A WOODCOCK GENIUS

The only possible explanation is either to say that it is a matter of chance—which is no explanation at all, and foolish also; for chance, if indeed there be any such blind unreasonable thing in a reasonable world, does not repeat itself regularly—or to say frankly that there is some definite understanding and communication among the birds as they flit to and fro in the night; which is probably true, but obviously impossible to prove with our present limited knowledge.This fondness for certain spots shows itself in another way when you are on the trail of the hermit. When flushed from a favorite resting-place and not shot at, he makes but a short flight, up to the brush tops and back again, and then goes quietly back to the spot from which he rose as soon as you are gone away. He has also the hare trick of returning in a circle to his starting-point; and occasionally, when you flush a bird and watch sharply, you may see him slant down on silent wings behind you and light almost at your heels. Once my old dog Don started a woodcock and remained stanchly pointing at the spot where he had been. I remained where I was, a few yards in the rear, and in a moment Whitooweek whirled in from behind and dropped silently into some brakes between me and the dog and not ten feet from the old setter's tail. The ruse succeeded perfectly, for as the scent faded away from Don's nose he went forward, and so missed the bird that was watching him close behind. This curious habit may be simply the result of Whitooweek's fondness forcertain places; or it may be that by night he carefully selects the spot where he can rest and hide during the day, and returns to it because he cannot find another so good while the sun dazzles his eyes; or it may be a trick pure and simple to deceive the animal that disturbs him, by lighting close behind where neither dog nor man will ever think of looking for him.By night, when he sees perfectly and moves about rapidly from one feeding-ground to another, Whitooweek is easily dazzled by a light of any kind, and he is one of the many creatures that come and go within the circle of your jack. Because he is silent at such times, and moves swiftly, he is generally unnamed—just a night bird, you think, and let him pass without another thought. Several times when jacking, to see what birds and animals I might surprise and watch by night, I have recognized Whitooweek whirling wildly about my circle of light. Once, deep in the New Brunswick wilderness, I surprised two poachers spearing salmon at midnight with a fire-baskethung over the bow of their canoe. Spite of its bad name it is a magnificent performance, skillful and daring beyond measure; so instead of driving them off I asked for a seat in their long dugout to see how it was done. As we swept up and down the dangerous river, with pitch-pine blazing and cracking and the black shadows jumping about us, two woodcock sprang up from the shore and whirled madly around the pirogue. One brushed my face with his wings, and was driven away only when Sandy in the bow gave a mighty lunge of his spear and with a howl of exultation flung a twenty-pound, kicking salmon back into my lap. But several times that night I saw the flash of their wings, or heard their low surprised twitter above the crackle of the fire and the rush and roar of the rapids."Once my old dog Don started a woodcock"When he finds good feeding grounds on his southern migrations Whitooweek will stay with us, if undisturbed, until a sharp frost seals up his storehouse by making the ground too hard for hissensitive bill to penetrate. Then he slips away southward to the next open spring or alder run. Not far away, on Shippan Point, is a little spring that rarely freezes and whose waters overflow and make a green spot even in midwinter. The point is well covered with houses now, but formerly it was good woodcock ground, and the little spring always welcomed a few of the birds with the welcome that only a spring can give. Last year, at Christmas time, I found a woodcock there quite at home, within a stone's throw of two or three houses and with snow lying deep all around him. He had lingered there weeks after all other birds had gone, either held by old associations and memories of a time when only the woodcock knew the place; or else, wounded and unable to fly, he had sought out the one spot in all the region where he might live and be fed until his wing should heal. Nature, whom men call cruel, had cared for him tenderly, healing his wounds that man had given, and giving him food and a safe refuge at a time when all other feeding-grounds were heldfast in the grip of winter; but men, who can be kind and reasonable, saw no deep meaning in it all. The day after I found him a hunter passed that way, and was proud of having killed the very last woodcock of the season.A Woodcock GeniusA WOODCOCK GENIUSTHEREis one astonishing thing about Whitooweek which can scarcely be called a habit, but which is probably the discovery of one or two rare individuals here and there more original than their fellows. Like the eider-ducks and the bear and the beaver, Whitooweek sometimes uses a rude kind of surgery for binding up hiswounds. Twenty years ago, while sitting quietly by a brook at the edge of the woods in Bridgewater, a woodcock suddenly fluttered out into the open and made his way to a spot on the bank where a light streak of sticky mud and clay showed clearly from where I was watching. It was the early hunting season and gunners were abroad in the land, and my first impression was that this was a wounded bird that had made a long flight after being shot, and that had now come out to the stream to drink or to bathe his wound. Whether this were so or not is a matter of guesswork; but the bird was acting strangely in broad daylight, and I crept nearer till I could see him plainly on the other side of the little stream, though he was stilltoo far away for me to be absolutely sure of what all his motions meant.At first he took soft clay in his bill from the edge of the water and seemed to be smearing it on one leg near the knee. Then he fluttered away on one foot for a short distance and seemed to be pulling tiny roots and fibers of grass, which he worked into the clay that he had already smeared on his leg. Again he took more clay and plastered it over the fibers, putting on more and more till I could plainly see the enlargement, working away with strange, silent intentness for fully fifteen minutes, while I watched and wondered, scarce believing my eyes. Then he stood perfectly still for a full hour under an overhanging sod, where the eye could with difficulty find him, his only motion meanwhile being an occasional rubbing and smoothing of the clay bandage with his bill, until it hardened enough to suit him, whereupon he fluttered away from the brook and disappeared in the thick woods.I had my own explanation of the incredible action, namely, that the woodcock had abroken leg, and had deliberately put it into a clay cast to hold the broken bones in place until they should knit together again; but naturally I kept my own counsel, knowing that no one would believe in the theory. For years I questioned gunners closely, and found two who said that they had killed woodcock whose legs had at one time been broken and had healed again. As far as they could remember, the leg had in each case healed perfectly straight instead of twisting out to one side, as a chicken's leg does when broken and allowed to knit of itself. I examined hundreds of woodcock in the markets in different localities, and found one whose leg had at one time been broken by a shot and then had healed perfectly. There were plain signs of dried mud at the break; but that was also true of the other leg near the foot, which only indicated that the bird had been feeding in soft places. All this proved nothing to an outsider, and I kept silence as to what I had seen until last winter, twenty years afterwards, when the confirmation came unexpectedly. I had beenspeaking of animals before the Contemporary Club of Bridgeport when a gentleman, a lawyer well known all over the state, came to me and told me eagerly of a curious find he had made the previous autumn. He was gunning one day with a friend, when they shot a woodcock, which on being brought in by the dog was found to have a lump of hard clay on one of its legs. Curious to know what it meant he chipped the clay off with his penknife and found a broken bone, which was then almost healed and as straight as ever. A few weeks later the bird, had he lived, would undoubtedly have taken off the cast himself and there would have been nothing to indicate anything unusual about him.So I give the observation now, at last, since proof is at hand, not to indicate a new or old habit of Whitooweek,—for how far the strange knowledge is spread among the woodcock and the wading birds no man can say,—but simply to indicate how little we know ofthe inner life of the hermit, and indeed of all wild birds, and how much there is yet to be discovered when we shall lay aside the gun for the field-glass and learn to interpret the wonderful life which goes on unseen all about us.WHEN UPWEEKIS GOES HUNTINGWHEN UPWEEKIS GOES HUNTINGLATEone winter afternoon, when the sun was gilding the pines on the western mountains and the shadows stretched long and chill through the snow-laden woods, a huge bull moose broke out of the gloom of the spruces and went swinging up the long, sunlit barren at a stride whose length and power would have discouraged even a wolf from following. Five minutes later I came out of the same tunnel under the spruces just as the fringe of green across the barren swished back to cover the flanks of the plunging bull, and then nodded and nodded in twenty directions—This way! that way!here! yonder!—to mislead any that might follow on his track. For at times even the hemlocks and the alders and the waters and the leaves and the creaking boughs and the dancing shadows all seem to conspire to shield the innocent Wood Folk from the hostile eyes and hands of those that pursue them. And that is one reason why it is so hard to see game in the woods.The big moose had fooled me that time. When he knew that I was following him he ran far ahead, and then circled swiftly back to stand motionless in a hillside thicket within twenty yards of the trail that he had made scarcely an hour agone. There he could see perfectly, without being seen, what it was that was following him. When I came by, following swiftly and silently the deep tracks in the snow, he let me pass below him while he took a good look and a sniff at me; then he glided away like a shadow in the opposite direction.Unfortunately a dead branch under the snow broke with a dull snap beneath his cautious hoof, and I turned aside to see—and so saved myself the long tramp up and down the cunning trails. When he saw that his trick was discovered he broke away for the open barren, with all his wonderful powers of eye and ear and tireless legs alert to save himself from the man whom he mistook for his deadly enemy.It was of small use to follow him further, so I sat down on a prostrate yellow birch to rest and listen awhile in the vast silence, and to watch anything that might be passing through the cold white woods.Under the fringe of evergreen the soft purple shadows jumped suddenly, and a hare as white as the snow bounded out. In long nervous jumps, like a bundle of wire springs, he went leaping before my face across a narrow arm of the barren to the shelter of a point below. The soft arms of the ground spruces and the softer shadows beneath them seemed to open of their own accord to let him in. All nodding of branches and droppingof snow pads and jumping of shadows ceased instantly, and all along the fringe of evergreen silent voices were saying, There is nothing here; we have not seen him; there is nothing here.Now why did he run that way, I thought; for Moktaques is a crazy, erratic fellow, and never does things in a businesslike way unless he has to. As I wondered, there was a gleam of yellow fire under the purple shadows whence Moktaques had come, and the fierce round head of a Canada lynx was thrust out of the tunnel that the hare had made only a moment before. His big gray body had scarcely pushed itself into sight when the shadows stirred farther down the fringe of evergreen; another and another lynx glided out; and I caught my breath as five of the savage creatures swept across the narrow arm of the barren, each with his head thrust out, his fierce eyes piercing the gloom ahead like golden lances, and holding his place in the stately, appalling line of fierceness and power as silent as the shadow of death. My nerves tingled at the thought ofwhat would happen to Moktaques when one of the line should discover and jump him. Indeed, having no rifle, I was glad enough myself to sit very still and let the savage creatures go by without finding me.The middle lynx, a fierce old female, was following the hare's trail; and in a moment it flashed across me who she was and what they were all doing. Here, at last, was the secret of the lynx bands that one sometimes finds in the winter woods, and that occasionally threaten or appall one with a ferocity that the individual animals never manifest. For Upweekis, though big and fierce, is at heart a slinking, cowardly, treacherous creature—like all cats—and so loves best to be alone. Knowing that the rest of his tribe are like himself, he suspects them all and is fearful that in any division of common spoils somebody else would get the lion's share. And so I have never found among the cats any trace of the well-defined regulations that seem to prevail among nearly all other animals.In winter, however, it is different. Then necessity compels Upweekis