ne Sr nape metre sate he emer a : SE era een ee fatale So a ana eeee te pe seer ot CORNET EN Dae Resa ey LIBRARY LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY LIBRARY Gift of Vag) — Che f//- Caw | Cornell University Library i roductions of 31924 022 538 65 DATE DUE GAYLORD “All music is what awakens from vou when vou are reminded by the instruments.” — Whitman. age ee THE SONG OF THE RIVER “The river Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice In its own being.” —Brvant. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022538650 Music of the Wild With Reproductions of the Performers, Their Instruments and Fes- tival Halls By Gene Stratton-Porter GARDEN City, New Yorx« DoUBLEDAY, PAGE AND COMPANY 1911 “It touched the wood bird’s folded wing, And said,‘O bird, awake and sing !’” —Longfellow. Copyright, 1910, by Jennings and Graham “Thou art only a grav and sober dove, But thine eve is faith and thy wing is love.” Lanier. Books by (ene Stratton-Porter Wuar LL Wave Done Wirt Birps Arrur Foor or THE Rainnow A Girt or ‘tHE LIMBERLOST Tue Sone or THE CARDINAL Tue Music or THE WILD Birps oF THE BIBLE ERECKLES Contents PART I The Chorus of the Forest, 2 a O38 PART II Songs of the Fields, S = 165 PART III The Music of the Marsh, - - - 323 List of Illustrations Facing Page Forest SPRING, - - - : = 2 = = 2 Tur Sone or THe River, - - - a - 5 Forest Roan, - - - - - 2 2 = e Rassrr Leavinc Burrow, - - 7 : 2 6 Broopina Dove, - - : E Z 2 z 9 Tree Toap, - - = = = 2 E : 8 KatypIp, - - g a e : z = s 11 Pusuic Roan, - - : : : = 2 10 Youne Larks - - . = 2 E 2 2 14 Young FiycaTcuers, - - - : é = 16 Birr or Marsy, - - : 7 - : : 2 19 Tue Forest, - - 7 = = e = a ” Tue Primary Music Cass, - - - - Be 999) Tue Roap To THE Forest, - - - - - 24 Biooproot, - Z - - - 5 2 e 28 THe GaTeway, - - - = : 3 2 32 List of Illustrations BER Tue Tree Harps, - = - - : = = 36 THe Gioves THE Foxes Wrar, - - - - - 40 Tue Locust’s Fippie, - - - - - - 44 A Crow Soto, - - - - - - < = 48 Tue Wuire Croup, - - - - - - 52 Morus or THE Moon, - - - = . = 56 Dusky Fatcon, - - - - - - = 60 Hawk Face—Wuart Does He Say? - - = = 64 A Beecu Tree Harp, - - - - = = 68 ProresstonaL ‘* Warers,’’ - - - - - = f2 Parpaw Broom, - - - - - - - 76 Papaws AND SUNSHINE - - - - - - 80 BaNeBeRRY AND MAIDENHAIR, - - - - - 84 Cricket Music, - - - - - - - - 88 Esonymus AMERICANUS, - - - - = - 92 A Grounp Musician, - - - - - - - 96 Tat. Biue BELLFLowEr, - S = = - - 100 Tue Crown or THe Forest Kine, - - - - 104 Biack Haw Buioom, - Ss - - - - 108 Brack Haws, - - - - & = - SS jinie) Tue TRrREEs, - - - es = = E Fe 116 Youne Bats, — - - = = E s Ps ~ 120 Wuere tue Woops Brain, - - - - . 124 Frost Flowers, - - s - - f = = 198 SYCAMORE, - - = = - = = : 132 Tue Appuies or May, - - - - < é = 136 Smoke Hovusr, = - - - = < = 140 Tue Deserted Casi, = = = & = - 144 Puaraon’s CuIcKENs, = = < - < - 148 Hor Tree Music, & - - = = - = 152 Nicut Music on a Forest River « « < . 156 Op Log, - - = o = & : - 160 12 List of Illustrations Facing Page Karypip, - - - - = = s = 162 SWALLows, = = c = = = = - 164 DanpDELIon, - - - = = = = 166 One or My Farms, - = a - S = - 170 Fretp Daisies, - & S = = = = 174 A Croup Musician, - - - Bs - 2 - 178 ELECAMPANE, - - - x e zs - s 182 Tue Home or tHe Hop Toap, - - - - - 186 Hop Toap, - = - 2 2 = Es L; 190 Moonseep Ving, - - = - - = = - 194 My Oart-Fietp, - - - - a = = 198 ““Branps or THE Noontipe Beam,’’ - - - - 202 Tue Lanptorp or THE FrELps, = - - - 206 Brearp Toneug, - = & = 3 S - 210 Mo.t.y CorrTon, - - - - - - = 214 Burnine Busy, - - - = - - s - 218 Tatt Meapow Rue, - - - - = = 222 Wiip SaFFRON, - - - = - = a - 226 Green Pastures, - - = = = = és 230 Sue_terepD, Warerep Pasture, - - - - -~ 234 Biazine Star, - = = = Z = = 238 WILLows, - - - - - - = = - 242 Buckeye Brancu, - - - . 2 - = 246 An Oxtp OrcuarD,) - - = = - = - 250 Moruer Rosin, - - - = a = = 254 Tue Orcuarp Motu, - - - & - = - 258 Royalty IN THE ORCHARD, = = = = = 262 Scarier Haw Btoom, - S = - - - 266 Screecu Ow ., - - - - - - = 270 Tue Sone or THE Roap, - - = - = =o 74 Mae GoLpFrincH AND YOUNG, - - = - - 278 MILKWEED, - ~ = = - - - = - 282 13 List of Illustrations Ligurnine Riven Oak, - - Tue Sone or THE Limperiost, — - Broopina Dove, - - = On THE Banks or THE WABASH IN Rep Bup, - - - - KINGFISHER, - - - - River Mattows, - - - Tue Sone or THE River, - = Country Roap, - - - Gop’s Flower GARDEN, - - Tree Toaps’ Durr, - - Tue ResurRECTION, = - = = Tue Roap Tro THE Marsn, - Marsu Lites, - - - - A Marsu Garpben, - - - Tue Nose Twister, - - - Tue Morn or THE Marsu, - Dragon Fty, - - - - Wuirre Water Lities, - - Marsu Beraamor, - - - Sirky Corne., Witp Rice, - - - - A PLover QuaRTETTE, - - A Queen Mortuer, - - - Tue Marsu Brook, - - Tue Herarp or Dawn, - - Tue Fincu Cotor Scueme, - Tue Wuire Sten or Hourness, - Tue Leaves, - - - - Tue Hett-Diver, - - - Tue Buur Frac, - = - Frying Goup, - - - - 14 WiInTeR, W fo) WWW Ww WNN NY NY NO oO FP Ww oo an List of Illustrations Pacing Pave THe Marsu Rowpy, : = e : é = 406 Water Hyacintrus, — - : S e = 2 = ATO Wuere THE Loon LauGus, - - . : = 414 THe Drum-Masor, - = = = = 2 - 418 Tue Drum, - = e 3 3 = fe 3 499 Wuere Marsn ann Foresr Merv, = = 3 - 426 Corpuroy Bripce In Marsu, - - - . - 428 Leaving THE Marsu, - = - x = - 430 Cu Miles Fuller Porter PART I The Chorus of the Forest “T thought the sparrow’s note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it pleases not now, For I did not bring home the river and skv ; He sang to my ear,—thev sang to mp eve.” —Emerson, ‘uosdwuoy J _ouldyd 40 spaom 40f Buoi7s OOL swaod uajz7M SDY POH aay Mouy J Jauny sp puos6 pup Aodib sp saaoib uf ‘“uabuly pub yan, SOuzy) pjyM asayM MNouy T,, LSadyuOd AHL THE PRIMARY MUSIC CLASS The Chorus of the Forest INCE the beginning the forest has been singing its song, but few there are who have cared to learn either the words or the Forest melody. Its chorus differs from that of any other Notes part of the music of nature, and the price that must be paid to learn it is higher. The forest is of such gloomy and forbidding aspect that inti- mate acquaintance is required in order to learn to love it truly. So only a few peculiar souls, caring for solitude and far places, and oblivious to bodily discomfort, have answered this wildest of calls, and gone to the great song carnival among the trees. The forest always has been compared rightly with a place of worship. Its mighty trees, some- times appearing as if set in aisles, resemble large pillars, and the canopy formed by their over- arching branches provides the subdued light con- ducive to worship. The dank, pungent air arises 23 Music of the Wild as incense around you. Sunlight, streaming in white shafts through small interstices, suggests candles. Altars are everywhere, carpeted with velvet mosses, embroidered with lichens, and dec- orated with pale-faced flowers, the eternal symbol of purity and holiness. Its winds forced among overlapping branches sing softly as harps, roar and wail as great organs, and scream and sob as psalters and hautboys. Its insect, bird, and ani- mal life has been cradled to this strange music until voices partake of its tones, so that they har- monize with their tree accompaniment, and_ all unite in one mighty volume, to create the chorus of the forest. I doubt if any one can enter a temple of wor- ship and not be touched with its import. Neither can one go to primal forests and not feel closer the spirit and essence of the Almighty than any- where else in nature. In fact, God is in every form of creation; but in the fields and marshes the work of man so has effaced original conditions that he seems to dominate. ‘The forest alone raises a chorus of praise under natural conditions. Here you can meet the Creator face to face, if anywhere on earth. Yet very few come to make His acquaintance. The reason lies in the discomfort; the gloomy, forbidding surroundings. It may be that there yet lingers in the hearts of us a touch of that fear 24 THE ROAD TO THE FOREST “And the wide forest weaves, To welcome back its playful mates again, A canopy of leaves ; And from its darkening shadow floats A gush of trembling notes.” -—Percival, The Chorus of the Forest inherited from days when most of the beasts and many of the birds were larger and of greater strength than man, so that existence was a daily battle. Then the forest is ever receding. As we