Everyday Adventures

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 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 flushed any 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 whereabouts of 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 were done, 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 espied a 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?”

“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 nest was 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 dozen of 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 continuation of 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 Architect were 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.

XI

THE SEVEN SLEEPERS

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 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.

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-print like 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 saw that 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.”

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 repeatedly chewed. 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.