THE PEAK FROM THE SOUTHEAST
THE PEAK FROM THE SOUTHEAST
The sounds in the air continued, and at one time made me wonder whether electric waves passing through the low-hanging clouds above me could produce them. There being no light accompanying the sounds, I dismissed this hypothesis as unsatisfactory. Once I thought that something was scratching and grinding down the side of a sloping ledge. Since rain began falling thick and fast at the same moment, I seized my lantern and retreated to the cave. When I gained the dizzy rock at the mouth of the cave, the heavens again spoke, and mist-forms swept past in front of me. The next moment I was at the bottom of the cave, wondering whether a temperature of 60°, which my thermometer recorded, justified wholly the goose-flesh that crept over me.
My lantern cast a clear, steady light into allparts of the cave. Now and then a flash of lightning showed where the entrance faced the east, and where one or two other cracks were open between the Cow and its rocky foundation. I lay perfectly motionless, pondering upon the strange sounds I had heard. My eyes rested upon several stones lying in the narrow space beyond my feet where the two rocks neared each other. Something moved there. A body had passed from the shelter of one stone to that of another. I held my breath, and watched. Again a brownish thing flashed past an opening, came nearer, darted forward into the light, vanished, reappeared, came clearly into view, shot back, and finally sped across a broad, well-lighted face of rock, and revealed itself as a large short-tailed mouse,—perhaps an EasternPhenacomysas yet unknown to collectors. Although I did not move for a long time, he failed to reappear, and my only companion was a gauzy-winged fly which sat upon my knee and contemplated the flame of the lantern.
The rain continuing, I sang and whistled until after ten o’clock, when I crawled to the mouth of my cave and looked down into the depths beneath. A stone thrown far out, so as to clear the first few ledges, might fall eight hundred feet before it struck the rocks below. As I stared into the darkness, I found thatmuch which had been invisible an hour earlier was now dimly outlined in black and white. The sky, too, showed gaps in its curtain, and the white lakes in the distant valleys were more silvery than before. The storm was over, the moon was at work eating the clouds, and soon, I hoped, the stars would keep their tryst. Lantern in hand, I crept up the rocks, and settled myself once more on the peak. All my friendly lights in the valley had gone out, and I was now alone in the sky.
Paugus, Passaconaway, and Whiteface were quite clearly outlined against each other and the sky. They seemed very near, however, so that it was easier for me to imagine myself on a lonely rock in the ocean, with huge waves about to overwhelm me, than to make those combing waves stand back three, eight, twelve miles and become spruce-covered mountains. Gradually other mountain outlines became discernible, and the cloud-curtain above showed folds and wrinkles, which in time wore out under the moon’s chafing and let through a glimpse of Mars or Vega, marvelously far away in that serene ether. Half an hour before midnight the pale disk of the moon appeared through the thin clouds, and at the witching hour she sailed out proudly into a little space of clear blue-black heaven. The wind came in fresher puffs, a snowy cloud-caprested on the head of Paugus, and the air was so much colder that I was glad to put on both jersey and oilskin jacket. A dozen lakes and twenty-five mountain peaks were visible at half past twelve, and Mars had worked a place for his red eye, so that it could look down through the breaking clouds without interruption. Drowsiness now overtook me, and in order to keep awake I was forced to walk rapidly up and down the small area of the top, or to jump about over the ledges farther south. About one o’clock a light flashed brightly from a point near the Maine line; perhaps in Fryeburg. At first I thought it might be a fire which would gather strength and size; then, as it appeared to move and come nearer, it looked more like the headlight of a locomotive. My glass made it seem smaller, and the motion was so slow and irregular that I thought the gleam might be from a doctor’s buggy, as the man of sickness took his way through the night.
THE PEAK FROM THE NORTH
THE PEAK FROM THE NORTH
My own light was now growing dim, so I extinguished it in order to save the remaining oil for emergencies. Immediately afterwards a bat flew against the lantern, and then perched upon a lichen-hung rock near by, to recover his composure. The moon slowly made way with the clouds, and by two o’clock a quarter part of the sky was clear. The mercury had dropped to 52°, and the moisture hurled against the mountain by the wind was condensed and sent boiling and seething up the sides of the peak. Tongues of fog lapped around me with the same spasmodic motion which flames display in rising from a plate of burning alcohol. At first they scarcely reached the peak; then they came to my feet, and swept past me around both sides of my platform; finally they flung themselves higher and higher, hiding not only the black valley from which they came, but Paugus and more distant peaks, the sky, the moon, and the glimmering stars. Suddenly from the fog-filled air came once more the gruesome sound which I had heard earlier in the night. Its cause was nearer to me now, and I felt sure that it was some creature of the air, and consequently nothing which could cause me inconvenience. I strained my eyes to see the creature as it passed, but in vain, until in its flight it chanced to cross the face of the moon. Then the mystery was solved. I saw that it was either a night-hawk or a bird of similar size. The speed at which it was flying was wonderful. When it tacked or veered, it produced the extraordinary sounds which, with their echoes from the rocks, had so puzzled me at first. Once or twice during the night I had heard night-hawks squawking, and from this time on their harsh voices were heardat intervals mingled with the booming which, for some unexplained reason, they make by night as well as by day; after as well as during the breeding season.