approach, it retreats, until of late years it has be- come difficult to find, and soon it is threatened with extinction. As yet, it is somewhere, but pa- tience and travel are required to reach it. I found the forest here pictured after a journey by rail, water, and a long road so narrow that it seemed as if every one traveling it went in the morning and returned at night, but none ever passed on the way. Such a narrow little road, and so sandy that it appeared like a white ribbon stretched up gen- tle hill and down valley! On each side I saw evi- dence that lately it had been forest itself; else the way would not have been so very narrow, the sides impassable, and bordered with trees so mighty and closely set as to dwarf it to the vanishing point long within the range of vision. The very flowers were unusual, the faint musky perfume creeping out to us, a touch of the forest greeting our ap- proach. The road ran long and straight, and where it ended the work of man ceased and the work of nature began. The forest was surrounded by a garden, where sunlight and warmth encouraged a growth not to be found inside. Here in early spring daintiest 27 The Road to the Forest The Forest Fence Music of the Wild flowers had flourished: anemones and_ violets. Bloodroot had lifted bloom waxen-pure and white, and its exquisitely cut and veined slivery, blue- green leaves, set on pink coral stems, were yet thrifty. Now there were flowers, fruits, berries, and nuts in a profusion the fields never know, and with few except the insects, birds, butterflies, and squirrels to feast upon them. You could produce a rain of luscious big blackberries by shaking a branch. There were traces of a straggling snake-fence in one place, on top of which the squirrels romped and played. This could not have extended far, because the impenetrable swamp that soon met the forest stretched from sight. Then the Almighty made the work of man un- necessary by inclosing the forest in a fence of His design, vastly to my liking. First was found a tangle of shrubs that wanted their feet in the damp earth and their heads in the light. Beneath them I stopped to picture tall, blue bellflower, late blue- bells, and spiderwort, with its peculiar leafage and bloom. ‘There was the flame of foxfire, the laven- der and purple of Joe-Pye weed, ironwort, and asters Just beginning to show color, for it was mid- dle August, and late summer bloom met early fall. There were masses of yellow made up of golden- rod beginning to open, marigold, yellow daisies, and cone-flowers. BLOOD-ROOT It has blood in its root and a waxen white face, Coral stems and silver leaves of wonderful grace. The Chorus of the Forest But the real fence inclosing the forest was a hedge of dogwood, spicebrush, haw, hazel, scrub oak, maple, and elm bushes. At bloom time it must have been outlined in snowy flowers; now nuts and berries were growing, and all were inter- laced and made impenetrable by woodbine. wild- grape, clematis, and other stoutly growing vines. At first we could not see the gateway, but after a little searching it was discovered. Once found, it lay clear and open to all. The posts were slen- der, mastlike trunks shooting skyward; outside deep golden sunshine you almost thought you could handle as fabric, inside merely a few steps to forest darkness. Near the gateway a tiny tree was wag- ing its battle to reach the sky, and a little far- ther a dead one was compelled to decay leaning against its fellows, for they were so numerous it could not find space to lie down and rest in peace. This explained at once that there would be no logs. All the trees would lodge in falling, and decay in that position, and their bark and fiber would help to make uncertain walking. At the gate is the place to pause and consider. The forest issues an universal invitation, but few there be who are happy in accepting its hospitality. If you carry a timid heart take it to the fields, where you can see your path before you and fa- miliar sounds fall on your ears. If you carry a sad heart the forest is not for you. Nature places 31 The Gateway The Creator’s Gift to Men Music of the Wild gloom in its depths, sobs among its branches, cries from its inhabitants. If your heart is blackened with ugly secrets, better bleach them in the heal- ing sunshine of the fields. The soul with a secret is always afraid, and fear was born and has estab- lished its hiding place in the forest. You must ig- nore much personal discomfort and be sure you are free from sadness and fear before you can be at home in the forest. But to all brave, happy hearts I should say, “Go and learn the mighty chorus.” Somewhere in the depths of the forest you will meet the Creator. The place is the culmination of His plan for men adown the ages, a material thing proving how His work evolves, His real gift to us remaining in nat- ural form. The fields epitomize man. They lay as he made them. They are artificial. They came into existence through the destruction of the forest and the change of natural conditions. They prove how man utilized the gift God gave to him. But in the forest the Almighty is yet housed in His handiwork and lives in His creation. Therefore step out boldly. You are with the Infinite. Earth that bears trees from ten to four- teen feet in circumference, from forty to sixty to the branching, and set almost touching each other, will not allow you to sink far. You are in little danger of meeting anything that is not more frightened at your intrusion than you are at it. 32 THE GATEWAY “To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply, Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, Its dome the sky.” —Smith. The Chorus of the Forest Cutting your path before you means clearing it of living things as well as removing the thicket of undergrowth. A hundred little creatures are fleeing at your every step, and wherever you set foot you kill without your knowledge; for earth, leaves, and mosses are teeming with life. You need only press your ear to the ground and lie still to learn that a volume of sound is rising to heaven from the creeping, crawling, voiceless creatures of earth, the minor tone of all its music. The only way to love the forest is to live in it until you have learned its pathless travel, growth, and inhabitants as you know the fields. You must begin at the gate and find your road slowly, else you will not hear the Great Secret and see the Com- pelling Vision. There are trees you never before have seen; flowers and vines the botanists fail to mention; such music as your ears can not hear else- where, and never-ending pictures no artist can re- produce with pencil or brush. This forest in the summer of 1907 was a com- plete jungle. The extremely late spring had de- layed all vegetation, and then the prolonged and frequent rains fell during summer heat, forcing everything to unnatural size. Jewel-weed that we were accustomed to see attain a height of two feet along the open road, raised there that season to four, and in the shade of the forest overgrew a tall man; its pale yellow-green stems were like 35 The Secret and the Vision The Tree Harps Music of the Wild bushes, and its creamy cornucopias dangled the size of foxglove, freckled with much paler brown than in strong light. The white violets were as large as their cultivated blue relatives, and nodded from stems over a foot in length. Possibly it was because they formed such a small spot of color in that dark place, possibly they were of purer white than flowers of larger growth in stronger light; no matter what the reason, these deep forest vio- lets were the coldest, snowiest white of any flower I ever have seen. They made arrow-head lilies ap- pear pearl white and daisies cream white compared with them. Thinking of this caused me to notice the range of green colors also. The leaves and mosses near earth were the darkest, growing lighter through ferns, vines, bushes, and different tree leaves in never-ending shades. No one could have enumer- ated all of them. They were more variable and much more numerous than the grays. But in dim forest half-light all color appeared a shade paler than in mere woods. From the all-encompassing volume of sound I endeavored to distinguish the instruments from the performers. The water, the winds, and the trees combined in a rising and falling accompaniment that