'sF'#*<Z'

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

V

77

WILD SCENES

SONG-BIRDS.

BY C. W. WEJBBER,

AUTHOR OF " HUNTER-NATURALIST — WILD BCBNE8 AND WILD HUNTBBB,
ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK:
LEAVITT AND ALLEN,

379 BROADWAY.

1858.

TO THE MEMORY OF

W37

Bu-P

HER NEW DAUGHTER
HAS STRIVEN WORTHILY TO PERPETUATE,

® Ijis Book,

THE FIRST FLOWER OF OUR LIVES,
IS INSCRIBED.

C ONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Page
NATURE AND HER HARMONIES, 1

CHAPTER II.

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS MOCKING-BIRDS IN A STRANGE NEST, ... 54

CHAPTER III.

MY HUMMING-BIRDS, 98

CHAPTER IV.

SONG OF THE CHILDREN ABOUT SPRING, 124

H
CHAPTER V.

DRAGGING THE SEINE, 134

CHAPTER VI.

ANALOGIES AND SIMILITUDES BIRDS AND POETS ILLUSTRATING

EACH OTHER 144

CHAPTER VII.

DROLLERIES OF THE WOODS, 180

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.

Page
MY PET WOOD THRUSHES, 190

CHAPTER IX.

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST AN ADVENTURE NEAR THE MOUTH OF

THE OHIO RIVER, 214

CHAPTER X.

EAGLES AND ART, 235

CHAPTER XI.

MY WIFE'S STORY OF HER PET CAT-BIRD " GENERAL BEM," . . . 274

CHAPTER XII.

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWKS, 287

CHAPTER XHI.

MY WIFE'S STORY OF HER PET FINCHES, 307

CHAPTER XIV.

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE, 318

CHAPTER XV.

GHOST-FLOWER AND CHILD A DREAM, 335

WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

CHAPTEE I.

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES.

I LOVE song-birds with a singular affection. Out of the
bottom of my heart I love them — for of all God's creatures,
except a clear-eyed, innocent child, they have been to me a
wonder and a miracle.

I never could get done wondering to hear them sing. It
sounds so strange to me that anything could be happy
enough to sing but angels and young girls !

Singing, when we come to think of it, seems properly to be
the language of a deathless being — the right form in which
the exultings of an Immortal should be poured among the
waves of shoreless sound.

That a sweet sound should ever cease to be, appears to me
unnatural — at least unpoetical — for, let its vibrations once
begin, though they may soon die to our gross sense, must
they not go widening, circling on, stinging the sense of my-
riad other lives with a mysterious pleasantness (such as will
overcome us in a wood upon an April day), until the utter-
most bound of our poor space be past, and yet the large cir-
cumference go spread and spreading tremulous among the
girdling stars ?

It may be so for all we can tell ! If it be so, how quaint
it is to hear these little feathered creatures, from some frail

2 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

sprig — with such unconscious earnestness — gushing out
strains that are to chime the solemn dance of systems!
Mystery is all around us. Who knows but that these
things be ?

Whether or no, it is a marvellous reality to hear birds
singing. If you look at them while they do it, with their
upturned bills, their rapt, softened, half-closed eyes, their
bodies quivering in the ecstatic travail — you cannot but feel
in reverential mood, and hear your own rebuked heart whis*
pering "let us pray!"

What ! When their shrill, melodious clamorings go up
with the mists before the sun, and make his coming over
earth to be with light in music, are they not chaunting mat-
ins to the God of all ?

When he hastens to decline, and from the spires of tree-
tops everywhere the Thrush and Eobin sing a low- voiced
hymn — is it not a vesper-symphomQ of thanks ?

And when, in the deep night, the Oriole, in dreamy twit-
terings, and the Mocking-bird, in clear, triumphing notes,
stir the dark shadows of the cold, gray moon to the wild
pulsing of unmeasured chords — is it not a worship fitting to
that mystic time ?

Verily, they symbol to us a spiritual and a holier life !
The purpose of their being is in prayer and praise, just as
they say it is with Angels.

They do not taste the fruits of earth, and revel in the
warm kisses of the day unthankfully ; but when their little
hearts — forever drinking love — fill up to the brim, they let
their cadent fulness go towards heaven.

They sing when they have eaten — they sing when they
have drunk — while they are waking, music always trembles
at their breasts — they pay back the caressing sun in sweet-
ness— and when they sleep, and the shining beams are show-
ered silently and pale, down from the bosom of the darkness
over them, their dreams break out in momentary song.

They take the berry, flushing underneath green leaves,

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 3

and the sense of hunger is relieved. So when they snatch
the earth-worm — stirring unusually the grass blades of the
sward beneath them — -from its slimy hole, the bare appetite
is soothed.

Theirs is no sodden gormandie, such as we human brutes
indulge, that would doze and snooze away the precious
hours. ISTo ; this food with them is but the " provender of
praise ;" and for every mite and fragment of the manna of
the " great Dispenser" they do obeisance in thanksgiving.

Beautiful lesson, is it not, to us a stiff-necked and ungrate-
ful generation? We eat to live, that we may eat again.
They eat that they may make merry before the Lord, and
fill his outer temple with the sounds of love !

One of the most touching — and what certainly should be
one of the most significant objects known to us, is afforded in
the habitual gesture of these little creatures while they drink.

Think of a thin rivulet by the meadow-side playing at bo-
peep with the sun beneath the thickets — and so clear withal,
that every stem, jagged limb, or crooked, leaf-weighed
bough, lies boldly shadowed on its pale sand, or over its
white pebbles, like moon-shades on the snow — except that
these are tremulous.

Then think of the singing throng who have been anticking
and carrolling all the morning upon the weed and clover-
tops, out under the sun — coming into that shady place about
"the sweltering time o' day," to cool their pipes.

How eagerly they come flitting in, with panting, open
throats ! How quietly, through those cool, chequered glooms,
thev drop beside that sliding crystal.

Here a scarlet Grosbeak flames partly in the sunlight,
while his ebony -set eyes gleam sharper in the shade ; the Jay
sits yonder behind a plumb-tree shadow, with lowered crest
and gaping bill — the Meadow Lark wades in and stoops until
the wavelets curl up against its yellow breast and kiss the dark
blotch on its throat ; the Wren comes creeping down with
wagging tail among the mossy roots ; the Orchard Oriole,

4 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

reckless to the last, comes garrulous, chattering down, and
dips upon an island pebble ; and Bobby Linkum, with his
amorous song shivered into silvery quavers, comes eagerly
hurrying after, and dashes up the spray, like as not, amid-
stream ; the Indigo Bird darts in, and the Sparrows skip
chirpingly over the curled last-winter leaves; the yellow-
eyed Thrush, with long bounds and drooping wings, splashes
plump into the water; the Cat Bird, with faint purr, glides
meekly down ; the Elfin Mocker, even, silent now and pant-
ing, half-spreading its white-barred wings with every hop,
follows the rest ; with low chirrup and quick pattering feet,
the dusky-dotted Partridge hurries in; now see them one
and all dip their thirsty bills into the cool ripples — a single
drop, then each is upturned towards heaven, and softest eyes
look the mute eloquence of thanks.

Down they all go again — anothei drop — up they rise to-
gether, pointing toward the home of God, gesticulating
praises while they take his gifts.

Beautiful worshippers ! Lovely and fitting temple of the
Most High ! your shady places have been hallowed by those
simple prayers. That inarticulate incense, like1 the invisible
aroma of hill-side violets, has ascended gratefully to heaven !

Ye human Formalists, who, to the alarm of chimes, go on
your knees to mumble the set forms of praise ! what is your
faith compared to these ?

Would that ye would read this Elder Bible more — its
wide, miraculous pages have many a sentient chapter such
as this, where all the breathing is of love ! Turn aside to
look upon them with a calm regard ; who knows but that
the light abiding with these gentle things, may find its way
through the hard crust of cant, and wake to flowering some
genial place beside thy heart.

Ye are not all ossified — brain, sense and heart — even down
to that altar of the belly gods within you! Be of good
cheer, and not affrighted because of great black-letter Tomes,
God's Commentary on his written Revelation was given first

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 5

—was handed down from a thousand Sinais, and strewed in
green and golden shadowy lines through all the plains. It
yet lives, and is, from under his own hand, above, around,
beneath thee ; and by it too ye may understand that holy mys-
tery— how God is Love, and Love is God-like.

These are not all the mysteries symbolized by Birds.

How carne old Genius to give wings to its embodied
visions of the Spirit-Land ? but that it had looked upon some
plumed and beamy singers of the clouds,

" With wings that might have had a soul within thorn,
They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment."

Can you not know that never again to it, from out the
umbrage, could " ministers of grace" or glad ideals come
other than "by such sweet enchantment?"

" The wings ! the wings !" Ah ! ever they must grow
upon The Beautiful, ere it can rise to Heaven !

To us on wings The Beautiful must come down from
thence ! It is with longing for these wings, this " Immortality"
doth struggle in us ! To the music of their mellow whirr
we feel exultmgs, and our bare arms beat vainly, reaching
toward the stars. Ah ! " whence this longing ?" — we poor
unfledged earth-prone things !

Is it not a memory dimly recalled of some mysterious whi-
lome when our free vans made sudden melody, cleaving past
the worlds, through space, where now our thoughts go
haunting ghost-like? — or is it that "the shadow of the
coming time" falls over us in wings ?

"The wings I1' — no fair Ideal can come to us but with
their light aerial movement — no dream of Love but with the
low murmur of their softest beat — no gleam of Joy but as
they glance the sunlight off in gambolling — no Hope but as
they climb the dark craigs of the piled-up storm and reach
the serene sky above — no Ambition

" But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on!"—

6 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

no Freedom but wheels and rushes tameless through the un-
bounded fields of air — no ecstasy of Faith, but like

" The lark whose notes do beat
The vanity heaven, so high above our heads,'

— " singeth at Heaven's gate I" — no spiritual Warning but
comes and goes, inexplicably, quick as the shadow of some
"full- winged bird," glides across our path upon a summer's
day — no Visitation but comes like a fierce swooper of the
sky, the moan of arrowy wings and stroke at once — no
Shudder from the charnel but the frowsy flap of owlet and
of bat, " chasing the lagging night-shades," or the cloud-
dropped croak of " sad presaging Eaven" going by must
bring it — no dash of " mirthful Phantasie" but that sparkles
from the jewelled wings of restless Hummers, light it amidst
the flowers.

All the mysteries of hope, of joy, of hate, of love, are
winged, and to the tameless pulsing of this winnowed air our
life must beat !

Winging and singing through the spring-time with the
birds our Childhood goes — and ever, while that

" Infantine

Familiar clasp of things divine,"

lingers in freshness with the years — keeping the wise youth
of our hearts unhackneyed — shall living be a joyful thing,
and the cycling moons wheel blithely with us !

Ah, those times! — with the yellow-haired, blue-eyed, bloom-
ing maidens, in their white pinafores and pantalettes ! —

" Lightsome, then, as April shadows,
With bees and merry birds at play,
Chasing sunlight o'er the meadows,"
were we !

Bounding and carrolling through the flower-starred, odorous
grass — scaring the fire-flies back to the moon, whence their

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 7

bright showers fell — driving the sad, plaining, ill-omened
whippoorwill farther away — what cared we on summer even-
ings?

" Rigor now is gone to bed —
Strict Age and sour Severity
With their grave saws in slumber lie!"

Go listen, we may, to the Mocking-Bird down in the val-
ley, -on the lone thorn tree — singing gleefully — singing
quaintly — singing mournfully now and wildly :

" And gushing then such a melodie
As harp-strings make when a Sprite goes by !"

Ha ! ha ! what a hotch-potch of minstrelsy he is pouring ! —
while the stars glint on the green leaves, and they are seem-
ing to glint back those silver points earth wise, barbing his
bright notes more keenly — what a dividing asunder of the
joints and marrow the sharp delight of those loud quaver-
ings doth bring ?

Many a time have we kissed the white innocence of an
upturned forehead, and felt the light pressure of a " flower-
soft hand" return the questioning of our gaze into the " fringed
windows" of the soul — large, open, dewy, tremulous with ec-
stasy beneath that song.

How could the earth-walking angel fail to think of Heaven
when those rare snatches of her natal roundelays went by ?
"Would that our kiss might be as pure and our spirit as appre-
ciative now of these "better symphonies!"

The years ! the years ! what changes do they bring ! The
heated walls, the din of wheels, the dust and smoke of the
great city are around us, and we are toiling wearily with the
weary toiling crowd — while away by the scented woods this
Mocking-Bird — our Philomel

" singing in summer's front !

Now when her mournful hymns do hush the night,
And that wild music burdens every bough !"

8 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

that wild music is in vain for us. We can only dream of it
as the thirsty Arab dreameth of the palm-trees and the foun-
tain— and as to

" How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night !"

we can only tell when these memories babble to our sleep !

To be sure we sometime since did steal an hour from our
duties, and run away like a truant school-boy to the country,
emulous of the odors of new-mown hay upon our garments !

"We caught this infection of sweetness while " loafing" on
the shady side of the ricks out in the shorn meadows, with
eyes half closed, listening to Bobby Linkum chirruping his
saucy thoughts about the despoliation of his forage-grounds.

He is a very chatty, gay, abusive fellow, Eobert Linkum
is. The utile et dulci he has no respect for. What matter is
it to him that grass smells sweeter for being cut, and that it
makes the heavy wains go creaking to the barns, and the far-
mer's canvas pocket heavier too, when all this curtails his
lineal prerogative of bugs and butterflies — puts him to shifts
for " findings" to keep that wide-mouthed crew of little
brawlers quiet he has hid yonder in the shrubs ?

One can see plainly he does not like it. He comes flutter
ing sideways, chattering, raving and scolding, just above our
heads, his eye cocked downwards, with a connoisseuring
look, at our proceeding.

He evidently thinks we are an awkward set of fellows, be-
sides being mischief-doers.

It does gladden one's eyes to see these waving lakes of
green — heavy and deep — the rich promise of a golden prime.
And then the fruits ! The pregnant winds from the dew-
dropping south, since Lang Syne, have hardly been so prod-
igal; the ruddy flushing from under the green leaves of
shiny clusters, deepens all the air, and clothes the trees right
royally.

We came back half mourning at our lot being cast amidst
the stifling streets of Gotham, and more than half envying

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 9

the " country folk" this prodigality of " the benedictions of
the covering heavens" and teeming earth.

But, thanks to our stars, we were not always thus " cribbed,
cabined, and confined I" That we have a heart still, and some
few tears left, to be spilt on occasion, we attribute solely to
the fact that we have lived much abroad in the freedom of
God's own woods and plains and rivers — that our voice has

" Awaked the courteous Echo
To give us answer from her mossy couch,"

in some strange, far places.

We have met this same master Bobby Linkum masquerading
in another dress through the savannahs of the pleasant south,
and such tricks before high Heaven as the gad-about doth
play, must make the angels smile — not "weep" — to witness!

But be comforted, thou of little locomotion ! thou shalt
know, even at thine own fire-side, this fantastical, as well in
his remoter wanderings toward the tropics, as in his love-
making time in thine own meadows — for

" Audubon !
Thou Eaphael of great Nature's woods and seas !"

has been upon his track. He with the

" Power to bear the untravelled soul

Through farthest wilds — o'er ocean's stormy roll —
And to the prisoner of disease bring home
The homeless bird of ocean's roaring foam !"

Hear what he caught master Bobby at :

"During their sojourn in Louisiana, in spring, their song,
which is extremely interesting, and emitted with a volubility
bordering on the burlesque, is heard from a whole party at
the same time ; when, as each individual is, of course, pos-
sessed of the same musical power as his neighbors, it becomes

10 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

amusing to listen to thirty or forty of them beginning one
after another, as if ordered to follow in quick succession,
after the first notes given by a leader, and producing such a
medley as it is impossible to describe, although it is extremely
pleasant to hear it. While you are listening, the whole flock
simultaneously ceases, which appears equally extraordinary.
This curious exhibition takes place every time that the flock
has alighted on a tree, after feeding for awhile on the ground,
and is renewed at intervals during the day."

But these are not all the curious ways Eobert has.

He is very fashionable, and Eke the other " absentee" gen-
try of the south, follows the spring toward the north to do
his courting. Now this is very sagacious of master Bob —
for he is aware that " spruce and jocund" maiden has a way
of making up for her shorter stay in these boreal regions, by
the displaying a greater profusion of " beck and nod, and
wreathed smiles I"

Sometimes the gallant is in too great a hurry to get the
benefit of these sweet dispensations, and he reaches the am-
orous vicinage before his " sparking suit" has come out — (the
change usually occurs during his transit).

Eobert is so evidently mortified at the want of his " Sun-
day-go-to-meetins" at such a time, that Mr. Audubon puts forth
the insinuation that the feathered " Mercutio" appears rather
mopish for awhile ; — such a volcanic heart has he, though,
that in spite of this, "no sooner does a flock of females (who
follow from a week to ten days after) make its appearance,
than these dull-looking gentlemen immediately pay them
such particular attention, and sing so vehemently, that the
fact of their being of a different sex becomes undeniable."

Kob gets his fine clothes on at last, and, while the love-
season lasts, becomes more sprightly than ever.

" Their song is mostly performed in the air, while they are
rising and falling in successive jerks, which are as amusing
as the jingling of their vocal essays. The variety of their
colors is at this juncture very remarkable. It is equally so,

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 11

when, on rising among from the grass and flying away from
the observer, they display the pure black and white of their
wings and body."

That love-song of Kob's has been greatly admired, and
several efforts have been made by distinguished amateurs to
set its music to words.

Nobody has made much of it, except our Irving, and as
we cannot quote him here, we shall not attempt to do it our-
self! — for the truth is, Bob is such a rattling, voluble, reck-
less, mad, melodious ranter, that an attempt to translate him
is almost out of the question — indeed, it would take a folio
of MS. to give all the little cataract of tender epithets that
pours in liquid gushes from his blithe throat, as he goes flut
tering and wagging up and down from one tall mullien top
to another !

But Eobert is in love, and sober people should not judge
him hardly — if they loved any one heartily as he loves Mrs.
Mary Linkum — hid away yonder in the grass, brooding over
those five speckled eggs — and their hearts were as light as
his, they would be garrulous too — that is all 1 Ah, Bobby I
Bobby ! we fear you are but a graceless scamp at last — to
think I that after such a mirthful life of musical lunacy, you
should turn freebooter before the year is out, and get your-
self shot at. Mr. Audubon tells a sad tale of your .after do-
ings. "We have misgivings you're a dissipated, rollicking
bird, at best, Eob !

" No sooner have the young left the nest, than they and
their parents associate with other families, so that by the end
of July large flocks begin to appear. They seem to come
from every portion of the Eastern States, and already resort
to the borders of the rivers and estuaries to roost. Their
songs have ceased, their males have lost their gay livery, and
have assumed the yellow hue of the females and young, al-
though the latter are more firm in their tints than the old
males, and the whole begin to return southward, slowly and
with a single dink, sufficient, however, to give intimation of

12 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

their passage, as they fly in high files during the whole
day.

" Now begin their devastations. They plunder every field,
but are shot in immense numbers. As they pass along the
sea-shores, and follow the muddy edges of the rivers, cover-
ed at that season with full-grown reeds, whose tops are bent
down with the weight of the ripe seeds, they alight amongst
them in countless multitudes, and afford abundant practice
to every gunner.

"It is particularly towards sunset, and when the weather is
fine, that the sport of shooting Reed Birds is most profitable.
They have then fully satiated their appetite, and have col-
lected together for the purpose of roosting. At the discharge
of a gun, a flock sufficient to cover several acres rises en masse,
and performing various evolutions, densely packed, and re-
sembling a sultry cloud, passes over and near the sportsman,
when he lets fly, and finds occupation for some time in pick-
ing up the dozens which he has brought down at a single
shot. One would think that every gun in the country has
been put in requisition. Millions of these birds are destroy-
ed, and yet millions remain, for after all the havoc that has
been made among them in the Middle Districts, they follow
the coast, and reach the rice plantations of the Carolinas in
such astonishing numbers, that no one could conceive their
flocks to have been already thinned. Their flesh is extreme-
ly tender and juicy. The markets are amply supplied, and
the epicures have a glorious time of it."

We have a charming counterpart of Eobert in the South
and West, among the Orioles. He is called the Orchard or
Parson Oriole, from the soberness of his garments ; but O !
commend us to such Parsons as he — the merry " clerk of
Copenhurst" would be demure beside him ! — The gleeful,
thoughtless, sinner! he can't go from one tree-top to an-
other, (for he is more ambitious than Eob, and swings his
grass- wove hammock from pinnacle orchard boughs,) without
ranting in such a glad, rattle-pate, glorious fashion about his

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 18

happiness, keeping time with his wings as he flutters and
dives along, that one cannot help feeling he is about to go
all to pieces in his ecstasy ; be verily fragmented into sweet
sounds !

But no such thing ; he's a tough little preacher of cheerful-
ness, and holds together with all that riotous, jolly rantipole.

Ah, how we have laughed on a spring morning, to wit-
ness his delirious bliss, as he went exhorting by, to his so-
berer neighbors, about love and sunshine, the dew and flow-
ers ; bugs and caterpillars too, no doubt !

" Hail to thee, blithe spirit !"• — thou embodied joy ! winged
laughter ! — pleasant indeed is thy faith of mirth, and wiser
far than that of canting ! Mr. Audubon gives a felicitous
account of the funny, ingenious ways of this jollificating
Eeverend.

" No sooner have they reached the portion of the country in
which they intend to remain during the time of raising their
young, than these birds exhibit all the liveliness and vivacity
belonging to their nature. The male is seen rising in the air
from ten to twenty yards in an indirect manner, jerking his
tail and body, flapping his wings, and singing with remark-
able impetuosity, as if under the influence of haste, and anx-
ious to return to the tree from which he has departed. He
accordingly descends with the same motions of the body and
tail, repeating his pleasing song as he alights. These gam-
bols and carollings are performed frequently during the day,
the intervals being employed in ascending or descending
along the branches and twigs of different trees, in search of
insects or larvas. In doing this, they rise on their legs, sel-
dom without jetting the tail, stretch the neck, seize the prey,
and emit a single note, which is sweet and mellow, although
in power much inferior to that of the Baltimore. At other
times, it is seen bending its body downwards, in a curved
posture, with the head gently inclined upwards, to peep at
the under parts of the leaves, so as not to suffer any grub to
escape its vigilance. It now alights on the ground, where it

14 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

has spied a crawling insect, and again flies towards the blos-
soms, in which many are lurking, and devours hundreds of
them each day ; thus contributing to secure to the farmer the
hopes which he has of the productiveness of his orchard.

" The arrival of the females is marked with all due regard,
and the males immediately use every effort in their power to
procure from them a return of attention. Their singings and
tricks are performed with redoubled ardor, until they are
paired, when nidification is attended to with the utmost ac-
tivity. They resort to the meadows, or search along the
fences for the finest, longest, and toughest grasses they can
find, and having previously fixed on a spot, either on an
apple-tree, or amidst the drooping branches of the weeping-
willow, they begin by attaching the grass firmly and neatly
to the twigs more immediately around the chosen place.
The filaments are twisted, passed over and under, and inter-
woven in such a manner as to defy the eye of a man to fol-
low their windings. All this is done by the bill of the bird,
in the manner used by the Baltimore Oriole. The nest is of
a hemispherical form, and is supported by the margin only.
It seldom exceeds three or four inches in depth, is open al-
most to the full extent of its largest diameter at the top or
entrance, and finished on all sides, as well as within, with
the long slender grasses already mentioned. Some of these
go round the nest several times, as if coarsely woven together.
This is the manner in which the nest is constructed in Lou-
isiana : in the Middle Districts it is usually lined with soft
and warm materials."

On the whole, in this instance, we like the Southern Par-
son best ; for, in addition to being quite as facetious and lov-
ing as Master Rob, he proves to be a much better citizen ;
for his admirers, instead of having their sense of propriety
shocked, in seeing him turn wholesale plunderer, are told of
his " contributing to secure to the farmer his hopes of the
productiveness of his orchard."

"We would advise all ironside philosophers, catechism in

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 15

hand, to go to the Sunday school, (for all days are

to him) where this little Parson teaches : — it is possible such

may learn of more things there than they have dreamed of

yet.

In addition to the healthful tonic of his laughing ethics,
through which their lank sides may grow to shake with fat,
perhaps the Parson, in exhibiting the process by which that
woven domicil of his is constructed, may enlighten them as
to the absurdity of certain dogmatisms concerning instinct.

Beside the consummate and delicate skill with which he
plies the long, fibrous thread, with small feet and needle-like
bill, weaving, plaiting, sewing — there is something in that
facility of adaptation, which, in Louisiana, exhibits the nest
" coarsely woven," that the air may pass through, and in the
middle States " lined with soft and warm materials," that so
curiously resembles " reasoning ;" that is amazingly like an
independent volition, guided by the familiar and simple pro-
cess of " Induction 1" Who knows ? " A little bird told me
sot"

The Parson is indignantly eloquent upon these points
sometimes. He says that he displays quite as much judg-
ment and more foresight, in selecting the locality and ma-
terial of his house, than we " animals on two legs, without
feathers" ever do; that he is bred to be a better artist than
one in a thousand of us ; that Orioles are no more compel-
led, by a resistless impulse, to build their houses in a partic-
ular way, without understanding the reason why, than the
Hindoos are, to build Pagodas ; that he does understand the
reason perfectly, and it is the plainest imaginable one.

This particular form is chosen, because it suits his habits,
tastes, and mode of life best, and that, the Chinaman, who
has built his house in the same way (so far as we know) for
three thousand years, can give no better reason.

That though a particular outline suits him best, and suited
his forefathers the best, yet they have been in the habit of
altering the construction and material ; and he knows why,

16 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

clearly enough, that in a hot climate it would not do to make
them close and warm, or in a cold climate, open.

It stands to reason, in the one case, that the young would
be suffocated, in the other, frozen.

Furthermore, continues the orator, it is all fal lal I the as-
sertion that my young are taught by any such thing as in-
instinct when to pierce the shell ; the principle of life has
germinated, as it does in a grain of corn, in a certain number
of days, under the warmth of my breast, and when the little
fellows begin to get strong, they kick and scuffle in their
prison, and a small sharp cone, on the top of the beak, (which
was put there for the purpose, and drops off in a few days,)
soon cracks the shell, while they are struggling, and then we
help them out.

And furthermore, my younglings are just as innocently
silly as your younglings, or any other young geese, and will
run into the water, or into the fire just as soon as others,
until they have burnt their toes, or got themselves half-
drowned for their curiosity, and then, as this is not pleasant,
they are satisfied to keep themselves out of such scrapes.

Do I not go with them all the summer, keeping them out
of difficulties, coaxing and scolding, learning them how to
fly, how to catch bugs, chase butterflies, find caterpillars, to
hide from their enemies, plume themselves, and sing ; and
can't you understand, that yet, though I cannot speak He-
brew or English, I speak the Oriole tongue, and learn them
to speak and comprehend it, that I may teach them the morals
and religion of the Orioles !

Faugh ! instinct indeed ! Don't you perceive they are reg-
ularly educated? If you great, stupid, clumsy animals, only
had feathers on, there might be a faint hope of your learning
something !

We think this will be recognized as a very unctuous and
edifying discourse of our Parson's ; such are his more didatic
teachings ; of the others you have heard.

But we must confess that the Parson, with all our respect

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 17

for him, has certainly some very mysterious ways. Mr. Au-
dubon plainly intimates, that in common with all spirited
young "bloods," he is frequently "disguised," and that it re-
quires several years for him to take upon himself the " sober,
outward seeming" of his tribe or profession.

The whole extent of the curious and interesting charge
the Naturalist brings against him, may be gathered from the
passage we give below ; premising that he speaks of him as
the "Orchard," while we know him as the "Parson Oriole."

" The plumage of many species of our birds undergoes at
times very extraordinary changes. Some, such as the male
Tanagers, which during the summer months exhibit the most
vivid scarlet and velvety black, assume a dingy green before
they leave the country, on their way southward. The Gold-
finch nearly changes to the same color, after having been seen
in the gay apparel of yellow and black. The Eice Bird
loses, its lively brightness until the return of spring. Others
take several years before they complete their plumage, so as
to show the true place which they hold among the other
species, as is the case with the Ibis, the Flamingo, and
many other Waders, as well as with several of our land birds,
among which, kind reader, the species now under your con-
sideration is probably that in which these gradual improve-
ments are most observable by such persons as reside in the
country inhabited by them.

" The plumage of the young birds of this species, when
they leave the nest, resembles that of the female parent, al-
though rather less decided in point of coloring, and both
males and females retain this color until the approach of the
following spring, when the former exhibit a portion of black
on the chin, the females never altering. In birds kept in
cages, this portion of black remains without farther augmen-
tation for two years ; but in those which are at liberty, a cu-
rious mixture of dull orange or deep chesnut peeps out
through a considerable increase of black-colored feathers
over the body and wings, intermixed with the yellowish-

2

18 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

green hue which the bird had when it left the nest. The
third spring brings him nearer towards perfection, as at that
time the deep chesnut color has taken possession of the lower
parts, the black has deepened on the upper parts, and over the
whole head, as well as on the wings and tail-feathers. Yet
the garb with which it is ultimately to be covered requires
another return of spring before it is completed, after which
it remains as exhibited in the adult male represented in the
plate.

u These extraordinary changes are quite sufficient of them-
selves to lead naturalists abroad into error, as they give rise
to singular arguments even with some persons in America,
who maintain that the differences of color are indicative of
different species. But, since the habits of these birds under
all these singular changes of plumage, are ascertained to be
precisely the same, the argument no longer holds good'."

Of whatever impositions upon "the sex," "the Parson"
may have been guilty, during the years of his various dis-
guises, we profess to be innocently ignorant, and are " happy
in our ignorance."

But of one thing we are soberly assured : that Mr. Audu
bon is the first of Naturalists, (not Ornithologist, simply,)
who has eliminated this distinction of age, sex and color,
with their corresponding transitions, into anything bordering
upon scientific accuracy. He first thoroughly roused science
to the fact that it had often recognized male as female, young
as old, and proved that many of its genera and species might
come from the same nest or lair !

No classification can be called, scientific, or recognized as
worth anything, in which this point has not been most care-
fully guarded ; and it involves difficulties, which, in some
instances, the untiring zeal and watchfulness of his long life
has been insufficient to solve.

What a singular ordination these alterations of plumage
appears ! The metamorphoses of Fashion are here clearly
legitimatized by nature. Our Parson, with the addition of

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 19

Rev. may be called the D'Orsay of Birds, and the tribe of the
Tanagers, the Patriarchs of " Turn-coats." Let not the wor-
shippers of Fashion be longer stigmatized as nose-led by a
Parisian Dandy, or old Federalists, or new light Locofocos,
as nasally guided by the savor of "flesh-pots." Here they
have far more respectable precedents : their respective orders
were no doubt instituted by Nature herself. Should they but
consult this candid and ancient Dame, she would, no doubt,
recommend to the " Count" the figure of our "Parson," as
proper to be introduced into his coat-of-arms, and to the
Tory Demagogues that of the Tanagers as proper to the coat-
of-arms they see in "yearning dreams."

Audubon uses a charming phrase in characterizing the en-
thusiasm which he found himself giving way to in the de-
scription of his feeling on the unexpected consummation
of what he considered the triumphant achievement of his
life — the discovery of the Bird of Washington. He sud-
denly fears that he may be considered as " prattling out of
fashion !" Well, that is just the thing ! I consider it pe-
culiarly felicitous and to the point.

Though the story may not be particularly savory in some
of its associations, I shall even venture, at the risk of such
an imputation, to relate one from the reminiscences of my
early boyhood concerning those sharp denizens of air, known
as " Corvus Americanus" — the gentleman in black.

I once saw some crows feeding on the offal of a late slaugh-
tering of domestic animals not far from my father's house.
There had been a very deep snow on the ground for some
weeks, and the crows had become very ravenous. The place
where they fed, was within gun-shot of a cedar-hedge. After
firing amongst them once or twice, they all took the alarm,
and to my knowledge, never came back again, except one
very large, and, I should think, gray-muzzled bird. I noticed
that he uniformly seemed to have his eye or nose, it is diffi-
cult to tell which, upon me ; for when I would reach my
hiding-place, I could see the gentleman make a desperate

20 WILD SCENES AND SONG BIRDS.

tear at some liver hanging on the fence rails, and down he
would dip as quick as lightning, behind the wood-pile next
the fence, and when I would fire impatiently with the hope
to secure him, he would fly, cawing, off, rising in triumph
to the tops of the highest trees, with his prey in his mouth.

This was repeated day after day, for nearly a week, with
about the .same results, he still returning in unyielding au-
dacity for his prey, in the teeth of all my threatening efforts.
I had sworn vengeance against this particular crow, and at
last hit upon what I conceived to be an admirable expedient.
I put up a little board house near the corner where he fed,
and having formed it large enough to conceal my body,
made a small esquimaux ambuscade, or hunting-lodge of it,
by covering it above, and on all side's, with snow, leaving a
little loop-hole, chinked with snow, that could easily be
pushed out with my gun-barrel, and a small window, through
which I could barely see the place where I expected the crow
to alight, and where I had placed a most tempting great
piece of liver for a bait.

I had studiously accomplished this work between sundown
and dusk, the time when the crows had all gone to roost. In
the morning, about 10 o'clock, I crawled into my hunting-
lodge, thinking I should have him now for sure ; I had to
sit not more than an hour, when, with palpitating heart, I
heard above me his noisy caw. I had concealed my body
carefully, because I knew he inspected, while on the wing,
all the premises. He approached my old hiding-place very
cautiously, mounting high in the air ; when seeming to be
satisfied, he poised himself for a moment, and came down
in a slanting direction towards the liver, with something of
the quick movement of a hawk's swoop — I clutched my gun,
preparing to fire the moment he should alight. He had to
pass, of course, near my little lodge, that I thought had been
so dexterously concealed, in imitation of a pile of wood and
snow, but, while yet on the swoop, the crow seeing, I suppose,
that there was something suspicious in that corner of the wood,

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 21

almost brushed, with his wing, the delicious breakfast as he
went by, darted upward more swiftly than he descended, and
flew off to his own woods, squalling defiance to his indefati-
gable enemy as he went.

I never saw that crow again, that I know of. He never
came back, and the best proof of it was, that the liver still
lay on the fence corner, where it had been placed, until the
winter broke.

I can conceive no other solution to this curious incident,
than that our friend with the black coat was willing to meet
myself, or any other puissant champion, in fair field and on
fair terms, for a taste of those esculent morsels which were
so necessary to him during the winter, and though not particu-
larly partial to gunpowder, his experience had rendered him
sufficiently confident to be willing to run the risks — when
he knew my hiding-place.

While he knew what to fear, he knew how to deport him-
self accordingly ; but when it came to treachery to all the
laws of war ; a change of the place, a well-disguised snow-
trap buried in the white, unsuspected bosom of old Mother
Earth, the thing was horrible ! It frightened him out of his
propriety ! Paugh ! or rather, caw ! such a traitor ! It was
indecent, it was savage, it was unmannerly ! Caw ! caw I

But what is all this shrewdness to be called ? a mere blind
Instinct ? or has it some processes apparent, closely resem-
bling those of Eeason ? Is it a pair of sharp eyes and keen
nostrils, guiding the safety of a mere machine with black
feathers and black wings through the air ? Has it passions,
affections, power of adaptation, hope, memory, &c. ? These
are interesting questions.

This is, no doubt, "prattling out of fashion" sure enough
— but what of it ? The Good Book sayeth out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings ye shall rebuke them, and the above
phrase precisely expresses that peculiar and excited vernacular
which belongs equally to children and philosophers, as con-
trasted with the dull lasping see-saw of common place. Take

22 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

a " minnion of the mud" who has set up for worldly wisdom,
and he will dole you, measured by the foot-rule, putrescing
fragments of stale conventionalities, until the mortal stench,
rank in your complaining nostrils, offends your very life ;
but your singing birds prattle out of fashion, to lull the dewy
eye-lids of the eve; so do blithe young girls and angels, if
we may judge — as for the morning stars that " sang together'
long ago, no doubt they did it out of all "rule and precedence."
Would that there were more of this prattling out of fashion,
to battle with the monster " monotone of Boredom." But
hear what Mr. Audubon himself writes concerning this quaint
citizen of whom we were speaking, while he pleads like
an old Priest of Brahma for mercy to all God's creatures.
He says —

" The Crow is an extremely shy bird, having found famil-
iarity with man no way to his advantage. He is also cun-
ning— at least he is so called, because he takes care of him-
self and his brood. The state of anxiety, I may say of ter-
ror, in which he is constantly kept, would be enough to
spoil the temper of any creature. Almost every person has
an antipathy to him, and scarcely one of his race would be
left in the land, did he not employ all his ingenuity, and
take advantage of all his experience, in counteracting the
evil machinations of his enemies. I think I see him perched
on the highest branch of a tree, watching every object
around. He observes a man on horseback travelling towards
him; he marks his movements in silence. No gun does the
rider carry — no, that is clear ; but perhaps he has pistols in
the holsters of his saddle ! of that the crow is not quite sure,
as he cannot either see them or ' smell powder.' He beats
the points of his wings, jerks his tail once or twice, bows his
head, and merrily sounds the joy which he feels at the mo-
ment. Another man he spies walking across the field to-
wards his stand, but he has only a stick. Yonder comes a
boy, shouldering a musket, loaded with large shot, for the
express purpose of shooting crows ! The bird immediately

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 23

sounds the alarm ; he repeats his cries, increasing their vehe-
mence the nearer his enemy advances — all the crows, within
half a mile round, are seen flying off, each repeating the well
known notes of the trusty watchman, who, just as the young
gunner is about to take aim, betakes himself to flight. But,
alas! he chances, unwittingly, to pass over a sportsman,
whose dexterity is greater ; the mischievous prowler aims his
piece, fires ; down towards the earth, broken-winged, falls the
luckless bird in an instant. ' It is nothing but a crow!' quoth
the sportsman, who proceeds in search of game, and leaves
the poor creature to die in the most excruciating agonies."

Sharp fellows they are, and hard to be fooled — those
crows ! We have often thought, that with his dark plumes
and ready wit, he must be on the other side of " Styx" the
Plutonian Mercury. Some of the funniest things we have
seen him do, that would have made the frosty, antique Zeno
laugh like a Bacchante. He is " exclusively up to snuff," in
all the wiles and ways of this wicked world. Catch a crow
napping, or lure him within "point blank" if you can, unless
you meanly take advantage of his passions or of his social
feelings.

As we are fully launched in the discursive direction, we
may as well give an anecdote of this trait :

We saw a vile, but comical trick, practiced upon him once
" out West."

A fellow had caught a large owl in a hollow tree. He
took him out into an open field much frequented by crows,
and tied him on the top of a low stake within gun-shot of a
stack, where he concealed himself. In a little while the
crows, who are inveterate in their hatred of such twilight
enemies, came thronging clamorously from all quarters about
the owl, and commenced buffetting him heartily. The fellow
shot and killed several of them before they took warning in
the blindness of their wrath, but just as they were commenc-
ing to shear off, an accidental shot brought down one merely
winged.

24 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

He came out from his hiding-place and caught it, while
the brawling flock scattered to a respectful distance. He
then, in a singular whim, took the owl, and pinned it with
a piece of twine and pegs firmly to the earth, on its back,
and held the struggling crow within reach of its claws,
when it was instantly griped with a dearth-hold. Such a
rueful squalling as the poor wretch set up, may be conceived
by those who know the power of their lungs.

The genius did not think it necessary to hide himself this
time, but coolly stood off some thirty or forty paces to wait the
result. The cries of their suffering brother brought not only
every crow in the field around him at once to the rescue, but the
deafening hurrah of their united voices spread the alarm far and
wide, till the whole district was aroused, and in a little while
the very sky was darkened with their black wings, and ring-
ing with their clamors. All the terrors of gunpowder were
forgotten, and they were almost piled 'over the owl and his
victim, screaming and battling for his release, regardless, in
their valorous sympathy, of the deadly hail which was crashing
amongst them.

With a relentless gusto, the fellow continued to ply ram-
rod and trigger, until the ground was strewed like a battle-
field with the dead or fluttering wounded. That "practi-
cal humorist" deserved to have been hung with his head
down, till the buzzards picked his eyes out! This was
worse than what Mr. Audubon indignantly terms "the base
artifice of laying poisoned grain along the fields to tempt the
poor birds 1" Hear his merciful eloquence reason with bigoted
ignorance in behalf of this sadly persecuted, but interesting
and useful bird :

" The crow devours myriads of grubs every day of the year,
that might lay waste the farmer's fields ; it destroys quadru-
peds innumerable, every one of which is an enemy to his
poultry and his flocks. Why then should the farmer be so
ungrateful when he sees such services rendered to him by his
providential friend, as to persecute that friend to death?

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 25

Unless he plead ignorance, surely he ought to be found
guilty at the bar of common sense. Were the soil of the
United States like that of some other countries, nearly ex-
hausted by long-continued cultivation, human selfishness
in such a matter might be excused, and our people might
look on our crows as other people look on theirs ; but every
individual in the land is aware of the superabundance of
food that exists among us, and of which a portion may well
be spared for the feathered beings that tend to enhance our
pleasures — by the sweetness of their song — the innocence of
their lives — or their curious habits* Did not every American
open his door and his heart to the wearied traveller, and af-
ford him food, comfort and rest, I would at once give up the
argument ; but when I know by experience, the generosity
of the people, I cannot but wish that they would reflect a
little, and become more indulgent towards our poor, humble,
harmless, and ever most serviceable bird — the crow !"

A crow-roost is one of the most singular places that ever
mortal found himself in. Mr. Audubon speaks of their
roosting by the " margins of ponds, lakes and rivers, upon
the rank weeds and cat-tails," but I met them while hunt-
ing among the hills of the Green Eiver country, Kentucky,
roosting in a very different manner. I saw them stream-
ing over my head, in great numbers, one evening, and hear-
ing a most unusual noise in the direction they all seemed to
pursue, my curiosity induced me to follow on, and see what
it meant. As I advanced, the sound grew in volume, until
at last, as I rounded the abrupt angle of a hill side, covered
with a tall growth of young black oaks, it burst upon me
with a commingled roar of barking notes and beating wings,
that was positively stunning. All around for the space of
half an acre, the cracking- trees were bent beneath multiplied
thousands of crows, shifting and flapping, with unceasing
movement ; every one screaming his vociferous caw in bois-
terous emulation. It resembled a pigeon-roost very closely,
except that it was not so extensive or grand ; and it differed,

26 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

furthermore, in the fact, that by the time dark had set in,
they were all quiet — sitting, black and still, in heaped cones,
as they were denned against the dim sky ; while in a pigeon
roost, the heavy thundering of restless wings continues to
roll on, without interval, until just before day.

This interesting fact in relation to the habitudes of the crow,
and which I have observed to occur only in the winter, when
they need the animal heat arising from the mutual contact of
their many bodies as a protection from the extremities of cold,
is an extraordinary example of that reasoning adaptation of
the means to the end upon which I insist.

This same incident, of the departure upon so large a scale of
every creature from its usual habits, under the force of cir-
cumstances, is only paralleled by another fact which, though
not mentioned either in any of the books of Natural History,
I know to be strictly true. It refers to an occasional mode
of Hybernating resorted to by the Prairie Hen, or Pinnated
Grouse.

The most extraordinary phenomenon produced by the neces-
sities of the climate, and as a protection against the terrible
winds which sweep over these apparently illimitable levels, at
the approach of winter, consists, in the assembling of these
birds, from a distance of many miles around, to roost on the
same spot, something after the manner of the Wild Pigeon.
This fact seems also to have escaped Mr. Audubon's notice.

At the opening of winter, a spot is selected, on the open
prairies, in the upper part of the Missouri country, which is
more sheltered than the surrounding region, by the character
of the ground, from the biting force of the north-west winds.
Here the Prairie Hens begin to assemble early in the even-
ing, and by the time dusk comes on immense numbers are
collected. They approach the scene in small flocks, in a leis-
urely manner, by short flights. They approach the place of
gathering silently, with nothing of that whirr of wings, for
which they are noted when they are suddenly put up, but
they make ample amends when they arrive ; as in the Pigeon

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 27

roost, there is a continual roar, caused by the restless shifting
of the birds, and sounds of impatient struggle emitted by
them, which can be heard distinctly for several miles. The
numbers collected are incalculably immense, since the space
covered sometimes extends for over a mile in length, with a
breadth determined by the character of the ground.

This is a most astonishing scene. When approached in
the early part of the night on horseback, the hubbub is
strangely discordant, and overwhelmingly deafening. They
will permit themselves to be killed in great numbers with
sticks, or any convenient weapon, without the necessity of
using guns. They, however, when frequently disturbed in
the first of the season, will easily change their roosting-place,
but when the heavy snows have fallen, by melting which by
the heat of their bodies, and by trampling it down, they have
formed a sort of sheltered yard, the outside walls of which de-
fend them against the winds, they are not easily driven away
by any degree of persecution. Indeed, at this time, they be-
come so emaciated as to afford but little inducement to any
human persecutors, by whom they are seldom troubled, in-
deed, on account of the remoteness of these locations ; from
foxes, wolves, hawks, and owls, &c., their natural enemies,
they have, of course, to expect no mercy at any time.

The noise of their restless duckings, flutterings and shift-
ings, begins to subside a few hours after dark. The birds
have now arranged themselves for the night, nestled as close
as they can be wedged — every bird with his breast turned to
the quarter in which the wind may be prevailing. This scene is
one of the most curious that can be imagined, especially when
they have the moonlight on the snow to contrast with their
dark backs.- At this time, they may be killed by cart-loads,
as only those in the immediate neighborhood of the aggressor
are disturbed, apparently. They rise to the height of a few
feet, with a stupefied and aimless fluttering, and plunge into
the snow, within a short distance, where they are easily taken
by the hand. In these helpless conditions, such immense

28 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

numbers are destroyed that the family would be in danger
of rapid extermination, but that the fecundity of the survi-
vors nearly keeps pace with the many fatalities to Avhich
they are liable.

These birds are distributed over an immense northern ter-
ritory, and though they are, everywhere in the more shel-
tered regions, found to exhibit the propensity to collect in
numbers greater or smaller during the extreme cold weather
in low spots where they will have some shelter from the acci-
dental peculiarities of the locality, yet nowhere else except
upon just these wide plains are they to be found in such as-
tonishing congregations as we have here described. The
universal habit of all this family of Gallinacise is rather to
run and roost in little squads or flocks. Whence this differ-
ence in the habits of the same bird. Who knows ? Ah,
whence the difference ? This is the question !

Now your metaphysical philosophers are as thick as black-
birds in cherry-time among us — and quite as fussy. Every
village pot-house has a genius in ragged breeches and with a
long score of "chalks" against him, who will prove to you
that Christianity is a delusion, and the doctrine of immor-
tality all nonsense, by such imposing logic as that "you can
neither see a soul, hear a soul, taste a soul, smell a soul,
nor — " an astounding climax which we would think of doubt-
ing to be true in his case — " feel a soul !" But, let them
alone. It is all right. This is an age of progression and
discovery.

"How many a vulgar Oato has compelled
His energies, no longer tameless then,
To mould a pin or fabricate a nail!

How many a Newton, to whose passive ken," &c.

Let them alone, we say. There is no telling what these
"vulgar" Catos and Kewtons may not accomplish. The
chronicles of olden times are filled with wondrous tales,
showing how they, once in awhile, shake off the crust, and

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 29

step forth suddenly before the world's eye, cap-a-pie, in
shining armor, becoming men of renown in the fight of faith,
or the weary marches of science. We have a strong incli-
nation to set up for one of these vulgar JSTewtons ourselves,
with the permission of the benevolent reader, as we are about
to be guilty of an audacious speculation — and if we were not
perhaps as much in joke as in earnest, we might be glad to dep-
recate responsibility, on the plea of " unsophisticated genius,"
&c. ; but though one sense of " unsophisticated" may suit us
well enough, yet we hardly dare to claim shelter under any
other sense of a name so sacred in the mythos of human hope,

•It may be only one of those dreams which, like the poet's
ideal, haunts men from and in boyhood. We were then, as
is usual, much fonder of the great wide pages, shadowy, wav-
ing, glittering and green, of nature's writing, than all the
black-letter tomes that ever wearied eye of scholar. And
while a scape-grace and hopeless truant, we paddled, bare-foot,
through the pebbly brook, tore our juvenile trousers climb-
ing for young squirrels, or winning a freckled necklace of
birds' eggs for our blue-eyed sweetheart. We had a faint
conception that the language we read there should be trans-
lated ! Not that which we read in the blue eyes, specially,
do we mean ; but on the general page of the living revela-
tion ; for as we said 'our incorrigible visuals would not even
then permit us to see that Reason and Instinct were alto-
gether unlike.

We took in our hands a definition of Reason, accepted by
the sages, and went out among these sentient, breathing
forms of life, condemned by them to the blind guidance and
fatality of Instinct, that we might compare the theory of one
with the reality of the other.

The song-bird twittered at us ; the wild deer turned to
stare ; the squirrel sputtered from his nut-crammed jaws, and
the insects buzzed curiously around us — for the story got out
that there was " a chiel amang 'em takin' notes," and they
did not understand but that we meant them some imperti-

30 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

nence ; but they soon found out that we were harmless, at
least, and grew reconciled.

Many a calm hour we spent among the cool, dim aisles of the
mighty forests, still as the dark trunks around us, watching
now the Baltimore oriole with coy taste, select a twig to
hang her cradle from, and when her motherly care was sat-
isfied that a particular one hung clear beyond the reach of
the dreaded snake, or mischievous climbers, one and all, —
that there was a tuft of leaves above it, which would pre-
cisely shield it from the noontide sun — then commences her
airy fabric.

How ingeniously she avails herself of the forks a'nd
notches to twist the first important thread around ! How
housewife-like she plaits and weaves the grassy fibres ! The
unmanageable horse-hair, too, is used ; how soberly she plies
her long, sharp bill and delicate feet ! Now she drops that
thread as too rotten to be trusted, and reprovingly sends off
her careless, chattering mate to get another. He is proud
of his fine coat, and dissipates his time in carolling ; but in
her prudent creed, sweet songs won't build a home for the
little folk, and so she very properly makes the idle fellow
work.

At last, after a deal of sewing, webbing, roofing, — and
scolding, too, tae while — the house is finished, thatch, door,
and all. The softest velvet from the mullen stalk must
line it now ; and then elate upon the topmost bough, she si-
lently upturns her bill toward heaven, while her mate pours
forth their joy for labors done, in thrilling gushes !

In those old times, sitting upon a gnarled root, I would bend
for hours over some thronged city of the ants. Why, how
is this ? Here from the great entrance — roads branch off on
every side. How clean, and smooth, and regular, they are !
See, yonder is a dead limb fallen across the course. Amaze-
ment ! A tunnel ! A tunnel I they have sunk it beneath
the obstruction too heavy for the power of their mechanics I
Follow the winding track. See, that thick turf of grass ! It

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 31

is easier to go round it than to cut through it. And there,
behold a mountain pebble in the way ; see how the road is
made to sweep in a free curve round the base.

Lay now that small stone across the narrow way ! See !
The common herd — the stream of dull-eyed laborers — how
they are confounded by the interruption. They fall back upon
each other — all is confusion. The precious burdens they
bore with so much care, are dropped — to and fro they run
— all is consternation and alarm.

But look ! That portly, lazy fellow, who seemed to have
nothing to do but to strut back and forth in the sun, now
wakes up. He rushes to the scene. All give way from
his path, and close crowdingly in his wake. He is one
evidently having authority. He climbs upon the stone ;
runs over it rapidly ; measures it with his antennas ; and
down he glides among the still, expectant crowd. Here,
there, yonder, everywhere, in a moment — he selects among
the multitude those best fitted for the purpose with which
his sagacious head is full — touches them with the antennas
of command, and each one, obedient, hurries to the stone.

No more confusion — every one is in his place awaiting
orders, not daring to begin yet. He is back now to the
stone. The signal is given ! Each of the selected workers
lay hold of it. See, how they tug and strain !

What ? Not strength enough. An additional number are
chosen. They seize hold. Now they move it ! My lord, the
overseer does not put a hand to it himself, or a pincer either,
— but, see how he plays round, keeps the crowd out of the
way, and directs the whole.

