THE GREAT BLUE HERON AT BREAKFAST
THE GREAT BLUE HERON AT BREAKFAST
The sweet, hot, wild scent of the marsh came up to us. It was compounded of sun and wind and the clean dry smell of miles and miles of bleaching sedges, all mingled with the seethe and steam of a green blaze of growth that had leaped from the ooze to meet the summer. Through it all drifted tiny elusive puffs of fragrance from flowers hidden under thickets of willow and elderberry. The smooth petals of wild roses showed among the rushes, like coral set in jade. On the sides of burnt tussocks, where the new grass grew sparse as hair on a scarred skull, rue anemones trembled above their trefoil leaves. When the world was young they sprang from the tears which Aphrodite shed over the body of slain Adonis. Still the pale wind-driven flowers sway as if shaken by her sobs, and have the cold whiteness of him dead.
The leaves of the meadow rue, like some rare fern, showed here and there, but the clustered white flowers had not yet bloomed, nor the flat yellow blossoms of the shrubby cinquefoil. There were thickets of aronia or chokeberry, whose flat white blossoms and reddish bark showed its kinship to the apple tree. Among the pools gleamed marsh marigolds fresh from the mint of May, while deep down in the grass at the foot of the tussocks were white violets, short-stemmedand with the finest of umber-brown traceries at the centre of their petals. The blues and purples may or may not be sweet, but one can always count on the faint fragrance of the white.
We lay on the turf covering a ledge of smoky quartz thrust like a wedge into the marsh. Across a country of round green hills and fertile farms its squat bulk stretched unafraid, an untamed monster of another age. Beyond the long levels we could see Wolf Island, where a hunted wolf-pack, protected by quagmires and trembling bogs, made its last stand two centuries ago. Where a fringe of trees showed the beginning of solid ground, a pair of hawks with long black-barred tails wheeled and screamed through the sky. “Geck, geck, geck, geck,†they called, almost like a flicker, except that the tone was flatter. As they circled, both of them showed a snowy patch over the rump, the field-mark of the marsh hawk. The male was a magnificent blue-gray bird, whose white under-wings were tipped with black like those of a herring gull. We watched them delightedly, for the rare nest of the marsh hawk, the only one of our hawks which nests on the ground, was one of the possibilities of the marsh.
Suddenly we heard from behind us a sound that sent us crawling carefully up to the crest of the ridge. It was like the pouring of water out of some gigantic bottle or the gurgling suck of an old-fashioned pump: “Bloop—bloop, bloop, bloop, bloopâ€â€”it came to us with a strange subterranean timbre. The last time I had heard that note was in the pine-barrensthree years before. Then it sounded like the thudding of a mallet on a stake, for its quality always depends on the nature of the country across which it travels. From the top of our knoll we saw a rare sight. In the open pasture by the edge of the marsh stood a bird between two and three feet high, of a streaked brown color, with a black stripe down each side of its neck. Even as we watched, the bird began a series of extraordinary actions. Hunching its long neck far down between its shoulders, it suddenly thrust it up. As each section straightened, there came to us across the pasture the thudding, bubbling, watery note which we had first heard. It seemed impossible that a bird could make such a volume of sound. At times, after each “bloop,†would come the sharp click of the bill as it rapidly opened and shut. Finally the singer convulsively straightened the last kink out of its neck and with a last retching note thrust its long yellow beak straight skyward. We had seen an American bittern boom—a rarer sight even than the drumming of a ruffed grouse or the strange flight-song of the woodcock at twilight. Suddenly the bittern stopped and, hunching its neck, stepped stealthily, like a little old bent man, into the sedges. With its long beak pointing directly upward, it stood motionless and seemed to melt into the color of the withered rushes. One look away, and it was almost impossible for the eye to pick the bird out from its cover.
I turned to look at the marsh hawks just in time to see the female alight on the ground by a stuntedwillow bush far across the marsh. I waited, one, two, three minutes, but no bird rose. Evidently she was on the nest. Keeping my eye fixed on that special bush, which looked like a score of others, I plunged into the marsh, intending to bound like a chamois from crag to crag. On the second bound I slipped off a tussock and went up to my knees in mud and water. The rest of the way I ploughed along, making a noise at each step like the bittern’s note. Half-way to the bush, the mother hawk rose and circled around us, screaming monotonously. For half an hour we searched back and forth without finding any nest. At last we hid in a willow thicket, thinking that perhaps the hawk might go back to her nest. Instead, both birds disappeared in some distant woods. The sun was getting low and we were miles from our inn; yet as this was the nearest either of us had ever been to finding a marsh hawk’s nest, we decided to hunt on until dark.
