As a 
 tree in which to ramble none could have 
 been better shaped. The lowest branches 
 were less than twenty feet from the ground, 
 and after reaching horizontally a long way, 
 curved upward and again outward, dividing 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 23 
 
 finally into the leaf-bearing twigs. Course 
 after course continued in this way, the size 
 decreasing gradually, and the whole forming, 
 as seen from a distance, a magnificent dome- 
 shaped mass. Comparisons with the tree's 
 surroundings were full of suggestiveness. 
 The ground immediately about was densely 
 covered with rank ferns and the acorn sprouts 
 of one or two years' growth. Yet, where they 
 were, it seemed but a smoothly-shaven lawn, 
 so insignificant were they when seen with the 
 tree ; and the sproutland beyond, which 
 would otherwise have been a wood, was ab- 
 solutely insignificant. Yet, in truth, every- 
 thing here was on a grand scale. The ferns 
 were tall, and to prove it I sat upon the 
 ground among them and so shut out all view 
 of the great tree and its surroundings. I 
 spent many hours seated upon diiFerent 
 branches of this oak, and every one had feat- 
 ures all its own. From those nearest the 
 ground I surveyed the bird-life in the thicket 
 beneath, and was entertained by a pair of 
 nesting cardinal red-birds that came and went 
 as freely as if quite alone, and whistled cheer- 
 fully morning, noon, and night. I fancied I 
 made friends with these birds, for early one 
 
24 Travels in a Tree- top 
 
 morning the male bird came to camp, as if 
 to inspeft my nest, thinking I was not up, 
 and he expressed his favorable opinion in 
 most glowing terms. A pair of doves, too, 
 had a nest in sight, and their melancholy coo- 
 ing seemed out of tune here, where Nature 
 had done her work so well. Once, at least, 
 while I was there, the bald eagle came for a 
 few moments, and, big bird as he is, was not 
 conspicuous, and had not a flash of sunlight 
 fallen upon his yellow beak and white head, 
 I should not have been aware of his presence, 
 as he certainly was not of mine. What I 
 took to be a duck-hawk, a few days later, in- 
 terested me much more. He was a splendid 
 bird, and tarried but a short time. The 
 leaves so concealed him that I was not sure, 
 having no field-glass at the time, but do not 
 think I was mistaken. The eagle did not 
 appear to disturb the fish-hawk's temper in 
 the least, but the great hawk did, and he 
 was much excited until the bird disappeared 
 in the steam and smoke that as a great cloud 
 rested above Baltimore. 
 
 The birds of this retired spot may be 
 divided into two classes, — those of the oak 
 and of the sproutland growths about it, and 
 
Travels in a Tree- top 25 
 
 the birds of the air, principally swallows, 
 which hung over the tree as a trembling 
 cloud. Never were swallows more numer- 
 ous, except when flocked prior to migration. 
 In the tree and bushes were always many 
 birds, yet often they were far from each 
 other. This gave me an excellent idea of 
 what a great oak really is. Birds quite out of 
 sight and hearing of each other were resting 
 on branches from the same trunk. Although 
 the middle of July, there was no lack of 
 song, and second nesting of many familiar 
 birds is, I judge, more common in Maryland 
 than in New Jersey. Of all the birds that 
 came, the little green herons were the most 
 amusing. A pair doubtless had a nest near 
 by, or young that were not yet on the 
 wing. They walked sedately along the level 
 branches, as a man might pace up and down 
 his study, buried in deep thought. I listened 
 carefully for some expression of content, but 
 they made no sound except when they were 
 startled and flew off. I was much surprised 
 to find the beach-birds occasionally darting 
 among the branches, and once a spotted sand- 
 piper rested a moment near me. These birds 
 we associate with water and the open country, 
 
 B 3 
 
26 Travels in a Tree- top 
 
 although this species is less aquatic than its 
 fellows. They were always in sight from 
 the door of my tent, and always an earlier 
 bird than I. I recall now standing upon the 
 beach long before sunrise, marking the prom- 
 ises of the coming day, as I interpreted them. 
 The fish-hawks were ahead of me ; so, too, 
 the little sand-pipers. Their piping at this 
 time was very clear and musical. It was a 
 delightful accompaniment to the rippling 
 water. The dear old song-sparrows were 
 quiet, and I was very glad ; but with the 
 first flooding of the sea with sunlight they 
 all sang out, and the Chesapeake was afar 
 off and I in the home meadows on the Dela- 
 ware, I prefer novelty when away. It is 
 well to utterly forget, at times, that which 
 we most prize. What boots it to stand on 
 the hill-top, if your thoughts are forever in 
 the lowlands ? Twice, from the branches 
 of the old oak, I saw a splendid sunset, but 
 nothing equal to the sunrise of to-day. With 
 many a matter of this life the beginning is 
 better than the end. We had a superb sun- 
 set last night. The color was gorgeous, but 
 it was plain and commonplace compared to 
 the sunrise of to-day. Perhaps no tint was 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 27 
 
 really brighter in one case than in the other, 
 but my mind was. The sunset was too 
 closely linked with the death of the day; there 
 was the idea of a grand finale before the 
 curtain drops, and this tends to dull enthu- 
 siasm. It is not so with sunrise. It is all 
 freshness, — a matter of birth, of beginning, 
 of a new trial of life, — and with so happy an 
 entrance, the exit should be one of gladness 
 only ; but there is no trace of pity in Nature. 
 In awful certainty the night cometh. 
 
 I was not surprised at every visit to this 
 tree to find some new form of life resting on 
 its branches. A beautiful garter-snake had 
 reached a low branch by climbing to it from 
 a sapling that reached a little above it. There 
 was no break in the highway that led to 
 its very summit. The grass leaned upon 
 ferns, these upon shrubs, these again upon 
 saplings, and so the tree was reached. Any 
 creeping thing could have climbed just eighty 
 feet above the earth with far less danger than 
 men encounter clambering over hills. 
 
 And not only a zoological garden was this 
 and is every other old tree, but the oak had 
 its botanic garden as well. When we con- 
 sider that many of the branches were so wide 
 
28 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 and level that one could walk upon them, it is 
 not strange that earth, dead leaves, and water 
 should lodge in many places. Indeed, besides 
 the two gardens I have mentioned, the oak 
 had also an aquarium. But I cannot go 
 into particulars. The parasitic plant-life — 
 not truly such, like the mistletoe — was a 
 striking feature. Maple seeds had lodged and 
 sprouted, and in a saucer-shaped depression 
 where dust and water had lodged a starved 
 hawkweed had got so far towards maturity 
 as to be in bud. 
 
 It may appear as utter foolishness to others, 
 but I believe that trees might in time become 
 tiresome. Whether in leaf or bare of foli- 
 age, there is a fixedness that palls at last. 
 We are given to looking from the tree to 
 the world beyond ; to hurrying from beneath 
 their branches to the open country. To live 
 in a dense forest is akin to living in a great 
 city. There is a sense of confinement against 
 which, sooner or later, we are sure to rebel. 
 We long for change. The man who is per- 
 feftly satisfied has no knowledge of what satis- 
 faftion really is. Logical or not, I turned 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 29 
 
 my attention from the tree at last, and thought. 
 What of the outlook ? Direftly north, in 
 the shallow basin, hemmed in by low hills, 
 lies the town. A cloud of smoke and steam 
 rests over it, and barely above it reach the 
 church-spires and tall fadlory chimneys, as if 
 the place was struggling to be free, but only 
 had its finger-tips out of the mire of the 
 town, of which I know but little. My won- 
 der is that so many people stay there, and, 
 stranger still, wild life not only crowds its 
 outskirts, but ventures into its very midst. 
 In one town, not far away, I found the 
 nests of seventeen species of birds, but then 
 there was a large old cemetery and a mill- 
 pond within its boundaries. Time was when 
 through the town before me there flowed a 
 creek, and a pretty wood flourished along its 
 south bank. The creek is now a sewer, and 
 an open one at that, and yet the musk-rat 
 cannot quite make up his mind to leave it. 
 Stranger than this was seeing recently, in a 
 small creek discolored by a dyeing establish- 
 ment, a little brown diver. How it could 
 bring itself to swim in such filth must re- 
 main a mystery. A queer old charafter that 
 had lived all his life in the country once said 
 3* 
 
30 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 of the nearest town, " It is a good place 
 to dump what we don't want on the farm." 
 This old fellow would always drive me 
 out of his orchard when apples were ripe, 
 but I liked him for the sentiment I have 
 quoted. 
 
 I am out of town now, and what of the 
 world in another direflion ? Turning to the 
 east, I have farm after farm before me ; all 
 different, yet with a strong family likeness. 
 This region was taken up by English Quakers 
 about 1670 and a little later, and the houses 
 they built were as much alike as are these 
 people in their apparel. The second set of 
 buildings were larger only and no less severely 
 plain ; but immediately preceding the Revo- 
 lution there were some very substantial man- 
 sions erefted. From my perch in the tree- 
 top I cannot see any of the houses distinftly, 
 but locate them all by the group of Weymouth 
 pines in front and sometimes both before and 
 behind them. The old-time Lombardy pop- 
 lar was the tree of the door-yards at first, but 
 these, in this neighborhood, have well-nigh 
 all died out, and the pines replace them. 
 One farm-house is vividly piftured before me, 
 although quite out of sight. The owner 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 31 
 
 made it a home for such birds as might choose 
 to come, as well as for himself, and what royal 
 days have been spent there ! There was 
 no one feature to attradl instant attention as 
 you approached the house. The trees were 
 thrifty, the shrubbery healthy, the roses vig- 
 orous, and the flowering plants judiciously se- 
 lefled ; but what did strike the visitor was 
 the wealth of bird-life. For once let me cat- 
 alogue what I have seen in and about one 
 door-yard and what should be about every 
 one in the land. At the end of the house, 
 and very near the corner of the long portico, 
 stood a martin-box, occupied by the birds for 
 which it was intended. In the porch, so that 
 you could reach it with your hand, was a 
 wren's nest, and what a strange house it had ! 
 It was a huge plaster cast of a lion's head, and 
 between the grim teeth the bird passed and re- 
 passed continually. It promenaded at times 
 on the lion's tongue, and sang triumphantly 
 while perched upon an eyebrow. That wren 
 certainly saw nothing animal-like in the plas- 
 ter cast as it was, and I have wondered if it 
 would have been equally free with a stuffed 
 head of the animal. My many experiments 
 with animals, as to their recognition of ani- 
 
32 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 mals as pidlured, have demonstrated every- 
 thing, and so, I am afraid I must admit, noth- 
 ing. In the woodbine "on the portico were 
 two nests, — a robin's and a chipping-spar- 
 row's. These were close to each other, and 
 once, when sitting in a rocking-chair, I swayed 
 the v/oodbine to and fro without disturbing 
 either bird. In the garden were a mocking- 
 bird, cat-bird, thistle-finch, song-sparrow, 
 brown thrush, yellow-breasted chat, and red- 
 eyed vireo. In the trees I saw a great-crested 
 fly-catcher, purple grakle, a redstart, spotted 
 warbler, and another I failed to identify. In 
 the field beyond the garden were red-winged 
 blackbirds and quail, and beyond, crows, fish- 
 hawks, and turkey-buzzards were in the air ; 
 and, as the day closed and the pleasant sights 
 were shut out, I heard the clear call of the 
 kill-deer plover as they passed overhead, heard 
 it until it mingled with my dreams. " Provi- 
 dence Farm" is indeed well named, for the 
 birdy blessing of Providence rests upon it; 
 but were men more given to considering the 
 ways and wants of wild life, we might find 
 such pleasant places on every hand. Farms 
 appear to be growing less farm-like. The 
 sweet simplicity of colonial days has been 
 
Travels in a Tree-top ^3 
 
 well-nigh obliterated, and nothing really bet- 
 ter has replaced it. On the other hand, a 
 modern " country place," where Nature is 
 pared down until nothing but the foundation- 
 rocks remain, is, to say the least, an eyesore. 
 There is more pleasure and profit in an Indian 
 trail than in an asphaltum driveway. 
 
 Westward lie the meadows, and beyond 
 them the river. Seen as a whole, they are 
 beautiful and, like all of Nature's work, will 
 bear close inspeftion. The bird's-eye view 
 to-day was too comprehensive to be alto- 
 gether enjoyable : it was bewildering. How 
 completely such a traft epitomizes a conti- 
 nent ! The little creek is a river ; the hil- 
 lock, a mountain ; the brushland, a forest ; 
 the plowed traft, a desert. If this faft were 
 not so generally forgotten we would be better 
 content with what is immediately about us. 
 Mere bigness is not everything. So, too, 
 with animal life. We spend time and money 
 to see the creatures caged in a menagerie, and 
 never see the uncaged ones in the thicket be- 
 hind the house. Every lion must roar, or we 
 have not seen the show ; a lion rampant is 
 everything, a lion couchant, nothing. There 
 was no visible violence in the meadows to- 
 
34 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 day; Nature was couchant, and I was thankful. 
 When the tempest drives over the land I want 
 my snug harbor by the chimney-throat. The 
 sparks can fly upward to join the storm if they 
 will. The storms I enjoy are matters of hearsay. 
 
 Take up a ponderous government quarto 
 of the geological survey and glance over the 
 splendid plates of remarkable rocks, canons, 
 and high hills, and then look out of your 
 window at the fields and meadow. What a 
 contrast ! Yes, a decided one, and yet if 
 you take an open-eyed walk you will find a 
 good deal of the same thing, but on a smaller 
 scale. You have not thought of it before ; 
 that is all. I put this matter to a praftical 
 test not long ago, and was satisfied with the 
 result. The last plate had been looked at 
 and the book was closed with a sigh, and a 
 restless youth, looking over the wide range 
 of fields before him, was thinking of the 
 grand mountains, strange deserts, and deep 
 canons pidlured in the volume on his lap, and 
 comparing such a country with the monoto- 
 nous surroundings of his home. 
 
 **What a stupid place this part of the 
 world is !" he said at last. *' I wish I could 
 go out West." 
 
Travels in a Tree-top ^^ 
 
 " Perhaps it is not so stupid as it looks," 
 I replied. " Let's take a walk." 
 
 I knew what the book described at which 
 the lad had been looking, and had guessed 
 his thoughts. We started for a ramble. 
 
 ** Let us follow this little brook as far as 
 we can," I suggested, *'and see what a stupid 
 country can teach us," purposely quoting my 
 companion's words, with a little emphasis. 
 
 Not fifty rods from beautiful old trees the 
 collefted waters, as a little brook, flowed 
 over an outcropping of stiff clay, and here 
 we voluntarily paused, for what one of us 
 had seen a hundred times before was now 
 invested with new interest. There was here 
 not merely a smooth scooping out of a mass 
 of the clay, to allow the waters to pass swiftly 
 by ; the least resisting veins or strata, those 
 containing the largest percentage of sand, had 
 yielded quickly and been deeply gullied, 
 while elsewhere the stiff, black ridges, often 
 almost perpendicular, still withstood the cur- 
 rent, and, confining the waters to narrow 
 limits, produced a series of miniature rapids 
 and one whirlpool that recalled the head- 
 waters of many a river. 
 
 Near by, where, when swollen by heavy 
 
^6 Travels in a Tree- top 
 
 rains, the brook had filled the little valley, 
 temporary rivulets had rushed w^ith fury over 
 the clay, and cut in many places deep and 
 narrow transverse channels. From their steep 
 sides projedled many a pebble that gave us 
 ''overhanging rocks," and one small bowlder 
 bridged a crevice in the clay, and was in use 
 at the time as a highway for a colony of ants. 
 Near it stood slender, conical pillars of 
 slightly cemented sand, some six inches in 
 height, and every one capped with a pebble 
 of greater diameter than the apex of the sup- 
 porting sand. These were indeed beautiful. 
 
 ** I have never seen them before," re- 
 marked the boy. 
 
 " Very likely," I replied, " but you have 
 crushed them under foot by the dozens." 
 They were not to be overlooked now, 
 though, and in them he saw perfedl repro- 
 duftions of wonderful ''monument rocks" 
 which he had so lately seen piftured in the 
 ponderous government geological report. 
 
 Withdrawing to the field beyond, where a 
 bird's-eye view of the brook's course could 
 be obtained, we had spread out before us a 
 miniature, in most of its essentials, of a canon 
 country. The various tints of the clay gave 
 
Travels in a Tree- top 37 
 
 the many-colored rocks ; the different densi- 
 ties of the several strata resulted in deep or 
 shallow ravines, fantastic arches, caverns, and 
 beetling precipices. On a ridiculously small 
 scale, you may say. True, but not too small 
 for the eyes of him w^ho is anxious to learn. 
 A few rods farther down the stream we 
 came to a small sandy island which divided 
 the brook and made a pleasant variety after a 
 monotonous course through nearly level 
 fields. A handful of the sand told the story. 
 Here, meeting with so slight an obstruftion 
 as a projefting root, the sandy clays from 
 above had been deposited in part, and year 
 after year, as the island grew, the crowded 
 waters had encroached upon the yielding 
 banks on either side, and made here quite a 
 wide and shallow stream. Small as it was, 
 this little sand-bar had the charafteristic feat- 
 ures of all islands. The water rippled along 
 its sides and gave it a pretty beach of sloping, 
 snow-white sand, while scarcely more than 
 half a foot inland the seeds of many plants 
 had sprouted, and along the central ridge or 
 backbone the sod was thick set, and several 
 acorns, a year before, had sprouted through 
 it. We found snails, spiders, and insefts 
 4 
 
38 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 abundant, and faint footprints showed that 
 it was not overlooked by the pretty teetering 
 sand-piper. 
 
 Now came a total change. Abruptly turn- 
 ing from its former straightforward course, 
 the brook entered a low-lying swamp, 
 crowded to the utmost with dense growths 
 of tangled vines and stunted trees. The 
 water was no longer sparkling and colorless, 
 but amber-tinted, and in many a shallow pool 
 looked more like ink. Life here appeared 
 in many forms. Small mud-minnows, turtles, 
 and snakes were found in the gloomy, weed- 
 hidden pools, and numberless insefts crowded 
 the rank growths above as well as the waters 
 beneath. The mutual dependence of vege- 
 tation and animal life was here very striking. 
 Previously we had found comparatively little 
 either in the brook or about it, but now our 
 eyes were gladdened not only with what I 
 have mentioned, but birds, too, were in abun- 
 dance. 
 
 Bent upon freeing my native county from 
 the charge of stupidity, I led the way through 
 this *' dismal swamp." It was no easy task. 
 Nowhere were we sure of our footing, and 
 it required constant leaping from root to root 
 
Travels in a Tree- top 39 
 
 of the larger trees. There was at times no 
 well-defined channel, and often we could hear 
 the gurgling waters hurrying beneath our feet, 
 yet catch no glimpse of them. 
 
 Here, too, other springs welled to the sur- 
 face, and the augmented volume of waters 
 finally left the swamp a stream of considerable 
 size, which, after a tortuous course through 
 many fields, entered a deep and narrow ravine. 
 After untold centuries the brook has worn 
 away the surface soil over which it originally 
 flowed, then the gravel beneath, and so down 
 to the clay, thirty feet below. Upon this 
 now rest the bowlders and such coarser mate- 
 rial as the waters could not transport. 
 
 Clinging to the trees growing upon the 
 sides of the ravine, we closely followed the 
 course of the troubled, bubbling, foamy 
 waters, stopping ever and anon to look at 
 the exposed seftions of sand and gravel here 
 shown in curious alternate layers. The 
 meaning of the word ** deposits," so fre- 
 quently met with in descriptive geology, 
 was made plain, and when we noticed of 
 how mixed a charadler was the coarse gravel, 
 it was easy to comprehend what had been 
 read of that most interesting phase o£ the 
 
40 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 world's past history, the glacial epoch, or 
 great ice age. The gravel was no longer an 
 unsuggestive accumulation of pebbles, but 
 associated rolled and water-worn fragments 
 of a hundred diiferent rocks that by the 
 mighty forces of ice and water had been 
 brought to their present position from re- 
 gions far away. 
 
 The ravine ended at the meadows, through 
 which the waters passed with unobstrufted 
 flow " to join the brimming river." As we 
 stood upon the bank of the mighty stream I 
 remarked, ** This is a stupid country, per- 
 haps, but it has some merits." I think the 
 boy thought so, too. 
 
 The meadows are such a comprehensive 
 place that no one knows where to begin, if 
 the attempt is made to enumerate their feat- 
 ures. There is such a blending of dry land 
 and wet, open and thicket-grown, hedge and 
 brook and scattered trees, that it is bewilder- 
 ing if you do not choose some one point 
 for close inspeftion. From the tree-top I 
 overlook it all, and try in vain to determine 
 whether the azure strip of flowering iris or 
 the flaunting crimson of the Turk's cap lilies 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 41 
 
 is the prettier. Beyond, in damper soil, the 
 glistening yellow of the sunflowers is really 
 too bright to be beautiful ; but not so where 
 the water is hidden by the huge circular leaves 
 of the lotus. They are majestic as well as 
 pretty, and the sparse bloom, yellow and 
 rosy pink, is even the more conspicuous by 
 reason of its background. How well the 
 birds know the wild meadow trafts ! They 
 have not forsaken my tree and its surround- ^ 
 ings, but for one here I see a dozen there. 
 Mere inky specks, as seen from my point of 
 view, but I know them as marsh-wrens and 
 swamp-sparrows, kingbirds and red-wings, 
 that will soon form those enormous flocks 
 that add so marked a feature to the autumn 
 landscape. It needs no field-glass to mark 
 down the passing herons that, coming from 
 the river-shore, take a noontide rest in the 
 overgrown marsh. 
 
 I had once, on the very spot at which I 
 was now looking, an unlooked-for adventure. 
 For want of something better to do, I pushed 
 my way into the weedy marsh until I reached 
 a prostrate tree-trunk that during the last 
 freshet had stranded there. It was a wild 
 place. The tall rose-mallow and wavy cat- 
 4* 
 
42 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 tail were far above my head, and every trace 
 of civilization w^as efFeftually shut out. It 
 was as much a wilderness as any jungle in 
 the tropics. Nor was I alone. Not a 
 minute elapsed before a faint squeak told me 
 that there were meadow-mice in the hollow 
 log on which I sat. Then the rank grass 
 moved and a least bittern came into view and 
 as quickly disappeared. I heard continually 
 the cackle of the king-rail, and the liquid twit- 
 tering of the marsh-wrens was a delight. The 
 huge globular nests of these birds were every- 
 where about me ; but the birds did not think 
 of me as having any evil designs upon them, 
 so they came and went as freely as if alone. 
 This is bird-viewing that one too seldom 
 enjoys nowadays. Often, and very suddenly, 
 all sound ceased and every bird disappeared. 
 I did not recognize the cause at first, but was 
 enlightened a moment later. A large bird 
 passed over, and its very shadow frightened 
 the little marsh-dwellers. If not, the shadow 
 and fright were a coincidence several times 
 that morning. The day, for me, ended with 
 the unusual chance of a close encounter with 
 a great blue heron. I saw the bird hover for 
 a moment direftly overhead, and then, let- 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 43 
 
 ting its legs drop, it descended with lead-like 
 rapidity. I leaned backward to avoid it, and 
 could have touched the bird when it reached 
 the ground, it was so near. I shall never 
 know which was the more astonished. Cer- 
 tainly, had it chosen, it could have stabbed 
 me through and through. 
 
 I was glad to be again on drier land and in 
 open country. There had been adventure 
 enough ; and yet, as seen from a distance, 
 this bit of marsh was but weeds and water. 
 
 Southward there stands the remnant of a 
 forest : second- and third-growth woodland 
 usually ; for trees of really great age are now 
 generally alone. I can see from where I sit 
 three primeval beeches that are known to 
 be over two centuries old, and not far away 
 towered one giant tulip-tree that since the 
 country's earliest settlement had stood like a 
 faithful sentinel, guarding the south bank of 
 a nameless spring brook. Ever a thing of 
 beauty, it shone with added splendor at night, 
 when the rising full moon rested in its arms, 
 as if weary at the very outset of her journey. 
 'My grandfather told me that in his boyhood 
 it was known as the " Indian tree," because 
 a basket-maker and his squaw had a wigwam 
 
44 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 there. That was a century ago, and often, 
 of late years, I have hunted on the spot 
 for some trace of these redskins, but found 
 nothing, although all about, in every field, 
 were old Indian relics, even their cherished 
 tobacco-pipes. Small, recent growths of 
 timber, even where they have succeeded an 
 ancient forest, are not, as a rule, attraftive. 
 Their newness is too evident, and, except 
 for a few passing birds, they are not apt to 
 harbor much wild life. As I look at the 
 mingled foliage of oaks and elms, beeches, 
 hickories, and wild cherry, I give little heed 
 to that before me and recall forests worthy 
 of the name, doing precisely what I have 
 declared unwise. A naturalist could find 
 more material in these few acres of wood- 
 land than he could *'work up" in a lifetime. 
 I have underrated them. From the little 
 thicket of blackberry vines I see a rabbit 
 slowly loping, as if in search of food. It is 
 a full-grown fellow, and suggests the round 
 of the traps in late autumn and the woods in 
 winter. 
 
