EARS FOR HEARINGEARS FOR HEARING
EARS FOR HEARING
ONE night in June I heard a new bird note, wonderfully clear and sweet, but so dreamlike that it seemed some tiny creature had blown a flute from elfland. The note came from far away, apparently; but I traced it at last to a branch just over my head, where a pair of grosbeaks had built their nest. There the male bird was singing near his brooding mate, singing in his dreams, I think, for his song was like no other that I ever heard from him.
The surprise of that dream song returned to me at dawn, one winter morning, when I heard low, eager voices outside my “Commoosie,” and crept out to find a family of partridges under the birds’ table.
Now a mother partridge has many notes, fromthe sibilant squeal of anger to the deepkroo-kroothat calls the chicks from hiding; but these voices were quite different from all grouse sounds with which I had grown familiar in the woods. They had what one might call an intimate quality, musical, softly modulated, marvelously expressive. When the partridges were gone, gliding away as if they had not meant to be overheard, I spread the table abundantly, as usual; and that day hardly a bird came without giving me at least one new note, perhaps because I was for the first time really listening.
From that time forth the voices of these feeding birds were a revelation to me, as I heard them close at hand. Surprise, confidence, pleasure, resentment, hunger, loneliness, alarm,—a dozen different emotions seemed to find ready expression, either in varied cries or by modulations of a single note. In making mental register of this bird “talk,” I became convinced that the ear needs more training than the eye if one is to understand the wood folk or enter into the spirit of their little comedy. Even if you turn mere ornithologist, with an interest in feathers or species rather than in birds, hearing is a better or surer sense than sight if you would name birds without the needless barbarity of killing them for identification. Once you recognize the peculiar quality of anybird’s voice, you may surely name him at any season. He may change his plumage as he will, for youth or age, for spring or winter; but he cannot change his natural voice, and, like Peter’s, his speech bewrayeth him.
One morning, in that same winter camp where the grouse appeared, a woodpecker sent a long call rattling across the frozen lake. The first subtle feeling of spring was in the air. Deep under snow the sap began to well upward from roots of the sugar maples to express itself in coloring buds; and I fancy that something stirred upward from some root of being in the woodpecker, also, to find expression in lusty drumming. Ever since we made camp we had heard him or his fellows signaling, answering, drilling their food out of frost-bound wood; but this call was entirely different, and Bob’s keen ears were instantly turned to it.
“Aha! that chap wants something. Can ye answer him now?” he said; and in his eye was a challenge.
I imitated the drumming, closely as I thought; but though I tried repeatedly, I received nothing like an answer. Downy or logcock or goldenwing, a woodpecker is an independent chap that I have never been able to call fairly; not even in spring, when he is all ears for a mate or a rival. Like many other birds, he will come quickly to an excited and deceptive squeaking between myfingers, but to my best drumming he remains deaf or indifferent.
“Ye haven’t the right combination, b’y,” said Bob when I gave over my fruitless attempt, and using his hunting knife as a hammer he began talking woodpecker-talk on a dry stub. At his firsttunk-a-tunk(which was not like the call we had just heard) the answer came back like an echo, and when he varied his note the woodpecker came speeding across the lake. He could do that almost any time when woodpeckers were talking, as he could excite a red squirrel into emotional fits by his gibbering; but he abused me when I told him the truth, that it was not his secret combination of raps but the fellow feeling he put into it which brought the woodpeckers.
Still more amusing have been my efforts to make talk with the timber wolves. The dog wolf has a tremendous voice for occasions, and his pack has several distinct calls, challenge, trail yelp, rallying cry, lunatic baying of the moon; but though I seem to recognize these when I hear them, and to imitate them closely enough to deceive some ears, it is seldom that I can put into my voice the true wolf quality which brings an answer. For in the woods, as elsewhere, “the tone makes the music”; it is tone quality rather than any sound or combination of sounds, thefeeling behind a cry rather than the cry itself, which appeals to moose or owl or any other wild beast or bird you happen to be calling.
