[71:1]The birds at once became quiet, and I went back complacently to my book under the linden-tree. Who knows, however, whether there may not have been another side to the story? Who shall say what were the emotions of the snake, as he wriggled painfully homeward after such an assault? Myself no vegetarian, by what right had I belabored him for liking the taste of chicken? It were well, perhaps, not to pry too curiously into questions of this kind. Most likely it would not flatter our human self-esteem to know what some of our "poor relations" think of us.
[71:1]The birds at once became quiet, and I went back complacently to my book under the linden-tree. Who knows, however, whether there may not have been another side to the story? Who shall say what were the emotions of the snake, as he wriggled painfully homeward after such an assault? Myself no vegetarian, by what right had I belabored him for liking the taste of chicken? It were well, perhaps, not to pry too curiously into questions of this kind. Most likely it would not flatter our human self-esteem to know what some of our "poor relations" think of us.
Thus, without theft, I reap another's field.—Sidney Lanier.
Thus, without theft, I reap another's field.—Sidney Lanier.
I was passing some days of idleness in a shallow Vermont valley, situated at an elevation of fifteen or sixteen hundred feet, circled by wooded hills, and intersected by an old turnpike, which connects the towns near Lake Champlain with the region beyond the mountains. Small farmhouses stood here and there along the highway, while others were scattered at wide intervals over the lower slopes of the outlying hills.
With all the brightness and freshness of early summer upon it, it was indeed an enchanting picture; but even so, one could not altogether put aside a feeling of something like commiseration for the people who, year in and year out, from babyhood to old age, found in this narrow vale, with its severity of weather, and itsscarcity of social comforts and opportunities, their only experience of what we fondly call this wide, wide world.
From my inn I had walked eastward for perhaps a mile; then at the little school-house had taken a cross-road, which presently began to climb. Here I passed two or three cottages (one of them boasting the singularity of paint), and after a while came to another, which appeared to be the last, as the road not far beyond struck into the ancient forest. First, however, it ran up to a small plateau, where, out of sight from the house, lay a scanty quarter of an acre, in which the old parable, "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," was in the primary stage of its fresh annual fulfillment. The ground was but newly cleared, and the brambles still felt themselves its true and rightful possessors. Who was this puny-looking, good-for-nothing foreigner, that they should be turned out of house and home for his accommodation? So they seemed to be asking among themselves, as they lifted up their heads here and there in the midst of the pale-green shoots. The crows, on the other hand, bade thenewcomer welcome,—as the wolf welcomes the lamb. Against these hungry lovers of his crop (who loved not unwisely, but too well), the farmer had fenced his field with a single string, stretched from corner to corner. He must put extraordinary faith in the considerateness of the birds, a looker-on might think; such a barrier as this could be, at the most, nothing more than a polite hint of ownership, a delicate reminder against thoughtless trespassing, a courteously indirect suggestion to such as needed not a physical, but only a moral, restraint. Or one might take it as an appeal to some known or fancied superstitiousness on the crows' part; as if the white cord were a kind of fetich, with which they would never presume to meddle. But the rustic would have laughed at all such far-fetched cockneyish inferences. This strange-seeming device of his was simply an attempt to take the suspicious in their own suspiciousness; to set before Corvus a hindrance so unmistakably insufficient that he would mistrust it as a cover for some deep-laid and deadly plot. Probably the scheme had not been crowned with complete success in the presentinstance, for from a pole in the middle of the inclosure a dead crow was dangling in the breeze. This was a more business-like signal than the other; even a cockney could hardly be in doubt as to its meaning; and the farmer, when I afterwards met him, assured me that it had answered its purpose to perfection. The crow is nobody's fool. "Live and learn" is his motto; and he does both, but especially the former, in a way to excite the admiration of all disinterested observers. In the long struggle between human ingenuity and corvine sagacity, it is doubtful which has thus far obtained the upper hand. Nor have I ever quite convinced myself which of the contestants has the better case. "The crow is a thief," the planter declares; "he should confine himself to a wild diet, or else sow his own garden." "Yes, yes," Corvus makes reply; "but if I steal your corn, you first stole my land." Unlike his cousin the raven,—who, along with the Indian, has retreated before the pale-face,—the crow is no ultra-conservative. Civilization and modern ideas are not in the least distasteful to him. He has an unfeignedrespect for agriculture, and in fact may be said himself to have set up as gentleman-farmer, letting out his land on shares, and seldom failing to get his full half of the crop; and, like the shrewd manager that he is, he insures himself against drought and other mischances by taking his moiety early in the season. As I plant no acres myself, I perhaps find it easier than some of my fellow-citizens to bear with the faults and appreciate the virtues of this sable aboriginal. Long may he live, I say, this true lover of his native land, to try the patience and sharpen the wits of his would-be exterminators.