to lay asidesome of his feline selfishness and hunt in savage bands. Every seven years, especially, when rabbits are scarce in the woods because of the sickness that kills them off periodically, you may stumble upon one of these pirate crews haunting the deer yards or following after the caribou herds; but until the ferocious line swept out of the purple shadows under my very eyes I had no idea that these bands are—almost invariably, as I have since learned—family parties that hold together through the winter, just as fawns follow the old doe until the spring comes, in order that her wisdom may find them food, and her superior strength break a way for them when snows are deep and enemies are hard at heel.The big lynx in the middle was the mother; the four other lynxes were her cubs; and they held together now, partly that their imperfect education might be finished under her own eyes, but chiefly that in the hungry winter days they might combine their powers and hunt more systematically, and pull down, if need be, the larger animals that might defy them individually.As she crossed the fresh trail of the bull moose the old mother lynx thrust her big head into it for a long sniff. The line closed up instantly and each lynx stood like a statue, his blunt nose down into a reeking hoof mark, studying through dull senses what it was that had just passed. The old lynx swung her head up and down the line of her motionless cubs; then with a ferocious snarl curling under her whiskers she pushed forward again. A score of starving lynxes all together would scarcely follow a bull of that stride and power. Only the smell of blood would drag them unwillingly along such a trail; and even then, if they overtook the author of it, they would only squat around him in a fierce solemn circle, yawning hungrily and hoping he would die. Now, somewhere just ahead, easier game was hiding. An unvoiced command seemed to run up and down the line of waiting cubs. Each thrust his head out at the same instant and the silent march went on.When the last of the line had glided out of sight among the bushes of the point below,I ran swiftly through the woods, making no noise in the soft snow, and crouched motionless under the spruces on the lower side of the point, hoping to see the cunning hunters again. There was but a moment to wait. From under a bending evergreen tip Moktaques leaped out and went flying across the open for the next wooded point. Close behind him sounded a snarl, and with a terrific rush as she sighted the game the old lynx burst out, calling savagely to her line of hunters to close in. Like the blast of a squall they came, stretching out in enormous bounds and closing in from either end so as to cut off the circling run of the flying game. In a flash the two ends of the line had met and whirled in sharply; in another flash Moktaques was crouching close in the snow in the center of a fierce circle that rolled in upon him like a whirlwind. As the smallest lynx leaped for his game an electric shock seemed to touch the motionless hare. He shot forward as if galvanized, leaping high over the crouching terror before him, striving to break out of the terrible circle. Then the lynxover whose head he passed leaped straight up, caught the flying creature fairly in his great paws, fell over backwards, and was covered in an instant by the other lynxes that hurled themselves upon him like furies, snapping and clawing ferociously at the mouthful which he had pulled down at the very moment of its escape.There was an appalling scrimmage for a moment; then, before I could fairly rub my eyes, the hare had vanished utterly, and a savage ring of lynxes were licking their chops hungrily, glaring and growling at each other to see which it was that had gotten the biggest mouthful.When they disappeared at last, slinking away in a long line under the edge of the barren, I took up the back track to see how they had been hunting. For a full mile, straight back toward my camp, I followed the tracks and read the record of as keen a bit of bush beating as was ever seen in the woods. They had swept along all that distance in an almost perfect line, starting every living thing that lay athwart theirpath. Here it was a ruffed grouse that one had jumped for and missed, as the startled bird whirred away into the gloom. There one had climbed a tree and shaken something off into the snow, where the others licked up every morsel so clean that I could not tell what the unfortunate creature was; but a curious bit of savage daring was manifest, for the lynx that had gone up the tree after the game had hurled himself down like a catapult, leaving a huge hole in the snow, so as to be in at the death before his savage fellows, which had come flying in with great bounds, should have eaten everything and left not even a smell for his own share. And there, at last, at the very end of the line, another hare had been started and, running in a short circle, as hares often do, had been met and seized by the fourth lynx as the long line swung in swiftly to head him off.Years later, and miles away on the Renous barrens, I saw another and more wonderful bit of the same keen hunting. Froma ridge above a small barren I saw a herd of caribou acting strangely and went down to investigate. As I reached the fringe of thick bushes that lined the open I saw the caribou cluster excitedly about the base of a big rock across the barren, not more than two hundred yards away. Something was there, evidently, which excited their curiosity,—and caribou are the most inquisitive creatures, at times, in all the woods,—but I had to study the rock sharply through my field-glasses before I made out the round fierce head of a big lynx pressed flat against the gray stone. One side of the rock was almost perpendicular, rising sheer some fifteen or twenty feet above the plain; the other side slanted off less abruptly toward the woods; and the big lynx, which had probably scrambled up from the woods to spy on the caribou, was now hanging half over the edge of rock, swaying his savage head from side to side and stretching one wide paw after another at the animals beneath.The caribou were getting more excited and curious every moment. Caribou are liketurkeys; when they see some new thing they must die or find out about it. Now they were spreading and closing their ranks, wavering back and forth, stretching ears and noses at the queer thing on the rock, but drawing nearer and nearer with every change.Suddenly the lynx jumped, not at the caribou, for they were still too far away, but high in the air with paws outspread. He came down in a flurry of snow, whirled round and round as if bewitched, then vanished silently in two great jumps into the shelter of the nearest evergreens.The caribou broke wildly at the strange sight, but turned after a startled bound or two to see what it was that had frightened them. There was nothing in sight, and like a flock of foolish sheep they came timidly back, nosing the snow and stretching their ears at the rock again; for there at the top was the big lynx, swinging his round head from side to side as before, and reachinghis paws alternately at the herd, as if to show them how broad and fine they were.Slowly the little herd neared the rock and the lynx drew back, as if to lure them on. They were full of burning curiosity, but they had seen one spring, at least, and measured its power, and so kept at a respectful distance. Then one young caribou left the others and went nosing along the edge of the woods to find the trail of the queer thing, or get to leeward of the rock, and so find out by smell—which is the only sure sense that a caribou possesses—what it was all about. A wind seemed to stir a dried tuft of grass on the summit of the great rock. I put my glasses upon it instantly, then caught my breath in suppressed excitement as I made out the tufted ears of two or three other lynxes crouching flat on their high tower, out of sight of the foolish herd, but watching every movement with fierce, yellow, unblinking eyes.The young caribou found the trail, put his nose down into it, then started cautiously back toward the rock to nose theother hole in the snow and be sure that it smelled just like the first one. Up on the rock the big lynx drew further back; the herd pressed close, raising their heads high to see what he was doing; and the young caribou stole up and put his nose down into the trail again. Then three living catapults shot over the high rim of the rock and fell upon him. Like a flash the big lynx was on his feet, drawing himself up to his full height and hurling a savage screech of exultation after the flying herd. Then he, too, shot over the rock, fell fair on the neck of the struggling young caribou, and bore him down into the snow."Then he, too, shot over the rock"Upweekis is a stupid fellow. He will poke his big head into a wire noose as foolishly as any rabbit, and then he will fight savagely with the pole at the other end of the noose until he chokes himself. But no one could follow that wonderful trail in the snow, or sit with tingling nerves under the spruces watching that wild bit of fox-play, without a growing respect for the shadowycreature of the big round tracks that wander, wander everywhere through the winter woods, and without wondering intensely in what kind of savage school Mother Upweekis trains her little ones.K'DUNK THE FAT ONEK'DUNK THE FAT ONEK'DUNKthe Fat One, as Simmo calls him, came out of his winter den the morning after the Reverend James had stirred the sod of his first flower bed. It was early April, and the first smell of spring was in the air—that subtle call of Mother Earth to her drowsy children to awake and come out and do things. The Reverend James felt the call in his nose and, remembering his boyhood, as we all do at the smell of spring, resolved to go fishing after he had finished his morning paper. His wife felt it, went to the door, took a long breath and cried, "Isn't this just glorious!" Thenshe grabbed a trowel—for when a man must off to the brook for his first trout a woman, by the same inner compulsion, must dig in the earth—and started for the flower bed. A moment later her excited call came floating in through the open window."Ja-a-a-a-mes? James!"—the first call with a long up slide, the second more peremptory—"what in the world did you plant in this flower bed?""Why," said the Reverend James, peering quizzically over the rim of his spectacles at the open window, "why, I thought I planted portulaca seed.""Then come out here and see what's come up," ordered his wife; and the surprised old gentleman came hurriedly to the door to blink in astonishment at three fat toads that were also blinking in the warm sunshine, and a huge mud-turtle that was sprawling and hissing indignantly in a great hole in the middle of his flower bed.A sly, whimsical twinkle was under the old minister's spectacles as he regarded the queer crop that had come up overnight."Whatsoever a man soweth, whatsoever a man soweth," he quoted softly to himself, eying the three toads askance, and poking the big turtle inquisitively, but snapping his hand back at sight and sound of the hooked beak and the fierce hissing. Then, because his library contained no book of exegesis equal to the occasion, he caught a small boy who was passing on his way to school and sent him off post-haste to my rooms to find out what it was all about.Now the three fat toads had also smelled the spring down in a soft spot under the lawn, whither, in the previous autumn, they had burrowed for their winter sleep. When the Reverend James stirred the sod, the warm sun thawed them out and brought them the spring's message, and they scrambled up to the surface promptly, as full of new life as if they had not been frozen into insensible clods for the past six months. As for the big turtle, the smell of the fresh earth had probably brought her up from the neighboring pond to search out a nest for herself where she might lay her eggs. Finding thesoft warm earth of the portulaca bed, she had squirmed and twisted her way down into it, the loose earth tumbling in on her and hiding her as she went down.When the sharp feminine eyes swept over the flower bed they detected at once the hollow in the middle, showing careless workmanship on the part of somebody. "That hole must be filled up," promptly declared Mrs. James; but first, woman-like, she thrust her trowel deep into it. "Aha! a rock—careless man," she gave judgment, and took another jab and a two-handed heave at the hard object. Whereupon out came the big mud-turtle, scrambling, hissing, protesting with beak and claw against being driven out of the best nest she had ever found so early in the season. That night there were curious sounds in the grass and dead leaves—rustlings and croakings and low husky trills, as the toads came hopping briskly by twos and threesdown to the pond. From every direction, from garden and lawn and wood and old stone wall, they came croaking and trilling through the quiet twilight, and hopping high with delight at the first smell of water. Down the banks they came, sliding, rolling, tumbling end over end,—any way to get down quickly,—landing at last with glad splashings and croakings in the warm shallows, where they promptly took to biting and clawing and absurd little wrestling bouts; which is the toad's way of settling his disputes and taking his own mate away from the other fellows.Two or three days they stayed in the pond, filling the air with gurgling croaks and filling the water with endless strings of gelatine-coated eggs—enough to fill the whole pond banks-full of pollywogs, did not Mother Nature step in and mercifully dispose of ninety-nine per cent of them within a few days of hatching, and set the rest of them to eating each other