THE MARSH HAWK’S NEST
THE MARSH HAWK’S NEST
I laid out a route from my bush to another about thirty yards away, and between those two as bounds planned to quarter back and forth over every square foot of ground, moving toward the woods where the hawks had gone. It seemed an almost hopeless hunt, for the marsh at this point was dry, with patches of bushes, masses of sedge, and piled heaps here and there of dry rushes. As I reached my farther boundary and was about to return, I straightened my aching back and looked beyond the bush. There, directly ahead, in a space fringed by spirea bushes but in plain sight, lay a round nest on the ground—about eight inches across and three inches deep, made of coarse grasses ringed around with rushes. Beneath the nest was a well-packed platform several inches thick. I think that this was a natural pile of rushes pressed down by the bird. There, under the open sky, were five large eggs of a dirty bluish-white, nearly ready to hatch. They were the size of a small hen’s egg. The very second I caught sight of the nest the mother hawk came dashing through the air, from some unseen perch where she had been watching me with her telescopic eyes. Fifty feet away, she folded her wings and dived at my head, falling through the air like a stone. With her fierce unflinching eyes, half-open beak, and outspread claws, she looked dangerous. Ten feet away, however, she swooped up and circled off in ever-widening rings, screaming mournfully. Beside the nest was one barred tail-feather.
I crossed a moor, with a name of its ownAnd a certain use in the world no doubt,Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone’Mid the blank miles round about:For there I picked up on the heatherAnd there I put inside my breastA moulted feather, an eagle-feather!Well, I forget the rest.
I crossed a moor, with a name of its ownAnd a certain use in the world no doubt,Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone’Mid the blank miles round about:
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone
’Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heatherAnd there I put inside my breastA moulted feather, an eagle-feather!Well, I forget the rest.
For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.
Something of this we felt as we lingered over this long-sought nest, making notes and photographs—our way of collecting.
Just at sunset we waded back and stopped at the little arm of the swamp where we had first heard the bittern. Suddenly from the sedges came a scolding little song that sounded like “Chop, chip-chop, chp’p’p’p’,†and we caught the merest glimpse of a tiny bird with a tip-tilted tail and brown back whose undersides seemed yellowish. It was none other than the rare short-billed marsh wren, next to the smallest of our Eastern birds, only the hummingbird being tinier. Neither of us had ever seen this marsh wren before, and we tramped back three long miles to town with a new bird, a new nest, and a new note to our credit in our out-of-doors account.
That night over a good dinner we were joined by the other two of our Four who for many happy years have hunted together. Just at dawn the next day, we all stole out of the sleeping inn and along the silent village streets, sweet with the scent of lilacs. Right in front of the town hall we found the first nest of the day. Cunningly hidden in the crotch of a sugar maple, just over the heads of hundreds of unseeing passers-by, a robin had brooded day by day over four eggs whose heavenly blue made a jewel-casket of her mud nest. I hope that the brave silent bird raised her babies and sent them out to add to the world’s store of music and beauty.
Beyond the village we dragged a meadow. A long cord was tied to the ankles of two of us, and each walked away from the other until it was taut and then marched slowly through the fields. The moving line just swished the top of the long grass and flushedany ground birds that might be nesting within the area covered by the fifty-foot cord. Our first haul was a vesper sparrow’s nest with one egg—the bird breaking cover near my end. Later in the day another of our party found a better nest of the same bird in the middle of a field, made and lined with grass and set in a little hollow in the ground. It held three eggs of a bluish white, blotched and clouded with umber and lavender at the larger ends. Two of the eggs were marked with black hieroglyphics like those seen in the eggs of an oriole or red-winged blackbird. The vesper is that gray sparrow which shows two white tail-feathers when it flies, and sings an alto song whose first two notes are always in a different key from the rest of the strain.
In another field we flushed a bobolink. Unfortunately the Artist, whose duty it was to watch the rope, was at the moment gazing skywards at cloud-effects, and though we burrowed and peered for a full hour in the fragrant dripping grass, we never found that nest. The home of a bobolink is one of the best hidden of all of our common ground-builders. I remember one Decoration Day when I highly resolved to find a bobolink’s nest in a field where several pairs were nesting. Early in my hunt I decided that the gay black-and-white males, which seemed to be flying and singing aimlessly, were really signaling my approach to the females on the nests. At any rate, the mother birds would rise far ahead as I came near, evidently after having run for long distances through the grass, and gave me no clue as to the whereaboutsof their nests. I decided, however, that my only chance was to watch these females, knowing that an incubating bird will not leave her eggs for any great length of time. Accordingly, when the next streaked brown bird flew up far ahead of me, I settled down in the long grass with a field-glass and carefully watched her flight. She crossed the meadow and alighted some three hundred yards away. In about fifteen minutes she came back and settled in the grass on a slope some distance from where she had flown out. Almost immediately she flew out again, probably warned by the male on guard. Once more she crossed the meadow, and this time stayed away so long that I nearly fell asleep in the drowsy, scented grass. In the meantime, one by one, the songs of the males, like the tinkling, gurgling notes of a trout-brook, ceased, and my part of the meadow seemed deserted. Finally through my half-shut eyes I saw Mrs. Bobolink come flying low over the tops of the waving grass. As I lay perfectly still, she made a half-circle around the slope and suddenly disappeared in the ripple of a green wave that rose to meet the wind. I marked the place by a tall weed stalk, and waited a minute to see whether this was another feint. As she did not appear, I ran up as rapidly and silently as possible before the father bird could spy me from the other side of the pasture and cry the alarm. Perhaps he had become careless while rollicking with his friends. At any rate, when I reached the place there was no sign of any bobolink near me.