The crow's is only the common lot. The whole earth is one field of war. Every creature's place upon it is coveted by some other creature. Plants and animals alike subsist by elbowing their rivals out of the way. Man, if he plants a corn-field, puts in no more grains than will probably have room to grow and thrive. But Nature, in her abhorrence of a vacuum, stands at no waste. She believes in competition, and feels no qualms at seeing the weak go to the wall.
"The good old ruleSufficeth her, the simple plan,That they should take who have the power,And they should keep who can."
"The good old ruleSufficeth her, the simple plan,That they should take who have the power,And they should keep who can."
If she wishes a single oak, she drops acorns without number. Her recklessness equals that of some ambitious military despot, to whom ten thousand or a hundred thousand dead soldiers count as nothing, if only the campaign be fought through to victory.
Man's economy and Nature's prodigality,—here they were in typical operation, side by side. The corn was in "hills" uniformly spaced, and evidently the proprietor had already been at work with plough and hoe, lest the weeds should spring up and choke it; but just beyond stood a perfect thicket of wild-cherry shrubs, so huddled together that not one in twenty could possibly find room in which to develop. If they were not all of them stunted beyond recovery, it would be only because a few of the sturdiest should succeed in crowding down and killing off their weaker competitors.
The import of this apparent wastefulness and cruelty of Nature, her seeming indifference to the welfare of the individual, is aquestion on which it is not pleasant, and, as I think, not profitable, to dwell. We see but parts of her ways, and it must be unsafe to criticise the working of a single wheel here or there, when we have absolutely no means of knowing how each fits into the grand design, and, for that matter, can only guess at the grand design itself. Rather let us content ourselves with the prudent saying of that ancient agnostic, Bildad the Shuhite: "We are but of yesterday, and know nothing." The wisest of us are more or less foolish, by nature and of necessity; but it seems a gratuitous superfluity of folly to ignore our own ignorance. For one, then, I am in no mood to propose, much less to undertake, any grand revolution in the order of natural events. Indeed, as far as I am personally concerned, I fear it would be found but a dubious improvement if the wildness were quite taken out of the world,—if its wilderness, according to the word of the prophet, were to become all like Eden. Tameness is not the only good quality, whether of land or of human nature.
As I sat on my comfortable log (the nobleold tree had not been cut down for nothing), birds of many kinds came and went about me. Wordsworth's couplet would have suited my case:—
"The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure;"
"The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure;"
but I could hardly have rounded out the quotation; for, joyful as I believed the creatures to be, many of their motions were plainly not "thrills of pleasure," but tokens of fear. It was now the very heyday of life with them, when they are at once happiest and most wary. There were secrets to be kept close; eggs and little ones, whose whereabouts must on no account be divulged. For the birds, too, not less than the corn, the bramble, and the cherry, not less even than the saint, find this earthly life a daily warfare.
The artless ditty of the mourning warbler came to my ears at intervals out of a tangle of shrubbery, and once or twice he allowed me glimpses of his quaint attire. I would gladly have seen and heard much more of him, but he evaded all my attempts at familiarity. Nor could I blame him for his furtive behavior. How was he to becertain that I was no collector, but only an innocent admirer of birds in the bush? Sought after as his carcass is by every New England ornithologist, the mourning warbler exercises only a reasonable discretion in fighting shy of every animal that walks upright.
It is evident, however, that for birds, as for ourselves, the same thing often has both a bright and a dark side. If men are sometimes heartless, and never to be altogether confided in, yet at the same time their doings are in various respects conducive to the happiness and increase of feathered life; and this not only in the case of some of the more familiar species, but even in that of many which still retain all their natural shyness of human society. A clearing like that in which I was now resting offers an excellent illustration of this; for it is a rule without exceptions that in such a place one may see and hear more birds in half an hour than are likely to be met with in the course of a long day's tramp through the unbroken forest. The mourning warbler himself likes a roadside copse better than a deep wood, jealous as he may be ofman's approach. Up to a certain point, civilization is a blessing, even to birds. Beyond a certain point, for aught I know, it may be nothing but a curse, even to men.