industriously as they grew, till every pollywog that was left might truthfully sing with the cannibalistic mariner:Oh, I am the cook and the captain boldAnd the mate of the Nancy brig,The bo'sn tight and the midshipmiteAnd the crew of the captain's gig.For every pollywog represented in his proper person some hundred or more of his fellow-pollywogs that he had eaten in the course of his development. But long before that time the toads had left the pond, scattering to the four winds whence they had come, caring not now what became of their offspring. It was then that K'dunk the Fat One came back to the portulaca bed.Mrs. James found him there the next morning—a big, warty gray toad with a broad grin and a fat belly and an eye like a jewel—blinking sleepily after his night's hunting. "Mercy! there's that awful toad again. I hope"—with a cautious glance all round—"I hope he hasn't brought the turtle with him." She gave him a prod and a flip with the trowel to get him out of the flower bed, whereupon K'dunk scrambled into his hole under an overhanging sod and refused to come out, spite of tentative pokesof the trowel in a hand that was altogether too tender to hurt him. And there he stayed, waging his silent warfare against the trowel, until I chanced along and persuaded the good lady that she was trying to drive away the very best friend that her flowers could possibly have. Then K'dunk settled down in peace, and we all took to watching him.His first care was to make a few hiding holes here and there in the garden. Most of these were mere hollows in the soft earth, where K'dunk would crouch with eyes shut tight whenever his enemies were near. His color changed rapidly till it was the same general hue as his surroundings, so that, when he lay quiet and shut his bright eyes in one of his numerous hollows, it was almost impossible to find him. But after he had been worried two or three times by the house-dog—a fat, wheezy little pug that always grew excited when K'dunk began to hop about in the twilight but that could never bark himself up to the point of touching the clammy thing with his nose—hedug other holes, under the sod banks, or beside a rock, where Grunt, the pug, could not bother him without getting too much out of breath.We made friends with him at first by scratching his back with a stick, at which pleasant operation he would swell and grunt with satisfaction. But you could never tell when he would get enough, or at what moment he would feel his dignity touched in a tender spot and go hopping off to the garden in high dudgeon. Then we fed him flies and bits of tender meat, which we would wiggle with a bit of grass to make them seem alive. At the same time we whistled a certain call to teach him when his supper was ready. Then, finally, by gentle handlings and pettings he grew quite tame, and at the sound of the whistle would scramble out from under the door-step, where he lived by day, and hop briskly in our direction to be fed and played with.Though K'dunk had many interesting traits, which we discovered with amazement as the summer progressed and we grew betteracquainted, I think that his feeding ways and tricks were the source of our most constant delight and wonder. Just to see him stalk a fly filled one with something of the tense excitement of a deer hunt. As he sat by a stump or clod in the fading light, some belated fly or early night-bug would light on the ground in front of him. Instantly the jewel eye in K'dunk's head would begin to flash and sparkle. He would crouch down and creep nearer, toeing in like a duck, slower and slower, one funny little paw brushing cautiously by the other, with all the stealth and caution of a cat stalking a chipmunk on the wall. Then, as he neared his game, there would be a bright flash of the jewel; a red streak shot through the air, so quick that your eye could not follow it, and the fly would disappear. Whereupon K'dunk would gulp something down, closing his eyes solemnly as he did so, as if he were saying grace, or as if, somehow, closing his eyes to all outward things made the morsel taste better.The red streak, of course, was K'dunk's tongue, wherein lies the secret of his hunting. It is attached at the outer rim of his mouth, and folds back in his throat. The inner end is broad and soft and sticky, and he snaps it out and back quick as a wink or a lizard. Whatever luckless insect the tongue touches is done with all bothering of our humanity. The sticky tongue snaps him up and back into K'dunk's wide mouth before he has time to spread a wing or even to think what is the matter with him."The soft tongue struck one of his trailing legs"Once I saw him stalk a grasshopper, a big lively green fellow that, in a particularly long jump, had come out of the protecting grass and landed on the brown earth directly in front of where K'dunk was catching the flies that were coming in a steady stream to a bait that I had put out for them. Instantly K'dunk turned his attention from the flies to the larger game. Just as his tongue shot out the grasshopper, growing suspicious, jumped for cover. The soft tongue missed him by a hair, but struck one of his trailing legs and knocked him aside. In an instantK'dunk was after him again, his legs scrambling desperately, his eyes blazing, and his tongue shooting in and out like a streak of flame. Just as the grasshopper rose in a hard jump the tongue hit him, and I saw no more. But K'dunk's gulp was bigger and his eyes were closed for a longer period than usual, and there was a loud protesting rustle in his throat as the grasshopper's long legs went kicking down the road that has no turning.A big caterpillar that I found and brought to K'dunk one day afforded us all another field for rare observation. The caterpillar was a hairy fellow, bristling with stiff spines, and I doubted that the tongue had enough mucilage on it to stick to him. But K'dunk had no such doubts. His tongue flew out and his eyes closed solemnly. At the same time I saw the caterpillar shrink himself together and stick his spines out stiffer than ever. Then a curious thing came out, namely, that K'dunk's mouth is so big and his game is usually so small that he cannot taste his morsel; he just swallows mechanically, as ifhe were so used to catching his game that it never occurred to him that he could miss. When he opened his eyes and saw the caterpillar in the same place, he thought, evidently, that it was another one which had come in mysteriously on wings, as the flies were coming to my bait. Again his tongue shot out, and his eyes closed in a swallow of delight. But there in front of him, as his eyes opened, was another caterpillar. Such perfect harmony of supply and demand was never known to a toad before.Again and again his tongue shot out, and each shot was followed by a blink and a gulp. All the while that he kept up this rapid shooting he thought he was getting fresh caterpillars; and all the while the hairy fellow was shrinking closer and closer together and sticking his spines out like a porcupine. But he was getting more mucilage on him at every shot. "That caterpillar is getting too stuck-up to live," presently said little Johnnie, who was watching the game with me; and at the word a hairyball shot into the wide mouth that was yawning for him, and K'dunk went back to his fly-catching.It is probably this lack of taste on K'dunk's part that accounts for the astonishing variety in his food. Nothing in the shape of an insect seemed to come amiss to him. Flies, wasps, crickets, caterpillars, doodle-bugs, and beetles of every description were all treated alike to the same red flash of his tongue and the blinking gulp. A half-dozen boys and girls, who were watching the queer pet with me, were put to their wits' end to find something that he would not eat. One boy, who picked huckleberries, brought in three or four of the disagreeable little bugs, known without a name by every country boy, that have the skunk habit of emitting overpowering odors when disturbed, thinking that he had found a poser for our pet; but K'dunk gobbled them up as if they had been set before him as a relish to tickle his appetite. Another brought potato bugs; but these too were fish for K'dunk's net. Then a third boy, who had charge of a kitchen garden,went away wagging his head and saying that he had just picked something that no living thing would eat. When he came back he had a horse-radish bottle that swarmed with squash-bugs, twenty or thirty of the vile-smelling things, which he dumped out on the ground and stirred up with a stick.Somebody ran and brought K'dunk from one of his hiding-places and set him down on the ground in front of the squirming mess. For a moment he seemed to be eying his proposition with astonishment. Then he crouched down and the swift red tongue-play began. In four minutes, by my watch, every squash-bug that stirred had disappeared, and K'dunk finished the others as fast as we could wiggle them with a straw to make them seem alive.We gave up trying to beat him on variety after that, and settled down to the apparently simple task of trying to find out how many insects he could eat before calling halt. But even here K'dunk was too much for us; we never, singly or all together, reached the limit of his appetite. Once we fed himninety rose-bugs without stopping. Another afternoon, when three boys appeared at the same hour, we put our catch together, a varied assortment of flies, bugs, and creeping things, a hundred and sixty-four head all told. Before dark K'dunk had eaten them all, and went hopping off to the garden on his night's hunting—as if he had not already done enough to prove himself our friend for the entire summer.Later we adopted a different plan and made the game come to K'dunk on its own wings, instead of running all over creation ourselves to catch it for him. Near the barn was a neglected drain where the flies were numerous enough to warn us to look after our sanitation more zealously. Here I built a little cage of wire netting, in which I placed a dead rat and some scraps from the table. When the midday sun found them and made them odorous, big flies began to pour in, with the loud buzzing which seems to be a signal to their fellows; for in ordinary flight the same flies are almost noiseless. Once,however, they find a bit of carrion fit for their eggs, they buzz about loudly every few minutes, and other flies hear them; whereupon their quiet flight changes to a loud buzzing. So the news spreads—at least this seems to help the matter—and flies pour in from every direction.At three o'clock I brought K'dunk from his meditations under the door-step and set him down in the cage, screening him with a big rhubarb leaf so that the sun would not dazzle his eyes too much. Then I took out my watch and sat down on a rock to count.In the first ten minutes K'dunk got barely a dozen flies. They were wary of him in the bright light, and he was not yet waked up to the occasion. Then he crouched down between the rat and the scraps, worked a hollow for himself where he could turn without being noticed, and the red tongue-play began in earnest. In the next half hour he got sixty-six flies, an average of over two a minute. In an hour his record was a hundred and ten; and before I left him he had added two dozen more to the score of our enemies.Then the flies ceased coming, as the air grew cool, and I carried him back to the door-step. But that night, later than usual, he was off to the garden again to keep up his splendid work.When the summer glow-worms came (lightning-bugs the boys called them) we saw another curious and pretty bit of hunting. One night, as we sat on the porch in the soft twilight, I saw the first lightning-bug glowing in the grass, and went to catch it as a jewel for a lady's hair. As I reached down my hand under a bush, the glow suddenly disappeared, and I put my fingers on K'dunk instead. He, too, had seen the glow and had instantly adopted jacking as his mode of hunting.Later I caught a lightning-bug and put it in a tiny bottle, and dropped it in front of K'dunk as he started across the lawn in the late twilight. He saw the glow through the glass and took a shot at it promptly. As with the hairy caterpillar, he shut his eyes as he gulped down the imaginative morsel, and when heopened them again there was another lightning-bug glowing in the grass just where the first had been. So he kept the tiny bottle jumping about the lawn at the repeated laps of his tongue, blinking and swallowing betweenwhiles until the glow-worm, made dizzy perhaps by the topsy-turvy play of his strange cage, folded his wings and hid his little light. Whereupon K'dunk hopped away, thinking, no doubt, in his own way, that while lightning-bugs were unusually thick that night and furnished the prettiest kind of hunting, they were very poor satisfaction to a hungry stomach,—not to be compared with what he could get by jumping up at the insects that hid on the under side of the leaves on every plant in the garden.It needed no words of mine by this time to convince the good Mrs. James that K'dunk was her friend. Indeed she paid a small boy ten cents apiece for a half dozen toads to turn loose about the premises to help K'dunk in his excellent work.And the garden flourished as never before, thanks to the humble little helpers. But K'dunk's virtues were more than utilitarian; he was full of unexpected things that kept us all constantly watching with delight to see what would happen next. As I said, he soon learned to come to the call; but more than that, he was fond of music. If you whistled a little tune softly, he would stay perfectly still until you finished before going off on his night's hunting. Then, if you changed the tune, or whistled discordantly, he would hop away as if he had no further use for you.