When I was a couple of yards away from the weed-stalk, up sprang the female bobolink, apparently from almost the very spot I had noted. This was encouraging; it showed that she had not run through the grass any distance this time, either when flushed or when alighting. Almost immediately the truant father bird appeared and sang gayly near me, occasionally diving mysteriously and impressively into the grass in different places, as if visiting a nest. I was not to be distracted by any such tactics, but threw my hat to the exact spot from which, as I judged, the female had started. With this as a centre I pushed back the long grass and began to search the area of a five-foot circle, first looking hurriedly under the hat to make sure that it had not covered the nest. My search was all in vain, although it seemed to me that I examined every square inch of that circle. At last I decided that the sly birds had again deceived me. Taking up my hat, I was about to begin another watch, when, in the very spot where the hat had lain, I noticed that the long leaves of a narrow-leafed plantain at one place had been parted, showing a hole underneath. I carefully separated the leaves, and before me lay the long-desired nest. It was only a shallow hollow under the leaves, lined with fine dry grass and containing four dark eggs heavily blotched and marbled with red-brown.
It is probable that ordinarily, when the mother bird left the nest, she would arrange the leaves so as entirely to cover the hole beneath. If this weredone, it would seem impossible that they concealed anything, for they would be apparently flat on the surface of the ground. My unexpected approach had flushed her before she had time to put back the leaves.
The pleasure of finding such a skilfully concealed nest is indescribable. The hunt is a contest between intelligence and instinct, where victory by no means always inclines to the human. As I looked down at the nest, I knew just how the talented recluse in “The Gold Bug†felt when, after solving the cryptogram and disposing of every difficulty, he at last gazed into the open treasure-chest.
To-day there was to be no such glorious experience, and we finally gave up the hunt and started back across the meadow. As we moved through the swishing grass, suddenly we heard a curious clicking bird-note. “See-lick, see-lick, see-lick,†it sounded, and we recognized the unfamiliar notes of that rare little black-striped sparrow, the Henslow. The last time we four had heard that note together was on a trip into the heart of the pine-barrens, when we not only identified this bird for the first time, but also found its nest, a treasure-trove indeed. To-day we did not even get a glimpse of the bird.
Beyond the meadows we came face to face with the marsh itself, and plunged in to show the Banker and the Architect our marsh hawk’s nest. On the way back the Artist made a discovery. Waist-deep among the sedges, with the tiny marsh wrens chipping and bubbling all around him, he suddenly espieda round ball made of green grass fastened to the rushes with a little hole in one side.
“The nest of the short-billed marsh wren!†he declared loudly. We hurried to him. The nest was empty, but, as it was early for the wrens to be laying, this fact had no effect on his triumph. We admired the nest, the bird, and the discoverer freely—all except the Architect, who lingered behind the rest of us, regarding the nest with much suspicion. Suddenly he noted a movement in the grass, and as he watched, a tawny little meadow mouse climbed up the grass-stems and popped into the hole in the side, to find out what this inquisitive race of giants had been doing to his house. It was pitiful to see the Artist. At first he denied the mouse. Then, when it dashed out in front of us, he claimed that its presence had nothing to do with the question of the ownership of the nest.
“Isn’t it possible,†he demanded bitterly, “that a well-behaved meadow mouse may make a neighborly call on a marsh wren?â€
“No,†replied the Architect decisively; and we started away from the discredited nest.
Later on, the Artist had his revenge. We were hunting everywhere for the bittern’s nest. Suddenly, as the Artist stepped on a tussock, a large squawking bird flew out from under his foot. No wonder she squawked. He had stepped so nearly on top of her that, as she escaped, she left behind a handful of long, beautifully mottled tail-feathers, unmistakably those of an English pheasant. The nestwas at the side of the tussock, entirely covered over with the arched reeds, and contained fifteen eggs, three of which the clumsy foot of the Artist had broken. They were of a chocolate color and, curiously enough, almost identical in color and size with those of the American bittern, except that the inside of the shell of the broken eggs was a light blue. The nest itself was nearly eight inches across and about three inches deep, made entirely of grass. Hurriedly clearing away the broken eggs, we called the Architect from the far side of the marsh. He hastened up, took one look at the nest, and then told us solemnly that this was one of the most unusual occurrences known in ornithology. Three pairs of bitterns had joined housekeeping and laid eggs in the same nest. It was hard on the Architect that we should have flushed probably the only bird in the world whose eggs are almost identical in color and size with those of the American bittern, and it was not until the Artist produced the pheasant’s tail-feathers that our friend would admit that there was anything wrong with his theory.