Here, then, I sat, now taken up with the beautiful landscape, and anon turning my head to behold some fowl of the air. I might have mused with Emerson,—
"Knows he who tills this lonely field,To reap its scanty corn,What mystic fruit his acres yieldAt midnight and at morn,"
"Knows he who tills this lonely field,To reap its scanty corn,What mystic fruit his acres yieldAt midnight and at morn,"
—only "mystic fruit" would have been rather too high-sounding a phrase for my commonplace cogitations. Hermit thrushes, olive-backed thrushes, and veeries, with sundry warblers and a scarlet tanager, sang in chorus from the woods behind me, while in front bluebirds, robins, song sparrows, vesper sparrows, and chippers were doing their best to transform this fresh Vermont clearing into a time-worn Massachusetts pasture; assisted meanwhile by a goldfinch who flew over my head with an ecstatic burst of melody, and a linnet who fell to warbling with characteristic fluency from aneighboring tree-top. At least two pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks had summer quarters here; and busy enough they looked, flitting from one side of the garden to another, yet not too busy for a tune between whiles. One of the males was in really gorgeous plumage. The rose-color had run over, as it were (like Aaron's "precious ointment"), and spilled all down his breast. It is hard for me ever to think of this brilliant, tropically dressed grosbeak as a true Northerner; and here once more I was for the moment surprised to hear him and the olive-backed thrush singing together in the same wood. Could such neighborliness have any patriotic significance? I was almost ready to ask. Across the corn-field a Traill's flycatcher was tossing up his head pertly, and vociferatingkwee-kwee. I took it for a challenge: "Find my nest if you can, brother!" But I found nothing. Nor was I more successful with a humming-bird, who had chosen the tip of a charred stub, only a few rods from my seat, for his favorite perch. Again and again I saw him there preening his feathers, and once or twice I tried to inveigle him into betraying his secret. Eitherhis house was further off than I suspected, however, or else he was too cunning to fall into my snare. At any rate, he permitted me to trample all about the spot, without manifesting the first symptom of uneasiness.
What a traveler the humming-bird is! I myself had come perhaps three hundred miles, and had accounted it a long, tiresome journey, notwithstanding I had been brought nearly all the way in a carriage elaborately contrived for comfort, and moving over iron rails. But this tiny insect-like creature spent last winter in Central America, or it may be in Cuba, and now here he sat, perfectly at home again in this Green Mountain nook; and next autumn he will be off again betimes, as the merest matter of course, for another thousand-mile flight. Verily, a marvelous spirit and energy may be contained within a few ounces of flesh! But if Trochilus be indeed Prospero's servant in disguise, as one of our poets makes out, why, then, to be sure, his flittings back and forth are little to wonder at. How slow, overgrown, and clumsy human beings must look in his eyes! I wonder if he is never tempted to laugh at us. Who knowsbut humming-birds have it for a by-word, "As awkward as a man"?
My ruminations were suddenly broken in upon by the approach of a carriage, driven by a boy of perhaps ten years, a son of the farmer from whose land I was, as it were, gathering the first fruits. We had made each other's acquaintance the day before, and now, as he surmounted the hill, he stopped to inquire politely whether I would ride with him. Yes, I answered, I would gladly be carried into the forest a little way. It proved a very little way indeed; for the road was heavy from recent rains, and the poor old hack was so short of breath that he could barely drag us along, and at every slump of the wheels came to a dead standstill. "Pity for a horse o'er-driven" soon compelled me to take to the woods, in spite of the protestations of my charioteer, who assured me that his steedcouldtrot "like everything," if he only would. It is an extremely unpatriotic Vermonter, I suspect (I have never yet discovered him), who will not brag a little over his horse; and I was rather pleased than otherwise to hear my flaxen-haired friendset forth the good points of his beast, even while he confessed that the "heaves" were pretty bad. I was glad, too, to find the youngster in a general way something of an optimist. When I asked him how long the land had been cleared, he pointed to one corner of it, and responded, using the pronoun with perfectnaïveté, "We cleared up that piece last fall;" and on my inquiring whether it was not hard work, he replied, in a tone of absolute satisfaction, "Oh, yes, but you get your pay for it." Evidently he believed in Green Mountain land, which I thought a very fortunate circumstance. "Be content with such things as ye have," said the Apostle; and it is certainly easier to obey the precept if one looks upon his own things as the best in the world. My youthful philosopher seemed to consider it altogether natural and reasonable that prosperity, instead of coming of itself, should have to be earned by the sweat of the brow. Perhaps the crow and the cherry-tree are equally unsophisticated. Perhaps, too, men's fates are less uneven than is sometimes supposed. For I could not help thinking that if this boy should retain his present view of things, hewould pass his days more happily than many a so-called favorite of fortune.
On my way back to the inn I met an old man from the lowlands, driving over the mountains for the first time since boyhood. "You have a pretty good farming country here," he called out cheerily,—"a little rolling." He took me for a native, and I hope to be forgiven for not disclaiming the compliment.