This fondness for certain spots shows itself in another way when you are on the trail of the hermit. When flushed from a favorite resting-place and not shot at, he makes but a short flight, up to the brush tops and back again, and then goes quietly back to the spot from which he rose as soon as you are gone away. He has also the hare trick of returning in a circle to his starting-point; and occasionally, when you flush a bird and watch sharply, you may see him slant down on silent wings behind you and light almost at your heels. Once my old dog Don started a woodcock and remained stanchly pointing at the spot where he had been. I remained where I was, a few yards in the rear, and in a moment Whitooweek whirled in from behind and dropped silently into some brakes between me and the dog and not ten feet from the old setter's tail. The ruse succeeded perfectly, for as the scent faded away from Don's nose he went forward, and so missed the bird that was watching him close behind. This curious habit may be simply the result of Whitooweek's fondness forcertain places; or it may be that by night he carefully selects the spot where he can rest and hide during the day, and returns to it because he cannot find another so good while the sun dazzles his eyes; or it may be a trick pure and simple to deceive the animal that disturbs him, by lighting close behind where neither dog nor man will ever think of looking for him.

By night, when he sees perfectly and moves about rapidly from one feeding-ground to another, Whitooweek is easily dazzled by a light of any kind, and he is one of the many creatures that come and go within the circle of your jack. Because he is silent at such times, and moves swiftly, he is generally unnamed—just a night bird, you think, and let him pass without another thought. Several times when jacking, to see what birds and animals I might surprise and watch by night, I have recognized Whitooweek whirling wildly about my circle of light. Once, deep in the New Brunswick wilderness, I surprised two poachers spearing salmon at midnight with a fire-baskethung over the bow of their canoe. Spite of its bad name it is a magnificent performance, skillful and daring beyond measure; so instead of driving them off I asked for a seat in their long dugout to see how it was done. As we swept up and down the dangerous river, with pitch-pine blazing and cracking and the black shadows jumping about us, two woodcock sprang up from the shore and whirled madly around the pirogue. One brushed my face with his wings, and was driven away only when Sandy in the bow gave a mighty lunge of his spear and with a howl of exultation flung a twenty-pound, kicking salmon back into my lap. But several times that night I saw the flash of their wings, or heard their low surprised twitter above the crackle of the fire and the rush and roar of the rapids.

"Once my old dog Don started a woodcock"

When he finds good feeding grounds on his southern migrations Whitooweek will stay with us, if undisturbed, until a sharp frost seals up his storehouse by making the ground too hard for hissensitive bill to penetrate. Then he slips away southward to the next open spring or alder run. Not far away, on Shippan Point, is a little spring that rarely freezes and whose waters overflow and make a green spot even in midwinter. The point is well covered with houses now, but formerly it was good woodcock ground, and the little spring always welcomed a few of the birds with the welcome that only a spring can give. Last year, at Christmas time, I found a woodcock there quite at home, within a stone's throw of two or three houses and with snow lying deep all around him. He had lingered there weeks after all other birds had gone, either held by old associations and memories of a time when only the woodcock knew the place; or else, wounded and unable to fly, he had sought out the one spot in all the region where he might live and be fed until his wing should heal. Nature, whom men call cruel, had cared for him tenderly, healing his wounds that man had given, and giving him food and a safe refuge at a time when all other feeding-grounds were heldfast in the grip of winter; but men, who can be kind and reasonable, saw no deep meaning in it all. The day after I found him a hunter passed that way, and was proud of having killed the very last woodcock of the season.