 I never knew a boy brought up in the 
 country who was not at one time an enthu- 
 siastic trapper. Just as mankind in the in- 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 45 
 
 fancy of the world were forced to pit their 
 energy and skill against the cunning of the 
 animals needed for food or of such that by 
 reason of their fierceness endangered human 
 life, so the country boy of to-day puts his 
 intelligence to work to circumvent the supe- 
 riority of such animal life as by fleetness of 
 foot or stroke of wing can avoid the pursuer. 
 It is a question largely of brain against ana- 
 tomical strufture. No Indian, even, ever 
 outran a deer, nor savage anywhere by mere 
 bodily exertion stopped the flight of a bird. 
 Men were all sportsmen, in a sense, when 
 sport, as we call it, was necessary to human 
 existence. As centuries rolled by, such 
 animals and birds as came in daily contafl 
 with man necessarily had their sleepy wits 
 aroused, and now it is a case of cunning 
 against cunning. We are all familiar with 
 such phrases as " wild as a hawk" and " shy 
 as a deer." In the morning of man's career 
 on earth there were no such words as " shy" 
 and " wild." They came into use, as words 
 are constantly coming into our language, be- 
 cause circumstances make them a necessity ; 
 and as men were trappers before they were 
 traders or tillers of the field, so the words 
 
46 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 are old, and while animal life lasts they will 
 be retained. 
 
 Nowadays we generally outgrow this love 
 of trapping, or it remains in the love of sport 
 with gun or rod. But, old Izaak Walton and 
 Frank Forrester to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing, I hold that nothing in fishing or shooting 
 has that freshness, that thrilling excitement, 
 that close touch with nature, that clings to 
 our early days, when, in autumn and winter, 
 we went the round of the traps. How 
 through the long night we had visions of the 
 rabbit cautiously approaching the box-trap 
 on the edge of the swamp ! How clearly we 
 saw in the corner of the weedy old worm- 
 fence the stupid opossum bungling along, and 
 awoke with a start as the clumsy creature 
 sprang the trap from the outside ! I pity the 
 boy who has not had such a distressing dream. 
 
 No boy ever turned out before sunrise with 
 a smiling countenance to milk or help in any 
 way with farm work ; but how different when 
 it was a matter of the traps he had set the 
 night before ! The anticipation of success is 
 an all-sufficient incentive, and neither bitter 
 cold nor driving storm deters him. Of a 
 winter dawn much might be said. No boy 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 47 
 
 ever was abroad so early that the squirrels 
 were not before him, and in the fading light 
 of the stars he will hear the crows cawing 
 and the blue-jays chattering in the woods. 
 To the naturalist, of course, such time of 
 day is full of suggestiveness ; but the general 
 belief that it is a proper time to sleep will 
 never be given up. Indeed, judging others 
 by myself, as the boy gets well on in his teens 
 there is a growing disposition to let the traps 
 go until broad daylight and even until after 
 breakfast. This is unfortunate in two ways : 
 there is a likelihood of seeing animal life in 
 the full flush of aftivity in the pre-sunlit hours 
 that is unknown as the day advances ; the 
 night-prowlers are all gone to their dens, and 
 the birds that roost in colonies have dispersed 
 for the day. One seldom overtakes a raccoon 
 or a weasel at or near noontide, and in the 
 woods where a thousand robins have roosted 
 there may now not be one. Then, again, 
 your visit to the traps may be anticipated 
 if you are too deliberate in starting on your 
 rounds. This is an experience that no boy 
 of spirit can calmly undergo, and no wonder. 
 The rude box-trap was not easy to make, con- 
 sidering the usual condition of tools upon a 
 
48 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 farm. The hunt for likely places whereat to 
 set it had been real labor. The long tramp 
 in the gloaming when tired out from a day 
 at school ; the early tramp, before sunrise 
 perhaps, for he must be on time at school that 
 morning, — all this is to be considered ; but 
 if success crowns the eiFort, all is well. On 
 the other hand, to find that some rascal has 
 been ahead of you and your labor has gone 
 
 for nothing I never knew a boy to be 
 
 a saint at such a time. 
 
 I can recall a well-marked rabbit-path I 
 once found, half a mile from home, and with 
 great secrecy carried one of my traps to the 
 place. It was on the next farm, and so I had 
 to be more than usually careful. Nothing 
 could be done in daylight for fear the boys 
 living on that farm would find me out, and 
 this sort of poaching was not tolerated. At 
 first I was successful, catching two fine rab- 
 bits, and then, alas ! was so elated that, boy- 
 like, I said too much. Some one must have 
 tracked me, for I caught no more, although it 
 was evident that the trap had been disturbed. 
 Straightway I suspected treachery, and pre- 
 pared for revenge. 
 
 Now, auntie had a fur tippet, or " boa,'* 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 49 
 
 as she called it, which was just six feet long. 
 The moths one summer had ruined it, and for 
 some time it had been lying around uncared 
 for and a plaything for the younger children. 
 This I appropriated, and fastened to one end 
 of it a rabbit's head, with the ears wired up 
 and with huge painted marbles bulging from 
 the sockets for eyes. It was a startling if not 
 life-like creature. 
 
 Armed with this, I started after dark to the 
 trap, and soon had all in readiness for my vic- 
 tim. I coiled the " boa" into the rear of the 
 box and placed the head near the opening of 
 the trap. The " figure-of-four" triggers were 
 laid outside in such a way as to suggest that 
 the trap had been sprung by an animal. Then 
 I went home. 
 
 The next morning I went to school with- 
 out visiting the spot, fearing I might meet 
 with the supposed offender. All day long I 
 wondered. No boy had any marvellous tale 
 to tell and no one looked at all guilty. There 
 soon came over me a feeling that perhaps I 
 had played a trick upon myself, and by sun- 
 down I was rather reluftant to determine if 
 anything had happened ; but go I did. The 
 trap had evidently been disturbed. The 
 
50 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 ** boa" with the rabbit's head was lying at full 
 length outside and the bushes were broken as 
 if a bull had rushed through them. But who 
 or what had been there ? 
 
 Two days of most distressing doubt passed, 
 and then came Saturday. I was ill at ease and 
 took no pleasure in my holiday ; but about 
 noon our neighbor came over, and I heard 
 him tell grandfather how, on Fifth-day, while 
 the family were at breakfast. Bill, the bound 
 boy, came rushing into the room and ex- 
 claimed, excitedly, ** Something from the 
 menagerie's broke loose and got in the rab- 
 bit-trap !" 
 
 I had had my revenge. 
 
 A wood, to be at its best, should be located 
 on the shore of a lake or river, or, perhaps 
 better still, a river should run through it. 
 Here are my impressions of such a wood, from 
 my note-book of 1892, under date of May i : 
 
 Nothing could have been more fitting than 
 to take a May-day outing at such a place. 
 The swift current of the Great Egg Harbor 
 River rolled resistlessly along, its waters black 
 as night, save where, over the pebbly shal- 
 lows, it gleamed like polished amber. The 
 wind that swayed the tall crowns of the tow- 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 51 
 
 ering pines made fitting music, according well 
 with the rippling laugh of the fretted river, 
 while heard above all were the joyous songs 
 of innumerable warblers. 
 
 We had placed our boat upon a wagon six 
 miles below our point of departure, and partly- 
 realized on our way what this pine region 
 really was. The cedar swamp, the oak 
 openings, the arbutus that gave color to the 
 narrow wagon-track, the absence of man's 
 interference, — all tended to give us the full 
 significance of that most suggestive word, wil- 
 derness. We needed but to catch a glimpse 
 of an Indian to see this part of creation pre- 
 cisely as it was in pre-Columbian days. I 
 sat for some time in the boat before taking up 
 the anchor. This was but the entrance, I 
 was told, to spots more beautiful, but it was 
 hard to believe. Here was a river hidden in 
 a forest, and what more could one wish ? 
 The warblers well knew that May-day had 
 come again, and every one of the mighty 
 host greeted the brilliant sunshine. There 
 seemed literally to be hundreds of them. 
 Flashing like gems were redstarts, light as 
 swallows upon the wing. Bright-spotted 
 warblers, and others sombre gray, laughed 
 
52 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 as they tarried on the trembling twigs ; then, 
 mounting into the sunlight, sang loudly as 
 they flew, or darted into gloomy nooks so 
 hidden that not even a sunbeam could follow 
 them. 
 
 The river with its attendant birds could 
 not claim all the merit ; the land was no less 
 beautiful. The oaks were not yet in leaf, 
 but there was no lack of green. The holly's 
 foliage was bright as May, the polished 
 leaves of the tea-berry shone as a midsummer 
 growth, the ink-berry had defied the winter's 
 storms, and the maples glowed as a great ruddy 
 flame. Really distinft as was every objeft, 
 yet, as a whole, the outlook was dreary, hazy, 
 half obscure, as we looked direftly into the 
 wood, where the drooping moss festooned 
 the branches of the smaller oaks. 
 
 No voyager ever set forth from so fair a 
 port. 
 
 My companion knew the route, and with 
 an oar he took his place astern to guide the 
 boat safely down the swift stream. It was 
 all right as it proved, but at times I forgot 
 that I had come to see the forest. Instead, 
 an element of doubt as to the guide's ability 
 came painfully to the front. With devilish 
 
Travels in a Tree-top ^^ 
 
 malignancy, as I thought, trees had prostrated 
 themselves and rested just beneath the water's 
 surface, or stood up, with outreached arms, 
 as if defying us. How we passed many a 
 crook and turn I cannot now remember. I 
 was too much occupied with desperately 
 clutching at anything within reach to notice 
 the ** when" or " how," but there still re- 
 mains the delicious sensation of suddenly 
 shooting into smooth water and feeling — 
 brave as a lion. 
 
 For several miles on either side of the 
 stream we had a typical mixed forest. The 
 willow-oak predominated at times, and the 
 delicate foliage, so unlike other oaks, was very 
 beautiful. The leaves appeared translucent in 
 the bright sunlight, fairly sparkled, and once 
 made a splendid background to scarlet tanagers 
 that flashed through them. In this long reach 
 of dense woods there were fewer birds than at 
 our starting-point, or perhaps they held back 
 as we passed. But other life was not want- 
 ing. From many a projedling stump there slid 
 many a turtle into the dark waters, and a mink 
 or musk-rat crossed our bow. Careful search 
 would no doubt have revealed numerous creat- 
 ures, for here was a safe retreat for all the 
 5* 
 
54 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 fauna of the State. The deer are not yet quite 
 gone, possibly a few bears remain. Certainly 
 the raccoon and otter must be abundant. I 
 was constantly on the lookout for minks, for 
 the river abounds in fish. This animal is 
 sometimes mistaken for a huge snake, as it 
 rises several inches above the vi^ater at times, 
 and has then a rather startling appearance. 
 An old fisherman on Chesapeake Bay told me 
 that he had seen a mink with a huge eel in its 
 mouth come to the surface, and then the 
 wriggling fish and long, lithe body of the 
 mink together looked like two serpents fight- 
 ing. I can readily imagine it. Birches, 
 liquidambars, and pines in clusters would 
 next command attention, and usually there 
 was a dense undergrowth. Holding the boat, 
 at times, we could hear the water rushing 
 through the roots of this tangled mass, and 
 found that what we had supposed was firm 
 land aiforded no certain footing, and a bluff 
 of firm earth was very welcome when we 
 thought of landing for a hasty lunch. This 
 firm earth did indeed support us, but in re- 
 ality it was the most unstable of shifting sands, 
 being held in place by reindeer-moss, par- 
 tridge-berry, and other pine-barren growths. 
 
Travels in a Tree-top ^^ 
 
 Nothing was in sight but the scrubby pines, 
 and we had to be very careful that our fire 
 did not get among the " needles" and dash 
 through the woods. I found here absolutely 
 no birds. They seem all to prefer the trafts 
 covered by deciduous trees ; but inseft-feeders 
 could have flourished here. The steam of 
 our dinner-pot brought more substantial forms 
 than mosquitoes, one house-fly being deter- 
 mined to share my Frankfurter and success- 
 fully defying all attempts at capture. 
 
 Again afloat, we soon came to the mouth 
 of an inflowing stream called Dead River, 
 said to be very deep. This point was per- 
 haps the wildest of all. The open water 
 here was very wide, and a forest of projecting 
 stumps of various heights showed plainly that 
 we were on the edge of an area of drowned 
 land. In the distance was an unbroken back- 
 ground of pines, which now looked black. At 
 wide intervals could be seen huge pines 
 that had escaped the charcoal-burner or lum- 
 berman. The stems and lower branches 
 were, of course, concealed, but in the hazy 
 atmosphere the tops were as floating islands 
 of darkest green, standing boldly out against 
 the pearly sky behind them. 
 
^6 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 Here, at the mouth of Dead River, we be- 
 held a pretty sight. A wood-duck with her 
 brood rushed over the water in a most lively 
 manner, flecking the black expanse with 
 patches of white foam. Such incidents add 
 much to such a journey. An empty forest 
 is as forbidding as an empty house. 
 
 In the coves there were changes from the 
 surrounding scenery that were not to be over- 
 looked. A rank growth of golden-club rest- 
 ing on the dark waters was very striking. 
 The pifture was such as we see on a Claude 
 Lorrain glass. Near by fresh sphagnum in 
 a shallow pool was bronze and green : a place 
 for frogs to squat unseen, but I could find none. 
 How often this happens ! At the very places 
 where we think animal life will be in abun- 
 dance we can find no trace of it. Then, look- 
 ing up, we see but trees. No break in the 
 line that hems us in. Trees old and young, 
 trees living and dead, great and small ; nothing 
 but trees. 
 
 The wind freshened as the day grew old, 
 and doubly troubled were the waters. There 
 was no rest for them now, even in sheltered 
 nooks, and it was only by sturdy strokes of 
 the oars that we made headway at all. There 
 
Travels in a Tree-top ^y 
 
 was no perceptible current to bear us along as 
 before. The waves dashing against the bare 
 trunks of trees long dead and now bent by the 
 wind added much to the wild scene. Novel 
 as it all was, I could not quite enjoy it. It 
 was something to be contemplated from the 
 shore, I thought. I know I was laughed at, 
 but the many " blind" stumps, or those just 
 beneath the surface, of which my companion 
 spoke so unconcernedly came too promi- ' 
 nently to mind when I least expefted them, 
 and added much significance to the faft that 
 I cannot swim. 
 
 As we neared home the scene abruptly 
 changed, and the river was lost in a wide ex- 
 panse that might be called a lake if the fad: 
 was not so evident that it is a mill-pond. 
 This, however, did not detraft from the 
 beauty of the surroundings, and before our 
 final landing we drew up to a bold bit of 
 shore and searched, while it was yet day, for 
 pyxie. There was an abundance of bloom- 
 ing andromeda, too, and arbutus, with club- 
 moss of richest green. I almost placed my 
 hand on a centipede that glowed like an em- 
 erald. It was resting on ruddy sphagnum, 
 and made a splendid pidlure. I could not 
 
58 Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 capture the creature. An attempt to do so 
 on my part was followed by its disappearance 
 with a suddenness that could be likened only 
 to the flashes of light that played upon its 
 back. Here I heard many frogs, but could 
 find none. The rattle and peep were not 
 like the voices of those in the meadows at 
 home, and I wondered about Cope's new 
 tiger-frog and the little green hyla that is so 
 rare here in Jersey. Possibly I heard them 
 both ; probably not. 
 
 We returned to prosy life when the boat 
 was lifted over the dam, and the incidents 
 were few and commonplace in the short drift 
 that carried us to an old wharf, a relic of the 
 last century. 
 
 What a difference between such a forest 
 and a few hundred oaks and ashes at home ! 
 and yet these are far better than treeless fields. 
 It is these few trees that hold many of our 
 migratory birds, and through them, in spring, 
 troop the north-bound warblers. In the 
 gloaming a small traft of woodland widens 
 out, and, seeing no open country beyond, 
 what does it matter, if we walk in a circle, 
 whether it be one acre or one thousand? 
 
Travels in a Tree-top 59 
 
 There is good philosophy in " Small favors 
 thankfully received." Here in this little wood 
 are beautiful white-footed mice, a shy, noc- 
 turnal jerboa, flying-squirrels, and, if I mis- 
 take not, a whole family of opossums. Here, 
 until autumn, are wood-robins that never 
 weary us by overmuch singing, and cat-birds, 
 chewinks, and the rose-breasted grosbeak. 1 
 do not complain, but as the summer passes I 
 regret that these birds have their appointed 
 time and will soon be gone. Why so soon ? 
 I often wonder, for their haunts do not lose 
 their loveliness for weeks after they have dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 No wall of green above, about, 
 
 They silently steal away ; 
 With but a carpet of withered leaves, 
 
 The minstrel will not stay. 
 
 But the spot is no "banquet-hall deserted," 
 for all that ; the departure of the summer 
 birds is but to make way for those who have 
 gladdened Canadian woods for many weeks. 
 The purple finch will soon be here, and tree- 
 sparrows in great companies, and the gentle 
 white-throat; and these, with our stately 
 cardinal for a leader, will hold forth melodi- 
 
6o Travels in a Tree-top 
 
 ously, though the north winds blow and the 
 angry east wind brings the snow upon its 
 wings. 
 
 In the smile of winter sunshine there will 
 be enafted another drama, but now it is 
 comedy rather than tragedy. There are no 
 conflifting interests now, no serious quarrels, 
 no carking cares — the world is really in good 
 humor and our days of early darkness are 
 misunderstood. 
 
 Let him who doubts — and there are but 
 few who do not — turn from the worn lines 
 of travel, go well out of the beaten path, 
 and find, in the way-side nooks his neighbors 
 have neglefted, most excellent company : 
 birds of brave heart that can sing in the teeth 
 of a storm ; and many a creature, wrapped in 
 his furry coat, laughs at the earnest efforts of 
 winter to keep him from his outings. 
 
 Did I dare sit in this same oak when the 
 leaves have fallen, I should have strange tales 
 to tell, — tales so strange that the summertide 
 would be commonplace in comparison. 
 
CHAPTER SECOND 
 
 A HUJ^T FOR rHE PTXIE 
 
 "^TO storm raged to defeat a long-cherished 
 ■^^ plan, and we must laugh at threaten- 
 ing clouds or miss many an outing. In 
 dreams the pyxie had been blooming for 
 weeks, and to prove that not all dreams go 
 by contraries, I started on a flower-hunt. 
 This is not always so tame and adventure- 
 less a matter as one might think. There are 
 wood-blooms that scorn even a trace of man's 
 interference, and the pyxie is one of them. 
 Nature alone can provide its wants, and only 
 where Nature holds undisputed sway can it 
 be found. To find this beautiful flower we 
 must plunge into the wilderness. 
 
 It was a long tramp, but never wanting a 
 purpose for every step taken. Each turn 
 in the path ofi*ered something new, and if 
 ever for a moment a trace of weariness was 
 felt, it was because even to our hungry eyes 
 6 6i 
 
62 A Hunt for the Pyxie 
 
 the wilderness was overfull. Bewildering 
 multitudes are more to be feared than possi- 
 ble dangers. There is no escape from the 
 former. Not a tree or bush, not a bird or 
 blossom, but to-day offered excellent reason 
 why with them we should spend our time ; 
 and how often they all spoke at once ! 
 
 Except the ceaseless rattle of small frogs, 
 there was no sound, for that sad sighing of the 
 tall pines seems but the rhythmic breathing 
 of silence ; or, passing from the wet grounds 
 to the higher, drier, and more barren tradls, 
 we heard only the crisp crackling of the 
 reindeer-moss we crushed at every step. 
 Although 
 
 "It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, 
 And that craves wary walking," 
 
 we gave no thought to possible danger, — for 
 rattlesnakes are still to be found. Not even 
 when we stooped to pick the bright berries 
 of winter-green did we think of a coiled ser- 
 pent buried in dead leaves ; and what oppor- 
 tunity for murder the serpent had as we 
 buried our faces in pillows of pink and pearly 
 arbutus ! 
 
 At last we reached South River (in South- 
 
A Hunt for the Pyxle 6^ 
 
 ern New Jersey), and just here was no place 
 to tarry, unless to court melancholy. It was 
 not required that my companion should enu- 
 merate the reasons why the one-time farm 
 along the river-bank had been abandoned. 
 A glance at the surrounding fields told the 
 whole story. There was, indeed, barren- 
 ness, — and very different, this, from what ob- 
 tains in localities near by to which the same 
 term is applied. In the so-called pine barrens 
 there is a luxuriant vegetation ; but here about 
 the deserted house and out-building there 
 was nothing but glistening sand, moss, and 
 those pallid grasses that suggest death rather 
 than life, however feeble. And how widely 
 different is it to be surrounded by ruin 
 wrought by man, and to be in a forest where 
 man has never been ! Could I not have 
 turned my back upon the scene and looked 
 out only upon the river, the day's pleasure 
 would have vanished. But we were soon 
 away, and a naturalist's paradise was spread 
 before us. What constitutes such a place ? 
 Not necessarily one where man has never 
 been : it will suffice if Nature has withstood 
 his interference ; and this is true of these 
 pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this 
 
64 A Hunt for the Pyxie 
 
 silent battle-field where the struggle for ex- 
 istence never ceases, and yet, as we see it, 
 peaceful as the fleecy clouds that fleck an 
 April sky. 
 
 Though the wind that swept the wide 
 reach of waters close at hand still smacked 
 of wintry weather, there was a welcome 
 warmth on shore. The oaks even hinted of 
 the coming leaf. Their buds were so far 
 swollen that the sharp outlines of bare twigs 
 against the sky were rounded off. The ruddy 
 stems of the blueberry bushes gave to the 
 river-bank a fire-like glow, and yet more 
 telling was the wealth of bright golden glow 
 where the tall Indian grass waved in all its 
 glory. The repellent desolation of mid- 
 winter, so common to our cold-soil upland 
 fields, was wholly wanting here ; for, while 
 nothing strongly suggested life as we think 
 of it, even in early spring, yet nothing re- 
 called death, the familiar feature of a mid- 
 winter landscape. 
 
 The scattered cedars were not gloomy to- 
 day. Their green-black foliage stood out in 
 bold relief, a fitting background to the pidlure 
 of Spring's promises. That the sea was not 
 far off is evident, for even here, a dozen miles 
 
A Hunt for the Pyxie 6^ 
 
 from the ocean, many of these trees were bent 
 and squatty at the top, as are all those that 
 face the fury of storms along the coast. 
 Every one harbored north-bound migrating 
 birds ; restless, warbling kinglets principally. 
 No other tree seemed to attradl these pretty 
 birds, many a flock passing by scores of oaks 
 to the next cedar in their line of march. 
 The clustered pines were not similarly fa- 
 vored, not a bird of any kind appearing about 
 them, and life of all kinds was wholly absent 
 in the long aisles between their stately trunks. 
 Our path led us through one great grove 
 where every tree grew straight and tall as a 
 ship's mast. The light that filled this wood 
 was strangely beautiful. Nothing stood out 
 distinftly. To have passed here in the gloam- 
 ing would have tried weak nerves. Even in 
 the glare of noonday my imagination was ab- 
 normally adive, every stunted shrub and 
 prostrate log assuming some startling shape. 
 Think of such a place after sunset ! Let an 
 owl whoop in your ears when hedged in by 
 thick-set trees ! Philosophize as one will in 
 daylight, it goes for little now, and the days 
 of Indians, cougars, and all ill-natured beasts 
 come trooping back. This distrust of dark- 
 e 6* 
 
66 A Hunt for the Pyxie 
 
 ness is not mere cowardice, and I would 
 accept no one's statement that he is wholly- 
 free of it. Every sound becomes unduly 
 significant when we are alone in a wilderness ; 
 often unpleasantly so, even during the day, 
 and 
 
 ♦• in the night, imagining some fear, 
 How easy is a bush supposed a bear !" 
 
 Out of the pines and into the oak woods : 
 the change was very abrupt, and as complete 
 as possible. Every feature of the surround- 
 ings was bathed in light now, and the emer- 
 gence from the pine forest's gloom restored 
 our spirits. We are ever craving variety, and 
 there was positive beauty in every stunted 
 oak's ugliness, and from them we needed but 
 to turn our heads to see thrifty magnolias 
 near the river-bank. These have no special 
 enemy, now that the beavers are gone, and 
 thrive in the black mud by the water's edge ; 
 better, by far, than the gum-trees near them, 
 for these were heavy laden with pallid mis- 
 tletoe, — to me a most repugnant growth. 
 
 We reached open country at last, and here 
 were birds without number. How quickly 
 all else fades at such a time ! The whole 
 
A Hunt for the Pyxie 67 
 
 valley trembled with the ringing whistle of 
 a thousand red-wings. A few swallows — the 
 first of their kind to return — darted over the 
 wide waters and rested on projefting branches 
 of trees that floods had stranded on the 
 islands. The sprightly kill-deers ran with 
 such dainty steps over the sand that I could 
 not find their footprints. They, too, were 
 pioneer birds, but none the less light-hearted 
 because alone. They sang with all their last 
 year's earnestness, scattering music among 
 the marshes where frogs were now holding 
 high carnival. They were very tame, at 
 least so far as we were concerned, but a little 
 in doubt as to what a stray hawk might be 
 about. But they left us only to make room 
 for others, and whether we looked riverward 
 or landward mattered not : it was birds, birds, 
 birds ! Here a hundred sparrows in an oak, 
 there a troop of snow-birds in the bushes, a 
 whistling titmouse sounding his piercing 
 notes, the plaintive bluebird floating over- 
 head, the laugh of the loon at the bend 
 of the river, and buzzards searching for 
 stranded herring where the seine had been 
 drawn. 
 
 A flock of herons, too, passed overhead. 
 
68 A Hunt for the Pyxie 
 
 and, had they not seen us, might have stopped 
 here on the river-shore. What an addition 
 to a landscape ! and yet now so seldom seen. 
 No birds can be more harmless than they, 
 yet not even the hawks are subjeft to greater 
 persecution. Not long since these birds 
 were abundant, and a " heronry" was one of 
 the " sights" of many a neighborhood ; but 
 people now scarcely know what a " heronry" 
 is. The very word suggests how rapidly our 
 large birds are disappearing, and their roost- 
 ing-places, where hundreds gathered and 
 nested, too, in season, are matters of '* ancient 
 history." In fear and trembling, the herons 
 that linger about our watercourses singly 
 seek secluded trees wherein to rest, and, I 
 fear, even then sleep with one eye open. A 
 fancy, on the part of women, for heron 
 plumes has wrought a deal of mischief. 
 