As I write, I find myself wondering how my nameless farmer's crop is prospered. In my corner of the world we have lately been afflicted with drought. I hope it has been otherwise on his hillside plateau. In my thought, at all events, his corn is now fully tasseled, and waves in a pleasant mountain wind, all green and shining.
As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.—Matthew Arnold.
As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.—Matthew Arnold.
Nothing is seen until it is separated from its surroundings. A man looks at the landscape, but the tree standing in the middle of the landscape he does not see until, for the instant at least, he singles it out as the object of vision. Two men walk the same road; as far as the bystander can perceive, they have before them the same sights; but let them be questioned at the end of the journey, and it will appear that one man saw one set of objects, and his companion another; and the more diverse the intellectual training and habits of the two travelers, the greater will be the discrepancy between the two reports.
And what is true of any two men is equally true of any one man at two different times. To-day he is in a dreamy, reflective mood,—he has been reading Wordsworth,perhaps,—and when he takes his afternoon saunter he looks at the bushy hillside, or at the wayside cottage, or down into the loitering brook, and he sees in them all such pictures as they never showed him before. Or he is in a matter-of-fact mood, a kind of stock-market frame of mind; and he looks at everything through economical spectacles,—as if he had been set to appraise the acres of meadow or woodland through which he passes. At another time he may have been reading some book or magazine article written by Mr. John Burroughs; and although he knows nothing of birds, and can scarcely tell a crow from a robin (perhaps for this very reason), he is certain to have tantalizing glimpses of some very strange and wonderful feathered specimens. They must be rarities, at least, if not absolute novelties; and likely enough, on getting home, he sits down and writes to Mr. Burroughs a letter full of gratitude and inquiry,—the gratitude very pleasant to receive, we may presume, and the inquiries quite impossible to answer.
Some men (not many, it is to be hoped) are specialists, and nothing else. They areabsorbed in farming, or in shoemaking, in chemistry, or in Latin grammar, and have no thought for anything beyond or beside. Others of us, while there may be two or three subjects toward which we feel some special drawing, have nevertheless a general interest in whatever concerns humanity. We are different men on different days. There is a certain part of the year, say from April to July, when I am an ornithologist; for the time being, as often as I go out-of-doors, I have an eye for birds, and, comparatively speaking, for nothing else. Then comes a season during which my walks all take on a botanical complexion. I have had my turn at butterflies, also; for one or two summers I may be said to have seen little else but these winged blossoms of the air. I know, too, what it means to visit the seashore, and scarcely to notice the breaking waves because of the shells scattered along the beach. In short, if I see one thing, I am of necessity blind, or half-blind, to all beside. There are several men in me, and not more than one or two of them are ever at the window at once. Formerly, my enjoyment of nature was altogether reflective,imaginative; in a passive, unproductive sense, poetical. I delighted in the woods and fields, the seashore and the lonely road, not for the birds or flowers to be found there, but for the "serene and blessed mood" into which I was put by such friendship. Later in life, it transpired, as much to my surprise as to anybody's else, that I had a bent toward natural history, as well as toward nature; an inclination to study, as well as to dream over, the beautiful world about me. I must know the birds apart, and the trees, and the flowers. A bit of country was no longer a mere landscape, a picture, but a museum as well. For a time the poet seemed to be dead within me; and happy as I found myself in my new pursuits, I had fits of bewailing my former condition. Science and fancy, it appeared, would not travel hand in hand; if a man must be a botanist, let him bid good-by to the Muse. Then I fled again to Emerson and Wordsworth, trying to read the naturalist asleep and reawaken the poet. Happy thought! The two men, the student and the lover, were still there; and there they remain to this day. Sometimes one is at the window, sometimes the other.
So it is, undoubtedly, with other people. My fellow-travelers, who hear me discoursing enthusiastically of vireos and warblers, thrushes and wrens, whilst they see never a bird, unless it be now and then an English sparrow or a robin, talk sometimes as if the difference between us were one of eyesight. They might as well lay it to the window-glass of our respective houses. It is not the eye that sees, but the man behind the eye.
As to the comparative advantages and disadvantages of such a division of interests as I have been describing, there may be room for two opinions. If distinction be all that the student hungers for, perhaps he cannot limit himself too strictly; but for myself, I think I should soon tire of my own society if I were only one man,—a botanist or a chemist, an artist, or even a poet. I should soon tire of myself, I say; but I might have said, with equal truth, that I should soon tire of nature; for if I were only one man, I should see only one aspect of the natural world. This may explain why it is that some persons must be forever moving from place to place. If they travelthe same road twice or thrice, or even to the hundredth time, they see only one set of objects. The same man is always at the window. No wonder they are restless and famished. For my own part, though I should delight to see new lands and new people, new birds and new plants, I am nevertheless pretty well contented where I am. If I take the same walks, I do not see the same things. The botanist spells the dreamer; and now and then the lover of beauty keeps the ornithologist in the background till he is thankful to come once more to the window, though it be only to look at a bluebird or a song sparrow.