A Woodcock Genius

THEREis one astonishing thing about Whitooweek which can scarcely be called a habit, but which is probably the discovery of one or two rare individuals here and there more original than their fellows. Like the eider-ducks and the bear and the beaver, Whitooweek sometimes uses a rude kind of surgery for binding up hiswounds. Twenty years ago, while sitting quietly by a brook at the edge of the woods in Bridgewater, a woodcock suddenly fluttered out into the open and made his way to a spot on the bank where a light streak of sticky mud and clay showed clearly from where I was watching. It was the early hunting season and gunners were abroad in the land, and my first impression was that this was a wounded bird that had made a long flight after being shot, and that had now come out to the stream to drink or to bathe his wound. Whether this were so or not is a matter of guesswork; but the bird was acting strangely in broad daylight, and I crept nearer till I could see him plainly on the other side of the little stream, though he was stilltoo far away for me to be absolutely sure of what all his motions meant.At first he took soft clay in his bill from the edge of the water and seemed to be smearing it on one leg near the knee. Then he fluttered away on one foot for a short distance and seemed to be pulling tiny roots and fibers of grass, which he worked into the clay that he had already smeared on his leg. Again he took more clay and plastered it over the fibers, putting on more and more till I could plainly see the enlargement, working away with strange, silent intentness for fully fifteen minutes, while I watched and wondered, scarce believing my eyes. Then he stood perfectly still for a full hour under an overhanging sod, where the eye could with difficulty find him, his only motion meanwhile being an occasional rubbing and smoothing of the clay bandage with his bill, until it hardened enough to suit him, whereupon he fluttered away from the brook and disappeared in the thick woods.

At first he took soft clay in his bill from the edge of the water and seemed to be smearing it on one leg near the knee. Then he fluttered away on one foot for a short distance and seemed to be pulling tiny roots and fibers of grass, which he worked into the clay that he had already smeared on his leg. Again he took more clay and plastered it over the fibers, putting on more and more till I could plainly see the enlargement, working away with strange, silent intentness for fully fifteen minutes, while I watched and wondered, scarce believing my eyes. Then he stood perfectly still for a full hour under an overhanging sod, where the eye could with difficulty find him, his only motion meanwhile being an occasional rubbing and smoothing of the clay bandage with his bill, until it hardened enough to suit him, whereupon he fluttered away from the brook and disappeared in the thick woods.

I had my own explanation of the incredible action, namely, that the woodcock had abroken leg, and had deliberately put it into a clay cast to hold the broken bones in place until they should knit together again; but naturally I kept my own counsel, knowing that no one would believe in the theory. For years I questioned gunners closely, and found two who said that they had killed woodcock whose legs had at one time been broken and had healed again. As far as they could remember, the leg had in each case healed perfectly straight instead of twisting out to one side, as a chicken's leg does when broken and allowed to knit of itself. I examined hundreds of woodcock in the markets in different localities, and found one whose leg had at one time been broken by a shot and then had healed perfectly. There were plain signs of dried mud at the break; but that was also true of the other leg near the foot, which only indicated that the bird had been feeding in soft places. All this proved nothing to an outsider, and I kept silence as to what I had seen until last winter, twenty years afterwards, when the confirmation came unexpectedly. I had beenspeaking of animals before the Contemporary Club of Bridgeport when a gentleman, a lawyer well known all over the state, came to me and told me eagerly of a curious find he had made the previous autumn. He was gunning one day with a friend, when they shot a woodcock, which on being brought in by the dog was found to have a lump of hard clay on one of its legs. Curious to know what it meant he chipped the clay off with his penknife and found a broken bone, which was then almost healed and as straight as ever. A few weeks later the bird, had he lived, would undoubtedly have taken off the cast himself and there would have been nothing to indicate anything unusual about him.

So I give the observation now, at last, since proof is at hand, not to indicate a new or old habit of Whitooweek,—for how far the strange knowledge is spread among the woodcock and the wading birds no man can say,—but simply to indicate how little we know ofthe inner life of the hermit, and indeed of all wild birds, and how much there is yet to be discovered when we shall lay aside the gun for the field-glass and learn to interpret the wonderful life which goes on unseen all about us.

WHEN UPWEEKIS GOES HUNTING

LATEone winter afternoon, when the sun was gilding the pines on the western mountains and the shadows stretched long and chill through the snow-laden woods, a huge bull moose broke out of the gloom of the spruces and went swinging up the long, sunlit barren at a stride whose length and power would have discouraged even a wolf from following. Five minutes later I came out of the same tunnel under the spruces just as the fringe of green across the barren swished back to cover the flanks of the plunging bull, and then nodded and nodded in twenty directions—This way! that way!here! yonder!—to mislead any that might follow on his track. For at times even the hemlocks and the alders and the waters and the leaves and the creaking boughs and the dancing shadows all seem to conspire to shield the innocent Wood Folk from the hostile eyes and hands of those that pursue them. And that is one reason why it is so hard to see game in the woods.The big moose had fooled me that time. When he knew that I was following him he ran far ahead, and then circled swiftly back to stand motionless in a hillside thicket within twenty yards of the trail that he had made scarcely an hour agone. There he could see perfectly, without being seen, what it was that was following him. When I came by, following swiftly and silently the deep tracks in the snow, he let me pass below him while he took a good look and a sniff at me; then he glided away like a shadow in the opposite direction.Unfortunately a dead branch under the snow broke with a dull snap beneath his cautious hoof, and I turned aside to see—and so saved myself the long tramp up and down the cunning trails. When he saw that his trick was discovered he broke away for the open barren, with all his wonderful powers of eye and ear and tireless legs alert to save himself from the man whom he mistook for his deadly enemy.It was of small use to follow him further, so I sat down on a prostrate yellow birch to rest and listen awhile in the vast silence, and to watch anything that might be passing through the cold white woods.Under the fringe of evergreen the soft purple shadows jumped suddenly, and a hare as white as the snow bounded out. In long nervous jumps, like a bundle of wire springs, he went leaping before my face across a narrow arm of the barren to the shelter of a point below. The soft arms of the ground spruces and the softer shadows beneath them seemed to open of their own accord to let him in. All nodding of branches and droppingof snow pads and jumping of shadows ceased instantly, and all along the fringe of evergreen silent voices were saying, There is nothing here; we have not seen him; there is nothing here.

The big moose had fooled me that time. When he knew that I was following him he ran far ahead, and then circled swiftly back to stand motionless in a hillside thicket within twenty yards of the trail that he had made scarcely an hour agone. There he could see perfectly, without being seen, what it was that was following him. When I came by, following swiftly and silently the deep tracks in the snow, he let me pass below him while he took a good look and a sniff at me; then he glided away like a shadow in the opposite direction.Unfortunately a dead branch under the snow broke with a dull snap beneath his cautious hoof, and I turned aside to see—and so saved myself the long tramp up and down the cunning trails. When he saw that his trick was discovered he broke away for the open barren, with all his wonderful powers of eye and ear and tireless legs alert to save himself from the man whom he mistook for his deadly enemy.

It was of small use to follow him further, so I sat down on a prostrate yellow birch to rest and listen awhile in the vast silence, and to watch anything that might be passing through the cold white woods.

Under the fringe of evergreen the soft purple shadows jumped suddenly, and a hare as white as the snow bounded out. In long nervous jumps, like a bundle of wire springs, he went leaping before my face across a narrow arm of the barren to the shelter of a point below. The soft arms of the ground spruces and the softer shadows beneath them seemed to open of their own accord to let him in. All nodding of branches and droppingof snow pads and jumping of shadows ceased instantly, and all along the fringe of evergreen silent voices were saying, There is nothing here; we have not seen him; there is nothing here.

Now why did he run that way, I thought; for Moktaques is a crazy, erratic fellow, and never does things in a businesslike way unless he has to. As I wondered, there was a gleam of yellow fire under the purple shadows whence Moktaques had come, and the fierce round head of a Canada lynx was thrust out of the tunnel that the hare had made only a moment before. His big gray body had scarcely pushed itself into sight when the shadows stirred farther down the fringe of evergreen; another and another lynx glided out; and I caught my breath as five of the savage creatures swept across the narrow arm of the barren, each with his head thrust out, his fierce eyes piercing the gloom ahead like golden lances, and holding his place in the stately, appalling line of fierceness and power as silent as the shadow of death. My nerves tingled at the thought ofwhat would happen to Moktaques when one of the line should discover and jump him. Indeed, having no rifle, I was glad enough myself to sit very still and let the savage creatures go by without finding me.The middle lynx, a fierce old female, was following the hare's trail; and in a moment it flashed across me who she was and what they were all doing. Here, at last, was the secret of the lynx bands that one sometimes finds in the winter woods, and that occasionally threaten or appall one with a ferocity that the individual animals never manifest. For Upweekis, though big and fierce, is at heart a slinking, cowardly, treacherous creature—like all cats—and so loves best to be alone. Knowing that the rest of his tribe are like himself, he suspects them all and is fearful that in any division of common spoils somebody else would get the lion's share. And so I have never found among the cats any trace of the well-defined regulations that seem to prevail among nearly all other animals.

The middle lynx, a fierce old female, was following the hare's trail; and in a moment it flashed across me who she was and what they were all doing. Here, at last, was the secret of the lynx bands that one sometimes finds in the winter woods, and that occasionally threaten or appall one with a ferocity that the individual animals never manifest. For Upweekis, though big and fierce, is at heart a slinking, cowardly, treacherous creature—like all cats—and so loves best to be alone. Knowing that the rest of his tribe are like himself, he suspects them all and is fearful that in any division of common spoils somebody else would get the lion's share. And so I have never found among the cats any trace of the well-defined regulations that seem to prevail among nearly all other animals.