 But where is the pyxie ? We knew it 
 must be near at hand, but why make haste 
 to find it ? All else was so beautiful here, 
 why not wait even until another day ? The 
 river-bank was itself a study. At the top, 
 sand of snowy whiteness ; then a ribbon of 
 clay over which water trickled carrying iron 
 in solution, that was slowly cementing a sand 
 
A Hunt for the Pyxie 69 
 
 stratum beneath, where every degree of den- 
 sity could be found, from solid rock to a 
 paste-like mass that we took pleasure in 
 moulding into fantastic shapes, thereby re- 
 newing our dirt-pie days. 
 
 A little later in the year, this bluff, now 
 streaked and spotted, will be green with the 
 broad-leaved sundews, curious carnivorous 
 plants that here take the place of grasses. 
 There is a filiform sundew that grows near 
 by, where the ground is high, if not dry ; but 
 it, too, waits for warmer days. Not so the 
 pyxie. Almost at first glance, as we left the 
 bluff, we saw it, sparkling white, nestled 
 among the gray mats of reindeer-moss, or 
 fringed by shining winter-green still laden 
 with its crimson fruit. 
 
 Here the earth was strangely carpeted. 
 Sphagnum, beautiful by reason of rich color, 
 gray-green moss, and the object of our long 
 tramp, — pyxie. No botany does it justice, 
 passing it by with the mere mention of its 
 barbarous name, Pyxidanthera barbulata. It 
 might be thought the meanest of all weeds, 
 but is, in truth, the chiefest glory of this 
 wonderful region. 
 
 Is it strange we regretted that Time would 
 
70 A Hunt for the Pyxie 
 
 not slacken his pace ? I know not where 
 else, in these northern regions, so much is to 
 be seen, and so soon. Spring, elsewhere, is 
 the round year's strangest child, often too 
 forward, and too often backward ; but her 
 accomplishments here and now are beyond 
 criticism. Such perfeft work, and yet she 
 is not out of her teens. The day was 
 April I. 
 
CHAPTER THIRD 
 
 'THE COMIJ^G OF THE BIRDS 
 
 'TpHE moon in April is an important fac- 
 ■■• tor in the progress of that event — the 
 coming of the birds — which makes every 
 spring memorable. While not disposed to 
 wait upon it too long, still, there is little doubt 
 but that the birds that have been wintering 
 afar south travel very largely by its light, and 
 when it happens that the moon fulls between 
 the middle and the twenty-fifth of the month, 
 the flights of thrushes, orioles, wrens, and 
 other migrants reach us a week earlier than 
 when the nights are dark during the same 
 period. Temperature, storms, and general 
 backwardness of the season do not seem to 
 have a like importance in bird eccnomy. 
 
 Of course, by the coming of the birds I 
 do not refer to the pioneers that are in ad- 
 vance of every company. Indeed, I have 
 seldom announced the first of the season, but 
 
 71 
 
72 The Coming of the Birds 
 
 I have been met by the man who was at least 
 one day ahead of me ; so firstlings are not 
 favorites. 
 
 There is every year the one memorable 
 morning when we can say, in broad terms, 
 " The birds are here." When the oriole 
 whistles from the tallest tree in the lawn ; 
 when the wren chatters from the portal of 
 his old-time home; when the indigo-finch 
 sings in the weedy pasture ; when lisping 
 warblers throng every tree and shrub ; while 
 over all, high in air, the twittering swallows 
 dart in ecstasy ; and at last, the day-long con- 
 cert over, whippoorwills in the woods pipe 
 their monotonous refrain. The Indians were 
 right : when there came such days as this, 
 they had no further fear of frost, and we need 
 have but little. Our climate certainly has 
 changed slightly since their time, but we have 
 in such a bird-full day an assurance that the 
 clinging finger-tips of Winter have at last re- 
 laxed and his hold upon our fields and forests 
 is lost. 
 
 A word again of the advance guard. The 
 brown thrush came on the seventeenth of the 
 month (April, 1892), when there were no 
 leafy thickets and the maples only were in 
 
The Coming of the Birds "ji, 
 
 bloom. What a glorious herald he proved ! 
 and so he always proves. Before the sun was 
 up I heard him in my dreams, and later the 
 fancy proved a fa£l. Perched at the very top 
 of an old walnut-tree, where the wintry world 
 was spread before him, he sang that song 
 peculiarly his own. 
 
 No hint of blushing roses on the hill, 
 The buds are sleeping yet upon the plain, 
 
 The blight of dreary winter clingeth still, 
 The forest weeps where falls the chilly rain. 
 
 Scarce hopeful leaf-buds shrink — death's solemn hush 
 Rests on the field, the meadow brook along. 
 
 Till breaks the day, O happy day ! the thrush 
 Foretells the coming summer in a song. 
 
 Two days later it was almost summer, and 
 tripping along the river's pebbly beach were 
 spotted sand-pipers. They were ahead of 
 time this year, I thought, but none the less 
 happy because the trees were bare and the 
 water cold; but, stranger still, in the sheltered 
 coves of the mill-pond, that now reflefted 
 the gold of the spice-wood and the crimson 
 of the overhanging maples, there were war- 
 blers, merry as in midsummer, and a pair, at 
 least, of small thrushes. A bittern, too, stood 
 
 D 7 
 
74 The Coming of the Birds 
 
 in the weedy marsh. There they had 
 gathered on that sunny, summery day, as if 
 warm weather was an established faft; but 
 how different the next morning, when a cold 
 north-east storm prevailed ! How well it 
 showed that one such sunny day does not 
 make a season ! How clearly it proved that 
 birds have no prophetic insight ! They were 
 caught and suffered and disappeared. Did 
 they fly above the clouds and go to some 
 distant point, free of chilling rain, or did 
 they hide in the cedar swamps ? This prob- 
 lem I did not essay to solve. In the few 
 cedars along the river-shore I found nothing 
 but winter residents, but I made no careful 
 search. A few days later and spring-like 
 conditions again prevailed and every day some 
 new bird was seen, but not until May i 
 could we say, *' The birds have come." 
 
 These uncertain April days are not dis- 
 appointing. We are not warranted in ex- 
 pefting much of them, and whatsoever we 
 do meet with is just so much more than we 
 had reason to look for, — an added bit of good 
 luck that increases our love for the year's 
 fourth month ; but if no migrant came, there 
 is little likelihood that the pastures and river- 
 
The Coming of the Birds 75 
 
 shore would be silent. There never was an 
 April that had not its full complement of 
 robins and blithe meadow-larks, of glori- 
 ous crested tits and gay cardinals, of restless 
 red-wings and stately grakles, and these are 
 quite equal to driving dull care away, and 
 keeping it away, if the migrants did not 
 come at all. Even in March, and early in 
 the month, we often have a foretaste of abun- 
 dant bird-life ; an intimation of what a few 
 weeks will bring us. A bright March morn- 
 ing in 1 893 was an instance of this. I walked 
 for miles along the river-bank with a learned 
 German who was enthusiastic about every- 
 thing but what interested me. This may 
 not seem to be a promising outlook, but we 
 undertook to convert each other. I was to 
 give up my frivolity, he determined. My 
 effort was to get his dry-as-dust whimsies out 
 of him. The great ice-gorge of the past 
 winter was now a torrent of muddy waters 
 and huge cakes of crystal that rushed and 
 roared not only through the river's channel, 
 but over half the meadow-land that bordered 
 it. It was, I admit, an excellent opportunity 
 to study the effedls of such occurrences, for 
 to them is due the shaping of the valley. 
 
76 The Coming of the Birds 
 
 and gravel transportation, and all that; but 
 then there was the effeft of light and shade 
 upon the wonderful scene, and beauty like 
 this crowded out my taste for geology. The 
 sky was darkly blue, flecked with great 
 masses of snow white-cloud that drifted 
 between the sun and earth, casting shadows 
 that blackened the ice and brought winter 
 back again ; but a moment later a flood of 
 sunshine as promptly changed all, and the 
 bluebirds hinted of spring. Then, too, the 
 gulls and crows screamed above the roar and 
 crunching of the ice as it struck the scattered 
 trees, while in every sheltered nook was a 
 full complement of song-sparrows. Why any 
 one should bother about geology at such a 
 time I could not see ; but my companion 
 was intent upon problems of the ice age, and 
 continually remarked, *' Now, if" or " Don't 
 you see ?" but I always cut him short with 
 " See that crow ?" or " Hear that sparrow ?" 
 No, he had not seen or heard the birds, and 
 neither had I his particular impressions. 
 At last the sunshine broke upon him, and 
 he laughed aloud when he saw the crows 
 trying to steal a ride on ice-rafts that con- 
 tinually upset. I was hopeful now, and he 
 
The Coming of the Birds 77 
 
 soon heard the birds that sang, and whistled 
 after a long line of kill-deer plover that hur- 
 ried by, every one calling to his fellow^s. It 
 was something to know that the coming of 
 the birds can rouse a German out of his 
 everlasting problems. He had more to say 
 of the springtide so near at hand than had I, 
 and, nosing over the ground, found nine 
 vigorous plants in aftive growth, and spoke 
 so learnedly of Cyperus, Galium, Allium, and 
 Saponaria that I as glibly thought, in jealous 
 mood, *' Confound him !" for now he was 
 taking possession of my province and show- 
 ing me my littleness ; but then I had dragged 
 him out of his problems. 
 
 The truth is, I was in something like 
 despair when we started out, for I feared a 
 ledlure on physical geography, and, indeed, 
 did not quite escape ; but the bitter was well 
 mixed with the sweet, and he in time listened 
 with all my ardor to the birds that braved the 
 boisterous wind and were not afraid of a river 
 wilder than they had ever seen before. The 
 day proved to be of more significance than as 
 regards mere glacial geology. It was a fore- 
 taste of what was coming in April. I drew 
 a glowing pifture of what our April meant, 
 7* 
 
78 The Coming of the Birds 
 
 and piftured a peaceful river and violets 
 and meadow blossoms as bright as they w^ere 
 fragrant. My learned friend smiled, then 
 grew enthusiastic ; must come again to see 
 the birds as they arrived, and — must I say 
 it ? — spoke of beer. Alas ! it was Sunday. 
 
 There are two reasons why April birds are 
 particularly attraftive. One is, there are 
 fewer of them, and again, there is pradlically 
 no foliage to conceal them. Better one bird 
 in full view than a dozen half hidden. Their 
 songs, too, have a flavor of novelty, and ring 
 so assuringly through the leafless woods. The 
 ear forever bends graciously to promises, even 
 though we know they will be broken ; but 
 birds, unlike men, are not given to lying. 
 When they promise May flowers and green 
 leaves they mean it, and, so far as history re- 
 cords, there has never been a May without 
 them, not even the cold May of 1 816, when 
 there was ice and snow. But aside from their 
 singing, April birds offer the opportunity of 
 studying their manners, which is better to 
 know than the number of their tail-feathers 
 or the color of their eggs. The brown 
 thrush that sings so glibly from the bare 
 branch of a lonely tree shows now, by his 
 
The Coming of the Birds 79 
 
 way of holding himself and pointing his tail, 
 that he is closely akin to the little wrens and 
 their big cousin, the Carolina mocker, so 
 called, which does not mock at all. Of all 
 our April birds, I believe I love best the 
 chewink, or swamp-robin. To be sure, he 
 is no more a feature of April than of June, and 
 many are here all winter ; but when he scat- 
 ters the dead leaves and whistles his bi-sy liable 
 refrain with a vim that rouses an echo, or 
 mounts a bush and sings his few notes of real 
 music, we forget that summer is only on the 
 way, but not yet here. Of all our birds, I 
 always fancied this one was most set in his 
 singing, as he surely is in his ways ; but 
 Cheney tells us that " this bird, like many 
 others, can extemporize finely when the spirit 
 moves him. For several successive days one 
 season a chewink gave me very interesting 
 exhibitions of the kind. He fairly revelled 
 in the new song, repeating it times without 
 number. Whether he stole it from the first 
 strain of * Rock of Ages' or it was stolen from 
 him or some of his family, is a question yet 
 to be decided." Now, the chewink is a bird 
 of charafter, and, above all things, dislikes 
 interference, and he sings " for his own 
 
8o The Coming of the Birds 
 
 pleasure, for he frequently lets himself out 
 lustily when he knows he is all alone," as 
 Dr. Placzeck has said of birds in general. I 
 shall never forget a little incident I once wit- 
 nessed, in which a chewink and a cardinal 
 grosbeak figured. They reached the same 
 bush at the same moment, and both started 
 their songs. The loud whistle of the red- 
 bird quite smothered the notes of the che- 
 wink, which stopped suddenly before it was 
 through and, with a squeak of impatience, 
 made a dash at the intruder and nearly knocked 
 him off his perch. Such haps and mishaps 
 as these — and they are continually occurring 
 — can only be seen in April or earlier, when 
 we can see through the woods, and not merely 
 the outer branches of the trees when in leaf. 
 In April we can deteft, too, the earliest 
 flowers, and they fit well with the songs of 
 the forerunning birds. There is more, I 
 think, for all of us in an April violet than in 
 a June rose ; in a sheltered bit of turf with 
 sprouting grass than in the wide pastures a 
 month later. We do not hurry in-doors at 
 the sudden coming of an April shower. 
 The rain-drops that cling to the opening 
 leaf-buds are too near real gems not to be 
 
The Coming of the Birds 8i 
 
 fancied a veritable gift to us, and we toy 
 with the baubles for the brief moment that 
 they are ours. The sunshine that follows 
 such a shower has greater magic in its touch 
 than it possesses later in the year; the buds of 
 the morning now are blossoms in the after- 
 noon, so quickening is the warmth of the first 
 few days of spring. The stain of winter is 
 washed away by an April shower, and the 
 freshest green of the pasture is ever that 
 which is newest. There is at times a subtle 
 element in the atmosphere that the chemist 
 calls *' ozone," but a better name is " snap." 
 It dwells in April sunshine and is the invet- 
 erate foe of inertia. It moves us, whether we 
 will or not, and we are now in a hurry even 
 when there is no need of haste. The 
 *' spring fever" that we hear of as a malady 
 in town never counts as its victim the lover 
 of an April outing. The beauty of novelty 
 is greater than the beauty of abundance. Our 
 recolleftion of a whole summer is but dim at 
 best, but who forgets the beginnings whereof ? 
 We passed by unheeding many a sweet song 
 before the season was over, but can recall, 
 I venture to say, our first glimpse of the 
 returning spring. Though the sky may be 
 / 
 
82 The Coming of the Birds 
 
 gray, the earth brown, and the wind out of 
 the north, let a thrush sing, a Icinglet lisp, 
 a crested tit whistle, and a tree-sparrow chirp 
 among the swelling leaf-buds, and you have 
 seen and heard that which is not only a de- 
 light in itself, but the more pleasing that it 
 is the prelude announcing the general coming 
 of the birds. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTH 
 
 "tHE BUILDUP G OF rHE 
 
 jsfEsr 
 
 'X^HERE are probably very few children 
 ■*■ who are not more or less familiar 
 with birds* nests, for they are not by any 
 means confined to the country, but are to be 
 found in the shade trees of every village 
 street, to say nothing of the old-time lilac 
 hedges, gooseberry bushes, and homely shrub- 
 bery of fifty years ago. Even in our large 
 cities there are some few birds brave enough 
 to make their homes in or very near the 
 busiest thoroughfares. As an instance, it 
 was not so long ago that a yellow-breasted 
 chat — a shy bird — nested in the yard of the 
 Pennsylvania Hospital, at the corner of Eighth 
 and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, and soon 
 learned to mimic many a familiar street sound. 
 Such instances as these were more common 
 
 83 
 
84 The Building of the Nest 
 
 before the unfortunate blunder of introducing 
 the English sparrow. But it is in the country 
 only that we find boys really posted in the 
 matter of nests, and I wish I could add that 
 they always adopt the rules of ** hands 
 off" when these nests come under their 
 notice. It means far more mischief than 
 most people think to disturb a nest, and so 
 let every boy decide that he will not be 
 guilty of such wanton cruelty. This, how- 
 ever, does not shut off every boy and girl in 
 the land from studying these nests, and a 
 more delightful subjeft can never come under 
 youthful investigation. 
 
 What is a bird's nest ? Every one knows, 
 after a fashion, and yet few have ever con- 
 sidered how much that bunch of twigs, hol- 
 low in a tree, or hole in the ground really 
 means. Like so much that is familiar, we 
 glance at it in a careless way and never stop 
 to consider its full significance. Except in a 
 very few instances, a bird's nest is never the 
 result of a single individual's labor. Even 
 if but one bird does all the work, there has 
 previously been a decision reached by two 
 birds as to where the nest shall be placed, and 
 how much this means ! At once we are 
 
The Building of the Nest 85 
 
 brought to consider that an interchange of 
 thought has taken place. The pair have 
 discussed, literally, the merits and drawbacks 
 of the situation, and have had in mind not 
 only their ovs^n safety, but that of their off- 
 spring. The faft that they make mistakes 
 at times proves this. Were this not the 
 case, or if nests were placed hap-hazard in 
 any tree or bush or anywhere on the ground, 
 bird enemies would have a happy time for a 
 short season, and then birds, like many of the 
 world's huge beasts, would become extindl. 
 On the contrary, birds have long since 
 learned to be very careful, and their ingenu- 
 ity in this apparently simple matter of choos- 
 ing a nest site is really astonishing. This, 
 too, has resulted in quickening their wits in 
 all direftions, and the bird that is really a 
 booby is scarcely to be found. 
 
 Birds suiFer at times from their misjudg- 
 ment or over-confidence, and this, it must be 
 added, reflefts upon us. The instances are 
 numberless where birds have quickly iearned 
 that certain people love them, and they lose 
 all fear. Again, naturally very timid birds 
 soon learn when they are free from persecu- 
 tion. The writer frequently passes in the 
 
86 The Building of the Nest 
 
 cars by a zoological garden on the bank of 
 a river, and has been impressed with the 
 abundant illustration of birds' intelligence to 
 be noticed there. The crows have learned 
 that fire-arms are not allowed to be used any- 
 where near, and so they fearlessly hop about 
 not only the enclosure of the garden, but the 
 many tracks of the railroad just outside, 
 showmg no timidity even when the locomo- 
 tives rush by. Stranger still, wild ducks 
 gather in the river almost directly under the 
 railroad bridge, and do not always dive out 
 of sight as the trains pass by, and I have 
 never seen them take wing, even when the 
 whistle blew the quick, short, penetrating 
 danger signal. 
 
 To come back to their nests : birds have 
 other enemies than man to guard against, and 
 so are never in a hurry in the matter of deter- 
 mining where to build. Time and again a loca- 
 tion has been discovered to be unsuitable after 
 a nest has been commenced, and the strufture 
 abandoned. I have observed thii many times. 
 Indeed, my own curiosity has led the birds 
 to move, they not quite approving my con- 
 stant watching of what was going on. I well 
 remember seating myself once in a shady 
 
The Building of the Nest 87 
 
 nook to eat my lunch, and being almost 
 attacked by a pair of black-and-white tree- 
 creeping warblers. Their aftions were plainly 
 a protest against my staying where I was, 
 and on looking about, I found that I had 
 almost sat upon their nest, which was then 
 just completed, but contained no eggs. I 
 visited the spot the next day and found a 
 single egg ; but my coming was a mistake, 
 for the birds now believed I had sinister de- 
 signs, and abandoned their new-made home. 
 The method of building, of course, varies 
 as much as the patterns of nests. Even 
 when the same materials are used, they are 
 differently treated, and a nest of sticks only 
 may in one case be merely thrown together, 
 as it were, while in another they are so care- 
 fully interlaced that the strufture is a basket, 
 and holds together if held by the rim only. 
 Another, the same in general appearance, 
 would immediately fall to pieces if similarly 
 treated. A reason for this is discoverable in 
 some cases, but not in all. If we ej:amine a 
 great many nests, the rule will hold good, I 
 think, that where they are very loosely put to- 
 gether, the locality is such that no natural dis- 
 turbing causes, as high winds, are likely to 
 
88 The Building of the Nest 
 
 bring disaster. Until I studied this point the 
 occurrence of exceedingly frail nests was ever a 
 matter of surprise, for it is to be remembered 
 that the same species, as a cat-bird or cardinal 
 red-bird, does not build after a uniform 
 fashion, but adapts its work to the spot 
 chosen for the nest. It would be very haz- 
 ardous to say that a nest was built by this or 
 that bird, unless the builder was seen in 
 possession. 
 
 So difficult is it to watch a pair of birds 
 while building, that the method of their work- 
 ing is largely to be guessed at from the work 
 itself, but by means of a field-glass a good 
 deal can be learned. It would appear as if 
 a great many twigs were brought for the 
 foundation of a nest, such as a cat-bird's or 
 song-sparrow's, that were unsuitable. I have 
 occasionally seen a twig tossed aside with a 
 flirt of the head very suggestive of disap- 
 pointment. The builders do not always 
 carry with them a distinft idea of what they 
 want when hunting for material, and so labor 
 more than would be necessary if a little wiser. 
 Very funny disputes, too, often arise, and these 
 are most frequent when wrens are finishing 
 their huge struftures in a box or some corner 
 
The Building of the Nest 89 
 
 of an out-building. A feather, or a bit of 
 thread, or a small rag will be carried in by- 
 one bird and tossed out by the other with a 
 deal of scolding and " loud words" that is 
 positively startling. But when the frame- 
 work of any ordinary open or cup-shaped 
 nest is finally completed, the lining is not so 
 difficult a matter. Soft or yielding materials 
 are used that to a greater or less extent have 
 a " felting property," and by the bird's weight 
 alone assume the shape desired. This is 
 facilitated by the bird in two ways : the 
 builder sits down, as if the eggs were already 
 laid, and with its beak pushes the loose ma- 
 terial between it and the framework, and 
 tucks odd bits into any too open crevices. 
 While doing this, it slowly moves around 
 until it has described a complete circle. This 
 brings to light any defedls in the outer struc- 
 ture, and the bird can often be seen tugging 
 away at some projefting end, or its mate, out- 
 side of the nest, rearranging a twig here and 
 there, while the other bird — shall I say ? — 
 is giving direftions. 
 
 Surprise has often been expressed that the 
 common chipping sparrow can so neatly 
 curl a long horse-hair into the lining of its 
 
90 The Building of the Nest 
 
 little nest. It cannot be explained, perhaps, 
 but we have at least a clue to it. One end of 
 the hair is snugly tucked in among stouter 
 materials, and then, — I ask the question only, 
 — as the bird coils it about the sides of the 
 nest with its beak, does it break or dent it, or 
 is there some chemical eiFect produced by 
 the bird's saliva ? The hairs do not appear 
 to be merely dry-curled, for in that case 
 they would unroll when taken from the nest, 
 and such as I have tried, when just placed in 
 position, retained the coiled condition when 
 removed. But old hair, curled by long ex- 
 posure to the air and moisture, is often used, 
 and this is far more tradable. When we 
 come to examine woven nests, such as the 
 Baltimore oriole and the red-eyed vireo, as 
 well as some other small birds, build, there is 
 offered a great deal more to study, for how 
 they accomplish what they do, with their 
 only tools their feet and beak, is not wholly 
 known. That the tropical tailor-bird should 
 run a thread through a leaf and so bring the 
 edges together and make a conical-shaped bag, 
 is not so very strange. It is little more than 
 the piercing of the leaf and then putting the 
 thread through the hole. This is ingenious 
 
The Building of the Nest 91 
 
 but not wonderful, because not difficult ; but 
 let us consider a Baltimore oriole and his 
 nest. The latter is often suspended from a 
 very slender elm or willow twig, and the bird 
 has a hard time to hold on while at work. 
 One experienced old oriole has for years built 
 in the elm near my door, and occasionally I 
 have caught a glimpse of him. I will not be 
 positive, but believe that his first move is to 
 find a good stout string, and this he ties to the 
 twig. I use the word " tie" because I have 
 found in many cases a capitally-tied knot, but 
 how the bird, or birds, could accomplish 
 this I cannot imagine. Both feet and beak, 
 I suppose, are brought into play, but how ? 
 To get some insight into the matter, I once 
 tied a very long string to the end of a thread 
 that the oriole had secured at one end and 
 left dangling. This interference caused some 
 commotion, but the bird was not outwitted. 
 It caught the long string by its loose end and 
 wrapped it over and over various twigs, and 
 soon had a curious open-work bag that served 
 its purpose admirably. The lining of soft, 
 fluffy stuifs was soon added. This brought up 
 the question as to whether the bird ever ties 
 short pieces together and so makes a more 
 
92 The Building of the Nest 
 
 secure cable that gives strength to the fin- 
 ished nest. In examining nests, I have seen 
 such knots as might have been tied by the 
 birds, but there was no way to prove it. 
 That they do wrap a string several times 
 about a twig and then tie it, just as a boy ties 
 his fishing-line to a pole, is certain. With 
 my field-glass I have followed the bird far 
 enough to be sure of this. When at work, 
 the bird, from necessity, is in a reversed po- 
 sition, — that is, tail up and head down. This 
 has an obvious advantage, in that the builder 
 can see what is going on beneath him, and 
 shows, too, how near the ground the nest will 
 come when finished ; but it sometimes hap- 
 pens that he gets so absorbed in his work 
 that a person can approach quite near, but I 
 never knew him to become entangled in the 
 loose ends that hang about him. 
 