How much influence has the will in determining which of these several tenants of a man's body shall have his turn at sightseeing? It would be hard to answer definitely. As much, it may be, as a teacher has over his pupils, or a father over his children; something depends upon the strength of the governing will, and something upon the tractability of the pupil. In general, I assume to command. As I start on my ramble I give out word, as it were, which of the men shall have the front seat. Butthere are days when some one of them proves too much both for me and for his fellows. It is not the botanist's turn, perhaps; but he takes his seat at the window, notwithstanding, and the ornithologist and the dreamer must be content to peep at the landscape over his shoulders.
On such occasions, it may as well be confessed, I make but a feeble remonstrance; and for the sufficient reason that I feel small confidence in my own wisdom. If the flower-lover or the poet must have the hour, then in all likelihood he ought to have it. So much I concede to the nature of things. A strong tendency is a strong argument, and of itself goes far to justify itself. I borrow no trouble on the score of such compulsions. On the contrary, my lamentations begin when nobody sues for the place of vision. Such days I have; blank days, days to be dropped from the calendar; when "those that look out of the windows be darkened." The fault is not with the world, nor with the eye. The old preacher had the right of it; it is not the windows that are darkened, but "those that look out of the windows."
I've gathered young spring-leaves, and flowers gay.—Keats.
I've gathered young spring-leaves, and flowers gay.—Keats.
I looked forward to the month with peculiar interest, as it was many years since I had passed a November in the country, and now that it is over I am moved to publish its praises: partly, as I hope, out of feelings of gratitude, and partly because it is an agreeable kind of originality to commend what everybody else has been in the habit of decrying.
In the first place, then, it was a month of pleasant weather; something too much of wind and dust (the dust for only the first ten days) being almost the only drawback. To me, with my prepossessions, it was little short of marvelous how many of the days were nearly or quite cloudless. The only snow fell on the 11th. I saw a few flakes in the afternoon, just enough to be counted, and there must have been another slightflurry after dark, as the grass showed white in favorable spots early the next morning. Making allowance for the shortness of the days, I doubt whether there has been a month during the past year in which a man could comfortably spend more of his time in out-of-door exercise.
The trees were mostly bare before the end of October, but the apple and cherry trees still kept their branches green (they are foreigners, and perhaps have been used to a longer season), and the younger growth of gray birches lighted up the woodlands with pale yellow. Of course the oak-leaves were still hanging, also; and for that matter they are hanging yet, and will be for months to come, let the north wind blow as it may. I wonder whether their winter rustling sounds as cold in other ears as in mine. My own feeling is most likely the result of boyish associations. How often I waded painfully through the forest paths, my feet and hands half frozen, while these ghosts of summer shivered sympathetically on every side as they saw me pass! I wonder, too, what can be the explanation of this unnatural oak-tree habit. The leaves aredead; why should they not obey the general law,—"ashes to ashes, dust to dust"? Is our summer too short to ripen them, and so to perfect the articulation? Whatever its cause, their singular behavior does much to beautify the landscape; particularly in such a district as mine, where the rocky hills are, so many of them, covered with young oak forests, which, especially for the first half of November, before the foliage is altogether faded, are dressed in subdued shades of maroon, beautiful at all hours, but touched into positive glory by the level rays of the afternoon sun.
I began on the very first day of the month to make a list of the plants found in bloom, and happening, a week afterward, to be in the company of two experienced botanical collectors, I asked them how many species I was likely to find. One said thirty. The other, after a little hesitation, replied, "I don't know, but I shouldn't think you could find a dozen." Well, it is true that November is not distinctively a floral month in Massachusetts, but before its thirty days were over I had catalogued seventy-three species, though for six of these, to be sure,I have to thank one of the collectors just now mentioned. Indeed, I found thirty-nine sorts on my first afternoon ramble; and even as late as the 27th and 28th I counted twelve. All in all, there is little doubt that at least a hundred kinds of plants were in bloom about me during the month.