One still, winter night I stood in front of my “Commoosie” and repeatedly gave the gray wolf’s challenge. That wolves were within hearing I was quite sure, having crossed the fresh trail of a pack at sundown; but none made answer. Then old Noel stirred and came forth from his blanket. “Hwolf don’ spik dat way; he spik dis way,” he said, and gave a howl so nearly like mine that no ordinary ear could detect the difference. Something was in his voice, however, some primal or animal quality which a wolf understood; for hardly had his howl gone forth when it was flung back eagerly from the woods behind us; and when the Indian changed his howl to a whimper, he had wolves answering from three different directions.
The point is, that when one opens his ears to the medley of calls that enliven the day or the night, he receives many an invitation which beforetime had passed over his head unheeded. Around your summer camp, for example, red squirrels are the most numerous and, as you think, the most familiar of animals; but did you ever attempt to interpret the astonishing variety of sounds which a squirrel uses habitually in the way of speech?Until you do that, Meeko the mischief-maker is a stranger to you, dwelling far on the other side of an unbridged gulf.
I do not mean that Meeko or any other animal has a language, for that is a doubtful matter; but all wild creatures communicate with others of their kind; and even when alone an animal is like a child in that he has changing moods or emotions which he expresses very plainly by modulations of his voice. So these familiar squirrels, which you hear about your camp, are not jabbering idiotically or without meaning. When angry they scold; when surprised they snicker; at other times they fling jest or repartee or abuse at one another, their voices changing noticeably with their changing moods. Now and then, as you follow Meeko to see what he is doing, he utters a long, vibrant and exultant call, in sheer delight at being alive, you think; or he stops short in a gambol and puzzles you by sitting very still, very attentive, with his nose pressed against a branch between his paws. Gone suddenly are all his jeers, his exultations, his mischief-making; he has a sober, introspective air, as if trying to remember something, or as if listening to what his other self might be saying.
If you watch Meeko’s eye at such a moment, noting its telltale lights, you will have a differentopinion of his silence. He is listening, indeed, but to something so fine or distant that he cannot be quite sure what it is, or rather what it says. Therefore does he use the branch as a sounding board, pressing nose or teeth against it to catch the faint vibrations in a way to help his ears, just as woodpeckers use their tongues for the same purpose of better hearing. There! you hear the sound faintly now, and Meeko hears it distinctly enough to understand it, if one may judge by his actions. It comes from another squirrel out yonder, a truculent fellow, who is proclaiming his heretical opinion to the universe, and to this little dogmatist in particular.
Watch Meeko now; see his silent absorption change to violent rage. He barks; he seems to curse in his own way; he springs up and down on the same spot, like a boastful Quebec lumberman who jumps on his hat to work himself up to the fighting pitch. Out of breath, he stops a moment to listen, to ascertain whether he has silenced his opponent. A jeer floats in from the distance. Meeko says, “Kilch-kilch! I’ll show that impostor; I’ll teach him a lesson,” and away he goes headlong. To follow him is to witness a characteristic squirrel argument, a challenge, a rush, an upset, a furious chase up and down the swaying branches, till your head grows dizzy in followingit. And then one long, triumphant yell to proclaim that another heresy is silenced forever.
Many times I have thus watched Meeko as he listened to something I could not at first hear; and almost invariably, when I have followed his rush, I have found him either berating some passing animal much bigger than himself or engaged in a hurry-scurry kind of argument with another squirrel.
Once I saw that the fellow who dared dispute Meeko’s doctrine was a very little squirrel, not big enough to hold opinion of his own, much less to challenge a quidnunc. He was bowled over at the first charge, and fell to the ground, where he darted off at top speed, doubling and dodging here, there, anywhere for a quiet life. Hot at his heels followed the irate Meeko, berating him like a pirate, giving him no chance to retract his impudence. The little fellow whisked up a tree at last, and squirmed into a knothole that seemed too small for any squirrel. Meeko was so close behind that nose met tail; but wriggle as he would, he could not get halfway into the knothole. It was an impossible squeeze for a squirrel of his bulk. As he worked and scolded himself into a passion, every now and then came a hollow, muffled snicker from within the doorway, which seemed to drive Meeko frantic.