 The oriole at times offers us a wonder- 
 ful example of ingenuity. It occasionally 
 happens that too slight a twig is selefted, 
 and when the nest is finished, or, later, when 
 the young are nearly grown, the structure 
 hangs down too low for safety or sways too 
 violently when the parent birds alight on it. 
 This is a difficulty the bird has to contend with. 
 
The Building of the Nest 93 
 
 and he has been known to remedy it by attach- 
 ing a cord to the sustaining twigs and tying 
 them to a higher limb of the tree, thus 
 securing the necessary stability. 
 
 A more familiar evidence of the intelligence 
 of birds is when the vireos are disturbed by 
 the presence of a cow-bird's egg in their 
 nest. To get rid of it, they often build a 
 new floor to the nest, and so leave the offend- 
 ing egg to spoil. But there is displayed here 
 an error of judgment that I am surprised to 
 find. The birds that take this trouble cer- 
 tainly could throw the egg out, and, I should 
 think, preserve their own eggs, which in- 
 variably are left to decay when a new strudl- 
 ure is reared above the old. I believe even 
 three-storied vireos' nests have been found. 
 
 There is one common swallow that is 
 found well-nigh everywhere, which burrows 
 into the sand ; and when we think of it, it 
 seems strange that so aerial a bird should 
 build so gloomy an abode for the nesting 
 season. This bank swallow, as it is called, 
 selefts a suitable bluff, facing water, and, 
 with closed beak, turns round and round 
 with its head to the ground, thus boring 
 a hole big enough to crawl into. It turns 
 
94 The Building of the Nest 
 
 into a gimlet for the time, and uses its beak 
 as the point of the tool. This is odd work 
 for a bird that almost lives in the air ; and 
 then think, too, of sitting in a dark cave, 
 sometimes six feet long, until the eggs are 
 hatched. On the other hand, the barn swal- 
 low makes a nest where there is plenty of 
 light and air, and is a mason rather than a 
 carpenter or miner. The mud he uses is 
 not mere earth and water, but is made more 
 adherent by a trace of secretion from the 
 bird's mouth ; at least, my experiments lead 
 me to think so. To build such a nest would 
 be slow work did not the two birds work 
 together and carry their little loads of mortar 
 with great rapidity. They waste no time, 
 and use only good materials, for I have 
 noticed them, when building, go to a quite 
 distant spot for the mud when a pool was 
 direftly outside of the barn in which they 
 were building. To all appearance the nest 
 is of sun-dried mud, but the material has cer- 
 tainly undergone a kind of puddling first that 
 makes it more adherent, bit to bit, and the 
 whole to the rafter or side of the building. 
 Again, these swallows have the knack of 
 carrying a little water on the feathers of 
 
The Building of the Nest 95 
 
 their breasts, I think, and give the structure 
 a shower-like wetting from time to time. 
 At last the strufture " sets" and is praftically 
 permanent. 
 
 There are birds that build no nests, like 
 the kill-deer plover and the woodcock, and 
 yet they exercise a faculty of equal value in- 
 telleftually ; for to be able to locate a spot 
 that will be in the least degree exposed to 
 danger is a power of no mean grade. The 
 kill-deer will place its eggs on sloping ground, 
 but somehow the heaviest dashes of rain do 
 not wash out that particular spot. There 
 are sand-pipers that lay their eggs on a bit 
 of dead grass, just out of reach of the highest 
 tides. As we look at such nests, we con- 
 clude that the birds trust a great deal to good 
 luck ; but, as a matter of faft, the destrudlion 
 of eggs when in no nests, or next to none, is 
 very small. Why, on the other hand, wood 
 peckers should go to such an infinity of trouble 
 to whittle a nest in the firm tissue of a living 
 tree, when a natural hollow would serve as 
 well, is a problem past finding out. I have 
 even seen a woodpecker make a new nest in 
 a tree which already contained one in every 
 respeft as good. 
 
g6 The Building of the Nest 
 
 Going back to the fields and thickets, it 
 will be seen that birds, as a rule, desire that 
 their nests should be inconspicuous, and their 
 efforts are always largely in this direftion in 
 the construftion. The foliage of the tree or 
 bush is considered, and when not direftly 
 concealed by this, the nest is made to look 
 marvellously like a natural produftion of the 
 vegetable world, as the beautiful nest of our 
 wood pee-wee or the humming-bird shows. 
 These nests are then not merely the homes 
 of young birds, but are places of defence 
 against a host of enemies. The parent birds 
 have no simple task set before them that can 
 be gone through with mechanically year after 
 year. Every season new problems arise, if 
 their favorite haunts suffer change, and every 
 year the birds prove equal to their solution. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTH 
 
 C0RJ7-SrJLK FIDDLES 
 
 TT is a merit of our climate that at no time 
 ■*• of the year are we, as children, shut out 
 from healthy out-door pleasure. There are 
 shady nooks along our creeks and rivers and 
 delightful old mill-ponds wherein we may 
 bathe in midsummer, and there are acres of 
 glassy ice over which to skate in midwinter. 
 Spring and autumn are too full of fun to par- 
 ticularize, the average day being available for 
 scores of methods whereby to make life a 
 treasure beyond compare, spending it, to the 
 mind of a boy, in that most rational way, 
 having sport. I do not know why we always 
 played marbles at one time of the year and 
 flew our kites at another : this is for the 
 folk-lore clubs to fathom. Suffice it, that 
 there has been for centuries a time for every 
 out-door amusement as fixed as the phases of 
 the moon. So much for the sport common 
 z g 9 97 
 
98 Corn-stalk Fiddles 
 
 to all boys. And now a word concerning an 
 old-time musical instrument that may be now 
 quite out of date, — the corn-stalk fiddle. 
 
 This very primitive musical instrument is 
 associated with the dreamy Indian-summer 
 days of late November. Then it discoursed 
 delicious music, but at other times it would 
 have been " out of tune and harsh." Did the 
 Indians give the secret to the children of our 
 colonial forefathers ? It would be a pleasing 
 thought whenever the toy comes to mind, as 
 the mere suggestion is a pleasant fancy. 
 
 The husking over, the corn-stalks carted 
 and stored in a huge rick by the barn-yard, 
 the apples gathered, the winter wood cut, and 
 then the long quiet, with almost nothing to do. 
 Such was the routine when I was a boy, and 
 if the uncertain, dreamy days would only 
 come, there was sure to be a short round of 
 pleasure wherein the fiddle figured more 
 prominently than all else. 
 
 It was no small part of the fun to see Billy 
 make a fiddle ; it was such a curious combi- 
 nation of mummery and skill. Having whet- 
 ted his keen, old-fashioned Barlow knife on 
 the toe of his boot, he would flourish it above 
 his head with a whoop as though he was 
 
Corn-stalk Fiddles 99 
 
 looking for an enemy instead of a corn-stalk. 
 Finding one that was glossy and long enough 
 between the joints, he would press it gently 
 between his lips, trying the several seftions, 
 and then selefting the longest and most glossy 
 one. So much of the proceeding was for our 
 benefit, as the cunning old fellow well knew 
 that it added to his importance in our eyes. 
 
 What followed was skill. Having cut off" 
 the stalk above and below the ring-like joints, 
 he had now a convenient piece about eight or 
 ten inches in length. This he warmed by 
 rubbing it violently with the palm of his 
 hand, and then placing the point of the knife 
 as near the joint as prafticable, he drew it 
 quickly down to the next joint or lower end. 
 It must be a straight incision, and Billy sel- 
 dom failed to make it so. A parallel one 
 was then made, not more than one-sixteenth 
 of an inch distant. A space of twice this 
 width was left, and two or three more strings 
 were made in the same manner. These were 
 freed of the pith adhering to their under sides, 
 and held up by little wooden " bridges," one 
 at each end. The bow was similarly fash- 
 ioned, but was made of a more slender sedlion 
 of corn-stalk and had but two strings. 
 
loo Corn-stalk Fiddles 
 
 It was indeed surprising how available this 
 crude produftion proved as a musical instru- 
 ment. Youth and the environment counted 
 for a great deal, of course, and my Quaker 
 surroundings forbidding music, it was a sweeter 
 joy because a stolen one. 
 
 I can pifture days of forty years ago as 
 distinftly as though a matter of the present. 
 My cousin and myself, with Black Billy, 
 would often steal away and carry with us 
 one of the smaller barn doors. This we 
 would place in a sunny nook on the south 
 side of the stalk-rick, and while the fiddle 
 was being made, would part with our jackets 
 that we might dance the better. Billy was 
 soon ready, and with what a joyful grin, 
 rolling of his huge black eyes, and vigorous 
 contortion of the whole body would our 
 faithful friend draw from the corn-stalk every 
 note of many a quaint old tune ! And how 
 we danced ! For many a year after the old 
 door showed the nail-marks of our heavily- 
 heeled shoes where we had brought them 
 down with a vigor that often roused the energy 
 of old Billy, until he, too, would stand up and 
 execute a marvellous pas seul. Then, tired 
 out, we would rest in niches in the stalk-rick. 
 
Corn-stalk Fiddles loi 
 
 and Billy would play such familiar airs as had 
 penetrated even into the quiet of Quaker- 
 dom. It was no mere imitation of the music, 
 but the thing itself; and it would be an hour 
 or more before the fiddle's strings had lost 
 their tension, the silicious covering had worn 
 away, and the sweet sounds ceased. 
 
 Almost the last of my November after- 
 noons passed in this way had a somewhat 
 dramatic ending. The fiddle was one of 
 more than ordinary excellence. In the 
 height of our fun I spied the brim of my 
 grandfather's hat extending an inch or two 
 around the corner. I gave no sign, but 
 danced more vigorously than ever, and as 
 the music and dancing became more fast and 
 furious the crown of his stiff hat appeared, 
 and then my grandfather's face. His coun- 
 tenance was a study. Whether to give the 
 alarm and run or to remain was the decision 
 of an instant. I gave no sign, but kept one 
 eye on him. " Faster !" I cried to Billy, and, 
 to my complete astonishment, the hat moved 
 rapidly up and down. Grandfather was 
 keeping time ! ** Faster !" I cried again, and 
 the music was now a shrieking medley, and 
 the broad-brimmed hat vibrated wonderfully 
 
I02 Corn-stalk Fiddles 
 
 fast. It was too much. I gave a wild yell 
 and darted off. Circling the barn and stalk- 
 rick, I entered the front yard with a flushed 
 but innocent face, and met grandpa. He, 
 too, had an innocent, far-away look, but his 
 hat was resting on the back of his head and 
 his cheeks were streaming with perspiration, 
 and, best of all, he did not seem to know it. 
 
 '' Grandpa," I asked at the supper-table 
 that evening, " does thee know why it is that 
 savage races are so given to dancing ?" 
 
 ** Charles," he replied, gravely, and noth- 
 ing more was said. 
 
CHAPTER SIXTH 
 
 rHE OLD KI'TCHEJ^ BOOR 
 
 'T'HE white porch, with its high roof and 
 
 ^ two severely plain pillars to support it; 
 the heavy door, with its ponderous knocker ; 
 the straggling sweetbrier at one side; the 
 forlorn yellow rose between the parlor win- 
 dows ; the grass that was too cold to wel- 
 come a dandelion ; the low box hedge, and 
 one huge box bush that never sheltered a 
 bird's nest ; all these were in front to 
 solemnly greet that terror of my early days, 
 — company. 
 
 To me these front-door features all meant, 
 and still mean, restraint ; but how different 
 the world that lingered about the old farm- 
 house kitchen door ! There was no cold 
 formality there, but freedom, — the healthy 
 freedom of old clothes, an old hat ; ay, 
 even the luxury oi an open-throated shirt 
 was allowed. 
 
 103 
 
I04 The Old Kitchen Door 
 
 After a tramp over the meadows, after a 
 day's fishing, after the round of the rabbit- 
 traps in winter, what joy to enter the kitchen 
 door and breathe in the delegable odor of 
 hot gingerbread ! There were appetites in 
 those days. 
 
 I do not understand the mechanism of a 
 modern kitchen : it looks to me like a small 
 machine-shop ; but the old farm kitchen was 
 a simple affair, and the intricacies and mys- 
 tery lay wholly in the dishes evolved. It 
 is said of my grandmother that a whiff of 
 her sponge-cake brought the humming-birds 
 about. I do know there was a crackly crust 
 upon it which it is useless now to try to imi- 
 tate. 
 
 But the door itself — we have none such 
 now. It was a double door in two ways. 
 It was made of narrow strips of oak, oblique 
 on one side and straight on the other, and 
 so studded with nails that the whole affair 
 was almost half metal. It was cut in two, 
 having an upper and a lower seftion. The 
 huge wooden latch was hard and smooth as 
 ivory. At night the door was fastened by 
 a hickory bar, which, when I grew strong 
 enough to lift it, was my favorite hobby-horse. 
 
The Old Kitchen Door 105 
 
 The heavy oak sill was worn in the mid- 
 dle until its upper surface was beautifully 
 curved, and to keep the rain out, when the 
 wind was south, a canvas sand-bag was rolled 
 against it. A stormy-day amusement was to 
 pull this away on the sly, and sail tiny paper 
 boats in the puddle that soon formed on the 
 kitchen floor. There was mischief in those 
 days. 
 
 Kitchens and food are of course insepara- 
 bly connefted, and what hunting-ground for 
 boys equal to the closets where the cakes 
 were kept ? I do not know that the matter 
 was ever openly discussed, but as I look back 
 it seems as if it was an understood thing 
 that, when our cunning succeeded in outwit- 
 ting auntie, we could help ourselves to jum- 
 bles. Once I became a hero in this line of 
 discovery, and we had a picnic behind the 
 lilacs ; but, alas ! only too soon we were 
 pleading for essence of peppermint. Over- 
 eating is possible, even in our teens. 
 
 Recent raids in modern kitchen prednfts 
 are never successful. Of late I always put 
 my hand in the wrong crock, and find pickles 
 where I so.ught preserves. I never fail, 
 now, to take a slice of a reserved cake, or 
 
io6 The Old Kitchen Door 
 
 to quarter the pie intended for the next 
 meal. Age brings no experience in such 
 matters. It is a case where we advance back- 
 ward. 
 
 Of the almost endless phases of life cen- 
 tring about the kitchen door there is one 
 which stands out so prominently that it is 
 hard to realize the older aftor is now dead 
 and that of the young on-lookers few are 
 left. Soon after the dinner-horn was sounded 
 the farm hands gathered at the pump, which 
 stood just outside the door, and then in solemn 
 procession filed into the kitchen for the noon- 
 day meal. All this was prosy enough, but 
 the hour's nooning after it, — then there was 
 fun indeed. 
 
 Scipio — " Zip," for short — was not ill- 
 natured, but then who loves too much teas- 
 ing? An old chestnut burr in the grass 
 where he was apt to lie had made him sus- 
 picious of me, and I had to be extra cautious. 
 Once I nearly overstepped the mark. Zip 
 had his own place for a quiet nap, and, when 
 stretched upon the grass under the big linden, 
 preferred not to be disturbed. Now it oc- 
 curred to me to be very funny. I whittled 
 a cork to the shape of a spider, added mon- 
 
The Old Kitchen Door 107 
 
 strous legs, and with glue fastened a dense 
 coating of chicken-down over all. 
 
 It was a fearful spider. 
 
 I suspended the sham inseft from a limb 
 of the tree so that it would hang direftly over 
 Zip's face as he lay on the ground, and by 
 a black thread that could not be seen I could 
 draw it up or let it down at pleasure. It 
 was well out of sight when Zip fell asleep, 
 and then I slowly lowered the monster until 
 it tickled his nose. It was promptly brushed 
 aside. This was repeated several times, and 
 then the old man awoke. The huge spider 
 was just touching his nose, and one glance 
 was enough. With a bound and a yell he was 
 up and off, in his headlong flight overturn- 
 ing the thoughtless cause of his terror. I 
 was the more injured of the two, but never 
 dared in after-years to ask Zip if he was 
 afraid of spiders. 
 
 And all these years the front door never 
 changed. It may have been opened daily 
 for aught I know, but I can remember noth- 
 ing of its history. 
 
 Stay ! As befitting such an occurrence, it 
 was open once, as I remember, when there 
 was a wedding at the house ; but of that 
 
io8 The Old Kitchen Door 
 
 wedding I recall only the preparations in the 
 kitchen for the feast that followed; and, 
 alas ! it has been opened again and again for 
 funerals. 
 
 Why, indeed, should the front door be 
 remembered ? It added no sunshine to the 
 child's short summer ; but around the corner, 
 whether dreary winter's storm or the fiercest 
 heat of August fell upon it, the kitchen door 
 was the entrance to a veritable elysium. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTH 
 
 UP THE CREEK 
 
 ' I ^HERE is greater merit in the little word 
 " up" than in " down." If, when in 
 a place new to me, I am asked to go " up the 
 creek," my heart leaps, but there is less en- 
 thusiasm when it is suggested to go down the 
 stream. One seems to mean going into the 
 country, the other into the town. All this 
 is illogical, of course, but what of that? 
 The fafts of a case like this have not the 
 value of my idle fancies. After all, there is 
 a peculiar merit in going up-stream. It is 
 something to be going deeper and deeper into 
 the heart of the country. It is akin to get- 
 ting at the foundations of things. 
 
 In the case of small inland streams, gen- 
 erally, the mouth is a commonplace affair. 
 The features that charm shrink from the 
 fateful spot, and we are put in a condition 
 of anticipation at the start which, happily, 
 lo 109 
 
no Up the Creek 
 
 proves one of abundant realization at the 
 finish. 
 
 A certain midsummer Saturday was not 
 an ideal one tor an outing, but with most ex- 
 cellent company I ventured up the creek. It 
 was my friend's suggestion, so I was free from 
 responsibility. Having promised nothing, I 
 could in no wise be justly held accountable. 
 Vain thought ! Direftly I suffered in their 
 estimation because, at mere beck and nod, 
 polliwogs were not forthcoming and fishes 
 refused to swim into my hand. What strange 
 things we fancy of our neighbors ! Because 
 I love the wild life about me, one young 
 friend thought me a magician who could 
 command the whole creek's fauna by mere 
 word of mouth. It proved an empty day 
 in one respeft, animal life scarcely showing 
 itself. To offer explanations was of no avail, 
 and one of the little company recast her 
 opinions. Perhaps she even entertains some 
 doubt as to my having ever seen a bird or 
 fish or the coveted polliwog. 
 
 It is one thing to be able to give the name 
 and touch upon the habits of some captured 
 creature, and quite another to command its 
 immediate presence when we enter its haunts. 
 
Up the Creek iii 
 
 This always should, and probably never 
 will, be remembered. 
 
 But what of the creek, the one-time Big- 
 Bird Creek of the Delaware Indians ? With 
 ill-timed strokes we pulled our languid oars, 
 and passed many a tree, jutting meadow, or 
 abandoned wharf worthy of more than a 
 moment's contemplation. But, lured by the 
 treasure still beyond our reach, we went on 
 and on, until the trickling waters of a hill- 
 side spring proved too much for us, and, turn- 
 ing our prow landward, we stopped to rest. 
 
 Among old trees that afforded grateful 
 shade, a spring that bubbled from an aged 
 chestnut's wrinkled roots, a bit of babbling 
 brook that too soon reached the creek and 
 was lost, and, beyond all, wide-spreading 
 meadows, boundless from our point of view 
 — what more need one ask ? To our credit, 
 be it said, we were satisfied, except, perhaps, 
 that here, as all along our course, polliwogs 
 were perverse. Birds, however, consid-^r- 
 ately came and went, and even the shy cuckoo 
 deigned to reply when we imitated his dolo- 
 rous clucking. A cardinal grosbeak, too, 
 drew near and whistled a welcome, and once 
 eyed us with much interest as we sat lunching 
 
112 Up the Creek 
 
 on the grass. What did he think of us ? Eat- 
 ing, with him, is so different a matter, and per- 
 haps he could give us a few useful hints. The 
 trite remark, " Fingers came before forks," 
 has a significance in the woods, if not in the 
 town. While eating we listened, and I heard 
 the voices of nine different birds. Some 
 merely chirped in passing, it is true, but the 
 marsh-wrens in the cat-tail thicket just across 
 the creek were not silent for a moment. 
 Here in the valley of the Delaware, as I re- 
 cently found them on the shores of Chesa- 
 peake Bay, the wrens are quite nodlurnal, and 
 I would have been glad to have heard them 
 sing in the moonlight again ; for our enthu- 
 siasm would have been strengthened by a few 
 such glimpses of the night side of Nature. 
 
 No bird is so welcome to a mid-day camp 
 as the white-eyed vireo, and we were fortu- 
 nate in having one with us while we tarried 
 at the spring. Not even ninety degrees in 
 the shade has any effeft upon him, and this 
 unflagging energy reafts upon the listener. 
 We could at least be so far alive as to give 
 him our attention. Mid-day heat, however, 
 does affedl many a song-bird, and now that 
 nesting is well-nigh over, the open woods 
 
Up the Creek 113 
 
 are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where 
 the songster takes its ease, as we, far from 
 town, are taking ours. There is much in 
 common between birds and men. 
 
 How, as we lingered over our glasses, 
 counting the lemon-seeds embedded in sugar, 
 we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush's 
 splendid song or a rose-breasted grosbeak's 
 matchless melody ! but the to-whee of the 
 pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the 
 plaint of an inquisitive cat-bird threading 
 the briers, the whir of a humniing-bird 
 vainly seeking flowers, — these did not pass 
 for nothing ; and yet there was comparative 
 silence that suggested a sleeping rather than 
 a wakeful, aftive world. 
 
 Here let me give him who loves an outing 
 a useful hint : be not so anxious for what may 
 be that you overlook that which is spread be- 
 fore you. More than once to-day our dis- 
 cussion of the *' silence" of a midsummer 
 noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds 
 near by. 
 
 How often it has been intimated to us that 
 
 " two's company and three's a crowd" ! but 
 
 to really see and hear what transpires in the 
 
 haunts of wild life, one is company and two's 
 
 h 10* 
 
114 Up the Creek 
 
 a crowd. We cannot heed Nature and fel- 
 low-man at the same moment ; and as to the 
 comparative value of their communications, 
 each must judge for himself. 
 
 Certainly the human voice is a sound which 
 animals are slow to appreciate. How often 
 have 1 stood in silence before birds and small 
 animals and they have shown no fear ! A 
 movement of my arms would put them on 
 guard, perhaps ; but a word spoken, and away 
 they sped. Not a bird, I have noticed, is 
 startled by the bellow of a bull or the neigh 
 of a horse, and yet my own voice filled them 
 with fear. Even snakes that knew me well 
 and paid no attention to my movements were 
 startled at words loudly spoken. It is a bit 
 humiliating to think that in the estimation of 
 many a wild animal our bark is worse than 
 our bite. 
 
 A midsummer noontide has surely some 
 merit, and when I failed to find fish, frog, or 
 salamander for my young friend, it became 
 necessary to point to some feature of the spot 
 that made it worth a visit. To my discom- 
 fiture, I could find nothing. Trees have been 
 talked of overmuch, and there were no wild 
 flowers. The August bloom gave, as yet, only 
 
Up the Creek 1 1 5 
 
 a hint of what was coming. I had hit upon 
 a most unlucky interim during which no man 
 should go upon a picnic. In despair and 
 empty-handed, we took to our boat and started 
 up the creek. It was a fortunate move, for 
 straightway the waters offered that which I 
 had vainly sought for on shore. Here were 
 flowers in abundance. The pickerel-weed 
 was in bloom, the dull-yellow blossoms of the 
 spatterdock dotted the muddy shores, bind- 
 weed here and there offered a single flower as 
 we passed by, and never was golden-dodder 
 more luxuriant. Still, it is always a little dis- 
 appointing when Flora has the world to her- 
 self, and while we were afloat it was left to 
 a few crows and a single heron to prove that 
 she had not quite undisputed sway. 
 
 Up the creek with many a turn and twist, 
 and now on a grassy knoll we land again, 
 where a wonderful spring pours a great 
 volume of sparkling water into the creek. 
 Here at last we have an objeft lesson that 
 should bear fruit when we recall the day. 
 Not a cupful of this clear cold water could 
 we catch but contained a few grains of sand, 
 and for so many centuries has this carrying of 
 sand grains been in progress that now a great 
 
ii6 Up the Creek 
 
 ridge has choked the channel where once 
 rode ships at anchor. An obscure back- 
 country creek now, but less than two cen- 
 turies ago the scene of busy industry. Per- 
 haps no one is now living who saw the last sail 
 that whitened the landscape. Pages of old 
 ledgers, a bit of diary, and old deeds tell us 
 something of the place ; but the grassy knoll 
 itself gives no hint of the faft that upon it 
 once stood a warehouse. Yet a busy place it 
 was in early colonial times, and now utterly 
 neglefted. 
 
 It is difficult to realize how very unsub- 
 stantial is much of man's work. As we sat 
 upon the grassy slope, watching the out- 
 going tide as it rippled and broke in a long 
 line of sparkling bubbles, I rebuilt, for the 
 moment, the projefting wharf, of which but 
 a single log remains, and had the quaint 
 shallops of pre-Revolutionary time riding at 
 anchor. There were heard, in faft, the cry 
 of a heron and the wild scream of a hawk ; 
 but these, in fancy, were the hum of human 
 voices and the tramp of busy feet. 
 