It is done ! The stone is rolled out from the highway,
and we will not put another one on it; it is cruel thus
to use our giant's strength like a giant, and we are satis-
fled. The little laborers resume their burdens ; away they
go streaming on to the citadel ; while the great man re-
lapses suddenly into the old air of sluggish dignity.

But follow that road ; it leads an hundred yards — clearly

32 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

traceable through, above, under, around, all impediments :
here the main road branches off, and is lost, or it ends at the
tree with many insects on its bark, or at some great deposit of
favorite food that has been found ; and all this pains and labor
have been expended in digging that road to secure the con-
venience of transportation !

Talk of your Simplon or your Erie Canal, or your hun-
dreds of miles of human railroads! Wonderful Instinct,
indeed !

Dig away the earth carefully, and look into that subterra-
nean city. Here are streets, galleries, arches and domes,
bridges, granaries, nurseries, walls, rooms of state — aye, pal-
aces— cells for laborers, all the features and fixtures, diverse
and infinite of a peopled city of humanity !

But see, a war has broken out with a neighboring city !
Marvellous sight I The eager legions pour in a black flood
from the gates. The chief men and captains of the peo-
ple distinguished, not by plumes and stars, and orders, but
by their greater size, and the formidable strength of their
pincers. They are marshalled into bands — they know the
strength of discipline and military science ! In one wide,
sweeping, unbroken line, they pour upon the enemy's town.

The fight is desperate — hand to hand — pincer to pin-
cer ; for it is a battle for dear life — liberty and larvae ! The
vanquished are dragged into slavery; the larvae carried
off and tenderly nourished by the conquerors, and when
they grow up are made helots of, hewers of wood and draw-
ers of water.

Strangely elastic Instinct this ! It we combine, compare,
/ deduce — is not there something like combination, compari-
son, deduction, here ?

The mocking bird is, in many respects, characterized by
the most remarkable sagacity. "We watched a pair of them
once build their nest in a low thorn bush, growing in what is
called a " sink-hole," in the West. This had once or twice been
filled with water by the heavy rains, but at long intervals.

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 33

This year the flood came. The birds had hatched, and
four little downy, yellow, gaping mouths could be seen
in the nest. The water commenced rising very rapidly in
the sink. The birds became uneasy ; they fluttered and
screamed, and made a wonderful to-do. At last one of them
flew down to the last twig above the rising water. He sat
there looking closely at it till it rose about his feet, and then,
suddenly, with a loud chirp, flew away, followed by the
mate.

We thought they had deserted their young. " Unnatural
creatures !" I exclaimed. And if a gun had been convenient, I
think I should have had no scruple in shooting them.

In about half-an-hour the water had risen to the bottom
of the nest ! when, 'suddenly to my joy and penitent shame,
the birds were back, flew down into the nest and off again !
each bearing a young one. They were not gone a minute,
when, straight as the flight of an arrow, and as swift, they
were back, the other two little ones were carried off, and in
a minute the nest was afloat.

Close calculation, that ! I followed in the direction they
went, and, after some search, found the callow family safe
and snug in an old nest, which they had prepared for their
reception, as soon as they became convinced the water must
reach them. Instinct must have wide play, indeed, to ac-
count for this.

I saw a large, heavy cockroach, fully an inch long, fall into
the web of a small spider. The great weight of the insect,
with the height from which it fell, was sufficient to tear
through the web, and it would have fallen clear, but that the
long, sharp claws, which arm the extremities of the hindmost
pair of legs, gathered a sufficient quantity of the fibres as
they rolled down the net, to sustain the weight of the cock-
roach, who thus hung dangling by the heels, head down-
wards, and the body free.

Out rushed the little spider, not so large as a cherry-stone.
What could it do with such a monster ? You shall see.

3

34 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

Without an instant's confusion, or hesitation, it commenced
rapidly throwing a new web with its hinder legs or spinners,
over the two claws that were entangled, so that the hold
there might first be strengthened. The cockroach struggled
desperately — his weight began to tear away the web from
the beam.

The spider felt that all was giving way — and faster than
the eye could follow him, ran back and forth along the
breaking cords, from the beam to the heels of the monster,
carrying a new thread from one to the other each time, until
the breakage was arrested, and he was satisfied that the whole
would bear all its weight and efforts.

He then returned cautiously to the charge, and, after
a dozen trials, succeeded in webbing the second pair of legs,
and bound them down in spite of the tremendous writhings
of the great black "keast. The third pair were near the head,
and he could not succeed in binding them from the front, so
he tried another tack ; he crawled along the hard sheath of
the back (it hung back downward), and commenced, with in-
conceivable rapidity, throwing his web over the head. The
roach seemed to be greatly frightened by this, and made
-jaore furious efforts than ever to get loose.

The cords from above began to give way again. The
spider darted along them again as before, till they were
strengthened a second time. He now tried another manoeu-
vre. We had noticed him frequently attempting to bite
through the sheath armor of the roach, but he seemed to
have failed in piercing it. He now seemed determined to
catch the two fore legs that were free. After twenty trials
at least, he noosed one of them, and soon had it under his
control. This pair of legs was much more delicate than the
others ; he instantly bit through the captured one.

The poison was not sufficient to affect the large mass of
the roach a great deal, but the leg seemed to give it much
pain, and it bent its head forward to caress the wound with
its jaws — and now the object of the cunning spider was ap-

NATUKE AND HER HARMONIES. 35

parent. He ran instantly to the old position he had been
routed from on the back of the neck, and while the roach was
employed in soothing the smart of the bite, he succeeded in
enveloping the head from the back in such a way as to pre-
vent the roach from straightening out again ; and in a little
while more had him bound in that position, and entirely
surrounded by the web.

A few more last agonies and the roach was dead ; for the
neck, bent forward in this way, exposed a vital part beneath
the sheath ; and we left the spider quietly luxuriating upon the
fruits of his weary contest. This battle between brute force and
subtle sagacity lasted one hour and a half, and if the history of
Reason in our Race can show a more remarkable conquest
of superior mind over animal strength, we hope the wiles of
the sagacious victor will not be robbed of their glory by being
stigmatized as instinctive.

But the books of Natural History are crowded with ten
thousand such illustrations ; no just details of the habitudes
of any form of animal life has been, or can be given, which
will not furnish such. Though the narrators themselves per-
sist in naming these acts instinctive, yet common judgment
must teach that no possible sense of instinct can be made sat-
isfactorily to account for them.

Every day my horse or dog — to go no further — forced the
conviction, that this must be so ; that they shared with me,
to a certain point, reason and emotion. The most eager and
accurate investigation showed us that the whole argument for
instinct was based upon error; that the facts upon which its
most ingenious defenders formed their strong positions, melted
into thin air before a close examination, and proved to be
pedantic whims or mistakes of old writers, perpetuated by
the careless ignorance of modern bookmakers.

Since such men as Humboldt, 'Cuvier and Audubon
have taught the world how the meaning of the sublime
pages of the living revelation was to be arrived at — have
forced upon their fellows a realization of the astounding

36 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

discovery, that each individual of them possessed eyes of his
own, and might lawfully use them for himself, and that it was
only by the exercise of this primitive and obsolete right that
truth was to be known — the universal mind has been restless
on this point.

Who has not noticed how common a thing it is, in the
modern book of travel, to meet with surmises, doubts, hints,
and even broad denials, in regard to the doctrine of in-
stinct. Scarcely a relation of a trait or fact in natural his-
tory can be met with now, to which something of this kind
is not applied. These men have left Locke, and Brown, and
Stewart, upon the mouldy shelves at home, and there is no
stern eye of scholastic bigot to rebuke them, out amidst the
wilds and freedom of nature ; and removed from the imme-
diate terror of the lash, they dare to write what they see, and
draw their own conclusions.

Shakspeare has writ the motto of these times —

" What custom wills, in all things should we do it,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to overpeer !"

Are we not in danger of " mountainous error" here?

Aye ! and since by its side the tumulus of Truth, under the
slow heaping of atoms through the ages, has grown and grown,
until now even a pigmy upon tip-toe may out-peer and shout
to the multitude in shadow beneath — shout that pigmy must !

Though the spectacled and lamp-dried book-man may shake
his withered sides, and curl his thin lips in scorn, yet will
that small voice be made articulate, the voice which has so
long been struggling in mankind for utterance. It will pro-
nounce, there are no blind, fatal impulses known to Na-
ture! Keason is the impulse of volition! and whatever
animal life exists, whether in the dumb stock or stone, the
herb or molecule, brute or man, Keason directs it !

The self-same principle which, through our organization,

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 37

governs or wields the material forces, acting through the or-
ganization of the ant, the atom, and the elephant, produces like
results to the full extent of the organic and creative intention
in each, and therefore this organization is the law of Reason !

Now that our conscience has been unburdened, and that still
small voice had gone forth with this portentous announce-
ment— we shrink upon ourselves abashed and horrified !
Fear cometh upon us 1 What is it we have done ? After all
this flourish of trumpets, little more than prolong the echoes
of dull and stale materialism ?

Yes, this is it I If Reason be determined by our organiza-
tion, then, of course, the dissolution of the one, is the end
of the other ! Who could fail to recognize the heavy and
assinine front of this ancient philosophic bore? Shame!
shame ! The metaphysician, to get his boat staved against
the very rock the light-house stands on ?

We writhe like a wounded worm. But one truth is as
much as the mind can possess and enter into at a time. Long
have we paused, and wrestled on the threshold of the nest.

What! the thick rayless gloom, hopeless and weary, of
this sensual creed, to be our abiding place! Fairly and
well, by the clear lamp of Truth, have we counted our
footsteps heretofore. From link to link, carefully have we
traced the interfering grades through all forms, and seen and
felt the universe of matter an harmonious whole — the harp
of God ! — each string accordant with the string last touched,
and melting in the tone of that before. No jarring notes —
no discord ! but order the law, and music, such as seraphim
can hear and mortals feel, the expression !

Then comes a dim hint of what we seek and yearn for, like
a distant ray of daylight to a lost wanderer in a cavern :

" Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the Daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law,
And the low world in measured motion draw
After the heavenly tune."

38 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

Since Jubal's pipe awakened the young echo, so have the
sage poets sung.

The poets 1 Who were the poets ? The kings of mind 1
Always their white swift feet have led the van of science,
and the quick flash of their luminous eyes has startled the
darkness of caverns where treasures were, and showed to
the gaping crowd the heaps of gems 1

It is their mission to discover. They leave to those who
follow them now, to drag the riches forth to day, classify,
name, arrange, and add to the treasury of general science.

In many a measured legend and guise of graphic allegory,
they have said, and sung that harmony, — order — was the su-
preme law of God's created universe — the highest revelation
of himself — the garment that we know him by, woofed of stars
and clouds, colored by the many tints of the moon and sun,
when they play on these, or on the shining earth, with her
waters, mountains, trees, and herbs, and myriad forms that
creep, and walk, and run, and fly, and swim — many and di-
vers— a life and will to each, yet all softly and sweetly
blending in those mellow hues which make it beautiful when
seen from heaven — worthy to robe the limbs of Infinite
might.

"Well then, if the laws of gradation be necessary to these
harmonies, and as applied to organization and form, consist-
ent with them, must not the same law apply to all forms of
animal life, when introduced into these grades of organized
matter ?

One general principle, animal life, must animate them all.
Why are they differently organized ? Why are they not each
after the same structure, size, and shape ?

The harmonious diversity of creation requires it should be
so. The principle of life, passing into this variety of struc-
ture, gives this required diversity of result. Though the
principle be the same, the machine acted upon is different
— in the higher forms of organization, the principle of life is
active : in the lower, passive.

JSTATUKE AND HER HARMONIES. 39

Those which are to be active, must have the means of
self-direction ; it would be fatal to the harmonies so justlv
guarded, should they shoot into space, sphereless and aim-
less, the restless life hurrying them to motion till they were
self-destroyed, and confusion carried everywhere.

No, they shall have senses which shall inform the life within
of all internal things, through the retina of consciousness. All
impressions, then, of outward things, their qualities, etc., shall
be retained upon that retina, and shall be called experience
of life — memory. This experience shall be to the principle
of life for a guide, and it shall have a power given it called
Reason, which is the highest result of the principle of life, acting
through organization, educated by the experience of the senses \

This education will be justly proportionate with the power
of the senses to inform : and therefore, in the precise ratio
of the sensitiveness, delicacy, and complexity of the senses,
will be the corresponding attributes of this educated life,
Eeason.

It is harmonious that it should be so ! animal existence
is confined to a material earth. The forms and objects
co-existing there, are to it all that necessity demands. Its
powers, capabilities, wants, are filled and circumscribed by
these. The end and object of its being, first defined by organi-
zation, is carried to the ultimate highest creative aim or end,
by Eeason. The mite which builds its coral cell — the savage
who piles his hut of bark, are equally guided by this prin-
ciple to the consummation of all their sheer physical necessi-
ties, and gregarious or social duties.

The cause why Reason is not progressive in other forms
of animal life, as we see it to have been in man, we suppose
to be that, — as man is a complex being, so the animal is a
simple one.

The organic necessities of the bee led its experience
simply and directly to the discovery of a mathematical
law, by which the form and arrangement of its cells was
perfected : though it knows nothing of mathematics as an

40 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

aggregate system of facts, yet the wants of its social habi-
tudes, crowding it in great numbers into a small space, soon
led to the assertion of the utmost power its experience was
capable of furnishing reason with, in regard to those lines
and angles by the size of which space might best be econo-
mised.

The result was as we see ; this was the highest exertion
of the mathematical faculty its organization admitted, or
its necessities required; and here its display rested, and
will continue to rest. Eeason has carried it up to the ulti-
mate of its creative intention.

So with the ant, the organization of which is complicated,
its necessities more diverse, and the results of its reasoning
more varied and curious! So with all forms of animal
life!

We arrive at man — the perfection of organized matter. We
find reason in him capable of nearly all the bee does or the
ant can accomplish, and, as a general average, superior to
all other animals — though in particular traits he is inferior to
most of them. He has not the eye of the eagle or the vul-
ture ; the scent of the hound or the moth ; the hearing of the
deer ; the sense of touch of the mole ; the taste of the coy
humming-bird.

Therefore, the experience of his senses, or his physical abil-
ity, will not enable his reason to accomplish just such feats as
characterize these particular animals — but yet, the general su-
periority of his senses over those of any one of these — their
more equal and perfect balance — the higher complexity, sus-
ceptibility, and delicacy of his whole organization — give to him
the first position as the mere "reasoning animal."

Though the migratory bird, or fish, from the superior acute-
ness of one sense, and the familiarity its habits, must give it
with the currents of the elements in which it dwells, can tra-
verse the world in a straight line, without other guide than this
experience of its peculiar senses — yet man can do the same
thing by a more roundabout, but quite as wonderful process ;

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 41

his necessities gradually taught him the qualities of the mag-
netic needle, and by the aid of this, he can do what the bird or
fish accomplish directly, by their superior sense. Here, then,
we have man, so far, a mere form of animal life, — more per-
fect, indeed, than any other — but sustained by the same law
which sustains them, and, like them, ceasing to be, when his
organization is dissolved. For we have said, the office of
reason, like that of caution and love of life, is to protect this
existence, and carry it up to the consummation of its creative
intention ; to lead on the vital forces in the battle against
decay. And when, in that unceasing war, decay has con-
quered, reason must die. Its mission has been fulfilled — for
all the objects, purposes, and duties of simple animal life in
a material universe, it were sufficient — the animal needs it
no further. It has been resolved into the original elementst
and the principle of life returns, to become again a part of
the spirit of Nature.

That reason carried man up to the highest point of phys-
ical perfection his organization was capable of attaining,
there can be little doubt, — "and all the days of Methu-
selah were nine hundred and sixty and nine years, and he
died" — is a sufficient comment upon this point.

But we said " man was a complex being, the animal a
simple one." We have thus far presented him as a mere form
of animal life, and shown the disposal of all that portion of
his being we hold in common with it ! We have tarried
long enough amidst the " flesh pots!" Joy in Heaven and
Thanksgiving on Earth ! The murky gloom of terrestrial
materialism has been pierced and flooded by the keen joy-
ance of a celestial light ! Moses, the first Poet — the prime-
val "King of Mind," has sung of how "The Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life — and man became a living soul /"

He tells how " God made the beast of the field after his kind,
and cattle after their kind, and every living thing that creepeth
on the earth after its kind," but he does not sing that He

42 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

breathed into the nostrils of the animal the "breath of life,"
and that it became "a living soul I"

Now, this was the crowning act of the six days' work.
And man, the sublimation of material forms, alone was
trusted with that awful gift — " the breath of life !" There is
no mention of the " breath of life" when he made the beast,
cattle, and creeping things. Yet in the common sense of
these words, they too were given the breath of life.

No ! He before says — " God made man in his own
image," that is, in his spiritual image— for there can be
no material likeness of spiritual existence, and these ma-
jestic words were used in reference to that spiritual resem-
blance of which the Eternal Life of God was the first feature.

The breath of life from his own lips was the bestowal of the
eternity of his own spiritual being. A distinct, peculiar a.ct !
adding another element to the animal framed of the same
dust of which the beast was made — interfusing a portion of
Himself, of His own ultimate and indivisible essence, into
the subtlest, purest organization of compounded matter:
and man became a living soul, and that soul in the image of
its Maker !

Between the atomic * reasoner, and the reasoning man,
there is a mighty stride. The shadow, though far away,
is like, for one and the same principle governs in each.
The stride between the attributes of God, so far as he has
chosen to reveal them, and th« attributes of the Living Soul
in man, made after his own image, is vast too; but the shad-
ow, though cast from afar — from out the abyss of Infinity —
is yet dim, is still like !

We cannot know how much more high those other attri-
butes of which it has not pleased Him to instruct us may
be ; but we do know from His own words that the Crea-
tive Power is one of them, and Omnipresence and Foreknowl-
edge are others.

Then has not the Imagination, the Living Soul of man, in its
own narrow sphere, the Creative power. Out of the chaos of

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 43

material imagery does it not body fortli creations of its own,
which had no being else, and with the reflex glories of this
atom orb, people a universe ? Does not the spread of thought
in inappreciable time traverse all space like omnipresence ?
Has it not whilome cleft the dark-lined horizon of Now, and
felt the Future shiver in cold prophetic beamings on its
plumes ?

Says not the sage Poet —

" Imagination which from earth to sky,
And from the depths of human phantasy,
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors fill
The universe with golden beams!"

The universe ! Aye, there is its peculiar home ! Reason
may deal with things of earth, cope with her physical laws,
and teach the arm of flesh to wrest from their hard grasp
shelter and food : but the rarer empyrean will not sustain its
heavy plumes ; when the

" Spirit, the Promethean spark,

has passed beneath them — then, possessed of an immortal
vigor, the self-same drooping vans bathing in silver-exhala-
tions at far starry fonts, take on the youth and splendor of
eternity, and in long, weariless flights traverse infinity, ques-
tioning the seraphim, front to front, of God and mysteries .

Here is the mission of Imagination ! We are of earth,
earthy ; and all its grosser essences thrice winnowed through
life, through death, and through decay, meet once again in The
I Am, without extension, weight, or form, — The ultimation of
material being — buoyant and strong as angels are, aud meet
to bow with them before God's throne, and bide the awful
Future.

And as Imagination here has wrought His will, — has
faithfully tasked the poor wings of Reason lent it but for

44: WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Time, and delved and soared in every secret place where
they might bear it, searching for knowledge of that will — so
shall its wages be.

" Has she not shown us all
From the clear hreath of ether to the small
Breath of new huds unfolding ! From the meaning
Of Jove's large eyebrow to the tender greening
Of April meadows ?"

Everything that we may know of our relations to the
eternal cause— duties as citizens of the star-lit extended uni-
verse— we must be taught by this imagination, which has
been "since mind at first in characters was done," the
chiefest theme of poets. In many a guise and strange in>
personation, they have sung of it. The Hebrew first named
it Job, and in that noble allegory showed how the prone
"Reason strove to drag it earthward, with tortures and wiles
beset in vain its pure allegiance to the Lord of Hosts. Then
through a long line of Prophet, Priest and King, these an-
cient chronicles have traced it down to the day of the Cae-
sars ; and here they showed how the Prince of Spiritual Life
might blend himself with matter, and become incarnate
through a Virgin ! — that the lowlier essence of himself im-
prisoned here might learn to love, to hope, and to endure !

The less favored nation symboled its lower and fanciful at-
tributes as Dryad, Fawn and Nymph :

A beautiful, though erring faith, is't not?
Which populates the brute insensate earth
"With beamy shapes, the ministers of love
And quaintest humors !

Or, in the sublime myth of the Greek Prometheus, who
wrestled defiant with the Gods, and defied them, through tor-
ments without name, to quell that spark of their own life he
won from heaven for his race.

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 45

To overlook the ages, what is the Prometheus of Shelley
but an impersonation of the Soul — of Imagination, warring
with the great powers of evil, who curse it with a body. The
Rock, Animal Life — Reason, the Chain — and fell Disease, the
Vulture ; and when the Demons drove the Vulture off that
they might be refreshed with taunting him, the fearfulest
image of fierce torture they could conjure was —

" Thou thinkest we will live through thee one by one
Like Animal Life ? And though we can obscure not
The Soul which burns within — that we will dwell
Beside thee, like a vain loud multitude,
Vexing the self-content of wisest men :
That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain,
And foul desire round thine astonished heart,
And blood within thy labyrinthine veins,
Crawling like agony /"

Poets have writ no cumbrous tomes, nor heaped dull
dogmatisms mountain high, to awe the world ; but they have
felt all truths, and written them just as they felt, and called
them too by universal names in scorn of pedant nomencla-
ture. They leave it to the drudging scholiast to classify ; but
under one name in every tongue they have synonymed Im-
agination and the Soul. "Without a thought of school-men's
terms, they have felt them to be one, and so inscribed them.
Aye ! and so they are ! And our theory is but a gleaning
from " the chronicles of wasted Time," of " what their antique
pen would have expressed!"

" Spirit of Nature ! thou
Life of interminable multitudes !
Soul of those mighty spheres
Whose changeless paths through Heaven's

deep silence lie !
Soul of that smallest being,
The dwelling of whose life
Is one faint April gleam !"

4:6 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

If this be true, then have we been right to regard the
earth as a living revelation, and the dumb trees, and stocks,
and stones, articulate language. But like that other Holy
Eevelation, the types and symbols here must be devoutly
studied, with a pious and earnest zeal.

Though, perhaps, not very strictly pious in the common
acceptation, zeal enough has not been wanting. Uncon-
sciously, our translations — occasional glimpses of the sense
which visited us — began to assume definiteness and connec-
tion ; the indigested chaos of rude forms to take on order ; and
before we were aware, an absorbing idea had possessed us. The
result of all our readings might then be summed up under the
single head, " life is one linked continuous chain, from, what
we can know of God, to the atom ;" and patiently we continue
to delve among the rocks, the shells, the bugs, all creeping
things, the flowers, the birds, the brutes, and arrowy fishes,
to see if we may trace these links distinctly to the bounds of
sense. We think we can !

Then comes the inquiry — if this linked gradation be a ma-
terial law, the law of forms, may it not apply also to the im-
material essence which in such varied phases constitutes the
life — the soul of these ? Here we meet with the hoary dog-
matisms of the schools, and are rebuffed. Here we veil our
eyes in humility before such names as Bacon, Locke, Hume,
Beattie, Brown. We reverence these high Priests in the
temple of the Most High ! But reverence need not be blind.
They say Reason and Instinct are altogether unlike; that
Imagination is a mere faculty or adjunct of Eeason, and
Eeason is the supremest function of the mind. How dare
we think or say otherwise ? We do not do it daringly, we
do it humbly, inquiringly. We say we cannot help it that
our eyes will not see as theirs have. Our's are poor, weak
visuals at the best, and but that there is something curious in
the obstinacy of the hallucinations they have persisted in all
our lives long, we should not presume to trouble any one

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 47

with such opinions. But let us strive as we may to see that
these things are so, it is all in vain.

" For then my thoughts
Will keep my drooping eye-lids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see ;
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents this shadow to my sightless view."

Still the living revelation will be denned to us — "Life
in one linked continuous chain from the Godhead to
the atom I" We can see that the universe has no abrupt
gradations I That Facilis descensus is the law so far as we
can trace it from inessential spiritual being down to man,
and certainly from man down to the atom.

The process of beginning at the atom, and tracing the gra-
dations of life up to man, furnishes the most complete train
of analogical argumentation the mind is capable of realizing.
The microscopic observation of Physical Philosophy through
atomic existences up to sensible ones, has discovered here as
well a perfect chain of life, with an individual standing between
the extremes of each species, and partaking of the character
of both.

When we arrive at the sensible, or visible, no ordinary
thinker, who has walked with his eyes open, can have failed
likewise of being astonished at the perfect symmetry of this
gradation.

Who has not seen in the Sensitive Plant, the first faint
stir as in a dream before awakening, of the great active
principle of life which slumbers so profoundly passive in
the mountain and the forest ; and then in the (diona mits-
dpula) Fly-catching Plant, the smiling play of an odd
conceit across the features of the half-aroused sleeper ; and
then the full waking in the Hydra Polypus, this strange
creature, forming the link between vegetable and animal life,
sharing the character of both — capable of dissection into a
thousand fragments — yet reproducing from each a living

48 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

animal, a perfect polypus ; and the Humming-bird, the link
between Insects and Birds, agreeing with the larger species
of moths in the character and manner of taking — (on the
wing) — its principal food ; though it cannot live long on
nectar alone, but, as a bird, must have insects occasionally,
or it will die ; and then the feather which in the moth has
become gradually more perceptible to the naked eye, in this
bright creature is splendidly perfected. How beautifully
the waves glide into each other in this calm harmony of be-
ing!

Then at the other end of the scale of birds, we have the
Ostrich and Penguin, with wings incapable of flight ; and
the Bat, the link between birds and animals ; and, what
is still more curious, an animal in New Holland, with the
horny bill of the duck and body of the hair seal. We
have not time for more particular citation. We will go on
up to the monkey, the orang-outang, the man; the inter-
mediate grades are filled up in the manner we have shown.

And here we lay it down as a proposition of physics ; that
through the whole chain of being, whether what is called ani-
mate or inanimate, there is yet this connecting link between
every change, not only of class, but of order, genus, and spe-
cies— that the individual intermediate in this change pos-
sesses a double nature, embracing in a less degree the charac-
teristics of the class, order, etc., left, and in a greater those
of that entered upon — that this chain of progression is un-
broken from the atom up to man I Taking for granted, of
course, the proposition of spiritual existences, the irresisti-
ble inference from all this linked analogy is — that man, be-
ing the perfection and last gradation of material existence,
forms the link between it and the spiritual ; being the indi-
vidual intermediate, possesses a double nature, embracing in
a less degree the characteristics of the class left, and in a
greater, those of that entered upon ; 'that the two elements
of this double nature are the material or reasoning, which he
possesses in common with other forms of animal life ; and

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 49

the spiritual or imaginative which he possesses in common
with angelic beings. Why, even a coarse-grained Kussian
would not resist this conclusion, and, with the vigor of the
rude north, finely expresses the idea :

" I hold the middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth.

On the last verge of mortal being stand,
Close to the realms where angels have their birth,

Just on the boundaries of the Spirit-Land ;
The chain of being is complete in me,

In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is spirit — Deity."

This chain of being is the Jacob's ladder of the allegory,
the rounds of which, form, " principalities and powers in
heavenly places," through all the orders of spiritual intelli-
gences, lead down to man, resting with him, the link between
earth and heaven. We have a perfect and just right to the
argument, that the next step is pure spirit, unalloyed with
matter — angelic being — and that there are grades and orders
of this being, swelling sublimely up ^o the infinite. Before
the discovery of the microscope, the world of the dew-drop —
the atomic legions ' from the low herb where mites do crawl,'
to the myriads of ' far spoomming ocean' and the wide air,
were all as far beyond the apprehension of our senses as
these spiritual existences now are.

Yet the most patient investigation has gone to show that
the analogies of higher existences hold good in these, and
science does not hesitate in the application of these analo-
gies to them. Why should they hold good at one end of
the scale and not at the other ? Is it because we cannot see,
taste, smell, or handle thought and spiritual existences?
Neither can we do all this with the atom ; its very being is
only arrived at through imperfect instruments ; while the
existence of spirit and thought is proven by our conscious-
ness, than which there can be no higher evidence. Yet no
man in his senses pretends to deny atomic existences be-

4

50 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

cause lie cannot see them, nor the application of the laws of
life which he can see in sensible existences to them ; nor
would any such man deny the same application at the other
end of the scale to spiritual, especially, since he has higher
order of proof, independent of revelation, that they are !

Though each of these two natures in man is a unit capable
of separate existence, yet the imagination is only apparent
through the material, as electricity through the atmosphere,
which conveys to us the flash and sound. We do not argue that
electricity is a property of atmosphere, because we only hear
and see it through this medium ; nor do we argue that elec-
tricity is not, because it is not always apparent. We know it
to be above us and around us, nevertheless, and gentle and
familiar as the airs of home ; but if we should forget ! then,
shaken with grandeur through the last quivering fibre, we are
reminded that it is.

Though it sleeps now with silence, in its "old couch of
space," yet its articulations are all of the sublime, and the
awed earth, and the reverberating heavens rock beneath its
stunning shout, when it answers the far-spaces in laughter at
man's vain presumptuous doubts.

As electricity to nature, so imagination is to man's material
or reasoning part. It is not always apparent to his drowsy
consciousness ; yet it always is subtle and silent^ refining his
coarse passions or making them more terrible ; and its articu-
lations, too, are all of the sublime ; and when the gathering
nations, with rapture on their multitudinous tongues, swell
the huzza to glorious deeds, you may know that it has leaped
fronrits "dumb cradle!"

All that is grand, magnificent, sublime, the Past has to
tell — the Future has no hope : Imagination wrought or must
create. The Chieftain, the Architect, the Sculptor, the Paint-
er, the Poet, are her slaves — and at her bidding, the world is
showered with splendors. In a word, Imagination is the Soul.

The cause of that gradual physical deterioration we notice
from the times before the flood to the present, evidently may

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 51

be traced to the unceasing antagonism of these two opposite
elements of man's nature. Each successive generation marks
the victorious progress of the spiritual in the declension of
mere animal bulk ; the more delicate and sensitive texture
of nervous tissue, and greater frontal development, a falling
off in the actual numerical span of life, but a corresponding
accession in that which constitutes its true measurement — the
number, variety and intensity of emotions and thoughts — in
short, an every-day and increasing recognition of all higher
truths.

Men are beginning now to appreciate the true offices of Im-
agination, and to separate them from the monstrous and un-
natural paternity of mere machine rhyming ! and to know
and feel that

" A drainless shower

Of light is Poesy ! 'Tis the Supreme Power —
'Tis might half slumbering on its own right arm.
The very arching of its eye-lids charm
A thousand willing agents to obey ;
And still she governs with the mildest sway !"

Now, while we write, in a retired corner of the great city,
at a late hour of the night, there is an entire lull of the rum-
ble of dray, hack and omnibus wheels, and the glance of the
large-eyed moon reflexes coldly from the white cathedral
spire that copples sharp in the distance before our window.
It ought to be the hour of profound repose — when the puls-
ings of this mighty heart should be quiet.

It ought to be, but is it so? We hear through the open
windows of the marble palace opposite the favorite air of
" Miss Lucy Long," fashionably parodied — and a cultivated,
clear, manly voice accompanies the soft, shrill treble of some
fair warbler. In the street beneath, an unwashed, ragged
loafer whistles a vehement " third," and thrums the interlude
with his bare heels upon a pine box, which will probably be
his roosting-place for the night !

52 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

Jewels, silks, "the pouncet box," and music! Dirt, vice,
tatters, wretchedness, and music I Silence — over the jang-
ling roar of trampling, rushing, striving men — lifted up intc
a Presence Godlike, "walking the clear billows of sweet
sound." What contrasts ! O thou Omnipotence of Music !
Majestic soother ! — before whose smile the fiery mane of
Storms, careering thunder-hoofed along the mountains of
the world, is laid ! — whose touch has

" Smoothed
The raven down of Darkness till it smiled !

Thou voice of God's Love ! how beneficent art thou ! All
pleasant objects, natures, forms, are tones of thee ! Moon-
light is the silver tone of thy calm, radiant blessing — and

" Oldest shades 'mong oldest trees

Feel palpitations when thou lookest in.
O Moon ! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless everywhere, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couch'd in thy brightness, dream of fields divine :
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes ;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent : the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil den,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee ; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
"Within its pearly house."

Ay 1 and that poor human oyster — the Loafer from out
his motley painted shell of filth and rags " takes glimpses of
thee I The largess of thy benediction falleth over him ! The
fellow is happy there, and his whistle is as blithesome as the

NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 53

song of yon more favored twain ! Can he be glad with all
his misery, his piteous unrecking shame upon him ?

Here we reluctantly pause. A voice from the printer —
" No more space ! all closed !" falls like a sudden shower upon
the thin wings of our " Eeverie," and damps them back to
earth. They will soon dry and grow glossy again, and be
rollicking madly on the fitful winds as if the envious clouds
had never wept.

CHAPTER II.

BOYHOOD AND BIEDS.

THE Hunter Naturalist is formed in childhood. " The little
leaven thatleaveneth the whole lump," commenceth its strange
ferment in that unconscious time when the sun is yet the gol-
den wonder, and all of earth's apparelings glitter in the splen-
dor of the dew.

Why is it that with our scathed brows relaxed we watch
the gambols of the "little ones" with such pleasure? Is it
not that the sweet simplicity and natural grace of every im-
pulse and movement of the healthy child recalls our earliest
associations of the lovable, the piquant and the pleasing, as
exhibited in the life of the Natural World ?

We may grow to be paste-board, and painted men and
women, to be sure, and learn to admire the antics of bedizened
monkeys, which would be even miscalled " Human Brats!"
— but such terrific perversions, thanks to the illimitable blue
that is universed in the deep eye of one true child of God and
Nature I — can do little harm. We pity while we despise —
yet, in the other, the chubby insolence of exuberant fun
provokes the laughter of deep joy. Ha 1 ha ! we laugh, and
let our sides go quaking with the tranquil stir of bliss that
God has left us something natural even in the children of our
loins as well as in his " unhoused wilds !"

If I feel now that the sanctifying pleasure of renewing the
reminiscences of my earlier life in connection with Birds,
and Flowers, and wild scenes, can afford to others a proxi-

BOYHOOD AND BIKDS. 55

mate gratification to that which, they have afforded me in
the act of recalling them, I may perhaps be pardoned for
making as nearly as is possible " a free breast of it !"

I must therefore be permitted to confess, after my own
fashion, one of the first, of the many droll troubles, in which
the Hunter-Naturalist in the earlier stages of his experiences
and development is liable to be involved.

While yet a boy, I had one, out of a number of sisters,
who, being nearest my own age, became naturally my espe
cial playmate. She had dark lustrous eyes, delicate features,
and a form lithe, supple and elastic as that of a she wild-cat ;
and like that creature also, possessed a marvellous facility of
ascension — that is, she had a faculty of ascending, by that
indefinite process called " climbing," the uttermost boughs
of plumb trees, apple trees, cherry trees, pears trees, &c.,
&c., — as also the tops of fences, barns, houses and such
like!

She was, hence and therefore, quite generally christened
" Tom-boy" — but, if ever any vulgar sense of that phase was
misapplied, it was in this instance, as characterizing a severe
audacity — that, as it was above fear or thought of evil, never
dreamed in its pride of the possibility of misconstruction.

She was fearless, because God had gifted her thus in her in-
nocence that she dreaded not his Justice !

She was my dainty compeer and companion in many an
enthusiastic forage into the wild domains of Nature.

I shall proceed to relate one of the most memorable of
these in which she assisted me, as only her sex could have
done, in relation to some young " MOCKING BIKDS IN A

STRANGE NEST ":

It must be premised that, at the settlement of Kentucky,
the mocking bird ( Turdus polyglotim} was not known in the
land as a resident ; but that, when the war-whoop had ceased
to affright the silence, and the ring of the deadly rifle given
way to the peaceful clang of scythes, whetted by mowers in
the broad, green, smiling meadows, then the king of song-

56 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

birds made his appearance, and took possession of the fair
land, as of a rightful heritage.

To be sure, it had been seen before this, and the hunters
knew its white-barred wings from afar off, but not its name ;
nor had they heard its song. It had always shown itself
wild and shy in the extreme — as if it were a mere passenger
through an evil country, and feared to rest the soles of its
feet upon a soil that was accursed. But, with the blooming
orchards, waving grain, and all the pleasant sights and
mellow sounds of peace, the scared way-farers tarried for
awhile to rest, and then to find a new kingdom and a
home.

There is something very curious in the manner in which
this creature took possession, first of Northern Kentucky ;
and then, some twenty years after, of the Southern part, or
Green River country, as it is known. The North, beyond
doubt, from its physical confomation, suited the habits and
tastes of the fastidious monarch best; and besides, it was
nearly fifty years after the settlement of the North, and not
until the world had commenced to style it the Paradise of the
West, that the Green River valley began to emerge from the
semi-barbarous condition of a frontier, and to be considered
by him as worthy of notice. Then he came more frequently,
a fleeting scout " to spy out the land and the richness thereof."

I remember well, a very eccentric, good-natured, and gar-
rulous old gentleman of my native town, a Mr. B. , who was

a good naturalist by the way, and loved birds dearly — tell-
ing me about a chase after the first mocking bird he ever
saw in the Green River country. He was one of the earliest
settlers of our town, and had known the bird well in Vir-
ginia, and had frequently seen it in the north of Kentucky.
He often, during a residence of twelve or fifteen years, won-
dered why he had never seen it in the " Barrens" — which was
the old name the hunters had given to the Green River
Valley.

Mr. B. was one day riding through these black oak Bar-

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 57

rens* in a gig, with his wife, when lie saw a bird which he
instantly recognized as the mocking bird, fluttering along the
road-side. His first surprise over, he soon perceived that it
was a young one, and, as he delightedly supposed, not fully
fledged. He was a very impulsive man, and without con-
sidering what might be the consequences, had his horse in a
gallop in an instant, in the hope of running down and mak-
ing a captive of the young stranger.

The startled wife pleaded with him to desist, but he was
too intent to heed ; and when the bird made a considerable
flight towards some gnarled and scrubbly black jacks near?
she screamed most lustily, in her now well-grounded alarm,
and begged and prayed to be permitted to get out, at least,
as he wheeled his gig and dashed after it. The only answer
she could get was —

" Be still ! Hush dear I I shall have him directly I It's
a real mock — ."

Crash — went the unlucky gig, into the rough embrace of
a Briaerus' armed black jack, which tore the gig top, his
wife's bonnet, and his own straw hat, into shreds, besides
pitching them both head foremost out, with the shock.

" Catch old Ball, wife !" sputtered B., as he scampered on.
Then looking back over his shoulder for an instant, he
shouted to her in consolation —

" Don't you be afraid — I'll have that bird yet !" and was
soon lost to her sight amidst the black jacks, that were fast
stripping his clothes from him.

Old Ball, in the meantime, was showing a clean pair of
heels down the road for home. The poor woman, in this
melancholy plight, could only set herself to repairing dam-
ages as best she might, when in the course of fifteen minutes

* Barrens was the name originally given by the hunters to prairie
land. What is now sometimes called the Barrens is composed of some
of the richest land in the world — but the growth, except along the
streams, is mostly primary and small, and stunted by the constant fires
in the long grass.

58 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

or so, her madcap lord came panting back, rubbing his limbs
with a most rueful countenance, while his tattered clothes
hung like streamers about them. He looked at the wreck
of the gig, without seeming to notice it, and with a heavy
sigh exclaimed —

" O wife ! wife ! I should have had him — the most beauti-
ful young mocking bird, but for that confounded sink-hole !"*

" But husband, see here. The gig's broken, and old Ball
has run — ."

" I had my hand 'most on him — not more than two inches ;
when I pitched head foremost down — ."

" Hang the bird ! Do look what a fix we are in ! How
are we to get home ?"

" 0 dear ! dear 1 If I could only have got that bird I"

" Husband ! husband !" and she shook him right heartily.

" What ! Is the gig broken ? Why, my child, how could
you be so careless ? Old Ball was always a safe and sober
horse when I held the reins ! Bless the woman ! what could
have got into you? That poor bird will never find its
mother now I"

This rich scene was interrupted by the appearance of one
of the neighboring farmers, passing down the road on horse-
back.

The wife summoned him to their assistance, and the scape-
grace Ball, who had only gone off a short distance on a frolic
— to which he thought himself, no doubt, as well entitled as
his master — having been recaptured and brought back, the
ready resources of the farmer, aided by withs and vines, soon
repaired breakages in a protem. fashion, which enabled them
to reach home — after dark — as the old lady always would
have it. She used to avenge herself for her fright and torn
bonnet by telling this story upon him with merciless humor

* The barrens are covered in many parts with these sudden pits, or
"Sink Holes," as they are called. It is a lime-stone region, and they
are caused by the fissures in that formation.

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 59

before their numerous visitors. He was a good old man, and
she the most loving of gentle wives — peace to their souls ! I
believe the strawberries will grow spontaneously on their
graves who nourished them so well, and the mocking birds,
drawn by some " sweet compulsion," go there to sing, while
flowers that were their chosen loves, will sure creep close, to
fill the place with odors.

I did not hear of this incident till some five or six years
after its occurrence, and then it was called up by my recital
to the old man of an adventure of my own, a short time be-
fore, which was nearly as ridiculous as this, and resembling it
in many essential features. It was my first meeting with the
mocking bird, too !

I was now a stout youth of sixteen, yet I had never seen
the mocking bird ; though, of course, I had read and heard
with eagerness much about it. I knew all the birds around
me so well, that I could detect the presence of a stranger
among them as readily as I should have noticed a sixth fin-
ger or toe, which had suddenly been added to my worldly gifts.

I was gunning one day, in a rich meadow, on which stood
scattered many very tall trees. I observed above the top-
most bough of one of these, a strange bird alighting as if he
- was afraid it would burn his toes. He would just touch a
twig, while with wings wide spread, and then bound un
again — hovering doubtfully over it, but with a movement so
airy that I could scarcely believe it a substantial creature.
As it thus fluttered and floated lightly with its front towards
me, it seemed all white, a rich, soft, creamy white from
throat to tip of the long tail-feathers ; but, now, in restless
motion it turns its dark back, and I can see across each
wide-spread wing the white bar in singular, sudden con' rast.

It seemed to me a thing from dream-land — so indescribably
spiritudle was the grace of every movement ! I could only
form a remote conjecture as to what the bird really was, for it
proved so exceedingly wary and shy, that I found it impos-
sible to approach any nearer. It was not until my patience

60 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

had been entirely wearied out by its indomitable caution and
cunning, that the inhospitable thought of murder came into
my mind. The relentless curiosity of the naturalist had been
aroused; the passion of the dissecting knife, that is glad
among the heart-strings and rejoices with Death. I would
have wooed the lovely stranger to let me know it while it
lived ; but, it would not be won — now it should die, for I
must know!

I vowed I would have the body of that creature — be it
from dream-land or " farthest Ind" — if I had to follow it a
week. But the one day proved enough for me. This was
a sultry twelfth of June, I recollect well, and I had spent
the hours of the forenoon in creeping from tree to tree ;
from fence-corner to fence-corner ; from stump to stump, in
the pacific endeavor to get near enough to distinguish the
predominating color of the back — for, all that I could yet
distinguish was that it was dark — and could not make out the
form of the bill, both of which things were necessary for me to
know before I would have any substantial data of investigation
to commence with in the books. All had been in vain ; and
sweltering with heat and excitement, I ran back to where I
had left my gun — muttering many a direful threat, as I ex-
amined the locks carefully.

Now that I might make sure of my victim, I crawled on
my hands and knees for nearly two hundred yards, and found
myself, at last, within what, it must be confessed, was long
range; but, within which, I flattered myself, I had seldom
missed. My gun was laid with trembling eagerness upon the
top of the old stump which formed my blind. I cannot tell
how much I trembled — but I fired ! The bird merely flut-
tered lightly up and then floated down again upon the pin-
nacle bough where it before sat. It had never left the tops
of the trees during the morning ; and I gritted my teeth in
disappointment while aiming again with iron firmness. The
bird rose at the second shot, and with a slow and graceful
flight, passed over me high in the air. I watched it until I

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 61

saw it alight in some high trees on a plantation half a mile
distant, when my gun was loaded with great care, and I fol-
lowed with the same success as before. And so that whole
afternoon was passed, crawling up ditches and fence-rows,
through the briars ; over ploughed ground, rough stones —
through marsh and puddle — amidst stumps and weeds, and
last year's stubble, until, as night closed and this malicious
phantom-bird had disappeared beneath its shadows —

I e'en creep forth, all bruised and torn,
Sore, hungry, weary and forlorn !

I did not soon forget that evening's experience, and the
only consolation I had when I came out of the chase in
such dismal plight, was, that I had left it convinced of this
being the mocking bird.

I had vaguely suspected this when I first saw the white
bars across the wings ; but then the difficulty in getting near
enough to see the general color, combined with the improb-
ability of such a bird being here — for I had as soon expected to
have seen a bird of Paradise — had prevented me from realizing
it until the accidents of the pursuit enabled me to see the
dark blueish gray of the back, and then I was satisfied.
This discovery only added to my eagerness ; but the result
of the day's work left me with no stomach for such another
chase.

Taking these two receptions together, it is little to be won-
dered at that the Pioneer Birds should regard ours as a rather
inhospitable region, and for a long time continue to give
wide berths to every creature bearing the detestable effigy
of their persecutors.

Although the old man B. and myself had undoubtedly the
worst of it, yet it was altogether natural and proper that the
proud and conscious lords of song should treat us with hau-
teur as boorish and ignorant beings, who, incapable of appre-
ciating the divine harmonies they were come to bestow upon

62 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

us, tad rudely turned our brutal arms against them to drive
them forth from the land.

The next spring, a new wonder filled the air. A melody
such as I had never heard before, burst in clear and over-
whelming raptures from the meadows where I had first seen
the graceful stranger with the white-barred wings last year.
I hastened thither, but left my gun behind this time, for I
remembered that eventful twelfth of June, and that, too with
a feeling not entirely unmingled of awful respect for the mar-
velous sagacity that could have so cooly baffled while it led
me through that wild and crazy race. The fact is, I never
have, to this day, got over that affair, and am not sure that,
to this moment, I have not a sort of superstition with regard
to its events, and the weird creature that caused them.

I saw it now leaping up from its favorite perch on a tree
top, much in the manner I had observed before ; but now it
was in a different mood, and seemed to mount, thus spirit-
like, upon the wilder ecstacies, and floating, fall on the sub-
siding cadence of that passionate song it poured into the list-
ening ear of love — for, I could see his mate, with fainter
bars across her wings, where she sat upon a thorn-bush near
and listened.

When this magnificent creature commenced to sing, the
very air was burdened with a thousand different notes ; but
his voice rose clear and melodiously loud above them all —
as I listened — one song after another ceased suddenly, until,
in a few minutes, and before I could realize that it was so, I
found myself hearkening to that solitary voice. This is a pos-
itive fact ! I looked around me in astonishment. What !
Are they awed ? but his song only now grew more exulting,
and, as if feeling his triumph, he bounded yet higher with
each new gush, and, in swift and quivering raptures dived,
skimmed and floated round, round, then rose to fall again
more boldly on the billowy storm of sound.

No wonder the other birds were silent, to listen, for,
one after one he hurled the notes of each upon its ear so

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 63

alchemyzed with splendor, that they knew not their own
song.

This curious phenomenon I have witnessed many times
since. Even in the morning choir, when every little throat
seems strained in emulation, if the mocking bird breathes
forth in one of its mad, bewildered and bewildering extrav-
aganzas, the other birds pause almost invariably and remain
silent until his song is done. This, I assure you, is no fig-
ment of the imagination or illusion of an excited fancy ; it
is just as substantial a fact as any other one in Natural
History. Whether the other birds stop from envy, as has
been said, or from awe, cannot be so well ascertained, but I
believe it is from the sentiment of awe, for as I certainly have
felt it myself in listening to the mocking bird, I do not know
why these inferior creatures should not also.

Five or six pairs of them made their appearance in the
neighborhood of the town this spring, and though they un-
doubtedly nested and bred close at hand, all attempts to find
their nests proved unavailing to the enterprising youngsters
of the town, who had turned mocking-bird-mad all of a sud-
den— because they had heard somebody say, modestly, that
they were " very fine singing birds indeed 1" — because Jim
Snooks — or Snobs — I forget which — had said " he had hearn
of their sellin' for thirty dollars! !! in New Orleans!" Poor
child of song ! It is well for thee that thine arch mother- wit
stood thee in stead, or else thy glorious progeny might have
been ignominiously consigned along with the geese, gigs and
chickens of some flat-boat trader's cargo — to be sold to the
highest bidder in some northern mart. Sentimental young
ladies, too, became interested, because some one had heard some-
body say that she had heard the foreign-looking young gen-
tleman, who wore a moustache and claimed to be an artist,
(vulgate — Fiddler !) that "the creature sang divinely by moon-
light !" — though it is insinuated to this day, that he meant the
tree-frog ! So all the ragged little hopefuls, whom these young
feminine romanticists delighted in calling their "naughty

64 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

brothers," were incited by prospective bribes of ginger-bread
or candy to join the hue and cry of hunters for the nests of
the poor mocking birds.

Though disgusted at all this, and most seriously alarmed
lest they should be driven away, I myself continued, never-
theless, steadily and patiently to watch the motions and
haunts of the birds, day and night, with the hope of securing
a nest for myself. They were something to me — aye, of
greater value than a Prince's ransom ! they brought to me a
world of music — the minstrelsy of earth and air in one
full throat! I had a right to draw them near me, that
they might fill my soul with gladness! Such was the
logic with which I justified myself over the heads of other
sinners !

However specious and egotistical my logic may appear,
my zeal was by no means impaired by any doubts as to its
force and truth. Day by day I prowled the meadows,
hedge-rows and gardens, carefully concealing my object un-
der the pretence of gunning, and taking special care to ad-
minister an awful warning to the little, freebooters aforesaid,
whom I might chance to meet in the same search, upon the
evil consequences attending bird-nesting in general ; becom-
ing even pathetic towards the middle of my lecture, and not
unfrequently winding up, on signs of obduracy becoming too
apparent, with heavy threats of personal vengeance if I de-
tected them in destroying a single nest.

Though I had thus constituted myself their champion, the
poor birds had not, in all their enemies combined, so much
to fear, so far as their liberty was concerned, as in my single
self. I knew the sort of locality in which they might be ex-
pected to build, and there was not a solitary thorn tree, low
clump of thicket or matted wild vine that escaped examina-
tion if it stood somewhat apart from every other growth
for the bird, with us, always selected such places for its nest.

I know its habits are very different in the extreme South,
where I have seen the nests placed openly upon the top of

BOYHOOD AND BIKDS. 65

the fence alongside the public road, or in fifty other places
just as public. But this is the mocking bird under different
circumstances, if not a very different species of which I now
speak. It is of the hardy pioneer in a new country, subject
to the dangers and annoyances, which I have been describ-
ing, and compelled to seek safety in the exercise of the ex-
tremest caution and subtlest sagacity of which it may be pos-
sessed, of which we are giving you the characteristics, not
the smaller and feebler native of the emasculating orange-
groves, where it has, from time immemorial, been protected
and indeed domesticated, as our sparrows are. We tell you
of a bird of lighter plumage, of nearly one-third larger size and
weight, possessing a power of utterance superior in volume to
the feeble Southerner, as are the notes of the clarion to the fife !

We are describing a conqueror, as well as a discov-
erer ; haughty, strong, audacious, cunning, adventurous
and sagacious, whose stormy and impetuous voice bids
all living things be mute and listen to his song of Earth?
triumphing over silence ; whose hardy frame trembles not
when the North-wind cometh, but who listeneth on his toss-
ing perch, that he may mock its piping when the Summer
comes, and scare the Tropic-flame bird with the icy notes of
Winter ; not of a monotonous, timid singer that fatigues the
ear with running over a short gamut of imitations, the
sounds of which can be distinguished a hundred yards or so,
but of a singer, whose notes are infinitely various, and may be
heard with thrillling distinctesss over a mile. It is, in a
word, of the Mocking Bird of Kentucky and the Middle States
that we speak, and not of the Southern Mocking Bird, which
is, I believe I can prove conclusively, a different species.