A few minutes after two o’clock a large meteor shot across a small patch of clear sky near the constellation Andromeda, and was quenched in the fog. From time to time other smaller ones flashed in brief glory in the same quarter of the heavens, and one brilliant fragment burned its way past Jupiter, as though measuring its passing glory with the light of the planet. The wind was falling, the temperature rising, and, following these two influences, the fog decreased, until its only remnants clung to the ponds and rivers far below. Two thirds of the sky were clear by three o’clock. In the east, the Pleiades sparkled in mysterious consultation; farther north, Capella flashed her colored lights, and Venus, radiant with a lustre second only to Selene’s own, threw off the clouds which for an hour had concealed her loveliness, and claimed from Mars the foremost place in the triumph of the night. Her reign was short. At a quarter after three I noticed that the cloudbank which lay along the eastern and northern horizon was becoming more sharply defined by the gradual growth of a white band above it. A greater orb than Venus was undermining herpower in the east. The white line imperceptibly turned to a delicate green, and extended its area to left and right and upward. The clouds in the high sky took on harder outlines and rounder shapes. Shadows were being cast among them, and a light was stealing through them from something brighter even than the yellow moon. The pale green band had changed to blue, the blue was deepening to violet, and through this violet sky the brightest meteor of the night passed slowly down until it met the hills. High in the sky the stars were growing dim, and the spaces between the clouds, which looked for all the world like a badly painted picture, were growing blue, deep real blue. The line of brightest light above the eastern clouds showed a margin of orange. Venus in the violet sky was still dazzling, but her glory was no longer of the night, but of the twilight. She was wonderful, in spite of the stronger light which was slowly overpowering her. Mars burned like a red coal low down in the west, unaffected thus far by the sun’s rays, while Jupiter, supreme among the high stars, was paling fast as the light of day rolled towards him.
The eastern sky looked strangely flat. Its colors were like a pastel drawing. Small, very black clouds, with hard outlines, lay unrelievedagainst the violet, silver, and orange. A full hour had sped by since I first noted the coming of the day, and still the earth below slept on. Hark! up from the deep valley below the Cow comes a single bird-voice, but scarcely are its notes sprinkled upon the cool, clear air, when a dozen, yes, fifty singers join their voices in a medley of morning music. The first songster was a white-throat, and the bulk of the chorus was made up of juncos and white-throats, the stronger song of Swainson’s and hermit thrushes coming in clearly now and then from points more distant from the peak. There was ecstasy in those matins. No sleepy choir of mortal men or women ever raised such honest, buoyant music in honor of the day’s coming. The birds love the day, and they love life for all that each day brings. They labor singing, and they sing their vespers, as they sing their matins, with hearts overflowing with joy and thanksgiving.
VIEW FROM “THE COW,” SHOWING MOAT MOUNTAIN AND MOUNT PEQUAWKET BEYOND
VIEW FROM “THE COW,” SHOWING MOAT MOUNTAIN AND MOUNT PEQUAWKET BEYOND
There is something inexpressibly touching and inspiring in the combination of fading night, with its planets still glowing, and the bird’s song of welcome to the day. Night is more eloquent than day in telling of the wonders of the vast creation. Day tells less of distance, more of detail; less of peace, more of contest; less of immortality, more of the perishable. The sun, with its dazzling light and burning heat, hides from us the stars, and those still depths as yet without stars. It narrows our limit of vision, and at the same time hurries us and worries us with our own tasks which we will not take cheerfully, and the tasks of others which are done so ill. Night tells not only of repose on earth, but of life in that far heaven where every star is a thing of motion and a creation full of mystery. Men who live only in great cities may be pitied for being atheists, for they see little beyond the impurity of man; but it seems incredible that a being with thoughts above appetite, and imagination above lust, should live through a night in the wilderness, with the stars to tell him of space, the dark depths of the sky to tell him of infinity, and his own mind to tell him of individuality, and yet doubt that some Being more powerful and less fickle than himself is in this universe. The bird-music coming before the night is ended combines the purest and most joyous element of the day with the deep meaning of the night. The birds bear witness to the ability of life to love its surroundings and to be happy. The night bears witness to the eternity of life and to the harmony of its laws.
The horn of Chocorua rose into a sky full of threatening colors and shadows. Its own coloring was sinister, its outlines vague, its height apparently greater than usual. Low, growling thunder came from its ledges and ravines. The forest at its feet, which ended at my door, was silent; no whisper swept through its waiting leaves. In the west as in the north, cloud masses were boiling up into the sky, covering the blue with white, gray, and black, through which now and then shot a ray of gold from the protesting sun. A tempest seemed brewing as a not unwelcome close of a mid-August day.
A tall man emerged from the woods and came striding towards me across the grass. A rifle swung to and fro in his right hand as he walked. It was a repeating rifle, one of those inclusive successors of the fowling-piece, shot-pouch, powder-flask, cap-box, and wad-pocket of this tall man’s boyhood. The stride ended at my side, and the tall man and I spoke of the heat, the drought, and the approaching storm. Just as he was preparing to lope onwards down the ribbon road through the birches, I said:—
“I hear Merrill caught a bear Saturday, and brought it out at Piper’s.”
“That so? How big was it?”
“A small one, a two-year-old, probably. It was in one of his traps and he shot it.”
“Well, I’ve kept up with him this time. I shot one less than an hour ago, and he warn’t in any trap, either.”