In winter, however, it is different. Then necessity compels Upweekis to lay asidesome of his feline selfishness and hunt in savage bands. Every seven years, especially, when rabbits are scarce in the woods because of the sickness that kills them off periodically, you may stumble upon one of these pirate crews haunting the deer yards or following after the caribou herds; but until the ferocious line swept out of the purple shadows under my very eyes I had no idea that these bands are—almost invariably, as I have since learned—family parties that hold together through the winter, just as fawns follow the old doe until the spring comes, in order that her wisdom may find them food, and her superior strength break a way for them when snows are deep and enemies are hard at heel.

The big lynx in the middle was the mother; the four other lynxes were her cubs; and they held together now, partly that their imperfect education might be finished under her own eyes, but chiefly that in the hungry winter days they might combine their powers and hunt more systematically, and pull down, if need be, the larger animals that might defy them individually.

As she crossed the fresh trail of the bull moose the old mother lynx thrust her big head into it for a long sniff. The line closed up instantly and each lynx stood like a statue, his blunt nose down into a reeking hoof mark, studying through dull senses what it was that had just passed. The old lynx swung her head up and down the line of her motionless cubs; then with a ferocious snarl curling under her whiskers she pushed forward again. A score of starving lynxes all together would scarcely follow a bull of that stride and power. Only the smell of blood would drag them unwillingly along such a trail; and even then, if they overtook the author of it, they would only squat around him in a fierce solemn circle, yawning hungrily and hoping he would die. Now, somewhere just ahead, easier game was hiding. An unvoiced command seemed to run up and down the line of waiting cubs. Each thrust his head out at the same instant and the silent march went on.

When the last of the line had glided out of sight among the bushes of the point below,I ran swiftly through the woods, making no noise in the soft snow, and crouched motionless under the spruces on the lower side of the point, hoping to see the cunning hunters again. There was but a moment to wait. From under a bending evergreen tip Moktaques leaped out and went flying across the open for the next wooded point. Close behind him sounded a snarl, and with a terrific rush as she sighted the game the old lynx burst out, calling savagely to her line of hunters to close in. Like the blast of a squall they came, stretching out in enormous bounds and closing in from either end so as to cut off the circling run of the flying game. In a flash the two ends of the line had met and whirled in sharply; in another flash Moktaques was crouching close in the snow in the center of a fierce circle that rolled in upon him like a whirlwind. As the smallest lynx leaped for his game an electric shock seemed to touch the motionless hare. He shot forward as if galvanized, leaping high over the crouching terror before him, striving to break out of the terrible circle. Then the lynxover whose head he passed leaped straight up, caught the flying creature fairly in his great paws, fell over backwards, and was covered in an instant by the other lynxes that hurled themselves upon him like furies, snapping and clawing ferociously at the mouthful which he had pulled down at the very moment of its escape.

There was an appalling scrimmage for a moment; then, before I could fairly rub my eyes, the hare had vanished utterly, and a savage ring of lynxes were licking their chops hungrily, glaring and growling at each other to see which it was that had gotten the biggest mouthful.

When they disappeared at last, slinking away in a long line under the edge of the barren, I took up the back track to see how they had been hunting. For a full mile, straight back toward my camp, I followed the tracks and read the record of as keen a bit of bush beating as was ever seen in the woods. They had swept along all that distance in an almost perfect line, starting every living thing that lay athwart theirpath. Here it was a ruffed grouse that one had jumped for and missed, as the startled bird whirred away into the gloom. There one had climbed a tree and shaken something off into the snow, where the others licked up every morsel so clean that I could not tell what the unfortunate creature was; but a curious bit of savage daring was manifest, for the lynx that had gone up the tree after the game had hurled himself down like a catapult, leaving a huge hole in the snow, so as to be in at the death before his savage fellows, which had come flying in with great bounds, should have eaten everything and left not even a smell for his own share. And there, at last, at the very end of the line, another hare had been started and, running in a short circle, as hares often do, had been met and seized by the fourth lynx as the long line swung in swiftly to head him off.

Years later, and miles away on the Renous barrens, I saw another and more wonderful bit of the same keen hunting. Froma ridge above a small barren I saw a herd of caribou acting strangely and went down to investigate. As I reached the fringe of thick bushes that lined the open I saw the caribou cluster excitedly about the base of a big rock across the barren, not more than two hundred yards away. Something was there, evidently, which excited their curiosity,—and caribou are the most inquisitive creatures, at times, in all the woods,—but I had to study the rock sharply through my field-glasses before I made out the round fierce head of a big lynx pressed flat against the gray stone. One side of the rock was almost perpendicular, rising sheer some fifteen or twenty feet above the plain; the other side slanted off less abruptly toward the woods; and the big lynx, which had probably scrambled up from the woods to spy on the caribou, was now hanging half over the edge of rock, swaying his savage head from side to side and stretching one wide paw after another at the animals beneath.The caribou were getting more excited and curious every moment. Caribou are liketurkeys; when they see some new thing they must die or find out about it. Now they were spreading and closing their ranks, wavering back and forth, stretching ears and noses at the queer thing on the rock, but drawing nearer and nearer with every change.Suddenly the lynx jumped, not at the caribou, for they were still too far away, but high in the air with paws outspread. He came down in a flurry of snow, whirled round and round as if bewitched, then vanished silently in two great jumps into the shelter of the nearest evergreens.

The caribou were getting more excited and curious every moment. Caribou are liketurkeys; when they see some new thing they must die or find out about it. Now they were spreading and closing their ranks, wavering back and forth, stretching ears and noses at the queer thing on the rock, but drawing nearer and nearer with every change.

Suddenly the lynx jumped, not at the caribou, for they were still too far away, but high in the air with paws outspread. He came down in a flurry of snow, whirled round and round as if bewitched, then vanished silently in two great jumps into the shelter of the nearest evergreens.

The caribou broke wildly at the strange sight, but turned after a startled bound or two to see what it was that had frightened them. There was nothing in sight, and like a flock of foolish sheep they came timidly back, nosing the snow and stretching their ears at the rock again; for there at the top was the big lynx, swinging his round head from side to side as before, and reachinghis paws alternately at the herd, as if to show them how broad and fine they were.

Slowly the little herd neared the rock and the lynx drew back, as if to lure them on. They were full of burning curiosity, but they had seen one spring, at least, and measured its power, and so kept at a respectful distance. Then one young caribou left the others and went nosing along the edge of the woods to find the trail of the queer thing, or get to leeward of the rock, and so find out by smell—which is the only sure sense that a caribou possesses—what it was all about. A wind seemed to stir a dried tuft of grass on the summit of the great rock. I put my glasses upon it instantly, then caught my breath in suppressed excitement as I made out the tufted ears of two or three other lynxes crouching flat on their high tower, out of sight of the foolish herd, but watching every movement with fierce, yellow, unblinking eyes.

The young caribou found the trail, put his nose down into it, then started cautiously back toward the rock to nose theother hole in the snow and be sure that it smelled just like the first one. Up on the rock the big lynx drew further back; the herd pressed close, raising their heads high to see what he was doing; and the young caribou stole up and put his nose down into the trail again. Then three living catapults shot over the high rim of the rock and fell upon him. Like a flash the big lynx was on his feet, drawing himself up to his full height and hurling a savage screech of exultation after the flying herd. Then he, too, shot over the rock, fell fair on the neck of the struggling young caribou, and bore him down into the snow.

"Then he, too, shot over the rock"

Upweekis is a stupid fellow. He will poke his big head into a wire noose as foolishly as any rabbit, and then he will fight savagely with the pole at the other end of the noose until he chokes himself. But no one could follow that wonderful trail in the snow, or sit with tingling nerves under the spruces watching that wild bit of fox-play, without a growing respect for the shadowycreature of the big round tracks that wander, wander everywhere through the winter woods, and without wondering intensely in what kind of savage school Mother Upweekis trains her little ones.

K'DUNK THE FAT ONE

K'DUNKthe Fat One, as Simmo calls him, came out of his winter den the morning after the Reverend James had stirred the sod of his first flower bed. It was early April, and the first smell of spring was in the air—that subtle call of Mother Earth to her drowsy children to awake and come out and do things. The Reverend James felt the call in his nose and, remembering his boyhood, as we all do at the smell of spring, resolved to go fishing after he had finished his morning paper. His wife felt it, went to the door, took a long breath and cried, "Isn't this just glorious!" Thenshe grabbed a trowel—for when a man must off to the brook for his first trout a woman, by the same inner compulsion, must dig in the earth—and started for the flower bed. A moment later her excited call came floating in through the open window."Ja-a-a-a-mes? James!"—the first call with a long up slide, the second more peremptory—"what in the world did you plant in this flower bed?""Why," said the Reverend James, peering quizzically over the rim of his spectacles at the open window, "why, I thought I planted portulaca seed."

"Ja-a-a-a-mes? James!"—the first call with a long up slide, the second more peremptory—"what in the world did you plant in this flower bed?"

"Why," said the Reverend James, peering quizzically over the rim of his spectacles at the open window, "why, I thought I planted portulaca seed."

"Then come out here and see what's come up," ordered his wife; and the surprised old gentleman came hurriedly to the door to blink in astonishment at three fat toads that were also blinking in the warm sunshine, and a huge mud-turtle that was sprawling and hissing indignantly in a great hole in the middle of his flower bed.