As we started to leave the place, I saw on the other side of the tussock the largest wood-turtle I have ever met. Its legs and tail were of a bright brick-red, while the shell was beautifully carved in deep intaglios of dingy black and yellow. This turtle ranks next to the terrapin in taste, a fact which I proved the next day. As Mr. Wood-Turtle is fond of bird’s eggs, I strongly suspect that my capture of him was all that saved the lives of a round dozenof prospective pheasants. We had a leisurely lunch near one of the coldest bubbling springs in the world, seated on a high, dry ridge under the shade of a vast black-walnut tree. After lunch we crossed quaking, treacherous bogs, that lapped at our feet as we passed, and reached Wolf Island. It was made up of a series of rocky ridges, shaded with trees and masked by a dense undergrowth. Beneath the great boulders and at the base of tiny cliffs, we could trace dark holes and burrows where two centuries ago the celebrated pack made their home.
Beyond the Island a tawny bird slipped out of a tussock ahead of me, like a shadow. Hurrying to the place, I found the perfectly rounded nest of a veery thrush, lined with leaves and entirely arched over by the long marsh-grass. From the brown leaf-bed the four vivid blue eggs gleamed out of the green grass like turquoises set in malachite. The eggs of a catbird are of a deeper blue, and those of a hermit thrush of a purer tone, but of all the blue eggs, of robin, wood thrush, hermit thrush, bluebird, cuckoo, or catbird, there is none so vivid in its coloring as that of the veery. That nest with its beautiful setting stands out in my mind as a notable addition to my collection of out-of-door memories.
More searchings followed without results, until the sun was westering well down the sky. Five miles lay between us and clean clothes and a bath. Reluctantly we left the marsh, with our bittern’s nest still unfound. As we approached the village, we saw showing over the meadows the edge of a continuationof the marsh, and decided that we had time for just one more exploring trip. Here we found the worst going of the day. In front of us were innumerable dry cat-tail stalks and hollow reed-stems, while the mud was deeper and the mosquitoes were fiercer than in the main swamp.
At last the Banker and the Architect sat down exhausted under a tree, while the Artist and myself planned to cross to a fringe of woods on the farther side before giving up. In the middle of the marsh we separated, and before long I found myself on the trail of another marsh hawk’s nest. It was evidently close at hand, for both the birds swooped down and circled around my head, calling frantically all the time. Look as I would, however, I could find no trace of the nest. We reached the woods without finding anything and came back together. When we were within two hundred yards of where the other two were luxuriously waiting for us in the shade, from under my very feet flapped a monstrous bird nearly three feet high. It was the bittern. I was so close that I could see the yellow bill, and the glossy black on the sides of the neck and tips of the wings, and the different shades of brown on back, head, and wings. As it sprang up, it gave a hoarse cry and flapped off with labored strokes of its broad wings. Right before me was a flat platform of reeds about a foot in diameter, well packed down and raised about five inches from the water. On this platform were a shred or so of down and four eggs of a dull coffee color. In a moment the Banker and the Architectwere splashing and crackling through the mud and reeds, and we spent the last quarter-hour of our trip in admiring and photographing the much-desired nest.
So ended our visit to Wolf Island Marsh with a list of fifty-one birds seen and heard, and seven nests found, photographed, and enjoyed.
A thousand and a thousand years ago, seven saints hid from heathen persecutors among the cold mountains which circle Ephesus. The multitude who cried, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!†are drifting dust, and the vast city itself but a mass of half-buried ruins. Yet somewhere in a lonely cave sleep those seven holy men, unvexed by sorrow, untouched by time, until Christ comes again. So runs the legend.
It is a far cry to Ephesus, and whether the Seven still sleep there, who may say? Yet here and now seven other Sleepers live with us, who slumber through our winters, with hunger and cold and danger but a dream. Their names I once rhymed for some children of my acquaintance. As I am credibly advised that the progress of a camel through the eye of a needle is an easy process compared to having a poem printed by the Atlantic Press, I hasten to include in this chapter the following exquisite bit of free verse (I call it free because I don’t get anything extra for it).
The Bat and the Bear, they never careWhat winter winds may blow;The Jumping-Mouse in his cozy houseIs safe from ice and snow.The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,Have found for cold the cure.
The Bat and the Bear, they never careWhat winter winds may blow;The Jumping-Mouse in his cozy houseIs safe from ice and snow.
The Bat and the Bear, they never care
What winter winds may blow;
The Jumping-Mouse in his cozy house
Is safe from ice and snow.