never ceased. The insects, birds, and animals were the soloists, most of them singing, while some were performing on instruments. Always there 36 ‘4Dajd Jno saulys uoIsiA Buljadwog ay ‘6Bul6uq] 4a6da Jo Sada 07 aj1uM ‘apay Gpul no@ Ja1vag JDALH § POH ‘qsa10f quabund ay ul daap-aauy SdUVH WoL AHL The Chorus of the Forest was the music of my own heart over some won- drous flower or landscape picture, or stirred to join in the chorus around me. The trees were large wind-harps, the trunks the framework, the branches the strings. These trunks always were wrapped in gray, but with each tree a differing shade. There were brown-gray, green-gray, blue-gray, dark- gray, light-gray, every imaginable gray, and many of them so vine-entwined and lichen-decorated it was difficult to tell exactly what color they were. The hickory was the tatterdemalion; no other tree was so rough and ragged in its covering. Oak, elm, walnut, and ash, while deeply indented with the breaks of growth, had more even surface. The poplar, birch, and sycamore had the smooth- est bark and showed the most color. The tall, straight birch did gleam “like silver,’ but to me the sycamore was more beautiful. The largest were of amazing size, whole branches a cream-white with big patches of green, and the rough bark of the trunks was a dirty yellow-gray. These trees always show most color in winter, but I do not know whether they really are brighter then, or whether the absence of the green leaves makes them appear so. Anywhere near the river the trees grew larger, and their uplifted branches caught the air and made louder music, while the unceasing song of the water played a minor accom- paniment. These big wind-harps were standing 39 The Abid- ing Place of the Al- mighty Music of the Wild so close I could focus six of them, the least large enough to be considered unusual in broken wood, on one small photographic plate. Where several sprang from a common base some of them were forced to lean, but the great average grew skyward straight as pines, and in the stillest hour the wind whispered among the interlaced branches, and in a gale roared to drown the voice of the thunder. Little trees beginning their upward struggle to reach the light caused me to feel that they were destroying pictures of great beauty. At last we found an elevation of some height and climbing it, secured the view that awaited us. As soon as we were level with the top of the undergrowth, that was a tangle in the most open spaces, not so dense where the trees grew closer together, it appeared to stretch away endlessly, making a vari- egated, mossy, green floor that at a little distance seemed sufficiently material to bear our weight. Knowing this to be an illusion, I sent my soul jour- neying, instead. Crowding everywhere arose the big, vine-entwined tree trunks, stretching from forty to seventy feet to their branching. The cool air of this enclosed space between the bush tops and the tree branches had a spicy fragrance. The carpet of green velvet below and the roof of green branches above formed a dominant emerald note; but it was mellowed with the soft grays of the tree trunks and tinted with the penetrant blue of the 4.0 ‘qubodig— «UNS poo1g ay7 JO aD] 6 ay? ul Jou SWOO]g SD Yons ‘ajnnaq ST 700d S142 1D PA]ISAQNV,, UVaM SHXOA FHL SHAOTS AHL The Chorus of the Forest sky, so that the whole was a soft, blue-gray green, the most exquisite sight imaginable. All thought of the world outside vanished. The heart flooded with awe, adoration, and a great and holy peace. Here is the world’s most beautiful Cathedral, where the unsurpassed tree-harps accompany the singers in nature’s grandest anthem. This is the abiding-place of the Almighty in the forest. When we dared linger no longer and attempted to reach certain trees superb above their fellows, we found that a path must be cut before us for long distances, and then at times, for no appar- ent reason, we came into open spaces underfoot and thinner branching overhead. These were brown and gray-carpeted with the heaped dead leaves of many seasons, and glorified with flower color, but there were no grasses. It was in places such as these that the joy song of the human heart drowned all other music. On the rich brown floor, against the misty gray-green background, flashed the pale yellow of false foxglove, the loveliest and the typical flower of the forest. The tall, smooth stems were high as my head, the leaves sparse and tender, the bloom large and profuse, and of warm shades of light-yellow im- possible to describe, because they vary with age. The buds are a pure warm yellow, the flower cow- slip color on the first day, creamy white on the second, the fallen blooms showering the dark floor 43 The Gloves the Foxes Wear Music of the Wild almost white. ‘These are the gloves the foxes wear when they travel the forest softly. Cultivated rel- atives of the family are not nearly so beautiful as the wild species. I think this is true of the wild flowers, vines, and plants everywhere. ‘Their hothouse relatives do not compare with them. Field and forest flow- ers are of more delicate color, they are simple and natural, and there is a touch of pure wildness in them akin to a streak in every heart. Of late peo- ple have been realizing this, and they have made efforts, not always agreeable to the plants, to re- move and set them around houses and in gardens. Such flowers usually die a lingering death because they can not survive out of their element. The foxglove enters a more vigorous protest than any. It is as if the old mother of the family feared that when we saw her glorious shade-children we would steal them from their damp, dark home; and so, with the cunning of her namesakes, the foxes, she taught all her family to reach down and find the roots of surrounding trees, twine around them, and grow fast, until they became veritable para- sites and not only clung for protection, but to suck life, so that they quickly withered and died if torn away. The effort to transplant foxglove always reminds me of an attempt to remove old people who have lived long on one spot and sent the roots of their affections clinging around things they 44, ‘06D sipad pupsnoy) ual Jo sajoN ‘mouy day? afi] ay7 40f asipad Jo sjunyg9 ‘s6uls p4iig Giaaa Joy] Buos auips dsaa ayy, s6ulm Oujujys siy uo sajppyf 7sn20] AY] aidadil Ao S.LSNn00T AHL The Chorus of the Forest love. Then some change comes, and an effort is made to remove them to a different location and atmosphere. They end the same as deep forest flowers brought into the strong light of yard and garden; only as a rule people pine and die more quickly. A few bees humming around the foxglove set me to watching for insect musicians. The pale flowers of deep forest were not attractive as was the growth outside. There was only an occasional butterfly. But there were millions of other insects singing everywhere around us, and the leaders were the locusts. Sometimes they flew so close, making music on wing, that we dodged and our ears rang. We caught several and examined them, and in- duced one to pose for us on a locust tree. They are an inch and a half in length, a rare green color with brown markings, and have large eyes, a stout, sharp tongue, silvery white legs, and long wing- shields, appearing as if cut from thinnest isinglass, the shorter true wing beneath. These wingshields are divided into small sec- tions by veins that hold the transparent parts se- curely, and the outer edge has a stout rim. Using these rims for their strings, the crisp space for sounding-boards, and the femur of the hind legs for bows, the locust amazed us by not singing at all, for he fiddled away gayly as he led the insect orchestra. As far as we could hear through the AT The Locust’s Fiddle A Crow Solo Music of the Wild forest his musicians followed his lead unceasingly, their notes rising and falling in volume, and they even played in flight. I could not see how they flew, and fiddled on the wingshields at the same time, but repeatedly I saw them do it. Watching above me to try to learn how this music of flight was made, I forgot the locusts and began considering the roof of the forest. The branches lapped and interlaced so closely that I felt, if I had power to walk inverted like a fly, I could cross them as a floor. There was constant music up there, and the dominant note