I know I am running a great risk in this assertion, but I
am confident of being able to maintain, that the bird of Ken-
tucky and the Middle States is as different from the Mock-
ing Bird of Louisiana as the stern, hardy, and giant-limbed
Pioneer, who conquered the red-man of the dark and
bloody ground, was a different man from the small and

5

66 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

emasculated Mexican in his native South. I shall take
some occasion to prove this position more at large.

But, my pursuit did not end with the day. At night I
would retire to my room, as if to bed — wait until the night-
song of the mocking bird began, which was usually about
eleven o'clock. Then, disguised in a cloak and slouched
hat, would let myself down from the window of my bed-room
and hie away to the fields and meadows ; for the moonlight
was tremulous already with the silver arrows of those notes
that came now, all at once, as if Cytherias' quiver had been
emptied down the air, and then one after one would float in
an ^Eolian sigh upon the ear, or in a sharp, ringing hiss
go darting by ! 0, the wonder of those songs beneath the
moon ! The summer moonlight of southern Kentucky is
not surpassed in the world for brilliancy and a peculiar soft
transparency which causes the most striking contrasts of
light and shade. The trees throw down shadows as black
as solid midnight, while their tops, toward the moon, seem
inspired of beams. Every object is thus startingly defined.
The smallest blade of grass stands out haloed in relief of its
own black shadow. Objects are thus defined at astonishing
distances, and, for the same cause, sounds transmitted with
almost painful distinctness. With such accessories no music
I have ever heard on earth, or expect to hear, has so affected
me as the marvellous night-song of my favorite mocking
bird.

It must be known that these creatures differ from each
other as do men and women, in their vocal powers, and there
is usually one bird in a neighborhood that supremely sur-
passes all the rest. It is another most remarkable fact that
all other mocking birds retire from the immediate neighbor-
hood of this acknowledged monarch, to such a distance that
you can hear but the faintest note from them in the pauses of
his song, and that sounds as if they but prolonged its echo.

I soon detected the monarch from the rest, and, as they
never change their night-haunts much, unless repeatedly dis-

BOYHOOD AND BIKDS. 67

turbed, I could hear him on any night. He lived in a small
clump of trees which had been left standing over a sink hole
spring in a meadow, something like a mile from my father's
house, and bordering upon a farm owned by our old friend
B. Here I resorted regularly, every fair night, and, conceal-
ing my person in a corner of the fence, with my cloak about
me, would lie down on the grass to listen. He sat in a high
tree of the clump, and I felt sure that his mate brooded lis-
tening below upon her nest, in one of the low thorn-bushes
scattered around ; for, surely, nothing but love could have
made him so drunk with music !

At the sound of my coming, he would hush for awhile,
and then, in some short and rapid notes, the prelude opened.
It rose slowly at first, with many sharp transitions, or low,
dreamy interludes, as if he mused and dallied with his theme,
— but now the song begins to swell. Silence has attuned her
ear, and Earth hears her many voices singing in her sleep.

Yes, they are all there I Hear them, each warble, chirp,
and thrill ! How they crowd upon each other ! You
can hear the flutter of soft wings, as they come hurrying
forth ! Hark I that rich, clear whistle ! Bob White ! is it
you ? There, the sudden scream ! Is it a Hawk ? Hey !
what a gush !• — what a rolling, limpid gush ! Ah ! my dain-
ty Red-Breast, at thy matins early ! Mew ! What, pussy ?
No, the Cat-Bird ; hear its low, liquid love-notes linger
round the roses by the garden walk ! Hilloa ! the world's
on fire ! — listen ! listen ! listen to that little Wren ! — he will
surely blow up — he must explode in the climax of that little
agony of trills which it is rising on its very tip-toes to
reach ! What now ? Quack ! quack ! phut ! phut ! craunch [
craunch ! cock-a-doodle-doo ! What ! the whole barn-yard ?
Squeak ! squeak ! squeak !• — pigs and all ! Hark that melan-
choly plaint ! — Whip-poor-will ! How sadly it conies from
out the shadowy distance ! What a contrast — the Red
Bird's lively whistle, shrilly mounting high, higher, highest !
Hark the Orchard-Oracle's gay, delicious, raving, run-mad,

68 WILD SCENES AND SONGKBIKDS.

ranting riot of sweet sounds ! I can see the mal-a-pert keep-
ing time with his wings, as he goes sideways, dipping up and
down, from one apple-tree top to another ! Hear that ! It
is the Eain-Crow, croaking for a storm ! Hey-dey ! Jay I
jay ! jay ! It is the impish dandy Blue- Jay ! Hear, he has
a strange, round, mellow whistle, too ! There goes the little
yellow-throated warbler — the Wood-Pecker's sudden call —
the King-Bird's waspish clatter — the Dove's low, plaintive
coo — the little owl's screeching cry and snapping beak — the
Tom-tit's tiny note — the King Fisher's rattle — the caw, the
scream, the cry of love, of hate, or joy — all come rapidly and
in unexpected contrasts ; yet with such clear precision, that
each bird is fully expressed to my mind in its own individ-
uality.

Thus, all the past of my communion with such creatures,
and with each fresh reality of the abounding Earth that I so
loved, is made to me as a presence in which I live again.
But, then, that wondrous song could speak yet higher music,
as the swollen tide rushed, in wilder eddies, yet more tame-
less, on ; and then, amongst these hurrying notes I knew, a
thousand liquid strains would dart, in play, through and
around, to meet them in mysterious whirls of flashing sound.
These mystic meanings nature only knew ; my half-awed
spirit could but dimly feel them ! Ah ! what calm, delicious
hours were those ! Until three o'clock I would lie as one
entranced within a dream of harmonies, such as the soul of
nature taught old Chaos until he rendered up their notes in
form and order, and the world took beauty on.

At three o'clock the songs would cease, and then my
spirit fell as one plunging down from glowing light into the
sullen dark. Many, many nights have I thus spent beneath
the moon and listening stars, when my good parents thought
me safely asleep in my bed. Ah, those songs — those night-
songs — ye can never pass away.

As yet, I had never obtained a near view of a mocking
bird — much as I worshipped the creature ; and as to finding

BOYHOOD AND BIEDS. 69

a nest, mine was the luck of all the rest of the would-be rob-
bers. But, perseverance has its reward.

One day I had paused near the " sink-hole spring" to hear
my favorite mocker sing by day -light, for variety — when,
instead of a song, I saw — what ? A splendid pair of mock-
ing birds, disporting themselves gaily along the fences and
in the grass of the very slip of meadow in the corner of
which I made my usual nightly couch !

I drew a long breath. What a discovery ! How tame
they are ! It must be some mysterious sympathy ! The
male must be that magnificent bird I have listened to so
many nights with rapture, and never seen ! Hah ! these
have a black mark under the eye ; the Southern bird I re-
member has not that mark in the plates of it that 1 have seen.
This must be a new variety ! I have heard my uncle and
father, who have been to New Orleans, describe the Southern
bird. It certainly has no such mark as this, which resembles
that under the eye of the Red-Bird ; and from what they
have told me of its singing, it cannot be near equal to this
glorious creature. My mother, though, has described the
bird in northern Kentucky, where she knew it, and from
what she has told me, this must be the very one. It must be
this same wonderful bird I have been listening to !

O, how happy I was ! I crouched down beside the fence
for fear I might chance to startle them, and gazed in eager,
anxious admiration. What a handsome bird ! It seems
rather shorter, though, than I expected from the appearance
of those at a distance ; and there is the white bar across the
wings. But, somehow or other, the wings do not seem so
wide, nor the stripe so broad ; its neck, too, disappoints me ;
it appears much shorter and thicker than I supposed. But,
that's easily enough accounted for in the fact, that it must
require a very powerful neck to emit such loud sounds. But
it is a lovely bird, with that light, gray plumage so delicately
marked on the breast, and looks so warlike with the black
mark under its eye ! Ah ! I see its bill is very hooked ; it

70 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

gives it quite the appearance of a little hawk ! How happy
was I !

Look ! look I They fly towards that great black oak over
the spring ! As I live ! there's a nest there ! I hear the
cry of the young ones ! Strange place for mocking birds
to build in, according to accounts. But this is a new varie-
ty ; they, no doubt, prefer large trees.

The mate now flew to the same cluster of scrubby twigs,
or small limbs, that grew out from a diseased portion o'f the
trunk that formed a large knot, bristling u like quills upon
a fretful porcupine." She lit in the bosom of this ugly
excrescence, and, as I again heard the cries of the young,
I sprang from my place of concealment — with my heart in
my throat — leaped the fence, ran at full speed to the tree,
stripped of my coat and shoes, and before I knew what I
was doing, had ascended as nimbly as a squirrel the trunk
of a tree that I would not have attempted to climb for a for-
tune, under other circumstances.

It was well I did not stop to think, or I should never have
reached the limbs. As it was, now that I found myself up,
the difficulty of getting at the nest seemed as great as ever.
The small limbs that bristled out from the great excrescence
were as tough as they could be, and, how I was to drag my
body over them so as to reach the nest was the question —
but when, by rising on tip-toe, I could peep over the edges
of the nest and see the heads and bright eyes of four lusty
young birds, I literally tore my way through all obstruc-
tions, and with eager hands grasped at my treasure. I seiz-
ed three, and the fourth sprang out in time to elude me and
sailed down. Just at this moment I saw my old friend B.
approaching to see what I could be at. I shrieked out to him
in my tribulation ; for the little wretches had bitten my hand
so severely that the pain, and imminent danger of falling
combined, had compelled me to let them go and save my
neck.

"My mocking birds! Catch my mocking birds, Mr. B.

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 71

Oil ! I wouldn't lose them for the world ! catch them ! catch
them I"

I shrieked in my agony — for I had got myself hung upon
that knot by the remaining rags of my clothes, and the
dread of losing my birds was even greater than that of
breaking my neck. The old gentleman heartily sympathiz-
ing with me, sprung to the work right briskly, and, although
they compelled him to let them go several times by the se-
verity of their bites, yet he finally succeeded in capturing
three, which were fastened down under my hat.

During the chase, I heard several very droll exclamations
from him which gave me a decidedly contemptible opinion
of his attainments as a naturalist. As he shook one of the
fierce little wretches off — that had fastened upon his finger
when he tried to seize it — he cried out with an exclamation
of pain and surprise —

" Ough ! Young mocking birds didn't bite that fashion
in old Virginia — my boy ! Don't like that black spot under
the eye ! They do look mightly like mocking birds, too !
How they do squall! Why they're as strong as young
wild cats, and as fierce too ! There ! there ! that one's gone !"

" Gone where ?" I gasped, as I descended the tree with a
speed which seemed much more like falling than climbing
down, and completed the demolishment of my forlorn inex-
pressibles.

" He ran under these rocks and you'll never get him
again, I'm afraid."

" Never get him ?" and I almost burst into tears at the
thought of losing one of my precious new variety. The
spring came from under a sort of cave, and there were loose
piles of stone intended once for walls on each side of the
basin. Into these the cunning youngster had crawled, and
was far enough beyond our reach. I consoled myself by
heaping stones so as to prevent its escape, and determined
to go home and secure the prize in hand, and then return
with a negro man to dig this one out for me. This was not

72 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

my only annoyance — for the old gentleman kept insinuating
as we walked on towards my father's, that these were
" mighty strange sort of mocking birds," until my insulted
dignity as a naturalist and discoverer, fairly blazed out in
wrath, as I remarked in a most emphatic manner,

"Mr. B. I repeat to you sir, that this is a new variety
of mocking birds ! When you have spent as many nights as
I have sir, in ascertaining the fact — when you have heard
the male parent sing as many hours as I have, while you
were sound asleep, then you too will be convinced that I
have not only discovered a new variety, but that I have now
in my possession a nest of the finest singers in the world."

This long speech, with all its emphasis, did not seem to
entirely convince the old man, who could not get over the
way they bit, and that black spot under the eye ; but, I saw
it staggered him some, and when, as we were parting, he
rather hinted that he should like to have a male bird, if they
turned out as I expected, I turned upon him quite a com-
passionate look as I promised smilingly, " of course — in case
they turn out to be mocking birds, Mr. B. you shall have
one of the males if I have two."

This was my grand triumph, and I was proud as Lucifer
when I exhibited my captives to the family ; and great were
the rejoicings of my sister over my brilliant success. But the
triumph was incomplete, while one of the precious family
remained behind, and soon I was on my return, accompanied
by a strong negro man to dig the runaway out of the rocks.
It was a work of several hours, and during its progress I ob-
served something curious on one of the thorn bushes near —
that had died the year before ; though the thorns were stiff
and tough as ever. This phenomenon consisted of the bodies
of some dozen of the common gray or fence lizard, which
had been impaled carefully upon the topmost thorns. They
seemed to be in all stages of demolishment and decay, from
the entire reptile that was bleeding and scarcely cold, to the
mere blackened fragment that had been eaten away close up

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 73

to the thorn on which it was spitted, and now seemed ready
to drop to pieces at a touch. It struck me at first that some
stupid boys must have been amusing themselves in torturing
the lizards, but then I saw that those thorns could not be
reached from below, and it was evident that some creature
was eating them gradually. This recalled, dimly, to my re-
collection, an anecdote I had heard somewhere of a bird that
was in the habit of impaling lizards in this way that they
might become decomposed somewhat by the action of the
sun, to prepare them for being eaten — but, as I could not re-
call the name of the bird just then, I somewhat hastily dis-
missed the subject from my mind for the time ; I know not
for or what reason, but, because it somehow made me feel
uncomfortable.

The runaway was reached at last, and I now returned as
proud of the success of my perseverence and enterprise as
of the birds themselves, and my new discovery. The first
person I met, when I reached home, was my sister, who ran
to me, exclaiming — •

"Brother! you never did see creatures eat like our little
birds ! They do nothing but eat, eat, eat, all the time. I
never knew before that mocking birds were so greedy —
and then they bite me so I"

I smiled benignantly, as became a youthful Cuvier, and
holding out to her the new one, said, patronizingly —

"Look here! He could not escape me; although this
new variety have the cunning of wizzards ! Never mind the
appetite, Sis — we shall be the more certain to raise them,
and their magnificent song shall repay us for a little addi-
tional trouble !"

But Sis was not so easily comforted, for she said, as she
showed me some ugly marks where they had been biting her
little fingers severely —

"Well, brother, I hope you will not find any more of
your new variety, for I expect to have my fingers eaten off
by these that you have. They are not content with snatch-

74 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

ing down everything I can find to give, but have been try-
ing to bite off the fingers that fed them !"

" I am sorry for your fingers, dear, and you must let me
feed them hereafter — but I like their appetite and their
spunk, they should have both, to sing as they are going to
sing!"

" Well, brother — have it your own way ; but I don't be-
lieve in making an angel out of a glutton !"

This last remark rather stung me, for somehow or other,
since the discovery of the impaled lizards, I had been feeling
uncomfortable. I went to the cage, and they received me
with clamorous cries for more ! I immediately got for them
a quantity of food, such as I had supposed to be best for them,
from what I had read and heard of their habits. I found, to
my astonishment, that they would eat nothing but earth
worms and fresh meat — farinaceous food they rejected with
disdain — and certainly gulphed down as much as their own
weight every few hours.

The thing was becoming more inexplicable, and what
made matters still worse, my sister, for the first time in her
life, refused to share my cares with me. She had taken a
most unconquerable dislike to the creatures ; declared she
was absolutely afraid of them, and shuddered when they
were brought near her. This reception of my new variety
mortified me excessively ; but I consoled myself that I was
doomed to the common martyrdom of discoverers, and
nursed my uncouth and boisterous pets with even the greater
assiduity that they were rejected of men !

I now let them run about the yard ; for I soon found that
the ravin in their maws constituted a sufficient parole of
honor to ensure their return to where food was to be obtain-
ed ; but one morning I witnessed a trick of one of my vaga-
bonds that considerably stumped me. He had straggled
around to the back of the house, and got into the poultry
yard. I saw him march very deliberately up to a brood of
young chickens, and without saying " by your leave" to any-

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 75

body, pounced upon one in the most savage fashion, and
would have killed it in an instant, but that the old hen rush-
ed to the rescue, with a blow that sent the young robber sev-
eral feet distant. The indignant mother followed up the at-
tack, and I was about to interfere when, to my surprise, the
young wretch, with all his feathers bristling, like a little
hedge -hog, threw himself upon his back and awaited the on-
set with open mouth and fierce eyes. The hen struck at
him with her beak, and quick as lightning he clutched her
head with his claws, and the astonished hen ran squalling
off, shaking her head in agony to get rid of this new sort of
head-gear. When she had shaken him off, she ran away in a
great fright, and he strutted around with a most conscious air.

"Well!" muttered I, "this is getting to be something
of a joke — my new variety seems to have more of the hawk
than the song bird in it. I never heard of mocking birds
killing young chickens or whipping old hens before !
Eather a war-like variety of song bird, this new one of mine !
I must look over my books and see something about that
lizard story."

That lizard story had always haunted me — though I had
not been able to summon courage to look it up. Just at
this moment my sister, who had witnessed the little scene
above, and heard a part of my muttered soliloquy, from a
window close at hand — burst into a ringing laugh, and as I
looked up, disappeared. In a moment she came bounding
down the steps to meet me, with a small book in her hand,
which I recognized with a forboding thrill, before she reached
me. It was a small school edition of selections from orni-
thology, with wood-cut illustrations. She held her hand on
the page to cover something, while she read as well as she
could for laughter, Wilson's version of the lizard story, and
when she got through removed her hand suddenly from the
cut, and though it was remarkably rudely done, I instantly
recognized in my new variety — "THE BUTCHER BIRD!"
Exeunt omnes — screaming with laughter.

76 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

The many times I "had been baffled in my pursuit of the
mocking bird, only increased the fixedness of my resolution
to accomplish my purpose of capture.

I managed to survive the mortification of mistaking the
Shrike, or Butcher Bird, for a new variety, and endeavored,
by the most exemplary meekness, to atone for the arrogance
of the self-constituted Naturalist and Discoverer. Indeed, I
was now, on occasion, quite eloquent upon the subject of
the too frequent presumptuousness of youthful and inexpe-
rienced amateurs, in jumping at conclusions over the heads
of aged and profound science, on the strength of a single
" modern instance," with regard to the place and meaning
of which, their ignorance may be utterly at fault.

I have been sensitive on the subject of new varieties ever
since, and, although, in spite of my Butcher Bird disaster, I
have yet ventured to assert still the existence of a second
variety of the mocking bird ; yet I shall do so with the ter-
rors of the past before my eyes and on my conscience.

In the meantime, I shall relate the " pretty and effective
manner" in which my pet sister came to my rescue in the
case of some young mocking birds with whom I got into a
droll difficulty !

I commenced to tell this curious affair, but the story of
old man B. coming up, set me to remembering something of
my own disasters in the same pursuit, and then I had to tell
the whole affair right out. The good old man ! If I have
had my laugh at him, it is only " turn about ;" for he used to
quiz me most unmercifully about my new variety — though,
by the way, I must say, I have heard of worse mistakes than
that being made !

"Well, in short, I was riding past the memorable sink-hole
spring, a few days after the late denouement, when, to my
delight, I discovered a genuine mocking bird upon its nest,
in one of those scattered thorn trees to which I have so fre-
quently alluded. There was no mistake this time ; and stop-
ping my horse at a short distance — so as not to disturb the

BOYHOOD AND BIKDS. 77

bird — I gazed long and eagerly upon her, and now made out
clearly enough the differences in color and outline which had
so confused me in the Shrike. She was setting, evidently ;
but my heart beat loudly with apprehension when I looked
around me and saw that there were a number of boys in
sight, who had observed me. Although the nest was most
ingeniously placed, and accident alone had revealed it to
me ; yet I feared that it would not escape the search of these
sharp-eyed ragamuffins, if their suspicion should chance to
have been aroused by my position, which would, of course,
give them all the clue they needed for a successful search.
I rode out slowly towards them, discussing with myself, on
the way, whether it was best to tell them the truth and buy
them off, or run the risk of removing their suspicions by my
indifferent air. I concluded that the last was the best course.

They were standing on the side of the road, awaiting my
approach, and I determined suddenly upon trying a grand
stroke of policy, by way of diversion to their lawless enter-
prise.

" Boys," said I, stopping my horse among them, "do you
want to make a shilling apiece this morning ?"

(There were four of them — the most incorrigible little row-
dies in the place.)

" Yes ! yes I yes ! What do you want ? What is it ?"

"Why, I found a squirrel's nest yesterday, out by the
Sulphur Spring, and the hollow is too small for my hand.
Now, if you will get a hatchet and go out there with me, and
one of j^ou climb and cut the hollow for me, I will give you
a shilling apiece, and two of the young ones if there are
four."

The proposition was instantly and eagerly accepted. One
of the party ran off to his father's house, which was near, for
a hatchet ; while we moved slowly on.

I was just chuckling at the success of my ruse, when one
of the little villians looked up with a mischievous expression
and asked —

78 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

"You 'ain't found any mocking bird's nest yet — have you ?"

I could not help reddening for the life of me, and an-
swered sharply —

" I have told you there are no mocking birds' nests about
here to find. What put that into your head, you scamp ?"

" O, nothin' at all ! What was you lookin' at so,, down
thar in the thorn bushes ?"

" Pshaw ! You'd better go and see, you silly fellow ! I
find a great many things to look at. I have stood for an
hour over an ant-hill. You'd better follow my trail, if you
like such amusement !"

" Drat if I don't go and see what's in them 'ar thorn
trees ! I believe they is somethin' thar mor'n a ant-hill ?"

I could have strangled the pertinacious little ruffian ; and
it required a very great struggle for me to contain myself;
for I well knew that if I let my excitement be seen, the case
was a hopeless one from that instant ; for nothing could save
my mocking bird's nest then, as they would be sure to de-
stroy it in sheer wantonness. I answered as coolly as I
could —

" Well, go ahead youngster ; you'll be apt to find a bag of
dollars, no doubt !"

I was now seriously alarmed, and never, as I flattered my-
self, exerted greater ingenuity or more consummate tact, than
in my efforts this morning, to turn aside suspicion from those
unlucky thorn trees. I put them on half-a-dozen different
scents, and offered such rewards as I thought would ensure
the direction of their inquisitive activity toward other ob-
jects.

Our foray against the poor squirrels was successful, and I
managed that my youthful inquisitor should get one of them,
and in every way endeavored to propitiate him. I saw he
had got it into his head that I was afraid of him, on account
of something or other I had found in those thorns, and knew
that his malicious love of mischief was only equalled by his
inquisitive and suspicious temper. My only hope, therefore,

BOYHOOD AND BIEDS. 79

was to propitiate and keep him busy until the thornbushes
might be forgotten.

I managed to convince myself, before we parted, that I
had no doubt succeeded ; that it was impossible he would
ever think of the circumstance again. So anxious was I,
however, that I rode past the thorn tree a dozen times that
day, taking care never to stop or turn my head towards it
again ; but, stealing a quick side-glance which showed that
all was right — would pass on.

The grand discovery was of course revealed to my sister ;
though, this time, it was with something more of humility
than had marked the announcements of the ci devant "youth-
ful Cuvier r

So eager were we to watch over the nest and make sure
that it had not been despoiled, that we were off on our usual
morning ride for the Sulphur Springs before sunrise, and
stopped a few minutes near the nest to give her an opportu-
nity to see. There was no danger of the vagabond boys
being on the watch this early, and we had an undisturbed
view of that lovely mother with her dark, bright, patient
eyes, so calmly fixed upon us, and we watched while the
globules of dew would gather and roll off her sheltering plu-
mage. She looked so meek, so brave, so faithful to her pre-
cious charge, that we relented of our cruel purpose, and
vowed, if we could protect her from the cruel boys, that we
would place the young ones in a little cage, so that she
could nurse them herself, and try, through her affection for
them, to win this splendid pair to come and live on our
place. Indeed, this was my usual object in endeavoring to
capture young birds. I had no intention of keeping them
prisoners longer than was necessary to domesticate them to
my father's grounds.

I had often done this, and know it to be quite practicable
— though there was a great risk of losing the pets after all
my trouble, for they become so confiding as to be constantly
in danger from the brutalities of men. The temptation,

80 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

therefore, had been very great to retain these valuable birds
in close confinement, rather than run such risks, and indeed
we had determined to do so should we succeed in obtaining
them ; but now the sight of that gentle mother had moved
us, and, to confess the truth, we felt our tenure to be so very
insecure, that we were just now a little like the sailor in the
storm, ready to promise his patron saint pretty much any-
thing if he would only help him out this time !

As we returned from our ride, all was safe, and I took
good care to be along that way several times during the
day. So the matter progressed for several days, and as our
solicitude had been rewarded by finding everything right
at each of our frequent visits thus far, we had commenced
congratulating ourselves that the danger was over, and that
my strategy had succeeded in turning aside the dangerous
curiosity of the boys.

It was in this mood we approached the, now, interesting
thorn tree, on the fourth morning of our rides in this direc-
tion. We were discussing between ourselves the probabili-
ties of the young being hatched by this time, for, as yet, we
had only caught a glimpse of the greenish eggs, spotted with
amber brown, when the brooding female lifted a wing as she
shifted her position. We were in the midst of a gay and
happy chatter when we reached the tree, before I observed
that we were so near. There was an exclamation of pain
and surprise from my sister. I looked — the nest was gone !
The shady and thorn-guarded bosom of the tree was bare, to
a few dried twigs and shreds of roots ! A choking sensation
of rage and grief came over me as I sprang from the saddle
to examine for traces of the robbers. Vengeance was the
first thought. "Look! look brother! they are dead!" and
my sister points to the foot of the tree, where, on a scrap of
old carpet, the poor little callow things, just one day in an
inhospitable world, lay stark and motionless.

"Poor things — they are dead !" and I stooped to examine
them. They certainly could not have been more than a day

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 81

old in this external life. The large, blue, bulbous-looking
eyes had never yet been opened, and they were entirely bare
on most parts of the body. As I examined them in silence,
it suddenly occurred to me to see if pulsation had entirely
ceased, though I had not at the moment the most remote ex-
pectation either that they could have survived exposure to
the chill night air ; or, even if they had been fully alive, of
being able to raise them myself. It would require a more
delicate skill than mine to keep the life-current moving in
those frail bodies. I was simply curious to see how long
any indications of life would survive such cold' — for the little
creatures felt like lumps of ice in my hands. To my great
surprise I saw through the transparent tissues of the under
parts of the body, that circulation still went on. I could
clearly see all the exquisite machinery of the heart and arte-
ries working freely like some fairy watch. I uttered an ex-
clamation of surprise, mingled with joy, as a new idea at the
same moment flashed through my brain.

" Wonderful ! why they are alive yet. We won't be
cheated out of our pets. I am determined they shall live
yet ! See how their tiny hearts beat ! Here, dear, put them
in that warm little bosom of yours, and they will soon be
well as ever again."

" But, brother, what good is it going to do to bring the
little creatures to life? The mother has been frightened
away, the nest is destroyed, and they will die before she
comes back again, if she ever does."

<; O, you must be mother just now ! put them in."

"I cannot feed such tender things as these. My fingers
are not small enough, and I do not know what to give
them ! It's a pity to bring them back to feeling again, just
to starve!"

"Nevermind. You put them in your bosom. I've got
an idea. • It's worth trying. I've always felt that I was go-
ing to have the first brood of these birds, and have it I
will. Now, you see if I don't. These villainous vagabonds

6

82 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

of boys have tried to baffle me, as I feared they would — but
IVe set my heart on this, and do not mean to be baffled !"

" Well, brother, I do hope you may succeed, but how
could they have come here on this piece of carpet — do you
think?"

" Why, I expect one of those youngsters who saw me
looking at the nest the morning I found it, has been here
and discovered it too, and in his anxiety to secure the re-
wards offered by his sisters, probably, and his desire to
spite me, he has only been content to wait till they were out
of the egg, when he has carried them off to his sister, and
claimed his ginger-bread. She has had compassion enough
to make him take them back, and the stupid Oaf, having de-
stroyed the nest, has left them here in this characteristic
fashion."

We afterwards heard that this was just how it had occur-
red. The little things being deposited in their soft, white
nest, I mounted, and we returned immediately home. My
sister was immensely inquisitive to know what my new idea
might be, but partly to tease her for her doubts, and partly
because I was by no means sure of my own success, and re-
membered the lesson about arrogance I had lately received,
I would give her no satisfaction beyond saying that I was
going to try a spell that a fairy in the form of a little bird had
taught me, by which I could make any birds I chose, that
had nests, take care of such little orphans as these. She was
incredulous — but my only answer was —

"You shall see!"

"I suppose I shall, if it happens ; but is it not cruel — too
cruel, for you. to be making foolish experiments upon the
lives of these little things. I can feel them moving now."

" What ? would you have me kill them while there is a
a hope ?»

" You should have let them die while they were insensible
to pain. Now they've got to get over it all again, and worse
too, for now they'll die of hunger I"

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 83

" Never mind, dear ; let us try the fairy's spell — I have
faith in it."

" Do tell me what it is you are going to do. Birds will
only feed their own young ones, and they have enough to
do to attend to them. What can your fairy do, unless she
takes care of them herself?"

I laughed, and making a low bow of mock courtesy, ex-
claimed—

"Why, how could it be surprising if she did? Has not
their new life commenced already in the bosom of one fairy ?
At least would not Mr. A. B. C. — what letter is it? — say so?"

" Pshaw ! Do, brother, hush this nonsense, and tell me
what you mean to do ?"

" You shall see ! Come, jump down."

We were at home, and we passed hurriedly into the garden.
I called a little brother to join us, in a moment we were all
three standing beneath the eaves of the summer-house.
There was a small hole in the cornice of the eave, and I knew
that in this a pair of blue birds had nested, and supposed
that they must be just about hatched now. My sister stood
watching my proceedings with great anxiety, for they were
entirely mysterious to her. She saw me take my little
brother aside, and whisper my directions to him ; then the
little fellow prepare to climb up the columns of the summer-
house, and with my assistance reach the cornice. His little
hand was inserted into the hole, and with the greatest care
not to touch either the sides of the hole or the nest within,
he daintily plucks out the young ones, one by one, and hands
them down to me. They are the same age with the mock-
ing birds, but smaller.

" Now, Sis, give me those little ones; and hurry, dear, for
I am afraid the old ones, who have gone out for food, will
come back."

She is so flurried she does not realize what I am about to
do, but hastily places the young birds, now warm and fully
alive, in my hand. They are reached to my brother.

84 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

"Drop them in quick, quick! and come down. Jump,
I'll catch you!"

Down he comes, and then after my whispering something
more to him, he snatched the young blue birds from my
hand, and ran off among the shrubbery. At this moment
we heard the sweet, clear warble of the blue birds, and I
drew my sister a short distance away, where, from behind a
tall rose bush, we oould watch the proceedings of the old
birds.

"What does all this mean, brother? — what do you ex-
pect?" she asked, in a low, puzzled voice, for she did not
know that the young blue birds had been taken out — so
dexterously had we managed, and only understood that her
charge had been transferred to the nest.

" Brother, you surely can't expect that little blue bird to
take care of eight young ones — your fairy will have to help,
sure enough !"

" Hush ! hush !" said I, all eagerness, for with an insect in
its mouth, one of the old birds, twitting merrily, had alight-
ed near the hole, and without hesitation glided in, and in a
moment or two came forth again, without seeming to have
observed that there was anything wrong. My heart beat
more freely, for I saw that the insect had been left behind,
clearly, in the throat of one of the intruders — for the bird
plumed himself gaily outside, as if happy in having perform-
ed a pleasant duty. But this was the male bird, and it was
the arriving of the female that I knew was most to be dread-
ed— for if the sharp instinct of the mother did not detect the
fraud I felt that it would succeed.

In my elation at my success so far I had explained my ob-
ject to my sister, who, as she did not understand about the
making way with the young blue birds, was now infinitely
delighted at the probable success of the scheme, and I could
scarcely keep within bounds her dancing impatience to
see what the mother would do — hear what the mother
would say I Here she comes ! — and in a business-like and

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 85

straightforward way, glided directly into the hole. We held
onr breaths and stood on tiptoe. Out she darts with a low
cry — still holding the insect in her mouth. Our hearts sunk
— she has discovered all and refuses to adopt the strangers !
She flew to her mate and seemed to communicate some sad
intelligence to him. He was busily engaged in trimming
his feathers and merely straightened himself up for amoment,
and then with an air of the coolest indifference proceeded
with his occupation. The poor female seemed to be sadly
distressed and puzzled ; she flew around the nest uttering a
low, mournful cry — then returned to her philosophical mate
for sympathy, which he seemed to be too busy with his
feathers to spare just now. Then she would dart into the
hole — stay a moment, and out again with the insect still in
her mouth. Then she would circle round and round on the
wing as if searching for the cause of the disturbance, the na-
ture of which she evidently did not clearly understand. So
she continued to act until the male having arranged his feath-
ers to his liking flew off, with a pleasant call to her, in search
of more food. This seemed to decide her uncertainty, for,
darting now into the nest, she immediately fed the worm to
one of those lusty young fellows that had grown so won-
derfully since she last went out, and then came forth chirping
and apparently reconciled and followed her mate.

" There ! it succeeds ! it succeeds ! They are safe now —
these birds are more industrious than the mocking birds, and
will feed them better ! — 'good ! good !"

" Your fairy spell has succeeded, brother, sure enough !"
and she clapped her hands and danced for joy ; and I am not
sure that I did not join her most obstreperously, for I never
was more delighted in my life at the success of any little
scheme.

I knew the birds were safe if the female ever fed them
once. So it proved ; for never did I see little fellows grow
with greater lustihood than they. Daily we watched them ;
and in ten days or two weeks were greatly amused to see the

86 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

industrious old birds perseveringly laboring to fill gaping
throats that were nearly large enough to swallow them bodily
whole. I now narrowed the hole with wire so that the blue
birds could get in and the mocking birds could not get out,
for they were quite double the size of their foster parents.

When they were full fledged we took them to the house
and placed them in an aviary I had prepared for them in a
recess which contained a large window and looked out upon
the gardens. In two days I found to my great astonishment
the old blue birds endeavoring to feed them through the
wires. They had found them out, the faithful creatures, and
not content with having already spent double the amount of
labor upon them that they would have bestowed upon their
own offspring, they followed them up with their unweary-
ing solicitude.

I was greatly shocked at first to observe the cool indiffer-
ence with which the young aristocrats of song surveyed their
humble foster parents. After awhile it came — in spite of the
shameful ingratitude it exhibited — to be a constant scource
of merriment with us to watch the lordly and impudent non-
chalance with which they would turn their heads to one
side and look down at the poor blue birds — fluttering against
the bars with tender cries to attract their notice — with an
expression which seemed as plainly as could be to say, " Who
are you, pray ? — get away you common fellows I"

A fine pair of old mocking birds found them, too, but
when they came, our gentry behaved very differently, and
seemed crazy to get out. They became very tame, and I
finally fulfilled my vow of turning them loose, and for a long
time they were so tame that they would take food from our
hands anywhere. They lived on the place, and we felt our-
selves for years afterwards plentifully — aye, bounteously re-
warded for our anxiety on account of the little outcasts, by
the glorious songs they sang for us the summer nights to
dream by. Thus it was my fair sister helped me out of the
scrape with my young mocking birds !

BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 87

In conclusion I will present the reader with some things
that have been said in regard to this extraordinary bird by
Wilson, which may be of some consequence to those who
may regard its value as a cage-bird.

" As it is of some consequence to be able to distinguish a
young male bird from a female, the following marks may be
attended to ; by which some pretend to be able to distin-
guish them in less than a week after they are hatched. These
are, the breadth and purity of the white on the wings, for
that on the tail is not much to be depended on. This white,
on a full-grown male bird, spreads over the whole nine pri-
maries, down to, and considerably below, their coverts, which
are also white, sometimes slightly tipped with brown. The
white of the primaries also extends equally far on both vans
of the feathers. In the female, the white is less pure, spreads
over only seven or eight of the primaries, does not descend
so far, and extends considerably farther down on the broad,
than on the narrow side of the feathers. The black is also
more of a brownish cast.

" The young birds, if intended for the cage, ought not to
be left till they are nearly ready to fly ; but should be taken
rather young, than otherwise ; and may be fed, every hall
hour, with milk, thickened with Indian meal ; mixing occa-
sionally with it a little fresh meat, cut or minced very fine.
After they begin to eat of their own accord, they ought still
to be fed by hand, though at longer intervals, and a few
cherries, strawberries, &c., now and then thrown in to them.
The same sort of food, adding grasshoppers and fruit, parti-
cularly the various kinds of berries in which they delight ;
and plenty of clean, fine gravel, is found very proper for them
after they are grown up. Should the bird at any time ap-
pear sick or dejected, a few spiders thrown in to him will
generally remove these symptoms of disease."

This remark I have found to be amply verified in my own
experience. Indeed, I have observed that all the Turdinss
are greatly benefited while confined in cages, by an occa-

WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

sional relish of the common house spider. This insect seems
to act in some way medicinally upon many varieties of birds,
and even the finches are occasionally benefited by them. Of
the song and peculiar habits of the mocking bird Wilson

" In measure and accent, he faithfully follows his origin-
als. In force and sweetness of expression he greatly im-
proves upon them. In his native groves, mounted on the
top of a tall bush, or half-grown tree, in the dawn of dewy
morning, while the woods are already vocal with a multitude
of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent. Over
every other competitor the ear can listen to his music alone,
to which that of all others seems a mere accompaniment.
Neither is this strain altogether imitative. His own native
notes, which are easily distinguishable by such as are well
acquainted with those of our various song-birds, are bold
and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They con-
sist of short expressions of two, three, or, at the most, five
or six syllables ; generally interspersed with intonations, and
all of them uttered with great emphasis and rapidity ; and
continued with undiminished ardor for half an hour, or an
hour, at a time. His expanded wings and tail, glistening
with white, and the buoyant gaiety of his action, arresting
the eye, as his song most irresistibly does the ear, he sweeps
round with enthusiastic ecstasy — he mounts and descends as
his song swells or dies away ; and as my friend Mr. Bartram
has beautifully expressed it, 'He bounds aloft with the
celerity of an arrow, as if to recover or recall his very soul,
expired in the last elevated strain.' While thus exerting
himself, a bystander destitute of sight would suppose that
the whole feathered tribe had assembled together, on a trial
of skill ; each striving to produce his utmost effect ; so per-
fect are his imitations. He many times deceives the sports-
man, and sends him in search of birds that perhaps are not
within miles of him ; but whose notes 'he exactly imitates.
Even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this

BOYHOOD AND BIEDS. 89

admiral, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates ;
or dive, with precipitation, into the depths of thickets, at the
scream of what they suppose to be the sparrow-hawk."

It is one of the most striking of the exulting attitudes of
this bird described by Bartram and Wilson above, that my
wife has selected for her figure of the Southern variety —
for upon the question of the existence of the two varieties,
my mind has long been distinctly made up in spite of the
opinion expressed by Mr. Wilson, and coincided in by Au-
dubon.

Wilson says upon this subject —

" Many people are of opinion that there are two sorts, the
large and the small mocking bird ; but after examining great
numbers of these birds in various regions of the United
States, I am satisfied that this variation of size is merely ac-
cidental."

As the purpose of this volume is not to include technical
controversies, I shall waive any further discussion of this
question for the present — merely giving it as my decided
opinion, that what I have named the Kentucky mocking bird
is a distinct variety from what I have called the Southern
mocking bird.

CHAPTER III.

THE SHRIKE OR BUTCHER BIRD.

IT is worth while to say something more in detail about
this same butcher bird before we dismiss him. The people
who always have a reason for a name, have very properly
called the little wretch butcher, for butcher he is in the very
worst sense of the term !

I specially wish to attract attention to some curious coin-
cidences between the apparent place of this bird on the scale
of animal life, and — that last of all creatures with which it
would seem possible at first view to institute a comparison
at all — I mean the humming bird. Now do not be startled
— but hear what I have to say ! The humming bird is known
as the apparent link between insects and birds. There is a
moth so closely resembling it, which is found all the way
South from Pennsylvania — that it requires an acute observer
to distinguish one from the other at the distance of a few
feet when they are feeding from the flowers, which they do
in the same way.

Now the shrike is quite as evidently the connecting link
between the raptores or hawks, and song-birds, as the hum-
ming bird is the link between the song-birds and insects !
The shrike resembles the hawk in its thirst for carnage and
manner of stooping upon its prey, except that, as it has not
strong claws like the hawk, it strikes with its strong beak.
It resembles the mocking bird so closely in plumage, that
older naturalists than I was at sixteen, have frequently con-

THE SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 91

founded the habits of the two. Its general color is the
same — 'they both have the white bar across the wings, and
the difference consists mainly in the outline of the form —
which in the shrike expresses compactness and strength, with
short wings and tail, while in the mocking bird it expresses
airiness, with graceful length and elegance of plumage — but
the difference cannot be easily distinguished when the shrike
is on the wing. There is another point of resemblance to
the mocking bird, which is still more remarkable. Audubon
asserts roundly, that the shrike can imitate the cries of birds,
such as sparrows and other little people, so perfectly, that
not only are we deceived, but the sparrows themselves,
thinking it is one of their own kith and kin screaming in the
claws of the hawk, flock thither in sympathetic terror, from
their coverts, when the cunning mocker pounces upon one
of them sure enough.

Audubon in his Biography of Birds, says :
" This valiant little warrior possesses the faculty of imi-
tating the notes of other birds, especially such as are indica-
tive of pain. Thus it will often mimic the cries of sparrows
and other small birds, so as to make you believe you hear
them screaming in the claws of a hawk ; and I strongly sus-
pect this is done for the purpose of inducing others to come
out from their coverts to the rescue of their suffering breth-
ren. On several occasions I have seen it in the act of
screaming in this manner, when it would suddenly dart from
its perch into a thicket, from which there would immediately
issue the real cries of a bird on which it had seized. On the
banks of the Mississippi, I saw one which for several days in
succession had regularly taken its stand on the top of a tall
tree, where it from time to time imitated the cries of the
swamp and song-sparrows, and shortly afterwards would
pitch clown like a hawk, with its wings close to its body,
seldom failing to obtain the object of its pursuit, which it
would sometimes follow even through the briars aud bram-
bles among which it had sought refuge. When unable to

92 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

secure its prey, it would reascend to its perch, and emit loud
and discordant notes of anger. Whenever I could see it
strike its victim, it appeared to alight on its back and in-
stantly strike its head, which on such occasions I have sev-
eral times found torn open. If not disturbed, the shrike
would then tear up the body, and swallow in large pieces,
not well cleaned of the feathers, every part excepting the
wings. It now and then pursues birds that are on the wing
to a considerable distance. Thus, I saw one follow a turtle
dove, which, on being nearly caught, pitched on the ground,
when its skull was bruised in a moment ; but the next in-
stant both birds were in my possession."

Now is not this a curious fact ? — here we have the shrike
possessing not only the plumage of the mocking bird, but
even the weird power of imitation, and what makes the co-
incidence even yet more striking, it is a well-known and
standing amusement of the mocking bird to call together a
great number of small birds by some such trick as this, and
then frighten them nearly to death by shrieking like the
hawk in their midst. I have watched this droll manoeuvre
very many times. We shall show that the humming bird
only eats one insect — the spider — but lives principally upon
nectar of flowers, the food of that moth, which approaches it
most nearly in the order of being it has left behind. It can-
not live long upon the nectar alone, but its bird-nature re-
quires the animal juices of the spider to sustain it. Now this
butcher lives principally upon the same food as the mocking
bird, namely, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and small rep-
tiles, as it is a little stronger than the mocking bird ; but it
has to take even them cooked, for we have seen that it regu-
larly spits its lizards and other larger prey, to be basted by
the sun on the top of a thorn tree ! And I have time and
again witnessed the fact that it comes back regularly to feed
upon these extraordinary deposits in preference to the fresh
prey which it brings untorn to be basted in the same way by
the sun.

OR BUTCHER BIRD. 93

1 1 only takes a lunch of a small song-bird occasionally, as
the humming bird does of the spider. It selects very much
the same sort of location for its nest as the mocking birds, and
has much the same haunts ; and, in a word, I have no doubt
that these two birds are regarded with more thorough dread
and detestation by the small birds than all the hawks that ever
flew put together ; for while the mocking bird beats them sing-
ing until they are ashamed to hear their own voices ; he adds
insult to injury in frightening them out of their wits by his imp-
ish imitations. Then the shrike runs them in the same way,
but it is in bloody earnest, so far as he is concerned, so that the
timid little creatures must be as sadly puzzled between the
playful elf and its ghost-like image, as I was with my new
variety. There is another droll coincidence. The shrike is
not more the terror of the small birds, than the humming
bird is of the large ones. It is the most formidable enemy
the hawks and eagles have, and almost drives them mad
with its swift and torturing strokes at their eyes. I have
seen many an eagle flying as if possessed, with loud screams
of agony, while a pair of humming birds, coolly resting on
the top of its imperial crown, were making the feathers fly
therefrom in a long trail upon the air.

"We have in America two varieties of the shrike. The
one exhibited in our plate is the loggerhead shrike, which is
in the act of stooping upon a painted finch. The habitation
of this shrike is principally in the southern and middle re-
gions of the United States, while the great American shrike
frequents from the middle States northward to the Canadas.
So audacious is this latter bird, and such the power of its neck
and shoulders, that I saw one that had just been captured in a
gentleman's parlor in Boston, during a late hard winter, that
had shattered the stout plate-glass of the window-pane in dash-
ing at a canary bird which it had perceived, caged, inside.
The little captive was slain by the savage aggressor before
rescue was possible on the part of those who witnessed the
scene.

94 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Wilson and Audubon both give some curious stories in
regard to the habits of this bird.

Wilson says in reference to the great American Shrike —

" When we compare the beak of this species with his legs
and claws, they appear to belong to two very different orders
of birds ; the former approaching in its conformation to that
of the accipitrine ; the latter to those of the pies ; and, in-
deed, in his food and manners, he is assimilated to both. For
though man has arranged and subdivided this numerous class
of animals into separate tribes and families, yet nature has
united these to each other by such nice gradations, and so
intimately, that it is hardly possible to determine where one
tribe ends, or the succeeding one commences. We therefore
find several eminent naturalists classing this genus of birds
with the accipitrine, others with the pies. Like the former,
he preys occasionally on other birds ; and like the latter, on
insects, particularly grasshoppers, which I believe to be his
principal food : having at almost at all times, even in winter,
found them in his stomach. In the month of December, and
while the country was deeply covered with snow, I shot one
of these birds near the head waters of the Mohawk river, in
the State of New York, the stomach of which was entirely
filled with large black spiders. He was of much purer white,
above, than any I have since met with ; though evidently
of the same species with the present ; and I think it probable
that the males become lighter colored as they advance in
age, till the minute tranverse lines of brown on the lower
parts almost disappear.

In his manners he has more resemblance to the pies than
to birds of prey, particularly in the habit of carrying off his
surplus food, as if to hoard it for future exigencies ; with this
difference, that crows, jays, magpies, &c., conceal theirs at
random, in holes and crevices, where, perhaps, it is forgotten,
or never again found, while the butcher bird sticks his on
thorns and bushes, where it shrivels in the sun, and soon be-
comes equally useless to the hoarder. Both retain the same

THE SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 95

habits in a state of confinement whatever the food may be
that is presented to them.

" This habit of the shrike of seizing and impaling grass-
hoppers and other insects on thorns, has given rise to an
opinion, that he places these carcasses there by way of baits,
to allure small birds to them, while he himself lies in ambush
to surprise and destroy them. In this, however, they appear
to allow him a greater portion of reason and contrivance
than he seems entitled to, or than other circumstances will
altogether warrant ; for we find that he not only serves grass-
hoppers in this manner, but even small birds themselves, as
those have assured me who have kept them in cages in this
country, and amused themselves with their manoeuvres. If
so, we might as well suppose the farmer to be inviting crows
to his corn when he hangs up their carcasses around it, as
the butcher bird to be decoying small birds by a display of
the dead bodies of their comrades !"

Wilson also says in speaking of this bird generally —

" The character of the butcher bird is entitled to no com-
mon degree of respect. His activity is visible in all his mo-
tions ; his courage and intrepidity beyond every other bird
of his size (one of his own tribe only excepted, L. tyrannus,
or king-bird ;) and in affection for his young, he is surpassed
by no other. He associates with them in the latter part of
summer, the whole family hunting in company. He attacks
the largest hawk or eagle in their defence, with a resolution
truly astonishing : so that all of them respect them, and on
every occasion decline the contest. As the snows of winter
approach, he descends from the mountainous forests, and
from the regions of the north, to the more cultivated parts
of the country, hovering about our hedgerows, orchards and
meadows, and disappears again early in April."

It loves best, and is most usually found to frequent the
wild, rocky and somewhat sterile commons of waste land,
which are the favorite localities of its especial prey, different
varieties of the lizard, grasshopper, and smaller finches. It

96 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

has from this fact gained for itself the very general and pop-
ular sobriquet of " rock robin" throughout the South, "West
and North.

Wilson also remarks of the extent of the peregrinations of
this species that, "In the Arctic Zoology, we are told that
this species is frequent in Eussia, but does not extend to
Siberia ; yet one was taken within Bhering's Straits, on the
Asiatic side, in lat. 66° ; and the species probably extends
over the whole continent of North America, from the West-
ern Ocean. Mr. Bell, while on his travels through Kussia,
had one of these birds given him, which he kept in a room,
having fixed up a sharpened stick for him in the wall ; and
on turning small birds loose into the room, the butcher bird
instantly caught them by the throat in such a manner as soon
to suffocate them, and then stuck them on the stick, pulling
them on with bill and claws ; and so served as many as were
turned loose, one after another, on the same stick."

In relation to the habits of the two species I would beg to
differ from the absolute adjurations on the part of both Au-
dubon and Wilson upon this subject, as I have seen both
varieties in Kentucky and on the Mississippi, far above the
mouth of the Ohio, though we will give in conclusion what
Wilson says in reference to the loggerhead —

" This species has a considerable resemblance to the great
American shrike. It differs, however, . from that bird, in
size, being a full inch shorter ; and in color, being much
darker on the upper parts ; and in having the frontlet black.
It also inhabits the warmer parts of the United States ; while
the great American shrike is chiefly confined to the northern
regions, and seldom extends to the South of Virginia.

" This species inhabits the rice plantations of Carolina and
Georgia, where it is protected for its usefulness in destroying
mice. It sits, for hours together, on the fence, beside the
stacks of rice, watching like a cat ; and as soon as it perceives
a mouse, darts on it like a hawk. It also feeds on crickets
and grasshoppers. Its note, in March, resembles the clear

THE SHKIKE, OR BUTCHER BIKD. 97

creaking of a sign-board in windy weather, It builds its
nest, as I was informed, generally in a detached bush, much
like that of the mocking bird ; but as the spring was not
then sufficiently advanced, I had no opportunity of seeing its
eggs. It is generally known by the name of the loggerhead."

CHAPTER IV.

MY HUMMING BIRDS.

As a child, I always had a passion for the humming bird.
It ever caused a thrill of delight when one of these glittering
creatures, with its soft hum of flight, came out of repose all
suddenly — hanging, a sapphire stilled upon the air — for here
no wings are seen, — as, like a quick, bright thought, it darts,
is still, and then away I

The mystery of " whence it cometh, and whither it goeth,"
was a lovely and exciting one to me. How and where could
a thing so delicate live in a rough, wintry world like this ?
How could the glory of its burnished plumes remain un-
dimmed, that it thus shot forth arrows of light into my eyes,
while all other things seemed slowly fading ?

"Where could it renew its splendors ? In what far bath
of gems dissolved, dipping, come forth mailed in its varied
shine ? How could those tiny wings, whose soul-like motion
no mortal eye can follow, bear the frail sprite through beat-
ing tempests that are hurling the albatross, with mighty pin-
ions, prone upon the wave ; or that dash the sea-eagle,
shrieking, against its eyrie-cliff ? How speeds it straight and
safe — the gem-arrow of the elfs ?