The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,Have found for cold the cure.
The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck,
The Skunk, who’s slow but sure,
The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon,
Have found for cold the cure.
Something of the lives of these our brethren of the wild I have tried to set forth here—because I care for them all.
First comes the slyest, the shyest, and the stillest of the Seven—the blackbear, who yet dwells among men when his old-time companions, the timber-wolf and the panther, have been long gone. Silent as a shadow, he is with us far oftener than we know. Only a few years ago bears were found in New Jersey, in dense cedar-swamps, unsuspected by a generation of near-by farmers. In Pennsylvania and New York they are increasing, and I have no doubt that they can still be found in parts of New England, from which they are supposed to have disappeared a half-century ago. In fact, it is always unsafe to say that any of the wild-folk have gone forever. I have lived to see a herd of seven Virginia deer feeding in my neighbor’s cabbage-patch in Connecticut, although neither my father nor my grandfather ever saw a wild deer in that state. In that same township I once had a fleeting glimpse of an otter, and only last winter, within thirty miles of Philadelphia, I located a colony of beaver.
The blackbear is nearly as black as a blacksnake, whose color is as perfect a standard of absolute black on earth as El Nath is of white among the stars.He has a brownish muzzle and a white diamond-shaped patch on his breast. Sometimes he is brown, or red, or yellow, or even white. Not so wise as the wolf, or so fierce as the panther, yet the blackbear has outlived them both. “When in doubt,run!†is his motto; and like Descartes, the wise blackbear founds his life on the doctrine of doubt. As for the unwise—they are dead. To be sure, even this saving rule of conduct would not keep him alive in these days of repeating rifles, were it not for his natural abilities. A bear can hear a hunter a quarter of a mile away, and scent one for over a mile if the wind be right. He may weigh three hundred pounds and be over two feet wide, yet he will slip like a shadow through tangled underbrush without a sound.
Bear-cubs are born in January, after the mother bear has gone into winter quarters, blind and bare and pink, and so small that two of them can be held at once on a man’s hand. Bears mate every other year, and the half-grown cubs hibernate with the mother during their second winter.
The blackbear is a good swimmer, and may sometimes be seen crossing lonely lakes in the northern woods. At such times he is an ugly customer to tackle without a gun, as he will swim straight at a canoe and tip it over if possible. A friend of mine, while fishing in upper Canada, on a sluggish river between two lakes, saw a bear swimming well ahead of the canoe. He began to paddle with all his might to overtake him, but to his surprise seemed to be moving backwards. Looking around, he saw his guide,who was more experienced in bear-ways, backing water desperately. Just then the swimming animal turned his head and saw the canoe. Instantly the hair on his back bristled and stood up in a long stiff ridge, and he stopped swimming—whereupon my friend found himself instantaneously, automatically, and enthusiastically assisting the guide.
Even where the blackbear is common, one may spend a long lifetime without sight or sound of him. There may be half a dozen bear feeding in a berry-patch. You may find signs that they are close at hand and all about. Yet no matter how you may hide and skulk and hunt, never a glimpse of one of them will you get. In bear country you will more often smell the hot, strong, unmistakable scent of a bear who is watching you close at hand, than see the bear himself. In fact the sight of a wild blackbear is an adventure worth remembering.
Personally, I am ashamed to say that, although I have tramped and camped and fished and hunted on both sides of the continent, I have never really seen a bear. Twice I have had glimpses of one. The first time was in what was then the Territory of Washington. I was walking with a friend through a bit of virgin forest. The narrow path was walled in on both sides by impenetrable wind-breaks and underbrush. As we suddenly and silently came around a sharp bend, there was a crash through a mass of fallen trees, and I almost saw what caused it. At least I saw the bushes move. Right ahead of us, in the mould of a torn and rotted stump, was a foot-printlike that of a broad, short, bare human foot. It was none other than the paw-mark of Mr. Bear, who is a plantigrade and walks flat-footed. Although I was sorry to miss seeing him, yet I was glad that it was the bear and not the man who had to dive through that underbrush.
Another time I was camping in Maine. Not far from our tent, which we had cunningly concealed on a little knoll near the edge of a lonely lake, I found a tiny brook which trickled down a hillside. Although it ran through dense underbrush, it was possible to fish it, and every afternoon I would bring back half a dozen jeweled trout to broil for supper. One day I had gone farther in than usual, and was standing silently, up to my waist in water and brush, trying to cast over an exasperating bush into a little pool beyond. Suddenly I smelt bear. Not far from me there sounded a very faint crackling in the bushes on a little ridge, about as loud as a squirrel would make. As I leaned forward to look, my knee came squarely against a nest of enthusiastic and able-bodied yellow-jackets. Instantly a cloud of them burst over me like shrapnel, stinging my unprotected face unendurably. As I struck at them with my hand, I caught just one glimpse of a patch of black fur through the brush on the ridge above me. The next second my hand struck my eye-glasses, and they went spinning into the brush, lost forever, and I was stricken blind. Thereafter I dived and hopped like a frog through the brush and water, until I came out beyond that yellow-jacket barrage. I never sawthat bear again. Probably he laughed himself to death.