He gave up the attempt after a time, and headed down the tree, threatening vengeance as he went. Before he was halfway to the ground the little fellow put his head out and repeated his original opinion, which started the explosive argument all over again. Eight times, while I watched, Meeko went away fuming, after vainly trying to force himself into the knothole; and every time Meekosis, as Simmo calls the little squirrel, came to the doorway to jibe at him, bringing him back in a fury that ran the gamut from volubility to speechlessness. The comedy was still running when lengthening shadows called me away to the trout pool, where my supper needed catching.
That same pool recalls another wood-folk comedy, none the less amusing because two of the actors were serious as owls when they played it out. Simmo, the Indian, and I were on our homeward way through the wilderness when we came to a beautiful place on the river, and camped there, day after heavenly day, until my vacation drew to an end. Then, because trout were plentiful at the mouth of a cold brook, I broke my rule of catching only enough for my table, and decided to take a few good fish as a thank-offering to some people who had been kind to me, a stranger. Two mornings and evenings I whipped the pools, ignoring small rises, striking only at the big fellows; and at duskof the second day I packed away my catch and my rod with a sigh of heartfelt content. It was my last fishing for the year. There were only fifteen fish to show for it; but they weighed full thirty pounds, all clean, silvery, beautiful trout. Each one was wiped dry for keeping, wrapped separately in dried moss, and set away under a rock by a cold spring.
Early next morning Simmo went to fetch one of the trout for breakfast. I was stirring the fire when I heard him calling, “Come here! Oh, by cosh, come here!” and ran to find him standing open-mouthed over the storehouse, his eyes like gimlets, a blank, utterly bewildered expression spread all over his dark face. There was not a fish left, and not a sign on the hard soil to tell who had taken them.
We gave up the puzzle and went back to a meager breakfast, wagging our heads soberly. A bear or a lynx would have left plenty of signs for us to read. As we were eating, I saw a mink dodging along the shore, humping his back in true weasel fashion, as if in a great hurry. He disappeared under a root, all but his tail, and seemed to be very busy about something. When he backed out he was dragging a big trout.
“Das de feller! Cheokhes steal-um,” yelled Simmo, all excitement, and away he went on thejump. Startled by the thumping behind him, Cheokhes dropped his fish and took to the river, leaving a V-shaped wake trailing behind him as he forged away.
“Keep still, Simmo; let’s watch him,” I cautioned, and we both sat motionless on the bank; but not till the Indian had made sure of a more ample breakfast. His fingers were hooked into the gills of the big trout, his face a study in satisfaction.
The mink circled uneasily a few moments; then he whirled and headed for us, wiggling his pointed nose as he smelled the fish. Simmo was sitting with elbows on knees, the trout hanging down between, when the nervy little beast crossed over my foot, grabbed his prize, and attempted to drag it out of the Indian’s hand.
“By cosh, now, das too cheeky!” said Simmo, and with the tail of the trout he batted Cheokhes over the head. Away he went with a screech and a show of sharp teeth; but in a moment he was back again, and twice attempted to get possession of what he considered his property. Then, as Simmo grew impatient and batted the little thief coming and going, he made off indignantly with an air of, “Well, I know where to find a better one.” Following him up, I took away from him another trout, which he dragged from a pile ofdrift stuff, and after some search I unearthed two more which he had hidden under a pine stump.
That was all we ever found of our fine catch, and I am still wondering what a creature not much bigger than a rat expected to do with thirty pounds of fresh fish. Indeed, from his unprejudiced viewpoint, what should anybody expect to do with them? They belonged first of all to the river, and then to any light-footed fellow who could appreciate their flavor. But Simmo was wrathy. As we paddled downriver that day, he talked of mink and white men’s children, and read me a little homily on the vice of stealing.