I looked at the man wonderingly. There had been no unusual spark in his eye, flush on his bronzed cheek, or spring in his heavy step. He had not boasted, or even spoken of his achievement until I touched his pride by my tale of his rival’s success. Would he have gone home without telling me? I think so. Yet this meeting with a bear, alone, on the high ledges of Chocorua, had been one of the joys of this man’s life. Many a weary hour had he carried his magazine rifle over the ledges, treading softly, keeping eye and ear alert, hoping to see Bruin on his feeding-ground. A year before he had trapped and killed some of the great creatures; but shooting a beast caught in a forty-pound steel trap is tame sport compared with facing a free bear on the open ledges.
Before the hunter left me, we had arranged that soon after sunrise on the following morning he was to pass through my dooryard on his way to the spot where, under those black clouds, poor Bruin was lying dead.
The rage around Chocorua deepened. Boom, boom, of thunder rolled downward from the heights of storm. The peak was swept by masses of rain. Flash after flash lit up the darkening sky behind the grim mountain. Still the nearer forests lay at rest, waiting. Then a golden rift came in the western cloud-bank. One half of the storm rolled past us on the south, drenching Ossipee and Wolfborough, the other half on the north, soaking Conway and Fryeburg; we alone were dry.
The morning of the 13th of August was breathlessly hot. Even the hermit thrushes forgot to sing. A rattle of wheels brought me from breakfast to join the party organized to bring home the bear. A strong, sure-footed horse was drawing a farm wagon which had been the stand-by of an earlier generation, and which, therefore, was made of solid stuff. My tall friend and two of his hunting satellites were in it, and around them were strewn rifle, hatchet, ropes, empty grain-bags, and other apparatus to be used in bringing the dead brute down the mountain. My master of the horse, an alert and muscular Prince Edward Islander, stood by ready to march, so the word was given, and we five, some walking, some in the ancient wagon, started for the mountain.
For a quarter of a mile the road was good,winding through my pasture and belts of white birches. Then we turned from it and plowed through beds of brake and blackberry bushes dripping and glistening with dew. We might as well have waded waist deep in the lake, which would have been warmer though no more wet than that dew-deluged tangle. Next came a ravine filled with spruces, over which towered two immense canoe birches, at whose feet a cold spring bubbled in a sandy pool. The horse wound in and out among the trees, shaking from them showers of cold dew-drops. Small saplings and bushes bowed before the wagon and passed under its axles; large ones were bent away by strong hands, or hacked down. Sometimes the wheels locked against tree-trunks, bringing the horse to a sudden standstill, and almost throwing the passengers to the ground; and sometimes they sank into unseen hollows filled to the brim with ferns, making the wagon careen so that all its contents slid, or struggled not to slide, against its sinking side.
Beyond the ravine and its dripping spruces was a narrow sunny valley pointing straight towards the mountain. Up this valley our party continued its course, the sun drying the dew from our clothes, and flashing many colors in the drops still clinging to brakes and grasses. Fifteen hundred feet above us towered the WestLedges, on which the bear had been shot. As one looks at Chocorua from the south, its peak seems to rest upon the shoulders of two converging ridges, one sloping upward towards it from the southeast, and one from the southwest. Between the two ridges the soft forest drapery of the mountain falls in graceful folds and curves to the level of the lake. We were in one of these folds, climbing towards the steep inner side of the western ridge. On each side of us lofty trees clung to the slopes of the valley. Owls hoot in these woods after twilight and at dawn. Great boulders lie in confusion in the perpetual shadows of the trees, and in the caverns between and under them are dens of porcupines, foxes, and skunks.
Not until we reached the torrent at the foot of the west ridge was the wagon abandoned and the horse tethered. The forest at this point consists mainly of poplars, birches, and oaks. The bear-slayer led the way through them, and his more muscular satellite followed at his heels, cutting saplings in order to form a path for our descent with the bear. After climbing several hundred feet, we rested. A loud humming filled the air, yet no bees were to be seen. They appeared to be in the higher foliage, attracted by something on the leaves. We examined the lower branches, and then the leavesof low shrubs and plants. They seemed to be covered with dew, but the dew was sticky and proved to be sweet to the taste. As we continued our walk we found that the entire side of the mountain had been sprinkled with heavenly sweetness of the same kind.
The roar of bees had become familiar to our ears. The bear-slayer was bending down a slender beech for the satellite to cut, when suddenly he uttered a cry and sprang backward. “Run, run,” he shouted, and in a moment the Islander and the small satellite were bounding down the mountain-side like chamois. The larger satellite became a football under the bear-slayer’s feet, and I, hearing a second cry of “hornets!” plunged headforemost into the bushes and crawled away under the brakes, thus avoiding both the hornets and the necessity of re-climbing lost ground. The bear-slayer’s retreat was marked by repeated howls of pain which lent further speed to the flying heels of the rear-guard. It was some time before the ignominious stampede was checked and a fresh ascent begun. The bear-slayer had been stung in three places, and the larger satellite declared he had saved himself from a sting by pulling the hornet off his back with his fingers.