The blackbear is undoubtedly leather-lined, for he will dig up and eat the bulbs of the jack-in-the-pulpit, which affect a human tongue—I speak from knowledge—like a mixture of nitric acid and powdered glass. Moreover, he is the only animal which can swallow the tight-rolled green cigars of the skunk-cabbage in the early spring. An entry in my nature-notes reads as follows:—
“Only a fool or a bear would taste skunk-cabbage.â€
My lips were blistered and my tongue swollen when I wrote it. The fact that the blackbear and the blackcat or fisher are the only two mammals which can eat Old Man Quill-Pig, alias porcupine, and swallow his quills, confirms my belief as to the bear’s lining. The dog, the lynx, the wild cat, and the wolf have all tried—and died.
Last spring, in northern Pennsylvania I found myself on the top of a mountain, by the side of one of those trembling bogs locally known as bear-sloughs. There I had highly resolved to find the nest of a nearby Nashville warbler, which kept singing its song, which begins like a black-and-white warbler and ends like a chipping sparrow. I did not suppose that there was a bear within fifty miles of me. Suddenly I came upon a large, quaking-aspen tree set back in the woods by the side of the bog. Its smooth bark was furrowed by a score of deep scratches and ridges about five feet from the ground, while above them the tree had apparently been repeatedlychewed. I recognized it as a bear-tree. In the spring and well through the summer certain trees are selected by all the he-bears of a territory as a signpost whereon they carve messages for friend and foe. No male bear of any real bearhood would think of passing such a tree without cutting his initials wide, deep, and high, for all the world to see.
The first flurries of snow mean bed-time for Bruin. He is not afraid of the cold, for he wears a coat of fur four inches thick over a waistcoat of fat of the same thickness. He has found, however, that rent is cheaper than board. Unless there comes some great acorn year, when the oak trees are covered with nuts, he goes to bed when the snow flies. One of the rarest adventures in wood-craft is the finding of a bear-hole where Bruin sleeps rolled up in a big, black ball until spring. It is always selected and concealed with the utmost care, for the blackbear takes no chances of being attacked in his sleep. The last bear-hole of which I have heard was not far from home. Two friends of mine were shooting in the Pocono Mountains with a dog, about the middle of November, 1914. Suddenly the dog started up a blackbear on a wooded slope. After running a short distance, the bear turned and popped into a hole under an overhanging bank. Almost immediately he started to come out again, growling savagely. I am sorry to say that my friends shot him. Then they explored the hole which he was preparing for his winter-quarters. It was beautifully constructed. The entrance was under an overhanging bank,shielded by bushes, and it seemed unbelievable that so large an animal could have forced his shoulders through so small a hole. The burrow was jug-shaped, spreading out inside and sloping up, while a dry shelf had been dug out in the bank. This was covered with layers of dry leaves and a big blanket of withered grass. In the top of the bank a tiny hole had been dug, which opened out in some thick bushes and was probably an air-hole. Just outside the entrance, a bear had piled an armful of dry sticks, evidently intending, when he had finally entered the hole, to pull them over the entrance and entirely hide it. The bear itself turned out to be a young one. A veteran would have died fighting before giving up the secret of his winter castle.
The opal water was all glimmering green and gold and crimson, as it whirled under overhanging boughs aflame with the fires of fall. The air tasted of frost, and had the color of pale gold. Around sudden curves, through twisted channels, and down gleaming vistas, our canoe followed the crooked stream as it ran through the pine-barrens. The woods on either side were glories of color. There was the scarlet of the mountain sumac, with its winged leaves, and the deep purple of the star-leaved sweet-gum. Sassafras trees were lemon-yellow or wine-red. The persimmon was the color of gold, while the poison sumac, with its death-pale bark, and venomous leaves up-curled as if ready to sting, flaunted the regal red-and-yellow of Spain.
At last, we beached our canoe in a little grove and landed for lunch. By the edge of the smoky, golden cedar-water, in the pure white sand, was a deep footprint, like that made by a baby’s bare foot with a pointed heel. I recognized the hand and seal of Lotor, the Washer, who believes firmly in that old proverb about cleanliness. That is about as near, however, as Lotor ever gets to godliness. He is the grizzled-gray raccoon, who wears a black mask on his funny, foxy face, and has a ringed tail shaped like a bâton, and sets his hind feet flat, like his second-cousin the bear, while his menu-card covers almost as wide a range. Whatever he eats—frogs, crawfish, chicken, and even fresh eggs and snakes—he always washes. Two, three, and even four times, he rinses and rubs his food if he can find water.