 The scattered stones that just peeped above 
 the grass were not chance bowlders rolled 
 from the hill near by, but the door-step and 
 
up the Creek 117 
 
 foundation of the one-time warehouse. The 
 days of buying, selling, and getting gain came 
 back, in fancy, and I was more the sturdy 
 colonist than the effeminate descendant. But 
 has the present no merit ? We had the 
 summer breeze that came freighted with the 
 odors gathered from the forest and the stream, 
 and there were thrushes rejoicing in our hear- 
 ing that the hill-sides were again as Nature 
 made them. It meant much to us to tarry 
 in the shade of venerable trees spared by 
 the merchants that once collected here, 
 whose names are now utterly forgotten. 
 Stay ! there are two reminders of ancient 
 glory. A beech that overhangs the brook 
 has its bark well scarred, and, now beyond 
 decipherment, there are initials of many 
 prominent naturalists of Philadelphia. A 
 few rods up-stream is another beech that has 
 remained unchanged. On it can be seen the 
 initials T. A. C, 1819; those of the cele- 
 brated paleontologist, Conrad, born near here 
 in 1803. 
 
 The shadows lengthen ; the cooler hours 
 of eventide draw on ; the languid thrushes 
 are again abroad ; music fills the air. We are 
 homeward bound and hurrying down-stream. 
 
1 1 8 Up the Creek 
 
 Our minds are not so receptive as when we 
 started. How shrunken to a few rods is 
 every mile ! Trees, flowers, and birds are 
 scarcely heeded ; but the good gathered as 
 we went up the creek we bring away, and, 
 once again in the dusty village street, we 
 realize that we have but to turn our back 
 upon the town to find the world a pifture. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTH 
 
 A WINTER'NIGHrS 
 
 ouriNG 
 
 "^rOT long since I was asked — and not 
 ^^ for the first time — if I could date the 
 beginning of my taste for natural history pur- 
 suits or give any incident that appeared to 
 mark a turning-point in my career. 
 
 It did not seem possible to do this, on first 
 consideration ; but a recent living over of days 
 gone by recalled an incident which happened 
 before I was eleven years old, and, as it was 
 almost my first regular outing that smacked of 
 adventure, it is probable that it impressed me 
 more forcibly than any earlier or, indeed, later 
 events. 
 
 Heavy and long-continued rains had re- 
 sulted in a freshet, and then three bitter cold 
 days had converted a wide reach of mead- 
 ows into a frozen lake. Happier conditions 
 
 119 
 
I20 A Winter-Night's Outing 
 
 could not have occurred in the small boy's 
 estimation, and, with boundless anticipation, 
 we went skating. 
 
 After smooth ice, the foremost requirement 
 is abundant room, and this we had. There 
 was more than a square mile for each of us. 
 The day had been perfeft and the approach- 
 ing night was such as Lowell so aptly de- 
 scribes, ** all silence and all glisten." 
 
 As the sun was setting we started a roar- 
 ing fire in a sheltered nook, and securely 
 fastening our skates without getting at all 
 chilled, started off. Then • the fun com- 
 menced. We often wandered more than a 
 mile away, and it was not until the fire was 
 reduced to a bed of glowing coals that we 
 returned to our starting-point. 
 
 Here a great surprise awaited us. The 
 heat had drawn from the wooded hill-side 
 near by many a meadow-mouse that, moved by 
 the warmth or by curiosity, ventured as near 
 as it dared. These mice were equally sur- 
 prised at seeing us, and scampered off, but, it 
 seemed to me, with some show of reluftance, 
 as if a chance to warm themselves so thor- 
 oughly should not be missed. 
 
 We freshened the fire a little and fell back 
 
A Winter-Night's Outing 121 
 
 a few paces, but stood near enough to see if 
 the mice would return. This they did in a 
 few minutes, and, to our unbounded surprise 
 and amusement, more than one sat up on its 
 haunches like a squirrel. They seemed to 
 be so many diminutive human beings about a 
 camp-fire. 
 
 It was a sight to give rise to a pretty fairy 
 tale, and possibly our Indians built up theirs 
 on just such incidents. These mice were, to 
 all appearances, there to enjoy the warmth. 
 There was little running to and fro, no squeak- 
 ing, not a trace of unusual excitement, and, 
 although it was so cold, we agreed to wait 
 as long as the mice saw fit to stay. 
 
 This resolution, however, could not hold. 
 We were getting chilled, and so had to draw 
 near. As we did this, there was a faint 
 squeaking which all noticed, and we concluded 
 that sentinels had been placed to warn the 
 congregated mice of our approach. 
 
 The spirit of adventure was now upon us, 
 and our skates were but the means to other 
 ends than mere sport. What, we thought, 
 of the gloomy nooks and corners where 
 thickets stood well above the ice ? We had 
 shunned these heretofore, but without open 
 
 F II 
 
122 A Winter-Night's Outing 
 
 admission that we had any fear concerning 
 them. Then, too, the gloomy gullies in the 
 hill-side came to mind. Should we skate 
 into such darkness and startle the wild life 
 there ? 
 
 The suggestion was made, and not one 
 dared say he was afraid. 
 
 We thought of the fun in chasing a coon 
 or skunk over the ice, and bravely we ven- 
 tured, feeling our way where we knew the 
 ice was thin and rough. 
 
 At a bend in the little brook, where a large 
 cedar made the spot more dark and forbidding, 
 we paused a moment, not knowing just how 
 to proceed. 
 
 The next minute we had no time for 
 thought. A loud scream held us almost spell- 
 bound, and then, with one dash, we sought 
 the open meadows. 
 
 Once there, we breathed a little freer. 
 We could see the fast-fading light of the 
 fire, and at last could flee in a known direc- 
 tion if pursued. Should we hurry home ? 
 We debated this for some time, but were 
 more fearful of being laughed at than of 
 facing any real danger, and therefore con- 
 cluded, with proper caution, to return. 
 
A Winter-Night's Outing 123 
 
 Keeping close together, we entered the 
 ravine again, stopped near the entrance and 
 kindled a fire, and then, by its light, pro- 
 ceeded farther. It was a familiar spot, but 
 not without strange features as we now 
 saw it. 
 
 Again we were startled by the same wild 
 cry, but for a moment only. A barn owl, I 
 think it was, sailed by, glaring at us, as we 
 imagined, and sought the open meadows. 
 
 We turned and followed, though why, it 
 would be hard to say. The owl flew slowly 
 and we skated furiously, trying to keep it di- 
 reftly overhead. Now we were brave even 
 to foolhardiness, and sped away over the ice, 
 indifferent to the direftion taken. To this 
 day I have credited that owl with a keen sense 
 of humor. 
 
 On we went, over the meadows to where 
 the swift but shallow creek flowed by, 
 and then, when too late, we knew where 
 we were. The ice bent beneath us, then 
 cracked, and in an instant we were through 
 it, our feet well in the mud and the water 
 about our necks. Just how we got out I 
 never knew, but we did, and the one dry 
 match among us was a veritable treasure. 
 
124 A Winter-Night's Guting 
 
 It did not go out at the critical moment, but 
 started ablaze the few twigs we hastily 
 gathered, and so saved us from freezing. As 
 we dried our clothes and warmed our be- 
 numbed bodies, I, for one, vowed never 
 again to chase an owl on skates, but to go at 
 it more soberly. From that eventful night 
 the country has been attraftive by reason of 
 its wild life. It was there I became — if 
 indeed I ever have become — a naturalist. 
 
CHAPTER NINTH 
 
 fVILD LIFE IN WATER 
 
 " nr'HE antelope has less reason to fear the 
 •*• lion than has the minnow to dread 
 the pike. We think of timid antelopes and 
 roaring lions, but the former has good use of 
 its limbs, and so a fighting chance for its life ; 
 but the minnows have little advantage in the 
 struggle for existence, and none at all when 
 the predatory fishes are in pursuit of them." 
 This was written in a note-book more than 
 thirty years ago, and I let it stand as evidence 
 of how easy it is to be in error in matters of 
 natural history. 
 
 When I went to school there was but one 
 teacher of the five that knew anything about 
 such matters, and he had the old-time views. 
 Then a fish was a mere machine so far as in- 
 telligence was concerned. We were told of 
 the cunning of foxes and the instinfl of ants 
 and bees, but never a word of fishes. 
 II* 125 
 
126 Wild Life in Water 
 
 The truth is, I might very properly speak 
 of wild " wit" in the water instead of " life," 
 for there can be not the shadow of a doubt 
 but that many of our fishes are really cunning. 
 We need but watch them carefully to be 
 readily convinced of this. How else could 
 they escape danger ? 
 
 The pretty peacock minnows throng the 
 grassy beach at high tide, playing with their 
 fellows in water just deep enough to cover 
 them, and are, when here, very tame and 
 careless. They even get stranded upon the 
 airy side of floating leaves, and enjoy the ex- 
 citement. They realize, it would seem, that 
 where they are no pike can rush down upon 
 them, no snake work its way unseen among 
 them, no turtle crawl into their playground ; 
 but as the tide goes out and these minnows 
 are forced nearer to the river's channel, they 
 lose their carelessness and are suspicious of 
 all about them. 
 
 To call this instinftive fear and result of 
 heredity sounds well ; but the naturalist is 
 brought nearer to the wild life about him 
 when he credits them simply with common 
 sense. The charm of watching such " small 
 deer" vanishes if we lean too much on the 
 
Wild Life in Water 127 
 
 learned and scientific solutions of the com- 
 parative psychologist, and possibly, too, we 
 wander further from the truth. All I posi- 
 tively know is, that when danger really exists 
 the minnows are aware of it ; when it is ab- 
 sent they throw off the burden of this care, 
 and life for a few hours is a matter of pure 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Brief mention should be made of the pro- 
 teftive charafter of the coloring of certain 
 fishes. If such are fortunate enough to be 
 proteftively colored, there is little to be said ; 
 but are they conscious of this ? Does a fish 
 that is green or mottled green and gray keep 
 closely to the weeds, knowing that it is safer 
 there than when in open water or where the 
 bottom is covered with white sand and peb- 
 bles ? This may be a rather startling question, 
 but there is warrant for the asking. Float 
 half a day over the shallows of any broad 
 pond or stream, study with care and without 
 preconception the fishes where they live, and 
 you will ask yourself not only this question, 
 but many a stranger one. If fish are fools, 
 how is it that the angler has so generally to 
 tax his ingenuity to outwit them ? How closely 
 Nature must be copied to deceive a trout ! 
 
128 Wild Life in Water 
 
 Having said so much of small fishes, what 
 now of the larger ones that prey upon them ? 
 A pike, for instance ? Probably many more 
 people have studied how to catch a pike than 
 have considered it scientifically. It is tire- 
 some, perhaps, but if a student of natural his- 
 tory really desires to know what a fish aftually 
 is, he must watch it for hours, being himself 
 unseen. 
 
 At one time there were several large pike 
 in my lotus pond. Under the huge floating 
 leaves of this splendid plant they took refuge, 
 and it was difficult to catch even a glimpse 
 of them. At the same time the schools of 
 minnows seemed to enjoy the sunlight and 
 sported in the open water. More than once, 
 however, I saw a pike rush out from its 
 cover, and finally learned that it systematically 
 lay in wait for the minnows ; and I believe 
 I am justified in adding that the minnows 
 knew that danger lurked under the lotus 
 leaves. 
 
 The situation was not so hap-hazard a one 
 as might appear at first glance, and hours of 
 patient watching convinced me that there was 
 a decided exercising of ingenuity on the part 
 of both the pike and the minnows ; the for- 
 
Wild Life in Water 129 
 
 mer ever on the lookout for a viftim, the 
 latter watchful of an ever-present danger. 
 Day long it was a tragedy where brute force 
 counted for little and cunning for a great 
 deal. 
 
 Another very common fish in my pond 
 was likewise very suggestive in connexion 
 with the subjedl of animal intelligence. I 
 refer to the common " sunny," or ** pumpkin- 
 seed." A shallow sand-nest had been scooped 
 near shore and the precious eggs deposited. 
 A school of silvery-finned minnows had dis- 
 covered them, and the parent fish was severely 
 taxed in her efforts to proteft them. 
 
 So long as this school of minnows re- 
 mained together, the sunfish, by fierce rushes, 
 kept them back ; but soon the former — was 
 it accident or design ? — divided their forces, 
 and as the parent fish darted at one assaulting 
 party, the other behind it made a successful 
 raid upon the nest. This continued for some 
 time, and the sunfish was getting quite weary, 
 when, as if a sudden thought struck it, its 
 tadlics changed, and it swam round and round 
 in a circle and sent a shower of sand out into 
 the space beyond the nest. This eifedlually 
 dazed the minnows. 
 
ijo Wild Life in Water 
 
 Little incidents like this are forever oc- 
 curring and effeftually set aside the once 
 prevalent idea that fish are mere living ma- 
 chines. Look a pike in the eye and you 
 will deteft something very different from 
 mere instinftive timidity. 
 
 But fish are not the only creatures that live 
 in the water ; there are one snake and several 
 species of turtles, and frogs, mollusks, and 
 insedls innumerable. These are too apt to 
 be associated with the land, and, except the 
 two latter forms, are usually thought of as 
 taking to the water as a place of refuge, but 
 really living in the open air. This is a great 
 mistake. There is a lively world beneath 
 the surface of the water, and the tragedy of 
 life is played to the very end, with here and 
 there a pretty comedy that wards off the 
 blues when we look too long and see nothing 
 but the destruflion of one creature that an- 
 other may live. 
 
 Here is an example of cunning or wit in a 
 water-snake. A friend of mine was recently 
 sitting on the bank of a little brook, when 
 his attention was called to a commotion 
 almost at his feet. Looking down, he saw a 
 snake holding its head above the water, and 
 
Wild Life in Water 131 
 
 in its mouth struggled a small sunfish. Now, 
 what was the snake's purpose ? It knew very- 
 well that the fish would drown in the air, and 
 not until it was dead could it be swallowed 
 with that deliberation a snake loves. The 
 creature was cunning enough to kill by easy- 
 means prey that would otherwise be diffi- 
 cult to overcome, for while crosswise in the 
 snake's mouth it could not be swallowed, 
 and if put down for an instant the chances 
 of its recapture would be slight. 
 
 To suppose that a turtle, as you watch it 
 crawling over the mud, has any sense of 
 humor in its horny head seems absurd ; yet 
 naturalists have recorded their being seen at 
 play, and certainly they can readily be tamed 
 to a remarkable degree. Their intelligence, 
 however, shows prominently only in the 
 degree of cunning exhibited when they are 
 in search of food. The huge snapper ** lies 
 in wait," and truly this is a most sugges- 
 tive and comprehensive phrase. I believe, 
 too, that this fierce turtle buries surplus food, 
 and so gives further evidence of intelleftual 
 aftivity. 
 
 To realize what wild life in the water 
 really is it must be observed where Nature 
 
132 Wild Life in Water 
 
 has placed it. It is perhaps not so much set 
 forth by exceptional incidents that the student 
 happens to witness as by that general appear- 
 ance of common sense which is so unmistaka- 
 bly stamped upon even the most common- 
 place movements. Writers upon animal 
 intelligence do not need to be constantly on 
 the lookout for special exhibitions of cunning 
 in order to substantiate the claims they make 
 in favor of life's lower forms. It is plainly 
 enough to be seen if we will but patiently 
 watch whensoever these creatures come and 
 wheresoever they go and the manner of their 
 going and coming. 
 
 Do not be so intent upon watching for the 
 marvellous that ordinary incidents are not 
 seen. In studying wild life everywhere, 
 and perhaps more particularly in the water, 
 to be rightly informed we must see the aver- 
 age individual amid commonplace surround- 
 ings. Doing this, we are not misinformed 
 nor led to form too high an opinion. It is 
 as in the study of humanity. We must not 
 familiarize ourselves with the mountebank, 
 but with man. 
 
CHAPTER TENTH 
 
 AN OLB-FASHIONED 
 GARDEN 
 
 'T^HE world at large is a most intricate 
 •*■ machine, and parts viewed separately 
 give no hint of their importance to what 
 appear quite independent objects. Man may 
 dissociate without destroying, but, when he 
 does so, his constant attention must then take 
 the place of the a£ls that Nature designed 
 other conditions of life should perform. 
 The isolated plant, for instance, is destroyed 
 by insefts unless we proteft it by a glass 
 covering or a poison-bath ; Nature gave it to 
 the birds to proteft the plant, and in so 
 doing find food for themselves. This law 
 of interdependence is made very plain in the 
 case of a modern garden or the trim lawns 
 of a large city, and in less degree applies 
 to towns and villages. The caterpillar 
 la 133 
 
134 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 nuisance that requires the collaring of shade- 
 trees with cotton-wool to proteft their foli- 
 age illustrates this ; and what an example is 
 a modern garden filled to overflowing with 
 exotic plants ! An all-important feature is 
 wanting, — birds; for, except English spar- 
 rows, we have none, and these are worse 
 than useless. 
 
 It was not always so, and the cause of the 
 deplorable change is not hard to find. When- 
 ever we chance, in our wanderings, to come 
 upon some long-neglefted corner of colonial 
 times, there we will find the bloom and birds 
 together. I have said *' neglefted j" not 
 quite that, for there was bloom, and the 
 birds are excellent gardeners. 
 
 Let me particularize. My garden is a 
 commonplace affair, with the single innova- 
 tion of a tub sunk in the ground to accom- 
 modate a lotus, — so commonplace, indeed, 
 that no passer-by would notice it ; and yet 
 during a single summer afternoon I have 
 seen within its boundaries fifteen species of 
 birds. At that hottest hour of the midsum- 
 mer day, two p.m., while looking at the 
 huge pink blossoms of the classic lotus, my 
 attention was called to a quick movement 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 135 
 
 on the ground, as if a rat ran by. It proved 
 to be an oven-bird, that curious combination 
 of thrush and sand-piper, and yet neither, 
 but a true warbler. It peered into every 
 nook and corner of the shrubbery, poised on 
 the edge of the sunken lotus-tub, caught a 
 wriggling worm that came to the surface of 
 the water, then teetered along the fence and 
 was gone. Soon it returned, and came and 
 went until dark, as much at home as ever in 
 the deep recesses of unfrequented woods. 
 As the sun went down, the bird sang once 
 with all the spring-tide ardor, and brought 
 swiftly back to me many a long summer's 
 day ramble in the country. It is something 
 to be miles away from home while sitting on 
 your own door-step. 
 
 Twice a song-sparrow came, bathed in 
 the lotus-tub, and, when not foraging in the 
 weedy corners, sang its old-fashioned song, 
 now so seldom heard within town limits. 
 The bird gave me two valuable hints as to 
 garden management. Water is a necessity 
 to birds as well as to any other form of life, 
 and shelter is something more than a mere 
 attradlion. Was it not because the birds 
 happened to be provided with them to-day 
 
136 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 that I had, as I have had the summer long, 
 more birds than my neighbors ? 
 
 How seldom do we see the coral honey- 
 suckle, and how generally the trumpet-creeper 
 has given place to exotic vines of far more 
 striking bloom, but, as will appear, of less 
 utility ! If the old-time vines that I have 
 mentioned bore less showy flowers, they had 
 at least the merit of attrafting humming- 
 birds, that so grandly rounded out our com- 
 plement of summer birds. These feathered 
 fairies are not difficult to see, even though so 
 small, and, if so inclined, we can always 
 study them to great advantage. They be- 
 come quite tame, and in the old-fashioned 
 gardens were always a prominent feature by 
 reason of their numbers. They are not 
 forever on the wing, and when preening 
 their feathers let the sunshine fall upon them, 
 and we have emeralds and rubies that cost 
 nothing, but are none the less valuable be- 
 cause of this. In changing the botanical 
 features of our yards we have had but one 
 thought, gorgeous flowers ; but was it wise 
 to give no heed to the loss of birds as the 
 result ? I fancy there are many who would 
 turn with delight from formal clusters of 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 137 
 
 unfamiliar shrubs, however showy, to a 
 gooseberry hedge or a lilac thicket with 
 song-sparrows and a cat-bird hidden in its 
 shade. We have been unwise in this too 
 radical change. We have abolished bird- 
 music in our eagerness for color, gaining a 
 little, but losing more. We have paid too 
 dear, not for a whistle, but for its loss. But 
 it is not too late. Carry a little of the home 
 forest to our yards, and birds will follow it. 
 And let me here wander to an allied matter, 
 that of the recently-established Arbor Day. 
 What I have just said recalls it. 
 
 To merely transplant a tree, move it from 
 one spot to another, where perhaps it is less 
 likely to remain for any length of time than 
 where it previously stood, is, it seems to me, 
 the very acme of folly. The chances are 
 many that the soil is less suitable, and so 
 growth will be retarded, and the world is 
 therefore not one whit the better off. There 
 is far too much tree-planting of this kind 
 on Arbor Day. In many an instance a plot 
 of ground has been replanted year after 
 year. I fancy we will have to reach more 
 nearly to the stage of tree appreciation before 
 Arbor Day will be a pre-eminent success. 
 
138 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 Can we not, indeed, accommodate ourselves 
 a little '<more to the trees growing where Na- 
 ture planted them ? I know a village well, 
 where the houses are placed to accommodate 
 the trees that stood there when the spot was 
 a wilderness. The main street is a little 
 crooked, but what a noble street it is ! I 
 recall, as I write these lines, many a Friends' 
 meeting-house, and one country school, 
 where splendid oaks are standing near by, 
 and to those who gather daily or weekly 
 here, whether children or grown people, 
 the trees are no less dear than the buildings 
 beside them. The wanderer who revisits 
 the scenes of his childhood looks first at the 
 trees and then at the houses. Tree-wor- 
 ship, we are told, was once very prevalent, 
 and it is not to be regretted that in a modi- 
 fied form it still remains with us. 
 
 As a praftical matter, let me here throw 
 out the suggestion that he will be doing most 
 excellent work who saves a tree each year. 
 This is a celebration that needs no special 
 day set forth by legislative enaftment. How 
 often I have heard farmers remark, " It was 
 a mistake to cut those trees down" ! Of course 
 it was. In nine cases out of ten the value 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 139 
 
 of the trees felled proves less than was ex- 
 pefted, and quickly follows the realization of 
 the faft that when standing their full value 
 was not appreciated. Think of cutting down 
 trees that stand singly or in little groups in 
 the middle of fields because it is a trouble to 
 plant around them, or for the reason that 
 they shade the crops too much ! What of 
 the crop of comfort such trees yield to both 
 man and beast when these fields are past- 
 ures ? ** But there is no money in shade- 
 trees." I cannot repress my disgust when 
 I hear this, and I have heard it often. Is 
 there genuine manhood in those who feel 
 this way towards the one great ornament of 
 our landscape ? 
 
 It is not — more's the pity — within the 
 power of every one to plant a tree, but those 
 who cannot need not stand idly by on Arbor 
 Day. Here is an instance where half a loaf 
 is better than no bread. Many a one can 
 plant a shrub. How often there is an un- 
 sightly corner, even in the smallest enclosure, 
 where a tall tree would be a serious obstruc- 
 tion, whereon can be grown a thrifty bush, 
 one that will be a constant source of pleasure 
 because of its symmetry and bright foliage. 
 
140 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 and for a time doubly attraftive because of 
 its splendid blossoming ! We know too little 
 of the many beautiful flowering shrubs that 
 are scattered through every woodland, which 
 are greatly improved by a little care in culti- 
 vation, and which will bear transplanting. 
 We overlook them often, when seen grow- 
 ing in the forest, because they are small, 
 irregular, and often sparse of bloom. But 
 remember, in the woods there is a fierce 
 struggle for existence, and when this is over- 
 come the full beauty of the shrub's stature 
 becomes an accomplished fadt. 
 
 Here is a short list of common shrubs, 
 every one of which is hardy, beautiful in 
 itself, and can be had without other cost or 
 labor than a walk in the country, for I do 
 not suppose any land-owner would refuse a 
 " weed," as they generally call these humble 
 plants. The spicewood {Lindera benzoiri), 
 which bears bright golden flowers before the 
 leaves appear; the shad-bush {Amelanchier 
 canadensis), with a wealth of snowy blossoms, 
 which are increased in number and size by a 
 little attention, as judicious trimming; and 
 the ** bush" of the wild-wood can be made 
 to grow to a beautiful miniature tree. The 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 141 
 
 well-known pinxter flower {Azalea nudi- 
 caule) is improved by cultivation, and can be 
 made to grow ** stocky" and thick-set, in- 
 stead of scragged, as we usually find it. Its 
 bright pink blossoms make a grand show- 
 ing in May. There is a little wild plum 
 (JPrunus spinosa') which only asks to be 
 given a chance and then will rival the famous 
 deutzias in profusion of bloom, and after- 
 wards remains a sturdy tree-like shrub, with 
 dark-green foliage that is always attraftive. 
 This, too, blooms before the foliage is de- 
 veloped, and hints of spring as surely as the 
 robin's song. A larger but no less handsome 
 bush is the white flowering thorn {Crataegus 
 crus-galli), and there are wild spireas that 
 should not be overlooked, and two white flow- 
 ering shrubs that delight all who see them in 
 bloom, the deer-berry {Vaccinium stamineuni)y 
 and the " false-teeth" {Leucothoe racemosa). 
 All these are spring flowers. And now a 
 word about an August bloomer, the sweet 
 pepper -bush {Clethra alnifolid). This is 
 easily grown and is a charming plant. 
 
 It happens, too, that a place can be found 
 for a hardy climber, and as beautiful as the 
 coral honeysuckles of our grandmother's days 
 
142 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 is the climbing bittersweet {Celastrus scan- 
 dens). The plant itself is attraftive. Its 
 vigorous growth soon covers the support 
 provided for it, and in autumn and through- 
 out the winter its golden and crimson fruit 
 hangs in thick-set clusters upon every branch. 
 
 Considering how frequently near the house 
 there are unsightly objedts, and how depress- 
 ing it is to be forever looking upon ugliness, 
 it is strange that the abundant means for 
 beautifying waste places are so persistently 
 negledled. With one or more of the plants 
 I have named, an eyesore may be changed to 
 a source of pleasure, and it was Beecher, I 
 think, who said, ** A piece of color is as use- 
 ful as a piece of bread." He never spoke 
 more truly. 
 