A sly, whimsical twinkle was under the old minister's spectacles as he regarded the queer crop that had come up overnight."Whatsoever a man soweth, whatsoever a man soweth," he quoted softly to himself, eying the three toads askance, and poking the big turtle inquisitively, but snapping his hand back at sight and sound of the hooked beak and the fierce hissing. Then, because his library contained no book of exegesis equal to the occasion, he caught a small boy who was passing on his way to school and sent him off post-haste to my rooms to find out what it was all about.Now the three fat toads had also smelled the spring down in a soft spot under the lawn, whither, in the previous autumn, they had burrowed for their winter sleep. When the Reverend James stirred the sod, the warm sun thawed them out and brought them the spring's message, and they scrambled up to the surface promptly, as full of new life as if they had not been frozen into insensible clods for the past six months. As for the big turtle, the smell of the fresh earth had probably brought her up from the neighboring pond to search out a nest for herself where she might lay her eggs. Finding thesoft warm earth of the portulaca bed, she had squirmed and twisted her way down into it, the loose earth tumbling in on her and hiding her as she went down.

Now the three fat toads had also smelled the spring down in a soft spot under the lawn, whither, in the previous autumn, they had burrowed for their winter sleep. When the Reverend James stirred the sod, the warm sun thawed them out and brought them the spring's message, and they scrambled up to the surface promptly, as full of new life as if they had not been frozen into insensible clods for the past six months. As for the big turtle, the smell of the fresh earth had probably brought her up from the neighboring pond to search out a nest for herself where she might lay her eggs. Finding thesoft warm earth of the portulaca bed, she had squirmed and twisted her way down into it, the loose earth tumbling in on her and hiding her as she went down.

When the sharp feminine eyes swept over the flower bed they detected at once the hollow in the middle, showing careless workmanship on the part of somebody. "That hole must be filled up," promptly declared Mrs. James; but first, woman-like, she thrust her trowel deep into it. "Aha! a rock—careless man," she gave judgment, and took another jab and a two-handed heave at the hard object. Whereupon out came the big mud-turtle, scrambling, hissing, protesting with beak and claw against being driven out of the best nest she had ever found so early in the season. That night there were curious sounds in the grass and dead leaves—rustlings and croakings and low husky trills, as the toads came hopping briskly by twos and threesdown to the pond. From every direction, from garden and lawn and wood and old stone wall, they came croaking and trilling through the quiet twilight, and hopping high with delight at the first smell of water. Down the banks they came, sliding, rolling, tumbling end over end,—any way to get down quickly,—landing at last with glad splashings and croakings in the warm shallows, where they promptly took to biting and clawing and absurd little wrestling bouts; which is the toad's way of settling his disputes and taking his own mate away from the other fellows.Two or three days they stayed in the pond, filling the air with gurgling croaks and filling the water with endless strings of gelatine-coated eggs—enough to fill the whole pond banks-full of pollywogs, did not Mother Nature step in and mercifully dispose of ninety-nine per cent of them within a few days of hatching, and set the rest of them to eating each other industriously as they grew, till every pollywog that was left might truthfully sing with the cannibalistic mariner:

Two or three days they stayed in the pond, filling the air with gurgling croaks and filling the water with endless strings of gelatine-coated eggs—enough to fill the whole pond banks-full of pollywogs, did not Mother Nature step in and mercifully dispose of ninety-nine per cent of them within a few days of hatching, and set the rest of them to eating each other industriously as they grew, till every pollywog that was left might truthfully sing with the cannibalistic mariner:

Oh, I am the cook and the captain boldAnd the mate of the Nancy brig,The bo'sn tight and the midshipmiteAnd the crew of the captain's gig.

For every pollywog represented in his proper person some hundred or more of his fellow-pollywogs that he had eaten in the course of his development. But long before that time the toads had left the pond, scattering to the four winds whence they had come, caring not now what became of their offspring. It was then that K'dunk the Fat One came back to the portulaca bed.

Mrs. James found him there the next morning—a big, warty gray toad with a broad grin and a fat belly and an eye like a jewel—blinking sleepily after his night's hunting. "Mercy! there's that awful toad again. I hope"—with a cautious glance all round—"I hope he hasn't brought the turtle with him." She gave him a prod and a flip with the trowel to get him out of the flower bed, whereupon K'dunk scrambled into his hole under an overhanging sod and refused to come out, spite of tentative pokesof the trowel in a hand that was altogether too tender to hurt him. And there he stayed, waging his silent warfare against the trowel, until I chanced along and persuaded the good lady that she was trying to drive away the very best friend that her flowers could possibly have. Then K'dunk settled down in peace, and we all took to watching him.

His first care was to make a few hiding holes here and there in the garden. Most of these were mere hollows in the soft earth, where K'dunk would crouch with eyes shut tight whenever his enemies were near. His color changed rapidly till it was the same general hue as his surroundings, so that, when he lay quiet and shut his bright eyes in one of his numerous hollows, it was almost impossible to find him. But after he had been worried two or three times by the house-dog—a fat, wheezy little pug that always grew excited when K'dunk began to hop about in the twilight but that could never bark himself up to the point of touching the clammy thing with his nose—hedug other holes, under the sod banks, or beside a rock, where Grunt, the pug, could not bother him without getting too much out of breath.

We made friends with him at first by scratching his back with a stick, at which pleasant operation he would swell and grunt with satisfaction. But you could never tell when he would get enough, or at what moment he would feel his dignity touched in a tender spot and go hopping off to the garden in high dudgeon. Then we fed him flies and bits of tender meat, which we would wiggle with a bit of grass to make them seem alive. At the same time we whistled a certain call to teach him when his supper was ready. Then, finally, by gentle handlings and pettings he grew quite tame, and at the sound of the whistle would scramble out from under the door-step, where he lived by day, and hop briskly in our direction to be fed and played with.

Though K'dunk had many interesting traits, which we discovered with amazement as the summer progressed and we grew betteracquainted, I think that his feeding ways and tricks were the source of our most constant delight and wonder. Just to see him stalk a fly filled one with something of the tense excitement of a deer hunt. As he sat by a stump or clod in the fading light, some belated fly or early night-bug would light on the ground in front of him. Instantly the jewel eye in K'dunk's head would begin to flash and sparkle. He would crouch down and creep nearer, toeing in like a duck, slower and slower, one funny little paw brushing cautiously by the other, with all the stealth and caution of a cat stalking a chipmunk on the wall. Then, as he neared his game, there would be a bright flash of the jewel; a red streak shot through the air, so quick that your eye could not follow it, and the fly would disappear. Whereupon K'dunk would gulp something down, closing his eyes solemnly as he did so, as if he were saying grace, or as if, somehow, closing his eyes to all outward things made the morsel taste better.The red streak, of course, was K'dunk's tongue, wherein lies the secret of his hunting. It is attached at the outer rim of his mouth, and folds back in his throat. The inner end is broad and soft and sticky, and he snaps it out and back quick as a wink or a lizard. Whatever luckless insect the tongue touches is done with all bothering of our humanity. The sticky tongue snaps him up and back into K'dunk's wide mouth before he has time to spread a wing or even to think what is the matter with him.

The red streak, of course, was K'dunk's tongue, wherein lies the secret of his hunting. It is attached at the outer rim of his mouth, and folds back in his throat. The inner end is broad and soft and sticky, and he snaps it out and back quick as a wink or a lizard. Whatever luckless insect the tongue touches is done with all bothering of our humanity. The sticky tongue snaps him up and back into K'dunk's wide mouth before he has time to spread a wing or even to think what is the matter with him.

"The soft tongue struck one of his trailing legs"

Once I saw him stalk a grasshopper, a big lively green fellow that, in a particularly long jump, had come out of the protecting grass and landed on the brown earth directly in front of where K'dunk was catching the flies that were coming in a steady stream to a bait that I had put out for them. Instantly K'dunk turned his attention from the flies to the larger game. Just as his tongue shot out the grasshopper, growing suspicious, jumped for cover. The soft tongue missed him by a hair, but struck one of his trailing legs and knocked him aside. In an instantK'dunk was after him again, his legs scrambling desperately, his eyes blazing, and his tongue shooting in and out like a streak of flame. Just as the grasshopper rose in a hard jump the tongue hit him, and I saw no more. But K'dunk's gulp was bigger and his eyes were closed for a longer period than usual, and there was a loud protesting rustle in his throat as the grasshopper's long legs went kicking down the road that has no turning.

A big caterpillar that I found and brought to K'dunk one day afforded us all another field for rare observation. The caterpillar was a hairy fellow, bristling with stiff spines, and I doubted that the tongue had enough mucilage on it to stick to him. But K'dunk had no such doubts. His tongue flew out and his eyes closed solemnly. At the same time I saw the caterpillar shrink himself together and stick his spines out stiffer than ever. Then a curious thing came out, namely, that K'dunk's mouth is so big and his game is usually so small that he cannot taste his morsel; he just swallows mechanically, as ifhe were so used to catching his game that it never occurred to him that he could miss. When he opened his eyes and saw the caterpillar in the same place, he thought, evidently, that it was another one which had come in mysteriously on wings, as the flies were coming to my bait. Again his tongue shot out, and his eyes closed in a swallow of delight. But there in front of him, as his eyes opened, was another caterpillar. Such perfect harmony of supply and demand was never known to a toad before.