That footprint in the sand carried me back more years than I like to count. It was on the same kind of fall day that I first entered the fastnesses of Rolfe’s Woods. First there came Little Woods, close at home, where one could play after school, and where the spotted leaves of the adder’s-tongue grew everywhere. Then came Big Woods, which required a full Saturday afternoon to do it justice. It was there that I accumulated by degrees the twenty-two spotted turtles, the five young gray squirrels, and the three garter-snakes, which gladdened my home.
Far beyond Big Woods was a wilderness of swamps and thickets known to us as Rolfe’s Woods. This was only to be visited in company with some of the big boys and on a full holiday. That day, Boots Lockwood and Buck Thompson, patriarchs who must have been all of fourteen years old, were planning to visit these woods. Four of us little chaps tagged along until it was too late to send us back. We found that the perils of the place had not been overstated. In a dark thicket Boots showed us wolf-tracks. At least he said they were, and he ought to have known, for he had read “Frank in the Woods,†“The Gorilla-Hunters,†and other standard authorities on such subjects. Farther on we heard a squalling note, which Buck at once recognized as the scream of a panther. Boots confirmed his diagnosis, and showed the reckless bravery of his nature by laughing so heartily at our scared faces that he had to lean against a tree for some time before he could go on. In later years I have heard the same note made by a blue jay, a curious coincidence which should have the attention of some of our prominent naturalists.
LOTOR, THE COON
LOTOR, THE COON
Finally, we came to a little clearing with a vast oak-tree in the centre. As we neared it, suddenly Buck gave a yell and pointed overhead. There on a hollow dead limb crouched a strange beast. It was gray in color, with a black-masked face, and was ten times larger than any gray squirrel, the wildest animal which we had met personally. There was a hasty and whispered consultation between the two leaders, after which Buck announced that the stranger was none other than a Canada lynx, according to him an animal of almost supernatural ferocity and cunning. Furthermore, he stated that he, assistedby Boots, intended to climb the tree and attack said lynx with a club. Our part was to encircle the tree and help Boots if the lynx elected to fight on land instead of aloft. If so be that he sprang on any one of us, the rest were to attack him instantly, before he had time to lap the blood of his victim—a distressing habit which Buck advised us was characteristic of all Canada lynxes.
This masterly plan was somewhat marred by the actions of Robbie Crane. Robbie was of a gentle nature, and one whose manners and ideals were far superior to the rough boys with whom he occasionally consorted. Mrs. Crane said so herself. After reflecting a moment on the lynx’s unrestrained and sanguinary traits, he suddenly disappeared down the back-track with loud sobbings, and never stopped running until he reached home an hour later. Thereafter our names were stricken from Robbie’s calling-list by Mrs. Crane.
As Buck, boosted by Boots, started up the tree, the perfidious lynx disappeared in an unsuspected hole beneath a branch, from which he refused to come out in spite of all that Buck and Boots could do. One member, at least, of that hunting-party was immensely relieved by his unexpected retreat. It was many years later before I learned that even such masters of woodcraft as Buck and Boots could be mistaken, and that the Canada lynx was really a Connecticut coon.
It was not until recently that I ever met Lotor by daylight. Three years ago I was walking down ahillside after a sudden November snowstorm. My way led past two gray-squirrel nests, well thatched and chinked with the leaves by which they can always be told from crows’ nests. From one of them I saw peering down at me the funny face of a coon. When I pounded on the other tree, another coon stared sleepily down at me. Probably the unexpected snowstorm had sent them both to bed in the first lodgings which they could find; or it may be that they had decided to try the open-air sleeping-rooms of the squirrels rather than the hollow-tree houses in which the coon family usually spend their winters.
Sometimes at night you may hear near the edge of the woods a plaintive, tremulous call floating from out of the dark trees—“Whoo-oo-oo-oo, whoo-oo-oo-oo.†It is one of the night-notes of the coon. It sounds almost like the wail of the little screech-owl, save that there is a certain animal quality to the note. Moreover, the screech-owl will always answer, when one imitates the call, and will generally come floating over on noiseless wings to investigate. The coon, however, instantly detects the imitation and calls no more that night.
Unlike the bears, Mr. and Mrs. Coon and all the little coons, averaging from three to six, hibernate together soon after the first snowstorm of the year. One of the few legends of the long-lost Connecticut Indians which I can remember is that of an old Indian hunter, who would appear on my great-grandfather’s farm in the depths of winter and, after obtaining permission, would go unerringly toone or more coon-trees, which he would locate by signs unknown to any white hunter. In each tree he would find from four to six fat coons, whose fur and flesh he would exchange for gunpowder, tobacco, hard cider, and other necessities of life.