Having called my record a chronicle, I should be guilty of an almost wanton disregard of scriptural models if I did not fill it largely with names, and accordingly I do not hesitate to subjoin a full list of these my November flowers; omitting Latin titles,—somewhat unwillingly, I confess,—except where the vernacular is wanting altogether, or else is more than commonly ambiguous:—creeping buttercup, tall buttercup, field larkspur, celandine, pale corydalis, hedge mustard, shepherd's-purse, wild peppergrass, sea-rocket, wild radish, common blue violet, bird-foot violet, pansy, Deptford pink, common chickweed, larger mouse-ear chickweed, sand spurrey, knawel, common mallow, herb-robert, storksbill, red clover, alsyke, white clover, white sweet clover, black medick, white avens, common cinque-foil, silvery cinque-foil, witch-hazel,common evening-primrose, smaller evening-primrose, carrot, blue-stemmed golden-rod, white golden-rod (or silvery-rod), seaside golden-rod,Solidago juncea,Solidago rugosa, dusty golden-rod, early golden-rod, corymbed aster, wavy-leaved aster, heart-leaved aster, many-flowered aster,Aster vimineus,Aster diffusus, New York aster,Aster puniceus, narrow-leaved aster, flea-bane, horse-weed, everlasting, cudweed, cone-flower, mayweed, yarrow, tansy, groundsel, burdock, Canada thistle, fall dandelion, common dandelion, sow thistle, Indian tobacco, bell-flower (Campanula rapunculoides), fringed gentian, wild toad-flax, butter and eggs, self-heal, motherwort, jointweed, doorweed, and ladies' tresses (Spiranthes cernua).
Here, then, we have seventy-three species, all but one of which (Spiranthes cernua) are of the class of exogens. Twenty-two orders are represented, the great autumnal family of theCompositænaturally taking the lead, with thirty species (sixteen of them asters and golden-rods), while the mustard, pink, and pulse families come next, with five species each. The large andhardy heath family is wanting altogether. Out of the whole number about forty-three are indigenous. Witch-hazel is the only shrub, and, as might have been expected, there is no climbing plant.
In setting down such a list one feels it a pity that so few of the golden-rods and asters have any specific designation in English. Under this feeling, I have presumed myself to name two of the golden-rods,Solidago CanadensisandSolidago nemoralis. With us, at all events, the former is the first of its genus to blossom, and may appropriately enough wear the title of early golden-rod, while the latter must have been noticed by everybody for its peculiar grayish, "dusty-miller" foliage. It has, moreover, an exceptional right to a vernacular name, being both one of the commonest and one of the showiest of our roadside weeds. Till something better is proposed, therefore, let us call it the dusty golden-rod.
It must in fairness be acknowledged that I did not stand upon the quality of my specimens. Many of them were nothing but accidental and not very reputable-looking laggards; but in November, especiallyif one is making a list, a blossom is a blossom. The greater part of the asters and golden-rods, I think, were plants that had been broken down by one means or another, and now, at this late day, had put forth a few stunted sprays. The narrow-leaved aster (Aster linariifolius) seemed peculiarly out of season, and was represented by only two heads, but these sufficed to bring the mouth-filling name into my catalogue. Of the two species of native violets I saw but a single blossom each. My pansy (common enough in gardens, and blooming well into December) was, of course, found by the roadside, and the larkspur likewise, as I made nothing of any but wild plants.
At this time of the year one must not expect to pick flowers anywhere and everywhere, and a majority of all my seventy-three species (perhaps as many as two thirds) were found only in one or more of three particular places. The first of these was along a newly laid-out road through a tract of woodland; the second was a sheltered wayside nook between high banks; and the third was at the seashore. At this last place, on the 8th of the month, I cameunexpectedly upon a field fairly yellow with fall dandelions and silvery cinque-foils, and affording also my only specimens of burdock, Canada thistle, cone-flower, and the smaller evening-primrose; in addition to which were the many-flowered aster, yarrow, red clover, and sow thistle. In truth, the grassy hillside was quite like a garden, although there was no apparent reason why it should be so favored. The larger evening-primrose, of which I saw two stalks, one of them bearing six or eight blossoms, was growing among the rocks just below the edge of the cliff, in company with abundance of sow thistle, all perfectly fresh; while along the gravelly edge of the bank, just above them, was the groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), looking as bright and thrifty as if it had been the first of August instead of near the middle of November.