Could it be that the tiny birds lived only on the nectar of
flowers ? It seemed, surely, the fitting food for beauty so
ethereal. But, then, it removed them so far from things of
the earth, earthy — their home must surely be fairyland, and
they coursers of the wind for Ariel to " put a girdle round

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 99

the earth," if this be so. But, if there be no fairies, and
these be only natural forces that propel it so, is nectar, or
ambrosia even, food of the substance that could give the
steely toughness to those hair-spring thews, whose sharp
stroke cuts a resistless way through hurricanes ?

These, and a thousand such questions, thronged upon me
in those innocent times, but my most eager and continued
inquiries were — How did they come ? "Were they born so,
all bright and ready ? Or did they come like other birds ?
I could find other birds' nests and eggs, and I understood
how they came ; but I never could find a humming bird's
nest.

Nor could I find any one else who ever had found one.
There were traditions that somebody's grandfather had heard
a very old man say, that he had heard it once upon a time,
from an old witch-woman, that to find a humming bird's
nest, was as much a sign of good luck as reaching the end
of a rainbow — that you were sure to get a heap of diamonds
from it, instead of the bag of gold. Well, as I was for many
a year, until I actually did stand with my feet upon the end
of a rainbow, a devout believer in that same bag of gold,
why should I not also have faith in that nest of diamonds ?

This may seem like hazarding assertion for fact. I pledge
my personal veracity for the truth of the following simple
relation of an incident happening to myself. I was, when
twenty years of age, passing on horseback from my native
town, Hopkinsville, Ky., to a neighboring town, Clarksville,
Tenn. When about half way, I was suddenly overtaken by
one of those swift summer storms, peculiar to the South. I
was then in the lane of a very large tobacco plantation, and
knowing that I could obtain shelter in a country store near
the end of it, I urged my horse into a run, and was soon
there. I sprang down upon the low steps, and pushed my
way through the crowd of farmers collected at the door — as
people instinctively do, during a thunder storm, to witness
its progress. I stood just within the door sill, where I had

100 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

obtained a footing, and held my horse's reign. The storm
was of short duration — when the sun burst through the
vapory clouds that lingered heavily yet, and a dozen voices
exclaimed, " the rainbow 1 the rainbow I"

I looked up — I never saw one so brilliant before — it daz-
zled me — I felt as if it was in my eyes. By this time I had
stepped down from the door-sill to the step, and naturally
looking down as I did so, to my great astonishment, the
rainbow laid along the ground before me, crossing the road
to the fence — up the rails of which it could be distinctly
traced, until it again became visible up the air, forming the
arc which dipped at the apparent horizon — about a mile
beyond the field. I could distinctly trace that segment of
the arc — which seemed to lay along the ground, and up the
fence — on the air, as it sprang directly from where my feet
rested.

It only seemed to lie upon the ground from its perfect
transparency. The near limb made itself first visible on the
points of my boots, and then sprung out and up, directly
in front of me — the upper rim of the segments being within
a few inches of my face.

I at first thought that the unusual brilliancy and sud-
denness of the appearance, had dazzled my vision and
confused it, but when I heard one after another of the old
farmers behind me exclaiming to each other at the strange-
ness of the thing, I turned and asked them if they could see
it on the steps, along the road, and up the fence — all answer-
ed in the ainrmative, and several remarked that they could
see it on my shoes. I was unwilling to be deceived, and
called forward the oldest man in the company, a farmer of
68, and asked him if he could see it. He said,

" Yes — but bless God, this is the first time ever I heard
in my born days, of the end of a rainbow being seen, much
less of a man standing on it. And they ain't no bag of gold
thar after all !" he ejaculated, in a tone that drew forth a
general laugh.

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 101

The company now began to distinguish the arc upon
the air, and to see that it really did not lie upon the ground,
as I had at first supposed too. This was mentioned without
my hinting it to them myself. I never was more surprised
in my life, nor did I ever see a company of men more so
than these fifteen or twenty farmers, whose whole lives had
been spent in observing the phenomena of storms. No one
of them had ever heard of such a thing before, nor have I
ever met with any one who knew of one similar. I, how-
ever, three years after this, witnessed a somewhat similar in-
cident, in riding through the valley of the Tennessee River,
with a friend. After one of those sudden storms we saw a
vivid rainbow, with its left limb resting in a corn-field, a
hundred yards distant. These are facts I cannot account
for, and I leave them to the learned.

Faith I did bear, and most zealously was it awakened from
the first hour that my heart leaped to the soft whirr of the deli-
cate wings of the Hummer, as it dropped suddenly upon some
early spring flower, perching with ha If- wearied and half-
frightened look as if just come to the strange earth from
its long, long flight towards the north. It seemed as if it
had found here the freshest footprints of the jubilant spring,
and paused for love. And, now, I would think, I must
watch, for spring will hold them warm within her bosom
and try to hide their little nests away. Many's the hour I
have fruitlessly spent in watching them wherever I could
trace their flight about the gardens — for, in my simplicity,
I supposed it impossible that they could have their nests any-
where but amidst the flowers — but this, along with other
poetical dreams, found the fact a more practical and wiser
thing.

Years passed away, leaving me still unwearied, though my
continued want of success might have made me what the
world- calls wiser. In the meantime I had, in poring over
the time-stained volumes of the famous old " Port-folio" — •
certainly the first, if not the ablest of American periodicals

102 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS-

of this class — come across a most charmingly told account
of the entire domestication of a family of humming birds,
by a gentleman of New England, who managed to keep
them for two years in his large conservatory.

He had, by the merest accident, discovered the nest in a
very large and heavy woodbine honeysuckle, which hung
over the window of his sitting-room, and the idea at once
occurred to him of gradually enticing the old birds into the
room, which opened into the conservatory, and then trans
ferring thither the nest with the young. The plan, after a
great deal of patient dexterity, succeeded, and this lovely
little family became his inmates and friends along with the
flowers. The relation of this gentleman was sufficiently
pleasing to enchant me — but there was not enough of the
naturalist in it to satisfy me. We had great honeysuckles
too ; why did they not build there as well ? Hundreds of
times I had searched their intricacies with patient zeal, twig
by twig, tendril by tendril ; and this for years — yet there
were hundreds around me all day ! There was something
in this I did not understand.

At last, in the work of a French Naturalist of note, M.
Valliant, I found the hint, that many of the smaller tropical
birds, among them the Hummers, invariably built their nests,
where the locality of feeding grounds rendered it possible
for them to make such a selection, upon the pensile limbs of
those trees that hung far over running water, as their most
dreaded enemies, the monkeys and snakes, were both very
cautious of venturing out upon such insecure foothold to rob.
This hint I accordingly treasured, and literally haunted the
brooks, the creek and river sides in the spring months,
watching with the ceaseless hope of catching one of the birds
in the act of alighting on the nest, which I knew was my
only chance. Still I found no success for years ; but, I had
gained one piece of information, namely ; — that at eleven
o'clock, A. M., and five, P. M., if I stood still for a short
time, I would see them go darting past, directly over the

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 103

middle of the channel. This might lead to something or it
might not, it was worth remembering at least.

Now came the whirl of the youth's first ambitious strug-
gles for excellence and success among his fellows. Bird-
nesting gave way to Euclid, and idle strollings through the
scented woods to scanning the Bucolics. For a long time
my gentle playmates of the sun and flowers gave way to
black-letter folios and smoky lamplight. I thought I had
almost forgotten these once beloved children of the Fret
Life ; but no sooner had I returned among them with some
leisure on my hands, than my old love returned — my old
passion broke forth once more with a deeper and widening
enthusiasm. Every living thing came to me now with lives
that bore a higher meaning, gleams of which were beginning
to visit me.

It was no longer as an idle boy or a sportsman merely,
that I went forth into nature — it was as a naturalist, in earn-
est for facts! The Principia had cured me of romance, and
I was wild for demonstration.

An accident, about this time, attracted my attention to
humming birds in particular again. Entering the library
one morning, I saw, to my delight, a humming bird flutter-
ing against the upper part of a window, the lower sash of
which was raised. I advanced softly, but rapidly as possi-
ble, and let down the sash. I had been taught the necessity
of such caution long ago, by a bitter experience, for out of
more than a dozen I had attempted to catch in this very
room — to which they were enticed by the vases of flowers
within — I had not succeeded in keeping one alive beyond a
moment or two after I had seized it — for, if startled too sud-
denly, ere there had been time enough for them to realize
the deception of the glass, they invariably flew against it
with such violence as to kill themselves ; — thus my childish
eagerness had always robbed me of what I most coveted, al-
though it seemed already mine.

This time, however, I succeeded in securing an uninjured

104 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

captive, which, to my inexpressible delight, proved to be
one of the ruby -throated species — the most splendid and di-
minutive that comes north of Florida. It immediately sug-
gested itself to me that a mixture of two parts refined loaf-
sugar, with one of fine honey, in ten of water, would make
about the nearest approach to the nectar of flowers. "While
my sister ran to prepare it, I gradually opened my hand to
look at my prisoner, and saw to my no little amusement as
well as surprise, that it was actually " playing possom" —
feigning to be dead most skilfully 1 It lay on my open palm
motionless for some minutes, during which I watched it in
breathless curiosity. I saw it gradually open its bright little
eyes to peep whether the way was clear, and then close them
slowly as it caught my eye upon it; but, when the manufac-
tured nectar came, and a drop was touched gently to the
point of its bill, it come to life very suddenly, and, in a mo-
ment, was on its legs, drinking with eager gusto of the re-
freshing draught from a silver tea-spoon. When sated it re-
fused to take more, and sat perched with the coolest self-
composure on my finger, and plumed itself quite as artistic-
ally as if on its favorite spray. I was enchanted with the
bold, innocent confidence with which it turned up its keen,
black eye to survey us, as much as to say, " Well, good folk
— who are you ?"

Thus, in less than an hour, this apparently tameless rider
of the winds, was perched, pleasantly chirping upon my
finger, and received its food with edifying eagerness from
my sister's hand. It seemed completely domesticated from
the moment that a taste of its natural food reassured it, and
left no room to doubt our being friends. By the next day,
it would come from any part of either room — alight Upon the
side of a white China cup, containing the mixture, and drink
eagerly with its long bill thrust into the very base, after the
manner of the pigeons. It would alight on our fingers, and
seem to talk with us, endearingly, in its soft chirps. Indeed,
I never saw any creature so thoroughly tamed in so short a

MY HUMMING BIKDS. 105

time before. This state of things continued some three
weeks, when I observed it beginning to lose its vivacity. I
resorted to every expedient I could think of; offered it small
insects, &c., but with no avail ; it would not touch them.

"We at length came to the melancholy conclusion, that we
must either resign ourselves to see it die, or let it go. This
last alternative cost my sister some bitter tears. We had
made a delicate little cage for it, and had accustomed it to
roosting and feeding in it while loose in the rooms, and I
consoled her with the hope that perhaps it might return to
the cage as usual, even when hung in the garden. The ex-
periment was tried. The cage was hung in a lilac bush, and
the moment the door was opened, the little fellow darted
away out of sight. My heart sank within me, for I could
not but fear that it was gone forever, and my poor sister
sobbed aloud. I comforted her as best I might, and though
without any hope myself, endeavored to fill her with it and
divert her grief by occupation. So we prepared a nice new
cup of our nectar — hung the cage with flowers — left the door
wide open, and the white cup invitingly conspicuous — then
resting from our labors, withdrew a short distance to the foot
of a tree, to watch the result. We waited for a whole hour,
with straining eyes, and, becoming completely discouraged,
had arisen from the grass, and were turning to go, when my
sister uttered a low exclamation —

"Whist! look brother I"

The little fellow was darting x to and fro in front of his
cage ; as if confused for a moment by the flower drapery ;
but the white cup seemed to overcome his doubts very
quickly, and, with fluttering hearts, we saw him settle upon
the cup as of old, and while he drank, we rushed lightly foi-
ward on tiptoe to secure him.

We were quite rebuked for our want of faith, threw open
the door again, and let him have the rest of the day to him-
self ; but, as I observed him playing with some of the wild
birds, I concluded to shut him up for a week or two longer,

106 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

when he returned as usual, to roost that night. While out,
it had evidently found the restorative for which it had been
pining, and what that might be I now determined, if possi-
ble, to discover. The necessity of having a pair of the young
birds that I might be enabled to study their habits more ef-
fectually, became now more fully apparent ; for I knew,
however tame our bird might be now, that if it happened to
meet with its old mate or a new one, it would be sure to de-
sert us, as a matter of course. Young ones, raised by my-
self, I could trust.

Chance favored me somewhat strangely about this time.
I had been out squirrel shooting early one sweltering hot
morning ; and, on my return, had thrown myself beneath
the shade of a thick hickory, near the bank of a creek. I
lay on my back, looking listlessly out across the stream,
when the chirp of the humming bird, and its darting form,
reached my senses at the same instant. I was sure I saw it
light upon the limb of a small iron-wood tree, that happened
to be exactly in the line of my vision at that instant. This
tree leaned over the water a considerable distance. I thought
of Le Vallient and watched steadily.

In about five minutes, another chirp, and another bird dart-
ed in. I saw this one drop upon what seemed to be a knot on
an angle of the limb. I heard the soft chirping of greeting and
love: I could scarcely contain myself for joy. I would have
given anything in the world to have dared to scream. — " I've
got you I I've got you at last 1" By a great struggle, I choked
down my ecstasy and kept still. One of them now flew away ;
and, after waiting fifteen minutes, that seemed a week, I rose,
and with my eye steadily fixed upon that important limb, I
walked slowly down the bank without, of course, seeing
where I placed my feet. But, the highest hopes are some-
times doomed to a fall, and a fall mine took with a ven-
geance ! I caught my foot in a root, and tumbled head fore-
most down the bank into the water ! I suppose such a duck-
ing would have cooled the enthusiasm of most bird-nesters ;

MY HUMMING BIEDS. 107

but it only exasperated mine : I shook off the water and
vowed I'd find that nest if it took me a week ; but how to be-
gin was the question. I had lost the limb, and how was I to
find it among an hundred others just like it.

The knot I had seen was so exactly like other knots, upon
other limbs all around it, that the prospect of finding it,
seemed a hopeless one. But "I'll try sir!" is my favorite
motto. I laid myself down as nearly as possible in the po-
sition I originally occupied — but, after some twenty minutes
experiment, came to the conclusion that my head had been
too much confused by the shock of my fall and ducking, for
me to hope to make much out of this method. Then I went
under the tree, and commencing at the trunk with the lowest
limb, which leaned over the water, I followed it slowly and
carefully with my eye out to the extremest twig, noting care-
fully everything that seemed like a knot. This produced no
satisfactory result after half an hour's trial, and with an
aching neck I gave it up in despair, for I saw half a dozen
knots, either one of which seemed as likely to be the right
one as the other.

I now changed my tactics again, and, ascending the tree,
I stopped with my feet upon each one of these limbs and
looked down along it length. It was a very tedious pro-
ceeding, but I persevered. Knot after knot deceived me,
but, at last, when just above the middle of the tree, I
caught a sharp gleam among the leaves, of gold and purple,
and looking down upon the last limb to which I had
climbed — almost lost my footing for the joy — when I saw
about three feet out from where I stood, the glistening back
and wings of the little bird just covering the top of one of
those mysterious knots — -that was about the size of half a
hen's egg. Its glancing head, long bill and keen eyes, were
turned upwards and perfectly still, except the latter, which
surveyed me from head to foot with the most dauntless ex-
pression. It seemed to have not the slightest intention of
moving, and I would not have disturbed it for the world.

108 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

It was sufficient delight to me to gaze on my long soughc
treasure. Its pure, white breast — or throat, rather — for the
breast was sunk in the nest — formed such a sweet and inno-
cent contrast with the splendor of its back, head and wings !

This is the most common variety with us, and is about a
size larger than the scarlet throat. I shall venture to call
this variety the Emerald Hummer. I could see that this
wonderful little creature, had not only formed the outside
of its nest to correspond in shape and size exactly with the
natural knots on other limbs — but had so skilfully covered
the outside with the same kind of moss .which grew upon
them, that no eye, however practiced, could have discovered
the deception from, beneath. Having gratified my curiosity
as far as prudent, without running the risk of driving her
from the nest, I descended cautiously and ran home with the
news ; and great was the joy thereat between my little play-
mates and myself.

Now came the anxious time for us ; we were dying to get
a sight of the eggs, and yet afraid to disturb the birds. I
conquered this difficulty at last by patience, I found, after
watching for several mornings, that they both left the nest on
warm days about noon; and were gone sometimes near an
hour. "We took this opportunity, and having climbed up
first, so as to show her, my sister followed — the girls used to
climb like squirrels in Kentucky, in my young days ! — and
many were the expressions of childish delight as she peeped
over and saw those three little eggs — about the size of black-
eyed peas — lying like snowy pearls, (if not diamonds, as I used
to expect,) embedded in a fairy case, all lined with cygnet-
down, or the delicate floss of elfin-hair. We did not touch,
or even breathe on it, and descended quickly, lest the old
birds should find us there.

I was unexpectedly compelled to leave home about this
time, and my sister promised that she would not disturb the
nest till my return. After an unexpected detention of two
weeks, I got back, and the first thing the next morning we

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 109

were on our way, with many misgivings, to visit our treas-
ures.

I climbed the tree, and to my infinite astonishment, two
birds entirely filled the nest, and in such full size and per-
fect plumage that I thought I must have come too late, and
that these were the old ones. They looked at me as boldly as I
have seen young eagles look unflinchingly, on the intruder
into their eyrie. I determined to attempt the capture, at
any rate, and reached my hand towards them with a gradual
and almost imperceptible movement. They watched its ap-
proach with no sign of fear, and when I had approached it
within an inch one of them boldly pecked at it, as it de-
scended, gently covering them as they sat. I shouted for

joy-

" I have them ! I have them !" and then such dancing
and clapping of hands as there was below.

" Hurry ! hurry, brother ! I want to see them. I want
to see ! I want to see 1"

For a wonder, I got down without breaking my neck.
I had, with slight violence, taken the nest, with the birds,
from the limb entire. They made not the slightest effort
to escape, nor did they seem in the least frightened. "We
hurried away, lest we should witness the sufferings of the
bereaved pair, whom we had thus ruthlessly robbed of home
and young.

The first thing on reaching the house, with our captives,
was to try our nectar, of the home-made manufacture, upon
the young strangers, who instantly paid us the compliment
of recognizing its merits in a hearty draught, which seemed
to set them perfectly at ease with the world and with them-
selves. They now left the nest, and perched upon our fin-
gers with the most lovely confidence, and we saw that they
were actually full plumed — though I doubt if they had yet
attempted to use their wings abroad. They seemed to take
the sudden change in their surroundings with a most con-
summate people-of-the- world sort of air — just as if they had

110 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

been taught to consider it as ungenteel to look surprised or
startled at anything, or to exhibit more than a very cool
sort of curiosity. "We were greatly amused at these aristo-
cratic airs, and we were ourselves very curious to know what
might chance to be the titles of our noble friends in their
own principality of air. Much as they made of themselves,
I thought our ruby -throat received them with a certain degree
of hauteur, which was responded to with the most supercil-
ious indifference at all consistent with perfect good breeding.
A few days, however, sufficed to break down the icy crust
of formality, and they began to appear most guardedly aware
of each other's existence. In a few weeks we hung the cage
out with open doors again — finding that all the birds were
beginning to mope and look as if they were going to die,
as had been the case with the ruby -breast several times be-
fore. He had always been relieved by letting him out ;
but, as he instantly disappeared, we could not discover what
the antidote he sought might be.

When we opened the cage this time, it was a bright summer
morning just after sunrise. "What was our surprise to see the
ruby-throat, instead of darting away as usual, remain with the
young ones, which had immediately sought sprays, as if feel-
ing a little uncertain what to do with themselves. Scarlet flew
round and round them ; then he would dart off to a little dis-
tance in the garden and suspend himself on the wing for an in-
stant, before what I at first could not perceive to be any-
thing more than two bare twigs — then he would return and
fly around them again, as if to show them how easy it was.

The little bold fellows did not require long persuasion,
but were soon launched on air again, and in a moment or
so were using their wings — for all we could see — with about
as much confidence and ease as Mr. Euby-throat. They too
commenced the same manoeuvres among the shrubbery, and
as there were no flowers there, we were sadly puzzled to
think what it was they were dipping at so eagerly, to the
utter neglect of the many flowers, not one of which they ap-

MY HUMMING BIEDS. Ill

peared to notice. We moved closer to watch them to better
advantage, and, in doing so, changed our relative position
to the sun. At once the thing was revealed to me. I
caught friend Euby in the very act of abstracting a small
spider, with the point of his long beak, from the centre of
one of those beautiful circular webs of the garden spider,
that so abounds throughout the South. The thing was done
so daintily, that he did not stir the dew-drops which, now
glittering in the golden sun, revealed the gossamer tracery
all diamond-strung.

" Hah 1 we've got your secret, my friends! — Hah! ha,
hah I"

And we clapped and danced in triumph. Our presence
did not disturb them in the least, and we watched them
catching spiders for half an hour. They frequently came
within two feet of our faces, and we could distinctly see
them pluck the little spider from the centre of its wheel
were it lies, and swallow it entire. After this we let them
out daily, and, although we watched them closely and with
the most patient care, we never could see them touch the
spiders again, until the usual interval of about a fortnight had
elapsed, when they attacked them again as vigorously as ever
• — but the foray of one morning seemed to suffice. We
also observed them carefully, to ascertain whether they ate
any other insects than these spiders — but, although we
brought them every variety of the smallest and most ten-
der that we could find, they did not notice them at all —
but if we would shut them up past the time, until they began
to look drooping, and then bring one of those little spiders
along with other small insects, they would snap up the spider
soon enough, but pay no attention to the others.

We were thoroughly convinced, after careful experiment
upon two families of them, that they neither live entirely
upon the nectar of flowers — as all the old naturalists sup-
posed— nor upon various small insects in addition to the
nectar, as Mr. Audubon asserts. The fact is, they can live

112 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

no more beyond a certain time — about a fortnight — upon
nectar alone, than they can upon air alone, nor do I believe
that life could be preserved beyond a few days upon spiders
alone. There is another ratb-er curious observation we made,
that so long as the white cup was not dry, for so long they
did not condescend to notice the thousands of flowers by
which they were surrounded. We used to starve them a
little sometimes for fun, and then we would have to hide,
for they would make such a row ! if we appeared — flying
close to our faces, pecking gently at our teeth and eyes,
lighting on our hair and pecking at it, or on our shoulders
pulling at it — until, sometimes, it was almost difficult to tell
whether it was more amusing or annoying. At last they
would go away with evident reluctance to the garden, and
tear up about half the flowers they tried, and darting towards
iis the moment we appeared again with the magical white
cup. Such was the spell it exercised upon them, that when
any of our Mends, who came visiting us, desired to see them
when they were out and perched among the trees, either of
us had only to walk into the yard, and holding up the white
cup above our heads, imitate their own chirp to attract their
notice, and in an instant one after another would come dip-
ping down from above, and cluster round the rim. After a
draught, which was always the first thing, they would sit and
plume themselves, stopping every now and then to ask one
of the strangers with their steady eyes, so like black dia-
monds—

" Who are you, pray ? What'll you take ?"

Their movements were so like lightning, that though they
would let you get your hand near enough for them to peck
it, yet it was impossible to catch them. They would let us
do it sometimes, but never a stranger.

Now comes the, to me, most interesting portion of this
narrative.

Our charming little family remained with us on these
pleasing terms until the middle of September, and then, as

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 113

they began to exhibit the usual restlessness of migratory
birds, the sad question of parting had to be met. What we
had already seen of them, convinced me conclusively that
there must have been something of romance in the story that
had so enchanted me in the respectable pages of the sage
Port-folio, during my fanciful childhood, and which sc
roundly asserted that the birds had been kept through two
winters ! Now it is barely possible said conservatory may
have had a due supply of spiders, for of one thing I am very
sure — that no Humming Bird could have been kept alive
without them any more than gold-fish could be kept alive in
distilled water, in which all the animalcule, which consti-
tute their natural food, had been destroyed. We came, at
last, to the conclusion that it would be selfish and abomina-
bly cruel of us to keep the delicate things with us in the
blustering north, to die of pining for the scented bowers of
their far sunny home. We let them out, and with many
tears saw them dart away at once towards the south, as if
they felt they had already tarried too long.

We saw them but for an instant on the air, and our sweet
pets were gone !

It took us a long time to reconcile ourselves to the loneli-
ness in which they left us, but our consolation was, that next
spring I should find another nest, and they should be scarlet
throats this time, and we should know better how to take
care of them now, as we knew better how to find them from
experience. Such a lovely family as we were going to have !
We made a new and elegant house during the winter leisure,
in anticipation of the new tenants that were to be ! In the
meantime, as I always had some half dozen different kinds
of pets on hand, we found occupation and amusement in
taking care of them and occasionally adding to the stock.

This, together with the winter hunting, trapping, and
books, gave swift wings to the hours for me. Winter broke
up — spring came with its tender wild flowers and fickle
smiles. Spring is the time for poetry — when one is yet in

114 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

the teens — and I had fallen into a dreamy mood in which I
was permitting the spring to go by, without noting its flight,
when I was suddenly roused one May morning by a most
curious and unexpected incident.

I had gone into the garden summer-house with my book
as the excuse, but dreaming as usual, without noticing the
letters on its pages, when a soft, whirring noise, close to my
face, caused me to look up. About one foot from me a
Humming Bird, poised so steadily upon the wing that its
body seemed perfectly motionless, looked with its bright,
knowing eye fixedly into mine. It did not move when I
lifted my head, and retaining this position for nearly a quar-
ter of a minute, with a low chirp darted out and settled on
some flowers near to trim its plumes. I started up, while a
quick thought sent a thrill of exquisite pleasure through my
whole frame. The bird sat still. I ran with my utmost
speed to the house, and, catching a glimpse of my sister,
cried out to her, almost beside myself with excitement —

" Get the white cup ! Get our cup ! some honey ! some
sugar ! — here's the water ! — quick dear ! quick ! for heaven's
sake !"

" What is the matter with you, brother ?" exclaimed the
distracted child, endeavoring at the same time to execute
these multifarious orders all at once.

" O, our bird's come back ! I saw him just now ! Where
are the closet keys ? 0, he's come, back to us all the way
from South America- — the little darling ! I thought he
couldn't forget us 1"

" But, brother, you are mad — how can you tell it from an-
other Humming Bird — I've seen a dozen this spring !"

" Oh ! I know it was one of the young ones— he came in
and looked me in the eyes ever so long ! Do make haste !"

The mixture is completed and off we run in trembling
eagerness — for this test we knew would decide for or against
us. We reach the summer-house — the magical white cup is
raised before us, it is still sitting on the flower, — we give one

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 115

chirp as of old, and without an instant's hesitation it darts to
the cup, alights upon the rim and plunges its little thirsty
bill up to the very eyes in that delicious cup, and takes the
longest, deepest draught, I ever saw taken before by one of
them ; and this convinced me that it had just arrived, and
had come straight to its old home for food and love. My sis-
ter burst into tears and screams of joyous laughter, and as to
what ridiculous capers I might have been guilty of, I cannot
tell — I only remember the self-contented and philosophical
manner in which the returned pilgrim continued to plume
its storm -ruffled feathers, uttering now and then the old
chirps on the side of that cup ; this position it continued
to retain until we bore him on it to his new house, of which
he assumed possession with a remarkably matter of fact, or
rather matter of course, air.

About a week after this, while walking in the garden one
morning, I observed two humming birds engaged in chasing
each other in a very coy and loving manner. Something in
the tame and confident manner of one of them made me sus-
pect it was our bird engaged in making love. I went back
for the white cup, and this time, too, its magic proved itself
invincible — for both birds came without hesitation and set-
tled upon the rim — the one which took the long and eager
draught as if perishing of fatigue and hunger, proved to be
the female that had just arrived. It was a little larger than
the male, and seemed, at first, somewhat shyer than he,
though a few days were sufficient to make all right as ever
between us again.

How wondrous strange and incomprehensible it seemed to
us — the acuteness of senses — the strength of memory and
affection — the wizzard sagacity, in a word — that could have
brought these tiny creatures back to us, from so many thou-
sand miles away, straight as the arrow from the bow. I have
never ceased wondering at that strange incident — but there is
one yet quite as droll to come. The love season had now fully
commenced, and our birds began to be absent for several

116 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

hours together, and we observed that at these times they darted
straight up into the air until they were out of sight before
they took their course, so that watch as we might we never
could find out which way they went. They also adopted
the same precaution in returning, when they seemed to fall
• perpendicularly from the clouds. They did not appear any
the less tame for all this — but, though I tried in every pos-
sible way to find out their secret, yet they entirely baffled
me, and I am not sure that I ever saw their brood even —
though about the time when they ought to have been out
we used to notice more birds than we could well account for
around the white cup in the cage ; yet, as those strangers ap-
peared to be somewhat shy, we did not press an acquaint-
ance. It was nothing more than a conjecture on our part,
that these were the new brood of our pets !

But I am getting a little ahead of my story in events. I
have mentioned that we had vowed to have a nest of ruby-
throats added to our collection this Spring, and in giving a
detail of the manner in which I went to work for the accom-
plishment of this vow I shall furnish you some idea of the
tedious processes of the practical naturalist.

My father had some men at work "getting out logs" — as
it is called — on a considerable creek some two miles off.
One of them, who knew of my passion for these birds, men-
tioned to me, that he had twice, while watering his horse at
a certain crossing in the woods, observed a humming bird
fly past over the middle of the channel and up the stream.
This, he said, was about five o'clock, both times. This was
enough for me. I ordered my horse, and in a few moments
was under whip and spur — for it was nearly that time now —
for this little ford. I reached it a few minutes before five by
a bridle path. I sat upon my horse until dusk in the middle
of the stream, but no humming bird. Next day I came at
noon — staid an hour with no avail. I went at four again
and staid until half-past five, but still no bird. I was not
discouraged, but as I rode slowly home, determined to change

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 117

my tactics next day, for I remembered that my impatient
horse had been pawing in the water all the time, and this, no
doubt, had alarmed the cautious birds, and caused them to
change their usual course. Next day I chose my position
under some thick overhanging trees, where I could see and
not be seen. I did not see them on the morning watch. In
the afternoon, precisely at five, the male came by, and I had
the satisfaction of seeing that it was a ruby-throat. I judged
from the height at which it flew that the nest was not very
far off. Well, to make a long story short, I came the next
day and took my station about a hundred and fifty yards far-
ther up the stream — saw them both pass at five, flying, I
thought, just a little lower ; the next evening I moved still
farther up with the same result.

The next I did not move so far — for here was a strait
stretch of the channel of considerable length, and I could
command it with my eye from where I stood. Here I saw
them go by, one a few minutes after the other ; and observed
that their flight was now very low ; but after they had pass-
ed me a short distance, each of them shot suddenly and per-
pendicularly up into the air until I lost sight of them.
The next evening, it was the same thing, and now I was
convinced that the nest must be close at hand ; that they
rose in this sudden manner to make a perpendicular descent
which would baffle pursuit from all -enemies. I watched
near this place three evenings more — changing my position
only a little each time — before I had the satisfaction at last
of seeing the female come down like a falling aerolite from
the clouds and drop upon her nest. I had thus spent more
than a whole week in this patient pursuit, and now that it
had been crowned with success, I wheeled my horse, and
with an indescribable feeling of both pride and joy, galloped
home with the news to my sister. I had conquered one of
the stubbornest secrets of nature — not this time by accident,
but by science and perseverance. I was proud of it, and so
was she. At the proper time I brought the young birds

118 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

home in triumph. There were only two, though, as in the
other instance, there had been three eggs. This curious fact
is common to several families of birds, and seems to be a
provision against accident, though I believe the third egg
is seldom permitted to hatch.

"We had now two families which seemed to get along to-
gether very amiably. The male of the ruby -throats was
easily distinguishable by the dark feathers on the throat
which marked the place where, on his next moulting, that
breastplate of glittering mail should appear blazing like a
talisman of carbuncle. We were greatly distressed that we
should have to run all the risks of their problematic return
in the following spring before we should be enabled to solace
our eyes in the enjoyment of this coveted pleasure.

"We now frequently captured old birds in the library,
and never failed in taming them entirely in a few days. At
one time, our family consisted of six, and we had but to
walk out with the white cup and sound the gathering chirp,
and, one after another, the whole of them came skimming
down from the trees in all directions, to alight upon its rim,
or upon us if they were not hungry.

The novelty of such pets attracted great attention ; and
we had many visitors ; and the fair young girls plead hard
with me to give them one — but I could never consent to
trust my delicate people in unaccustomed hands, except in
a single instance, in which the fair pleader bewitched me
with eyes so like those of the bird, that I gave her one of
the old ones, and heard to my sorrow that it died in a
week.

Our lovely family broke up with the autumn. One after
one, they disappeared suddenly, and we were left alone —
alas, this time forever — none of them ever came back !

Have we been describing creatures of blind and fated im-
pulse— machines without volition, propelled, like any other
arrangement of springs and wheels, by elemental forces, on
through a certain and fixed round of action over which they

MY HUMMING BIEDS. 119

have no control, — or have we told the history of beings pos-
sessing memory in common with man — gratitude, whether
in common with him or not — faith, affection, bravery — a
small touch of the loafer, as witnessed in their affection for
the white cup with its brimming bowl, in preference to the
meagre and bee-rifled chalices of flowers — a remarkable de-
gree of caution in hiding their nests — of cunning in going to
and from them — of mechanical and artistic skill in construct-
ing their wonderful homes — of judgment in placing them
over the water — of sagacity in using their acute senses to
guide them back and forth on their two long yearly pil-
grimages ? These are questions the learned will have to
meet one day !

I ventured to suggest, in the first part of this article, that
the scarlet or ruby-throated humming bird has been con-
founded with another variety, which I have named the
Emerald or green-backed humming bird. They are both very
common north of Florida, and, indeed, the ruby-throat is
said to be the only variety which visits us at the North.
The Emerald humming bird resembles the old female of the
ruby -throated bird, or scarlet-throat, as we have called it
from the predominance of that blazing hue in the changing
splendors of its throat ! The green birds resemble, also, the
young female of the ruby -throat — and hence the confusion.
The points of distinction, however, are clear enough, when
the attention has been once attracted toward noting them.
The two families of my pets belonged to the two varieties,
and, therefore, I had ample opportunity of careful compari-
son. The female of all humming birds is the largest ; —
well, in the matter of size, I found the difference to be this
— the female of the ruby-throat is of the same size with the
male of the green — while the female of the green is nearly
one-third larger. The throat of the male of the green is
always a pure, clear white, while the plumage of the back
is a darker and more resplendent green. The throat of the
ruby, during the first year, is distinctly marked a grayish

120 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

blue over that portion which, at the next moulting, assumes
its splendid colors.

There is no possibility of mistaking the males of the two
in the nest or out of it. The bill of the green is much
longer and coarser ; as are its shape, plumage, and color,
than the ruby, which is one of the most fairy -like and
graceful of all the hummers. Their habits do not seem to
differ in any very essential particulars, but no observer, how-
ever careless, can fail to see the marked difference between -
the two varieties when compared together, either on the
wing or perched. The flight of the green is the more
heavy and slow, and it seems to possess less of spirit and
boldness than the other. The pair that returned to me the
next spring were green humming birds, and the male of this
pair never exhibited either the blueish blotch on the throat,
which the ruby has when it comes from the nest, nor was
there any change perceptible in the plumage at all, except
that the white of the throat and breast had become a purer
white, and the green of the back darker, more variable and
brilliant.

The nest, too, is larger by nearly one-third, and less
elegantly finished than that of the ruby. So marked is
the difference between the two varieties, that I can easily
point them out on the wing in our gardens, although, not
only all our American naturalists have classed them as one
species, but the -great mass of interested observers are not
yet aware of the differences. Now, that attention has once
been called -to the facts, they are promptly enough seen and
recognized. Mr. Audubon gives us four humming birds,
north of Texas — the Euby-throated, the Mangrove, the Anna,
and the Buffed. To this enumeration, I venture to add a
fifth, the .common or Emerald humming bird, and it is not a
little singular that this species, which of all the rest is most
universally diffused, should yet have not been named before.
Of the three last named above, the first belongs to Florida,
the other two to the Pacific coast.

MY HUMMING BIRDS. 121

We will, however, before concluding, give also to the reader
some interesting passages from the observations of other na-
turalists. Audubon says of the ruby -throated hummer :

" The nest of this humming bird is of the most delicate
nature, the external parts being formed of a light gray lichen
found on the branches of trees, or on decayed fence-rails,
and so neatly arranged round the whole nest, as well as to
some distance from the spot where it is attached, as to seem
part of the branch or stem itself. These little pieces of lichen
are glued together by the saliva of the bird. The nest
coating consists of cottony substance, and the innermost of
silky fibres obtained from various plants, all extremely deli-
cate and soft. On this comfortable bed, as in contradiction
to the axiom that the smaller the species the greater the
number of eggs, the female lays only two, which are pure
white and nearly oval. Ten days are required for their
hatching, and the birds raise two broods in a season. In
one week the young are ready to fly, but are fed by the pa-
rents for nearly another week. They receive their food di-
rectly from the bill of their parents, which disgorge it in
the manner of canaries or pigeons. It is my belief that no
sooner are the young able to provide for themselves than
they associate with other broods, and perform their migra-
tions apart from the old birds, as I have observed twenty
or thirty young humming birds resort to a group of trum-
pet flowers, when not a single old male was to be seen.
They do not receive the full brilliancy of their colors until
the succeeding spring, although the throat of the male bird
is strongly imbued with the ruby tints before they leave us
in autumn.

" I have seen many of these birds kept in partial confine-
ment, when they wese supplied with artificial flowers made
for the purpose, in the corollas of which water with honey
or sugar dissolved in it was placed. The birds were fed on
these substances exclusively, but seldom lived many months,
and on being examined after death, were found to be ex-

122 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

tremely emaciated. Others, on the contrary, which were
supplied twice a day with fresh flowers from the woods or
garden, placed in a room with windows merely closed with
moschetto gauze-netting, through which minute insects were
able to enter, lived twelve months, at the expiration of
which time their liberty was granted them, the person who
kept them having had a long journey to perform. The
room was kept artificially warmed during the winter months,
and these in Lower Louisiana are seldom so cold as to pro-
duce ice. On examining an orange-tree which had been
placed in the room where these humming birds were kept,
no appearance of a nest was to be seen, although the birds
had frequently been observed caressing each other. Some
have been occasionally kept confined in our Middle Dis-
tricts, but I have not ascertained that any one survived a
winter."

Here are some curious facts concerning the most remarka-
ble variety of the species — the Buffed Humming Bird. They
are from Nuttall's and Townsend's notes —

" We began," says the first of these enterprising travellers,
" to meet with this species near the Blue Mountains of the
Columbia Kiver, in the autumn as we proceeded to the west.
These were all young birds, and were not very easily distin-
guished from those of the common species of the same age.
We now for the first time (April 16) saw the males in num-
bers, darting, buzzing, and squeaking in "the usual manner
of their tribe ; but when engaged in collecting its accustomed
sweets in all the energy of life, it seemed like a breathing
gem, or magic carbuncle of glowing fire, stretching out
its gorgeous ruff, as if to emulate the sun itself in splendor.
Towards the close of May the females were sitting, at which
time the males were uncommonly quarrelsome and vigilant,
darting out at me as I approached the tree probably near the
nest, looking like an angry coal of brilliant fire, passing
within very little of my face, returning several times to the
attack, sinking and darting with the utmost velocity, at the

MY HUMMING BIEDS. 123

same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat,
somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, yet
also so much like the real bleat of some small quadruped,
that for some time I searched the ground instead of the air
for the actor in the scene. At other times the males were
seen darting up high in the air and whirling about each
other in great anger and with much velocity. After these
manoevres the aggressor returned to the same dead twig,
where for days he regularly took his station with all the
courage and angry vigilance of a king-bird. The angry hiss-
ing or bleating note of this species seems something like
whf f f £ tshvee, tremulously uttered as it whirls and sweeps
through the air, like a musket ball, accompanied also by
something like the whirr of the Night-Hawk. On the 29th
of May I found a nest of this species in a forked branch of
the Nootka Bramble, Rubus Nutkanus. The female was sit-
ting on two eggs of the same shape and color as those of the
common species. The nest, also, was perfectly similar, but
somewhat deeper. As I approached, the female came hover-
ing round the nest, and soon after, when all was still, she re-
sumed her place contentedly."

Dr. Townsend's note is as follows —

" ISTootka Sound Humming Birds, Trochilus rufus, Ah-
puets-rinne of the Chinooks. On a clear day the male may
be seen to rise to a great height in the air, and descend in-
stantly near the earth, then mount again to the same altitude
as at first, performing in the evolution the half of a large circle.
During the descent it emits a strange and astonishingly loud
note, which can be compared to nothing but the rubbing to-
gether of the limbs of trees during a high wind. I heard this
singular note repeatedly last spring and summer, but did not
then discover to what it belonged. I did not suppose it be
a bird at all, and least of all a humming bird. The observer
thinks it almost impossible that so small a creature can be
capable of producing so much sound. I have never observ-
ed this habit on a dull or cloudy day."

CHAPTER Y.

SONG OF THE CHILDREN ABOUT SPRING.

THE HOURS.
I.

They the pure of heart never do grow old,
For spring-time finds them fall of love to-day,

As three-score summers since when curls of gold,
Shone on those temples that are delved and gray.

They come ! they come ! with the golden hair
And sky-blue eyes — they all are there !

List ! 0 list ye 1 — the song they sing,
Their song is a light song — light song —

A song about spring !

THE CHILDREN.
II.

We are younger forever as truth must be,

For we cannot grow old in simplicity.

"We give out our lives as those streams do the sun,

That prattling o'er pebble-beds flash as they run.

We sing in our joy — sing in our grief —

Must sing to be gladder— sing for relief,

Now we are so happy — must let our hearts go,

Ah sing we will — sing we must merrily O ! —

Eight cherrily 0 1 Spring is coming again,

A jubilant earth is awaiting her reign !

SONG OF THE CHILDKEN ABOUT SPUING. 125

We are going to tell you the tale of mirth,

A right merry, a joyous tale,
About how this Spring cometh back to the earth,

And everything shouteth all hail !

Since Winter must flee ; —

An old tyrant he !

III.

We hate an old fellow
Whose beard is gray
Who can't be made mellow,

Who wont be gay,
Who is all so shrivelled that he hath no blood,

And whose breath is so mortal cold,
That he couldn't be pleasant if pleasant he would —
Then he is so piteous old !

Yet though he be old he is wonderous strong,

And weary from far is his flight,
And if he but pipeth his terrible song,

I ween you would shake with affright.

For though he be thin, he is a lithe eld one,
And he hath too, some fierce odd ways — •

It's an awsome kind of a glee that has run
Through such mirth of his all his days !

He has an ugly knack of making fun,

When he sinketh tall ships at sea,
A gurgling whirl-of-a-laugh that hath spun

Them down ! down, to where Death should be !

Then over mountains goes whistling to play

With 'wildered and wan Traveller,
And heapeth and hurtleth snow drifts in his way,

Until he forgeteth to fear.

126 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

And now he lies down beneath white sheets of home,

Sleeping slowly to dreamless rest,
While shrieking winds, as his senses grow numb,

Are changed for the harps of the blest.

And where the great city uplifteth its crest,
He will find how the poor folk hide,

Ah ! that is the sport which he loveth the best,
In ! through the rough crannies to glide !

And fiercely go singing beneath each tatter,
Then hiss at them when they make wails,

And pierce and pinch them until their teeth chatter,
And their lips grow blue as their nails.

Then he loveth to slam at the rich man's door,
And rattle and bang through his halls,

And taunt him with creakings and dismally roar,
'Till the fur- wrapped thing he appalls ;

And it shivers cringing, to think of the Poor
That are dying without its walls.

IV.
He comes from a dreary, glittering land,

Where strange bright horrors dwell,
You could not expect he'd be very bland,

Whose playmates were so fell.

For all monstrous shapes like the Lion Seal,

Tusked Walrus and White Bear,
With the long Whales plunging, roar and reel

In uncouth gambols there.

Amidst great seas on the air uplifted,
Their icy walls wind-torn,

SONG OF THE CHILDEEN ABOUT SPEING. 127

Into hugest craggy phantoms drifted,
Crashing together borne.

Deep green all below, and in glinting white,

Where clear peaks climb the skies,
They topple and clang in a loud vast fight,

Meet for a demon's eyes.

v.

Above this wild motion he broodeth and sails,

Makes the air dun with his wings,
Then rocks on the Kraken or stuns the Narwhales

With the ice-spear that he flings.
He loveth such delicate sports as these,

A hunter of monsters he,
I ween he rouseth those ice-mountained seas

To thunder and leap t' his glee,
Till they heave at the stars their lance-keen tops,

While the lashed chase passeth by,
Then lo ! every burnish'd pinnacle drops

To crash down the steeps from on high I

Yery rude are the points and angles there ;

As he flaps between the crags
They topple and roll so much that they tear

His smooth pinions on the jags.
You may know when the nice sleet-polished plumes

Of a prim old Boy like he
Have been torn, how churlish vanity fumes

That other things nice should be ;
For e'en the monsters gaping spout and jeer

That he looketh so dismally.

So he whirls him in great wrath up the air,
With his Fiend- Winds thronged behind,

128 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

And if green and sunshine make the earth fair,

Food for his spite he will find.
But 0 ! it's a hideous sort of spleen,

And a very hard cold hate,
That could come where joyous summer had been

Just to leave all desolate !

VI.

The rolling river,

We loved to see
In sunbeams quiver, —

Darkened left he
Green forests, waving

Like the deep sea,
Vexed to upheaving —

All, bare, left he
The flame- winged bird

That lit the tree,
Where its song was heard, —

Banished had he !
The floweret's eye

That smiled sweetly
Where the dead leaves lie

Frozen had he.

Fled darkened and bare and frozen were they,
The timid and bright things dare not to stay ;
A cruel old tyrant to revel thus,
In murdering beauty, in howling and fuss !

Though mournful this be, it is far sadder still

When in the track of his merciless will

Human hearts bowed — they the warm and the brave

The best loved and frailest his stern hours gave

Coldly to Death. 0 it is hard thus to slay

These gentle ones when their loved summer's away —

SONG OP THE CHILDREN ABOUT SPRING. 129

No flowers to weep them in dew-glistening eyes,

Or climb in sweet odors up with them to the skies 1 —

They go with the chill of his breath on their wings,

Till they come to where Heaven's own fire-fountain springs.

VII.

But joy ! 0 joy ! a love-breath shall rout him !

Sing merrily O !• —

The tyrant must go —
Bundle that ghastly mantle about him,

That mantle of snow

That beginneth to show
His shrunk limbs like grave clothes rent on a corse ;

And far, fast and high

Old shrunk-shanks must fly ;
Or what o'ertakes him than death shall be worse,

For zephyrs go by

Who tell spring is nigh —
And rather than kiss her he'd many times die !

VIII.

Ah ! hah, she is coming

The merry-eyed maiden ! —
"We hear them far humming

Her train flower-laden.

For tripping sprites are they —

In beamy joyous throngs
Swiftly their light feet play,

Cadent to mellow songs.

Now old Gray-Beard must flee
Quite as fast as may be.
Could they only but catch,
How they'd tease the cross wretch —
9

130 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Smother him in perfumes
Till their sweets made him faint,

Then bedizen his plumes

With such gay things — and quaint—

As Media, lamb's tongue,

The crocus, and star-eye,
Till his sleet-scales were hung

With each bright early dye.

IX.

When with vines they had bound him,
Then in mocking dance round him,
Till spring their maiden queen come —
We know by the swelling hum.

That she has just lifted one glorious wing,

As eagles pause on the stoop for a flight,
And the flashes its burnished hues outfling

Gild first like morning the hill-tops with light ;
Soon now, the blaze of that splendor gleaming —

From each golden feather fully outspread, —
Down through valleys, and cold shadows beaming,

Will the warm glow, of her presence be shed ! —
Away on her beautiful flight at last,
Sailing the arrowy breeze she has past.

x.

She is chasing Old Winter — a merry chase,
And the roused earth shouts to the clattering race.
She is wanting to kiss Old Frosty, I ween,
But bachelors never a-kissing are seen !

They were always so silly,
And their blue lips so chilly,

SONG OF THE CHILDKEN ABOUT SPEING. 131

They never could stand to be wooed ;

But she'd kiss him and fan him,

'Till her warm breath unman him,
And then that he tarried he rued.

XL

She would break his chains,

Unlock all the tides,
And let the glad streamlets go ;

All the frozen veins

"Where the earth-blood glides
Awaken to joyous flow.

Till that gentle race,

The quaint fairies dress
That shrank from his frosty spite,

Upturn each sweet face

To her beams' caress,
And laugh in the new world's light.

And those flashing things,

With their souls all song,
That went like dreams when he came,

With gay clamorings,

A sweet noisy throng,
Come back like arrows of flame.

And the meek blue bird

We love far the best,
For he stayed while dark hours frowned,

In low song is heard

More soft than the rest,
That melts with a wind-harp's sound.

And, accepted king
Of all the earth-choir,

132 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

The bold wizzard mocker swells

In keen notes that cling

Bound the brain like fire,
It's loud clear melodious spells.

Until all the air

Is one harmonic,
And the winds put music on,

And the echoes bear

Up the twice told glee,
Until fainter — more faint it is gone.

XII.

A crusty old gray -beard this winter must be
When a maiden comes after,
With her blithe songs and laughter,

And wooes him

And sues him,
1" tarry and travel with her,
To be hurried and flurried
And mightily worried,
To collect his blue-noses and go.
And sure a miscief maiden this Spring must be
To love an old Crusty so.

XIII.

Go where he will,
She follows him still,
Over far mountain and forest and dale,

Healing with love where he wounds with hate ;
With gentle breath quelling his stormy rail,

Then tarrying awhile till the song-bird's mate
And the chiding call of the wedded quail

Is telling slow summer he cannot wait
To haste and hide his low nest in her veil.

Then sure and swift as the pinions of fate,

SONG OF THE CHILDREN ABOUT SPRING. 133

Sweeps on once again till the creaking wail

Out from the ice-coated woods tells the tale,
How the old fellow is lording in state.

Again her kiss thaws through his frosty mail,
Again she strews flowers where he had strewn hail.
Till routed and scouted
While all the earth shouted,
In a terrible fright
The old fellow takes flight,
Clang ! clanging away on his sleety wings,
Nor dares he to alight
Till he comes where long night
Her sable curtain o'er dreary land flings.

CHAPTER VI.

DRAGGING THE SEINE;

OE, A FISH FRY IN KENTUCKY.

FIFTEEN years ago, a Kentucky fish-fry was one of the oc-
casions to date from. Like the New England clam bakes,
they were characteristic local scenes, in which you saw more
of the heart of the people in a few hours, than you might,
under other circumstances, in years.

We had other out-door festivals, to be sure, which were
equally characteristic of time, place and people, but they
were more public and miscellaneous — such as the barbecue,
which was usually given in honor of some political person
or event, and to which all classes were invited to join in
festivities on a grand scale, and when oxen were roasted
whole.

Then there was the bran dance, which — commencing with
the barbacued feast — wound up with a grand dance upon the
rolled earth, sprinkled with bran beneath the arbors — and in
which everybody, high or low, participated with a reckless
abandon of jollity. The confused jumble of all classes in
this rude festival, made it more an occasion for roystering
fun than refined enjoyment, and although forty years ago
they were participated in by our ladies, and I remember well
hearing my aunt and mother tell, many times, of dancing
with the young Harry Clay at the bran dance, yet they grad-
ually fell into disuse by the more refined.

DKAGGING THE SEINE. 135

By the way, I shall never forget the first picture of Mr.
Clay at one of these dances, as drawn by my mother to my
eager and boyish questioning. He was then, for the first
time, a candidate for the Legislature, and, of course, very
youthful, and " dressed like a young demagogue," as she
laughingly used to say, in the home-made jeans cloth woven
by the wives of the farmers of Kentucky.

It was considered that this dress was to propitiate the stout
dames and ruddy-cheeked daughters of his constituents ; and
as the gentlemen of that day were excessively fastidious in
their dress, and wore it of English cloth, and much more
ornate and rich than now-a-days, the plainness of Mr. Clay's
garb was laughed at among the young people of his own
class, as an affectation. Nothing regardful of their sneers,
the youthful politician, with his tall, thin figure, his graceful
bow and fascinating smile, glided among the people, tri-
umphantly winning everywhere the frank suffrages of simple
and honest hearts.