 And what of the old-time arbors, with the 
 straggling grape-vine, and perhaps a rude 
 wren-box perched at the entrance ? Is there 
 better shade than the grape-vine offers, a 
 sweeter odor than its bloom affords, or more 
 charming music than the song of the restless 
 house-wren ? Certainly there have been no 
 improvements upon these features of the old- 
 time garden : yet how seldom do we see 
 them now! We must travel far, too, to 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 143 
 
 find a martin -box. As a matter of faft, 
 the bluebird, wren, and martin might, if we 
 chose, be restored to the very hearts of our 
 largest towns. People have no more terror 
 for them than for the English sparrow, and 
 they can all hold out against these piratical 
 aliens, if we would consider their few and 
 simple needs. The wrens need but nesting- 
 boxes with an entrance through which the 
 shoulders of a sparrow cannot pass ; and the 
 bluebirds and martins require only that their 
 houses be closed during the winter and very 
 early spring, or until they have returned from 
 their winter-quarters. This is easily done, 
 and when the birds are ready to occupy the 
 accommodations provided for them they will 
 take possession and successfully hold the forts 
 against all intruders. This is not a fancy 
 merely, suggested as the basis of experimen- 
 tation, but is the result of the experience 
 of several people in widely-separated locali- 
 ties. I vividly recall visiting at a house in a 
 large town, where purple martins for more 
 than fifty years had occupied boxes placed 
 upon the eaves of a one-story kitchen. 
 
 While stress is laid upon the importance 
 of regaining the presence in town of these 
 
144 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 birds, it must not be supposed that they are 
 all that are available. There are scores of 
 wild birds, known only to the ornithologist, 
 that can be " cultivated" as readily as the 
 wild shrubbery that under startling names 
 figures in many a florist's catalogue. Give 
 them a foothold, and they will come to stay. 
 Orioles, thrushes, vireos, fly-catchers, are 
 not unreasonably afraid of man, and would 
 quickly acquire confidence if they were war- 
 ranted in so doing. How long would a 
 scarlet tanager or a cardinal grosbeak remain 
 unmolested if it appeared in any city street ? 
 Here is the whole matter in a nutshell : the 
 birds are not averse to coming, but the people 
 will not let them. This is the more strange, 
 when we remember that hundreds of dollars 
 were spent to accommodate the pestiferous 
 imported sparrow, that is and always must 
 be a positive curse. Hundreds for sparrows, 
 and not one cent for a bluebird ! While the 
 mischief can never be undone, it can be held 
 in check, if we will but take the trouble, 
 and this is a mere matter of town-garden 
 rearrangement ; and why, indeed, not treat 
 our ears to music as well as our eyes to color 
 and our palates to sweetness ? Plant here 
 
An Old-fashioned Garden 145 
 
 and there a bush that will yield you a crop 
 of birds. That this may not be thought 
 merely a whim of my own, let me quote from 
 the weather record of Dr. John Conrad, who 
 for forty years was the apothecary of the 
 Pennsylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia. This 
 institution, bear in mind, is in the heart of 
 the city, not in its outskirts. Under date of 
 March 23, 1862, he records, "Crocus and 
 snow-drop came into bloom last week and 
 are now fully out." Again, he says, " Orioles 
 arrived on April 8, after the fruit-trees burst 
 into bloom." Here we have a migratory 
 bird in the city three weeks earlier than its 
 usual appearance in the country, but I do not 
 think the doftor was mistaken. I have posi- 
 tive knowledge of the faft that he was a good 
 local ornithologist. Under date of June, 
 1 866, Conrad writes, " A very pleasant June. 
 Fine bright weather, and only one week too 
 warm for comfort. The roses bloomed well 
 (except the moss-rose) and for the most part 
 opened better than usual. The garden full 
 of birds, and insedls less abundant than usual. 
 Many blackbirds reared their young in our 
 trees, and as many as sixteen or twenty have 
 been counted on the lawn at one time. Cat- 
 G i 13 
 
146 An Old-fashioned Garden 
 
 birds, orioles, thrushes, wrens, vireos, robins, 
 etc., abound and make our old hospital joyous 
 with their sweet songs." 
 
 During the summer of 1892 I was twice 
 in the hospital grounds, with which I was 
 very familiar during my uncle's — Dr. Con- 
 rad's — lifetime, and I heard only English 
 sparrows, although I saw two or three native 
 birds. It was a sad change. Think of 
 being able to speak of your garden as ** full 
 of birds," — as ** joyous with their sweet 
 songs." This, not long ago, could truthfully 
 be done. Will it ever be possible to do so 
 again ? 
 
CHAPTER ELEVENTH 
 
 AN INDIA JJ "TRAIL 
 
 TT was a strange coincidence. A farmer 
 ■■• living near by employed an Indian from 
 the school at Carlisle, and now that the work 
 of the summer was over, this taciturn youth 
 walked daily over a hill to a school-house 
 more than a mile away, and the path leading 
 to it was an Indian trail. 
 
 Not long since I met the lad on this very 
 path returning from school, and when he 
 passed I stood by an old oak and watched 
 him until lost among the trees, walking where 
 centuries ago his people had walked when 
 going from the mountain village and rock 
 shelters along an inland creek to the distant 
 town by the river. 
 
 As you looked about from the old oak there 
 was no public road or house in sight; nothing 
 but trees and bushes, huge rocks, and one 
 curious jutting ledge that tradition holds is a 
 
 »47 
 
148 An Indian Trail 
 
 veritable relic of prehistoric time, — a place 
 where council fires were lit and midnight 
 meetings held. 
 
 Whether tradition is true or not, the place 
 was a fitting one whereat to tarry and fall 
 a-thinking. Happy, indeed, could the old 
 oak have spoken. 
 
 Many a public road of recent date has been 
 built on the line of an old trail, as many 
 a town and even city have replaced Indian 
 villages ; but take the long-settled regions 
 generally, the ancient landmarks are all gone, 
 and a stray potsherd or flint arrow-point in 
 the fields is all that is left to recall the days 
 of the dusky aborigines. 
 
 Only in the rough, rocky, irreclaimable 
 hills are we likely now to be successful, if 
 such traces as a trail are sought for. 
 
 It was so here. Bald-top Hill is of little 
 use to the white man except for the firewood 
 that grows upon its sides and the scattered 
 game that still linger in its thickets. As 
 seen from the nearest road, rot far off, there 
 is nothing now to suggest that an Indian ever 
 clambered about it. The undergrowth hides 
 every trace of the surface ; but after the leaves 
 drop and a light snow has fallen, a curious 
 
An Indian Trail 149 
 
 white line can be traced from the base of 
 the summit ; this is the old trail. 
 
 It is a narrow path, but for so long a 
 time had it been used by the Indians that, 
 when once pointed out, it can still be fol- 
 lowed without difficulty. It leads now from 
 one little intervale to another : from farmer 
 A to farmer B ; but originally it was part 
 of their long highway leading from Phila- 
 delphia to Easton, perhaps. It matters not. 
 Enough to know that then, as now, there 
 were towns almost wherever there was land 
 fit for dwellings, and paths that led from one 
 to the other. It is clear that the Indians 
 knew the whole country well. The routes 
 they finally chose resulted from long experi- 
 ence, and were as direft as the nature of the 
 ground made possible. 
 
 The study of trails opens up to us a broader 
 view of ancient Indian life than we are apt 
 to entertain. 
 
 We find the sites of villages on the banks 
 of the rivers and larger inflowing streams ; 
 travel by canoes was universal. No locality 
 was so favorable as the open valley, and here 
 the greater number of Indians doubtless 
 dwelt. But the river and its fertile shores 
 13* 
 
150 An Indian Trail 
 
 could not yield all that this people needed : 
 they had to draw from the resources of the 
 hills behind them. They soon marked the 
 whole region with a net-work of trails leading 
 to the various points whence they drew the 
 necessities of life. The conditions of the 
 present day are laid down on essentially the 
 same lines as then. 
 
 An Indian town was not a temporary tent 
 site, or mere cluster of wigwams, here to-day 
 and miles away to-morrow ; nor did these 
 people depend solely upon the chase. Be- 
 side the trail over which I recently passed 
 was a great clearing that had been an orchard. 
 We can yet find many a barren spot that is 
 rightly known to the people of to-day as 
 an Indian field. So persistently were their 
 cornfields cropped that at last the soil was 
 absolutely exhausted, and has not yet re- 
 covered its fertility. 
 
 There was systematic bartering, too, as the 
 red pipe-stone or catlinite from Minnesota 
 and obsidian from the more distant North- 
 west, found on the Atlantic coast, as well as 
 ocean shells picked up in the far interior, all 
 testify. There was also periodical journey- 
 ing in autumn from inland to the sea-coast to 
 
An Indian Trail 151 
 
 gather supplies of oysters, clams, and other 
 *' sea food," which were dried by smoking 
 and then ** strung as beads and carried as 
 great coils of rope" back to the hills to be 
 consumed during the winter. 
 
 Many small colonies, too, passed the win- 
 ters on the coast in the shelter of the great 
 pine forests that extended to the very ocean 
 beach. It was no hap-hazard threading of a 
 wilderness to reach these distant points. The 
 paths were well defined, well used. For how 
 long we can only conjefture, but the vast ac- 
 cumulations of shells on the coast, often now 
 beneath the water, point to a time so distant 
 that the country wore a different aspeft from 
 what it now does ; a time when the land rose 
 far higher above the tide and extended sea- 
 ward where now the ocean rolls resistlessly. 
 
 Returning inland, let us trace another of 
 these old-time paths from the river-shore 
 whereon the Indians had long dwelt, over 
 hill and dale until we reach a valley hemmed 
 in by low, rolling hills. 
 
 It is a pretty spot still, although marred by 
 the white man's work ; but why was it the 
 goal of many a weary journey ? 
 
 Here is found the coveted jasper, varied in 
 
152 An Indian Trail 
 
 hue as autumn leaves or a summer sunset. 
 The quick eye of some wandering hunter, it 
 may be, found a chance fragment, and, look- 
 ing closer, saw that the ground on which he 
 stood was filled with it ; or a freshet may 
 have washed the soil from an outcropping of 
 the mineral. Who can tell ? It must suffice 
 to know that the discovery was made in 
 time, and a new industry arose. No other 
 material so admirably met the Indian's need 
 for arrow-points, for the blades of spears, for 
 knives, drills, scrapers, and the whole range 
 of tools and weapons in daily use. 
 
 So it came that mining camps were estab- 
 lished. To this day, in these lonely hills, 
 we can trace out the great pits the Indians 
 dug, find the tools with which they toiled, 
 and even the ashes of their camp-fires, where 
 they slept by night. So deeply did the 
 Indian work the land wheresoever he toiled 
 that even the paths that led from the mines 
 to the distant village have not been wholly 
 blotted out. 
 
 The story of the jasper mines has yet to 
 be told, and it may be long before the full 
 details are learned concerning the various 
 processes through which the mineral passed 
 
An Indian Trail 153 
 
 before it came into use as a finished produft. 
 Much vain speculation has been indulged in ; 
 the fancied method of reducing a thick blade 
 to a thin one has been elaborately described, 
 although never carried out by any human 
 being; in short, the impossible has been 
 boldly asserted as a faft beyond question. 
 
 The Indian's history can be read but in 
 small part from the handiwork that he has 
 left behind. 
 
 One phase of it, in the valley of the Dela- 
 ware, is more clearly told than all else, — the 
 advance from a primitive to a more cultured 
 status. There were centuries during which 
 jasper was known only as river-pebbles, and 
 its discovery in abundance had an influence 
 upon Indians akin to that upon Europe's 
 stone-age people when they discovered the 
 use of metals. At least here in the valley of 
 the Delaware this is true. 
 
 It is vain to ask for the beginning of man's 
 career in this region ; what we find but hints 
 at it. But he came when there were no 
 trails over the hills, no path but the icy river's 
 edge ; only as the centuries rolled by was the 
 country developed to the extent of knowing 
 every nook and corner of the land, and high- 
 
154 An Indian Trail 
 
 ways and by-ways became common, like the 
 roads that now reach out in every diredlion. 
 
 A " trail," then, has a wealth of meaning, 
 and those who made it were no ** mere sav- 
 ages," as we so glibly speak of the Indians, 
 thanks to the average school-books. 
 
 The haughty Delawares had fields and or- 
 chards ; they had permanent towns ; they 
 mined such minerals as were valuable to 
 them ; they had weapons of many patterns ; 
 they were jewellers in a crude way, and fin- 
 ished many a stone ornament in a manner that 
 still excites admiration. They were travellers 
 and tradesmen as well as hunters and warriors. 
 
 Although my day's search for relics of these 
 people had yielded but a few arrow-points, 
 potsherds, and a stone axe, when I saw the 
 Indian on his way from school, walking in the 
 very path his people had made long centuries 
 ago, the story of their ancient sojourn here 
 came vividly to mind in the dim light of an au- 
 tumn afternoon, when a golden mist wrapped 
 the hills and veiled the valleys beyond, and I 
 had a glimpse of pre-Columbian America. 
 
CHAPTER TWELFTH 
 
 A PRE-COLUMBIAN 
 DINNER 
 
 A PONDEROUS geologist, with weighty 
 ^^ tread and weightier manner, brought 
 his foot down upon the unoffending sod and 
 declared, ** These meadows are sinking at a 
 rapid rate ; something over two feet a cen- 
 tury." We all knew it, but Sir Oracle had 
 spoken, and we little dogs did not dare to bark. 
 Not long after I returned alone to these ill- 
 fated meadows and began a leisurely, all-day 
 ramble. They were very beautiful. There 
 was a wealth of purple and of white boneset 
 and iron-weed of royal dye. Sunflower and 
 primrose gilded the hidden brooks, and every 
 knoll was banked with rose-pink centaury. 
 Nor was this all. Feathery reeds towered 
 above the marsh, and every pond was em- 
 purpled with pontederia and starred with 
 
156 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 lilies. Afar off, acres of nut-brown sedge 
 made fitting background for those meadow 
 trafts that were still green, while close at 
 hand, more beautiful than all, were struggling 
 growths held down by the golden-dodder's 
 net that overspread them. 
 
 It does not need trees or rank shrubbery to 
 make a wilderness. This low-lying traft to- 
 day, with but a summer's growth above it, is 
 as wild and lonely as are the Western plains. 
 Lonely, that is, as man thinks, but not for- 
 saken. The wily mink, the pert weasel, the 
 musk-rat, and the meadow-mouse ramble in 
 safety through it. The great blue heron, its 
 stately cousin, the snowy egret, and the dainty 
 least bittern find it a congenial home. 
 
 The fiery dragon-fly darts and lazy butter- 
 flies drift across the blooming waste ; bees 
 buzz angrily as you approach ; basking snakes 
 bid you defiance. Verily, this is wild life's 
 domain and man is out of place. 
 
 It was not always so. The land is sink- 
 ing, and what now of that older time when 
 it was far above its present level, — a high, 
 dry, upland traft, along which flowed a clear 
 and rapid stream ? The tell-tale arrow-point 
 is our guide, and wherever the sod is broken 
 
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 157 
 
 we have an inkling of Indian history. The 
 soil, as we dig a little deeper, is almost black 
 with charcoal-dust, and it is evident that 
 centuries ago the Indians were content to 
 dwell here, and well they might be. Even 
 in colonial days the place had merit, and es- 
 caped not the eager eyes of Penn's grasping 
 followers. It was meadow then, and not 
 fitted for his house, but the white man built 
 his barn above the ruins of his dusky prede- 
 cessor's home. All trace of human habita- 
 tion is now gone, but the words of the ge- 
 ologist kept ringing in my ears, and of late 
 I have been digging. It is a little strange 
 that so few traces of the white man are found 
 as compared with relics of the Indian. From 
 the barn that once stood here and was long 
 ago destroyed by a flood one might expeft to 
 find at least a rusty nail. 
 
 The ground held nothing telling of a re- 
 cent past, but was eloquent of the long ago. 
 Dull indeed must be the imagination that 
 cannot recall what has been here brought 
 to light by the aid of such an implement 
 as the spade. Not only were the bow and 
 spear proved to be the common weapons 
 of the time, but there were in even greater 
 14 
 
158 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 abundance, and of many patterns, knives to 
 flay the game. It is not enough to merely 
 glance at a trimmed flake of flint or care- 
 fully-chipped splinter of argillite, and say to 
 yourself, *' A knife." Their great variety 
 has a significance that should not be over- 
 looked. The same implement could not 
 be put to every use for vi^hich a knife was 
 needed ; hence the range in size from several 
 inches to tiny flakes that w^ill likely remain a 
 puzzle as to their purpose. 
 
 Besides home produfts, articles are found 
 that have come from a long distance, and 
 no class of objefts is more suggestive than 
 those that prove the widely-extended system 
 of barter that prevailed at one time among 
 the Indians of North America. There are 
 shells and shell ornaments found in Wis- 
 consin which must have been taken there 
 from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico; 
 catlinite or red pipe-stone ornaments and 
 pipes found in New Jersey that could only 
 have come from Minnesota. Shell beads are 
 often found in graves in the Mississippi Valley 
 that were brought from the Pacific coast, and 
 the late Dr. Leidy has described a shell bead, 
 concerning which he states that it is the Conus 
 
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 159 
 
 ternatus, a shell which belongs to the west 
 coast of Central America. This was found, 
 with other Indian relics, in Hartman's Cave, 
 near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Two small 
 arrovr-points found in New Jersey a year or 
 more ago proved to be made of obsidian. 
 These specimens could only have come from 
 the far South-west or from Oregon, and the 
 probabilities are in favor of the latter locality. 
 It is not unlikely that objefts like the above 
 should find their way inland to the Great 
 Lakes, and so across the continent and down 
 the Atlantic coast. On the other hand, 
 arrow-points could have had so little intrinsic 
 value in the eyes of an Indian that we are 
 naturally surprised that they should have 
 been found so far from their place of origin. 
 Obsidian has occurred but very rarely east 
 of the Alleghanies, so far as I am aware. 
 In the Sharpies collection, at West Chester, 
 Pennsylvania, is a single specimen, reported 
 to have been found near that place, and a few 
 traces have since been discovered in the up- 
 lands immediately adjoining these Delaware 
 meadows, and really there is no reason to 
 suppose that objedls of value should not have 
 passed quite across the continent, or been 
 
i6o A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 carried from Mexico to Canada. There were 
 no vast areas absolutely uninhabited and across 
 which no Indian ever ventured. 
 
 It has been suggested that, as iron was 
 manufadlured in the valley of the Delaware 
 as early as 1728, the supposed obsidian 
 arrow-points are really made of slag from the 
 furnaces, but a close examination of the speci- 
 mens proves, it is claimed, this not to have 
 been the case, and at this comparatively late 
 date the making of stone arrow-points had 
 probably ceased. Just when, however, the 
 use of the bow as a weapon was discarded 
 has not been determined, but fire-arms were 
 certainly common in 1728 and earlier. 
 
 A careful study, too, of copper imple- 
 ments, which are comparatively rare, seems 
 to point to the conclusion that very few were 
 made of the native copper found in New 
 Jersey, Maryland, and elsewhere along the 
 Atlantic coast, but that they were made in 
 the Lake Superior region and thence grad- 
 ually dispersed over the Eaatern States. The 
 large copper spear from Betterton, Maryland, 
 recently found, and another from New Jersey, 
 bear a striking resemblance to the spear-heads 
 from the North-west, where unquestionably 
 
A Pre-Columbian Dinner i6i 
 
 the most expert of aboriginal coppersmiths 
 lived. Of course, the many small beads of 
 this metal occasionally found in Indian graves 
 in the Delaware Valley might have been made 
 of copper found near by, but large masses are 
 very seldom met with. 
 
 Speaking of copper beads recalls the faft 
 that a necklace comprising more than one 
 hundred was recently found on the site of 
 an old Dutch trader's house, on an island in 
 the Delaware. They were of Indian manu- 
 fafture, and had been in the fur trader's pos- 
 session, if we may judge from the faft that 
 they were found with hundreds of other 
 relics that betokened not merely European, 
 but Dutch occupation of the spot. This 
 trader got into trouble and doubtless de- 
 served his summary taking off. 
 
 It is not " a most absurd untruth," as was 
 stated not long ago in the Critic in a review 
 of a New York history, that the Indians were 
 " a people of taste and industry, and in morals 
 quite the peers of their Dutch neighbors." 
 They had just as keen a sense of right and 
 wrong. There never was a handful of colo- 
 nists in North America whose whole history 
 their descendants would care to have known. 
 / 14* 
 
1 62 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 The truth is, we know very little of the 
 Indian prior to European contadl. Carpet- 
 knight archasologists and kid-gloved explorers 
 crowd the pages of periodical literature, it 
 is true, but we are little, if any, the wiser. 
 
 It is supposed, and is even asserted, that 
 the Indian knew nothing of forks ; but that 
 he plunged his fingers into the boiling pot or 
 held in his bare hands the steaming joints of 
 bear or venison is quite improbable. Now, 
 the archaeologist talks glibly of bone awls 
 whenever a sharpened splinter of bone is 
 presented him, as if such instruments were 
 only intended to perforate leather. They 
 doubtless had other uses, and I am sure that 
 more than one split and sharpened bone which 
 has been found would have served excellently 
 well as a one-tined fork wherewith to lift from 
 the pot a bit of meat. Whether or not such 
 forks were in use, there were wooden spoons, 
 as a bit of the bowl and a mere splinter of the 
 handle serve to show. Kalm tells us that they 
 used the laurel for making this utensil, but I 
 fancied my fragment was hickory. Potsherds 
 everywhere spoke of the Indians' feasting, 
 and it is now known that, besides bowls and 
 shallow dishes of ordinary sizes, they also 
 
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 163 
 
 had vessels of several gallons' capacity. All 
 these are broken now, but, happily, fragments 
 of the same dish are often found together, 
 and so w^e can reconstruft them. 
 
 But what did the Indians eat ? Quaint old 
 Gabriel Thomas, writing about 1696, tells 
 us that " they live chiefly on Maze or Indian 
 Corn rosted in the Ashes, sometimes beaten 
 boyl'd with Water, called Homine. They 
 have cakes, not unpleasant ; also Beans and 
 Pease, which nourish much, but the Woods 
 and Rivers afford them their provision ; they 
 eat morning and evening, their Seats and 
 Tables on the ground." 
 
 In a great measure this same story of The 
 Indians' food supply was told by the scattered 
 bits found mingled with the ashes of an ancient 
 hearth. Such fireplaces or cooking sites were 
 simple in construftion, but none the less 
 readily recognized as to their purpose. A few 
 flat pebbles had been brought from the bed of 
 the river near by, and a small paved area some 
 two feet square was placed upon or very near 
 the surface of the ground. Upon this the 
 fire was built, and in time a thick bed of 
 ashes accumulated. Just how they cooked 
 can only be conjeftured, but the discovery of 
 
164 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 very thick clay vessels and great quantities 
 of fire-cracked quartzite pebbles leads to the 
 conclusion that water was brought to the 
 boiling-point by heating the stones to a red 
 heat and dropping them into the vessel hold- 
 ing the water. Thomas, as we have seen, 
 says corn was " boyl'd with Water." Meat 
 also was, I think, prepared in the same man- 
 ner. Their pottery probably was poorly 
 able to stand this harsh treatment, which 
 would explain the presence of such vast quan- 
 tities of fragments of clay vessels. Traces of 
 vegetable food are now very rarely found. A 
 few burnt nuts, a grain or two of corn, and, 
 in one instance, what appeared to be a charred 
 crab-apple, complete the list of what, as yet, 
 have been picked from the mingled earth and 
 ashes. This is not surprising, and what we 
 know of vegetable food in use among the 
 Delaware Indians is almost wholly derived 
 from those early writers who were present 
 at their feasts. Kalm mentions the roots of 
 the golden-club, arrow-leaf, and ground-nut, 
 besides various berries and nuts. It is well 
 known that extensive orchards were planted 
 by these people. It may be added that, in 
 all probability, the tubers of that noble plant. 
 
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 165 
 
 the lotus, were used as food. Not about 
 these meadows, but elsewhere in New Jersey, 
 this plant has been growing luxuriantly since 
 Indian times. 
 
 Turning now to the consideration of what 
 animal food they consumed, one can speak 
 with absolute certainty. It is clear that the 
 Delawares were meat-eaters. It needs but 
 little digging on any village site to prove this, 
 and from a single fireplace deep down in the 
 stiiF soil of this sinking meadow have been 
 taken bones of the elk, deer, bear, beaver, 
 raccoon, musk-rat, and gray squirrel. Of 
 these, the rem.ains of deer were largely in ex- 
 cess, and as this holds good of every village 
 site I have examined, doubtless the Indians 
 depended more largely upon this animal than 
 upon all the others. Of the list, only the 
 elk is extinft in the Delaware Valley, and 
 it was probably rare even at the time of the 
 European settlement of the country, except 
 in the mountain regions. If individual tastes 
 varied as they do among us, we have certainly 
 sufficient variety here to have met every fancy. 
 