was the crow’s, while the sweetest was the wood pewee’s. There were many places where in the stout branch- ing of tall trees the crows had built a sitting-room of a bushel of coarse twigs and lined it with finer material. Now all the families had moved out and gone picnicking among the trees. None of them evinced retiring dispositions. They appeared alike at that height, and all I could tell of them was that they were crows. Their mu- sic was constant and, where undisturbed by our presence, of most interesting character. I could distinguish three distinct calls. They frequently uttered a gutteral croak that seemed to translate “All right!” Then there was a sharp, vehement “Caw! Caw! Caw!” warning those of the family farther away of the fact that there was something unusual in the forest. It was used at a time and 48 A CROW SOLO “The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended, and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by dav, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren.” — Shakespeare. The Chorus of the Forest in the manner of a human being crying, “Look out! Some one is coming!” Then there was a syllabi- cated cry, consisting of five notes, that was their longest utterance and was delivered with tucked tail, half-lifted wings, and bobbing head, as if to make the speech impressive by gesture as well as sentiment. It scarcely would do to write of this production as a song, perhaps it might be called a recitative, to give it a little musical color. In very truth it resembled plain conversation and was used at such times and in such manner as to lead me to believe that passing crows were remarking to their friends: “Everything is all right with me. How goes life with you?” I am rather fond of crows. They are so lov- ing to each other that they arouse sentiment in my breast. I believe they pair for life, and both of them defend their nests and young with reckless bravery. Good qualities, surely! They are know- ing birds and early learn to distinguish a hoe from a gun. When they find you without firearms they become impudent and inquisitive, and allow you to approach very close. There is proof that they are individual birds because they are used constantly as the basis of comparison by men who call each other “wise as a crow,” “black as a crow,” “as sly,” and “as cunning.” Whether crows are all these things in freedom would be difficult to prove, since they scarcely ever 51 ‘“*Black as a Crow ”’ Music of the Wild nest at a height of Jess than thirty-five feet, and from that up to fifty. At that distance it is not possible that male and female or different pairs can be told apart without strong glasses; where there is one family there are sure to be others close, and no matter how impudent a single crow may be when you are without a gun and meet him for- aging in your fields, he is a wary bird when you approach his nest. Tn captivity crows have been known to do many peculiar things of their own initiative, such as hid- ing food given them when they are not hungry. for use at another time, or rubbing against a stone a caterpillar to free it from spines. They can be taught to talk by splitting the tips of their tongues, and can repeat from two to six words distinctly and at appropriate times. In life they never are quite so black as they are painted, for the neck and back feathers have beautiful purplish bronze tints in strong light. ‘These crows appeared to have a sense of humor, for when we left the forest with- out having interfered with them they seemed to imagine they had vanquished us and followed for a distance, crying something that sounded much more like, “Haw! Haw! Haw!” than “Caw!” T never have made an exhaustive study of crows, but I have penetrated their life history somewhat, enough to get all that can be learned by seeing and hearing; and that, come to think of it, OZ THE WHITE CLOUD Through the forest's darkening emerald, In the murky, pungent gloom, Shines a cloud of wondrous whiteness, Where He sets the dog-wood bloom. The Chorus of the Forest is all I want. In my wanderings afield I often find ornithologists killing and dissecting birds, bot- anists uprooting and classifying flowers, and lepi- dopterists running pins through moths yet strug- gling; each worker blind and deaf to everything save his own specialty, and delving in that as if life depended, as perhaps it does, on the amount of havoc and extermination wrought. Whenever I come across a scientist plying his trade I am al- ways so happy and content to be merely a nature- lover, satisfied with what I can see, hear, and re- cord with my cameras. Such wonders are lost by specializing on one subject to the exclusion of all else. No doubt it is necessary for some one to do this work, but I am so glad it is not my calling. Life has such varying sights and songs for the one who goes afield with senses alive to everything. I am positive I hear and see as much as any scientist can on the outside of objects, for I have recorded with my cameras a complete life history of many birds no one else ever photographed, and to prove it I can reproduce the pictures for the delight of humanity. Who ever was exhilarated by seeing a scientist measure the intestines and count the bones of any bird? I have sent the botanical masters flowers and vines not yet incorporated in their books, but I was very careful to confine myself to the least specimen that would serve their purpose. I have hatched the eggs, raised the caterpillars, 55 The Beauty and Song of Existence The Ex- cuse of Beauty Music of the Wild wintered the cocoons, and had the rarest moth of our country emerge beside my pillow, and sent by the hundred the eggs of mated pairs to scientific men who lacked personal experience with the spe- cies. I am not missing anything, and what I get is the palpitant beauty and pulsing song of exist- ence. The happy, care-free method is to go to the forest in early spring, and with senses alive to everything and deliberately follow the changes of the season. One of the first sights to attract the attention will proclaim itself from afar: the flowering of the dogwood. Sometimes there is a real tree in undis- turbed forest, lifting to the hght a white head that makes a point of splendor. The bloom is a pecul- iar thing, resembling poinsettia in that the showy spathes, commonly called flowers, are merely a dec- oration surrounding the true bloom, which is small and insignificant. In reality what appears to be white flower petals are Just wrapping that all win- ter has screened the little flower bud from frost and storm, and the small dent in the top of each leaf is where the very tip blighted in severe weather. After a wonderful spring exhibition the dogwood ceases to attract attention and resembles its sur- roundings until fall. Then its leaves begin to color early and outdo almost all others in vivid tints, added to which are the ripened berries of bright Chinese-red. Dogwood is not rare, and 56 a MOON Bose eda 3 MOTHS OF THE ’T is Nature’s greatest secret, told as a priceless boon, In the forest I heard the night moth whispering to the moon: “Lend thy light for my courting, if thrice in thy glory I flv, Then, from estatic loving, of jov will I gladly die.” The Chorus of the Forest beauty is the excuse for its being, in this book at least. Really it seems as if that might be its best reason for appearing in the forest as well. The big delicate moth of deep wood must enter on the same ground, for no other among wood folk is so quiet. The only music it could be said to make is the chorus of delighted exclamation that greets its every appearance before humanity; music by proxy, as it were, for the moth is the stillest crea- ture. The exercising imago, walled in its cocoon, among the leaves of earth, makes more sound than the emerged moth. There is a faint noise of tearing as the inner case is broken and the tough cocoon cut for emergence. Once in the air and light, if those exquisite wings make a sound it is too faint for mortal ears to hear. June is the time for appreciative people to sing in praise of the moths, but sometimes they are double-brooded and specimens exact their share of worship in August, as did the beautiful pair I found clinging to a walnut tree in the forest. No other moth is so exquisitely shaped or of such deli- cate shades. The female is a little