They laughed, but he won — and a suit of that same Ken-
tucky jeans has, since, consistently graced many a high po-
sition and noble circle, proudly worn by the older " dema-
gogue" (perhaps?) in testimonial of his respect for that
homely and honest constituency. It was, then, something
of a sharp joke among the social peers of the rising politi-
cian, to accuse him of playing the demagogue in this earliest
and manly expression of his preference for that home pro-
tective policy, which has now become one of the chiefest
and most honorable distinctions of the great statesman's re-
putation.

While these more important festivals had all a political or
public end, the fish-fry was entirely a social affair ; a gath-
ering of friends and equals for the purposes of out-door en-
joyment. The event was usually talked of for a week or
so, and, on one occasion which I particularly remember, the
invitations to attend had been circulated by a sort of free-
masonry, known amoDg the elect, the responsible source of

136 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

which it would have been .difficult to trace directly, though
the fact that a large spring near the plantation of one of our
well-known, hospitable, country gentlemen, had been selected
as the scene of the festival, was quite endorsement enough
on that score.

Before the arrival of the important day, all the minor pre-
parations of gallantry had been made, the various parties
of young men and girls having paired off, for the ride out
to the spring — which was seven miles distant — and satisfac-
torily adjusted all other preliminaries, for the occasion. The
gentry of both sexes from the town, and from the principal
plantations for miles around, commenced gathering from
every direction, and at an early hour on the auspicious morn-
ing, moved towards the place of meeting.

The party of which I made one, consisted of four or five

of the gayest and handsomest girls of our town of H ,

with gallants " to match " — if I may be permitted the modest
insinuation I Most of us were mounted on the dashing and
spirited saddle-horses peculiar to our State, and, with the
fearless command of accustomed riders, we gave way to our
hilarious mood, and kept them up to their metal. Our girls
usually ride with a boldness and a skill approached only by
the daughters of the English country gentlemen. Those
who preferred a more staid gait, fell back with the rear guard
of the party, which consisted, principally, of elderly gentle-
men, the fathers of these young girls, and other gray-haired
citizens who yet loved fan and good things.

It was a delicious spring morning, and our hearts bounded
merrily with the elastic movement of our horses. Our road
was literally over flowers, for the "barrens," through which
we swept, form the richest natural gardens in the world — far
more varied and chastely beautiful than the prairies. The
feet of our horses were stained at every stride with the red
juice of wild strawberries, that crouched in luscious clusters
beneath the tinted shadows of the over-hanging flowers, and
the fresh, soft breeze bore up to us the delicate aroma of

DRAGGING THE SEINE. 137

the crushed fruit mingled with the sweet forgiveness of their
meek guardians, we thus rudely trampled in a doubly per-
fumed death. The sense was intoxicated in this delicious
air, until we laughed, and sang, and said, we knew not what
— shouted and screamed, and bounded our snorting horses
wildly over and through these scented glories of the fresh-
ened earth, in a sort of delirious joy, which their game and
high-bred natures could fully share. Other parties joined
us on the way, and, together, we formed a noisy company
that mellow morning as we darted, one after another, into
the bridle-path that led to the spring, beneath a grove upon
the banks of a little river.

Here we were greeted with shouts of welcome, as we burst
in view of a pretty basin, overhung by a huge mossy rock,
and shaded with tall trees, beneath which, and around the
spring, were gathered some ten or twelve of the party who had
arrived before us. The gentlemanly planter came forward
with a hearty greeting for each, and all was for a few mo-
ments the bustle of dismountings, of salutations, &c.

My lady cared for — the horses delivered to the charge of
the grinning and delighted slaves of the plantation, we had
time to look around. It was a lovely spot that had been
chosen, everything about it looked as wild as when the
thirsty Indian, in undisputed lordship here, had come to lie
down by the cold waters for his noonday draught.

The plantation was several miles distant ; but our active
host had already commenced preparations for our reception,
as the blazing fire, the implements of cookery, the great bas-
kets with mysterious covers, scattered around, most plainly
showed. A droll-looking old mulatto, with shirt sleeves
rolled up and knife in hand, proclaimed himself, by his au-
thoritative demeanor, the chief cook and master of culinary
ceremonies for the day. This was for him a glorious occa-
sion ; an event of mighty import ; and he demeaned himself
accordingly. Group after group arrived and dismounted,
amidst a gay clatter of tongues, and now some thirty persons

138 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

had collected. The ladies very soon rid themselves of their
now superfluous bonnets, shawls, gloves, &c., while we, their
unfortunate gallants, were permitted but little time to con-
gratulate them upon the comforts of this disembarrassment,
and their promised repose in the cool shade, for the jovial
voice of our host promptly recalled us to a sense of service
imposed upon us for the morning by the usage of the occa-
sion.

" Come, boys ! The girls can take care of themselves
now. The seine's all ready down at the mill. Mount!
Mount !"

This imperative summons was not very promptly obeyed,
for young men would, naturally, after such a ride, be in no
great hurry to exchange the exhilaration which deliciously
lingered under the warm glances of their fair companions,
for a cold plunge into the river to drag the seine for fish.
This was our duty, and the young girls teazingly assured us
that they would not touch or serve up a single mouthful for
our dinners, if we did not drag the seine and catch the fish
ourselves. But we managed to find consolation in the fact,
that, if we were compelled to catch the fish, they had to
cook them under old Jim's supervision, and wait on us at
dinner too.

With abundant jokes and laughter at this quaint exchange
of labor and offices, which usage exacted for the day, we
tore ourselves reluctantly away at last, as our impatient host
shouted, amidst peals of laughter —

" Come, boys, come ! You are worse than Pagans — for
they were willing to meet death with the hope of being
served by Houries in the other world, while you are afraid
to meet a little ducking, with the same prospect of being
waited upon by them at dinner time in this !"

" Ha 1 ha 1 that will do ! Let us be off, as we are Chris-
tians I" Off we were at a sharp gallop, led by the Planter,
who, in about fifteen minutes, wheeled into a country road,
which soon led us down the steep bank to a ford below

DRAGGING THE SEINE. 139

an old mill. Here some of his negroes were gathered about
the net, which lay stretched along the sand, and they sprang
to our horses, as we dismounted rapidly.

" JSTow," called out the jolly Planter, " off with your dandy
coats, boys. Strip off your fine feathers! quick! — every
mother's son of you. Peel for your work — you've had play
enough !"

Now there was a hurried scene of preparation, and now it
became apparent that there were a good many saddle-bags
thrown across the saddles of the young men, and from their
depths were hauled forth rude suits of cast-off clothing, which
were to supply the place of our " dandy suits."

The transfer was made with becoming rapidity. Our fine
clothes were passed over to the safe keeping of the elderly
gents of the party, whose duty it was to carry them for us
along the banks, as well as to take charge of the fish, when
any had been caught. Old shoes had followed the old clothes
from their receptacles, and now we stood equipped in full —
a pocket-handkerchief tied around the head, a pair of old
shoes to protect our feet from the sharp stones of the river
bottom, a pair of pants tied about the waist, and a shirt to
shield our shoulders from the scorching sun. With shud-
dering steps we slowly waded in, bearing the net. It was
two miles, by the river, up to the spring — and through holes
and shallows, rapids or eddies, we were expected to drag
this seine, which was full forty feet in length by four in
depth. A heavy chain sinker was attached along the whole
length to the bottom, while at the two ends were the stout
upright poles, by which the ends were to be held on to the
bottom and to be dragged.

The two strongest and most experienced of the party took
hold of these poles, with which they stretched the seine be-
tween them across the river, while the rest of us took our
stations at short intervals in the rear to " mind the floats" —
that is, when the sinking of one of the large cork floats
strung along the top of the seine showed that the chain

140 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

sinker below had dragged against some obstruction on the
bottom, it was the business of the nearest float tender to
plunge head and shoulders, if necessary, beneath the water,
and carefully remove the obstruction without lifting the
sinker chain enough to let any fish that might be enclosed,
escape underneath — then the seine could move on again.

The river was broken up into deep holes, to which the
fish resort immediately on any disturbance, but above and
below these holes, there was usually a shallow — " ripple" as
it is called — and while the seiners commenced to sweep the
hole from the lower extremity or shallow, the supernumerary
boys or negroes were detailed above to form a line across the
ripple there, and by lashing the water and otherwise making
a great noise, they would prevent the larger fish from escap*
ing to the holes above.

Thus, as the long seine stretched from bank to bank, the
fish were entirely enclosed as it advanced towards the upper
end of the hole, and here the side with the smoothest shelv-
ing bank having been selected for " landing," the pole-carrier
on that side would stand fast with his pole at the edge of the
water, and then came the exciting moment, as the pole man
at the other extremity commenced rapidly sweeping round
with his wing to close upon this one.

The critical instant has arrived. The boys dash to and fro
along the shallow, yelling like wild Indians to frighten the
fish back towards the closing crescent, while the excited
pole-man upon whose rapid movement most depends now,
tugs at the heavy net, with body eagerly bent forward, while
the float-tenders tread close upon their charge in apprehen-
sion lest some ill starred snag may hang the drag — now, of
all times, just when lifting it an inch too much over the ob-
struction, may lose them the whole results of this haul — and
unlucky is he indeed, if, at the thrilling moment when the
pole-man, having got through the deep water, as he closes
towards his pivot-man, now starts into a desperate rush, to
close up amidst the excited shouts of all, and finds himself

DRAGGING THE SEINE. 141

jerked back by the hanging of the net ! — the poor float man
nearest is literally deafened by the universal howl of execra-
tions, as if it were his fault that the snag was there — and
shouted admonition to " make haste !"

" Take care I" " don't let them get out !" " you are lifting
the sink too high I" " hurry, hurrry !" until he is so confused
that he scarcely knows what he does — and looking about
him as he stoops to obey all these injunctions in a second, is
frightened still farther at the ferocious faces scowling upon
him as if eager for his very life blood. Lucky is he if he
loosens the net without much delay in the face of all this,
for the next minute the landing is effected, and all the ex-
citement is diverted from his devoted head by the sight of
the glittering spoil dragged suddenly, flashing and leaping to
the sunlight.

The fish are at once secured in baskets, carried by the el-
ders on one arm, while the other bears across it a suit or two
of clothes, or pairs of boots ; and now the pent up breaths
of excitement are drawn, and laughter and pleasant gibes
relax the ferocious scowls of a moment since — while the net
is being freed from the leaves and twigs that it had gathered,
and sundry useless monsters of mud-cats, hard-shell terra-
pins, or snapping-turtles, &c., are being thrown back into the
water preparatory for another haul.

Now the seine is carried on our shoulders across the " ripp,"
or ripple above, to the next hole — the boys sent on again to
the " ripp " beyond that, and the seine spread out again, is
dropped once more into the deep water.

There had been a heavy Spring freshet lately, and, now
that it had just subsided, the fish which always ascend the
small streams at such times, had been left behind in the holes
in great numbers. The rule is, the deeper the hole, the
larger and finer the fish ; and sometimes we were plunged
in over our heads by a single step, to rise sputtering and
floundering, amidst the general shouts of laughter at the
mishap.

142 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

But these unceremonious duckings were amply compen-
sated by the more abundant reward of such a " drag ;" for,
great was the excitement when, as the wings began to close,
we saw the quick gleams, like those of sword blades, up the
deep green water, of the long-bodied pike, which were be-
coming alarmed, and then, as we rushed the net on them, one
would dart swiftly upwards, and flashing an instant in the
air, pass clear over the floats, unless caught by the ready
hand of a float tender.

Then such clamors of approval at the feat, from the shore,
mingled with the cries of warning as another went shining
after and over, followed by a desperate rush of the strong
and headlong white trout, or rather, perch, some of them
leaping a full yard straight up into the sunlight, and others
lashing the water in furious struggles to burst their way
through the meshes of the net.

What a pell-mell of rushing, spattering, snatching, scream-
ing and laughing, that landing was ! Many of the finest fish
escaped in the flurry, as is always the case in this kind of
sport — as it is impossible to prevent the bold leaps of the
white trout and pike. The succors, too, make their escape
frequently in this manner, and some of the more active va-
rieties of the perch — of which the fish I have called the
white trout is the most remarkable. We have, indeed, no
true trout in our western rivers ; but the habits of this mag-
nificent fish are so closely allied to those of that noble family,
that the name is generally yielded to it in deference. The
other fish thus taken, are the blue-cat, the black and golden
perch, along with the glistening silver-side, and many simi-
lar varieties. The soft-shell turtle is frequently captured and
recognized as a dainty.

Thus we continued, with varying success, to drag all the
holes of the river, until the immediate neighborhood of the
spring had been reached. By this time we were tired enough
and the thought of dinner was a very pleasant one. The
baskets of fish had been regularly, after each successful drag,

DRAGGING THE SEINE. 143

forwarded to the spring to be cared for by the ladies ; and
now, as we crawled, weary and dripping, forth to dress our-
selves, under the protecting bank, we blessed our stars that
this " fun " was over, and that our expectant Houries had
something more substantial on hand awaiting us than am-
brosia.

Our hurried toilets made as best we might, we found our
way to the scene of anticipated reward, guided thither by
the smell of cooking fish, which " burdened all the air " with
an aroma far more luscious to us now in our ravenous mood
than that of all the flowers we had crushed in our morning
ride.

Every one must remember, that long exposure to the
effects of cold water is apt to provoke a most unpoetical ap-
petite. Ah ! how genial was the merry greeting we received
— how romantic seemed the flushed cheeks of our cooking
belles, and when fairly seated on the green sod for our table,
how far more ethereal seemed their light forms than the Pa-
gan Houries, as partly enwreathed in the smoke of Jim's
great fire, they received from his lordly hand the steaming
dishes, and bore them with divinest smiles, and fingers rose-
tipped, like those of so many auroras, by the heat, to place
them before us ! Ah ! tell it not to heathens what a Para-
dise was thus made for us of that scene, or all Christendom
will surely be in danger from overrunning hordes of Infidels
seeking to realize this suprcmest mundane bliss — the Dinner
at a Fish Fry !

CHAPTER VII.

ANALOGIES AND SIMILITUDES:

BIRDS AND POETS ILLUSTRATING EACH OTHER.

"We will entangle buds, and flowers, and beams,
Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make
Strange combinations out of common things."

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.

"Oft on the dappled turf, at ease
I sit, and play with similies—
Loose types of Things through all degrees."

WORDSWORTH — To A DAISY.

WE love our own face in a mirror, and, like a second Nar-
cissus, we grow amorous over it, shadowed in the burnished
lapsing of a fountain — we love the stars sleeping in deep
waters, too, (happy association !) and the pageantry of cloud,
and rock, and tree, reversed in a still, liquid sky — in a word,
we love all similitudes !

Perhaps this is because they illustrate to us a power of re-
production external to ourselves, and this is such an ap-
proach to that creative faculty which belongs to the " big
imagination " in us, that, having no jealousy in our temper,
we are charmed to see, even in " dumb nature," something
like a rivalry of this " bright particular " — gift — we own.

In truth, there is something worth following up in this
idea. We should like to see the painter or the poet who
could ever produce a landscape so cunningly, even to the
last minute tracery of its lines and shades, as we have seen
the unruffled surface of a lake do it some clear, calm morn-

BIRDS AND POETS. 145

ing before sunrise. Not one twisted fibre of the grass, one
knotted eccentric twig, one blue-eyed, dewy -lipped violet but
hung there — upside down, to be sure — but perfect as it came
from God's hand.

" What is this? Does it not mock our pride of art, and
shame its dedicated altars ?"

" It is God's handiwork through his natural laws !"

" Ah ! But the picture is not always there. Does God
(in reverence) with his own personal hand paint the land-
scape in the lake whenever it is seen ? Is it a special act ?"

" No ; it is consequential upon an arrangement of laws
fixed since the birth of time."

" You are smiling ! was that smile now upon your face
pre-ordained since the same period ?"

" So far as we know, it was, equally with the other, conse-
quential."

"That smile was a physical expression of a mental con-
dition or humor in yourself, was it not ?"

"Ay."

" It might have been a frown, or varied by other external
modification ?"

"Ay."

" Might not the landscape in the lake have been a storm-
shaken blurr ?"

" Granted."

"Is it not quite as ' consequential,' then, that earth has her
physical expressions of certain conditions and humors of
the vital force in her which are affected by external rela-
tions?"

" What external relations can you mean ?"

" First, those to her solar system ; next, those to the other
systems which make up the universe. These relations may
determine in her all the action of elemental expression — va-
riations of the seasons, &c., &c."

"Pshaw! fogmatic!"

" Guilty ; but still, we 'love similitudes.' "

10

146 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

It is an old fancy of that science of seeing deepest into
the millstone, called Metaphysical Philosophy, that the earth
is an animal — a living thing — of course insensate brute and
huge, to our apprehension, but to the vision of Higher Intel-
ligences an apparelled creature in its robes of cloud and light
— swung on its orbed circuit, amid travelling peers : that to
them its vast calm front must be forever pregnant with a
meaning of its own ; and they can, to " the dumbness of its
very gesture," interpret ; that it has articulations, "joints
and motives " to its body, which must move, act and obey
the impulse of the life within it. This active impulse — call
it the galvanic fluid, or the principle of life — lives through
and animates its own great bulk, as well as through every
modification of its aggregate mass which we see as forms,
and know as existences :

" One sun illumines heaven, one spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new."

That this sphered creature must have been itself in chaos
a thought projected out of the mind of God — the base and
original of the being of which was a self-modifying vital
principle.

This vital force was independent of, and prior to, all or-
ganization ; yet the law of its energies was the creative or
self-formative — so that, if it acted through itself at all, it must
act creatively — plastically — expressing this action in forms,
the combinations of its own constituents.

Mark you ; the gift of this creative energy was from God,
who gave it its laws, making it through them self-acting.

In a word, His higher energy produced here a remote
modification of some one thought or phase of His own Eter-
nal might ; and this we call — and it is to us — creative.

The fact of its being an energy sustained from God, im-
plies the necessity of action, and this action constitutes its
development of itself — its entity.

BIKDS AND POETS. 147

That this entity must be infinitely remote from the posi-
tive being of God is self-evident.

" As if the cause of life could think and live."

God's being must be something immeasurably beyond the
ideas of thinking and living, as they appear to us — for how
could like create its like ? It may pro-CTe&le — creation is ab-
solute and beyond this ; the power of pro-creation is from
it an endowment : so that in applying the term creativeness
to any being under God, we must be understood as using it
in the sense of production or projection out of the laws of
its own life.

We are no

" Magian with his powerful wand,"

setting up to reveal, or be doctrinal of that which may not
be known ; but yet, we protest " we love similitudes," and
are fain to test how far they may playfully and safely carry
us ; for we mean to demonstrate (save the mark !) that these
Birds of which we are to treat are no less than the " winged
words " of this Earth's Poetry I

Do they not express the supremest graces of a purely sen-
suous life — of action — which we have shown to be a neces-
sity of that vital energy permeating the globe and all that is
therein ?

Now let us see how we can make our Earth a Poet — to
discourse in sweet living numbers ! This must be compara-
tively with Man, of course. There are, as we have before
said, two souls ; Man possesses a soul — a peculiar energy,
" breathed into his nostrils the breath of life " — Eternal life,
higher than the life of the Earth, and to which its vital prin-
ciple has been given as a medium.

Then, as the soul is man's highest vitality, why may not
the Principle of Life, which is to the Earth its highest vi-
tality, be to it the soul —

' The lightning of its being,"

148 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

yet a lightning the fountain of which may be the sun, while
the eternity of God's own life may be the source of that
higher soul in man.

His soul is creative, and peoples the chambers of its im-
agery with rare and gorgeous creatures. Then why may it
not be — as we have shown it must, from the necessities of its
origin and existence — that this lower or Earth Soul is like-
wise creative, and all things that it contains, the expression
of this self-exercised, self-modifying power, in thoughts that
walk, run, creep, are still, or fly ?

A union of the two energies, the Spiritual and Sensuous,
seems to have been necessary to the consummation of things
as they are.

The purely Spiritual could know nothing of the Sensuous,
except as an abstract idea ; nor could the purely Sensuous
know the Spiritual at all, except through vague and unde-
fined images of power ; and this very necessity for the inter-
position of an image precludes the possibility of any knowl-
edge of its essence.

Hence it appears to us, that the life of the Sensuous must
have been confined to simple consciousness — a mere direct
knowledge of external things, as they appealed to its senses,
effected its organization ; while its being, to the Spiritual, was
only a cold and lifeless reflex, such as we have described the
inverted landscape in the lake to have been.

Now we fancy that, to angelic vision, which alone, under
God, regarded things from the Universe as a point of view,
our world must have hung upon space about as unnaturally
as that morning picture did, and all its action have seemed
as the shadow of a Bird passing over it would have done to
us from our point of view.

-The Daedal earth,

That island in the ocean of the world,
Hung in its cloud of all sustaining air ;
But this divinest universe
Was yet a chaos and a curse,

BIRDS AND POETS, 149

For thou wert not ; but power from worst producing worst —
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there,
And of the birds and of the watery forms."

That " thou " was Adam, and, in reverence, it seems to us
that the only way left of righting that apparently shadow-
peopled " island" to the apprehension of those Higher Intel-
ligences was through the interpenetration of the idiosyn-
cratic life of some one of the " Principalities and Powers"
into its lower essence — in a word, by the marriage of the
Angelic, or Spiritual, and Sensuous life.

That such a marriage was symboled by the breathing into
the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, we have no question.

Into his organization — the most subtle and perfect express-
ion of the creative energy of earth — a higher energy had
passed, and in this sublimest marriage was the act and pur-
pose of creation consummate.

To the universe, when he awoke in birth u the great globe
itself," with all " the pomp and circumstance" of its peculiar
being, stood first revealed beneath the pillared firmament as
now it stands —

" Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied
His generations under the Pavilion
Of the sun's throne."

His organization became to this vast new entity the law of
beauty — of perfect form — harmonizing it with the Universe ;
his point of vision in common with the Seraphim, disclosing
not the only but — near to them — in the linked Spiritual gra-
dation— the highest reality.

He first saw beauty here, and heard the choir of morning
birds, but he as well, first looked upward into heaven to hear
the singing of the morning stars.

He, alone, could look beyond mere consciousness, and see
things, not as they appear to animal sense, but nearly as they
exist, absolutely, to all intelligences.

150 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

All Truth is relative — but Existences are positive. It is
only to man that the higher truth of these Existences was
revealed, for he alone of Earth saw them in their relations.
These relations were wide as the extended firmament — deep
as abysmal space ; and, to him, in right of his angelic birth,
the " seeing eye" was gifted.

This is " the vision and the faculty divine ;" and that his
recreant spirituality does not always use it — that he has
sometimes walked through life as one having eyes that saw
not — does not, for an instant, alter the relations of things, or
make their position on the eternal scale less absolute, or iron-
hinged.

That he has Free Will, in this repect, is his own awful
and peculiar gift — we cannot conceive, even of Gabriel,
u nearest the throne," as one who could not FALL! But we
can conceive — if man could only see as we do — or (more
modestly) would only walk with his eyes open, how charm-
ingly and pleasantly his relations to the Earth might be
changed.

It is not so absurd, as might appear at first glance, to sup-
pose her our Primal Parent through whom we have been
born of Spirit — for surely we owe to her what we have of
flesh and blood. And, to our mind, how lovely such a faith
would be !

With our hearts possessed of it, then would all the rude
tremendous phases of her energy be tempered with ameni-
ties. It would then be our large Old Mother, chaunting in
her seas a lullaby to us, when the long waves broke roaring
on the sands, or shook the fast cliffs with lashings.

Then it would be the heavy trample of her roused strength
in chastenings, when the hoarse storm made noises and the
" cross blue lightning" spit its shafts against the crags — or,
when her mountainous brows shook off the mellow evening,
it would he in parting smiles for us — when their white fronts
laughed out with the fiery kiss of morning, it would be to
greet us.

BIRDS AND POETS. 151

"We might gaze back tranquil love for love into her dark
eyes of sleeping waters when they showed eloquent for us
the sparkling visions of her infinite life. In pleasant won-
der, and some awe, we might look down where the cavern-
ous arteries of her warm great heart were yawning — hear
the clinking ripple of her nourishing blood go through her
veins — while, far beneath, her fiery bowels yearned and
shook the hills with belchings.

Then in her long rivers we would see the arms of a nurs-
ing Mother thrown around the nations — we should know in
the wind-bowed voiceful forest, the shaking of her musical
hair — and ah ! how tenderly salute the Wild Flower " cinque-
spotted with its crimson drops," sent forth to us from near
her heart — a thought of odors painted and embodied by the
Sun.

"We should then see in Brute active life ; not simply sav-
age foes with whom our dealings should be under the law
of blood, but Anti-types in which were foreshadowed the
physical thoughts of strength, activity, courage, &c., which
were to be united in man the Type. Lion, tiger, horse, hog,
monkey, all blended into one ; and he — with his union of
the Higher Vitality acting through these forces — exhibiting
their utmost capabilities, the basest as well as the best powers
of these organized thoughts of action and of passion.

Then would they become to us forever a lower Brother-
hood, reminding us that we too are born " of the earth,
earthy ;" that, with all the keen exulting of this star measur-
ing vision, we are linked to them through a common life in
half that constitutes our being.

Then would the Brute King of Numidian forests be a re-
proach to us — with its inviolate faith to the original laws
which stamped it royal — would rebuke its Human Brother
of the lion-heart back to " mere nature ;" when he grew vo-
luptuous, would taunt him through the fixed wrinkles in its
tawny face and the still strength of fierceness in its eye, to

152 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

" Kouse ! and the weak and wanton Oupid
Shall from your neck unloose its amorous folds,
And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air !"

Even the striped Tiger, in its Hyrcanian lair, stretched,
gorged with blood, and harmless as a sleeping child, might
teach a Eobespierre to tire of slaughter and sheath for once
his gore-stained claws.

"We are forever drawn away from onr Earth-Mother by
that counter force in us. May it not be that all Evil is the
result of this unceasing antagonism of the Organic and Spir-
itual lives — that in a struggle which should elevate the lower,
the symmetry of both is most frequently destroyed. Earth
calls us back to her in this symbolical language, while
the stars draw us by affinities. We will not see that our
true Heaven lies between the two ; but in the blindness of
our perverse strivings make that happy half-way place a
Hell!

Our Mother discourseth with us through these her living
words — through these her constant Anti-types of the heroic
virtues in us she illustrates the changeless laws by which
they are sustained.

She warns us when we have disgraced our lion — or even
our dog or donkey natures — how we may get back again to
truth by copying their simple lives. She speaketh sternly
to us, for she cannot lie. Ay —

" Call the creatures

"Whose naked natures live in all the spite
Of wreakful heaven ; whose bare unhoused trunks
To the conflicting elements exposed
Answer mere nature — bid them flatter thee."

Ah I then, too, as well, would birds be the Anti-types of
the Poetical in us. As we have said, they are to our Eld-
Mother her " winged words" of poetry. The similitude is

BIKDS AND POETS. 153

perfect here ! Even as poetry is to us the higher language
of our highest — i. e. our angelic nature — so, with this Matron
Sister of the stars, is this Poetry the higher expression of
the strong and beautiful in her.

Furthermore, as in our case, it matters not whether this
expression speak outwardly through the heart, the blood, or
the brain, so it be the most purely creative and perfect of its
kind, it is yet our Poetry — exalted just in proportion as the
brain — chief organ of the soul — has worked it forth. So
with her — it boots not whether sunset, waters, clouds, herbs,
creeping things, beasts or Birds be her language — each con-
dition is the expression of the Soul of action in her, and is,
in its highest revelations, her Poetry — and as Birds embody
the purest graces of this action, they are her most elevated
articulations !

Is not this fairly " demonstrated?" Should they not seem
to us the sublimest voices of her worship, lifted up on wings
towards God, and be therefore sacred from all wantonness ?
Should they not thus be taken closely to our hearts because
they not only so clearly speak to us of the Soul in her, but
as distinctly symbolize our own Souls ? for is it not from
their swift aerial movements and melodious tones we gather
all the images and language of the Spiritual Life ? In short,
are not Birds the clearest, loftiest strain of the Earth's
Poetry — the most perfect allegories of the life to come —
the finest Anti-types of the noblest aspirations of the life
that is?

Though man has, in common with the elephant, sagacity
— with the horse, generous activity — with the lion, magnani-
mous courage — yet, only in common with the Bird hath he
wings, or rendereth up his heart on high in singing. But,
even as Anti-types of the physical virtues, Birds are the high-
est expression, and therefore the Heroic Poetry.

The traits enumerated above, in connexion with brutes,
are those of subordinates, of such as, sword in hand, lead
columns crashing in the onset, or mount first "the imminent

154 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

deadly breach ;" but they act under a controlling mastery,
and it is that of such a spirit as the Eagle typifies — of a
broad-pinioned cleaver of the mists, whose far-flashing, sun-
defying eye sees beyond the concurrence he has wielded to
the results. Such a one was Napoleon — whose whole career
was the sublimest Heroic Epic the world ever saw. The
Eagle was, naturally, his favorite bird, and perched upon his
standards, leading his fiery veterans to victory.

It was his Anti-type, with its whole hungry family of
Kaptores, flame-eyed and hook-beaked, clustered around it
in his Marshals!

It has been the bird of victory since time began — all the
mighty Geniuses of war have loved it —

" The Anarch Chiefs, whose fierce and murderous snares
Have founded many a sceptre-bearing line,"

have taken it for a sign, an omen of triumph. The wry-
necked, world-conquering Macedonian followed it to the
" Ganges golden " and the Temple of Ammon. The nation-
yoking, "hook-billed Koman" carried it before his legions.
Beneath its wings the grand Wallenstein, with his German
cohorts, "blue-eyed, yellow-haired and strong," battled
haughtily with his Destiny. " The sterner stuff " of our own
daring and hardy Fathers saw in its strong wings and conti-
nent-girdling flight, the fittest emblem of the freedom and the
boundless Empire they were founding here.

In a word, it has idealized and glorified all sublimest ac-
tion and triumphs of the physical. It is the Epic of earth's
heroic Poetry. In it like Homer, the Old Mother has loos-
ened from "thunderous brows" her topmost thought of
beautiful, fierce, exulting strength, and sent it plumed to
float upon her storms.

That will do — Miss Barrett-izing the earth ! But let the
Daughter paint for us — her bold pencil does it well !

When we set up for one of " God's prophets of the beau-
tiful," then may we, too, grind down the elements for our

BIKDS AND POETS. 155

palette, and at a single stroke, dash off such a profile of
our Shynx-headed Mother in her eternal youth, that the
very Raven of the ark — said to be now abroad — will re-
cognize it for the same face it saw lifted above the flood !

That would be Miss Barrett-izing with a " line effect," es-
pecially if by the one effort we could throw in, as an acces-
sory, the old fellow's croak of greeting, hoarse with the
phlegm of ages.

But we are mournfully fain to confess we may not be a
Seer — for as yet we have seen no sights

" Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire,"

worth talking about ; though, in equal humility, we are
ready to acknowledge that, all this while, it may be

" true I talk of dreams

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy."

Be our similitudes veritable, or this the "base and fabric of
a vision," still we reiterate our " weakness" for them ! Sure
this wondrous wide ocean of Analogy (had we not as well
have said Truth f) has some sunny spots in it — green islands
where we love to stop and play upon the pebbly verge
with the weird Albatross — it brings us "whispering shells"
from the deep, deep sea. Eebuke not our toying fancy, and
you shall hear them, too !

But has not Earth, as well as Man, a yet more exalted
and exalting Poetry than that of which the Bird of Battle
is a sign ? We, ourselves, can vouch for this — for have we
not heard it ? — not alone in strains such as

-Bottomless conceit

Can comprehend in still imagination,"
but through this carnal sense in our own pricked ears have

156 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

we confessed it. Ah ! how different that mellow rhythm,
from the harsh, hungry clarion, sounded in its scream?

Have we not gone aside into those secret places where our
Primal Mother

" Plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
"Were all too rumpled and sometime impaired."

Here an awed silent witness have we not listened when her
solemn moods of worship came upon her ? Think you she
does not know the Mighty One, who thought her — Daughter
of the Sun — into being ?

Yes ! and she serves an altar to him, in a " house not made
with hands ;" and thus, for that service — away from the hum
and dust of bruising cities — from the rock-rude chaos of her
sterner moods, where Eaglets nestle with her Storms— doth
she draw apart ; and, gathering about her there her delicate
thoughts of love and gentlest peace, she lifts them on her
green bosom to her old Sire to kiss, and resting tranquil in
his warm light — sings ! First, she sings an under prelude
with the breeze and stream — then, soft and clear, a louder
diapason swelling rings in sweet articulations, warbled out
or trilling from a thousand living throats ! Must not this
be her choral incense — hymn of praise — the holier strain she
carries in the anthem of the stars? Every note, too, is
plumed with wings, and is the living movement of her heart
towards God.

Have we not thus seen that she, too — comparatively with
man — has a Poetry, and discourseth " sweet living numbers,"
after the same manner with his rapt inspirations?

This, her " tuneful choir," is the eldest ; and, as it expresses
in her the highest yearnings of her purer life, so it stands
the Anti-type of the spiritual and truest Poetry in Man —
Man 1 her wayward child, half tyrant and half stranger on
her bosom.

What recks he, the hard self- worshipper, that the Linnet

BIRDS AND POETS. 157

is his lowlier sister ! Still is she bone of his bone and flesh
of his flesh, and sings for him of love ! Yet he, too, sings
of love. Her love is of the sun and flowers — his love goes
winging to freeze among the stars, and will not stoop to ca-
ress her. Ah ! nnfraternal despot ; ye may not know the
innocent joy when it is warm about the heart. Thus her
meek rebuke would be plained low from out her tiny heart !
But, gentle singer, though in the aggregate we be

" A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude almost as rudest salvages" —

yet have we men and women of us, who

" Subscribe to tender objects" —

who can turn away from the unholy altars of this " dark
idolatry of self," to know and feed upon the beautiful in out-
ward things. To such, thou art a lowly sister —

And for thy songs they give thee song again,
But set thy lispings to a loftier strain !

Safer in their wide sympathies thou mayest nestle than in
the strong cedar — cherished and nourished at their deep
hearts — take thine ease — thou mayest be glad !

These are the true Monarchs here. They have thrown aside
the purple and forgotten State. They go forth bare and
meek into the throng of living creatures, and in their benefi-
cence alone do they seem royal — "the benediction" of, their
calm, genial smiles falls everywhere in dew ;

" And they shall be accounted Poet Kings,
"Who simply say the most heart-easing things."

These are they the Song Birds typify ! — the soft-eyed and
musical-hearted ! — Ah, alike — how full of happy love and
the power of giving joy !

1-68 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

It is very pleasant and curious to sec how many points of
resemblance there are between these Plumy Poets and their
bifurcated rivals without feathers. The points of departure
are rather of manner than of kind. The bird is its own in-
strument, and

" Singeth of Summer in full-throated ease;"

though there are exceptions; the Woodpecker sometimes
makes of the hollow oak an " instrument," whereon to beat
a tattoo. The Grouse extemporizes the thunder of deep
bass, using an old log for a drum ; but these are incidental
deviations, for they are not strictly Song Birds, though they
carry important parts in the orchestra. The Man has a
voice too, and uses it to a purpose sometimes — for old Her-
rick says,

u So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
As, could they hear, the damned would make no noise."

And, in further proof of the earnestness with which it may
be used, even the delicate Juliet exclaims,

" Else I could tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her fairy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Borneo's name."

And could you but hear the exquisite Mrs. Mowatt in the
" Else I could tear" of these lines, you would understand
what might be the voice of Shakspeare's " dove-feathered
Kaven" in sad beautiful rage ! In loftier numbers we are
told how

" The harmonious mind

Poured forth itself in all prophetic song."

But this labial lute — the organic "instrument" in man —
could not yet equal the effects produced by those of his ri-
vals; and, as he was to express in himself everything, he

BIKDS AND POETS. 159

brought his constructive creativeness to bear, and soon
through it equalized his individuality with all. From the
time of

" Jubal's pipe awakening the young echoes,"

down to the present, his art has grown until his creatures —
in emulation of his mother — have become alive, and he can

" With fleet fingers make

His liquid- voiced comrade talk with him —
It can talk measured music eloquently."

And now — oh rarest miracle ! — wondrous consummation !

" Let but thy voice engender with the string,
And angels will be born whilst ihou dost sing" HEEEICZ.

Here is the triumph, " in special," of Man's creativeness over
that of Earth ! We should like to see the old Dame or any
of her Poet-Birds surpass this charmingly-refined mode of
populating a Heaven ! But yet, withal, it is the legitimate
procreation of

"Music married to immortal verse,"

and the logical deduction from our " foregone conclusions,"
that while Earth's music notes are embodied in the forms
of Birds, those of Man become angels !

Birds love best " the bedabbled morn," and their boldest,
freest song bursts forth in wild, sweet garrulous greeting to
the sun — while their evening hymns are plaining, low and
mellow ! Our Poets have not been remarkable for seeing
the sun rise. They permit

" Full many a glorious morn
To flatter the mountain-tops"

unreproved of them. They rather affect the ghostly watches
of the moon, and given to becoming somewhat "mellow"

160 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

too, of evenings, " the wild disguise has been apt to almost
antick" them.

" Cup us till the world goes round,"

was ever the favorite chorus of their mellow vespers. God
bless them ! Poor Chaucer is not the only one of whom it
might be said —

" That mark upon his lip is wine !"

The song-bird with its pipes a-weary, sips, for refreshing, the
fiery dews inspired of the sun. They, as well to awake the
frost-bound blood or rouse the sacred madness, have quaffed
at this

Thespian spring,

Of which sweet swans must drink before they sing
Their true-paced numbers and their holy lays."

Not a strictly "Washingtonian sentiment, by the way, but it
will do, since Birds and Poets are accountable for it —
though so staid a Poet as Wordsworth talks about " Thou
drunken Lark !" Birds are proverbially improvident and
regardful of the injunction, " give thyself no thought for the
morrow, what we shall eat, or what ye shall drink" — for with
them " sufficient to the day is the joy thereof !" That therein
Birds and Poets do most agree, the Lay of " The Flower
and Leaf" shall bear us witness. The gentle Poet, idling
through an embowered Dream-land, becomes

" Ware of the fairest medler tree

That ever yet in all my life I see.
*****
Wherein a goldfinch leaping pretilie
Fro bough to bough."

The little bird begins to sing

" So passing sweetly, that by manifold
It was more pleas aunt than I could devise."

BIRDS AND POETS. 161

Thereby ravished into paradise, he sat him down upon " the
sote grasse" to drink in tranquilly the fulness of the new
bliss ; and reclined thus, his heart begins to chaunt of itself
— like wind-stirred boughs — concerning this song of its little
Brother which so moved it. Above all images of soft de-
light, that rippling accord was

" More pleasaunt to me by many fold
Than meat or drinke or any other thing,
Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold,
The wholesome savours eke so comforting,
That as I deemed sith the beginning
Of the world was never seene er than
So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man !"

You perceive that Chaucer and his Goldfinch might both
have sprung from from a very " Halcyon's nest" of spiritual
' ' Loafer dom ! " Indeed,

the placid mien

Of liim who first with harmony informed
The language of our fathers "

seems to have marked him peculiarly as Prince and Founder
of this world- wide Order of " the lovers of quiet." He ab-
solutely and unblushingly confesses the whole implication in
" The Komaunt of the Kose"—

" And then wist I and saw full well
That Idlenesse me served well,
That put me in such jolitie."

But then, who does not love that "jolitie" when he under-
stands that

" There were many a bird singing
Throughout the yerde all thringing,"

" is fit for treasons, stratagems," &c. Ay, he is the veriest
hind that ever turned up clod, who has not a fountain of

162 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

sweet apprehensions stirred within him when he hears, mel-
lowed through the gray rifts of Time the rhythm of

" These birdes that I you devise
They song her song as faire and well
As angels doon espirituell."

Ah, exquisite Idlers! — would that in this busy, froward,
vexing " Play," the' only " acts" for those like you might be
to

" Sit apart and sing,

And smoothe your golden hair!"

To the Bird, this gay, blissful Aiden is the reality of sun-
shiny life — to the pale Poet, alas ! the " semblant shadow"
of a taunt. Yet, withal, his brave "faith of gentleness"
lives too far on high — too self-sustained in its own quiet
might to lust for base appliances. The making melody to
feed his own heart's yearning brings to him

" A greater content in course of true delight,
Than to be thirsty after tottering honor,
Or tie Ms treasure up in silken bags
To please the fool and death."

But however charming these general " similitudes" of the
Birds and Poets may be to us, it is necessary for us to re-
member that there is such a thing as being " cloyed of
sweetness" known in the world ! We must descend to par-
ticulars in illustrating our theory of concordance. We have
said that song-birds were the Anti-types of they who " shall
be accounted Poet Kings."

By this we mean that — for each of the Human Poets who
has illustrated the external relations of Humanity distinctly
from himself — or, in other words, who has seen and sung
of things as they are — and been purely creative — our mother
furnishes among Birds a distinct Anti-type.

BIRDS AND POETS. 163

For instance — as the most immediate and convenient ex-
ample— what sentient thing so strikingly illustrates Shak-
speare as the Mocking Bird ? Though circumstances ren-
dered the interposition of a " Discoverer" necessary to bring
to light the New World, which alone could furnish the pro-
totype of such a Genius, yet it is not the less true that it has
been found.

And here we, daringly perhaps, present it. The Mocking
Bird is the Monarch of Earth's song — imperial over all the
choir of woods and plains that lie beneath the stars — as
Shakspeare is over that more spiritual choir which,

" In the rapid plumes of song
Clothed itself sublime and strong."

Shakspeare is more human than humanity itself — in the sub-
tility of his mimetic art another " nature that shapes man
better." The Mocking Bird in its native powers of song
surpasses all other birds ; and even when imitating them,

" All that ever was,
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass."

On some fair morning, when our Mother wears such holiness
of smiling peace upon her face that the dreamy Poet wan-
dering forth might be pardoned for supposing that he was

" Amidst the young green wood of Paradise,
Such store of birds therein yshrouded were,
Chaunting in shade their sundrie melodie,"

until the very hills reverberate, and meadow grasses dance
in cadence — then might he hear the Mocking Bird triumph-
ing I Loud above them all its notes would swell —

" With wanton heed and giddy cunning
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony !"

164 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

Every trill and quaver of a rival song its victorious, Elfin
skill would reproduce, until each separate throat was choked
with envy. Ah, then the joy and glory of its conquest
comes ! Out of the silence there would go such a " storm
of music,"

" Such harmonious madness
From its throat would flow,"

as might " shake the dull oblivion from his dreams !"

Shakspeare was diverse as a peopled world ; all moods, all
thoughts, all humors of all men, alike were his. The veri-
similitudes and Protean versatility of the Mocking Bird are
quite as strange. Indeed, its power of adaptation is most
remarkable. Mr. Audubon represents it in its native and
congenial home — the dew-dropping, odor-breathing South
— as the most gentle and confiding of creatures. We can
bear eye-witness of this ; for here it is known and cherished
in the fraternal spirit of our Philosophy, and is as fearless,
familiar, and domestic as a household sprite. We have seen
it, as he represents, place its nest openly upon the fence by
the side of the public road, and have often thrown crumbs
to it as it hopped about the door-sill. But like all vigorous
natures, it is restless and a wanderer — though, with a saga-
cious and mysterious sympathy or apprehension, it never
pushes its migations beyond the vicinage of Humanity of
some sort or other.

So when impulse and poverty had driven Shakspeare to
London, his masterly genius mated itself with circumstances
as he found them, (so far as was necessary,) — with the base
huckstering elements he saw to be all-powerful around the
theatres — until, interfusing his own " candied nature" into
those about him, he elevated them upon his triumphs into
dignity, as well as awed respect. But this facility of adap-
tation illustrates only a phase of its Shaksperian character.
Shakspeare was the genius of " infinite humors " — Jack

BIRDS AND POETS, 165

Falstaff, Bardolph, Shallow, Nym, et ii omnes — with Puck,
Ariel, Titania and Oberon thrown in — stand like chiselled
laughter upon the monumental front of Time. Our feath-
ered Shakspeare can, in its sphere, contend for nothing so
sublimely fixed — but that it is a practical, habitual humorist
of the rarest water, as we have already shown.

We will here dismiss this particular contrast. We are
fully prepared to expect, that in this instance as well as in
those which are to follow our " Similitudes " — our whole
Philosophy indeed — will appear to many surface-glancing
minds,

" Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain —
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be!"

We are smilingly content to rest all upon this interpreta-
tion, so that — in the Poetical sense, it include the pregnant
meaning of

u The infantine familiar clasp of things divine."

And then, again, who but Milton, " blind Thamyris " among
the "Prophets old" should be a type of the Nightingale?
Who does not remember that delicate and touching compar-
ison instituted by himself in allusion to his blindness ? —
Who, other than he, could under such circumstances of blank,
rayless desolation — poised on his own supreme spiritual^ —
have loftily fed

" On thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covers hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note."

All minds must be impressed by the strange excelling appo-
siteness of the similitude in this case. Ah, Soul of the beau-
tiful! thy

166 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

" Cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,"

"Before the spirit-sighted countenance
Of Milton didst thou pass from that sad scene
Beyond whose night he saw with a dejected mein."

And what a starry " night " was that thou didst disclose to
him ! How great a firmament, moving and mingled, popu-
lous with burning spheres ! And what a dawn is that which
has leaped forth from it — in flames, in purple, and in music
over Earth ! "We see it to have been both with Milton and
his own loved Philomel, that their midnight song

-begins anew

Its strain when other harmonies stopt short
Leave the dinned air vibrating silvery."

To both, the prerogative has been given, as a dominion over
that ominous, awful pause 'twixt Life and Light,

" To satiate the hungry dark with melody."

With both it is a solemn minstrelsy — solemn and liquid from
its shadowy source — pregnant and high as prophesy. The
Nightingale

" The light- winged Driad of the trees,"

sitting and singing 'neath the moon, will make the long-
drawn shades to stir, and night's deep bosom palpitate with
bliss. In its rapt song, fluent and rounded like the roll
of waters going free, the fountain of its heart comes forth —
now the tide is full and slow, up-swelling through the dusky
void — then it is rippled out in low, sweet laughings, and
again bursts in the shrilly ring of jubilant loudest sympho-
nies. What a joy it is beneath the " visiting moon,"

" The singing of that happy nightingale
In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening, till the star of dawn may fail,
Thus interfused upon the silentness."

BIRDS AND POETS. 167

In the tender melancholy, the full, liquid flow of Milton's
majestic measures we can perceive something more than an
imaginary resemblance to the characteristics of the bird's

song;

" And Philomel her song with tears doth steep !"

as well as the Blind Singer. The nations crowding eagerly
around the pedastal of the Poet's fame, to do obeisance to his
memory, bear witness that

" The mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soule when it doth rather sigh than sound ;"

and, softened down the lengthened night of ages, do those
" Sighs resound through harkless ground."

Though this saddened, mournful earnestness tempers and
leads the general flow of his verse, yet " L' Allegro" is con-
trasted with " II Penseroso :" he can and does smile as well
as weep ; and the music of his delicate mirth

" Falls on us like a silent dew

Or like those maiden showers
Which, like the peep of day, do strew
A babtime o'er the flowers!"

The Nightingale will not sing freely when deprived of its
liberty, and fast languishes in a cage. Here we are reminded
of Milton's stern indomitable devotion to human freedom. —
Who does not remember that glorious burst of this holy en-
thusiasm—

• The uncontrolled worth

Of this poor cause would kindle my rapt spirit

"With such a flame of sacred vehemence,

That dumb things would be moved to sympathize,

And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake."

Both Bird and Poet were clothed in that " russet mantle,"
which Time and all things else solemn and strong, love best

168 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

to wear. In the Bird, with its plain, brown plumes hid in
the lowly hawthorn, singing to the night, who does not see
a resemblance to the Kepublican Poet, in his coarse, simple
garb, retired beyond the reach of persecution to his humble
home, while, out of his darkness^ over all the world,

" Prophetic echoes flung dim melody."

"With so many and such singular points of coincidence be-
tween them, who can doubt but that the Poet felt them, and
that his mild spirit yearned, and was moved by the tender
drawing of affinities towards his tuneful Brother. He,
rather than poor Keats, might have passionately pleaded :

" So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

Upon the midnight hours.
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet,

From swinged censers teeming ;
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat,

Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming."

As is Milton, so is the Nightingale peculiarly the favorite
of the poets. They are regarded alike with a gentle and
deep affection. Kind old Spenser has expressed this for us
all, and for all time, concerning the Bird ; and the Poet and
the Bird are one.

" Hence with the nightingale will I take parte,
That blessed byrd that spends her time of sleepe
In songs and plaintive pleas ."

Other coincidences — if possible, even yet more apparent —
suggest themselves.

" Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our head."

The thought of Shelley at once occurs in the high place
of that aerial melodist. Who has not, long ago, linked in-

BIRDS AND POETS. 169

dissolubly in his memory the image of this Poet with that
of the Skylark. One could not avoid this association, even
if the " Ode to a Skylark " had never been written. The
Poet felt it to be his skiey Brother, and greeted it out of his
heart of hearts, in the silver-footed cadences of that most
rare of exquisite strains. It seems to us that the poet had
unconsciously thrown out his own soul upon those music-
hinged plumes up the blue dome of air,

To float and run

Like an unbodied joy whose race has just hegun."

It is evident that, in the simplicity of this beautiful ego-
tism, he was singing to, and of himself, without being aware.
In all poetry, there is not a more nice and perfect similitude
of the life and mission of the individual Poet, than that he
has furnished of his own in this ode. Who other than
Shelley is

" Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathize with hopes and fears it heeded not !"

But it was an atmosphere akin to the sun-bright radiance of
a prophet's brow, in which he was " hidden ;" and the vision
of bat-eyed, oblivious dreamers has shrunk before it, because
it was of a

" Light diviner than the common sun."

Such " muling " in their dull infanticide of thought, have
been venomous as they knew how to be in denouncing him
as " a cold, incomprehensible Idealist I" Miss Barrett, in her
magnificent "Vision of the Poets," has been most shame-
fully disloyal to the glorious apprehensions in herself, when
amidst such "goodlie companie," she dismissed this poet
down the ages, on the attenuated echo of this vulgar lie :

170 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

u And Shelley in his white ideal

All statue blind ,"

is a falsehood base enough to be incendiary. The " white
wings " she prayed might sprout upon the shoulders of George
Sand, were singularly unfaithful to her own strong aspira-
tions for the Eternally True at this particular juncture.

A cruel and unrighteous falsehood with regard to that
heroic man has been conveyed by her in this characteriza-
tion. Its meaning, as a Poetical image, most significantly
and effectually shuts him out from the whole region of hu-
man sympathies.

This is the very error in which the mobocracy of mind
has persisted with regard to him, and to find a genius pos-
sessed of such remarkable prowess as her's has given abun-
dant evidences of, stooping to demagogue with a scrubby
prejudice for the sake of an effective image, is painfully dis-
pleasing to us. "Well might his saddened shade be imagined
as exclaiming "ettu Brute!" (with a feminine affix) to a
thrust coming from such a hand. Yet, though she, herself,
has first really unsexed genius, she has as well unfraternized
it in thus countenancing the mongrel herd which has so long
been barking at his heels.

What, Shelley ! — meekest of the " Elder Brothers of hu-
manity " — who would gladly have anointed the feet of the
poor fallen ones and wiped them with his hair, could he
thereby have raised them up again

" To live, as if to love and live were one " —

who informed himself of medical science, and walked the
hospitals while a mere youth, in view of no other rewards
than those which the consciousness of ministering to the woes
of others might bring — whose whole private life — with all its
passionate derelictions upon mistaken principles — is now ac-
knowledged on every hand to have been spent in the " dedi-

BIKDS AND POETS. 171

cated air " of universal love — whose very errors have a sub-
limity in them approaching to the awful, from the consistent
earnestness of this love for the Brotherhood of Humanity
which made them blind !

He to be stigmatized from such a quarter as whitely cold,
in the frozen isolation of his ideality " all statue blind," is
too unpardonable. None but fools and fanatics pretend to
pin their faith upon any particular poem of Shelley's as the
embodiment of a philosophy or creed.