 With a food supply as varied as this, an 
 ordinary meal or an extraordinary feast can 
 readily be recalled, so far as its essential feat- 
 
1 66 A Pre-Columbian Dinner 
 
 ures are concerned. It is now September, 
 and, save where the ground has been ruthlessly 
 uptorn, everywhere is a wealth of early au- 
 tumn bloom. A soothing quiet rests upon the 
 scene, bidding us to retrospeftive thought. 
 Not a bit of stone, of pottery, or of burned 
 and blackened fragment of bone but stands 
 out in the mellow sunshine as the feature of 
 a long-forgotten feast. As I dreamily gaze 
 upon the gatherings of half a day, I seem to 
 see the ancient folk that once dwelt in this 
 neglefted spot j seem to be a guest at a pre- 
 Columbian dinner in New Jersey. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 
 
 A BATS DIGGIJ^G 
 
 A S long ago as November, 1679, two 
 Dutchmen, Jasper Dankers and Peter 
 Sluyter, worked their way laboriously across 
 New Jersey from Manhattan Island, and 
 reached South River, as the Delaware was 
 then called, at least by the Hollanders. They 
 were all agog to see the falls at the head of 
 tide-water, and spent a miserable night in a 
 rickety shanty, which was cold as Greenland, 
 except in the fireplace, and there they roasted. 
 All this was not calculated to put them in ex- 
 cellent humor, and so the next day, when they 
 stood on the river-bank and saw only a trivial 
 rapid where they had expefted a second Ni- 
 agara, their disgust knew no bounds. These 
 travel-tired Dutchmen quickly departed, row- 
 ing a small boat down-stream, and growling 
 whenever the tide turned and they had to row 
 against it. 
 
 167 
 
1 68 A Day's Digging 
 
 When they reached Burlington, they re- 
 corded of an island nearly in front of the 
 village, that it " formerly belonged to the 
 Dutch Governor, who had made it a pleasure 
 ground or garden, built good houses upon it, 
 and sowed and planted it. He also dyked 
 and cultivated a large piece of meadow or 
 marsh." The English held it at the time of 
 their visit, and it was occupied by *' some 
 Quakers," as the authors quoted called them. 
 
 One of these Dutch houses, built in part 
 of yellow bricks, and with a red tiled roof, 
 I found traces of years ago, and ever since 
 have been poking about the spot, for the very 
 excellent reasons that it is a pretty one, a se- 
 cluded one, and as full of natural history 
 attraftions now as it was of human interest 
 when a Dutch beer-garden. 
 
 Had no one who saw the place in its palmy 
 days left a record concerning the beer, I 
 could, at this late day, have given testimony 
 that if there was no beer, there were beer 
 mugs, and schnapps bottles, and wineglasses, 
 for I have been digging again and found them 
 all ; and then the pipes and pipe-stems ! I 
 have a pile of over live hundred. The 
 Dutch travellers were corredl as to the place 
 
A Day's Digging 169 
 
 having been a pleasure-garden. It certainly 
 was, and probably the very first on the Dela- 
 ware River. But there was " pleasure," too, 
 on the main shore, for the men who referred 
 to the island stayed one night in Burlington, 
 and, the next day being Sunday, attended 
 Quaker meeting, and wrote afterwards, 
 " What they uttered was mostly in one tone 
 and the same thing, and so it continued until 
 we were tired out and went away." Doubt- 
 less they were prejudiced, and so nothing 
 suited them, not even what they found to 
 drink, for they said, ** We tasted here, for the 
 first time, peach brandy or spirits, which was 
 very good, but would have been better if 
 more carefully made." They did not like 
 the English, evidently, for the next day they 
 went to Takanij (Tacony), a village of Swedes 
 and Finns, and there drank their fill of " very 
 good beer" brewed by these people, and ex- 
 pressed themselves as much pleased to find 
 that, because they had come to a new country, 
 they had not left behind them their old 
 customs. 
 
 The house that once stood where now 
 is but a reach of abandoned and wasting 
 meadow was erected in 1668 or possibly 
 
 H IS 
 
170 A Day's Digging 
 
 a little earlier. Its nearest neiglibor was across 
 a narrow creek, and a portion of the old 
 building is said to be still standing. Armed 
 with the few fafts that are on record, it is easy 
 to pifture the place as it was in the days of 
 the Dutch, and it was vastly prettier then than 
 it is now. The public of to-day are not inter- 
 ested in a useless marsh, particularly when 
 there is better ground about it in abundance, 
 and whoever wanders to such uncanny places 
 is quite sure to be left severely alone. This 
 was my experience, and, being undisturbed, I 
 enjoyed the more my resurreftive work. I 
 could enthuse, without being laughed at, over 
 what to others was but meaningless rubbish, 
 and I found very much that, to me, possessed 
 greater interest than usual, because of a min- 
 gling of late Indian and early European objefts. 
 With a handful of glass, porcelain, and amber 
 beads were more than one hundred of cop- 
 per ; the former from Venice, the latter the 
 handiwork of a Delaware Indian. With a 
 white clay pipe, made in Holland in the 
 seventeenth century, was found a rude brown 
 clay one, made here in the river valley. 
 Mingled with fragments of blue and white 
 Delft plates, bowls, and platters, were sun- 
 
A Day's Digging 171 
 
 dried mud dishes made by women hereabouts 
 during, who can say how many centuries ? 
 How completely history and pre-history 
 here overlapped ! We know pretty much 
 everything about Dutchmen, but how much 
 do we really know of the native American ? 
 After nearly thirty years' digging, he has been 
 traced from the days of the great glaciers to 
 the beginnings of American history ; but we 
 cannot say how long a time that comprises. 
 The winter of 1 892-1 893 was, so far as 
 appearances went, a return to glacial times. 
 Ice was piled up fifty feet in height, and 
 the water turned from the old channel of the 
 river. The cutting of another one opened 
 up new territory for the relic hunter when 
 the ice was gone and the stream had returned 
 to its old bed. Many an Indian wigwam 
 site that had been covered deep with soil 
 was again warmed by the springtide sun, and 
 those were rare days when, from the ashes of 
 forgotten camps, I raked the broken weapons 
 and rude dishes that the red men had dis- 
 carded. It was reading history at first hands, 
 without other commentary than your own. 
 The ice-scored gravel-beds told even an older 
 story ; but no one day's digging was so full 
 
172 A Day's Digging 
 
 of meaning, or brought me so closely in touch 
 with the past, as when I uncovered what 
 remained of the old Dutch trader's house j 
 traced the boundaries of the one-time pleas- 
 ure-garden, hearing in the songs of birds the 
 clinking of glasses, and then, in fancy, adding 
 to the now deserted landscape the fur-laden 
 canoes of the Indians who once gathered here 
 to exchange for the coveted gaudy beads the 
 skins of the many animals which at that time 
 roamed the forests. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 
 
 DRIFriJ7G 
 
 ■jVyTAKE an early start if you wish an 
 -t-^^ eventful outing. Why know the world 
 only when the day is middle-aged or old ? 
 A wise German has said, *' The morning 
 hour has gold in its mouth." For many a 
 rod after leaving the wharf the river still 
 " smoked," and the scanty glimpses between 
 the rolling clouds of mist spurred the im- 
 agination. There was nothing certain be- 
 yond the gunwales. The pale-yellow color 
 of the water near at hand and the deep-green 
 and even black of that in the distance had 
 no daytime suggestiveness. It was not yet 
 the familiar river with its noonday glitter 
 of blue and silver. 
 
 It is not strange that the initial adventure to 
 which the above-mentioned conditions natu- 
 rally gave rise occurred while this state of un- 
 certainty continued. Very soon I ran upon a 
 15* 173 
 
174 Drifting 
 
 snag. To strike such an objeft in mid-river 
 was rather startling. Was I not in or near the 
 channel ? Steamboats come puffing and plow- 
 ing here and sailing craft pass up and down, 
 so my only care had been to avoid them ; but 
 now there came in my path the twisted trunk 
 of an old forest tree and held me fast. All 
 the while the mist rose and fell, giving no 
 inkling of my whereabouts. In the dim, 
 misty light what a strange sea-monster this 
 resurrefted tree-trunk seemed to be! Its 
 thick green coat of silky threads lay closely 
 as the shining fur of the otter, a mane of 
 eel-grass floated on the water, the gnarly 
 growths where branches once had been 
 glistened as huge eyes, and broken limbs 
 were horns that threatened quick destruftion. 
 There was motion, too. Slowly it rose above 
 the water and then as slowly sunk from view. 
 Could it be possible that some long-necked 
 saurian of the Jersey marls had come to life ? 
 Nonsense ; and yet so real did it seem that 
 I was ready for the river-horse to rise 
 
 " from the waves beneath, 
 And grin through the grate of his spiky teeth." 
 
 With such an uncanny keeper, I was held a 
 
Drifting 175 
 
 prisoner. At last I struck it with an oar to 
 beat it back, and rocked the frail boat until 
 I feared plunging into the deep water and 
 deeper mud beneath. Deep water ? It sud- 
 denly occurred to me to try its depth, and 
 the truth was plain. I was far from the 
 channel, and might with safety have waded 
 to the shore. As usual, I had rashly jumped 
 at conclusions. The mouth of an inflowing 
 creek was near at hand, and this sunken tree, 
 a relic of some forgotten freshet, had been 
 lying here in the mud for several years. 
 The tide lifted and let fall the trunk, but the 
 root-mass was still strongly embedded. I 
 knew the spot of old, and now, fearing 
 nothing, was rational again. 
 
 Such sunken trees, however, are well cal- 
 culated to alarm the unthinking. It is said 
 of one yet lying in the mud of Crosswicks 
 Creek, that it rose so quickly once as to over- 
 turn a boat. This is not improbable. That 
 occurrence, if true, happened a century ago, 
 and the same tree has since badly fright- 
 ened more than one old farmer. I am told 
 this of one of them who had anchored his 
 boat here one frosty Oftober morning and 
 commenced fishing. While half asleep, or 
 
176 Drifting 
 
 but half sober, the tree slowly raised up and 
 tilted the boat so that its occupant felt com- 
 pelled to swim. His view of the offending 
 monster was much like my own fevered vision 
 of to-day. He not only swam ashore, but ran 
 a mile over a soft marsh. To him the sea- 
 serpent was a reality, although he saw it in 
 the creek. 
 
 It is of interest to note that among the 
 early settlers of this region, for at least three 
 generations, the impression was prevalent 
 that there might be some monster lurking in 
 the deep holes of the creek or in the river. 
 The last of the old hunters and fishermen of 
 this region, who had spent all his life in a boat 
 or prowling along shore, was ever talking of a 
 " king tortle" that for forty years had defied 
 all his efforts to capture it. ** Mostly, it 
 only shows its top shell, but I have seen it 
 fair and square, head and legs, and I don't 
 know as I care to get very close, neither." 
 This was his unvaried remark whenever I 
 broached the subjefl. To have suggested that 
 it was a sunken log, or in some other way 
 tried to explain the matter, would only 
 have brought about his ill will. I once at- 
 tempted it, very cautiously, but he effeftually 
 
Drifting 177 
 
 shut me up by remarking, " When this here 
 creek runs dry and you can walk over its 
 bottom, you'll larn a thing or two that ain't 
 down in your books yet, and ain't goin* to 
 be." The old man was right. I do not 
 believe in " king tortles," but there certainly 
 is " a thing or two" not yet in the books. 
 Stay ! How big do our snappers grow ? Is 
 the father of them all still hiding in the 
 channel of Crosswicks Creek ? 
 
 A description in an old manuscript journal, 
 of the general aspeft of the country as seen 
 from the river, bears upon this subjedt of 
 strange wild beasts and monsters of the deep, 
 as well as on that of sunken trees that en- 
 dangered passing shallops. 
 
 " As we pass up the river," this observant 
 writer records, " we are so shut in by the 
 great trees that grow even to the edge of the 
 water, that what may lye in the interior is 
 not to be known. That there be fertile 
 land, the Indians tell us, but their narrow 
 paths are toilsome to travel and there are 
 none [of these people] now that seem will- 
 ing to guide us. As we approached ffarns- 
 worth's the channel was often very close to 
 the shore, and at one time we were held by 
 
1 78 Drifting 
 
 the great trees that overhung the bank and 
 by one that had been fallen a long time and 
 was now lodged in the water. As I looked 
 towards the shore, I exclaimed, ' Here we 
 are indeed in a great wilderness. What 
 strangeness is concealed in this boundless 
 wood ? what wonder may at any time issue 
 from it, or fierce monster not be lurking in 
 the waters beneath us ?' Through the day 
 the cries of both birds and beasts were heard, 
 but not always. It was often so strangely 
 quiet that we were more affedled thereby 
 than by the sounds that at times issued forth. 
 At night there was great howling, as we 
 were told, of wolves, and the hooting of 
 owls, and often there plunged into the stream 
 wild stags that swam near to our boat. But 
 greater than all else, to our discomfort, were 
 the great sunken trunks of trees that were 
 across the channel, where the water was of 
 no great depth." 
 
 What a change ! and would that this old 
 traveller could revisit the Delaware to-day. 
 My boat is free again and the mists are gone. 
 Through the trees are sifted the level sun- 
 beams. There is at least a chance now to 
 compare notes. The forest is now a field. 
 
Drifting 179 
 
 the trackless marsh a meadow ; wild life is 
 largely a thing of the past ; silence, both day 
 and night, replaces sound. No, not that ; 
 but only the minor sounds are left. There 
 are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet 
 song of the thrush. No stags now swim the 
 river, but there remain the mink and the 
 musk-rat. It has not been long since I saw 
 a migration of meadow-mice, and at night, I 
 am sure, many an animal dares to breast the 
 stream, a mile wide though it be. Too 
 cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its 
 life at night ; and how tragic the result when, 
 nearly at the journey's end, it is seized by a 
 lurking foe ; dragged down, it may be, by a 
 snake or a turtle ! 
 
 The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, 
 and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a 
 bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the 
 tall wild rice, there is daily enadled scene 
 after scene as full of import as those which 
 caused the very forest to tremble when the 
 wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or 
 deer that had fallen. 
 
 It has been insisted upon that a goal-less 
 journey is necessarily a waste of time. If 
 on foot, we must keep forever on the go ; if 
 
i8o Drifting 
 
 in a boat, we must keep bending to the oars. 
 It is this miserable fallacy that makes so many 
 an out-door man and woman lose more than 
 half of that for which they went into the 
 fields. Who cares if you did see a chippy at 
 every turn and flushed a bittern at the edge 
 of the marsh ? If you had been there before 
 them, and these birds did the walking, you 
 would have gone home the wiser. It is not 
 the mere fadl that there are birds that con- 
 cerns us, but what are they doing ? why are 
 they doing it ? This the town-pent people 
 are ever anxious to know, and the fails cannot 
 be gathered if you are forever on the move. 
 Suppose I rush across the river and back, 
 what have I seen ? The bottom of the boat. 
 I came to see the river and the sky above, 
 and if this is of no interest to the reader, let 
 him turn the leaf. 
 
 Does every storm follow the track of the 
 sun? As the sun rose there were clouds 
 in the east and south and a haziness over 
 the western sky. Had I asked a farmer as 
 to the weather probabilities, he would have 
 looked everywhere but due north. Why 
 does he always ignore that quarter ? There 
 may be great banks of cloud there, but they 
 
Drifting 1 8 1 
 
 go for nothing. " Sou-east" and " sou-west" 
 are forever rung in your ears, but never a w^ord 
 of the north. Sometimes I have thought it 
 may be for this reason that about half the 
 time the farmer is all wrong, and the heaviest 
 rains come when he is most sure that the day 
 will be clear. 
 
 Looking upward, for the sky was clear in 
 that direftion now, I saw that there were birds 
 so far above me that they appeared as mere 
 specks. Very black when first seen, but oc- 
 casionally they flashed as stars seen by day 
 from the bottom of a well. They could not 
 be followed, except one that swept swiftly 
 earthward, and the spreading tail and curve 
 of wings told me it was a fish-hawk. What 
 a glorious outlook from its ever-changing 
 point of view ! From its height, it could 
 have seen the mountains and the ocean, and 
 the long reach of river valley as well. If the 
 mists obscure it all, why should a bird linger 
 in the upper air ? The prosy matter of food- 
 getting has nothing to do with it. While in 
 camp on Chesapeake Bay, I noticed that the 
 fish-hawks were not always fishing, and often 
 the air rang with their strange cries while 
 soaring so far overhead as to be plainly seen 
 
1 82 Drifting 
 
 only with a field-glass. Every movement sug- 
 gested freedom from care as they romped in 
 the fields of space. It is not strange that 
 they scream, or laugh, shall w^e say ? when 
 speeding along at such rate and in no danger 
 of collision. If I mistake not, the cry of 
 exultation is coincident with the downward 
 swoop, and I thought of old-time yelling 
 when dashing down a snow-clad hill-side ; 
 but how sober was the work of dragging the 
 sled up-hill ! The hawks, I thought, were 
 silent when upward bound. If so, there is 
 something akin to humanity in the hawk 
 nature. 
 
 I have called the cry of the fish-hawk a 
 ** laugh," but, from a human stand-point, do 
 birds laugh ? It is extremely doubtful, though 
 I recall a pet sparrow-hawk that was given 
 to playing tricks, as I called them, and the 
 whole family believed that this bird aftually 
 laughed. Muggins, as we named him, had a 
 fancy for pouncing upon the top of my head 
 and, leaning forward, snapping his beak in my 
 face. Once an old uncle came into the room 
 and was treated in this fashion. Never having 
 seen the bird before, he was greatly aston- 
 ished, and indignant beyond measure when 
 
Drifting 1 83 
 
 the hawk, being rudely brushed off, carried 
 away his wig. Now the bird was no less 
 astonished than the man, and when he saw 
 the wig dangling from his claws he gave a 
 loud cackle, unlike anything we had ever 
 heard before, and which was, I imagine, 
 more an expression of amusement than of 
 surprise. I think this, because afterwards I 
 often played the game of wig with him, to 
 the bird's delight, and he always ** laughed" 
 as he carried off the prize. On the contrary, 
 the unsuccessful attempt to remove natural 
 hair elicited no such expression, but some- 
 times a squeal of disgust. 
 
 In the Spectator of October i, 1892, page 
 444, 1 find a most thoughtful article, entitled 
 ** The Animal Sense of Humor," and I quote 
 as follows : " The power of laughter is pecu- 
 liar to man, and the sense of humor may be 
 said, generally speaking, to be also his special 
 property." Again, *' We never saw the 
 slightest approach to amusement in one animal 
 at the mistakes of another, though dogs, so far 
 as we can venture to interpret their thoughts, 
 do really feel amusement at the mistakes of 
 men." Possibly the author is right, but do 
 not cats show a sense of humor at the rough- 
 
r84 Drifting 
 
 and-tumble gambols of their kittens ? Is not 
 the sly cuff on the ear that sends a kitten 
 sprawling indicative of a sense of fun on the 
 part of tabby ? Our author says, " so far as 
 we can venture to interpret their thoughts." 
 " Ay, there's the rub." No one can tell how 
 far it is safe to venture, but I go a great deal 
 beyond my neighbors. Our author con- 
 cludes, *'In animals, as in man, humor is 
 the result of civilization, and not as we under- 
 stand it, a natural and spontaneous develop- 
 ment." I cannot subscribe to this. I know 
 little of domestic animals, but have got the 
 idea of an animal's sense of humor from wild 
 life, and confirmed it by what I have seen 
 of cats and dogs. 
 
 While I have been drifting, and using my 
 eyes and ears instead of legs and arms, as is 
 advocated, the clouds, too, have been creep- 
 ing this way, and, while the morning is yet 
 fresh, it is certainly going to rain. Had I 
 consulted the barometer, I would have known 
 this ; but then, knowing it, might I not have 
 stayed at home ? Why not enjoy part of a 
 day ? That the rain will soon be here does 
 not diminish one's pleasure, unless there is a 
 fear of getting wet, and this is all too com- 
 
Drifting 185 
 
 mon. I hope that it does not mean that you 
 have but one suit of clothes. 
 
 The approaching rain, the increasing 
 cloudiness, the shut-in appearance, made the 
 river exceedingly attraftive. With the down- 
 dropping clouds dropped down the birds, 
 and the swallows now skimmed the water as 
 they had been skimming the sky. The fish- 
 hawks departed, but a host of land-birds 
 crossed the stream, as if comparing the shelter 
 aiForded by the cedars on one side and pines 
 on the other. These birds chattered as they 
 flew by, and turned their heads up- and down- 
 stream, as if curious as to all that might be 
 going on. Suddenly the water ceased to be 
 rippled, and far down-stream a cloud appeared 
 to have reached the river. It was the rain. 
 It seemed to march very slowly, and every 
 drop made a dimple on the river's breast. 
 Then I could hear the on-coming host, the 
 sound having a distinft bell-like tinkle as each 
 drop touched the surface and disappeared. 
 A curious effeft, too, was produced by the 
 wind or the varying density of the cloud 
 above, in that the drops were very near to- 
 gether where I happened to be, and much 
 farther apart and larger some distance beyond 
 16* 
 
1 86 Drifting 
 
 the boat. I could of course make no meas- 
 urements, but appearances suggested that in 
 the middle of the river the drops were less 
 numerous in the proportion of one to five. 
 Does it usually rain harder over land than 
 over water ? Heretofore I had seen the rain 
 upon the river while on shore, and was now 
 very glad to have been caught adrift, so as to 
 observe it from a new point of view. It 
 was a beautiful sight, well worth the thorough 
 wetting that I got and which drove me home 
 soon after with pleasant thoughts of my goal- 
 less journey. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 
 
 FOOrPRIN'TS 
 
 \T 7HILE the camp-fire was smoking, for 
 ' * the wood was green and I was willing 
 that my companion should worry over it, I 
 strolled up the long, sandy beach with no par- 
 ticular objeft in mind and quite ready to meet 
 and parley with any creature that I overtook. 
 I saw only evidences of what had been there, 
 or what I supposed had been. There were 
 tracks that I took to be those of herons, and 
 others that suggested a raccoon in search of 
 crayfish. Here and there a mouse had hur- 
 ried by. What lively times had been kept up 
 at low tide within sight of the tent door ! and 
 yet we knew nothing of it. But these tracks 
 were not well defined, and therefore why 
 not misinterpreted ? I have not suggested all 
 
 the possibilities of the case Here my 
 
 meditations were checked by the call to 
 breakfast, but I took up the subjeft again as I 
 
 187 
 
1 88 Footprints 
 
 walked alone in the woods, for I was but 
 the companion of a worker, not one myself. 
 It occurred to me that when we read of 
 hunters, or perhaps have followed a trapper 
 in his rounds, we have been led to think that 
 footprints are animal autography that the 
 initiated can read without hesitation. To 
 distinguish the track of a rabbit from that of 
 a raccoon is readily done, and we can go 
 much further, and determine whether the 
 animal was walking or running, made a leap 
 here or squatted there ; but can we go to any 
 length, and decipher every impress an animal 
 may have made in passing over the sand or 
 mud ? I think not. I have seen a twig sent 
 spinning a long distance up the beach at low 
 tide, making a line of equidistant marks that 
 were extremely life-like in appearance. A 
 cloud of dead leaves have so dotted an ex- 
 panse of mud that a gunner insisted there 
 had been a flock of plover there a few mo- 
 ments before he arrived. All depends, or 
 very much does, on the condition of the sur- 
 face marked. If very soft and yielding, the 
 plainest bird-tracks may be distorted, and a 
 mere dot, on the other hand, may have its 
 outline so broken as to appear as though made 
 
Footprints 1 89 
 
 by a bird or mammal. Still, tracks are a 
 safe guide in the long run, and, whether 
 our opinion as to them be correct or not, the 
 rambler finds something worth seeing, and 
 he goes on anything but a wild-goose chase 
 who sometimes finds himself mistaken. It 
 is well to check our confidence occasionally 
 and realize the limits of our power. 
 
 Opportunity afforded while in camp, and 
 I made a short study of footprints. With 
 a field-glass I noted many birds, and then 
 going to the spot, examined the impressions 
 their feet had made. A night-heron did not 
 come down flatly upon its feet with outspread 
 toes, and so the tracks were quite different 
 from the impressions made when the bird 
 walked. Crows, I noticed, both hopped 
 and walked, and the marks were very dif- 
 ferent, the former being broad and ill-defined 
 in comparison with the traces of the same 
 bird's stately tread. Had the bird not been 
 seen, any one would have supposed two creat- 
 ures had been keeping close company, or that 
 some one individual had passed by in the 
 very path of another. The purple grakle 
 and red-winged blackbird made tracks too 
 much alike to be distinguished, yet these 
 
190 Footprints 
 
 birds have not the same size or shape of foot. 
 A water-snake came up over the mud and 
 left a line of marks upon the sand that could 
 not be recognized as that of any animal, ex- 
 cept it might be a faint resemblance to the trail 
 of a mussel. I chased a dozen crayfish over 
 a mud flat, and their backw^ard and sidewise 
 leapings caused an old gunner to say there 
 had been plover about. A blue-vsringed teal 
 made a long double line of dents in the sand 
 before it rose clear of the beach, and these 
 were very like many a footprint I had pre- 
 viously seen. What, then, must we think of 
 the fossil footprints of which so much has 
 been written ? As diiferent species, a long 
 series of these impressions in the rock have 
 been described and given high-sounding titles. 
 I am not entitled to an opinion, but have 
 doubts, nevertheless, of the wisdom of con- 
 sidering every slightly different form as made 
 by a different creature. I have given my 
 reasons, and will only add another instance, 
 one of greater significance than all as bear- 
 ing upon the question. I startled a slum- 
 bering jumping-mouse last summer and it 
 bounded across the smooth sand bared by the 
 outgoing tide. Its track then was one made 
 
Footprints 191 
 
 by its body rather than the extremities, and 
 a curious dent in the river-shore's smooth 
 surface it was ; but before taking again to the 
 woods it walked in its peculiar way, and the 
 little footprints were quite distinft and un- 
 mistakably those of a small mammal. Had 
 the two sets of markings been preserved in 
 a slab of sandstone, no ichnologist would 
 have recognized the truth, but probably would 
 have said, ** Here is a case where some leap- 
 ing creature has overtaken a small rodent and 
 devoured it." 
 