Standing among the young trees of the forest were many gray stumps of ancient origin,—decayedrelics of forest gentry now displaced by the democracy of poplars and birches. These stumps bore no axe marks; they had fallen at the command of the tornado, not of the lumber thief. On their sides were long scratches which looked like claw marks. Had “Sis Wildcat” been trying her claws there? No; but “Brer Bar” had been. Near by was a small grove of oaks, not one of which was more than a foot in diameter. Their sides were deeply scored by Bruin’s claws, and their highest branches hung down upon the rest of their limbs, broken and dying. There is hardly an oak on Chocorua which has not been climbed by bears in acorn time, and disfigured by the great brutes in their attempts to reach the coveted nuts.
Towering close above the oaks we could see the abrupt faces of the West Ledges. We seemed to be at the foot of a great feudal castle whose gray walls needed scaling ladders to be conquered. Ferns grew in the crevices in the rock; tiny streams of water trickled down its sides and fed mosses and lichens; honeysuckle, mountain ash, wild Solomon’s seal, and striped maple sprang in luxuriant tangles from its feet, and tripped us as we skirted the castle’s base and sought a break in its smooth walls. Presently we found one,—a rift made originally byice, but long since widened and deepened by other erosive forces. Clinging to tree-trunks or the tough stems of blueberry bushes, we pulled ourselves up the steep ravine and reached the top of the first ledge. The mountain was still unconquered before us, but turning we saw, sunlit and smiling, the world we had left. Curving, undulating forest; warm spots of open pasture; the Hammond farm, from which one of the principal paths starts up Chocorua; my own red-roofed cottage with squares of flax, millet, corn, and buckwheat giving patchwork colors to its clearing; Chocorua ponds and the cottages on Nickerson’s hill, and then the wider world of forest, mountain, river, and lake,—Ossipee, Sandwich Dome, Bearcamp, Winnepesaukee,—blended beauties whose names awaken pleasant memories and whose picture is a joy to look upon,—all these things we saw, and much more which we only half thought about, so eager were we to go on with our quest.
Climbing ledge after ledge, wading through thickets of mountain ash, dogwood, low spruce and blueberry bushes, we gained at last the highest open point on West Ridge. On three sides the land fell away abruptly. On the north the ridge, heavily grown with stunted spruce and poplars, continued toward the peak.It did not go straight towards that proud rock, but sought it by bending westward and then northward in a great bow. The peak, consequently, stood the other side of a vast hollow filled with tangled forest. It was near, and yet appeared unattainable. I thought of the winter day when I had climbed to this point over four feet of packed and frozen snow and seen the Chocorua horn, crusted with ice and flanked by mighty snowdrifts, hanging in the bright blue sky. Then, stimulated by the keen air, I had plunged into the hollow, crossed it, scaled its farther side on hands and knees, gained the foot of the peak, and finally won its slippery summit, no larger than my dining table; and lying there half freezing, had seen the snow-covered world from Casco Bay to the Green Mountains; Monadnock to Dixville Notch. The sun of August did not encourage such exploits, and a dead bear lying hidden near us drew our thoughts away from the heights to the damp thicket close below.
The bear-slayer was telling his story: “I was coming along here, sort of softly, thinking it was just the kind of place for a bear, when just as I got to this open ledge I heard a hustling round in that snarl of bushes. I stopped short and listened and peeped in. There was something black and hairy rubbing round in theblueberry bushes,—you can see how thick the berries are in there. Well, I thought, I must be careful; there are lots of folks berrying, and I should hate to put one of these pills into a woman picking blueberries. It would settle her right off. So I peeked round, till I was dead sure it was a bear, and then I let drive—at what I could see. The ball hit him in his side not far back of his shoulder, and he gave an awful roar and started out this way. I climbed up on this big boulder, five feet out of harm’s way, and waited. He was letting out roars and then drawing awful deep breaths. You could hear those gasps a mile. I could not see him, he was in so thick in the bushes. But then he began to drag himself off towards old Coroway and I started after him. I heard him go kerchunk down this ledge, and then I caught sight of his head and let him have another, and a third ball, but they didn’t seem to stop him a bit, just glanced off his skull, I s’pose. Well, he got down ’most a hundred feet before I could get a sight at his side again, but when I did, I put one in where it stopped his gasping and kicking.”
During this narrative we had followed the hunter through the network of trees, bushes, and brambles, tracing the track made by the bear in his agony. Branches were broken,leaves crushed, moss stained, and rocks torn up. As we descended the north slope towards the dark ravine which the bear had sought, the sunlight grew dim and the air cold. Suddenly I saw the bear. At the foot of a slippery ledge, over which hung dripping wet moss, lying upon a deep bed of sphagnum, was a gaunt black form. Dead and still as it was, it sent a thrill through me. I seemed to see the being for whom this wild region had been created. The horn-blowing, pistol-firing, peanut-eating tourist is out of place in the rugged ravines of Chocorua. Even the bronzed, gray-shirted native with his magazine rifle is not in tune with the solemn music of this wilderness. But in the dead creature on the moss I saw the real owner of forest and ledge, mountain pool and hidden lake. He looked weary and worn, as though life had been full of hunger and terror. The small, keen, wicked eyes were closed; the cruel teeth were locked tight, the broad feet were cut by his last struggles on the ledges, and his thin hair, showing the hide below it, was flecked with blood which had oozed from four bullet wounds.