To all thinkers, Queen Mab is, to the last intent, false — as
he, himself, regretfully acknowledged in later life. But then
it is recognized as, artistically, the most intense and finest
expression of a peculiar period or phase of development
common to that dawn of eager energies which as well makes a

" Morning like the spirit of a youth,

Who means to be of note, begin betimes."

There is a sublimer thing than Reason, which is Faith —
the highest faculty of the human soul' — and Shelley has dif-
fered from other lofty, earnest minds in the particular, that
he has not only thought out and felt out with singular dis-
tinctiveness, but left on record every step, feature and con-
dition, of that weary travel from Doubt to assured Truth,
each one has to make for himself over the highway of de-
velopment.

All along the way of his pilgrimage, he has left land-
marks which may lead the weak, who stop short, to error ;
but to the strong- visioned and the hardy must prove import-
ant guides to that high-placed "house of life," upon the very
threshold of which he suddenly fell into the abyss of death.
As a metaphysician and philosopher, he is not to be classi-
fied so much by what he was, as by what the evident tenden-
cies of his later modes of thought showed he would have
been.

His life was an unfinished act upon which the curtain has

172 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

fallen. He was a mighty Prophet sitting on his grave, which
gaped and took him in before the full burthen of his inspira-
tion had been sung. Therefore should he be dealt with in
charity, which forgiveth and hopeth much.

Every thorough student of Shelley smiles at his ravings
against Eeligion, because he perceives that, simply, they are
monomaniac. He had dwelt upon the fixed idea of its
abuses, which he so keenly deplored until he had come to
place them for the thing itself ; while he had, in reality —
calling it by another name to himself — taken more of its es-
sence into his heart than many who have born a better name.

That all his morality — apart from those vagaries with re-
gard to social organization and perfectibility which he, in com-
mon with Coleridge, Southey, and other bright and true souls,
was misled by in early life — was of a Christian spirit, is per-
fectly transparent ; though he was unconscious of this himself.

He was working his way up through clouds of error, made
splendid by his genius, to the clearer atmosphere of Faith —
glimpses of which he had already been visited by through
the rifts. Had he lived, we have no question, he would have
mounted to a realization of Faith, and calmly settled with
folded wings upon the " Eock of Ages."

We see indications, towards the last, that he might have
even reached the opposite extreme of high Conservatism in
Christianity. Students who cannot get beyond the " notes
to Queen Mab," in their appreciation of Shelley as a Man
and a Poet, had better have had nothing to do with him.
His works are dangerous play-things for children of any age !

But we have not room — in the repletion of a philosophic
mood — to say all in this connection we should be glad to say
about Shelley. This we intend to make a future occasion to
do. "We have seen that never were Bird and Poet so mated.

Let but the impulse of some holy, even though miscalcu-
lated, purpose be presented — of some deed of loyal chivalry
to Her he knew as Truth, come to him in the humble walks
he chose, and

BIRDS AND POETS. 173

" The low-roosted lark
From its thatched pallet roused"

never sprang up on sublimer flights than did this Poet,

" Swift as a spirit hastening to his task

Of glory and of good, "

" Sunward now his flight he raises^

Catches fire, as seems, and blazes
With uninjured plumes."

With all this flashing wonder of his far and graceful wing-
ing, yet is that shrill delight we hear — showering a rain of
melody, while soaring he still sings — the voice of our
humanity, mellow and rich with old familiar tones. Still
we are " overcome, as by a summer cloud," with admiration
of this most chaste and sacred enthusiasm, which seems to
be mounting, on its own joy, to shake the earth-dews from
its pinions off into their old fountains up to the sky !

Ah, what a charming symbol is it, of the wild, unconquer-
able might of Love ! Though its cradle and its common
home is on the base glebe, yet its exultations will not be
weighed down and tamed — but must as well mount to glad-
den all above — linking, in "subtle silvery sweetness" the
dust-trodden with the starry fields! Shelley most beauti-
fully characterizes that marvellous and indefinable sympathy
between the Earth and the Human Poetry — which we have
been endeavoring to illustrate — in one of the concluding
stanzas to the Skylark !

" Better than all measures,

Of delighful sound ;
Better than all treasures,

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground."

But, ah, wo is me ! Weep now, Urania — thou eldest muse
— for him 1 That harmony paused — •

174 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

" And the spirit of that mighty singing

To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn."

"We have not space for a further extension of these
Similes. We will only glance at a few others. There is no
English Bird which furnishes a good type of Keats — this
Country affords, though, a perfect one in the Brown Thrush,
or, as it was most beautifully, though technically termed,
" Orpheus Kufus." It is inferior to the King of Song in the
infinite variety, the triumphant energy and force of its min-
strelsy. But we are constantly reminded of the poetry of
Keats, in the deep liquid rush of its strains and the keen in-
tense melody of each particular note. Like him, it is a plain,
humble Bird, hiding in the low thickets, and only coming
forth to sing. Then it mounts upon the topmost pinnacle
of the highest tree, that all the world may know of it — for
now it has forgotten its timid humility — all its heart is
big with the melodious prophecy of sound. Its mood of
worship is upon it, and what cares it, or knows, that a proud,
cruel world lies at its feet, and that it is only mounting to
where every shaft may reach it. Death and fear are no
more to it now — it must sing — and forth goes the rapt hymn.
It has become now

" As one enamored is up-borne in dream
O'er lily-paven lake, 'inid silver mist,
To wondrous music "

Wondrous, but coming unconscious, out of its own heart.
Then, to we favored Human listeners,

" 0 blessed bird, the earth we pace

Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place,
That is fit home for thee."

It is one of those strange coincidences we have before no •
ticed — that Keats, without ever having heard his Prototype,

BIEDS AND POETS. 175

should have yet produced the most exact and singularly mi-
nute characterization of its peculiar song —

" My sense was filled

With that new blissful golden melody.

A living death was in each gush of sounds,

Each family of rapturous hurried notes

That fell, one after one, yet all at once,

Like pearl-beads dropping sudden from their string,

And then another, then another strain," &c.

The very collocation of the words themselves, produces
upon the ear the effect of a remote resemblance. Alas, poor
Keats! The savage Archers reached him on his airy perch,
and cut short, forever3 those miraculous strains. But though
now he be "in his far Eome grave," among "the sleepers in
the oblivious valley," yet must the echoes he has waked live
in still reverberations musical, through all the enchanted
caves of human thought. They are deathless, for in him

" Language was a perpetual Orphic song
"Which ruled with Dasdal harmony a throng
Of thoughts and forms."

But concerning "Wordsworth —

" Once have I marked thee happyest guest,
In all this covert of the blest.
Hail to THEE far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion !
A life, a presence, like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair ;

Thyself thine own enjoyment!"

The poet thus furnishes us to hand an exquisite charac-
terization of himself in the choir of this " covert of the
Blest," through whose shades we thus tardily " linger listen
ing." But which shall be prototype to him?

176 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

" Art thou the Bird whom man loves best,
The pious Bird with the scarlet breast,
Our little English Robin ?"

On the highways, in the by -ways, from the green lanes,
the hedge-rows and the gardens, by the lintel near the hearth-
stone, summer in and winter out, under sunshine, under
clouds, happy, calm and musical, ever —

" A life, a Presence like the air ;"

over merry England and the world will Kobin and the Poet
go together,

" Scattering gladness without care."

But the "Little English Robin" does not furnish a suffi-
cient Anti-type to the higher powers of song which distin-
guish "Wordsworth, as well as these gentler graces. Our
American Robin, which belongs to the Shaksperian family
of " The Turdinae," which includes the Mocking Bird and
the Song Thrush, is, in a better sense, his Anti-type.

This Bird is as well a social familiar, and builds its woven
nest upon the limb that leans nearest the homestead walls.
Many a time have we seen it, about dusk, catch the fire-flies
within ten feet of the door-sill — as if it swallowed the weird
light to feed and go flashing through the tender magic of its
vesper hymn ! And ah ! who — that has heard that vesper
hymn, beneath the last golden pauses of the twilight, swell
out as if it took the plaintive echo, of a saddened Human
heart for key-note, and set it in gradations up through the
soft notes of Hope to the shrilly clamors of a Joy set free,
chastened by the memory of prison bars — will fail to under-
stand how the American Eobin is the true Anti-type of
Wordsworth !

But with thee, venerable and most venerated melodist !
11 Sunset is on the dial," and soon we may expect thee to be

BIRDS AND POETS. 177

numbered with " The Prophets Old." Though thy head is
silvered. Time clothes himself in gray when his topmost
deeds of wisest strength are to be done, and, in the language
of another daring Singer, to whom, like this Kobin, our new
world has given birth, we would address thee on this dread-
ful pause betwixt Sublimity and Death :

" Then let the sunset fall and flush Life's Dial !
No matter how the years may smite my frame,
And cast a piteous blank upon my eyes
That seek in vain the old, accustomed stars,
Which skies hold over blue Winandermere,
Be sure that I a crowned Bard will sing,
Until within the murmuring barque of verse
My Spirit bears majestically away,
Charming to golden hues the gulf of death —
Well knowing that upon my honored grave,
Beside the widowed lakes that wail for me,
Haply the dust of four great worlds will fall
And mingle — thither brought by Pilgrim's feet."

Byron stands in singular contrast with Wordsworth. Of
Wordsworth's calm, slumberous, Oceanic mind, Earth is
populous with Similitudes ; but of Byron our Mother fur-
nishes no Anti-type. We know of no sentient natural thing
upon her broad placid bosom which symbolizes him — and
unless we adopt the old Greek Fancy, and embody the dis-
tortions of Human action and passion in scenes like those in

which

" the half horsy people, Centaurs hight,

Fought with the bloudie Lapithies at bord,"

we are utterly at a loss to conceive how he is to be illustrated.
We might create some monstrous cross of the dull, filthy,
ravin-hearted Vulture upon the beamy, bounding Lark, and
thereby make a tame " similitude" of him to the apprehen-
sion of the shadow-substanced Citizens of " Faery" ! But to
the Common World Wordsworth has quietly and fitly de-
signated his hybrid entity, when he says :

12

178 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

" thou surely art

A creature of a fiery heart ;

Those notes of thine, they pierce and pierce

Tumultuous harmony and fierce."

We cannot dwell longer in the atmosphere of Him who
tortured music through his whole dissonant volcanic life into
singing — that

" Our life is a false nature — 'tis not in
The harmony of things — this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of sin —
This boundless Upas," &c.

We do not recognize him among " God's Prophets," who
eternally cant of

" The immedicable soul with heart-aches ever new."

There is an equal difficulty in finding any distinct Anti-
type of Coleridge — though not for the same cause. His mag-
nificent Genius hangs upon the Times like some clouded
mystic Fantasy.

" Up from the lake a shape of golden dew,
Between two rocks athwart the rising moon,
Dances i'the wind where eagle never flew."

Though there is a Bird — as yet unknown and unclassified
of Naturalists — we heard of, and saw a single specimen of,
in Mexico, which fully expresses him. It is of a very splen-
did plumage and most miraculous powers of song, and the
superstitious natives hold it in great veneration. It haunts
the deep groves about the old Catholic Missions, and they
say is often heard to imitate from its hidden coverts the
strains and voices of the Nuns singing their Aves to the Vir-
gin. We heard it singing one night, and -shall never forget
the wild unearthly mellowness of that song —

BIKDS AND POETS. 179

" and all the place

Was filled with magic sounds woven into one
Oblivious melody, confusing sense."

So this stranger from a "far countrie/'

" a Bird more bright

Than those of fabulous stock,"

can alone stand as Anti-type of the weird melodist of Chris
tabel and the Ancient Mariner.

The same difficulty presents itself with regard to the gor-
geous metaphysical Genius of Old Spenser. We shall have
to find his Anti-type in that peopled realm of majestic
shadows where he lived. We see

u A Bird all white, well feathered on each wing,
Hereout up to the throne of God did flie,
And all the way most pleasaunt notes did sing,
Whilst in the smoak she unto heaven did stie."

And are we not satisfied — filled to the fulness of repletion
— with the beauty of the " Similitude ?" But we have
already sufficiently extended our recreations in this sunny
latitude of charming thought. There are very many Simili-
tudes of equal appropriateness and loveliness which present
themselves. These are the chiefest. As for the smaller
flock, we will only say in the quaint simile of Spenser :

" The Nightingale is Sovereigne of song :
Before him sits the titmouse, silent bee."

Here we dismiss this, to us, inexpressibly delightful theme.

" So let it glide, like a bright-footed dream,
Out of the chambers of our daily life !"

CHAPTER VIII.

DKOLLERIES OF THE WOODS.

THE BLUE JAY.

JAY! Jay! Jay! Hilloa I— What's to pay ? What shrill
clamor breaks upon the silence of the dark woods, like a
watchman's rattle, sudden on the midnight — Jay ! Ja-a-a-ay !
in prolonged and angry shriek answers the alarm, from
a thicket near at hand. Jay ! sharp and shrill, takes up the
cry yet from the distance, until far and wide the woods re-
echo with the clang of the gathering guardians of the wild !

The intruder stands mute in astonishment, at this unlooked-
for outbreak. They come! they come! They gather yet
more fiercely about him. See there ! a saucy fellow has de-
scended, limb by limb, a tree close by, screaming yet louder
as he comes more near, with crest erect, spread tail, and
sharp, fierce eyes, and with snapping beak, seems ready to
devour the unoffending stranger in his wrath. With many
an antic pirouette, it peers into his face, and turning to its
noisy fellows, now gathered close behind to back its valorous
charge, shrieks the report of its inquisition, to urge their
tardy courage on.

" What ho ! my friends, am I a robber or a thief!" the be-
wildered hunter may remonstrate. But the answer is in
yet fiercer cries, until they dance above his head in a fan-
tastic ecstasy of fierceness, and yell their deafening gibes
and taunts into his ears. Patience has bounds: one shot

DROLLEKIES OF THE WOODS 181

into their midst — ha ! ha ! — what a scurrying ! Silence in-
stantaneous, and how profound !

"Whither have the brave and clamorous champions of the
old wood fled ? Gone ! gone ! — not a blue coat or a brag-
gart top-knot to be seen — ah me ! It is a deceitful world,
and valor is a most deceitful virtue.

The Blue Jay is the very Falstaff of heroes, and Jack was
never more ready — aye faith, than Jay — to fight nine knights
in Buckram-green, and with his dinted sword to make loud
boasts thereof. But our knave has fun in him as well ;
therefore we can afford him seeming pardon, for never Merry
Andrew took a kick so well. It almost seems a sin to be so
serious with him, and yet the fellow has enough of ugly mis-
chief in him too. His long list of accomplishments, begin-
ning at braggart and poltroon, may most properly be wound
up with dandy and thief. He is that very Prince of dandies
that, in olden times, was generally called Popinjay, and
which has been modernized into Grammont, Brummel, or
D'Orsay. He is certainly the most felicitous specimen of the
exquisite that ever wore plumes, whether borrowed or not.
The natural inference would be, that they were borrowed
from his inveterate propensity for pilfering from his neigh-
bors, but that the beauty of the plumage which really be-
longs to him, relieves him from the imputation of any such
necessity.

See him, of a fine Spring morning, in love-making time !
— and oh ! ye comely gallants, ye swash-buckler knights,
that haunt about the environs of gay Dan Cupid's court,
away with your swelling airs, you fanfaronade of mincing
courtesies, and dainty terms — ye are all eclipsed — away !
The transcendent graces of yon blue-plumed Euphuist of the
acorn tree, doth so utterly surpass ye all, that your diminish-
ed heads were best hidden now, in very shame. See him
raise up and down upon the mossy limb, his gay crest bent
in quick and frequent salutation, while a rich, round, thril-
ling love-note, rolls liquidly from off his honeyed tongue.

182 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Then see him spring in air with his wide wings, azure and
white, and dark barred, graceful tail, spread to the admiring
gaze of her he woos, float round and round her passive form ;
then to return again in rapturous fervor to her side, to over-
whelm her glowing charms with yet more subduing graces.

But the fun of it all is, to see our Euphuist practicing these
seductive arts by himself. You will often catch him alone,
thus making love to his own beauty, with an ardor fully
equal to that of the scene we have just described. Indeed,
I am not sure that it does not surpass it. For, like other
dandies, he is most in love with his own beauty. It is the
richest and most fantastic scene I know of, among the comic-
alities of the natural world, to catch him in one of these
practicing humors: he does court to his own charms with
such a gay and earnest enthusiasm ; he apes all the gestures,
and the love-lorn notes of his seemingly volcanic amours,
and turning his head back, to gaze on his own fine coat with
such fantastic earnest, that one can scarcely resist roaring
with laughter.

We like the impish philosophy that can thus burlesque its
own follies. But his accomplishments, as we have hinted,
are multifarious. Understand, we do not by any means set
out to defend the morals, but the character of our friend Jay.
We are opposed, in principle, to using hard names, especially
to so courtly a personage as this ; but, in plain truth, we
must say, as we before insinuated, that he is one of the most
arrant of thiefs and plunderers. In addition to the assumed
character of knightly defender of the wide woods against
all intrusive comers, he takes upon himself the superlative
one of care-taker and inspector-general of his neighbor's
nests. So great is his solicitude in their behoof, that the mo-
ment his watchful eye perceives that the weary parents have
left the nest for food and recreation, he directly glides into
their places, and lest some harm from cunning snake or mis-
chievous squirrel should come to the dear speckled treasures,
he takes one after another to his warm bosom, or his crap ;

DKOLLEKIES OF THE WOODS. 183

rather meekly reasoning to himself, the while, that the poor
birds should be consoled that so benevolent a friend as he
had rescued them from the wily snake, or other hard-hearted
foes. Jay, indeed, is particularly famous for his tender heart ;
for suddenly discovering that all kind of provender is get
ting scarce, he is seized with harrowing apprehensions lest
the young of his neighbor, Grosbeak, should suffer from
hunger, or the poor, dear parents overwork themselves in
finding supplies for their hungry mouths, and to prevent such
lingering suffering, he glides slyly to the nest, and, with the
stern heroism of the Eoman Brutus, subduing all natural
weakness in the sense of official duty, devours the young to
save them from the dreadful pangs of hunger. This severe
duty is, of course, performed by this self-denying Lictor of
the people, in the absence of the parents Grosbeak. Not,
that he fears them — not he ! He let the male Grosbeak give
him an awful thrashing the other day, to be sure, because he
had been caught by him in that neighborhood; but, then, it
was more in pity than in anger, that he had submitted with
philosophy, for he well knew that the benighted bird did not
appreciate the benevolent purpose which had brought him
there ; and, then in coming in his absence, he had spared
him the pain of witnessing what this most unpleasant duty
cost his official dignity. The executioner should never show
a weakness !

So jealous is he, too, of his sole prerogative of supervision
over the interests and welfare of his neighbors — indeed, of the
whole community — for no one can be better imagined as
saying : —

" No pent up Utica contracts our powers,
The whole boundless universe (of eggs and fleclgings) is ours,"

— that he is forever on the look-out for all interloping strag-
glers who may chance to have given way to the same weak-
ness of appetite. Every Eaccoon that shows his inquisitive
nose, is assailed with vehement clamors and furious snap-

184 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

pings of beaks, which compels him in terror for his eyes, to
retreat to his hole.

It is said that some Spanish gentlemen, who were in New
York at the time of the death of General Taylor, attributed
this untimely event to the fear and anxieties growing out of
a prospect of a collision with the terrible power of Spain !
It is for much the same reason that our friend Jay is said to
attribute the nocturnal habits of Eaccoons, "Wildcats, Op-
possums, Owls, &c., to their apprehension of his valorous vig-
ilance by daylight. Be the facts of the case what they
may, no one of these gentry, nor snake, nor mink, nor weasel,
can make its appearance without being beset by the obstrep-
erous screams of this audacious knave. Nor does he confine
his operations to the . defence of his foraging ground from
these depredators, from whom he has little to fear of personal
danger on account of his superior activity. But he even,
sometimes, dares assail the lightning-winged and lordly
Hawk. These affairs are very characteristic and very amus-
ing, and I have frequently witnessed them. If our friends
happen to be in the open ground and the warning cry of
" the Hawk is coming," spreads startling through the fields
among the feathered people, the foremost in the scattering
flight, they dart into the lowest thicket, or skulk beneath the
grass and weeds, until the dreaded tyrant, sweeping past on
overcoming wings, plunges with some shrieking victim in his
talons, into the neighboring forest to tear it at his ease.

Now, one after one, these valiant knights appear, shaking
themselves while they crawl forth as if they would scatter
all foul imputation on the air. Now a timid Ja-ay ! is heard.
Then another joins the modest cry, and another yet more
boldly, until the reveille is fairly sounded. All the wood at
once is ringing with the alarm, and now our knaves are in
their glory. They gather about the bloody tyrant, with wild,
besieging shrieks, but he is feasting, and cannot deign to no-
tice, now, the noise. They grow more bold with impunity,
and all the small birds for a mile round, are gathered there

DROLLERIES OF THE WOODS. 185

to back them — roused by the alarm — and even the clamor-
ous crow, brings too his sooty phiz to give them countenance.
Thus reinforced, they even dare to strike at the passive rob-
ber, and so inflame the valor of their force, that even the
Tom-tit brushes by his kingly crest, in spiteful rage. Our
cunning friends know well, that should their foe lose pa-
tience, and condescend to strike at his tormenters, that their
shorter wings and quicker motions among the thick forest
boughs, would ensure them their escape. A few unsuccess-
ful feints the wary Hawk has made, (for he has now finished
his meal,) has filled them with excessive confidence, and now
they absolutely dare to buffet him, while he takes wing, all
panic-struck to find some more quiet refuge, followed by all
the flock of warlike brawlers, exulting in his wake. The
fugitive has bent his flight, all unawares, of course ! towards
where the forest is more open, his heedless pursuers hurrying
pell-mell after him. The open spot is gained, and his broad
pinions have now room to cleave. One fell backward swoop,
and all is silence ! save the dismal squall of the one captive
Jay,- who was the foremost knight of all, and led that rabble
rout ! Where, where are his brave peers now ? Echo an-
swers, and so does his dying screech !

So we see that Mr. Jay is subject to some of the vicissi-
tudes of war, and with all his cunning strategy, it is some-
times turned upon himself! This is, moreover, sometimes
illustrated too, quite pathetically in his case, when, returning
some fine morning from a neighborly round, during which
he had sucked the eggs from half a dozen nests, he finds, to
his dismay, that there are more benevolent people in the world
than himself, and that the Butcher-bird or Crow, has been
taking the occasion to pay him their respects in turn ; or, the
Black Snake, having seized the opportunity to embrace his
mate, whom he left brooding quietly upon the nest, is now
preparing to swallow her crushed body, having disposed of
the eggs or young beforehand. It is then, no doubt, he is

186 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

made to feel, as a public officer, that tlie way of duty is some-
times hard, indeed.

But it is toward the hunter that our acquaintance manages
to display some of his most benevolently officious traits.
Every animal that ranges the forest is familiar with his alarm
notes and watchfully attentive to them ; they can tell on the
instant, the meaning of the cries, and to what kind of intru-
sion they refer — whether it be fox, or wolf, owl, snake, or
man, and deport themselves accordingly. In every kind of
hunting for large game, they feel themselves called upon to
take a hand. In " driving " for deer, you have been placed
at your " stand," far away from any sound of the coming
hunt, in some solitary place, deep in the shadowy forest ;
rifle in hand you have paced restlessly back and forth, lis-
tening to your own heart beat, or starting when the squirrel
throws an acorn down, or the red-capped creeper scales the
dry bark from the limbs above, until you grow weary with
waiting, impatient of the silence, and shower imprecations
on the unlucky " driver " and his worthless hounds — when,
suddenly a sound, borne faint upon the winds, thrills through
every nerve. Now, still as any oak-stem of them all, you
listen, bending towards the sound. Harkl Hark! again!
again ! the sound swells out. It is the pack — the game is on
foot ! And now the air is burdened with the heavy roll, of
burst upon burst, swept fitfully by, as the eager pack rush
down the valley, or climb the opposing ridge in the swift
changes of the headlong chase. Now the face turns pale —
the rifle is clutched hard — the trembling nerves grow taut as
steel.

Hark ! that wild, musical roar ! They are close at hand
— the quarry must be near ! Now is the moment when si-
lence is worth a world to the eager huntsman : the cracking
of a stick may ruin all, for the deer, he knows, is listening
warily, and may be even now within gun-shot. He holds
his very breath ; another roar from the fierce pack yet closer
still, when a sudden shriek close to his ear — Jay ! jay ! jay !

DEOLLEEIES OF THE WOODS. 187

Oh, fury ! he sees the bushes bend — he hears the bound-
ing crash — too late ! The deer has turned upon its track — •
he heard the alarm.

Our hunter may be a philosopher, but most likely his ball
will be sent along with his curse, after the Jay, who, with
impish clamors, flies off through the echoing woods in scathe-
less glee.

This is not, by any means, the only joke our friend man-
ages to perpetrate upon those whose pursuits carry them, into
the fastnesses of his haunts. The pine-log cutters at the
North know him well, and bestow upon him many a bless-
ing from the wrong side of the mouth. The deep snow is
raked away, and the camp is pitched beneath the gloomy
shelter of the heavy pines — scarcely has the odor of the first
roast steamed through the rare air, and freighted every biting
wind, when, with hungry cries, from every side, the Jays
come gathering in. But here our particular acquaintance, the
Blue Jay, with all his blustering and obstreperous vanity, is
obliged to play second fiddle to his cousin-german and mas-
ter, the Canada Jay, who not only drubs him soundly when
they meet, but, on occasion, even makes a meal of him.
They swarm about the camp in hundreds, and, such is their
audacity when hard pinched with hunger, that they are fre-
quently seen to dash at the meat roasting before the fire, and
hot as it is, bear pieces off till they can cool it in the snow.
They are regarded with singular aversion by these hardy
men ; for, take what precautions they may, they are often
robbed to such serious extent by these persevering depreda-
tors, as to be reduced to suffering. They dare not leave any
article that can be carried off within their reach. When
they kill game and leave it hung up until the hunt is over,
the Jays assemble in hundreds, and frequently tear it in pieces
before their return.

The plumage of the Canada Jay is very curious, and some
of its notes are the strangest and most peculiar sounds to be
heard in our forests. The northern hunter, log-drivers and

188 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

cutters, have many superstitions with regard to this bird, and
tell some droll stories of its humors and feats. It is said,
among other things, to drive off or exterminate our hero, the
Blue Jay, before very long, wherever it makes its appearance.

There is a more delicate and beautiful variety than either
of them, and better behaved, too, by the way ; for it pos-
sesses, among other accomplishments, some very sweet notes.
It belongs to the extreme South, and is not found north of
Louisiana. There is also yet another, a more beautiful va-
riety still, which has lately been discovered in California,
Cyanocorax Luxuosus.

The Blue Jay has many of the traits of the Magpie, and,
like him, possesses an inveterate propensity for hiding every-
thing he can lay hold of in the shape of food. The Magpie
hides things that are of no value, as well ; but our Jay is in
every respect a utilitarian, and when, after feeding to reple-
tion, he is seen to busy himself for hours in sticking an acorn
here, or a beach-nut there, in a knot-hole, or wedging snails
between the splinters of some lightning-shivered trunk, or
making deposits beneath the sides of decaying logs, natural-
ists wonder what he is doing it for. But our Euphuist knows
well enough, and you may rest assured, if you see him along
that way next winter, as you will be apt to, if you watch,
you will find that he has not forgotten the place of one sin-
gle deposit ; and that, with a shrewder economy than the
Ant or the Squirrel, instead of heaping up his winter store
in one granary, where a single accident may deprive him of
all, he has scattered them here and there, in a thousand dif-
ferent spots, the record of which is kept in his own memory ;
so that it cannot be denied, whatever may be said of his
thieving and other dubious propensities, that the Blue Jay
is a decidedly sagacious personage — so far as a pains-taking
care of that No. one, of which we have found him
to be so desperately smitten, is concerned. There is
also a variety of the Wood-pecker in California, Melan-
erpes formidvorus (Swains), which carries this propensity

DKOLLERIES OF THE WOODS. 189

to an extraordinary extreme. It bores innumerable little
holes in the bark and trunks of trees, in each of which it
wedges firmly an acorn with its bill. They may be heard
hammering away at this work the live-long day. The whole
family of squirrels — all the burrowing animals together, with
many other birds besides those enumerated, have this same
propensity for hiding their food in the ground or elsewhere.
It is thus preserved from decay, and whether used by the
creature depositing them or not, they grow into trees and re-
new the earth with vegetation.

Thus do these little creatures, in the economy of nature,
become the planters of our forests.

So universal is the Blue Jay's reputation for mischievous
and impish tricks of every kind, that the negroes of the
South regard them with a strange mixture of superstition
and deadly hate. The belief among them is, that it is the
special agent of the devil here on earth — carries tales to him
and all kinds of slanderous gossip, particularly about negroes,
and most especially that they supply him with fuel to burn
them with. Their animosity is entirely genuine and implac-
able.

When a boy, I caught many of them in traps, during the
snows, and the negro boys who generally accompanied me
on my rounds to the traps, always begged eagerly for the Jay
Birds we captured to be surrendered to them, and the next
instant their necks were wrung amid the shouts of laughter.

Alas, for the fate of our feathered Euphuist ! — yet he was
" a fellow of infinite wit !"

CHAPTER IX.

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES.

I DO not wonder that the world is full of superstition, and
that men talk vaguely, as if they were in a dream of the

" Angels and ministers of grace"

belonging to another sphere, when they know so little of the
divine realities of this !

How many of them, for instance, know anything of the
Thrush — that present angel of the solemn woods ? I ven-
ture, there are not ten men out of a thousand, that call them-
selves intelligent, who can go into the woods with you of a
summer morning, and point out which is the Wood Thrush,
or tell you, amidst the choir, which strain belongs to it.
They may notice the right bird, but be sure they do not
know it as the Wood Thrush ; and they will give you some
other name — as Wood Kobin, Ground Nightingale, &c.; but
even then, they will seldom fail to identify the notes for you
--and yet they have been hearing them — unless they've
lived in cities — all their live-long days, and feeling them too,
if they have any souls to feel with. It is one of the most
common song-birds we have in our woods — is, literally, what
Wordsworth calls the little English Eobin,

-a joy,

A presence like the air !
and yet I believe there is less correctly and generally known

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 191

of it, than of almost any other bird within the limits of set-
tlement on the Continent. Now, the question, why is this ?
admits of many a sage answer ; but I say it is simply be-
cause men have sold " their birth-right for the mess of pot-
tage." They were born with the gift to know their angels,
but, in their progressive obesity, they are worse than Abra-
ham of old, and seldom make the mistake of entertaining
them even in disguise. The clear seraphic vision of child-
hood, which once could see the halo and the folded wings,
stares now through the dim medium of worldly grease and
dust, upon what may seem a mystery or a monster. We are
born in God and nature, and so long as we remain un vitiated,
there is no such thing as mystery and fear — for love is our
pure enlightener, and faith maketh sport of fear — but, as
the world wags, the same child that could smile in confiding
wonder amidst the rock of elemental war, and toy with the
very bolts of heaven, as with its own rattle, would, as a man,
tremble at a moon-thrown shadow, or faint if a donkey should
bray of a sudden in the dark. The farther from birth the
farther from nature, is almost a truism, and to the rheumy
vision of age we owe the ghostly forms of superstition. As
men become more and more besotted in the worship of the
golden calf they have formed to themselves, so do the reali-
ties of beauty and harmony about them become as common
and unclean — they cannot see them, neither can they Ifear —
and then with dim and morbid yearnings for more exalted
communion, they turn to the shadow realm of sickly dream,
and " call up spirits from the vasty deep" of superstition, to
minister to their craven appetites, and bring them the empty
visions of a servile bliss. With the best of us, those voices
which spoke to our young sense in lofty themes have lost their
meaning, and now they seem wise indeed in their day and
generation who can invoke even the echoes of that innocent
time, and name them by holy names — their comforters !

Who knows the little Wood Thrush for a comforter? —
and yet, ye children of mammon, it was the first sweet singer

192 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

that sang a cheering song from out the primeval forests here
unto your fathers. The wolves had howled their greeting in
chorus to the wintry winds, but the gentle salutation of the
"Wood Thrush came, the earliest harbinger of Spring and
hope. Seeming as though the spirit of solitude that had so
long infused those hoary aisles with harmony, of whispering
boughs, now clothed its daedal hymn in voice most meet for
human ear, and came in that plumed form to bid the weary-
wanderers welcome to the new empire nature yielded. What
a welcome ! Conquerors never found such. A melody that
haunted every shade, and filled the ear of silence, where,
deep within, she leaned upon her mossy couch to listen —
touched their rude hearts with its tender spell, and fired
their souls with loftier daring ; for that clear, loud and mel-
low minstrelsy was to them as the first fresh song of free-
dom on a new-found earth. Was not the little bird then a
comforter to these, the hardy pioneers of freedom ? Their
stout souls found fittest inspiration in its real voice, for actual
deeds that have lived after them in honor. Above the turmoil
of their rough struggle with the elements, the savage beasts
and more ferocious savages, that gentle song rose ever in its
wild and sweet recall to win the soothed Passions back to
peace and calm repose. Men, however stern and embittered
by unceasing conflict, do not easily get away from the refin-
ing spell of music, and notes such as those of the Wood
Thrush — that fill the common air like sun-beams — will search
the clefts of these rugged natures as do those same suix-beams
when they pierce ice-mailed cliffs to find the Alpine Eose
hidden there, and glow in blushes on its tender cheek. There
is a soft spot, even in the rough hunter's heart, and the en-
chantment of that song will reach it somewhere, in the drear,
deep solitudes of pathless wilderness, all unaware, and then
the warm tears welled up with his yearnings, will leave him
humanized again — and is not the little bird a comforter to
him?

Aye, and it has been the angel to the weary and way-far-

MY PET WOOD THEUSHES. 198

ing pilgrim of loftier name and deeds than such as these.
Hear what the dedicated high priest of Nature's temple —
Audubon ! — has told us of his little comforter, the darling
Wood Thrush.

" You now see before you my greatest favorite of the feath-
ered tribes of our woods. To it I owe much. How often
has it revived my drooping spirits, when I have listened to
its wild notes in our forest, after passing a restless night in
my slender shed, so feebly secured against the violence of
the storm, as to show me the futility of my best efforts to re-
kindle my little fire, whose uncertain and vacillating light
had gradually died away under the destructive weight of the
dense torrents of rain that seemed to involve the heavens and
the earth in one mass of fearful murkiness, save when the red
streaks of the flashing thunderbolt burst on the dazzled eye,
and, glancing along the huge trunk of the stateliest and no-
blest tree in my immediate neighborhood, were instantly fol-
lowed by an uproar of cracking, crashing, and deafening
sounds, rolling their volumes in tumultuous eddies far and
near, as if to silence the very breathings of the unformed
thought ! How often, after such a night, when far from my
dear home, and deprived of the presence of those nearest my
heart, wearied, hungry, drenched, and so lonely and desolate
as almost to question myself why I was thus situated, when
I have seen the fruits of my labors on the eve of being de-
stroyed, as the water, collected into a stream, rushed through
my little camp, and forced me to stand erect, shivering in a
cold fit like that of a severe ague, when I have been obliged
to wait, with the patience of a martyr, for the return of day,
trying in vain to destroy the tormenting musquitoes, si-
lently counting over the years of my youth, doubting, per
haps, if ever again I should return to my home, and em-
brace my family! — how often, as the first glimpse of
morning gleamed doubtfully among the dusky masses
of the forest trees, has there come upon my ear, thrilling
along the sensitive cords which connect that organ with

13

194 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

the heart, the delightful music of this harbinger of day ! —
and how fervently, on such occasions, have I blessed the
Being who formed the Wood Thrush, and placed it in those
solitary forests, as if to console me amidst my privations, to
cheer my depressed mind, and to make me feel, as I did, that
never ought man to despair, whatever may be his situation,
as he can never be certain that aid and deliverance are .not
at hand.

" The Wood Thrush seldom commits a mistake after such
a storm as I have attempted to describe, for no sooner are its
sweet notes heard than the heavens gradually clear, the
bright, refracted light rises in gladdening rays from beneath
the distant horizon, the effulgent beams increase in their
intensity, and the great orb of day at length bursts on the
sight. The gray vapor that floats along the ground is quick-
ly dissipated, the world smiles at the happy change, and the
woods are soon heard to echo the joyous thanks of their
many songsters. At that moment all fears vanish, giving
place to an inspiring hope. The hunter prepares to leave
his camp. He listens to the Wood Thrush, while he thinks
of the course which he ought to pursue, and as the bird ap-
proaches to peep at him, and learn somewhat of his inten-
tions, he raises his mind toward the Supreme Disposer of
events. Seldom, indeed, have. I heard the song of this
Thrush, without feeling all that tranquillity of mind to which
the secluded situation in which it delights is so favorable.
The thickest and darkest woods seem to please it best. The
borders of murmuring streamlets, overshadowed by the
dense foliage of the lofty trees growing on the gentle declivi-
ties, amidst which the sunbeams seldom penetrate, are its
favorite resorts. There it is, kind reader, that the musical
powers of this hermit of the woods must be heard, to be fully
appreciated and enjoyed.

" The song of the Wood Thrush, although composed of
but few notes, is so powerful, distinct, clear and mellow, that
it is impossible for any person to hear without being struck

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 195

by the effect winch it produces on the mind. I do not know
to what instrumental sounds I can compare these notes, lor
I really know of none so melodious and harmonical. They
gradually rise in strength, and then fall in gentle cadences,
becoming at length so low as to be scarcely audible : like the
emotions of the lover, who at one moment exults in the hope
of 'possessing the object of his affections, and the next pauses
in suspense, doubtful of the results of all his efforts to please.

" Several of these birds seem to challenge each other from
different portions of the forest, particularly towards evening,
and at that time nearly all the other songsters being about to
retire to rest, the notes of the Wood Thrush are doubly pleas-
ing. One would think that each individual is anxious to ex-
cel his distant rival, and I have frequently thought that on
such occasions their music is more than ordinarily effective,
as it then exhibits a degree of skilful modulation quite be-
yond my power to describe. These concerts are continued
for some time after sunset, and take place in the month of
June, when the females are setting."

The Wood Thrush is seldom visible while it sings, and it
is partly owing to this modest shrinking from the common
gaze that few identify the bird with the song, and then it
seems so entirely the voice of the place — the very language
of Shadow and the Wood — that men are scarcely conscious
they do not expect it to be a living thing, or look to find a
bird more than they would think to search the clear rivulet
lapsing by, for some embodiment of murmurs. As with
Shelley's Sky-Lark, so is our Wood Thrush,

" Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing songs unbidden,
'Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

Were we an imaginative race, this mellow and mysterious
music would be the inspiration of many a charming myth ;

196 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

but, unfortunately, whatever of Greek taste there may be
among us is so emulously expended in erecting Doric Pig-
stys and Corinthian Coal sheds, not to speak of building tem-
ples for Banking Houses and domes to light our stables !
that we have no time or wit to spare for more graceful fan-
cies, so the apotheosis of this syren of the solitude must Jbe
even left to the hearts of rough way-farers, whom it has
cheered when stumbling by the way !

But I commenced to tell you of my Pet "Wood Thrushes !
I have one now before me on my table. The wild and gentle
little fellow ! — he watches my pen with such a knowing air.
I wonder if he doesn't understand all about it ? His curios-
ity becomes, now and then, rather troublesome, for, he occa-
sionally gets upon a regular " lark," when we let him out
of the cage, and then such a hubbub as we have upon my
sanctum table ! He seems to be of a decidedly literary turn,
and attacks my papers the first thing. Here they go scatter-
ed over the room, sheet after sheet sent flying from the table I
He seizes one at a time from the chaotic heap, and, running
backward with vigorous jerks to the edge of the table, tosses
it off, and then, with body stooping over the edge and head
turned sagely awry, he watches it sail down to the floor, and
returns gleefully to the attack again. Tired of this some-
what laborious sport, the running of my pen on the paper
attracts his attention, and standing erect with most sagacious
port, he eyes the proceeding for a moment and then com-
mences racing to and fro after the pen, pecking at the words
as they are left, to the great and frequent detriment of my
orthography, which is often sadly blurred and bedraggled by
his reckless toes.

How much the saucy pest has learned by his audacious in-
quisition, I can only judge by the fact that he soon tires of
his pursuit of knowledge, and now has attacked my inkstand
— the temptation of those long white-feathered quills is not
to be withstood — they too would look well sailing down to
the floor after those sheets of paper — hey-day ! spatter, spat-

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 197

ter ! Can't stand that, friend Brownie — go home, yon scamp !
my ink is everywhere — and with an elfish chirp he darts
away to find new mischief on the work-table. Now for the
spools, and balls, and skeins — silks, cottons, tapes, cords,
scissors, thimbles, pins, &c. — how they roll and bounce, and
fly about the room in most admired disorder ! while he sur-
veys it all with such a grave and serene look as would ex-
press to you the heartfelt conviction on his part, of having
just performed a most responsible duty. But you may know
that at this rate we cannot afford to Mr. Brownie the fre-
quent indulgence of such a spree ; for all would soon be
chaos come again with a vengeance. It is only occasionally
that we thus surrender to the Prince of Misrule, and he is
sure to make the most of it.

I have some rather curious facts with regard to this face-
tious friend of ours, to relate. I found the nest in a lonely
piece of shady wood, within the bosom of which a charming
spring was sheltered. These birds are so seldom disturbed
in any part of the country, that they seem to make no at-
tempt at concealment in placing their nests, being governed
by convenience only. Indeed, this nest was placed on the
lower limbs of a small beach-tree, exactly on the side of a nar-
row path that was much frequented by persons walking past
at all hours of the day. It was so low that I could nearly
touch it with my fingers, and there the old birds brooded as
cosily and calmly — their bright eyes within a yard of the
face of every passer by, as if they sat secure in Paradise,
before the children of Adam had taken to bird-nesting. I
watched the brood as it came on, and one fine day transferred
the nest entire, with the three young that were nearly full
fledged, to a small wire cage which I hung in the same place,
that the old birds might continue to feed them. It happened
that only one of them — that I thought to be a male, and the
boldest and strongest of the three, perched upon the roost,
which enabled it to reach the food brought by the parents,
through the bars above. The other two remaining on the

198 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIBDS.

bottom of the cage could not reach the food, and to my great
regret I found them dead on my next visit. Our present ac-
quaintance stood erect and alert upon his perch, and the
warm orange tint tinging the white ground of his speckled
throat and breast, assured me that my conjectures as to its
sex had been correct. The old birds continued to feed it
with great industry until it was full grown in size, and nearly
so in plumage. The abundant supply of food which had
fallen to its share, instead of being divided between two other
throats, had caused it to thrive astonishingly, and it proved
one of the most thrifty cage birds I have had. This is al-
ways the best way to raise birds of any kind, but more es-
pecially, the finer varieties of song-birds, which are usually
very delicate and difficult to bring up by the hand with good
constitutions. The young mocking birds of which I have
told you that I had raised by the blue birds for me, and this
thrush made the finest and healthiest birds I have ever seen
in cages. There is another great advantage in pursuing this
plan, which has been fully illustrated in both these experi-
ments, besides many similar ones with different birds ; you
can, by frequently visiting the little prisoners, so gradually
accustom them to your presence that when the time for sep-
aration from the mother comes, they are already tamed, and
will eat immediately from your hand. There is no danger
of the faithful parents deserting them on account of your
visits, for I have known instances of their continuing to min-
ister with the most unflinching patience, to their young thus
confined, for a whole season.

It is cruel thus to impose upon their beautiful loyalty, I
admit, but then, as men and women will have such pets, it
is best that they should know how to obtain them with least
suffering to bird and owner.

Brownie had now been installed in our room for a week
or two, and my wife and myself were walking through the
fields one day, when we came upon a very dingy, bedraggled
and deplorable looking specimen of the American Eobin, or

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 199

migratory Thrush. It was not half fledged, and had no
doubt been turned out of its nest by some accident, and as
it happened to be on the edge of a piece of swamp, where it
evidently had no business, it instantly called to mind a coup-
let of Scott's, describing the Exodus of the Fairies :

And the Kelpie must flit from the black-bog pit
And the Brownie must not tarrie.

" Yo ho ! here is our kelpie 1 so now he shall flit from the
black-bog pit, and be playmate for our Brownie." So I cap-
tured the little monster, than which surely no goblin shape
was ever uglier. I had called our bird Brownie, from the
color of its back in the first place ; but now, the coincidence
was so evident, that the poor captivated Eobin must needs be
christened Kelpie ! He was taken home and placed under
the guardianship of Mr. Brownie, who, for the first day,
seemed to be afraid of the hideous little creature, and al-
though he hopped round and round it with the most in-
tensely curious expression, yet its harsh and incessant cry
with the wide gaping of its great yellow mouth, seemed to
be too much for his nerves. On the morning of the second
day, we observed Mr. Brownie employing himself in a very
mysterious sort of fashion, for instead of eating the worms
that were placed as usual at his disposal, he would take one,
and after beating it with his bill until it was quite dead, he
would gather it up with the greatest care until it made the
smallest possible bulk, and then carefully wetting it in the
water, he would hop about the squalling Kelpie, as if to at-
tract attention. Failing in this, he would perseveringly at-
tempt to push the food into its mouth ; having, it would
seem, made the sage discovery that stuffing food into that
wide mouth was the only way to stop it. During the whole
day we watched the benevolent little fellow, endeavoring by
every conceivable art, to make his dingy fellow-captive un-
derstand what it was he wanted of him ; but open his mouth

200 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

at the right time, the heathenish Kelpie obstinately refused
to do. Brownie, in the meantime, was in a perfect agony of
worry that his good intentions should be so misunderstood,
and when even the creature became clamorous, he renewed
his efforts in a seeming entire forgetfulness of himself. On
the third morning he seemed to have begun to lose all pa-
tience, and to be determined that his protege should accept
his kind offices, whether or no.

I observed him now pushing at the corners of its mouth
with all its might, to force it open, and that evening, seeing
Brownie grievously disturbed and troubled — fluttering about
the Robin, I took it up to examine what had happened. I
was not a little shocked to see that one eye was entirely de-
stroyed ! Poor Brownie, in his zeal to force its mouth open,
had wounded the eye-ball fatally with his sharp bill ! In all
my experience of human actions and emotions, I never wit-
nessed anything more touchingly expressive of distress for
an accident and affectionate solicitude for the subject of it
than was now displayed by our Brownie. He evidently un-
derstood perfectly that he had done serious mischief, and ap-
peared to feel that he could not do enough to make amends.
He now almost killed the little sufferer with kindness, and
stuffed it incessantly with food, for the unfortunate Kelpie
seemed, when it was now only just too late, to understand
what had been all the time required of him, and fed with
the utmost readiness. This was certainly a singular and
touching exhibition of a parental, or else chivalrous feeling,
on the part of this bird, which was only a few weeks older
than the other. The Kelpie died not long afterwards, and
we were not sorry except for Brownie's sake, who seemed to
feel the loss very seriously. After its painful mutilation, we
neither expected nor desired to raise it. I have known many
instances in which old birds that had bred before captivity,
have exhibited this sort of solicitude for young birds that
might be placed in the cage, without reference to the species.
Indeed, I knew an old woman in Washington City, who pos-

MY PET WOOD THKtTSHES. 201

sessed a fine male Grosbeak, (the common Eed Bird,) from
whose parental sympathies, she managed to make a very
pretty income. I have frequently seen him with three or
four young birds of different though analagous species, un-
der his charge at the same time. He raised many fine birds
for her during the year, and even possessed sufficient sa-
gacity to adapt the food, in a certain degree, to the different
varieties. I have known her to refuse offers of considerable
sums for this extraordinary bird. Instances resembling this
are frequent in Natural History ; but Brownie's is the only
case in which I have heard of a young bird volunteering
to undertake such a ministration.

The story of my other pet is a short but sad one. I was
walking through the summer grove in which Brownie was
born, early one morning, when in passing near a tree, in
which I had observed a Thrush's nest, I saw a young "Wood
Thrush that had no doubt been just helped down from the
nest by the mother, hopping on the ground at the foot of
the tree. I saw that it was almost fully fledged, and walked
towards it very gently. It stopped as it saw me, and draw-
ing up one foot in the attitude of careless repose, turned up
its dark, bright eyes, and looked calmly and softly into my
face. I was astonished that it made no attempt to escape,
when evidently so well able to do so, and paused a moment.
The little creature turned back its bill and lightly trimmed
a feather of its wing ; then looking up at me again with the
same indescribably confiding softness, remained motionless,
as if awaiting me to act. I stooped and took it gently in my
hand, it made not the slightest movement, even now to es-
cape, but in a moment nestled itself sweetly in my open
hand, and still looked into my face with its lovely eyes, as
confidingly as any seraph might have done, that had waked
on a sudden, on a smiling earth, and thought it heaven. I
felt the warm tears gush to my eyes, for I had never before
seen that fearless innocence of childhood, that can outstare
the lightning, so touchingly and beautifully illustrated. The

202 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

little creature did not, absolutely, seem capable of imagining
that there could be such things as evil or danger in a world
where the sun shone bright, and the leaves were all so rust-
ling green. It had not yet learned the terrible lesson of hate
and death. It had only learned of love, beneath the warm
brooding of its gentle mother's breast ; and now the tender
innocent, with its unvitiated vision, saw the upturned face
of man, with that true recognition that first graced Adam in
the Eden of his birth and power, as sovereign, lord and mild
protector, not as persecutor, tyrant and the brutal robber.

I never saw an incident more beautiful, or that filled me
with such strange and glad delight. I felt as if a messenger
of harmony and holy peace had left some Halcyon's nest of
love, to bring me calm and holy teachings, and I could not
bring myself to let it go away from me — cruel as it seems
thus to have to abuse that meek seraphic confidence.

I am not romancing now. I am telling you a vivid fact
of natural truth — that strange little bird — that sweet new
comer in the birth of love — fed from my hand as regularly
on from that moment, as it ever did from its mother's bill —
never exhibited any fear of me, and never made any attempt
to escape. It followed me everywhere about my room, and
perched constantly upon or close to my person.

Alas ! this too great affection finally proved the cause of
its loss to me.

I left my room hastily one day, and this affectionate crea-
ture followed close at my heels, without my observing it !

It was lost ! My gentle little Wood Thrush, I never yet
loved a pet so dearly !

A short time after the loss of our charming pet Brownie,
a dear friend presented my wife with an English Wood
Thrush. It was a remarkably fine specimen — a male in the
first year. We give you here a singularly accurate portrait
of this bird, in the plumage of the second year. We called
him " Brownie the Second," and I have some curious things
to relate to you of him, too.

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 203

I had a theory which I often broached to my wife concern-
ing this branch of the family TurdinaB. It was, that the
Wood Thrush constituted the feathered incarnation of the
Affectional Sentiment in Mankind — that in its mellow, clear
and wonderfully liquid notes, we heard the natural language
of tenderness, pity, charity and hope, and that therefore, the
fact of Brownie's feeding the poor Kelpie was no accident, but
that the same sympathetic benevolence would be found to
characterize the specimens quite generally, and without regard
to sex. Now, this bird, (Turdus HusicusJ) the Song Thrush of
Europe, is so nearly allied to (Turdus Melodus) the American
variety, that the two were for a long time confounded among
the Old World Naturalists ; and indeed, Wilson was the first
who drew the clear line of distinction between the two, and
established ours as a distinct species. This bird was pre-
sented to us in the fall of the year, and as I had ventured
to predict, that with the return of spring our new English
friend would exhibit the same traits as his late American
kinsman — poor Brownie — in feeding the first young bird of
the family Turdinse presented to it, I was all eagerness to
have the spring come, that we might test the question
fully.

It happened that a nearly fatal illness overtook me this
winter, and I was compelled to seek for restoration in the
South.

We arrived at Charleston very early in the spring, and by
the time the mocking birds began to breed, I was able to
travel far enough by railroad to reach Columbia, the lovely
capital of the State, where, under the care of that distin-
guished naturalist, physician and gentleman, Professor Rob-
ert AY. Gibbs, I was soon so far relieved as to be strong
enough to get out on short excursions occasionally. My wife
was then engaged in making the drawings of birds which,
are presented in this volume.