 Difficult as fossil footprints may be to de- 
 cipher, they call up with wonderful distindl- 
 ness the long ago of other geologic ages. It 
 is hard to realize that the stone of which our 
 houses are built once formed the tide-washed 
 shore of a primeval river or the bed of a lake 
 or ocean gone long before man came upon 
 the scene. 
 
 But the footprints of to-day concern me 
 more. Looking over the side of the boat, I 
 saw several mussels moving slowly along and 
 making a deep, crooked groove in the ripple- 
 marked sand, " streaking the ground with 
 sinuous trace," as Milton puts it ; and the 
 school of blunt-headed minnows made little 
 
192 Footprints 
 
 dents in the sand wherever the water was shal- 
 low, when they turned suddenly and darted 
 oiF-shore. This sand seemed very unstable, 
 and a little agitation of the water caused 
 many a mark to be wiped out ; and yet we 
 find great slabs of ripple-marked and foot- 
 marked sandstone. I picked up such a piece 
 not long ago on which were rain-drop marks. 
 This is the story of a million years ago ; but 
 who ever found Indian moccasin-marks not 
 two centuries old? The footprints that 
 could tell us many a wonderful story are all 
 gone and the tale of a rain-drop remains. 
 This is a bit aggravating. Here where we 
 have pitched our camp, or very near it, was 
 a Swedish village in 1650 and later, and for 
 two days I have been hunting for evidence 
 of the fadt, — some bit of broken crockery, 
 rusty nail, glass, pewter spoon, anything, — 
 but in vain. History records the village, and 
 corredlly, without a doubt, but there are no 
 footprints here, nor other trace to show that 
 a white man ever saw the place until our tent 
 was pitched upon the beach. 
 
 Towards evening I had occasion to renew 
 my youth, — in other words, *'run on an 
 errand," as my mother put it, — and going half 
 
Footprints 193 
 
 a mile through the woods, I came to a nar- 
 row but well-worn path. This was so akin 
 to my footprint thoughts of the morning that I 
 gladly followed it instead of making a short 
 cut. It was fortunate, for the path led di- 
 reftly to where I wished to go, and our theo- 
 retical geography, as usual, was terribly out 
 of joint. As it was, on the edge of an old 
 village I found a very old man in a very old 
 house. His memory as to the earlier half of 
 the century was excellent, and he gave me 
 the desired information and more. I spoke 
 of the path through the woods, and he 
 chuckled to himself. 
 
 ** Through the woodses, eh ? Well, when 
 I made the path, goin' and comin' through 
 the brush that wasn't shoulder-high, there was 
 no trees then. That was more'n forty years 
 ago." 
 
 ** No, John, 'twa'n't," piped a weak voice 
 from the interior of the little cottage ; 
 *• 'twa'n't mor'n " 
 
 *' Laws, man, don't mind her. She dis- 
 putes the almanac, and every winter gets in 
 New Year's ahead of Christmas." 
 
 I did not stop to argue the matter, but 
 hurried campward, glad that, if I could find 
 
194 Footprints 
 
 no footprints of human interest and historic, 
 I at least had followed a path made forty 
 years ago, — a path that had been worn among 
 bushes and now led through a forest. It was 
 indeed suggestive. By the camp-fire that 
 night I vowed to plant a forest where now 
 there was but a thicket, and in my dreams 
 I walked through a noble wood. 
 
 Think how much might be done to beau- 
 tify the world, and how little is accom- 
 plished. 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 
 
 BEES AND BUCKWHEAT 
 
 nr^HE great storm of yesterday cleared the 
 "*• air as well as cleaned the beaches, and 
 the river was fresh and sparkling as though 
 the tempest had added new life, so that the 
 listless midsummery water was now as cham- 
 pagne, " with beaded bubbles winking at the 
 brim." The air was heavy with sweetness 
 and with song, the fields and meadows painted 
 as the rose. The buckwheat was in bloom, 
 and a million bees were humming. The 
 pasture was gay with pink gerardia, or re- 
 flefted the summer sky where the day-flower 
 blossomed. There was no commingling of 
 these late flowers. Each had its own acre, 
 exercised squatter sovereignty, and allowed 
 no trespassing. The only evidence of man's 
 interference, except the buckwheat-field, was 
 a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of 
 several instances where beauty increases hand 
 
 195 
 
196 Bees and Buckwheat 
 
 in hand with decay. The older such a fence, 
 the better ; when merely a support for Vir- 
 ginia creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is 
 worthy the rambler's regard. Wild life long 
 ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such 
 ruined fences offer. It puzzles even a mink 
 to thread their mazes, and the shy rabbit that 
 has its ** form" in a brier-hidden hollow of 
 the crooked line feels that it is safe. 
 
 There are traces of these old fences of 
 which no record remains, placed perhaps by 
 the very earliest settler in a tradl that he had 
 cleared and which has since gone back to an 
 almost primitive state. In an old woodland 
 I once traced a fence by the long line of cy- 
 pripediums in bloom, which were thriving in 
 the mould of decayed fence-rails, a pretty if 
 not permanent monument to departed worth. 
 
 A word more of these old fences in winter. 
 When the snow beats across the field, it stops 
 here and gracefully curves above it, arching 
 the rails and vines until all is hidden, unless 
 it be some lonely projefting stake, by which 
 alone it communicates with the outside world. 
 I rashly attempted once to go across-lots over 
 a new country, and made a discovery. The 
 snow-bound fence was but a drift, I thought. 
 
Bees and Buckwheat 197 
 
 but it proved to be far difFerent. The thick 
 mat of hardy growths had kept back the snow, 
 which was but a roof and did not wholly ex- 
 clude the light. For some distance I could 
 dimly make out the various growths, and each 
 little cedar stood up as a sentinel. A loud 
 word sounded and resounded as if I had spo- 
 ken in an empty room or shouted in a long 
 tunnel. The coldest day in the year could 
 not inconvenience any creature that took 
 shelter here, and I found later that life, both 
 furred and feathered, knew the old fence far 
 better than I did. 
 
 But this is the last day but one of August, 
 and so nominally the end of summer. Only 
 nominally, for these flowery meadows and 
 sweet-scented fields contradidt the almanac. 
 This quiet nook in the Delaware meadows 
 offers no intimation of autumn until October, 
 and late in the month at that. The bees and 
 buckwheat will see to this, or seem to, which 
 is just as much to the purpose. To-day along 
 the old worm-fence are many kingbirds, and, 
 although mute, they are not moping. There 
 is too much inseft life astir for that. With 
 them are orioles and bluebirds, the whole 
 making a loose flock of perhaps a hundred 
 17* 
 
198 Bees and Buckwheat 
 
 birds. The bluebirds are singing, but in a 
 half-hearted, melancholy way, reminding me 
 of an old man who spent his time when over 
 ninety in humming " Auld Lang Syne." Be- 
 fore the buckwheat has lost its freshness these 
 birds will all be gone, but at what time the 
 bluebirds part company with the others I do 
 not know. They certainly do not regularly 
 migrate, as do the others. There was a colony 
 of them that lived for years in and about my 
 barn, and one was as sure to see them in 
 January as in June. No English sparrows 
 could have been more permanently fixed. 
 
 When the buckwheat is ripe and the fields 
 and meadows are brown, there will be other 
 birds to take their place. Tree-sparrows from 
 Canada and white-throats from New England 
 will make these same fields merry with music, 
 and the tangle about the old fence will ring 
 with gladness. But it is August still, and why 
 anticipate ? High overhead there are black 
 specks in the air, and we can mark their course, 
 as they pass, by the bell-like chink-chink that 
 comes floating earthward. It is one of the 
 sounds that recall the past rather than refer 
 to the present. The reed-bird of to-day was 
 a bobolink last May. His roundelay that told 
 
Bees and Buckwheat 199 
 
 then of a long summer to come is now but a 
 single note of regret that the promised summer 
 is a thing of the past. It is the Alpha and 
 Omega of the year's song-tide. Not that we 
 have no other songs when the reed-bird has 
 flown to the Carolina rice-fields. While I 
 write, a song-sparrow is reciting reminis- 
 cences of last May, and there will be ringing 
 rounds of bird-rejoicing from November to 
 April. Still, the initial thought holds good : 
 bobolink in May, and only a reed-bird in 
 August ; the beginning and the end ; the her- 
 ald of Summer's birth and her chief mourner ; 
 Alpha and Omega. 
 
 Where the brook that drains the meadow 
 finds its way, the little rail-birds have con- 
 gregated. Many spent their summer along 
 the Musketaquid, where Thoreau spent his 
 best days, but they bring no message from 
 New England. They very seldom speak 
 above a whisper. Not so the king-rail. He 
 chatters as he threads the marsh and dodges 
 the great blue harrier that sweeps above the 
 cat-tail grasses and has to be content with a 
 sparrow or a mouse. 
 
 These late August days are too often over- 
 full, and one sees and hears too much, — so 
 
200 Bees and Buckwheat 
 
 very much that it is hard to give proper heed 
 to any one of the many sights and sounds. 
 But hov/ much harder to turn your back upon 
 it ! All too soon the sun sinks into the golden 
 clouds of the western sky. 
 
 That was a happy day when the buckwheat 
 was threshed in the field, on a cool, clear, 
 crisp Oftober morning. The thumping of 
 the flails on the temporary floor put the world 
 in good humor. No bird within hearing but 
 sang to its time-keeping. Even the crows 
 cawed more methodically, and squirrels 
 barked at the same instant that the flail sent 
 a shower of brown kernels dancing in the 
 air. The quails came near, as if impatient 
 for the grains eyes less sharp than theirs would 
 fail to find. It was something at such a time 
 to lie in the gathering heap of straw and join 
 in the work so far as to look on. That is a 
 boy's privilege which we seldom are anxious 
 to outgrow. A nooning at such a time meant 
 a fire to warm the dinner, and the scanty time 
 allowed was none too short for the threshers 
 to indulge in weather prognostications. This 
 is as much a habit as eating, and to forego it 
 would be as unnatural as to forego the taking 
 of food. As the threshers ate, they scanned 
 
Bees and Buckwheat 201 
 
 the surroundings, and not a tree, bush, or 
 wilted weed but was held to bear evidence 
 that the coming winter would be *' open" or 
 '* hard," as the oldest man present saw fit to 
 predift. No one disputed him, and no one 
 remembered a week later what he had said, 
 so the old man's reputation was safe. 
 
 The buckwheat threshed, the rest is all a 
 matter of plain prose. Stay ! In the coming 
 Indian summer there was always a bee-hunt. 
 The old man whom we saw in the buckwheat- 
 field in Odlober was our dependence for wild 
 honey, which we fancied was better than that 
 from the hives. He always went alone, 
 carrying a wooden pail and a long, slender 
 oaken staff. How he found the bee-trees so 
 readily was a question much discussed. *' He 
 smells it," some one suggested ; *'' He hears 
 *em a-buzzin'," others remarked. Knowing 
 when he was going, I once followed on the 
 sly and solved the mystery. He went with- 
 out hesitation or turning of the head to a 
 hollow beech, and straightway commenced 
 operations. I did not stay to witness this, but 
 came away recalling many a Sunday after- 
 noon's stroll with him in these same woods. 
 What he had seen in August he had remem- 
 
202 Bees and Buckwheat 
 
 bered in December, and, wise man that he 
 was, said nothing meanwhile. Why, indeed, 
 should he throw aside the opportunity to pose 
 as one having superior knowledge, when 
 others were so persistent in asserting it of 
 him ? There is that much vanity in all men. 
 
 But a year later his superior knowledge 
 failed him. I had found the same tree in my 
 solitary rambles, and was there ahead of him. 
 Still, I never enjoyed my triumph. I felt 
 very far from complimented when he re- 
 marked, as an excuse for his failure, that ** a 
 skunk had been at the only bee-tree in the 
 woods. He saw signs of the varmint all 
 about;" and when he said this he looked 
 direftly at me, with his nose in the air. 
 
 It is winter now, and when in the early 
 morning I find cakes and honey upon the 
 breakfast-table, excellent as they are in their 
 way, they are the better that they call up the 
 wide landscape of those latter August days 
 and of frosty Oftober, for I see less of the 
 morning meal before me than of bees and 
 buckwheat. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 DEAD LEAVES 
 
 T HAVE often wondered why the Indians 
 •*■ did not call November the month of 
 dead leaves. The out-of-town world is full 
 of them now. They replace the daisies and 
 dandelions in the open fields, the violets and 
 azaleas in the shady woods. They are a promi- 
 nent feature of the village street. Many will 
 cling to the trees the winter long, but mil- 
 lions are scattered over the ground. Even 
 on the river I find them floating, borne slowly 
 by the tide or hurrying across the rippled 
 surface, chased by the passing breeze. 
 
 The pleasure — common to us all — we take 
 in crushing them beneath our feet savors of 
 heartlessness. Why should we not recall 
 their kindness when, as bright-green leaves, 
 each cast its mite of grateful shade, so dear 
 to the rambler, and now, when they have 
 fallen, let them rest in peace ? We should 
 
 ao3 
 
204 Dead Leaves 
 
 not be ugly and revengeful merely because it 
 is winter. There is nothing to fret us in 
 this change from shade to sunshine, from 
 green leaves to brown. The world is not 
 dead because of it. While the sun looks 
 down upon the woods to-day there arises a 
 sweet odor, pleasant as the breath of roses. 
 The world dead, indeed ! What more vig- 
 orous and full of life than the mosses cover- 
 ing the rich wood-mould ? Before me, too, 
 lies a long-fallen tree cloaked in moss greener 
 than the summer pastures. Not the sea alone 
 possesses transforming magic; there is also "a 
 woo^-changQ into something rich and strange." 
 Never does the thought of death and decay 
 centre about such a sight. The chickadee 
 drops from the bushes above, looks the moss- 
 clad log over carefully, and, when again poised 
 on an overhanging branch, loudly lisps its 
 praises. What if it is winter when you wit- 
 ness such things ? One swallow may not 
 make a summer, but a single chickadee will 
 draw the sting from any winter morning. 
 
 I never sit by the clustered dead leaves and 
 listen to their faint rustling as the wind moves 
 among them but I fancy they are whispering 
 of the days gone by. What of the vanished 
 
Dead Leaves 205 
 
 springtide, when they first timidiy looked 
 forth ? They greeted the returning birds, the 
 whole merry host of north-bound warblers, 
 and what startling fafts of the bird-world 
 they might reveal ! There is no eye-witness 
 equal to the leaf, and with them lives and 
 dies many a secret that even the most patient 
 ornithologist can never gain. How much 
 they overhear of what the birds are saying ! 
 to how much entrancing music they listen 
 that falls not upon men's ears ! What a view 
 of the busy world above us has the fluttering 
 leaf that crowns the tall tree's topmost twig ! 
 Whether in storm or sunshine, veiled in 
 clouds or beneath a starlit sky, whatsoever 
 happens, there is the on-looking leaf, a nat- 
 uralist worth knowing could we but learn its 
 language. 
 
 A word here as to the individuality of living 
 leaves. Few persons are so blind as to have 
 never noticed how leaves differ. Of every 
 size and shape and density, they have varied 
 experiences, if not different functions, and 
 their effeft upon the rambler in his wander- 
 ings is by no means always the same. At 
 high noon, when the midsummer sun strives 
 to parch the world, let the rambler stand 
 
2o6 Dead Leaves 
 
 first beneath an old oak and then pass to the 
 quivering aspen, or pause in the shade of a 
 way-side locust and then tarry beneath the 
 cedar, at whose roots the sunshine never 
 comes. It needs but to do this to realize 
 that there are leaves and leaves : those that 
 truly shelter and those that tease you by their 
 fitfulness. 
 
 It is winter now and the leaves are dead ; 
 but, although blighted, they have not lost 
 their beauty. Heaped in the by-paths of 
 this ancient wood, they are closely associated 
 with the pranks of many birds, and for this 
 alone should be lovingly regarded. Even now 
 I hear an overstaying chewink — for this is a 
 warm wood the winter long — tossing them 
 in little clouds about him as he searches for 
 the abundant insefts that vainly seek shelter 
 where they have fallen. The birds seem to 
 seek fun as well as food among the leaves. I 
 have often watched them literally dive from 
 the overhanging bushes into a heap of leaves, 
 and then with a flirt of the wings send dozens 
 flying into the air. It is hard to imagine any 
 other purpose than pure sport. When, as 
 often happens, two or three follow their 
 leader, I always think of a string of boys diving 
 
Dead Leaves 207 
 
 or playing leap-frog. *' Coincidence," cries 
 old Prosy, with a wise shake of his head. 
 Perhaps ; but I think old Prosy is a fool. 
 
 The strange, retiring winter wren is equally 
 a lover of dead leaves. He plays with them 
 in a less boisterous manner, but none the less 
 delights in tossing them to and fro. It is at 
 such a time that a few notes of his marvellous 
 summer song occasionally escape him. The 
 white-throated sparrows fairly dance among 
 or upon the heaped-up leaves, and play bo- 
 peep with the clouds of them they send 
 aloft; and in February the foxie sparrows 
 play the same pranks. Squirrels and mice 
 are equally at home, and abandon all prudence 
 when they frolic among the windrows. The 
 more clatter and cackle, the better they are 
 pleased. When freed from the restraint of 
 fear, wild life is fun-loving to the very brim. 
 
 Dead leaves are never deserted unless the 
 weather is extremely cold or a storm has 
 prevailed until they are a sodden mat. Even 
 from such a wetting they soon recover and 
 respond to the passing breeze's gentlest touch. 
 Dead leaves are the matured fruit of summer, 
 and what an important part they really play 
 as the year closes ! They are not now of the 
 
2o8 Dead Leaves 
 
 air, airy, but of the earth, earthy. Dead, it 
 is true, yet living. Passive, yet hovsr aftive ! 
 They are vsrhispering good cheer now to the 
 sleeping buds that await the coming of a new 
 year, and faithfully guard them when the 
 storm rages. For such deeds we owe them 
 our kindliest thoughts. 
 
 In the golden sunshine of this dreamy day 
 the leaves have yet another visitor that makes 
 merry with them. The little whirlwind, 
 without a herald, springs laughingly upon 
 them, even when the profoundest quiet reigns 
 throughout the wood. Touched by this 
 fairy's wand, the leaves rise in a whirling 
 pillar and dance down the narrow path into 
 some even more secluded nook. Dead leaves, 
 indeed ! Never did the wildest madcap of a 
 courting bird play livelier pranks. 
 
 Time was when I would have searched 
 the woods for winter-green and worn it gayly. 
 I am content to-day to carry a withered leaf. 
 
Index 
 
 A. Allium, 11. 
 Amelanchier, 140, 
 Andromeda, 57. 
 Ants, 14, 36. 
 Arbutus, 51, 57, 62. 
 Arroiv-point, 1 5 6. 
 Azalea, 141. 
 
 B. 5ear, 54. 
 Bea'ver, 66. 
 5eefi>, 43. 
 5/rfi., 54. 
 Bittern, 73, 180. 
 
 /Mi/, 42. 
 Bittersweet, 142. 
 Blackbird, 32, 41, 6; , 75, 189. 
 Blueberry, 64. 
 
 Bluebird, 18, 67, 1 43, 1 97. 
 Boneset, 155. 
 Butterflies, 20, 156. 
 Buzzards, 67. 
 
 C. Cardinal bird, 23, 59, 75, 80, 87, III, 144. 
 Cat-bird, 32, 59,87, 137, 146. 
 Caterpillar, 133. 
 
 18* 209 
 
2IO Index 
 
 CatUmte, 150, 158. 
 
 Cat-tail, 42. 
 
 Cedar, 64. 
 
 Celastrus, 142. 
 
 Centaury, J55 
 
 Centipede, 57. 
 
 CAat, 3Z, 83. 
 
 Cherry, wild, 43. 
 
 Chewink, 59, 80, 2o6. 
 
 Chickadee, 204. 
 
 Chimney-iiuift, 20. 
 
 C/aj, 35. 
 
 Clethra, 141. 
 
 Cougars, 65. 
 
 Cotv-bird, 93. 
 
 Crayfish, lij, 190. 
 
 Crocus, 145. 
 
 Crow, II, 32, 47, 76, 86, 189, 200„ 
 
 Cy/>er«i, 77. 
 
 D. Day-flower, 195. 
 Dwr, 54, 179, 
 Deer-berry, 141. 
 Deutzia, 141. 
 Diver, 29. 
 Dodder, 116, 156. 
 Dove, 24. 
 Dragon-fly, 156. 
 
 Ducks, -wild, 86 J loood-y 56. 
 
 E. £fl^/., 24. 
 £./, 54. 
 
Index 211 
 
 Elk, 179. 
 Elm, 43. 
 
 F. " False-teetb," I^I. 
 
 Finch, indigo, 72 ; purple, 59 ; tiistle, 32. 
 Fly-catcher, 15, 32, 144. 
 Frogs, 58, 67. 
 
 G. Galium, 77. 
 Gerard: a, 195. 
 Golden-club, 56. 
 Gra^/e, 32, 75, 145, 189. 
 Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 59. 
 Ga/A, 76. 
 
 Gum-tree, 66. 
 
 H. Harrier, 199. 
 
 Hawk, black, 17. 
 
 duck-, 24. 
 /ii&-, 26, 32, 179, 181. 
 
 sparrow-, 182. 
 Heron, blue, 42; green, 25; night-, 189. 
 Herons, 41, 67, 187. 
 Herring, 67. 
 Hickory, 17, 44. 
 Ho//y, 51. 
 Honeysuckle, 136. 
 Humming-bird, 136. 
 £^/fl, 58. 
 
 I. Indian grass, 64. 
 
 «//«, 148, 152, 157, 160. 
 
212 Index 
 
 Ink-berry^ 5a. 
 7m, 40, 
 Iron-ioeedf 1 55. 
 
 J. Jasper, 151. 
 
 Jay, blue-, 47. 
 Jerboa, 59. 
 
 K. Kill- deer plover, 32, 67, 77, 95. 
 
 Kingbird, 41, 197. 
 Kinglet, 65, 82. 
 King-rail, 42, 199. 
 
 L. Lemotkoe, 141. 
 
 hinder a, 140. 
 Uquidambar, 54, 
 £oo», 67. 
 £o?ai, 41, 134. 
 
 M. Magnolia, 66. 
 
 Maple, 28, 52, 72. 
 
 Martin, 31, 143. 
 
 M/w^, 53, 156, 179. 
 
 Minnow, mud-, 39. 
 
 Minnoms, 126, 1 91. 
 
 Mistletoe, 28, 66. 
 
 Mocking-bird, 32. ' 
 
 ikfoM, c/a^-, 57 ; reindeer, 54, 62. 
 
 Mouse, meado'w-, 17, 42, 156, 179. 
 
 tvhite-footed, 59. 
 Musk-rat, 29, 53, 156, 179. 
 Mussel, 191. 
 
Index 213 
 
 O. Oak, 10, ai, 44, 64, 138. 
 
 luilloiv-, 53. 
 Obsidian, 150, 159. 
 Opossum, 46, 59. 
 Orw/«, 71, 90, 144, 197. 
 O'ven-hird, 135. 
 Ow/, iarn, 123. 
 
 P. Panther, 179. 
 
 Partridge-berry, 54. 
 Pepper-bush, S'weet, 141. 
 P//^e, 125. 
 
 P;«e, Weymouth, 30. 
 Pinxter floiver, 141. 
 Pipilo, 113. 
 P/oi;er, 188. 
 Plum, ivild, 141. 
 Pontederia, 155. 
 Poplar, Lombardy, 30. 
 Primrose, 155. 
 ■Py^'^i 57 J 61, 68. 
 
 R. iJflW//, 44, 188, 196. 
 
 Raccoon, 47, 187. 
 Rail-bird, 199. 
 Raven, 146. 
 Red-eye, 19, 32. 
 Redstart, 32. 
 Reed-bird, 198. 
 
214 Index 
 
 Reeds, 155. 
 Relics f Indian, 43. 
 Robin, 32, 47, 75, 146. 
 Rose-mallow, 41. 
 iJoiw, 145. 
 
 S. Sand-piper, 25, 38. 
 
 Saponaria, 77. 
 5e^^e, 156. 
 Shad-hush, 140. 
 Snake, garter-, 27. 
 
 water-, 130, 179, 190. 
 Snow-birds, 67. 
 Sparrow, chipping, 32, 180. 
 
 foxie, 207. 
 
 ««^-, 25» 32> 76,88, 135. 
 
 swamp-, 41. 
 
 rrfe-, 59, 82, 198. 
 
 white-throated, 59, 198, 207. 
 Sphagnum, 56, 57, 69. 
 Spice-'wood, 73, 140. 
 Spiders, 37. 
 Spirea, 141. 
 Squirrel, fiying-, 59. 
 Sundew, 69. 
 Sunfish, 129. 
 Sunflower, 41, 155. 
 Swallow, bank, 93 ; iarn, 94. 
 
 T. Tanager, scarlet, 53, 144. 
 
 Tea-berry, 52. 
 Tea/, blue-winged, 190. 
 
Index 215 
 
 Thorn, lohiie, 141. 
 Thrush, brown, 32, 72, 82, 
 Thrushes, 71, 144. 
 Titmouse, 20, 67, 75. 
 Trout, 127. 
 Trumpet-creeper, 136. 
 Tulip-tree, 43. 
 Turkey-buzzard, 32. 
 2ar;/e, snapping-, 132, 179. 
 
 V. ^/reo, red-eyed, 32, 905 lohite-eyed, 112. 
 
 W. Warbler, spotted, 32, 51. 
 
 tree-creeping, 87. 
 Warblers, 51, 73, 205. 
 Weasel, 156. 
 Whippoorivill, 72. 
 Winter-green, 62, 69. 
 . ^0//; 179. 
 Wood-robin, 18. 
 
 Carolina, 79. 
 marsh-, 41. 
 •winter, 207. 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 ^ (724) 779-2111