larger, her an- tenne are narrower, and her colors paler than the male’s. The white violet is not of purer white than his body; his crisp, long-trailed wings of a bluish pale-green, faintly edged with light yellow and set with small transparent markings, and his legs and feet and the heavy fore-rib of the front wings are 59 The Moth of the Moon Falcon Music Music of the Wild lavender. He was delicate and fragile as the bloom of a tropical orchid, and reminded me of one as he lightly hung to the rough walnut bark. They were only that day emerged, and their wings were not yet hardened sufficiently to bear their weight, so they clung wherever I placed them and posed in the most obliging manner. But the guide and IT made all the music. While I worked, over my head, all above the forest, and around the outskirts sailed the beauti- ful and graceful little dusky falcons. No charge of quietude can be made against them; they are really noisy, which can not be said of great hawks. Falcons are very handsome, and parade their beauty as if they realized it. They are by far the best-dressed members of the hawk family. The very light color of their breasts is delicately shaded, as is the bronze of their backs. Their cheek feath- ers are white to a narrow line above the eyes, and crossed by two parallel lines of black. They can erect a small crest, which is tinted with dull blue, and their long, graceful wing and tail feathers are tipped with white. Their beaks have the hawklike curved point for tearing. Their unusually large eyes wear a soft expression, giving to them a wise appearance. ‘They attack small birds occasionally, but live mostly on field mice, moles, grasshoppers, and moths; so they are in evidence in the fields, and people are familiar with them. They like to watch 60 DUSKY FALCON “T know a falcon swift and peerless As e’er was cradled in the pine; No bird had ever eve so fearless, Or wing so strong as this of mine.” —Lowell. The Chorus of the Forest grain fields from the vantage of a telephone wire, and their graceful downward sweep when they sight prey is a beautiful thing to see. They nest in hollow trees and bring off broods of five and six young, from their first feathering closely resembling the elders. These young are very social and make charming pets, becoming wholly domesticated in a few days. If not exactly the same, they are very similar to the falcons used by royal British women in the sport of hawking, and the small birds that we see in old prints and paintings perching on gauntlet or saddle-pommel must have been great pets with their owners. They are the musicians of the hawk and falcon families and have all their relatives talked into almost com- plete silence. ‘‘Ka-tic, a-tic, a-tic!’ they cry as they dash after moth or grasshopper, millions of which one pair will take from a field in a season, making them a great blessing to a farmer. Full- fed and happy they swing on the ever-present tele- phone wire and repeatedly sing in a liquid, run- ning measure entitled to be classed as very good music, “Tilly, tilly, tilly!’ By no stretch of imagination could the big hawks be coupled with melody. They are the kings of the treetops, but they use a sign language that all other birds readily translate. Their home in large trees is often founded on a crow’s last year’s nest. They use signals in courting, caress 63 A Bat- tle Cry Music of the Wild their young tenderly, and fearlessly attack any- thing threatening danger to them. So long as they are unmolested and happy they are silent: a strange reversal of the law of music in birdland. Almost without exception other birds sing in bubbling ec- stasy when they are happy, and mope in silence, broken only by a few pathetic notes of wailing, when in trouble. The hawk gives warning when angry by a stri- dent hiss, much like a vulture or eagle. When he really makes an attack, for the purpose of van- quishing an enemy, comes his one musical effort. His battle-hymn is a hair-raising scream: shrill, loud, and the wildest note of the forest. Small birds flee from it in utter consternation, and no doubt great ones quail, even if they remain to fight. Never a hawk-scream shivers through the treetops but a bedlam of crow-ealls answer, for they are sworn enemies. Of course the hawk by reason of greater strength and size must win in every battle it wages, but there is nothing to pre- vent crows from seeing how closely they can skim danger and raising all the excitement possible. No bird of field or forest has the force of ex- pression to be found on the face of a big hawk. There is character, dignity, defiance, and savagery combined. The eagle has a wicked, fierce appear- ance, and I never have seen its face express any- thing else. I can find no better terms than “dig- 6+ WHAT DOES HE Say @ “T shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau If birds confabulate or no. ’T is clear that they were always able To hold discourse—at least in fable.” 5 —Cowper. The Chorus of the Forest and “defiance” to portray my conception of a hawk’s facial expression, and that is not very clear. Perhaps what I am striving to convey is the idea that some things might be too cruel for the hawk; the eagle appears inexorable. If he has any mercy it is never indicated in his face. The hawk suggests to the mind that he might at least consider mercy. Then in poise of flight that car- ries him across the heavens by the hour without per- ceptible wing motion he is the equal of the eagle and vulture, and in keenness of vision he slightly outclasses them. Perhaps if we had been com- pelled to strain our eyes for generations, from his heights, in order to find our food, we would de- velop sight as far-reaching as his. Serenely sailing the skies, the hawk suddenly comes darting earthward like a down-aimed arrow, in a marvelous exhibition of flight, and arises with a snake, rabbit, or bird in its claws, proving a range of vision far beyond ours. In his wonderful pow- ers of flight and sight, in his grace and royal bear- ing, in the dignity of his silence, and the strength of his cry, he is one of the finest birds that live, and the most beneficial to us. For while he occa- sionally takes a young chicken that we intended to eat, his steady diet is snakes, moles, field mice, and grasshoppers, all of which constantly menace the land owner. But in the evolution of nature, that seems to 67 > nity’ Hawk Protection The Wildest Note of the Forest Music of the Wild provide for even minutest details, the hawk has his place and his purpose. In order that he may not become a burden when he levies upon us, he is given only two nestlings, while we raise chickens by the hundred; and the game birds upon which he preys as a rule number from fifteen to twenty in a brood, like quail, rail, and ducks. There is further to be considered that a warning of the hawk’s descent is almost universal in field and for- est. If the scratching hen does not see him, a nearby cock does; and if wild mothers are busy searching for food there is the bluejay to tell on him, and so the strongest of his prey take to cover and he gets only the weakling, that is best re- moved from the brood for the sake of the health of those remaining or of young it might raise. There is not much to be said for hawk music, yet the voice of the forest would lose the charm of its wildest note were this great bird extinct, and it is because it is wild and different from sounds of every day that we love it. Then, as a picture seen from afar, the forest never would be complete without these birds of tireless wing hanging over it and reigning upon their thrones of air. So I hope earnest consideration will be given these points in favor of the royal bird before another of its kind is dropped from its high estate. Up where the hawk chants his battle-hymn, the crow chuckles, and the pewee wails, outlined clearly 68 , Z i 7 + Pies he oot ae. A BEECH TREE HARP —“vou scarce would start, If from a beech’s heart A blue-eved Drvad, stepping forth, should say, ‘Behold me! Iam Mav!” —Timrod. The Chorus of the Forest against the sky could be seen the finely-toothed cutting and waxy gold-green leaf that only could mean beech, and I marveled. Could beech branches be waving there? That tree of low habit and spreading limb! I called my guide’s attention to it, and he made a road, and then cleared space for