We had, in addition to our pet Englishman, alluded to, a
fine male Southern mocking bird, which was not quite old

204 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

enough — though it sang very well — to furnish her with the
necessary definition of plumage for a correct drawing.

Her ambition was to achieve, as nearly as possible, the but-
terfly airiness with which this marvellous bird floats upward
and around upon the eddying ecstasies of its mighty song.

It was, perhaps, a presumptuous attempt, but presumption
has ever been one synonym of daring.

She made an hundred studies from the action of the caged
bird, all to the same end, but none of them were entirely
satisfactory. At last, the conviction came that we must
have a specimen bird — not a " stuffed specimen," but one
warm, and yet throbbing with the last pulses of life — that
could be placed naturally in the position studied from the
living bird, and sketched rapidly before it grew cold in the
rigidity of absolute death.

When my wife announced to me that she must have such
a specimen — that although she had studied the wild bird on
the wing at a distance, and the tame bird near at hand, and
had many good ideas of this movement in her sketches — yet
there were numerous details of outline and finish which it
was impossible to achieve without the warm specimen — I
well recollect my despairing answer —

" The fact is, I would rather face a panther on the bound,
than shoot a mocking bird. I hope God will forgive me, but
as I see clearly it must be done, it shall be done !"

This was said with a tragic earnest that must have been
comical ; for my wife said, with a quiet smile : " "Well, now,
hero as you think you are, I do not believe you can do it !"
This conveyed an implication upon my marksmanship, of
which I am, by the way, excessively proud, and also upon
the firmness of my nerves, which could by no means be en-
dured ; so, with a sovereign wave of the hand and an extra
straitening of my person, I left the room saying : " You shall
see, madam, that my will can accomplish anything that is ne-
cessary !"

Fifteen minutes afterwards we were embarked in a light

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 205

buggy, attended by a bright mulatto boy, bound for the out-
skirts of the city — I with gun in hand, and my wife with a
most provoking look of archness upon her child-like face. I
was going forth slaying and to slay, and vowed that I had
as soon kill a Bird of Paradise as a mouse, when the interests
of science required it, and persisted — like the boy whistling
in the dark — in convincing her that I should certainly shoot
for her the finest specimen of a mocking bird that we could
find. Indeed, for the purpose of re-assuring her smiling in-
credulity, I went on to remind her that she had seen me per-
form miracles with the rifle — she had known me even to
place six bullets in successive shots upon the space of my
thumb nail — which I thrust forward to show her was not a
very large one ! " Oh yes !" — she knew I was " a good rifle
shot — a wonderful rifle shot, if I insisted upon it — but shoot-
ing at buffalo, deer, or even Camanches, was not, strictly
speaking, shooting at mocking birds !"

" Nonsense ! If a man knows how to hit one thing, he
knows how to hit another 1"

I felt somehow funny, I must confess, at this persistent du-
biousness. It could not be that she thought that because I
had become accustomed to shooting at large objects, that
therefore I should miss the small ones as a matter of course.
What could the woman be driving at ? — why, I could shoot
a bird on the wing a great deal easier with the shot-gun, than
a deer on the run with the rifle, which requires you, in order
to bring him down, to place a single ball in a much smaller
space than even the snipe would cover with its wing on its
flight. She cannot mean that I am not a good marksman,
for that she knows I am !

Hah ! there is a mocking bird, well known in all this re-
gion as a magnificent singer. See him bounding up from
the top of that pear tree inside the garden. The people will
all curse me, I know, for slaying the angel of song in their
neighborhood ; but then I hope to make peace with them in

206 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

explaining to them that it was a necessity of science and its
accompanying art.

The buggy was stopped, and out I sprang. He was but a
short distance off, swimming and bounding on " the billows
of sweet sound." My wife said, as I left her :

" Be sure you get him, he is a splendid creature, just the
specimen that I want."

" Yes, you shall see I" said I, faintly. I walked up towards
him. He did not observe me, he was too much absorbed in his
hymn. I was now within twenty paces of the low pear tree,
yet he soared and floated unobservant of the stalking murder
in his front ; he knew no evil in this hospitable land, and
music had been " plate of mail " to him. I pointed my gun
at him three times, but always I would never see the end of
the barrel, for my eyes grew thick with tears. I could not
see him, he was — " hidden in the light "—of music.

I tried, in the desperation of my will, to pull the trigger
in that direction, but the gun would not go off. I could not
make it go, and found that somehow, it was only on half-
cock. Even then, after it was on full-cock, and the beauti-
ful creature undauntedly floated and sang, I found another pre-
text for dodging my boasted inexorableness. I saw the fe-
male fly into the same tree, though lower down, and came
to the instantaneous conclusion that as they must be building
there, it would be an unpardonable profanity for me to shoot
the male under such circumstances. I went back to the
buggy, and although my wife attempted hysterically, to keep
up her bantering tone, and vowed that if I did not shoot her
a mocking bird, she would do it herself, because " she must
have it I" yet I felt that her voice trembled in this assertion
of the inevitable requisitions of art, and not another word
was spoken between us as we drove back to our hotel.

A week had passed, and still her studies made it more ap-
parent that we must have a fresh slain specimen, to enable
her to complete the drawing contemplated.

At last, upon one of my well days, we were transported to

MY PET WOOD THEUSHES. 207

the edge of an extensive woodland, intersected here and
there by large old fields or commons which had been deserted
for years. These were the most likely places to find the
highest specimens of the Southern mocking bird. After
leaving the buggy, we traversed on foot some quarter of a
mile of foot-path, over an undulating upland, we suddenly
found ourselves introduced to a small meadow, on the bank
of a feeble rivulet.

This had many years ago been a farm, but had for some
cause been deserted. I saw at once, it was the place for
mocking birds, and we accordingly sat down beneath the
shade of a heavy pine to watch the aspects of the scene.

In a little while, we saw in the meadow below us two mock-
ing birds flitting to and fro, as if this was their familiar home.
The male was a splendid specimen, and although I shot at
it with, as I supposed, my nerves worked up to the last de-
gree of tension, I never hit it, although within astonishingly
short distances. At last, as my wife had brought out paper
and pencils for drawing, and wires for fixing the bird in po-
sition, I was compelled to shoot one of the pair in spite of
myself. It was fixed upon the wires immediately, and she
commenced making the drawing beneath the shade of a pine.

I left her, saying — " I am convinced that these birds have
a nest in this meadow ; you continue your drawing, while I
go to look for it."

I wandered around the meadow, looking into every isolat-
ed clump or thicket without distinction. Every secret place
had been searched, and as the mate came along, I, in a sple-
netic mood, brought it down also. But then the idea haunted
me — they have a nest of young in this meadow, and now
that I have done murder upon their natural protectors, my
business is to protect the callow children of song.

There was a small clump of blackberry vines mingled
with more vigorous shrubs, and more luxuriant foliage, which
occupied the central pla.ce of this old field, and into which I
had glanced an hundred times in passing. The foliage was

208 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

impervious to sight, but at last it occurred to me to thrust
my cane into the difficult bosom of the brake, and turning
aside the thorns gently, I saw, sure enough, as I had sus-
pected, four yellow mouths gaping out of shadow, to the stir
which reached only the darkened sense of their sealed vision.
Carefully through the environed thorns I lifted the dim fam-
ily, and bore it to my wife.

" What can we do with them ?" said she, despondingly.

" Never mind ; we have the English wood thrush, Brow-
nie the Second, and rest assured he will take care of these
callow younglings."

"Well, we got the little things home, and " Brownie the
Second " behaved very much as Brownie the First had be-
haved.

He exhibited the same tender solicitude as Brownie the
First. After we placed the nest in his cage, he continued
for an hour or so to jump around, with a wonderful expression
of wonder and uncertainty, until the little creatures began
to gap their mouths with hunger, and utter a feeble cry for
help; then came our valorous Song Thrush, and with just the
same movements which I have described in the conduct of
"Brownie the First" towards the dismal kelpie, he estab-
lished an immediate sympathy with the forlorn little ones.

He fed the young mockers at once, and sedulously culti-
vated them into respectability, and it was very amusing to
notice, as the young birds grew up, how insolently they at-
tempted, (as in the case of the blue birds mentioned in my
second chapter,) to assert their supremacy. They could
make nothing out of the " Song Thrush."

What he did was a sentiment. Let your insolent autocrat
of song say what he might, in splendid diction, but he never
yet dared to emulate my song ! I am the voice of love — his
of ambition ! so let us stand ; and thus they stood, so far as
their future relations were concerned.

When the young mocking birds which he had cultivated,
became obstreperous, and presumed to peck — with their usual

MY PET WOOD THKUSHES. 209

selfish and ungrateful propensity — at the very head, and
eyes, and heart that had nourished them, he would keep
quiet until patience was utterly exhausted, and then turn
about and give them a tremendous drubbing. I have seen
the Song Thrush in many associations, but I never saw it fail to
thrash the mocking bird, and every other bird of its family,
when they had carried their aggressions up to a certain point.
This bird will not fight if it can help it, but when it does, it
fights like a desperado, and always wins. Both the Amer-
ican and English varieties are equally quiet in this respect,
and never commit aggressions upon their neighbors, but re-
sent them with the same fierceness.

There is a curious book called " The Natural History of
Cage Birds, by J. M. Bechstein, M. D., &c., of Waltershau-
sen, in Saxony," which furnishes many interesting particulars
in regard to the habits of the Song Thrush. We shall pro-
ceed to give them as being somewhat rare to American and
general readers. He says: "we might with Brisson" — he
speaks of the Song Thrush — "name this bird the small missel
thrush, so much does it resemble the preceding in form, plum-
age, abode, manners and gait. Its length is only eight
inches and a half, three and a half of which belong to the
tail ; the beak is three-quarters of an inch, horn brown, the
under part yellowish at the base and yellow within ; the iris is
nut brown, and shanks are an inch high and of a ding}r lead
color. All of the upper part of the body is olive brown.
The throat is yellowish white, with a black line on each side,
the sides of the neck and breast are of a pale reddish white, va-
riegated with dark brown spots shaped like a heart reversed ;
the belly is white, and covered with more oval spots."

Here we have the usual inaccuracy of old authors, but let
us hear them :

" When wild, this species is spread all over Europe, fre-
quenting woods near streams, and meadows. As soon as the
autumnal fogs appear, they collect in large flights to seek a

14

210 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

warmer climate.* The principal time of passage is from the
15th of September to the 15th of October, and of return,
about the middle or end of March ; each pair then returns to
its own district, and the male warbles his hymn to spring
from the same tree where he had sung the preceding year.

" In confinement, this bird is lodged like the Missel Thrush,
and is much more worthy of being kept, as its voice is more
beautiful, its song more varied, and it being smaller it makes
less dirt.

" This species generally build on the lower branches of trees,
the nest being pretty large and formed of moss mixed with
earth or cow-dung. The hen lays twice a year, from three
to six green eggs, speckled with large and small dark brown
spots. The first brood is ready to fly by the end of April.
The upper part of the body in the young ones is speckled
with white. By taking them from the nest when half-grown,
they may be easily reared on white bread soaked in boiled
milk, and they are easily taught to perform airs. As this
thrush builds by preference in the neighborhood of water,
the nest may be easily found by seeking it in the woods be-
side a stream, and near it the male will be heard singing.

"Of all the birds for which snares are laid, those for the
thrush are most successful. A perch with a limed twig is
the best method for catching a fine-toned male. In Septem-
ber and October, these birds may be caught in the water
traps, where they repair at sunrise and sunset, and sometimes
so late that they cannot be seen, and the ear is the only guide.
When they enter the water, haste must be avoided, because
they like to bathe in company, and assemble sometimes to
the number of ten or twelve at once, by means of a particu-
lar call. The first which finds a convenient stream, and
wishes to go to it, cries in a tone of surprise or joy — ' sik,
sik, sik, siki, tsac, tsac, tsac"1 — immediately all the neighbor-
hood reply together, and repair to the place. They enter the
bath, however, with much circumspection, and seldom ven-

* In Britain they remain all the year.

MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 211

tnre till they have seen a red-breast bathe without danger ;
but the first which ventures is soon followed by the others,
which begin to quarrel if the place is not large enough for
all the bathers. In order to attract them, it is a good plan
to have a tame bird running and fluttering on the banks of
a stream."

So it is with the gentle and affectionate natures of human-
ity ; they are easily caught by the " limed twigs " of pre-
tence. But here is what the German says of the European
bird:

" The Song Thrush is the great charm of our woods, which
it enlivens by the beauty of its song. The rival of the Night-
ingale— it announces in varied accents the return of spring,
and continues its delightful notes during all the summer
months, particularly at morning and evening twilight."

The habits of the English or European Song Thrush agree
so perfectly with those of the American bird, that we are
almost tempted to pronounce them identical, except that we
have heard their songs. One is brilliant, keen and cold as
hawthorn hedge rows and a systematized civilization could
require ; the other, wild, bold, liquid and free as the very
breath of harmonious liberty could demand.

At all events, the English bird is true to sentiment, and that
is all we demand. We cannot help, however, before leaving
the subject of English and European song-birds, recurring
to what this same European has said in regard to the famous
Nightingale. Bechstein says :

" The male is particularly endowed with so very striking
a musical talent, that in this respect he surpasses all birds,
and has acquired the name of the king of songsters. The
strength of his vocal organ is indeed wonderful, and it has
been found that the muscles of his lungs are much more
powerful than those of any other bird. But it is less the
strength, than the compass, flexibility, prodigious variety and
harmony of his voice, which makes it so admired by all
lovers of the beautiful. Sometimes dwelling for minutes on

WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

a strain composed of only two or three melancholy tones, he
begins in an under tone, and swelling it gradually by the
most superb crescendo, to the highest point of strength, he
ends it by a dying cadence ; or it consists of a rapid success-
ion of more brilliant sounds, terminated, like many other
strains of his song, by some detached note. Twenty-four
different strains or couplets may be reckoned in the song of
a fine Nightingale, without including its delicate little varia-
tions, for among these, as among other musicians, there are
some great performers and many middling ones. This song
is so articulate, so speaking, that it may be very well written.
The following is a trial which I have made on that of a Night-
ingale in my neighborhood, which passes for a very capital
singer :

" Tiofl, tiou, tiou, tiou.
Spe, tiou, squa.

Tio, ti6, tio, ti6, ti6, ti6, ti6, ti6.
Coutio, coutio, coutio, coutio.
Squo, squo, squo, squ6.
Tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzu, tzi.
Corro, tiou, squa, pipiqui.
Zozozozozozozozozozozozo, zirrhading !
Tsissisi, tsissisisisisisisisis.
Dzorre, dzorre, dzorre, dzorre, hi.
Tzatu, tzatu, tzatu, tzatu, tzatu, tzatu, tzatu, dzi.
Dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo.
Quio, tr rrrrrrrr itz.

Lu, lu, lu, lu, ly, ly, ly, ly, lie, lie, HA, lid *
Quio, didl li lulylie.
Hagurr, gurr guipio.

Coui, coui, coui, coui, qui, qui, qui, qui, gui, gui, gui, gui.f
Goll, goll, goll, goll, quia hadadoi.
Couiqui, horr, ha diadia dill si !

* I possess a nightingale \vhich repeats these brawling, melancholy
notes, often thirty or even fifty times. Many pronounce qu, quy, qui,
and others, qu quy gui.

t These syllables are pronounced in a sharper, clearer manner than the
preceding lu, lu, &c. — AUTHOE.

MY PET WOOD THKUSHES. 213

Hezezezezezezezezezezezezezezezeze couar ho dze hoi.
Quia, quia, quia, quia, quia, quia, quia, quia, ti.
Ki, ki, ki, 'io, i'o, 10, ioioioio ki.
Lu ly li le lai la leu lo, didl i'o quia.
Kigaigaigaigaigaigaigai guiagaigaigai couior dzio dzio pi.*

" If we could understand the sense of their words, we should
doubtless discover the expression of the sensations of this
delightful songster. It is true that the nightingale of all
countries, the South as well as the North, appears to sing
in this same manner; there is, however, as has been al-
ready observed, so great a difference in the degree of perfec-
tion, that we cannot help acknowledging the one has great
superiority over another."

Now if any one will take the trouble to whistle or hum
over this song, they will find it to resemble, in all respects
except intensity, the natural song of our mocking bird. The
splendor and power of the new monarch cannot be expressed
in syllables, its infinite variety is beyond the command of the
gamut.

* However difficult or even impossible it may be to express this song
upon an instrument, (excepting, however, the jay call, made of tin, on
which is placed a piece of birch cut in a cross, and which is held be-
tween the tongue and palate,) yet it is very true that the accompaniment,
of a good piano produces the most agreeable effect. — ATJTHOK.

CHAPTER X.

BOEDER LIFE IN THE "WEST.

AN ADVENTURE NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER.

THE neighborhood of that amphibious city known as Cairo,
has never been remarkable for either the hospitable or anj
other virtues of its inhabitants, especially those on the Indi-
ana side.

I had a most satisfactory opportunity of testing this on an
occasion which I shall relate.

Some twelve or thirteen years since, while on my return
to my native town in Kentucky, after a long sojourn amidst
the wilds of the Texas border, I accidentally fell in, at Lex-
ington, with the father of an old and intimate friend of my
own, who had, too, been an adventurer through the same
regions and scenes which I had just left, but had now settled
down, for the time at least, in charge of a new plantation he
was opening on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, some fifteen
miles above Cairo.

The father, Mr. H , was now on his way to pay a visit

to his son, and invited me — as it would be but a slight de-
viation from a direct course home — to accompany him, and
pay a passing visit to his son Dick, who would be anxious to
hear all the news I could give him concerning the late field
of his adventures. We took water at Louisville, expecting,
as the new plantation was only a mile from the banks of the
Ohio, that we would be put ashore by the steamboat on the
Kentucky side, and have no difficulty in reaching the house.

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 215

But the river was falling fast when we left Louisville, and
we found great difficulty on that account, in the way of our
navigation ; and indeed, when we reached the point of land-
ing, just at the head of the rapids, which was not until eleven
o'clock of a dark night, we found to our great dismay, that
the captain could not be induced to land on the Kentucky
side by any entreaties. He said that at such a stage of the
water, landing on that side was entirely unsafe, and that he
would not risk the safety of his boat and other passengers
for the accommodation of one or two — but as he offered to
land us on the Indiana side, where there was a small wood-
yard and cabin, in which we could take shelter until morn-
ing, we were bound to feel satisfied.

However great this obligation was, my elderly companion
did not seem by any means to appreciate it with sufficient
gratitude. When he found that the captain was brutally de-
termined upon his course, he said nothing more, but seemed
reconciled to put the best possible face upon the matter. I
could see, though, from his manner, that there was something
behind the studied coolness with which he accepted the
alternative ; what it meant I could not comprehend, for I
had been too long absent from the country to be at all aware
of the then infamous reputation of that portion of the Indiana
border. The boat stopped in the middle of the stream, and
the yawl was manned to put us, with our baggage, on shore,
when, as we were entering, we found ourselves about to be
joined by a third party, whose " traps " had been handed
forward, and had been passed down. First came four square
boxes of cherry-wood, highly varnished, and ostentatiously
mounted with silver — German silver, I suppose — and which
proved very weighty ; so much so, that the " hands " in-
dulged in many mysterious jokes about them, enjoining each
other to be careful not to let them fall, for if they " bust "
open and " spilt anything," it might be too much " for a man
to stand," &c. Then came several large and heavy black
trunks.

216 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

"In Heaven's name, man!" said Mr. H , turning up

his eyes with a look in which the serio-comic horror seemed
struggling with pity; "do you know where you are taking
all this baggage ?"

The new passenger, as revealed to us for a moment in the
torch-light, seemed a sturdy, thick-set, rosy cheeked, but
rather greenish-looking Yankee. He sprang down into the
boat, and took his place by our side, saying, with the great-
est nonchalance, " Ya-es, I guess I do 1"

" Well," growled my friend — for the boat was now in mo-
tion— "I should rather guess you dorft — we'll see !"

The self-confident Yankee took no notice of this speech,
but settled himself as coolly as possible for his own comfort,
and with, of course, no regard to ours, upon the seat he had
thus unceremoniously occupied, and stretching out his legs,
seemed preparing for a snooze, while our boat shot out through
the almost impenetrable darkness towards the distant shore.
A light, which was now swinging to and fro at the wood-
yard, was our only guide and beacon, for the shore was en-
tirely invisible. It had been raining through the day, and
the night, which was now darkly clouded, promised to be
still boisterous and stormy.

When we reached the shore, a rough-looking fellow met
us with his pine-knot torch, and proved very obsequious in
helping us land. When the hands had put our baggage
ashore and the boat had pushed off, this accommodating gen-
tleman with the torch proceeded complacently to assure us
that the baggage would be entirely safe where it lay — that
there was nobody here to trouble it for the very good reason
that no person lived within ten miles, on this side of the
river, of his solitary cabin — into which he pressed us to walk
and " make ourselves at home." But innocent as this pro-
position seemed, I was too much of a traveller to leave any-
thing at risk, even when only my own humble personalities
— which, by the way, I believe were then contained in a pair
of saddle-bags — were considered, so I resisted this philan-

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 217

thropic proposition at once, and was instantly seconded by

my friend H , who was himself a wary and experienced

traveller. A comparative stranger to this whole region, I had
no definite suspicion, and for all I knew to the contrary, this
proposition might have been as unsophisticated and simply un-
meaning as any expression of the security of property that
might have fallen from the lips of a piping shepherd peasant
of Arcadia. But of a sooth, I had somehow learned to dis-
trust Arcadias in geneial, and river-shore Arcadias in partic-
ular. To be sure, my friend's manner had not been unnoted ;
but as he had not chosen to tender an explanation, I did not
choose to ask one, and besides, there was in the manner of
this man of the torch, whom I had closely watched, a some-
thing which I did not understand — in the way in which he
tried the weight of those unfortunate silver-mounted boxes as
they were passed on to him by the boat's crew, for him to
keep in a convenient place upon the shore ! Our Yankee,
whom self-sufficiency had evidently — as we say in the
"West — "struck with the blind staggers," could not help
making the matter worse by joking with the fellow about
them.

" Aint they very heavy?" asked he, with a shrewd wink
at us. " They had oughter have somethhr in 'em, I guess I"

Therewith he snapped his eyes, shrugged his shoulders,
licked out his tongue and guffawed obstreperously. The fel-
low said — " Yes, they is !" — and looking up with a furtive
glance, he too laughed — but it was with a strange laugh-—
" You seem to be all right !"

I noticed this incident and it threw me at once into the im-
perative mood, and seizing one end of the trunk of my friend,
which I knew to contain a large amount of valuables, I or-
dered the fellow to take the other, and whispering to H ,

as I passed him, said,

" Stay here ; I will watch in the cabin !"

The cabin of our compulsory host was about fifty paces
from the landing, and to reach it we had to pass through piles

218 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

of cord-wood, which, left only a narrow alley between them
and the hut which they partially obscured.

It was the usual square pen of logs, with only one room
and a wide fire-place, in which now burned a dim blaze.
When we sat the trunk down on the side nearest the door,
the man commenced talking in what I thought a somewhat
insolent tone, about how unnecessary it was for us to be
troubled with lugging in all those heavy trunks, when they
were perfectly safe on the bank. I very quietly answered
that, as the night promised to be stormy, we preferred having
our baggage under shelter, and directed him to go back and
assist my friends in bringing the remainder in. The fellow
went off sulkily, and very &oon he and the Yankee returned,
bending under the weight of one of that respectable proficient's
mysterious black trunks. My friend had remained behind
to guard the rest of the baggage. I felt uneasy that he should
be left there in the dark alone, for I knew that he as well as
myself was unarmed, and unable to restrain my impatience,
I said to him, as coolly as possible, in an undertone — •

" See here, my green one. You had better look out for
yourself. You are not in old Connecticut now !"

" Waal now, I guess I will. They don't cheat me out of
nothin'!"

Seeing that the fellow was incorrigible I left him, drag-
ging the man of the wood-yard after me, as I hurried back
to the side of my friend, fearing vaguely that something might
have occurred. I found him, however, walking back and
forth, with folded arms, before the baggage, and with an ex-
pression of uneasiness that so precisely corresponded with
my own feelings as to assure me that there must surely be
something wrong one way or another.

The baggage was now housed as quickly as possible by
our united efforts. As my older friend had not yet said any-
thing which implied the slightest distrust of our present po-
sition and relations, I, as the younger man, was compelled
to take it for granted that he saw nothing which would justify

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 219

any apprehensions on our part. I knew that lie had been
an incessant traveller like myself, but an older one by double
the age, and therefore, in spite of my misgivings, had to fall
into his manner of treating things.

After we were all fairly housed, bag and baggage, I ac-
cordingly left the cue to him. I knew that the greater por-
tion of the wealth he possessed, which was very considerable,
was contained in that rusty-looking, travel-stained trunk,
upon which he quietly sat down ; and being aware of all he
had at stake, could not help admiring the sang froid with
which he faced the conditions in which he found himself. He
bantered our rough host in all sorts of droll ways, and seemed
to be utterly indifferent as to whether he gave offence or not.

Our sappy Yankee, in the meantime, commenced making a
great clamor about something to eat and drink, and expressed
the wildest astonishment when the man assured him that he had
no whiskey in the house, and nothing to eat but a little corn
meal.

" Du tell !" shouted the astounded fellow. " Not got nothin'
to eat? Why, how du you live out here?"

" On mud-cats, with soap-stone to butter 'em I" interposed
my friend, laughing. "But, Yankee, what do you want with
anything more to eat to-night? I saw you eat enough for
three men at the supper-table, before you left the boat."

" AVhy, la ! what has a fellow got to do but to eat and
drink, too? I say, old fellow, git eout your Injun flour;
you ain't got no pumkins, ain't you ? Wall, let's have your
Injun doins — though you be's mighty bad off here, not to
have pumkins nor whiskey."

Our host now suddenly became excessively obliging, and
immediately paraded his peck of meal, with a spider to cook
it in, and even became so prodigal in his desire to gratify the
guzzling propensities of our Yankee, as to hint that he might
be able to get us some whiskey.

Yankee was hugely overjoyed at the idea, while I was in-
tensely vexed and annoyed.

220 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

The moment the man was beyond ear-shot, I turned to
Yankee, and said sharply, "Look you, my good fellow, if
you don't beware how you use that whiskey, you may chance
to wake up with your throat cut before you are done with it."

The fellow only laughed out coarsely, and asserted, with
a sly wink toward my friend —

" That he wan't afraid of whiskey's cutting his throat, and
wondered if I was afraid ?"

I turned from him in disgust, remarking, " I see you've
got to learn a great deal about the West yet."

In a moment after our host entered the door, and to our
no little astonishment, accompanied by a train of powerful,
ruffianly -looking fellows, which numbered, along with him-
self, six in all, and made a by no means grateful addition to
our company.

A suspicion, which, as I have observed, continued to gain
ground upon me, that we had fallen upon evil times here,
and certainly into evil company ; for I never remembered
chancing upon a more villainous group than this which now
gathered about us.

I was fully roused to the feeling of doubt and insecurity,
as I carefully watched the movements of these fellows. I
perceived in a moment that they were armed with knives as
well as whiskey bottles. A look immediately passed between
my friend and myself, and my course was determined upon
for we were both, so far as I knew, unarmed, and I saw
while they gathered more closely around us, with rough but
over friendly greetings, that each man of them carried his
knife with but a clumsy pretext of concealment underneath
his shirt. I now felt at once what was the course proper to
be pursued. That as we were in their power but too evi-
dently, our only available course for the present, was in
temporizing, and I saw too that it would be utterly useless
for us to make any calculations upon the Yankee, who re-
ceived them with a boisterous greeting. They immediately
offered him the whiskey-bottle. He snatched it eagerly.

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 221

" Ha I ha ! That's great — du tell now, boys, where' d you
all cum from ? Good old Eye, hey ?" and in spite of all my
efforts to telegraph a warning to him against drinking it,
down went a deep draught at once. I felt convinced that the
liquor had been drugged, and when the bottle was passed to
me, I turned my head towards my friend, and while I pretend-
ed to be taking even a longer and deeper potation than that in
which the unconscious Yankee indulged, my eye met his, and
a look of peculiar significance was exchanged. I moved the
muscles of my throat as if swallowing rapidly, though I forced
the villainous decoction out of the corners of my mouth.

I saw that I was closely watched, but I had turned my back
upon the faint light of the fire, and thus managed to escape
detection in this manoeuvre — for although the fellow to whom
I returned the bottle, held it before the light for an instant
to satisfy himself whether a sufficient quantity had disap-
peared to justify the extraordinary length of the suction I
had seemingly indulged — I had taken care of that, and had
smacked my lips with such extraordinary relish, that he
turned away with a leer of unmistakable gratification. Vil-
lian ! thought I, you missed your aim this time, clear enough !

I felt a momentary uneasiness as I saw them now gather
about him, from the fear of the possibility that my friend might
not have taken the hint fully. Suddenly becoming jovial, I
laughed out as they presented the bottle to him.

" Oh no, boys, it's no use — he never drinks ; besides, don't
you see how sleepy he is ?" My friend had suddenly grown
drowsy, and was leaning his head back against the log wall,
with eyes nearly closed. But they seemed determined he
should be dosed at any rate, and although he shook his head
and drawled out in a half articulate way, that he was too
sleepy to drink, they continued to urge upon him to rouse
up and " take something."

I interrupted these hospitable designs, by insisting that
they should come and drink with Yankee and myself, assur-
ing them with a somewhat roystering manner —

222 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

" I tell you, my good fellows, the old man will be sound
asleep — yes, dead asleep — for I know him of old ! How he
sleeps ! Why, you might fire a pistol in his ear when he
once gets at it, and he would never hear it."

A low, broad-shouldered fellow with wiry muscular frame,
a throat hairy as a grizzly bear's with a black tangled shag
upon his head, mean, narrow wrinkled forehead, and thick,
inky brows that sat above his vulture beak, and shaded a
pair of small black eyes, the cunning and remorseless feroc-
ity of the expression of which I never saw surpassed in man
or beast — now turned upon me with a sharp suspicious look,
as if he questioned my meaning in this last speech, but the
expression of maudlin jollity into which my features had
fallen, seemed to satisfy him.

The Yankee now too came to my rescue, and produced a
diversion of attention also from my friend and myself, by
obstreperous displays of the convivial spirit which were alto-
gether too unmistakable for even lingering suspicion.

The bottle was once more passed to him, but when they
did me the honor to pay me the same favor, after pretending
to drink again, I insisted that they should also drink with
us, " in compliment," not as a pledge of hospitality, which
appeal as I knew among men of loyalty, however rude,
would have been considered sacred, but among such as those
into whose power we seemed to have fallen, would only have
been regarded as indicating suspicion on my part.

They all made a noisy parade of their readiness to drink
with the " gentleman," but each one of them, as he received
the bottle, turned his back upon us while he drank, or, as I
was convinced, pretended to drink.

The fellows continued to grow very familiar and obstrep-
erous, especially when the Yankee, in an astonishingly short
time, began to give satisfactory indication of having got his
full " dose." His eyelids became exceedingly heavy, while
his gait wavered, and his tongue stuttered.

Now the revel ran high apparently, although he was the

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 223

only person in that cabin room who had drank a drop of the
accursed mixture. The creature's evidently besotted condi-
tion had proved a capital foil to the game played by myself,
for with such proof of the success of the villainous trick upon
one of the party, it was very natural for them to suppose,
when they saw my friend H— - with his head thrown back,
his mouth wide apart, breathing heavily, as if in a sound sleep,
upon his trunk, and found, too, that I, a rather boyish look-
ing somebody at the best, seemed to have fallen so readily
into their gull-trap — would soon fall into the same condition
towards which Yankee was fast verging.

I took good care to contribute to this charitable expecta-
tion as far as possible, and the fellows now became more un-
guarded. One of them deliberately sat down upon the heap
of the Yankee's baggage, picked up one of the ill-omened
cherry-wood boxes, deliberately weighed it in his hands, and
replaced it, looking up at the same time with a broad wink,
a nod, and a chuckle into the faces of those nearest to him.
I pretended not to notice this. I had so frequently noticed
one and another of them as they pretended to stumble over
these boxes, pause to weigh them with their feet, that this
insolent manoeuvre only served to remind me of the greater
imminence of our position, and, if possible, to open my eyes
the wider. Things looked very dark to me, it must be con-
fessed. Yankee, it was clear enough, was under the influ-
ence of some soporific potion, to a degree that rendered him ut-
terly helpless — it might be that H was really sound asleep

— at all events, he certainly counterfeited it so well as to
leave me in absolute doubt — and I, a slight youth, left alone
to guard these two lives and all this property, of the amount
of which I could scarcely conjecture, and I surrounded by
six powerful ruffians, with knives in their bosoms, who were
growing every moment more insolent with what they sup-
posed to be the entire promise of impunity in crime,
which the existing circumstances afforded — all this ! and I
without a weapon, except the arms God gave me, which

224 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

would be snapped like reeds in the grasp of these stalwart
men !

For a moment, a dark shadow passed over me and I saw
myself embrowned and haggard, returning after years of
wild vicissitudes amidst the avowed and constant perils of
an Indian and guerilla-ravaged frontier, in what was then a
foreign and unreclaimed territory — where my rifle and pis-
tols had been considered by me as necessary to the extension
of my daily life as my lungs and heart — to find myself here
on my weary returning to the repose of civilization and
home, when I had gladly thrown aside those weapons, the
very sight of which had become painful to me, suddenly en-
trapped in the surroundings of a new peril, perhaps more
formidable than any I had met in my wanderings, and that
too without a weapon to my hand.

The most terrible position in which you can place those
who habitually rely upon the use of weapons as an equiva-
lent for that physical prowess which they have failed to cul-
tivate, is to deprive them of them in circumstances of danger,
which otherwise they would have faced without hesitation !
It is horrible. As it was, I was only more sharpened and
intensified in every faculty.

In a reckless way I suddenly exclaimed —

" Boys, I love hunting. I have come down here to hunt 1
You must have plenty of game around you here, for you've
got woods enough I I've a notion to stay with you for a
day or two on this side, if there's any chance for game."

" Plenty of it here, sir ! Plenty of it here 1"

" What is it ? Bear and deer, of course ?"

" O yes, bear and deer plenty — wild cats — painters and all
that!"

" Well, I'm with you. That's the game for me. I won't
go over with the old man there," pointing to my sleeping
friend. " You look like good fellows — lie wants me to go
over to the other side and fish with his boys, but I don't
like fishing when there's bear and wild-cat about — it's a

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 225

bore. I like to ' rough, it' for my part." Turning quickly
to my red-haired host I said,

" You all hunt of course — bold boys like you ?"

" Ye-e-es, we all hunts in course."

" You have a fine-looking, old-fashioned, long-barreled
rifle up there over the door, I perceive !" and before any of
them had time to think, I staggered roughly through them,
and had the rifle down from its buck-horn hooks. Its mas
sive barrel was a terrible weapon, even if unloaded, for I
had marked it from the first, and it was its possession I hau
been coveting, though altogether uncertain as to its being
charged.

This movement had been so unexpected, that they were
entirely unprepared for it, and I had time to cock the rifle,
and with a thrill of ungovernable joy, perceived that it was
freshly capped.

The muzzle had been instantly brought down to the " pre-
sent," as I placed my back against the corner of the cabin.
There had been a slight movement among them, as if for a
simultaneous rush upon me. It was only a scarcely percep-
tible wave — but that wave fell back before the formidable
muzzle which stared them in the face with its one dark, un-
fathomable orb.

" Ah ! I see it is loaded — a fine rifle no doubt ! I love
rifles, and, Mr. Host, I shall take the liberty of examining
this for awhile !" and I walked through them as they stood
gaping at me in mute astonishment, and took a seat near my
sleeping friend.

The tables were now effectually changed, and as I sat
down on one of the trunks of H , I felt it to be unneces-
sary longer to counterfeit drunkenness, for I had earned ex-
perience enough of ruffians already to understand that they
were all cowards, and incapable, unless armed with similar
weapons, and in overpowering numbers, of facing a resolute
man with a loaded fire-arm. I had possessed myself, by a
coup de main, of the weapon of my villainous, inhospitable

15

226 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

host, and determined to make him the first target of its aim
in the event of contingencies. Assuming at once an impera-
tive tone, I demanded of the fellow, with his own rifle lying
across my knees, cocked — my finger in the guard and the
barrel levelled at his bosom —

" Where did you get that whiskey from ?"

" Got it up here in the woods," he answered sulkily.

" Where, up in the woods, my good fellow ? Did you not
represent, when we landed here, that there were no persons
living within ten miles of your cabin, and that therefore it
was a needless precaution for us to bring our baggage in ?
Where do all these fellows come from — up in the woods, I
suppose, where the whiskey came from ?"

" Yes, the boys have got a shanty up there."

" Well, it must be precious liquor you sell among you !
Look at that man there who has been fool enough to drink
of your poisoned whiskey !" I pointed to Yankee, who had
by this time fallen helplessly across his ill-fated cherry-wood
boxes, with all the relaxed expression of the abandon of re-
pose peculiar to those suffering under the effect of strong
narcotics. The fellow only grunted out —

" The fool is drunk ! The whiskey is good enough I" and
sundry mutterings and murmurings ran around the circle.
I had noticed a slight stir of my friend's body during this
conversation, and suddenly there was a faint jingling — the
heavy sleeper had fallen upon his knees before his trunk —
the lock snapped, and in a twinkling a pair of nine-inch bar-
rel ounce-ball pistols were exhumed, clicking as they came
forth, and shutting down the lid of his trunk, with a pistol
in each hand, the drowsy gentleman assumed the old atti-
tude of profound sleep, with his fingers cautiously resting on
the outside of the hair-trigger guard. This was too rich. I
laughed outright.

" You can't come it, my boys," said I, as I threw myself
back in a guarded ecstasy of mirth.

" Can't come what ?" said the beetle-browed ruffian.

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 227

" Oh, nothing," said I, " except that you had better walk
out of that door, the whole of you, and if you want some-
thing to do, you may bring me some wood, for our fire is
all, or nearly exhausted !"

The fellows had been completely cowed by the unexpected
demonstration of my sleepy friend. They pretended to con-
sider this command as a mere joke, and all started towards
the door with so much alacrity, that my constitutional cau-
tion was aroused, and I suddenly remembered that during
the jargon of talk that had occurred between us, under the
pretence of mutual exhilaration, I had gathered the fact that
they had a small boat tied to the river bank near the wood-
yard — and that in this boat I had announced that I intended
so soon as the storm that still raged had subsided, to embark
with my friend and undertake the passage of the river, for I
wished as soon as possible to place it between us and this
inhospitable shore. It flashed across me now, from their
over-ready manner, that they meant to get possession of this
boat, and shut off all prospect of our early escape, with the
purpose of gaining time to bring together a stronger party,
who might with fire-arms cope with the unexpected advan-
tages of which we had placed ourselves in possession. These
woods had suddenly become astonishingly populous already,
and there was no telling what might come forth from their
dark shadows !

I at once determined that they should not go out alone —
that I would watch with my own eyes every movement.

" Hilloa, boys ! — I will go with you."

"Oh! will you?" chuckled the black-browed fellow —
" come ahead — who's afraid of the dark!"

•' Well, I, for one, in some company ; so you will please
march ahead of me/"

"By no means, nor nothing — gentlemen's goes ahead !"

" Beg your pardon ; I am a man, for the present — so you
will please walk in front of me, and I will go down to the
river bank with you for wood."

228 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIBDS.

Nothing more was said between us, and the party launched
out into the darkness, in single file, followed by myself, with
my host's own rifle on half-cock and at the present. The rain
had ceased, but a strong wind was still blowing that troubled
the broad waters of the Ohio with a strange tumult. There
seemed a dusky portent in the swiftly-drifting clouds and
wail of the departing storm, that truly comported with the
bleak characteristics of the gloomily-pictured scene. The
forest in the back ground, a lofty mass of impenetrable
blackness ; the small opening in which stood the cabin and
the petty wood-yard, faintly felt rather than defined to the
vision ; the great river roaring and lashed upon the shelving
bank, seen dimly, as we see visions through deep mists that
go fading through the uttermost abyss : the bad, ferocious
men about me, and no star in all the funereal heavens I —
such a sense of God-forsaken desolation as came over me on
the first moments in which I stepped out into this scene, had
never before in my whole life overtaken me amidst all its
turbulent exigencies.

But that I had no time for sentimentalizing, soon became
apparent ; for, I found that these fellows were all the time
attempting to surround, or get behind me. It required all
my resolution and wariness to prevent this ; but, as I always
stood apart from them, and always carried the rifle in one
significant position, they were content, after having dragged
the boat up to a point which I had marked out as one that
could be commanded from a narrow port-hole in the cabin,
which they called a window — to pick up the splinters of
cord-wood and drift which lined the shore, and carry them
in the same order of procession back to the cabin.

I never before until this night, realized what the struggle of
will with the Demon of massacre meant 1 Such tense-strung
nerve, such vigilant strain of sense would exhaust the very
Lucifer himself, if long protracted. The instinct of murder
is the most dull-lipped and dogged of all those extravagant
passions that beset mankind. The Wolf is the prototype of

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 229

murder. It never tires : watchful always, it trails despair to
death : confessedly a coward, it shrinks before the open eye
of will, but ever follows, follows, follows ! — whither ? until
the weary stagger, and can no longer strive — then they be-
come brave, then they tear his bones with gnashings, and toss
upward open, brainless, eyeless skulls, in the exultings of a
bloody satiety !

I now surveyed the whole ground carefully, so far as the
imperfect light would permit, as I followed these men back
to the cabin, thinking how to get rid of the whole set as soon
as possible. I marched them in before me ; kept a close ac-
count of their numbers, and had a blazing fire immediately
lit. I had no idea of trusting to twilight with such comrades !
Everything now seemed to promise quiet for the time.

The men became, or pretended to become, sleepy at once,
when we got back to the cabin — our red-haired host in spe-
cial, who seemed suddenly overtaken in hot haste by the
pursuing Morpheus — threw himself across the dirty platform
that he called a bed, which stood in the corner, mounted on
forked posts, and covered with skins and greasy blankets,
and forthwith commenced snoring away most sonorously.
He was joined by another of the fellows, who floundered
down by his side, while the others began to arrange them-
selves, some with their heads upon the coveted boxes, and
others upon carpet-bags, &c.

My benevolent-looking friend with the black brows
stretched himself on the floor across the hearth, with his
back to the fire, while poor I was content with seating my-
self upon a trunk just underneath the port-hole. I saw what
must be the object of this manoeuvre. By pretending to be
asleep themselves, they hoped to throw us off our guard,
calculating that towards day-break we might be come wearied
out, and sink into sleep too ; but I had determined not to be
cajoled, and kept wary watch upon them through the corner
of my apparently closed eyes. I felt well assured that my
astute friend of the nine-inch barrels was doing the same

230 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

thing, although he seemed to be sound asleep, and his face
appeared as stolid as any wooden effigy. The sneaking ras-
cals could not even play the game of this flimsy deception
well. During an hour the silence was terrible — for the roar
and creaking wails of the stormy winds through the deep
forest outside, and the mournful beat of the lashed waters,
were the only sounds : since the voices of the wild creatures
of the darkness and the wilds were all stilled — while within,
the deep, irregular breathing of the simulating ruffians con-
stituted a depressing under-tone. I grew excessively nerv-
ous— the presence of these wretches was a fearful incubus
in connection with our other surroundings, and the discom-
fort of our general position was not a little increased when,
after this interminable hour, I perceived — for I had kept my
eye most constantly fixed upon the black-browed fellow as
the most dangerous of the party — that he changed his posi-
tion so as to command a full view of me, and as I drew my
slightly-separated lashes nearer together, I could feel the
cold, glittering point from his half-open, furtive glance, ques-
tioning my face. There was something so essentially wolfish
in this trick, that I involuntarily shuddered, and was just in
the act of springing to my feet, with the purpose of making
an end of this uncertainty, by a coup de main of some sort,
when I noticed a movement from the bed in the corner,
which induced me to wait and see if they would begin an ac-
tive demonstration on their part.

My red-headed host had also turned over, and I saw that
he, too, was watching H and myself through his half-
opened eye. Best assured those of you who may, by any
contingency, be placed in suspicious relations to the preda,
tory man — that he always acts most upon the animal in
stincts — that, in a word, he is a wild beast of prey ! and thai
if you have studied the habits of the wild beast well, you
will know the tricks, the feints, and the modes of plunder and
murder most likely to be adopted by the human wolf, wild-
cat, panther, tiger, lion or bear. Only make up your mind

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 231

to regard him as more the brute than the man, and you will
find that jour studies in natural history have not been thrown
away.

These wretches were wolves, and I had often seen this
animal exhibit this counterfeit sleep before in actual nature,
and therefore knew what it meant. The joke was, though,
that my friend had actually out-wolfed the wolves at their
own game of counterfeit, and to all appearances I had been
nearly as successful, for they began now to stir rather simul-
taneously.

The sleep of Yankee had continued as profound as from
the first ; my friend's face seemed as stolid as ever, and I
suppose I too must have looked the sleeper better than the
wolf could counterfeit it, for they clearly took it for granted
that I was sound asleep — since they commenced telegraphing
to each other now through the silence by gestures!

" Suddenly there came a rapping" at the thin plank door ;
the fellows did not stir, nor did we ! Now came knocks
louder and more frequent, which left us both without any
pretext for remaining quiet any longer, so we sprang to our
feet simultaneously, and as if really awakening from a deep
sleep, and asked, " What is the matter ? — what does this
mean ?"

The men deliberately and sluggishly arose, and the host
opened the door, while I threw on an additional piece of
bark to the fire.

Out from the cavernous dark emerged the most grotesque
form that ever Eetsch figured as the lank-haired goblin of
some haunted fountain, creeping up to stare upon the light,
and fright its fated victim.

He was dripping from every stringy lock, and each tatter
streamed with its separate stream. His face, ghostly cadav-
erous and thin, seemed from its hollow eyes to stare the
jaundiced famine of a sick vulture — sickened on the green
sance of slime, amidst which its offal prey had floated. Too
rich ! — too rich ! for even such a stomach.

232 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

It was indeed a horrible creature — possessing a life the
most strangely incomprehensible that can be conceived, and
the only parallels to which, in the disguise of humanity, that
are to be found among us, exist in the buzzard race of rag-
picking gutter- rakers, which the dreadful distortions of Euro-
pean life have weekly vomited upon our shores.

The creature was what is called a boat or river thief — one
who lived by petty thieving — a prowler along the desolate
river shore, from small settlement to settlement — a compara-
tive harmless wretch, appropriating everything he could lay
his hands upon in the shape of movable or convertable
property ; boats, poultry, pigs and groceries, left exposed
one night upon the landings. He had evidently received
a severe striping lately — most probably for some petty
theft — as I could see the blue whelks and blood-crusted
scars plainly enough through the loop-holes of his tattered
shirt.

It was droll indeed to witness the airs of " indignant vir-
tue" forthwith assumed by the delectable and " chosen" in-
nocents who constituted the inmates of the hut. They rose
at once upon the poor miserable devil, as the wolf snarls
through white tusks at the feeble carrion crow, or at the
slow- winged, obscene aura, that comes flapping in slow glide
above a promised feast. He begged for food in vain, and
before he had time to whine out his pitiful story, they seized
and hurled him out into the darkness from whence he had
emerged, floating on a drift-log down the fretful river. I
felt as if the time had come when I must act, if ever. So
standing behind these virtuous gentry, just as they had suc-
ceeded in turning out the poor river-thief, by their united
efforts, my friend and myself presented ourselves at the door
with weapons cocked, and ordered them peremptorily off,
telling them that we knew them to be far TV :>rse and more
dangerous scoundrels than the poor creature they had thrown
into night.

" Now I" said I, " we understand you fully for a set of

BOEDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 233

cut-throats and robbers, and we give you fair warning that
the first man of you who touches the boat which is fastened
to the river shore down there, I will shoot, and with an aim
that never misses — remember that."

The rascals slunk away into the dark along with the re-
pudiated Kelpie of the desolate river, and we were quickly
left alone.

To barricade the door with trunks and all the cord- wood
we had at command, was the first movement, and then to
take my position as sentinel at the port-hole window, which
overlooked the place of the boat, was the next. Not a word
passed between my friend and myself. He resumed his seat
next the door upon his trunk, and there he continued stol-
idly to sit.

The long rifle of which I had considered myself justified in
depriving my treacherous host, lay rested upon the port-hole,
and bearing upon the precious boat which was to rescue us
from this terrible isolation amidst ruffianism in the morning.

Oh, a long, long time passed — God only knows how long
it was ! — and still I was standing watching the poor little
canoe — for I could yet distinguish that frail craft — the posi-
tion of which I had jealously marked, having directed that it
should be at the foot of a tall sepulchral sycamore, that stood
out with its white bark as a relief against the dreary gloom.

At last, I saw two shadows creeping along the dim shore,
the cold, misty twilight, as the sombre morning crept on-
wards, making them more vague.

I had shivered and stood uncertain, anxious and distrustful
so long, through this weary night, that everything seemed
at last — now that nature was giving out — unreal, and when
I saw palpably before my eyes two men enter this boat, and
heard immediately the beat of oars or paddles, what could I
do other than fire at the objects in the boat? A shriek told
all the story, and the boat was instantly whirled down the
stream.

The only immediate consolation that I ever received from

234 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

this scene, was that the very fellow whom I considered the
most dangerous of the group — and who was the black-browed
scoundrel that I have particularized — was the person who
received in his own breast the ball which I suppose he had
intended should strike the " river chicken-thief," as he had
immediately endeavored to throw himself in the bottom of
the boat. But the ball had been too swift for him !

We afterwards heard that this man was a horribly notori-
ous boat-robber and murderer, and richly deserved his fate,
for when this den was broken up, a month or two subse-
quent, we ascertained that they had sent off for help and
guns, and stealing the boat was the preliminary movement
to an attempt to fire and storm the cabin and murder us in
order to get possession of the boxes of specie, as they con-
sidered those unlucky cherry-wood cases of surveying in-
struments which our Yankee was engaged in peddling about
the West, and which had so aroused their cupidity.

We got across next morning, of course, for the sons of my
friend having heard the boat stop during the night, were on
the alert, and taking my rifle-shot for a signal, were soon
across in a boat to our rescue.

We left Yankee blubbering on the bank — for he had now
slept off his stupefaction — but as there was a steamboat in
sight, we thought ourselves justified in leaving him to his
terrors for awhile. He deserved the lesson ; and yet, as we
moved off, the meek Song Thrush sang as sweet a song from
out the dark shadows of that old wood, as if murder had
never prowled there !

CHAPTER XL

EAGLES AND ART.

MINNIE'S LAND, the residence of the late Mr. Audubon,
the illustrious ornithologist, was situated near the high- water
level of the Hudson, at the foot of a deep range of shelving
hills, which form the Manhattan shore, and commence nearly
opposite the foot of the noted Palisades.

Here, in the midst of a grove of native forest trees, and at
some fifty paces from the water's edge, stood, embowered in
characteristic seclusion, like the nest of one of his own fa-
vorite, solitude-haunting wild-birds, the simple and taste-
ful family mansion of the great illustrator of the feathered
tribes.

You entered this hospitable home by a wide hall, which,
opening upon a spacious portico fronting the river, divided
the lower apartments into two ranges of rooms — those on
the right hand consisting of atelier, library, and museum of
specimens — those on the left being, with a beautiful propri-
ety, dedicated to the rights of hospitality — dining-room, par-
lors, etc.

The main hall of entrance was hung on both sides with
pictures ; among them all that most attracted my attention
in frequent visits, were two large oil paintings, one an origi-
nal Salvator Kosa — terrible as all that I had ever dreamed
of that drear and mighty genius of desolation. A leaden,
clouded sky, hurled by the drifting storm against the sharp
peaks of pinnacled cliffs, seemed falling, shattered in huge
eddied flakes about the head of a poor wayfarer, whose thin

236 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

cloak and long hair streaming beyond, made Ms figure seem
the very counterpart of a blasted tree in the foreground, the
only green limb upon which seemed to have just been partly
torn from the trunk, and streamed, too, on the savage blast.

I shall never forget that picture of desolation !

The other was a noble picture — pronounced by Christo-
pher North, the noblest of all executed by Audubon — of a
Golden Eagle, the full size of life, which, from a lofty crag
of the White Mountains, was in the act of carrying off a
lamb upon which it had just pounced, and which was clearly
a vagrant from the white flock browsing peacefully beneath,
which could be dimly seen through a break in the whirling
chaos of vapor, which nearly compassed about the sun-lit
rock, upon the grassy edges of which it had been tempted to
feed.