We five men gathered around the dead bear and looked at him, felt of him, counted his nails, tried to open his set jaws, guessed at his weight, discussed his character, wondered at hisability to maintain life in such a region, and marveled especially at the nature of his kind to bring forth young in late winter and to rear them in the chill and foodless months of February and March. With great interest we sought through his capacious stomach to see what he had eaten, and found quarts of ripe blueberries, scarlet cherries, and what we at first took to be grubs dug from decaying stumps. Closer examination showed that Bruin had swallowed the whole of a hornet’s nest, for the perfect insects, hundreds of their undeveloped young in the brood-cells, and the gray, papery nest were all recognized. This bear certainly knew how to pick ripe blueberries and not to pick green ones. I saw but one green berry in the quarts which he had gathered.
Drawing the bear’s fore and hind feet on each side together, the hunter strapped them firmly. He next tied the head to the feet, so that it should not drag, and then passed two maple poles through the loops made by the two pairs of lashed feet, and called upon the larger satellite and the Islander to shoulder their burden. They did so, and the homeward march began, the bearers groaning. Possibly a hundred yards had been traversed before the Islander tripped and fell, pulling the bear down upon his prostrate form, and receiving also theweight of the heavy satellite. The hunter took his place under the poles, and fifty yards more were gained. Then the hunter, with a resounding exclamation, flung down the poles and whipped out his hunting-knife. With difficulty he was dissuaded from skinning and quartering Bruin on the spot. The plan which induced him to stay his hand was suggested by one of the party who had read of what he called an “Indian wagon.” Under his direction two long poles were cut and the bear was lashed on top of them near their heavy ends. The satellites then stood between the light ends, as horses stand between the shafts, and began dragging the bear down the steep side of the mountain. They had not gone fifty feet before the weight of the bear turned the poles over and left the satellites sprawling in the bushes. Once more knives were drawn and skinning threatened.
The next proposal was to wrap Bruin in grain bags so as to protect his skin, and then to drag and roll him down to where traveling would be easier. The bear slayer consented to try this experiment, and two large short bags were drawn over the body, one from its head, the other from its tail. Other bags were laid under the body, and, thus protected, it was dragged, bumping and rolling, down several hundred yards to the foot of the ledges. Short cross-sticks were theninserted in the lashings, which were tied round the bear’s legs, and four of us, two on each side, or two in front and two behind, raised the body by these sticks and bore it through the winding path we had cleared while ascending. The lesser satellite, carrying the rifle, hatchet, and other luggage, brought up the rear, and urged on the party by jeering remarks and snatches of song. In spite of repeated cautions from the bear-slayer, whose stings still smarted, we narrowly escaped walking into the hornet’s nest a second time.
More than six hours had elapsed since our departure from home when our little procession wound out of the woods into my dooryard. Raspberry vinegar never was more gratefully swallowed, and never was dead emperor received with more respect than poor Bruin by the crowds which flocked to view his remains during the afternoon of that hot August day. One bought his nails, another his teeth, a third his thinly haired skin, while pieces of his flesh, prepared for future cooking, were carried away in various directions. As when sugar is spilled upon the ground, ants come from every quarter to gather up the grains and draw them away, so dead Bruin drew gossips and idlers from all parts of the town, eager to pick up bits of his body or stories of his melancholy end.
It is the theory that there are always plenty of hens to be bought in a New England farming town; but as a matter of fact, in the month of July, 1892, the country north of Bearcamp presented such a dearth of hens that, after traveling miles in my efforts to buy some, I returned to my own neighborhood and hired a contingent for the season. The transaction was unique, but, on the whole, mutually satisfactory. It had one drawback. When one owns fowls, the accumulation of family wrath against the rooster on account of too early crowing on his part always finds relief in eating him; but when one hires a rooster, his life is charmed by contract, and he can with impunity crow the family into nervous prostration. The magnificent Black Spanish cock hired by me began crowing, on the morning of August 21, at twenty minutes of four. Not a ray of daylight pierced the bank of mist which filled the east. Nothing but instinct or a bad conscience could have told Murillo that it was time to crow. Nevertheless, on this occasion hissong was welcome, for I had counted upon his arousing me early in order that I might spend an entire day with the Dead Tree.
On the northern shore of Chocorua Lake a broad reach of swampy woodland is broken by a meadow. At the point where the small and very cool brook which bounds the meadow on the west enters the lake, a tall pine once cast its shadow upon a deep pool at its foot. The pine died many years ago, and its bark has been entirely removed by weather and woodpeckers, leaving its trunk and eighty-seven branches, or stumps of branches, as white as bleached bones. A few rods farther from the mouth of the brook stands a smaller pine of similar character. These two trees form a famous bird roost, and at their feet I planned to stay from sunrise to sunset on this August day, in order to see, during consecutive hours, how many birds would make use of the tree as a perch. From frequent visits during this and earlier years, I knew that the tree was not only a rendezvous for the birds living in the meadow and adjoining woods, but also akursaalfor tourists in feathers, and for all birds coming to the lake to hunt or to fish.