Perhaps my most surprising bit of good luck was the finding of the Deptford pink. Of this, for some inscrutable reason, one plant still remained green and showed several rosy blossoms, while all its fellows, far and near, were long since bleached and dead. Fortune has her favorites, evenamong pinks. The frail-looking, early-blooming corydalis (we have few plants that appear less able to bear exposure) was in excellent condition up to the very end of the month, though the one patch then explored was destitute of flowers. These were as pretty as could be—prettier even than in May, I thought—on the 16th, and no doubt might have been found on the 30th, with careful search. The little geranium known as herb-robert is a neighbor of the corydalis, and, like it, stands the cold remarkably well. Its reddening, finely cut leaves were fresh and flourishing, but though I often looked for its flowers, I found only one during the entire month. The storksbill, its less known cousin, does not grow within my limits, but came to me from Essex County, through the kindness of a friend, being one of the six species contributed by her, as I have before mentioned.
The hardiness of some of these late bloomers is surprising. It is now the 2d of December, and yesterday the temperature fell about thirty degrees below the freezing-point, yet I notice shepherd's-purse, peppergrass, chickweed, and knawel stillbearing fresh-looking flowers. Nor are they the only plants that seem thus impervious to cold. The prostrate young St. John's-wort shoots, for instance, all uncovered and delicate as they are, appear not to know that winter with all its rigors is upon them.
It was impossible not to sympathize admiringly with some of my belated asters and golden-rods. Their perseverance was truly pathetic. They had been hindered, but they meant to finish their appointed task, nevertheless, in spite of short days and cold weather. I have especially in mind a plant ofSolidago juncea. The species is normally one of the earliest, following hard uponSolidago Canadensis, but for some reason this particular specimen did not begin to flower till after the first heavy frosts. Indeed, when I first noticed it, the stem leaves were already frost-bitten; yet it kept on putting forth blossoms for at least a fortnight. Whatever may be true of the lilies of the field, this golden-rod was certainly a toiler, and of the most persistent sort.
Early in the month the large and hardy Antiopa butterflies were still not uncommon in the woods, and on the 3d—a delightful,summer-like day, in which I made a pilgrimage to Walden—I observed a single clouded-sulphur (Philodice), looking none the worse for the low temperature of the night before, when the smaller ponds had frozen over for the first time.
Of course I kept account of the birds as well as of the flowers, but the number, both of individuals and of species, proved to be surprisingly small, the total list being as follows:—great black-backed gull, American herring gull, ruffed grouse, downy woodpecker, flicker, blue jay, crow, horned lark, purple finch, red crossbill, goldfinch, snow bunting, Ipswich sparrow, white-throated sparrow, tree sparrow, snowbird, song sparrow, fox sparrow, Northern shrike, myrtle warbler, brown creeper, white-breasted nuthatch, chickadee, golden-crowned kinglet, and robin. Here are only twenty-five species; a meagre catalogue, which might have been longer, it is true, but for the patriotism or prejudice (who will presume always to decide between these two feelings, one of them so given to counterfeiting the other?) which would not allow me to piece it out with the name of that all too numerous parasite, the so-called English sparrow.
My best ornithological day was the 17th, which, with a friend like-minded, I passed at Ipswich Beach. The special object of our search was the Ipswich sparrow, a bird unknown to science until 1868, when it was discovered at this very place by Mr. Maynard. Since then it has been found to be a regular fall and winter visitant along the Atlantic coast, passing at least as far south as New Jersey. It is a mystery how the creature could so long have escaped detection. One cannot help querying whether there can be another case like it. Who knows? Science, even in its flourishing modern estate, falls a trifle short of omniscience.
My comrade and I separated for a little, losing sight of each other among the sand-hills, and when we came together again he reported that he had seen the sparrow. He had happened upon it unobserved, and had been favored with excellent opportunities for scrutinizing it carefully through a glass at short range; and being familiar with its appearance through a study of cabinet specimens, he had no doubt whatever of its identity. This was within five minutes ofour arrival, and naturally we anticipated no difficulty in finding others; but for two or three hours we followed the chase in vain. Twice, to be sure, a sparrow of some sort flew up in front of us, but in both cases it got away without our obtaining so much as a peep at it. Up and down the beach we went, exploring the basins and sliding down the smooth, steep hills. Every step was interesting, but it began to look as if I must go home without seeingAmmodramus princeps. But patience was destined to have its reward, and just as we were traversing the upper part of the beach for the last time, I caught a glimpse of a bird skulking in the grass before us. He had seen us first, and was already on the move, ducking behind the scattered tufts of beach-grass, crouching and running by turns; but we got satisfactory observations, nevertheless, and he proved to be, like the other, an Ipswich sparrow. He did not rise, but finally made off through the grass without uttering a sound. Then we examined his footprints, and found them to be, so far as could be made out, the same as we had been noticing all about among the hills.