Again and again his tongue shot out, and each shot was followed by a blink and a gulp. All the while that he kept up this rapid shooting he thought he was getting fresh caterpillars; and all the while the hairy fellow was shrinking closer and closer together and sticking his spines out like a porcupine. But he was getting more mucilage on him at every shot. "That caterpillar is getting too stuck-up to live," presently said little Johnnie, who was watching the game with me; and at the word a hairyball shot into the wide mouth that was yawning for him, and K'dunk went back to his fly-catching.It is probably this lack of taste on K'dunk's part that accounts for the astonishing variety in his food. Nothing in the shape of an insect seemed to come amiss to him. Flies, wasps, crickets, caterpillars, doodle-bugs, and beetles of every description were all treated alike to the same red flash of his tongue and the blinking gulp. A half-dozen boys and girls, who were watching the queer pet with me, were put to their wits' end to find something that he would not eat. One boy, who picked huckleberries, brought in three or four of the disagreeable little bugs, known without a name by every country boy, that have the skunk habit of emitting overpowering odors when disturbed, thinking that he had found a poser for our pet; but K'dunk gobbled them up as if they had been set before him as a relish to tickle his appetite. Another brought potato bugs; but these too were fish for K'dunk's net. Then a third boy, who had charge of a kitchen garden,went away wagging his head and saying that he had just picked something that no living thing would eat. When he came back he had a horse-radish bottle that swarmed with squash-bugs, twenty or thirty of the vile-smelling things, which he dumped out on the ground and stirred up with a stick.

It is probably this lack of taste on K'dunk's part that accounts for the astonishing variety in his food. Nothing in the shape of an insect seemed to come amiss to him. Flies, wasps, crickets, caterpillars, doodle-bugs, and beetles of every description were all treated alike to the same red flash of his tongue and the blinking gulp. A half-dozen boys and girls, who were watching the queer pet with me, were put to their wits' end to find something that he would not eat. One boy, who picked huckleberries, brought in three or four of the disagreeable little bugs, known without a name by every country boy, that have the skunk habit of emitting overpowering odors when disturbed, thinking that he had found a poser for our pet; but K'dunk gobbled them up as if they had been set before him as a relish to tickle his appetite. Another brought potato bugs; but these too were fish for K'dunk's net. Then a third boy, who had charge of a kitchen garden,went away wagging his head and saying that he had just picked something that no living thing would eat. When he came back he had a horse-radish bottle that swarmed with squash-bugs, twenty or thirty of the vile-smelling things, which he dumped out on the ground and stirred up with a stick.

Somebody ran and brought K'dunk from one of his hiding-places and set him down on the ground in front of the squirming mess. For a moment he seemed to be eying his proposition with astonishment. Then he crouched down and the swift red tongue-play began. In four minutes, by my watch, every squash-bug that stirred had disappeared, and K'dunk finished the others as fast as we could wiggle them with a straw to make them seem alive.

We gave up trying to beat him on variety after that, and settled down to the apparently simple task of trying to find out how many insects he could eat before calling halt. But even here K'dunk was too much for us; we never, singly or all together, reached the limit of his appetite. Once we fed himninety rose-bugs without stopping. Another afternoon, when three boys appeared at the same hour, we put our catch together, a varied assortment of flies, bugs, and creeping things, a hundred and sixty-four head all told. Before dark K'dunk had eaten them all, and went hopping off to the garden on his night's hunting—as if he had not already done enough to prove himself our friend for the entire summer.Later we adopted a different plan and made the game come to K'dunk on its own wings, instead of running all over creation ourselves to catch it for him. Near the barn was a neglected drain where the flies were numerous enough to warn us to look after our sanitation more zealously. Here I built a little cage of wire netting, in which I placed a dead rat and some scraps from the table. When the midday sun found them and made them odorous, big flies began to pour in, with the loud buzzing which seems to be a signal to their fellows; for in ordinary flight the same flies are almost noiseless. Once,however, they find a bit of carrion fit for their eggs, they buzz about loudly every few minutes, and other flies hear them; whereupon their quiet flight changes to a loud buzzing. So the news spreads—at least this seems to help the matter—and flies pour in from every direction.At three o'clock I brought K'dunk from his meditations under the door-step and set him down in the cage, screening him with a big rhubarb leaf so that the sun would not dazzle his eyes too much. Then I took out my watch and sat down on a rock to count.In the first ten minutes K'dunk got barely a dozen flies. They were wary of him in the bright light, and he was not yet waked up to the occasion. Then he crouched down between the rat and the scraps, worked a hollow for himself where he could turn without being noticed, and the red tongue-play began in earnest. In the next half hour he got sixty-six flies, an average of over two a minute. In an hour his record was a hundred and ten; and before I left him he had added two dozen more to the score of our enemies.Then the flies ceased coming, as the air grew cool, and I carried him back to the door-step. But that night, later than usual, he was off to the garden again to keep up his splendid work.When the summer glow-worms came (lightning-bugs the boys called them) we saw another curious and pretty bit of hunting. One night, as we sat on the porch in the soft twilight, I saw the first lightning-bug glowing in the grass, and went to catch it as a jewel for a lady's hair. As I reached down my hand under a bush, the glow suddenly disappeared, and I put my fingers on K'dunk instead. He, too, had seen the glow and had instantly adopted jacking as his mode of hunting.

Later we adopted a different plan and made the game come to K'dunk on its own wings, instead of running all over creation ourselves to catch it for him. Near the barn was a neglected drain where the flies were numerous enough to warn us to look after our sanitation more zealously. Here I built a little cage of wire netting, in which I placed a dead rat and some scraps from the table. When the midday sun found them and made them odorous, big flies began to pour in, with the loud buzzing which seems to be a signal to their fellows; for in ordinary flight the same flies are almost noiseless. Once,however, they find a bit of carrion fit for their eggs, they buzz about loudly every few minutes, and other flies hear them; whereupon their quiet flight changes to a loud buzzing. So the news spreads—at least this seems to help the matter—and flies pour in from every direction.

At three o'clock I brought K'dunk from his meditations under the door-step and set him down in the cage, screening him with a big rhubarb leaf so that the sun would not dazzle his eyes too much. Then I took out my watch and sat down on a rock to count.

In the first ten minutes K'dunk got barely a dozen flies. They were wary of him in the bright light, and he was not yet waked up to the occasion. Then he crouched down between the rat and the scraps, worked a hollow for himself where he could turn without being noticed, and the red tongue-play began in earnest. In the next half hour he got sixty-six flies, an average of over two a minute. In an hour his record was a hundred and ten; and before I left him he had added two dozen more to the score of our enemies.Then the flies ceased coming, as the air grew cool, and I carried him back to the door-step. But that night, later than usual, he was off to the garden again to keep up his splendid work.

When the summer glow-worms came (lightning-bugs the boys called them) we saw another curious and pretty bit of hunting. One night, as we sat on the porch in the soft twilight, I saw the first lightning-bug glowing in the grass, and went to catch it as a jewel for a lady's hair. As I reached down my hand under a bush, the glow suddenly disappeared, and I put my fingers on K'dunk instead. He, too, had seen the glow and had instantly adopted jacking as his mode of hunting.

Later I caught a lightning-bug and put it in a tiny bottle, and dropped it in front of K'dunk as he started across the lawn in the late twilight. He saw the glow through the glass and took a shot at it promptly. As with the hairy caterpillar, he shut his eyes as he gulped down the imaginative morsel, and when heopened them again there was another lightning-bug glowing in the grass just where the first had been. So he kept the tiny bottle jumping about the lawn at the repeated laps of his tongue, blinking and swallowing betweenwhiles until the glow-worm, made dizzy perhaps by the topsy-turvy play of his strange cage, folded his wings and hid his little light. Whereupon K'dunk hopped away, thinking, no doubt, in his own way, that while lightning-bugs were unusually thick that night and furnished the prettiest kind of hunting, they were very poor satisfaction to a hungry stomach,—not to be compared with what he could get by jumping up at the insects that hid on the under side of the leaves on every plant in the garden.It needed no words of mine by this time to convince the good Mrs. James that K'dunk was her friend. Indeed she paid a small boy ten cents apiece for a half dozen toads to turn loose about the premises to help K'dunk in his excellent work.And the garden flourished as never before, thanks to the humble little helpers. But K'dunk's virtues were more than utilitarian; he was full of unexpected things that kept us all constantly watching with delight to see what would happen next. As I said, he soon learned to come to the call; but more than that, he was fond of music. If you whistled a little tune softly, he would stay perfectly still until you finished before going off on his night's hunting. Then, if you changed the tune, or whistled discordantly, he would hop away as if he had no further use for you.

It needed no words of mine by this time to convince the good Mrs. James that K'dunk was her friend. Indeed she paid a small boy ten cents apiece for a half dozen toads to turn loose about the premises to help K'dunk in his excellent work.And the garden flourished as never before, thanks to the humble little helpers. But K'dunk's virtues were more than utilitarian; he was full of unexpected things that kept us all constantly watching with delight to see what would happen next. As I said, he soon learned to come to the call; but more than that, he was fond of music. If you whistled a little tune softly, he would stay perfectly still until you finished before going off on his night's hunting. Then, if you changed the tune, or whistled discordantly, he would hop away as if he had no further use for you.

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