As I left the house, hermit thrushes were uttering the short complaining notes of alarm characteristic of them at twilight. Dark as itwas, they were awake and stirring. Reaching the bank of the lake a minute or two after four, I startled a spotted sandpiper from the beach, and heard his peeping whistle as he flew from me across the black water, beyond which only dusky masses of gloom marked the pine woods on the farther shore. The surface of the water was disturbed by thousands of insects cutting queer figures upon it. Where they moved, white ripples followed. As I walked along the moist sand of the beach, pickerel shot out from the shore, bats squeaked, and frogs jumped into deeper water with nervous croaks of fear. Then a whippoorwill sang, and as his weird notes echoed from the woods, Venus sailed clear from the mist bank and reflected her dazzling beauty in the lake. As I drew near the mouth of the brook, a solitary tattler ran along the sand in front of me, whistling softly. When I turned into the bushes, he stopped and resumed his search for breakfast.
The dead tree rose above me, jet black against the dark sky. Stepping softly through the bushes, I disturbed the wary catbirds, and their fretful cries awoke the meadow. At twenty minutes past four, three whippoorwills were singing, and two catbirds, with several hermit thrushes, were complaining. A few moments later, the call of a veery was heard, a song sparrow gave a sharp squeak, and then, so still was the air, I heard the heavy stamping of my horse in his stable, a quarter of a mile away, as he gained his feet after a long night’s rest. The stars were growing paler moment by moment, and outlines becoming sharper in the bushes and trees near me. A Swainson’s thrush uttered its clear “quick,” expressive of much more vigilance than the cries of the veery and the hermit, yet less fault-finding than the mew of the catbird.
THE DEAD TREE
THE DEAD TREE
I settled myself comfortably amid the bushes eastward of the dead trees, near enough to them to see even a humming-bird if one alighted on the bare branches. At 4.35 I had heard eight kinds of birds, yet the crows, notorious for early rising, had not spoken. A minute later one cawed sleepily among the eastern pines where the mist lay thickest, and soon a dozen voices responded. Dense as was the fog, the light of day made swift inroads upon the shadows, and when, about quarter to five, a young chestnut-sided warbler came out of a dewy bush near me, its colors were plainly distinguishable. The little bird looked sleepy and dull. It moved languidly, and so did three Maryland yellow-throats which appeared from the same clump of thick bushes a moment later. As yet no bird of the day had sung.
Far away in the swampy woods to the north a big red-shouldered hawk cried “ky-e, ky-e, ky-e.” I remembered the morning, just a year previous, when, sitting in about the same spot, with Puffy perched on a dead limb over my head, a red-shouldered hawk had flown with stately wing-beat to one of the lower branches of the dead tree, and then, suddenly discovering the owl, had thrust its head forward, opened wide its beak, and, with its fierce eyes glaring, had shrieked its hatred at the almost unmoved owl. This morning it did not visit the meadow, probably finding its humble game nearer home.
The first bird to appear flying above the level of the meadow was a graceful night-hawk. Perhaps he had just come down from a night’s revel in the cool air over Chocorua’s summit. I wondered whether he had been one of a company of between two and three hundred of his tribe which deployed across the sky on the afternoon of the 19th, just in advance of a violent thunderstorm. Yearly, about the 20th of August, the night-hawks muster their forces and parade during one or two afternoons. Yet there seems to be no diminution in the number of the local birds after the army disappears. Perhaps it is formed of migrants from the north; or perhaps the display is, after all, only a drill, preparatory to a later flight.
The Maryland yellow-throats, in moving about the bushes, discovered me, and began scolding at my intrusion. They came so near to me that they seemed within reach of my hands. I kept perfectly still, and half closed my eyes. Their inspection seemed to convince them that I was harmless, for they went away, and presently the male sang his “rig-a-jig, rig-a-jig, rig-a-jig,” close behind me. I am convinced that closing the eyes does a great deal to reassure a timid bird. Owls entirely cloak their evil appearance by simply drawing their eyelids down, and closing their feathers tightly about them. On discovering a man, birds watch, not his legs or his body, but his face, and his eyes are the most conspicuous part of his face and fullest of menace. I have sometimes fancied that nervous birds knew when they were watched, even though they could not see the observer.
At 4.48 a kingbird came sailing and fluttering over the meadow, its chattering cries giving ample warning of its approach. It lighted in the big tree, and scanned sky, water, and grass, searching for something with which to quarrel. A flicker passed silently, coming, as the kingbird had, from the woods, and going to a tree near the lake shore. Small birds, possibly warblers, flew by, westward. A blue jay screamedharshly in the edge of the woods, but the fog, which was growing more and more dense upon the meadow, discouraged its coming to the dead trees. Just at five o’clock a goldfinch undulated past, and the noisy rattle of a kingfisher echoed along the edge of the pond, provoking answers from a red squirrel, whose chatter seemed an imitation of the call, and from a crow, whose mimicry of the fisher’s rattle was remarkably good. Probably all bird-calls originated in the efforts of their makers to reproduce sounds which pleased or startled them. In this case, Chickaree and Corvus had no sober motive for replying to the kingfisher; they may neither of them have associated the rattle with the blue projectile which made it. Both were entertained or attracted by the sound, and each in its way tried to reproduce it. It is by a similar process, doubtless, that parrots, crows, and blue jays acquire the power of producing sounds which correspond to our words. Later, they may gain, through experience, a knowledge of the meaning or force of such words, but often no such knowledge lies behind the empty iteration of the parrot.