me to focus. Where trees were so numerous it was impossible to get away far enough to in- clude the entire subject. This mighty wind instru- ment of the forest was fourteen feet in circum- ference and fifty feet to the branching. We could secure no leaves, but they were large and appeared especially waxy. The trunk was the most beauti- ful I ever have seen save the purple beeches of Southern Indiana. Those are low, of widely- spreading branch, and their trunks are like pur- plish-gray moleskin. This forest beech had patches of moleskin, then gray and green spaces, the fore- runners of lichens, and then the lichens themselves in big circles with exquisite gradations of gray, white, and green colors. At its base grew a fern with fronds two feet long, and the mottled brown carpet spread beneath it was deep layers of dead leaves. Then we began to watch for its kindred through the forest, and found many, giants all of them. One thing we noted in particular. Not a beech ever leaned or curved, but in a noble column all of them aspired straight toward heaven, and among their stiff, 71 A Beech- Tree Harp A Pro- fessional ‘* Wailer ’’ Music of the Wild widely-spreading branches the wind sang in louder cadence than where limbs were more closely placed and of heavier leafage. There were maples of even greater circumfer- ence and height, but many of them leaned and twisted. Their bark was not so beautiful, and their leaves not of such fine texture, but they were more artistically cut; and as these trees flourished and grew old in this damp place, the lichens had covered them almost entirely, and so they were gay with gray and green. It is peculiar how in the forest one thing seems to lead to or bear some re- lation to another. In examining the maples to see how far out the large branches the lichens ex- tended, I noticed what I easily might have mis- taken for a knot-hole if previous experience had not taught me to recognize the nest of the dis- tinctive bird of the forest; a nest that is a miracle, from which come birds to match it, and they sing a song that all ornithologists agree almost breaks the heart with its sadness. The professional “wailer” of the forest is the wood pewee; and I should like to engage him to “wail” at my funeral, I would ask no finer music. He is just a small olive-gray bird, touched with brown, his habitat high among the big crows, owls, and hawks, that comparatively must appear larger to him than an elephant does to us. Because he is evolved in God’s great scheme of things to work 72 ‘abpiuqnod I — ‘majy Girpf{ oy) agnjyf D aind og « {420d jaan-ad jaamn-ad, ‘s40}1 A408 Apan]s ay] “qunp aan faaupssob6 uapjob Jo ppa.y)] VY —‘UDaYy O72 ajOU BujouDsqUa ‘MNO] JDYL ‘s10]ASUNOD Ajp4O] ‘SYIO]WAY IYT Madp aduazis JO aqot asquios AUT, Qpp ay] JD punogjjads buijzipm pauaag {poojs sayo1iqg ayy sO6bd4 40Q]18 UT ‘dpi6 pup payojpd § ybnosy) oisnul fo puoy ay} f1 SV joyoof uayoaag uy ‘poom ay? Jo saoujid posvbbaq ayrT —asam $7] 4Da]0 pub uaDdDAp buOT,, ( SUA M ,, TVNOISSAAOUd 8asojo The Chorus of the Forest among the treetops he is provided with wisdom and preculiarly protected by nature. His coat is the color of bark, his location is a lichen-covered limb, his nest a small flat bowl of finest twigs, grass- lined, and shaped to reproduce exactly the knots on the trees around it, and then covered with lichens to match those closest. This covering 1s deftly bound with spider webs passing under the limb and around the nest securely. When the young emerge and feather, like separate seeds of the globe of a dandelion is the down that covers them, and in their nest or on the limb beside it, behold! they appear as lichens too. We noticed how inconspicuously colored the elders were, how they matched the treetops and the nest some time deserted, and how deft they were at twisting and turning on wing—real acrobats,—so that no other birds of field or forest are better protected or so sure to bring off a brood in safety. Then why this very mournful music recorded by every ornithologist who ever wrote of them? 'The answer is, there is no sadness in their song. In all of a long and varied acquaintance with them I have found them particularly jolly small birds, safe above the average, much closer heaven than any other of their size. They are not of doleful disposition, and no inconsolable grief is theirs. They are true children of the forest, and in its solemn silences, in the slow wail of its winds, in 75 True Forest Notes Music of the Wild the sucking sobs of its rocking branches they have composed a song in harmony with their surround- ings; but to our ears this music contains the notes with which we express solitude, silence, and heart- break. But the pewee knows nothing of this. All day he sings, and all of the season, which proves him a particularly happy bird, not dependent upon the intoxication of the mating fever or encouraging a brooding mate with his notes. He sings as the poet, because there is an all-the-time song in his heart. In the great forest his notes fell to us slowly and serenely; why should he bubble and gur- gle like a bobolink? He of the majesty and soli- tude of the forest! He of the high choir in the house of the Almighty! Long-drawn, clear, ach- ing with melody, through the solemn silence of the forest, high above you comes his “Pee-a-wee,” and just when you are wondering if that is all, he adds. “Peer!” It is rather a stretch of the imagination to call these notes a song; cry would seem closer. but they are the sustained utterance of the bird. His variations consist in repetition, with different modulation and in unequal measure. I could detect that in the morning he hastened a little, as if the business of life were too pressing for the usual wait between notes. At noon, when all other birds were drowsy with heat and scarcely a song was heard, he broke the silence; and in the 76 ‘mojg sai] nodvd ay? asaym sy 41D) Os 10d8 Ou Spjoy YJ4DA IDY] SNouy ‘noj]6p syaayo pud audy{p sada YILM “41D paquDYIUAa AY] SAYIDAIG OYM ALY WOOTH MV¥d¥d The Chorus of the Forest evening, when others were singing vespers, he stood on tiptoes, and reaching his limit for his highest note with which to surpass them, in a posi- tively lazy manner slid sobbingly down the scale to his last clear utterance. At the instant we mis- guided mortals were shuddering over the heart- break in these wailing, long-drawn notes the little rascal was turning somersaults in the air, darting here and there after a fly, his sharp mandibles clipping together when he missed until the sound came to us on the ground far below. He was the happiest little creature of song and dance that wore a feathered coat. Beside his tree grew another that made me wonder why, since from the inception of art dec- orators, designers, and painters have gone to the forest for copy, they did not use this. | From the frequency with which our artists work over de- signs of fern, violet, goldenrod, and sweet brier, one might be forgiven the supposition that with these, material was exhausted. JI think the truth is that these good folk kept to the fence or turned back at the gateway, and never penetrated to the heart of the forest. Things infinitely more beau- tiful than those that have been used are waiting to be discovered and familiarized. Finding almost a tree for size ladened with velvety big green fruit made me think of studies of papaw bloom that I had made early in the season. 