Mr. and Mrs. Coon are good parents. They keep their children with them until the arrival of a new family, which occurs with commendable regularity every spring. A friend of mine once saw a young coon fall into the water from its tree in the depths of a swamp. At the splash, the mother coon came out of the den, forty feet up the trunk, and climbed down to help. Master Coon, wet, shaken, and miserable, managed to get back to the tree-trunk and clung there whimpering. Mother Coon gripped him by the scruff of his neck and marched him up the tree to the den, giving him a gentle nip whenever he stopped to cry.
In spite of his funny face and playful ways, Mr. Coon is a cheerful, desperate, scientific fighter. In a fair fight, or an unfair one for that matter, he will best a dog double his size, and he fears no living animal of his own weight, save only that versatile weasel, the blackcat. I became convinced of this one dark November morning many years ago, when I foolishly used to kill animals instead of making friends of them. All night long, with a pack of alleged coon dogs, we had hunted invisible and elusive coons through thick woods. I had scratched myself all over with greenbrier, and, while running through the dark, had plunged head first into the coldestknown brook on the continent. Four separate times I had been persuaded by false and flattering words to climb slippery trees after imaginary coons, with a lantern fastened round my neck.
This time my friends assured me there could be no mistake. Both Grip and Gyp, the experts of the pack, had their fore-paws against an enormous tulip tree which stood apart from all others. In order that there might be no possible mistake, black Uncle Zeke, the leader of the hunt, who knew most of the coons in those woods by their first names, agreed to “shine†this particular coon. Lighting a lantern, he held it behind his head, staring fixedly up into the tree as he did so. Sure enough, in a minute, far up along the branches gleamed two green spots. Those were the eyes of the coon, staring down at the light. It was impossible to climb this tree, so we built a fire and waited for daylight.
Dawn found us regarding a monster coon crouched in the branches some forty or fifty feet up. Uncle Zeke produced a cherished shot-gun. The barrel had once burst, by reason of the muzzle being accidentally plugged with mud, and had been thereafter cut down, so that it was less than a foot in length. In spite of its misfortune, Uncle Zeke assured us that it was still a wonderful shooter. We scattered and gave him a free field. In a properly conducted coonhunt, a coon, like a fox, must be killed by dogs or not at all. Uncle Zeke told us that this one, as soon as he heard the shot, although uninjured, would come down, like Davy Crockett’s coon.
Sure enough, when the shot cut through the branches well above the animal, he started slowly down the trunk, head-foremost, like a squirrel, and never stopped until he reached a branch some twenty feet above the yelping pack. Then, with hardly a pause, he launched himself right into their midst. As he came through the air, we could see him slashing with his claws, evidently limbering up. He struck the ground, only to disappear in a wave of dogs. In a minute he fought himself clear, and managed to get his back against the tree. Then followed a great exhibition of scientific fighting. The coon was perfectly balanced on all four feet, and did wonderful execution with his flexible fore-paws, armed with sharp, curved claws. He went through that mongrel pack like a light-weight champion in a street fight. Ducking, side-stepping, slashing and biting fiercely in the clinches, he broke entirely through the circle, and started off at a brisk trot toward the thick woods. The pack followed after him, baying ferociously, but doing nothing more. Not one of them would venture again into close quarters. Though we came back empty-handed, not even Uncle Zeke grudged that coon his life.
The motto of the next sleeper is, “Don’t hurry, others will.†If you meet in your wanderings a black-and-white animal wearing a pointed nose, a bushy tail, and an air of justified confidence, avoid any altercation with him. The skunk discovered the secret of the gas-attack a million years before the Boche.He is one of the best friends of the farmer—and the worst treated. Given a fair chance, every week he will eat several times his weight in mice and insects. Moreover, with the muskrat he contributes divers furs to the market, whose high-sounding names disguise their lowly origin. During the coldest part of the winter he retires to his burrow and sleeps fitfully. He is the last to go to bed and the first to get up; and on any warm day in late winter you may see his close-set, alternate, stitch-like tracks in the snow. The black-and-white banner of skunk-kind is a huge bushy resplendent tail, sometimes as wide as it is long. At the very tip is set a tuft like the white plume of Henry of Navarre. When it stands straight up, the battle is on, and wise wild-folk remove themselves elsewhere with exceeding swiftness. As for the simple—they wish they had.
The armament of this Seventh Sleeper is simple but effective. It consists of two scent glands located near the base of the tail, which empty into a movable duct or pipe which can be protruded some distance. Through this duct, by means of large contractile muscles, a stream of liquid musk can be propelled with incredible accuracy, and with a range of from six to ten feet. Moreover the skunk’s accurate breech-loading and repeating weapon has one device not yet found in any man-made artillery. Each gland, besides the hole for long-range purposes, is pierced with a circle of smaller holes through which the deadly gas can be sprayed in a cloud for work at close quarters. The skunk’s battery can be operatedover the bow or from port or starboard, but rarely astern.