For nearly a quarter of an hour there seemed to be a lull in the process of bird-awakening. The Maryland yellow-throats were moving, and now and then the male sang a little. Crowscalled in the distance, and the catbirds moved restlessly about from one part of the meadow to another, mewing, but nothing new appeared under the fog mantle. The spell was broken by the appearance of one of the small tyrant flycatchers, which are so difficult to identify during the migrations unless they are killed and closely examined. This one seemed to me to be a least flycatcher (Empidonax minimus), there being almost no trace of yellow in his coloring. He flew from point to point, in or just over the bushes, catching small insects with vicious snaps of his beak. Apparently it was necessary, for the proper working of his machinery, to have his tail jerk spitefully several times a minute.
About half past five three crows came to the big tree. One of them sailed softly by, but the other two alighted and began cawing in a fretful way. They were bedraggled with fog and dew, and their tones told of hunger and discomfort. When they spoke, they thrust their heads far forward, giving them a low, mean air. They pulled viciously at their moist clothing, all the while keeping the keenest watch of their surroundings and the distance. Suddenly one of them saw me, and with a low croak flew away, his mate following. Again silence and fog prevailed. A cedar-bird, alighting on the tip of the old tree, seemed to shiver. He remainedin the dim upper air but a moment, taking a headlong plunge into the shrubbery below. I thought even the frogs resented the slow-moving vapors, for they croaked and splashed restlessly.
A red-eyed vireo began his sermon at 6.10, and soon after, blue sky and scattering rays of sunlight appeared. Then the birds became more cheerful, and catbirds, crows, kingbirds, Maryland yellow-throats, and song sparrows vied with each other in activity and noise. Every one of them was intent upon making a good breakfast. The catbirds ate viburnum berries; the crows marched upon the lake sand, searching for the waste of the waves; a barn swallow, the kingbirds, and several smaller flycatchers hovered or darted in pursuit of insects, and the sparrows gathered their harvest from the earth. Then a flicker appeared in the top of the old tree, and, finding a resonant spot in the trunk, beat his reveille softly upon it. My neck fairly ached when I tried to imagine the mental and muscular effort required of the bird to produce such regular and rapid action with his beak. The only way in which a man can make as many beats to the minute with any regularity is by allowing his hand to rest in such a position that it will tremble. Then, by grasping a pencil and resting its tip upon a board, asound somewhat similar to the rolling reverberation of the woodpecker’s drumming can be produced.
At half past six an olive-sided flycatcher came to the pine, but on seeing the kingbird disappeared. A moment later the kingbird flew away, and the olive-sided at once returned to the highest branch of the tree, and made it his point of rest during a long series of sallies after insects. When he caught one of large size, he brought it back to his perch, and pounded it violently against the branch until its struggles ceased, and its harder portions were, presumably, reduced to a jelly. The kingbirds really have more right than any of the migrants to use the old tree, for they have built, year after year, time out of mind, in the spreading branches of the nearest living pine overhanging the lake. As August advances, however, they wander a good deal, paying visits to my orchard and other good feeding-grounds near the lake. While they are away, wood pewees and phœbes, olive-sided and least flycatchers, visit the vicinity, and enjoy the great tree and the fine chances which it offers of seeing insects over both land and water. About quarter to seven a solitary sandpiper flew swiftly over the meadow, calling. It made two great circles, rising above the trees, and then flew westward so fast that I looked todiscover a pursuer, but could discern none. In the high woods, over which it flew, the crows were chortling. Northward the peak was clear, although below it a long scarf of mist trailed over the forest, moving westward. In the tree-top the flicker “flickered,” and then drummed; called again, and drummed more emphatically. Soon a second woodpecker appeared, but flew by into the woods. The first one watched him, and then drummed again, whereupon the new-comer flew to him, and an animated dialogue took place, the second bird apparently having much to say in an excited manner. After they had finished their conference, the second bird flew away, and the first relapsed into a reverie. It lasted only a few moments, for shortly before seven o’clock two crows flew into the two dead trees, and the woodpecker hurried away. Each crow took the topmost perch on his tree, and began his toilet. Just then a frog jumped with a splash into the pool in front of me, and the crows, hearing the noise, looked searchingly down, saw me, and flew off without a caw.
For several years the morning of the 21st of August has been my time for first seeing Wilson’s blackcap warblers on their autumn journey southward. Having been in the swamp three hours without seeing one, I began to think that, 1892 being leap year, the prettymigrants might not keep their tryst; but I wronged them, for just at seven o’clock I heard a sharp “cheep” behind me, and, turning slowly, found a blackcap gazing at me nervously. No sooner had my eyes met his than he darted away.
Between seven and eight the trees were occupied by a flock of twelve cedar-birds, one or two flickers, several young robins, a pewee, a humming-bird, and some of the small flycatchers. The humming-bird is a tyrannical and blustering little bird, giving himself many airs. His wife is quite as much of a virago as he is of a bully. In this instance she was determined to drive away the flycatchers. Sitting in the big tree, and looking smaller than a well-fed dragonfly, she darted, every now and then, at one of the chebecs, and put him to flight. They tired her out, however, and after a while she gave up the struggle and departed. About 7.30 a flock of small birds, including several chickadees, appeared in the edge of the woods and scattered over the meadow. Few of them came near enough to me for identification, but there seemed to be vireos and warblers among them. Their coming aroused other birds, and a goldfinch, a catbird chasing a veery, one or two Maryland yellow-throats, and a swift were in sight at one time.