79 Artin the Forest Music of the Wild Botanists and farmers may know the flower; do others? And does some one ask what it has to do with music? J am coming to that. Early in the season, when the smooth gray-green stems are pulsing with sap, when the tender yellow-green leaves are Just unsheathing and not over an inch in length, the papaw lilies blow. I never heard any one else call them lilies, but I will persist in it; they are lilies, and most exquisite ones. The flowers hang lily fashion, their petals are thick, of velvety lily texture, and look at their formation! Those outside are beautifully veined and curled, of the loveliest wine-red; the inside smaller, slightly lighter in color, and set across the meeting of the outer ones, and a yellow-green pistil, pollen dusted in the heart. I can say almost positively that Japan does not produce this tree. If she did, long ago her artists would have seized upon its magnificent possibili- ties for decoration. The height of simplicity so loved by them can be found in the smooth stems, the long, tender golden leaves, and the tinkling wine-colored lilies nodding in clusters over bushes so large that, where undisturbed in the forest, they attain the size of trees. Sometimes the flowers hang singly, sometimes in pairs, and most often from four to six grow in a head, so that by crowd- ing their faces are upturned, and their full beauty displayed in wondrous fashion. They are of sweet 80 PAPAWS AND SUNSHINE Leaf hidden are the frosty green papaws, In their jackets snugly rolled, But the sun sifts down ’til he finds them, 6 And mellows their hearts to gold. The Chorus of the Forest odor, and the bees come swarming around them, with their low, bumbling, humming music, from early morning until dark. If only I were a poet, how glad I would be to transcribe for them the song that they awake in my heart! Its name should be, “Where the Papaw Lilies Blow.” I would tinge the sky with the purple of red bud, fill the air with the golden haze of tree bloom, and perfume it with the subtle odor of tree pollen. In deep shadow the earth should lie cov- ered with a crust of late snow, and in the sun with the whiter snow of bloodroot bloom. The velvety maroon-colored lilies should distil their perfume as the wind rocked them, and among the branches the slender, graceful, bronze-backed cuckoo should prophesy April showers as he searched for food. From a nearby pool with crazy laughter a flock of loons that had paused in migration for a drink should arise from the water and plow the north- ward air with their sharp beaks; and an opossum should nose among the leaves for frozen persim- mons. And he who breathed this enchanted air and saw these things should learn that in all nature he would find no greater treat than to linger where the papaw lilies blow. I offer this gratis to any one who has the genius to use it rightly. With the falling of the flowers the artistic pos- sibility of the plant only begins, for there follow large leaves of varied shadings, prominently veined 83 The Song of the Lilies A Ray of Sunshine Music of the Wild and finely shaped for conyentionalizing, and in clusters beneath them the papaws, that must be seen to know how beautiful they are. Five and six to a cluster they hang, when young the skin a cold blue-green; with ripeness they take on a pale yellow shading, and the “bloom” of the fruit be- comes like frosted velvet. The pulp is bright yel- low and good to eat if you are fond of rich sweets. The seeds are large, black, and resemble those of the melon. If not gathered, the fruit hangs until winter, turns to the purple wine color of ripe Con- cord grapes, falls to the ground, and in the spring the seeds sprout and produce new plants. Sometimes when taking pictures I get more than I intend. In making this study of papaw leaves and fruit a ray of sunshine crept through an interstice of the forest and fell across my sub- ject. So long as the picture lasts the sunbeam lives. ce I come from haunts of coot and hern,’ sang Tennyson of his. My Limberlost comes from the same haunts, and nothing can convince me that any running water on the face of earth is more interesting or more beautiful. I have read of the streams that flow over India’s golden sands, down Italy’s mountains, through England’s mead- ows; but none of them can sing sweeter songs or have more interest to the inch than the Limberlost. It is born in the heart of swampy wood and thicket, flows over a bed of muck or gravel, the banks are grass and flower-lined, its waters cooled and shaded by sycamore, maple, and willow. June drapes it in misty white, and November spreads a blanket of scarlet and gold. In the water fish, turtle, crab, muskrat, and water puppy disport themselves. Along the shores the sandpiper, plover, coot, bittern, heron, and crane take their pleasure and seek their food. Above it the hawk a 289 The Song of the Lim berlost What the Limberlost RKNnows Music of the Wild and vulture wheel, soar, and sail in high heaven, and the kingfisher dashes in merry rattling flight between the trees, his reflection trailing after him across sunlit pools. The quail leads her chickens from the thicket to drink, and the wild ducks con- verse among the rushes. In it the coon carefully washes the unwary frog caught among the reeds, and the muskrat furrows deeper ripples than the stones. The lambs play on the pebbly banks and drink eagerly, the cattle roll grateful eyes as they quench their thirst and stand belly-deep for hours lazily switching their tails to drive away flies. Little children come shouting to wade in the cool waters, and larger ones solemnly sit on the banks with apple-sucker rods, wrapping twine lines and bent pin hooks, supporting their families by their indus- try, if the gravity of their faces be token of the importance of their work. Sweethearts linger beside the stream and surprise themselves with a new wonder they just have discovered—their se- cret; but the Limberlost knows, and promises never to tell. Perhaps that is what it chuckles about while slipping around stones, over fallen trees, and whis- pering across beds of black ooze. The Limberlost is a wonderful musician, singing the song of run- ning water throughout its course. Singing that low, somber, sweet little song that you must get 290 ‘]100 Oulppam day aapam vy ‘Sdad] UNA pj1M ay? yIDaU, sasnDad ays ‘a]DA SJUaUADE JDPI1dg OY UT ‘PSOPAIUIT ay? UMOP Sauod aun UuaYAA LSOTUAAWIT AHL AO DNOS AHL Songs of the Fields very close earth to hear, because the creek has such mighty responsibility it hesitates to sing loudly lest it appear to boast. All these creatures to feed and water; all these trees and plants to nourish! The creek is so happy that it can do all this, and if it runs swiftly other woods, thickets, fields, and meadows can be watered. Then the river must be reached as soon as possible, for there are factory wheels to be turned, boats to be carried, and the creek has heard that some day it is to be a part of the great ocean. When the Limberlost thinks of that its song grows a little more exultant and proud, bends are swept with swifter measure, louder notes are sung, and every bird, bee, insect, man, and child along the banks joins in the accom- paniment. All the trees rustle and whisper, shak- ing their branches to shower it with a baptism of gold in pollen time. The rushes and blue flags murmur together, and the creek and every sound belonging to it all combine in the song of the Lim- berlost. Sometimes it slips into the thicket, as on the Bone farm; for it is impartial, and perhaps feels more at home there than in the meadows, surely more than in cultivated fields, where the banks often are stripped bare, the waters grow feverish and fetid, its song is hushed, and its spirit broken. But in the thicket the birds gather very low above the surface, the branches dip into the friendly 293 The Whisper Song Music of the Wild floods, and it nourishes such an abundance of rank growth as men scarcely can penetrate. Then the Limberlost and the thicket hold a long conversa- tion, to tell each other how very content and happy they are. The bed of the Limberlost in the thicket is ooze and muck, so the water falls silent while slipping over the velvet softness, with only a whis- per to the birds and trees; not so loud as the song of the flags, rushes, and water hyacinths that grow on the banks. The many trees and masses of shrubs lower their tones to answer the creek, and he who would know their secret must find for him- self a place on the bank and be very quiet, for in the thicket the stream will sing only the softest lullaby, just the merest whisper sone. The big turtles in the water are quiet folk. So are the sinous black snakes sunning on the bushes, and the muskrats homing along the banks. As if loth to break the dark, damp stillness with louder notes, the doves coo softly; for they, too, have a secret, the greatest of any bird in all the world. No wonder they keep together and live so lovingly, and coo and coo softly; those wild, ten- above all other—loving birds. One der, and would think they would warble from the treetops and soar with the eagle, had not long years taught that modesty and tenderness are their most promi- nent characteristics. For this is their secret. They are the