Meanwhile, our perambulations had not been in vain. Flocks of snow buntings were seen here and there, and we spent a long time in watching a trio of horned larks. These were feeding amid some stranded rubbish, and apparently felt not the slightest suspicion of the two men who stood fifteen or twenty feet off, eying their motions. It was too bad they could not hear our complimentary remarks about their costumes, so tastefully trimmed with black and yellow. Our loudest exclamations, however, were called forth by a dense flock of sea-gulls at the distant end of the beach. How many hundreds there were I should not dare to guess, but when they rose in a body their white wings really filled the air, and with the bright sunlight upon them they made, for a landsman, a spectacle to be remembered.
Altogether it was a high day for two enthusiasts, though no doubt it would have looked foolish enough to ordinary mortals, our spending several dollars of money and a whole day of time,—in November, at that,—all for the sake of ogling a few birds, not one of which we even attempted to shoot.But what then? Tastes will differ; and as for enthusiasm, it is worth more than money and learning put together (so I believe, at least, without having experimented with the other two) as a producer of happiness. For my own part, I mean to be enthusiastic as long as possible, foreseeing only too well that high spirits cannot last forever.
The sand-hills themselves would have repaid all our trouble. Years ago this land just back of the beach was covered with forest, while at one end of it was a flourishing farm. Then when man, with his customary foolishness, cut off the forest, Nature revenged herself by burying his farm. We did not verify the fact, but according to the published accounts of the matter it used to be possible to walk over the grave of an old orchard, and pick here and there an apple from some topmost branch still jutting out through the sand.
Among the dunes we found abundance of a little red, heath-like plant, still in full blossom. Neither of us recognized it, but it turned out to be jointweed (Polygonum articulatum), and made a famous addition to my November flower catalogue.
In connection with all this I ought, perhaps, to say a word about our Ipswich driver, especially as naturalists are sometimes reprehended for taking so much interest in all other creatures, and so little in their fellow-men. As we drew near the beach, which is some five miles from the town, we began to find the roads quite under water, with the sea still rising. We remarked the fact, the more as we were to return on foot, whereupon the man said that the tide was uncommonly high on account of the heavy rain of the day before! A little afterward, when we came in sight of a flock of gulls, he gravely informed us that they were "some kind of ducks"! He had lived by the seashore all his life, I suppose, and of course felt entirely competent to instruct two innocent cockneys such as he had in his wagon.
Four days after this I made a trip to Nahant. IfAmmodramus princepswas at Ipswich, why should it not be at other similar places? True enough, I found the birds feeding beside the road that runs along the beach. I chased them about for an hour or two in a cold high wind, and stared at themtill I was satisfied. They fed much of the time upon the golden-rods, alighted freely upon the fence-posts (which is what some writers would lead us never to expect), and often made use of the regular familytseep. Two of them kept persistently together, as if they were mated. One staggered me by showing a blotch in the middle of the breast, a mark that none of the published descriptions mention, but which I have since found exemplified in one of the skins at the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy, in Cambridge.
"A day is happily spent that shows me any bird I never saw alive before." So says Dr. Coues, and he would be a poor ornithologist who could not echo the sentiment. The Ipswich sparrow was the third such bird that I had seen during the year without going out of New England, the other two being the Tennessee warbler and the Philadelphia vireo.
Of the remainder of my November list there is not much to be said. Robins were very scarce after the first week. My last glimpse of them was on the 20th, when I saw two. Tree sparrows, snowbirds,chickadees, kinglets, crows, and jays were oftenest met with, while the shrike, myrtle warbler, purple finch, and song sparrow were represented by one individual each. My song sparrow was not seen till the 28th, after I had given him up. He did not sing (of course he scolded; the song sparrow can always do that), but the mere sight of him was enough to suggest thoughts of springtime, especially as he happened to be in the neighborhood of some Pickering hylas, which were then in full cry for the only time during the month. Near the end of the month many wild geese flew over the town, but, thanks to a rebellious tooth (how happy are the birds in this respect!), I was shut indoors, and knew the fact only by hearsay. I did, however, see a small flock on the 30th of October, an exceptionally early date. As it chanced, I was walking at the time with one of my neighbors, a man more than forty years old, and he assured me that he had never seen such a thing before.
For music, I one day heard a goldfinch warbling a few strains, and on the 21st a chickadee repeated his clear phœbe whistletwo or three times. The chickadees are always musical,—there is no need to say that; but I heard themsingonly on this one morning.
Altogether, with the cloudless, mild days, the birds, the tree-frogs, the butterflies, and the flowers, November did not seem the bleak and cheerless season it has commonly been painted. Still it was not exactly like summer. On the last day I saw some very small boys skating on the Cambridge marshes, and the next morning December showed its hand promptly, sending the mercury down to within two or three degrees of zero.