Thirst overtook me at eight, after four hoursof watching, and I crept softly down to the brook. Before I had gone a dozen steps, a huge bird sprang from the sedgy growth by the lake shore and rose into the air. It was a blue heron which had been patrolling the sand within forty feet of me. He flew along the shore for some distance, then rose and passed over the trees towards the north, seeking, no doubt, my lonely lake, half a mile away in the forest. One morning, when hidden in the alders and viburnums which grow at the very foot of the big tree, I heard a queer guttural call or grunt from the meadow, and the next moment the heron stood above me, on the lowest limb of the pine. He looked sharply over the meadow and the lake, stretched first one leg, then the other, then each wing in turn, and finally fell to preening his blue and gray plumes. Against a pale blue sky or ruffled water which mingles blue and gray with bits of white, he is marvelously well protected by his coloring. No wonder that the poor frogs fall a prey to his patient spearing. I kept breathlessly still, and watched this largest of our Chocorua birds. It seemed odd that the old tree should be a perch for him and for the humming-bird. The hummer is three and a quarter inches long; the heron spreads six feet with his great wings when he flies, and measures over four feet when standing. Aftera while I grew weary of watching the heron, and of wondering at his macaroni-like legs and his strangely concentrated stare, which now and then fixed itself on my hiding-place, so I whistled softly. The heron paused in his feather-combing and looked towards me. There was no fear in his glance, only mild interest. I sang, first sad music, then “Nancy Lee,” “Pinafore,” “Hold the Fort,” everything I could think of, in fact, which might prompt him to action; but he only stared, now over his beak, then under it. The latter method of ogling was very effective, for the long bill was contemplating the skies, while the cold, calculating eyes stood out each side of its base and glared down across it until I seemed to feel their clamminess. From music I turned to animal language, and barked, mewed, mooed, brayed, whinnied, quacked, crowed, cackled, peeped, hooted, and cawed, until my throat was raw. He was clearly entertained, and showed no desire to leave me. At last I came down to plain English, supposing that my voice undisguised by song would certainly alarm him, but to my great surprise he apparently did not associate the human voice with its owner in the slightest degree. In fact, he now seemed bored by my noise, and went on with his preening. Suddenly, in moving my foot, I snapped a small twig. Before thereseemed to have been time for the sound to reach his brain, the heron was on the wing, and I saw him no more that day.
At 8.30, as I was watching the big tree, a large, light-colored bird passed close to its trunk and plunged downward towards the deep pool at its foot. The sound of splashing water was followed by utter silence. After remaining motionless for several minutes I crawled carefully towards the bank of the brook. The bushes were thick, and small dry twigs covered the ground. Their snapping could not be avoided, and just before I reached a point where I could see the water and the narrow strip of muddy beach, a heavy bird rose with a great beating of wings and flew up-stream. I broke through the cover, headlong, but the bird was out of sight. The surface of the stream was covered with small, soft feathers, which I gathered together and dried. They appeared to be from the breast of a sandpiper. Who the murderer was will never be known, though I presume that it was a Cooper’s hawk.
My glimpse of this hawk, if such it was, reminded me of an encounter between a sharp-shinned hawk and a flock of blue jays which I had seen at the tree the week previous. The hawk arrived when several flickers were in the tree and hurled himself upon them. They fled,calling wildly, and brought to their aid, first a kingbird, which promptly attacked the hawk from above, and then a flock of blue jays, which abused him from cover below. When the kingbird flew away, as he did after driving the hawk into the bushes for a few moments, the jays grew more and more daring in approaching the hawk. In fact they set themselves to the task of tiring him out and making him ridiculous. They ran great risks in doing it, frequently flying almost into the hawk’s face; but they persevered, in spite of his ferocious attempts to strike them. After nearly an hour the hawk grew weary and edged off to the woods. Then the jays went up the tree as though it were a circular staircase, and yelled the news of the victory to the swamp.
As the forenoon passed slowly by, there were periods when the tree was empty for ten minutes or more at a time, but generally a flicker, cedar-bird, olive-sided flycatcher, blue jay, crow, or catbird was to be seen perched in some part of the great skeleton. At ten o’clock I shifted my place to avoid the heat of the sun, and to keep its light behind me. My new seat was in the heart of a tangle of bushes, and as I looked through the network of their stems I suddenly saw a bird’s head, motionless. My glass aided me in recognizing the little creatureas a red-eyed vireo sitting upon a twig. Close by it was a second vireo also perfectly passive. I watched them for a long time, and could see nothing but their eyes move. It is such moods as this, taking possession of birds, which make some parts of the day silent, and cause the woods to seem deserted by all their feathered tenants. Another occupant of the thicket was a yellow-bellied flycatcher, whose activity in the pursuit of small insects was tireless. He certainly found enough to eat, for small insects have been unusually abundant this summer, while birds have been noticeably scarce near Chocorua. Some species, usually well represented, have seemingly vanished, and others, quite numerous in average years, have been very sparingly represented. For instance, the summer has passed without my seeing either an oriole or a winter wren, while redstarts and chestnut-sided warblers, usually among the most numerous species, have been represented by a mere handful of birds. The supposed local causes of this dearth of small birds are a heavy snowfall, which occurred the last week in May, and a hailstorm, which did great damage just in the middle of the nesting period. Unusual numbers of birds are said to have been killed by spring storms in the Gulf States before the year’s migration really began.