chosen 294 ‘aadop ay fo 009 ay} U} ad10a $}1 spulf IY ‘aao] Qn47 $17, ang ‘fai6 21 yulyz ay Songs of the Fields bird of Omnipotence. It was a dove that carried the news of release to the prisoners in the ark, and it was in the form of a dove that the Spirit of The Bird God is said to have materialized and hovered over °f G4 the head of Jesus when He was baptized in the Jordan. What other bird bears honors high as these? Yet doves home in the thicket, on a few rough twigs they place their pearly, opalescent eggs, and in trembling anxiety brood and raise a pair of young that go modestly and lovingly through life, exactly the same as their parents. Nowhere else in all nature does the softly-uttered coo of a dove so harmonize with the environment as over a stream in a thicket; and no accompani- ment to the murmuring voice of the Limberlost is quite so melodious as the love-song of this bird. The thicket seems a natural home for almost every feathered creature. This because there are trees, bushes, and shrubs, with their berries, nuts, and fruits; vines and weeds bearing seed; every variety of insect and worm, and water with its sup- ply of food, thus providing things to eat in a small space for almost every species. In spring and sum- mer the birds have full sway; but in the fall, after the first black frost, come rugged country boys and girls and village children in search of fruit and nuts. To some there is nothing so delicious as the black haw—white until almost ripe, then a day of 297 Music of the Wild mottled estate, and then such a luscious, shining black berry it has no equal; and if the birds get any they must be ahead of the boys and girls. The opossums must be before the boys at the persim- mon tree, for few are left when they finish. The robins love wild grapes, and cedar birds the poke berries, and squirrels, hazelnuts. Hazel bushes are beautiful. The leaf is some- thing like the elm in shape, though the hazel is of finer cutting. They are nearly the same size, deeply grooved on top, and heavily veined under- neath. The nuts grow from two to six in a cluster and are sheltered in a leafy, pulpy green cover with fringed edges, most artistic and, I should think, of great benefit to the decorator searching for an un- hackneyed subject. There are many places where they could be used with fine effect in leather work, especially as the ripe nut is a good leather color. But the boy who reaches the hazel bushes before the squirrels gets up very early in the morning, and then only too often to find that the worms have been ahead of him; for when green the shells of hazelnut and chestnut are so very soft that bee- tles bore into them and deposit eggs that hatch, and the worm develops inside the shell, that hard- ens later. This explains why so often you crack a perfectly sound nut and find a wormy kernel. When the Limberlost leaves the thicket and comes into the open again it does not spread, as 298 ‘UOSAOUL — « UAADOY JY) PUD “4aal4 ay? ‘SpooM puD sij1y saplET 41D pajlym ay? /7461]D 07 ataymou suiaay ‘spjay ay] 42,0 Bujalip ‘pup ‘mous ay2 SaauUdy ‘dys ay7 fo sjadwniz ay? yD aq Paounouuy,, HHL NO YUALNIM NI HSVE€VM AHL JO SHNVA Sones of the Fields it did on the bed of ooze; for in the firm clay soil of fields and meadows only a narrow channel is cut, and so with forces renewed by concentration it comes slipping across Bone’s woods pasture. Through his fields, always tree-shaded, it flows, and then crosses farms whose owners I am glad I do not know; for here my creek is robbed of shelter, and left to spread ineffectually, and to evaporate in fetid, unwholesome pools. The trees are cut, and grazing stock by wading everywhere trample down the banks and fill the channel with soil; thus wantonly wasting water that in a few more years these land-owners will be digging ditches to reclaim. With broken heart it is dissi- pated by the sun, and a dry sob of agony is the only note raised as it painfully oozes across this land and beneath the road bridge. Here the creek reaches deep-shaded channel once more, and bursts into song crossing .Arman- trout’s pasture; for it 1s partly shaded, though many large trees on the banks are being felled. iA happy song is sung on the Rayn farm, where it is sheltered by trees and a big hill. In full force it crosses the road again, slides below the railroad bridge, rounds the hill, chanting a requiem to the little city of the dead on its banks, flows through the upper corner of the old Limberlost swamp, hurries across the road once more, and so comes singing into Schaffer’s meadow. 301 Where the Creek Mourns The Creek Meets the River Music of the Wild The low, open meadow covered closely with cropped velvet grass, “green pastures,” where full- fed cattle lie in deep shade. Nowhere in its course to the river does the Limberlost “preen” and sing exultingly as when crossing this meadow. All the water babies travel with it, the kingfisher and the plover follow; the children play along the banks, and if it has any intuition at all, surely the creek can see gratitude in the eyes of the inhabitants of the meadow as they thrust their muzzles in the depths or stand cooling under trees. If the Lim- berlost loves admiration, here it receives a full share. ‘The banks are covered with enough trees and bushes to make almost continuous shade for the waters, and a thing of beauty it goes laughing on the way to the Wabash. In fact it is so close the river here that big fish come adventuring and to spawn, and their splash is part of the music that the family living on the banks hears daily. Mr. Schaffer says that he can stand on his back porch, bait a fish, turn, and drop it into the fry- ing-pan. This really could be done, but much as I have trespassed there I never have seen the fish on their way anywhere except to the river. Aside from the song of the creek and the birds that follow, there comes an occasional wild duck, sometimes a loon lost in migration or slightly wounded by a hunter, and every spring and fall migrating wild geese pay a visit and add strange 302 gSdva} pajulz-yuld $21 daan puy ‘saainb pnq-pad ay) pynoys dy s4 sipad Buisspd fo Gof ay? YIM “4aaid ay. umop sdaams bulidg uayM « aqnd duu Sones of the Fields voices to the running chorus. Through Grove’s meadow, adjoining, the creek is wilder and wider, and then gathering force in a last rush, with a glad song it goes hurrying to mingle with the Wabash. The river, when swollen with the flood of spring rains, sings a sweeping, irresistible measure that carries one’s thoughts by force; but this is its most monotonous production. There is little vari- ation, and the birds are the strongest accompanists. Later, when it falls into the regular channel, it sings its characteristic song and appears so much happier and more content. I believe the river loves and does not willingly leave its bed. When a strong, muddy current it sweeps the surface from valuable fields, drowns stock and washes away fences; it works as if forced, and I like to think the task is disagreeable. At times it seems to moan and sob, while sucking around big tree trunks and washing across meadows and fields. When it comes home again and runs in the proper channel it shouts and sings with glee the true song of the river. You can hear the water triumph as it swirls around great maple and syca- more roots, chuckle as it buffets against rocks, gurgle across shoals, and trill where it ripples over a pebbly floor. The muskrat weaves currents against its flow, the carp wallow in mucky pools, and the black bass leap in air as if too full of life to remain in their element. si 305 The Flood. Song God’s Rarest Color Music of the Wild The river is a liouse, the bed its floor, the sur- face its roof, and all the water-folk its residents. What a wonderful thing it would be if the water were transparent, that we might see the turtles, eels, and catfish busy with the affairs of life; bass, pickerel, and suckers maintaining the laws of su- premacy, and water puppies at play! When the purple tints on its banks fade, tree-bloom baptizes it with golden pollen, and a week later showers it with snowy petals of wild plum, thorne, crab, and haw. ea <8 er eee = Sore he 2 ene ee ce ntnk apie Orelhitng ante Te No einen gc Oe ns sen her ge Send mn reppin es Bee eg Nes OME RE SBS ns Snare ges oA) GSS ae meeps ae ae te AN poet Pecan Se a ee