With all this simplicity of elements, there was something
indescribably majestic in the picture. In addition to the
general effect, there was a degree of microscopic detail in
the finish of the two figures of the eagle and the lamb, which
has ever since left upon my mind an impression as of an ac-
tual scene.

Alas ! for white-wooled innocence ! it pleads in vain for
mercy with the merciless. The full-winged tyrant is an
hungered and athirst, and hath no bowels of compassion now
that can be moved by piteous bleatings.

It is very nice, poor lamb I to have a snowy fleece, and
such large, bright, gentle eyes, with such a meek appeal in
them as might soften a heart of veriest adamant — very nice
indeed ! and one would think that of all creatures, it was
least possible that thou couldst come to harm, even in a sin-
ful world like this of ours !

But sad enough, these have all been in vain ! A single
crime has rendered the J&gis of purity powerless for thee,
and forced thee to realize that, indeed,

" Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt!"—

EAGLES AND AET. 237

for with, a roar of sudden wings and gleam of a golden burn-
ish, came it not down upon thee out of the still air — 'that
fearful retribution — thou undutiful truant ?

In the giddiness of thy wanton youth, didst thou not wan-
der away from that fond and anxious sheep, which was to
thee a mother ? Kegardless of the agonized bleatings by
which she sought to recall thee to her dugs, didst thou not
continue to climb the mountain-side, and in heedless aggra-
vation of her tearful woe, frisk upon the perilous verge of
bleakest rocks, where the strong winds made the grass to sing
underneath thy hoofs ?

In the blindness of thy obdurate pride of place, thou
couldst not see the danger ; but in a fell swoop it is upon thee
now ! Ay, it is too late to shrink ! too late to turn back thy
repentant heart to that poor deserted parent, whose prolonged
and plaintive ba-a-a fills all the valley — too late !

Ah, rash ambition, it is ever thus I Thou Phaeton, thou
Icarus of lambkins ! why could not the lowly plain content
thee ? " The aspiration in thy heel " has been sad for thee ;
it has but brought thee to thy downfall !

Poor lamb ! there is a vivid life here that makes thy pangs
seem real, and we almost shudder while those terrible talons
burn into the tender flesh ; and while the aerial robber pauses
with mighty wings outstretched, we can see the yellow shine
of ravin in its eye, glow as pitiless as if we stood near the
fierce bird alive, when it had just stooped from amidst the
cloudy crags of the White Mountains upon some vagrant
firstling of a New Hampshire farmer's flock.

This is no mere fable, but is a breathing and living truth
out of the natural world ; at least its life in form and colors
is like breathing. It is more than the old fable, for our
modern JSsop is the artist, who tells his story with the pen-
cil and the burin rather than the wagging tongue.

If he make bird and beast speak together, as they used to
for our childhood in that old book, it is not by the unnatural
use of human speech, but in action, real presentations of their

238 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

own physical expression ! Thus we can have not only an
allegory told, but an historical truth as well, and in a living
language.

"We can clearly remember how ludicrous it seemed even
to our unsophisticated childhood, that these brute creatures
should talk to one another " like people," and yet, we were
intensely interested in what they said, because the rude
wood-cuts of our copy gave the forms of each, and were
more suggestive sometimes than the fable itself. With our
faith thus helped along, we become reconciled to the reality,
but we are sure it was through the wood-cuts more than the
language of these fables that they have accompanied us all
our life since ; a whole folio of practical ethics was imbedded
into our memory with each of those crude, but graphic pic-
tures.

"We doubt very much, if any child was ever very greatly
impressed by the fables of -*3Csop, whose first copy was with-
out the illustrations !

How very natural, when we remember that the first lan-
guage which greets the awakening sense of infancy, is that
of the mother earth — of form, color and action — and there-
fore it must continue to be most significant to the man. Who
has not marked the antics of a baby over the first picture-
book ? how he sprawls upon it in a destructive ecstasy of
sputtering delight ? Look, too, at the first slate of the un-
willing school-boy, covered with rude figures of bird and
beast rather than with numerals or pot-hooks. He is strug-
gling for the most direct mode of expression, just as the sav-
age or natural man is doing through his hieroglyphics.

This is not all, for extremes meet, and the language of in-
fants and of angels is the same, if we may trust to certain
of the Old Fathers and the revelations of modern clairvoy-
ance. These unite in representing that such spiritual beings
have no occasion for the use of speech after the manner of
man, but that they possess such eloquence of look and form,
as to communicate through these alone ; every motion being

EAGLES AND ART. 239

a sign of thought or feeling more significant far than our im-
perfect articulation. Shakspeare seems to have the same
idea when describing one of his god-like men :

" What a mental power

This eye shoots forth ! how big imagination
Moves this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret "

Images and metaphors constantly recurring in the common
parlance of mankind, show how universally the peculiar sig-
nificance of this dumb speech is recognized. The intenser
expressions of passion and the more awful presence of the
spiritual in man, cannot be translated by the spoken language,
but must be conveyed by attitudes and looks. This leads,
of a necessity, to picture-writing, as the true mode of per-
petuating emotion and thought— and painting is also said to
be the written language of the angels. Who knows but that
painting or picture-writing may be the natural and higher
language of a developed humanity ?

It looks very much as if there might be some truth in such
a conjecture, when we consider what has just been said,
in connexion with the tendency of these times toward an
illustrated literature. The advance of this taste has been so
gradual, yet swift, that we are scarcely prepared to realize
its amazing extent at the present hour ; yet observe, almost
everything issued by the press now, of whatever grade, is in
some style illustrated.

Then what an immense stride in the character of illustra-
tion, which is becoming popularized, is exhibited in a con-
trast of such pictures as this of the Eose-Breasted Grosbeak
— articulate of joy and song, which we give as a modern
specimen of this dumb speech, in special, among our others
— and the rude wood-cuts of that child's book of fables,
dating thirty years back ! It may be among the many rev-
olutions in the midst of which our age moves on, that this,

240 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

though not so palpable, is as sure an indication as any of the
motion being in the right direction I

However uncivilized the expression of such an opinion
may sound — we love to be heterodox occasionally ! — it has
certainly seemed to us always a very strained, round-about
and up-hill sort of work, this mode we mortals have of con-
veying our emotions and thoughts through merely arbitrary
signs, which stand for sounds. Of one thing we are sure,
and that is, that it was not thus our Mother Earth talked to
our infancy, nor thus she talks to us now, and we have a notion
that she is exceeding eloquent in her way. We address
each other only through a single sense, while she communes
with us through them all, and we could never perceive that
she made herself any the less perfectly understood for that.

Be this as it may, all time has been filled with the glory
of the revelations she has made to her children, and the Ar-
tist is her favorite child ! He addresses himself to his broth-
ers of mankind as nearly as he can, after her manner — not
alone through one sense, by " directions," but through all
" by indirections " works he out this charmed and magical
communion — for does he not through the sight suggest what-
ever else of feeling, odor, taste and sound there may be want-
ing to actual creation.

Thus, in the suggestiveness of his skill consists the necro-
mancy of the Artist, who, if he does not create absolutely
as God may, a new life in his work, creates at least a new
sense — a real presence — in the mind of his brother, which
will always find a natural language. Thus we hear this in-
ner, Art-born sense, when moved before a picture of God-
like passion speaking for itself long ago, in an unconscious
kind of way —

" Such sweet observance in this work was had,
That one might see those far off eyes look sad."

And again it prattles, in " mere simplicity," concerning

EAGLES AND ART. 241

another something of a different sort — a picture of the Old
Man Nestor,

" In speech it seemed his beard all silver white
Wagged up und down, and from his lips did fly
Thin winding breath, which purled up to the sky."

Here is a miracle the Artist has surely wrought after some
secret and strange manner, for we can plainly see that a new
life has come to light through him, and whether it be in the
object he has formed, or in the mind of the observer, it is not
the less to be thought of with wondering question. Whence
cometh this high control within the spiritual world, that he
can thus throw down the shadow of an awe upon us from his
own creations ?

Nor do we wonder less when the Artist has gone forth
into the outer world ; for we have seen in what an heroical
language he can speak to us of the physical life through its
ruder objects and more humble forms, since to him they are
all glorious, and by him they are glorified to us ! In the
Art-born sense they are no longer humble, but for the truth
that is in them, are felt to be alive by the warmth about the
heart which they bring with them ; therefore they are wel-
comed with loving eagerness as a new birth, and for the man-
ner of their conception and their coming, it needs not that
the Artist should be questioned.

Do not our pictures tell the story for him of themselves ?

And does not this of the Golden Eagle ? The Art-born
sense can see it all ; how, when in its home among the moun-
tains he found the Golden Eagle, he watched it every morn-
ing sail out from the fastnesses of wintry peaks, and on nice-
poised pinions, wheel round and about through the pink-
tipped clouds, shrieking now and then a hungry cry that is
just to be heard far down in the peaceful valley, to startle
the white, browsing flocks with a sense of dread that know-
eth not its object ; how he watched it thus in every mood

16

242 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

until lie made its tameless life to be all Ms own, and at last,
by this strange spell in his eye, called down the tyrant in the
strength of its "unconquerable wings," and fixed it move-
less on the canvas, but alive in all the joy of fierceness and
glister of its golden plumes, amidst the clouds, the rocks, the
shadows and the sunshine of that native scene !

Ah, does it not seem a weird gift the Artist has, this power
"to do strange deeds upon the clouds ?" this power to bring
in to our firesides, as a familiar guest, the solemn presence
of a Primeval earth, the cool dews of her fresh strength yet
glistening on her green unshaken hair, with her wild crea-
tures stilled upon her bosom in their passionate freedom, like
silent images of beauty and of action within the brooding
thought of " Eldest Saturn !"

Does it not seem very marvellous that these things should
be ; that this humble Artist, this poor worm of the dust
should perform such transcendent deeds with his own unas-
sisted hand ?

It must be that he is inspired, that some noble and holy
promptings exalt him thus above his fellows ; for concerning
his relations to this sublunary planet and all things therein
contained, has not the Artist, of necessity, a creed and faith
of his own ? As it comes to him spontaneously, it has never
troubled him to inquire in what manner the black letter learn-
ing classifies this faith of his — whether as primitive or mod-
ern, common or peculiar — though it has seemed so natural
to him, and suffices so entirely to his own pleasures and
peace, that he has, in a manner, taken it for granted, as com-
mon to all men. His faith requires no mystical or pompous
name to make its meaning more clear to vulgar apprehen-
sion, since it is simply the faith of love ! universal love ! For
as it is defined in his litany,

" Common as light is Love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever ;
Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God I"

EAGLES AND ART. 243

"With such a heathenish faith as this, what wonder then
that his ideas of beauty should be somewhat heterodox, and
that he should even look upon the rude and ancient counte-
nance of Earth with favor? Nay, since this Love is a great
revelator and beautifier of all things, should even regard it
as very fair, and fresh, and lovely.

But though marvellous, it is nevertheless so ; and we judge
the truth to be, that it is because he is no stranger upon her
bosom, and is troubled with no such exaltation of spiritual
mightiness, that he disdains the ground he treads upon. In
his simplicity he has probably found out, while she warmed
him in her nourishing embrace, that he was bone of her
bone and flesh of her flesh ; ay, and has even felt that the
throbbings of her great heart were heaved with the pulses
of his own !

What wonder, then, since he thus looks out upon Earth as
a child of the earth, that

" Beated and chapped with tanned antiquity,"

as she may seem to others, she should yet appear fair and
young to him ? What wonder that he loves her too, and
smiles in unconscious pity when the Learned Ninny talks in
pompous humiliation of u our humble origin," and with face
averted from his Old Mother, rants spiritual heroics at the
stars ?

What wonder, indeed, if in his innocence he should laugh
at the emasculated wretch? — As if Earth, too, were not a
Star, sister of the Planets, bride of the Sun, and a daughter
of the Most High God !

What wonder, if his jealous love should be indignant at
the insult, when he sees that a chafiing-dish would be sun
enough for the world and heart of the blue-lipped haughty
Pedant, and that yet, standing isolated upon heaped-up
tomes — a world of man's creating — he dares, with out-
stretched shaky finger, like a shrunk and withered brat, to
be imperious with his Ancient Mother — to summons her to

244 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

yield her potent secrets up to the compelling of his frosty
breath ! But ha ! ha ! it seems a melancholy farce indeed
to the gentle Artist; for well he knows she must have
warmth for warmth, sympathy for sympathy, and that her
great heart bloometh only for her own !

" Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ;"
and she cometh near to her Child, revealing herself in mani-
fold ways with most miraculous organ he alone may under-
stand. To the insolent Pedant, her words of mild and mighty
wisdom must be as an unknown tongue, since he has forgot-
ten that earliest language in which she spoke to the dawn
of sense in him. But her own Child has not — he has kept
the first meaning of the many signs of the strange forms of
things, of the many sounds of most sweet voices that came
together when light from her flowed into darkness unto him !

Still, when the morning comes, answers he to her calling,
" Here am 1 1" — for still, awakening is like birth to him,
and upon the renewed glories of her coming do his eyes open
with the stare of wondering infancy just born ; still amidst
splendor in music, and with pomp does the glad and sweet
surprise of being burst through oblivion upon him I — for
Death and Sleep seem one! Thus he rises ever from her
bosom as the strong man refreshed, and the energies of her
eternal youth are in the wisdom that she teaches him.

While he listens to her, he never can grow old; — for
though he cannot stay the flight of Time, he does not care
to, since they become play-fellows, and even when amidst
their sportings Time brushes the gloss from off his golden
hair with frosty wings, he laughs with him !

The gentle, happy Artist! — time-frost cannot touch the
life within :

it is a paradise

Which everlasting Spring has made its own,

And while drear Winter fills the naked skies,

Sweet streams of sunny thought and flowers fresh blown

Are there ! "

EAGLES AND AKT. 245

What then if he be thus light of heart, and should go forth
each day rejoicing? — is not his heritage unutterably rich
and wondrous fair, that he may take delight therein ? And
what if in the overflowing of his joy his heart break forth in
singing by the way ? — it was thus the Old-Time Poet — who
was the Child- Artist — did, and we can yet hear the cheerful
echoes of the songs he sung !

Yes, Poetry was the earliest expression of the yearnings
of Art, and

" Those brave sublunary things the first poets had,"

were its young dreams, which strove in them for form and
for the light, and found it only in the word-painting of their
imperfect song. Thus the Poet's speech is that of the child-
hood of our race, while the Artist is the Poet grown, speak-
ing like a god the majestic language of creations ! Thus the
Poet was the first interpreter of Earth to her ruder children ;
and while he sang aloud to his brothers, you might hear the
Old Mother crooning a mysterious undertone to him. He
was the Prophet-child of Art, and in his unconsciousness,
standing beside that

" mighty portal,

Like a volcano's meteor-breathing cavern,

Whence the oracular vapor is hurled up,

Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,"

he scattered abroad, in the wild utterance of that madness,
its most precious myths fragmented among the nations. The
Artist, in his maturer strength, grasped these shining hints,
that amidst the upheaving chaos of a Daedal thought glit-
tered like broken points, and when, with mighty energies,
he dragged them from the thick darkness forth, the world
.saw that mute white shapes of a Titanic grandeur towered
beneath his plastic hand.

When thus, from the child-like, unregarded mutterings of

246 WILD SCENES -AND SONG-BIKDS.

Homeric Dreams, Praxitelian forms rose up with awful
frowns, men felt at last the prophecy that had been in them.
So out of the inspiration of the earliest Hebrew Poetry, the
solemn magnificence of old Italian Art came forth, embody-
ing its vaguely shadowed visions in an enduring real !

And thus in the youth of mankind it has mostly been,
that the Poet has suggested while the Artist created. But
then Art too was young — young in models and in modes —
and the power and freedom of the Artist trammelled by the
need of exhausting drudgery through crude methods. Now
Art has all its triumphant past upon which to build new tri-
umphs, and now the Artist may be free. Before he was a
slave, that might not feel the full exultings of a procreative
joy — the bliss of the conception as well as the happy ecstasy
of birth — but now he may ; now he may be the free-limbed,
joyous Poet and conquering Artist all in one !

But above all things else it is as the favored child of his
old Mother Earth that our Poet- Artist can be happy and
free. Ay, and when he is living ever near to her, it seems
that he is almost a god I — for then there is none of all with
whom he is surrounded to be his equal in the strength and
power of wisdom he derives from her. She speaks to him
as a familiar theme, concerning those high mysteries of life
before which the Magii trembled.

She makes bare to him herself, and shows him the wonder
and the majesty of his own being as it is amplified in hers.
How all things own a common nature ascending in grada-
tions up to him — how he is sovereign unit and lives through
her and she through him, and how, on the mighty scroll of
her primeval story, his past is spread before him, reveal-
ing the process of his own elaboration in God's creative
thought.

Here he reads, how that from huge shapes floundering
blindly through the mud of chaos, just warmed by the en-
gendering look of God, he came forth a vital embryo, to
ascend through many grades of form, each organized more

EAGLES AND ART. 247

nobly than the last, until his own — man the consummation,
had been reached !

Then he sees how too this consummate shape, by reason
of its perfection, became the habitation of an angel — blos-
somed into the spiritual, as the bud blossoms into splendor
and perfume! — for the life which came from God having
passed through all the sensuous grades below, returned now
on the eternal circle towards its source, to meet perfection
in himself —

" Just on the borders of the Spirit-land !"

Then the full flower was blown, and the divine aroma which
had been developed within the secret foldings of the bud
filled all the world !

This Divine aroma is that Love of which we spoke, and
which is all-embracing in its mild and fostering sympathies ;
for with the angel thus born within him, the exalted man
becomes ruler over all in right of this spiritual birth. And
not alone is he thus lord over all creatures, but by right of a
sensuous birth in common with him they are his lowlier
brothers.

In the mild beneficence of this fraternal Faith, all living
things are sacred to the Artist. In each creature he sees not
alone a fixed memento left behind him of one grade more in
the ascent of his progression, but as well an antitype of some
one attribute of his own nature living in its original form.
Thus, be blind and wilful as he may, he cannot escape from
himself — go utterly away from the truth of the simple
virtues !

He is a lonely wayfarer, and going forth on an unending
pilgrimage into the wild, and silent homes of the wild bird
and beast, he can hear his mother speak with him, for the
voices of her creatures make her silence. Here, in the holy
calm of stillest contemplation, she teaches him to study his
own life in each of these — as in gigantic extension of himself
to see his passions, emotions and thoughts creep, walk, run

248 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

and fly in embodied shapes. He sees that these are not to
be studied amidst the dwarfed forms and abject vices of the
human distortion thronging in cities — but here, amidst the
freshness of green solitudes, he can readily read the simple
passions separately in the Lion, Eagle, "Wolf, Vulture, Hart
and Dove — while their laws would be studied through infi-
nite complexities were they sought for when the same pas-
sions are combined in the diseased social man.

It is his mission to reform his race by exalting it ; and to
do this, he must create for it the noblest models. The old
mother leads him thus apart, to teach him that he cannot
paint these passions without a knowledge of their original
laws — until he has traced them through their simple forms
up to their complex and blended expression in man.

Thus in crystallization, she shows him the primitive sym-
metries— the first natural arrangement of particles into har-
monious forms — in stratification the natural arrangement of
these primitive forms in the structure of Earth, metals and
the universe, as determined by the law of forces or gravita-
tion— in vegetation the ancient story of man, the passive
embryo, in the Arboreal form which the plastic energy as-
sumes first, and holds forever as the order of life — in the
reptile, man slowly warming into vital activity, blind amidst
the huge vegetation of a semifluid chaos — in the fish, man
advanced to a purer, but still gross element, obeying the
electric impulse of the vital fluid in straight lines — in the
insect, the state and struggle of transitions — in the animal,
perfection of physical organization with the circulating fluid
reddened by the intensity of vital or generative heat — man,
the earth-crawler, and the brute ! — in the bird, this earth-
crawling animal on wings— a spurner of limits, a dweller of
the pure ether, soaring towards the stars, and propelled in
curved lines, to typify the ascent on the Eternal Circle, to-
wards the Life of God, which the man has now made in his
new birth of wings 1

Thus she teaches him that it is not as organization resem-

EAGLES AND AKT. 249

bles his own, that the creature in reality becomes most near
to him — but as it typifies some higher attribute of his com-
pounded being ! Thus he sees that the monkey is not really
so near to him as the elephant, the lion or the Eagle — while,
if he were only an organized unit, as a crude philosophy de-
fines him, this monkey would be nearest. Mere organiza-
tion cannot define relations to a triune being, such as his —
though it might to the physical unit.

But he is more fearfully and wonderfully made — this ma-
terial form, first vitalized by a plastic spirit in common with
the earth and all her creatures, holds within that spirit, as air
is held in water, a soul, in common with angelic being, which
illuminates and warms with love and wisdom the grosser ele-
ment. Thus his mother shows him that the apparent ap-
proximation is not the real — while the Pedant, reasoning
through books concerning her " vestiges," finds only the ap-
parent, and stops there !

The Artist can be deceived by no vain juggle of the words
of a dead human learning; the truth that has made him
strong is a vital truth, and its words are alive. They teach
him to see in the lion a distinct antitype of magnanimous
courage, and in the type, the heroic man, he traces the real
approximation through physiognomy, in a resemblance ap-
parent, not alone in the features of the face, but in the huge
chest, the heavy limbs, the gentleness of bearing in repose,
and terrible fierceness when aroused.

The elephant he sees to be the antitype of judgment and
sagacity, and in the type, the philosopher and sage, he traces
the reposeful heaviness of feature and limbs, the simplicity
and harmlessness of temper, the calm, bright eye and move-
less will, which belong to that creature. The monkey he
sees to be only the antitype of that most humble faculty, im-
itation ; and in the type, the clown or idiot, he sees all the
monkey in meanness of feature and of nature! The Artist
smiles to think that this creature can yet be nearer to the an-

250 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

gelic man, than is the Eagle which stands his supremest an-
titype.

In a word, the Artist sees in this Eagle, not a long- winged
fowl, but the expression of what is most glorious in the ac-
tion of the physical — the living, swift embodiment of all
sublimest energies in his own soul, taunting its inaction forth
to know the joy of rushing wings in fields of boundless air.

Looking on its " powerful grace," a proud emulation stirs
his life of lives, he feels "the aspiration in him breeding
wings," and with the tense vision of a will aroused, he'll now
"out-stare the lightning!" Deeds of Epic grandeur swell
within his clear, keen thought, and action follows as quick,
in merciless promptitude, as the fell swoop of the bird ! He
becomes inspired into the Eagle-man ; and if he do not con-
quer nations, the bloodless triumphs that he wins to Art are
far more glorious. His piercing vision glancing down the
past, everywhere recognizes in its heroes Eagle-men. With
alert heads, the vaulting beak-like nose, and round, stern eye,
the mightiest of the world's masters even in the sculptured
marble, seem as if upon the stoop to soar again among the
clouds with conquering cries.

Well may the Artist shout " Eureka " now, for the vital
clue of art has been revealed to him. He has found that he
can follow the antitype up from the animal to its type in man,
and trace it in him with assurance, through certain absolute
features of physical resemblance.

Thus, in the vaulted nose he sees the Eagle, but soon discov-
ers that all birds or men with vaulted beaks are not Eagles ;
that some are silly parrots, and others filthy carrion-loving
vultures ! That one short step between the sublime and the
ridiculous is illustrated to him here, in the ease with which
a facial line peculiar to the greatest of men may be con-
founded with that belonging to the meanest.

The Parrot-man is often mistaken for the Eagle-man ; but
the Artist observes, that in the face of the driveller the line
of the nose vaults abruptly like the beak of £he parrot, while

EAGLES AND AKT. 251

the mouth and chin retreat feebly beneath the nut-cracking
hook, giving all the appearance of strength in the face to the
upper mandible, as if it were intended for the fool to hang
himself up to roost by, after the manner of the bird.

The vault of the Eagle's beak, on the contrary, is very
gradual, while the lower mandible, which expresses will and
energy, is extended out nearer to a line with the top of the
head. Close beneath this line and to the base of the nos-
trils, the eyes are placed, giving at once an expression of
fierce alertness, very different from those of the parrot's,
which are set near the middle of the head.

Tracing this facial line down from the conqueror through
all the grades of men, he finds it everywhere associated with
aspiration and daring temper — with the impulses of the hero,
if not with heroic deeds ! Though the headstrong fool with
his parrot-bill, approaches this line closely on one side, and
the vulture-beaked Jew hungering for offal on the other, yet
the careful Artist is not confused thereby. He sees that in
the pawn-broker and old-clothes man, the line is that of the
vulture — depressed near the " downward eye," and vaulting
nearer the end which lingers prolonged into a hungry curve
that seems formed to tear a way into the vitals.

HOAV loathsome the vulture-man, as the Artist sees him —
with his wrinkled, scaly, scavenger look — true to the anti-
type, in base brow and beak, cunning eye, and even to the
thin and recurved bristles on the back of the skinny neck
and head !

The straight, Grecian profile expresses to him a perfect
harmony of the moral, or spiritual and physical lives in the
human. A slight deviation from this line expresses there-
fore a vast deal. Whenever this vaults into the arch, it in-
fallibly expresses energy, unreasoning or viciously aggressive,
just in proportion as the arch departs violently on either
side from this symmetrical line.

Thus the parrot's vaulting out beyond this line quickly,
expresses idiotic obstinacy and indomitable propensities for

252 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

mischief — while the vulture's, which is first recurved below
and then in the vault only about comes up to that line, ex-
presses subversive viciousness in the alarming ravin for gold
exhibited by the Vulture-man. On the other hand, he sees
that as this line is only faintly broken at the brow, and
arched in the centre of the nose, as in the profile of the Eagle's
head and beak, it expresses that highest combination of the
intellectual and physical daring which we find in the mighty
Conquerors — as in the head of Napoleon.

While in the head of — it may be — a marshal, who was
comparatively the mere executive soldier — the man of head-
long action — we have the arch more decided — retaining all
the dignity of the Eagle, but with something of the vulture's
bloody thirst, indicated in the prolongation of the vault.

Thus he sees that while the vaulting line indicates vault-
ing energies, the purpose and direction of these energies is
either ignoble, about in proportion as the line approximates
that of the baser birds, or fierce as it approaches that of the
Eagle.

The rise of the arch in the Eagle's beak is very slight for
some distance from the base, like that of Napoleon's nose —
then the hook is remarkably sudden, almost square. As it
is simply in the higher lines of profile — those indicating its
approach to a square — that these resemblances can be indi-
cated— that between Napoleon and the Eagle ceases at the
plane of the nose, to re-commence in the mouth, which is
brought out with a corresponding expression of strength in
the chin, almost square to the line of the brow and nose.
Thus we have the tower-like weight of brain lifted above the
granite-seamed mouth, and moveless base of will in the pow-
erful lower jaw.

The marshal is the man to swoop in relentless fierceness
down upon the prey the Eagle wing and eye has found ; there-
fore the Eagle and the Vulture are combined in his profile.
The Imperial Conqueror knew this well — and for this reason
he was accustomed to say that for men of vast energies in

EAGLES AND AET. 253

action, he rather choose those with Koman noses and large nos-
trils. This form of speech — Eoman noses — comes of course
from the historical identity of the arched nose of the Ko-
mans "with their daring and iron firmness of will.

Thus the Artist has found that conquerors, warriors, re-
formers, discoverers carry the sign of the Eagle in their pro-
files, indicating the aggressive and victorious impulses they
display — while in contrast he perceives that the more passive
natures — those which are strong to endure, which are the
prudent, the sagacious and the contemplative — do not carry
this vaulting sign. These take the signs they bear rather
from the depressed lines of the lion and the elephant Such
is peculiarly the face of the Scotch people, who are fa-
mous the world over for courage, prudence and sagacity.
Thus while the arched line in the Eagle-face expresses ag-
gressive daring and sublimity of purpose, the depressed line
in the lion-face, expresses courage, caution and endurance.

The Artist in conceiving the face of a daring but savage
conqueror, like Attila, Charles the Bold, or Charles XII. —
of a bitter and stern fanatic, like the reformer Knox, must
think

•of Eagles on their rocks

With straining feet and that fierce mouth and drear,
Answering the strain with downward drag austere ;"

for to him such an association is irresistible, and by its aid he
is enabled readily to embody a just conception of either. If,
on the other hand, he would sculpture the head of the pa-
tient and courageous sage, as that of Socrates — one

u Who ponders high and deep, and in whose face
We see astonied, that severe content
Which comes of thought and musing,"

he recurs back unconsciously to the face of the lion for sug-
gestion of outline, while the expression is modified by certain
characteristics suggested from that of the elephant.

254 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

But the Eagle has many other expressions beside this
" downward drag austere," and therefore is it necessary for
the Artist to study all its modes and habits, since it is through
such perfect familiarity he can best understand the Eagle-
man, and of course express him creatively. The Old Mother
makes him see that these resemblances between the higher
man and his antitype, are far from being limited to such mere
physical coincidences — that there are a thousand other traits
of nature and of habit, which bring the bird nearer to the
spiritual. Thus it has wings, and like the imagination
triumphs over time and space.

Then if the joy of elements, of wings, of sunshine, of waters
and of singing, be characteristic of all other birds, how much
more are they so of Eagles, except the singing and the swim-
ming : for verily the harsh clarion of the Eagle's scream can-
not be called dulcet singing ; and the supreme bird of the
empyrean holds in such aristocratic scorn the baser element,
that he never condescends to be aware of its existence, ex-
cept in an occasional foraging descent into its surface, from
which he struggles up as if from contagion, upon hurrying
wings, which spurn its drops from off their glistening fibres.

Ah ! if the air-king had but " the gift of the " harmonious
" gab," how on his strong wings he might out-soar the lark,
and hold entrancing converse with the morning stars — then,
indeed, earth and the univere would " sing together," even
to our " gross unpurged sense !" But withal, such a wish is
somewhat sentimental, for the bird of battle and of storms
would be rather a curious looking customer perched in " la-
dies' bower," to carry chorus, warbling sweet ditties with the
" love-lorn nightingale " — Cupid, asleep with his cheek upon
the roses, would be very apt to dream i' faith that his " loved
philomel " had caught a dreadful cold. Though this idea of
a singing Eagle is not so far from probability as might be —
by considerable. There is a singing Falcon, which is well
known to naturalists — the habitat of which is in the more
elevated districts of the coast-borders of Africa. This curious

EAGLES AND ART. 255

bird when in perfect repose emits a series of sounds resem-
bling considerably those produced by musical glasses under
the finger — it is strange to find this trait in the harsh family of
Eaptorese — but it is not the less consistent with the unity in
apparent discord prevailing throughout Nature. These savage
despots of the air have all a harmony of their own !

Aye, in his solitary wandering the Artist makes the discov-
ery, that in the fitness of things the Eagle even may be consid-
ered a musical bird. His estimate of harmonious sounds is
comparative by necessity. When standing beside Niagara,
or when amidst savage mountains he scales the slippery
rocks that tremble to the sullen thunder-bass of cataracts,
leaping down dark-mouthed, j agged- gorges ; then if he hear
the Eagle shout its shrill war-cry from out the spray-mist,
doth his heart leap up within him, for here those dissonant
notes best harmonize the dissonance !

Here, too, one glimpse of its warrior form as it comes forth
suddenly to view on steadied wings, cutting the span of the
perpetual iris in one imperial gleaming sweep of arrowy
flight, the Artist sees to be worth a life full of common
sights ! — that the Old Mother has no grand show beyond this
one ! The creature seems the embodied spirit of the place
— a winged desolation, born amidst the angry roar of mighty
forces, to spring forth glorious in fierce beauty from the mists
of their collision.

Of the stern wildness of all pathless solitudes the Eagle is
a part, and the Artist knows that in painting such scenes his
highest and noblest effects are produced by its presence.
Hence, apart from the necessity he has found for studying it
as the antitype of grandeur in humanity, he must do so as
the most perfect consummation of the wild sublime in land-
scape— in the moods, humors and conditions presented by
his mother.

Now, therefore, has he at length learned of her to look
upon the Eagle, not as the mere object of a technical curi-
osity, as an ornithological specimen, to be measured, skinned,

256 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

stuffed and classified, but dead or alive, as the subject of pro-
foundest and unwearying study, illustrating the most majestic
themes and capabilities of Art.

Of necessity he is a naturalist likewise, and whether he be
a technical commentator, he has been an accurate observer ;
for nothing is too minute to escape the microscopic vision of
the true Artist.

To him each feather has both its separate form and its blend-
ed expression ; each claw, beak, hair and scale, its own iden-
tity ! The distinctions of sex and age he recognizes by a
glance at plumage and size. Every note, posture and action,
conveys to him a meaning — is significant of passion or pur-
pose. All that can be known of habits and haunts, he makes
familiar to himself in his lonely explorations

Thus it is when he comes to paint these creatures, that he
is enabled to make his pictures historical — to illuminate his
figures with the heated light of life — to give its sparkle to
their joy, its glow to their repose, and darkened glare to their
anger. The same fine intuitions of "effect" which guide
him in grouping demi-god and hero, are exercised upon these
pictures — with the same unerring tact he selects time, occa-
sion, place, that the passion, incident and scene most charac-
teristic may be exhibited at a glance — telling the story in
full. The accessories of landscape are taken from its known
and favorite haunts, including the grasses, shrubs or trees it
most affects, for food or nidification — the incident — perhaps
battle with a natural enemy, or seizure of its prey — is just
that which displays its finest traits of action, and in which
varied views of form and plumage can be afforded — while
the distinctions of size and markings which grow out of sex
and age, are furnished in the grouping.

The magical work is done ! The unregarded denizens of
unhoused wilds are seen all at once to be sharers with proud
humanity of its passions, sentiments and even humors, and
to express these in action far more free and noble for its sim-
plicity ! Then man is not alone upon the earth to think, to

EAGLES AND AET. 257

suffer, to rejoice, to love, to hate, to murder ! — the wise Artist
has taught him in his marvellous pictures that these humble
creatures he has despised, do all such fantastic tricks likewise
" before high heaven," quite as earnestly as he, and much
more gracefully.

It is thus, then, by a loving apotheosis, that all things are
dignified in the recognition of the true Art which places in
a like, but graduated category of respect,

" creeping forms and insects rainbow-winged

And birds and beasts and fish and human shapes."

It is thus, then, that the Artist wins his power and right
from the Old Mother "to do strange deeds;" — it is through
such processes that the strength and wisdom of the creative
energy in him has been elaborated. Now, in truth, the fru-
ition of his probation has arrived ! —

"And what if Art, an ardent intercessor,
Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne
Checks the Great Mother stooping to caress her,
And cries, give me thy Child Dominion?" —

in him, dominion she will have, for we have seen how he has
won it well !

In his wide and solitary wanderings, our Art-Naturalist
has made companionship with the most tameless creatures.
He knows through many affectionate remembrances on his
own part of varying pleasures they have afforded him here
and there, in his pilgrimage, not alone each family, but as
well every member thereof.

Thus he knows the Golden Eagle too well not to recognize
its young one too, and because it is called " the ring-tailed
Eagle of Authors," that does not make it with and to him a
new species. He has watched the dingy and awkward Ea-
glet up through all its blundering defects, until he saw it on
the fourth year, right gloriously arrayed, go forth on shining

17

258 WILD SCENES AND SONG BIRDS.

wings to conquest. He has found, too, that in choice of lo-
calities, its individualities are strongly expressed.

Its home is among the mountains, and it loveth most "the
shadow of a great rock ;" not in the United States only, but
over nearly the whole world its occasional presence makes a
feature of the most savage desolations. It builds its great
nest of heaped-up boughs and brambles high upon the inac-
cessible crag-side, overlooking some wide valley, and perched
upon the pinnacle-rocks above, its wonderful eye glancing
over all beneath detects its prey at immense distances. This
keenness of vision compensates beautifully for the want of
sufficient power of flight to enable it, like the White-headed
Eagles, or even falcons, to overtake its prey on the wing by
sheer speed. It takes advantage of the momentum gained
by a descent through the air.

Selecting habitually a lofty perch, or sailing slowly at a
great height among the clouds, this power of sight reveals to
it even the small objects below. When the lamb, the fawn,
the hare, or wild turkey appears, one of these, it pauses in
its flight, immediately over for an instant, seemingly to
steady its unerring aim, and then with wings half closed and
outspread tail, falls with the swiftness of a meteor upon the
victim.

Now let us see in direct contrast with much of this, the
habits of the White-headed Eagle, which the naturalist has
found to be a low-land bird, in choice of localities, though
the loftiest-flighted hunter that wears wings. It loves rather
the valleys along the courses of our great rivers, the shores
of lakes, estuaries and the sea. Its nest is on some lofty tree,
instead of a mountain crag. It pursues its prey up and
through the air instead of descending upon it. In the daring
confidence of its unequalled flight, it asserts sole empire in
that element, overtaking all or any of its denizens with ease.

A characteristic scene is thus described in the Biography
of Birds. Audubon, the Art-Naturalist, says: "Permit me
to place you on the Mississippi, on which you may float

EAGLES AND AST. 259

gently along, while approaching winter brings millions of
water-fowl on whistling wings, from the countries of the
north, to seek a milder climate in which to sojourn for a sea-
son. The Eagle is seen perched in an erect attitude, on the
highest summit of the tallest tree, by the margin of the broad
stream. His glistening but stern eye looks over the vast ex-
panse. He listens attentively to every sound that comes to his
quick ear from afar, glancing now and then on the earth be-
neath, lest even the light tread of the fawn may pass unheard.
His mate is perched on the opposite side, and should all be
tranquil and silent, warns him by a cry to continue patient.
At this well-known call, the male partly opens his broad
wings, inclines his body a little downwards, and answers to
her voice in tones not unlike the laugh of a maniac. The
next moment he resumes his erect attitude, and again all
around is silent. Ducks of many species, the teal, the widgeon,
the mallard and others, are seen passing with great rapidity,
and following the course of the current ; but the Eagle heeds
them not : they are at that time beneath his attention. The
next moment, however, the wild, trumpet-like sound of a
yet distant but approaching swan is heard. A shriek from
the female Eagle comes across the stream — for, kind reader,
she is fully as alert as her mate. The latter suddenly shakes
the whole of his body, and with a few touches of his bill,
aided by the action of his cuticular muscles, arranges his
plumage in an instant. The snow-white bird is now in sight :
her long neck is stretched forward, her eye is on the watch,
vigilant as that of her enemy ; her large wings seem with
difficulty to support the weight of her body, although they
flap incessantly. So irksome do her exertions seem, that her
very legs are spread beneath her tail, to aid her in her flight.
She approaches, however. The Eagle has marked her for
his prey. As the swan is passing the dreaded pair, starts
from his perch, in full preparation for the chase, the male
bird, with an awful scream, that to the swan's ear brings more
terror than the report of the large duck-gun.

260 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

" Now is the moment to witness the display of the Eagle's
powers. He glides through the air like a falling star, and,
like a flash of lightning, comes upon the timorous quarry,
which now, in agony and despair, seeks, by various manoeu-
vres to elude the grasp of his cruel talons. It mounts, doubles,
and willingly would plunge into the stream, were it not pre-
vented by the Eagle, which, long possessed of the knowledge
that by such a stratagem the swan might escape him, forces
it to remain in the air by attempting to strike it with his tal-
ons from beneath. The hope' of escape is soon given up by
the swan. It has already become much weakened, and its
strength fails at the sight of the courage and swiftness of its
antagonist. Its last gasp is about to escape, when the fero-
cious Eagle strikes with his talons the under side of its wing,
and with unresisted power forces the bird to fall in a slanting
direction upon the nearest shore."

The female that has watched from her perch all the vicis-
situdes of this fierce, swift struggle with a full assurance of
the result, now sails at her ease to join the conqueror in a
bloody feast. Every one will remember, too, Wilson's fine
description of the manner in which this selfish but dashing
oppressor robs the fish-hawk of its hard-earned spoils.

The Golden Eagle is more common in the mountainous
districts of Europe and Great Britain than anywhere in the
New "World ; while the White-headed Eagle, which is un-
known abroad, may be said to be peculiar to this continent.
The Golden Eagle is the bird of poetry, since it is from its
sublime haunts and majestic bearing that the numberless im-
ages and associations are derived in which the whole family
have been idealized through the literature of the old coun-
tries.

It is peculiarly from its habits of lofty flight, and perching
among the cloud-piercing pinnacles of mountain-chains, where
the fiercest tempests rage, amidst the drifted whirling glooms
of snow and sleet, that Eagles have become in poetry the
symbol of that tumultuous energy and storm-guiding prowess

EAGLES AND AET. 261

which characterize the Eagle-man. The sometime-fate of
such a being — a Jupiter dethroned, or a Napoleon defeated
— is therefore, most aptly imaged : —

" An Eagle so caught in some bursting cloud
On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings
Extended in the whirlwind, and his eyes
Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded
By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail
Beats on, his struggling, which sinks at length,
Prone, and the aerial ice clings o\7er it!"

We can see, too, that its stately port makes it the fit em-
blem of a feudal pride and isolation, which, like the bird,
perched its huge eyries in castellated grandeur on the cliff-
tops. There are full as many stories of wild and perilous
daring growing out of the attempts to reach and rob the
strong home of the bird, as of the baron. They were both
themselves robbers, who scorned the lowlands which lay be-
neath their searching gaze, and as often swooped down upon
them in sudden foray. They have loved the bird rather from
a feeling of the affinities between them, and have adopted it
always as the emblem of rapacity and conquest, not of free-
dom.

It was for this reason Shelley hated the bird. He saw in
it the analogue of evil triumphing over good, which crawls
among the nations, changed by its immortal foe

From starry shape beauteous and mild,

To a dire snake with man and beast unreconciled!"

But the contest between the two powers — " Twin Genii," — is
renewed again after each defeat, and thus it is that

" When the last hope of trampled France had failed,"

this prophet child of Art painted one of the most magnifi-
cent pictures ever done on air in words, when he saw

" An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight."

262 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Here we have the Golden Eagle of course, for " golden
feather " tells an unmistakable story of its own. Kegarding
it from the point of view of the Art-Naturalist, this certainly
seems one of the closest approximations to the absolute cre-
ativeness of Art to be found in all poetry.

But the Golden Eagle did not furnish a symbol of freedom
to mankind — with all the grandeur of ancient association,
this the grandest and most noble has been yet denied. Al-
though a most magnificent bird it is too sluggish on the wing
— seeking with its feudal type " advantage of position " for
its swoop ! — to be the satisfactory expression of that univer-
sality of fiery, keen and boundless energy which belongs to
the swift spirit of freedom, which has found its home here in
the New World ! Of this the White-headed Eagle is the true
emblem ! He asserts an empire of the Empyrean with the
ruthless pride of a prodigal, indomitable strength in pinion,
beak and claw ! To it there are no formulas of flight — no
fixed modes of taking prey — all comes alike to its inexorable
appetite and quick overcoming wings. Hear Audubon's de-
scription of its varied powers of flight :

" The flight of the White-headed Eagle is strong, generally
uniform, and protracted to any distance, at pleasure. Whilst
travelling, it is entirely supported by equal easy flappings,
without any intermission, in as far as I have observed it, by
following it with the eye or the assistance of a glass. When
looking for prey, it sails with extended wings, at right angles
to its body, now and then allowing its legs to hang at their
full length. Whilst sailing, it has the power of ascending in
circular sweeps, without a single flap of the wings, or any
apparent motion either of them or of the tail ; and in this
manner it often rises until it disappears from the view, the
white tail remaining longer visible than the rest of the body.
At other times, it rises only a few hundred feet in the air,
and sails off in a direct line, and with rapidity. Again, when
thus elevated, it partially closes its wings, and glides down-
wards for a considerable space, when, as if disappointed, it

EAGLES AND ART. 263

checks its career, and reassumes its former steady flight.
When at an immense height, and as if observing an object
on the ground, it closes its wings, and glides through the
air with such rapidity as to cause a loud rustling sound, not
unlike that produced by a violent gust of wind passing
amongst the branches of trees. Its fall towards the earth
can scarcely be followed by the eye on such occasions, the
more particularly that these falls or glidings through the air
usually take place when they are least expected."

Nothing can exceed the cool audacity and overbearing
vehemence of this bird, except perhaps the spirit of the
country it symbols. In powers of adaptation, versatility of
resource and sublimity of action, the resemblance is no less
complete, than in a mutual unscrupulousness and omnivor-
ous rapacity.

Mr. Audubon quotes, with often-expressed approbation,
an opinion of Dr. Franklin in which the Sage expresses his
regret that the White-headed Eagle had been chosen as the
representative of our country, on the ground that it is a
plundering and dishonest bird. We, too, regret the fact —
not that it has been chosen, but that it was most fit and ap-
propriate that it should have been. It is too late in the day
now for us to mince matters and talk of regret that the ty-
rannical Eobber of the Fish-Hawk should be emblazoned on
our national standard when our armies have but just returned
from following that standard to the dismemberment of Mex-
ico— to call it by its mildest name ! — and when each year it
waves above a new line of military out-posts guarding new ter-
ritory, of which we have dispossessed the aboriginal owners.

Plundering Fish-Hawks indeed ! — we come of a race of
Robbers, and the Anglo-Norman wild -fire yet riots in our
veins. The only consolation is, that in most instances we,
in obeying this predatory instinct, have acted magnificently
• — as our Eagles rob.

This feat of robbing the Fish-Hawk, when you consider
the comparative size, strength and power of pinion of the

264 WILD SCENES AND SONG-B1EDS.

two Birds, is one of the sublimest to be witnessed in the ac-
tion of the natural world, and though you may regret the
fierce greediness of the audacious Cloud-King, and be very-
far from defending the morality of the proceeding, yet you
cannot restrain an admiration of the manner. You may re-
gret that poor Fish-Hawks have to be robbed, and rejoice
with a hearty sympathy when you see them combine as they
sometimes do for the purpose of castigating their oppressor,
yet you cannot help feeling that since the Eagles are incor-
rigible and beyond the reach of your exhortations to reform,
it is far better and finer to have them do what is inevitable
from their natures grandly, than to do it ignobly.

So with regard to the spirit of " acquisition," or " exten-
sion," as it is politely termed — we regret that it should be so
strongly displayed in the national character, but see no use,
so long as there is any more territory left in the Hemisphere
to tempt this acquisitiveness, in putting up a poor mouth
about it. The fact is, we cannot expect to tame the Eagle —
to feed on milksops, or meekly and musically " roar like
any sucking dove !" The war-cry is its natural note, and
while there be storms to gather up the sky we may expect
to hear it shouted from amidst the rack thereof! It is a
Warrior-Bird — fit emblem, with all its rapacity, of a warlike
people, and of a vigorous freedom that should have

" An Eagle's wings for scope and speediness."

Franklin repeats the stale slander concerning it, of coward-
ice— because a comparatively small creature, like the King-
Bird or Bee-Martin, can drive it off ! As to that, the Hum-
ming-Bird is far more dreaded by it, and we have seen the
waspish little wretch dart in between the wings of a flying
Eagle, fasten upon the top of its head, and work away with
long sharp bill and claws until the floating feathers streamed
after the flight of the great Bird, which would seem from its
darting, irregular movements, to be almost maddened by the

EAGLES AND ART. 265

petty torture ! But what wonder ! — A Lion would turn tail
upon an angry Hornet, and a Hector or an Ajax himself be
routed by a hungry Flea beneath his armor ! With every
other sin upon its head, the bird is not a coward — for the
incident which Mr. Audubon gives further in proof of this,
is not, as we conceive, altogether a fair case in point. The
liability to panic, when suddenly aroused by any new and
extraordinary presentation, is a well-known weakness of the
mere physical courage.

He says, " When these birds are suddenly and unexpect-
edly approached or surprised, they exhibit a great degree of
cowardice. They rise at once and fly off very low in zig-
zag lines to some distance, uttering a hissing noise, not at all
like their usual disagreeable imitation of a laugh."

This is not by any means our interpretation of this inci-
dent. The zig-zag line in flying off, seems to us rather to
express the instinctive caution of rapacious creatures, who,
when aroused — perhaps from secure slumbers — see in the
unusual object, of course, a formidable enemy, and with the
prompt suggestiveness of that most alert of the instincts, dart
hither and yon, to distract any murderous aim which may
pursue it — while the hissing sound as they go off, is the
earliest expression of angry defiance, the combative impulse
of the Eaglet in the eyrie knew. It is rather a case of panic
than of cowardice, and the history of many of the most fear-
less warriors the world has known, will furnish similar in-
stances !

No, the White-headed Eagle is not a coward. The charge
has as little base upon consistencies and the nature of things
as a similar one so frequently urged against Napoleon —
though while the daring of the Eagle is physical, that of the
Eagle-man is spiritual.

Shelley, at all events, saw it to be sufficient as an emblem
of the exulting energies of Freedom. That Freedom he had
watched with many yearnings grow apace in youthful lusti-
hood, subjugating the savage wildernesses of the New World

266 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

into mild and plenteous homes for the freed millions of the
Old — in a Future, he foresaw — until his full heart burst forth
in prophetic utterance : —

" That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapt in gloom ;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People : as the sands shalt thou become ;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade ;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade."

This magnificent image fixes the Apotheosis of the Eagle
of our standard, and settles all mooted questions of appropri-
ateness, etc., forever, as we conceive !" In spite of all the
indignities heaped upon the noble bird by the presumptuous
familiarities of Sophomore Eloquence in Fourth-of- July ora-
tions, or the fledgling muse of Patriotism in Heroic Odes, it
will nevertheless continue to be the proud synonyme and
emblem of Liberty ! Street's noble Ode to " The Gray For-
est Eagle," is, however, anything but a fledgling!

The Mexican Eagle is a true carrion bird, as filthy as it is
cowardly ; and our southern neighbors may really be con-
sidered as having some ground for sensitiveness in regard to
the character of their Standard, but we certainly have none.
It is hardly magnanimous to insult a fallen foe by instituting
a comparison, naturally suggested, between the character of
that bird and the people of which it is the National Em-
blem ; it is sufficient that for the present it has cowered be-
neath the higher flight, the stronger beak, and fiercer daring
of our own grand bird !

We have this Caracara, or Brazilian Eagle of the Mexican
standard, also as a resident of Texas and the Floridas, where
it is regarded with the mingled aversion and contempt which
all men feel for the vultures. But we have, as an offset to

EAGLES AND ART. 267

this, the most magnificent Eagle in the world — " The Bird
of Washington," as it has been most appropriately called by
Mr. Audubon, its discoverer. We shall not speak farther of
this majestic creature for the present. When we are no
longer an immature nation, then, perhaps, it might be well
to place this grand and stately bird upon our standard !

The White-headed Eagle is a true Yankee, and does every-
thing after a fashion of its own, without any regard to family
precedents. It is very uncommon for other Eagles to hunt
in pairs; indeed they never do it at any rate, except at ex-
traordinary times, in the breeding season. This Eagle, how-
ever, seems to be entirely utilitarian, and to be guided, in
this particular, by the necessities of the case. They seldom
feed apart, and if the habits of the prey most convenient to
them render it necessary, they combine for its pursuit with-
out consulting formulas of propriety. Mr. Audubon de-
scribes a well-known instance of this sort :

" When these Eagles, sailing in search of prey, discover a
Goose, a Duck, or a Swan, that has alighted on the water,
they accomplish its destruction in a manner that is worthy
of your attention. The Eagles, well aware that water-fowl
have it in their power to dive at their approach, and thereby
elude their attempts upon them, ascend in the air in oppo-
site directions over the lake or river, on which they have
observed the object which they are desirous of possessing.
Both Eagles reach a certain height, immediately after which
one of them glides with great swiftness towards the prey ;
the latter, meantime, aware of the Eagle's intention, dives
the moment before he reaches the spot. The pursuer then
rises in the air, and is met by its mate, which glides toward
the water-bird, that has just emerged to breathe, and forces
it to plunge again beneath the surface, to escape the talons
of this second assailant. The first Eagle is now poising
itself in the place where its mate formerly was, and rushes
anew to force the quarry to make another plunge. By thus
alternately gliding, in rapid and often repeated rushes, over

268 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

the ill-fated bird, they soon fatigue it, when it stretches out
its neck, swims deeply, and makes for the shore, in the hope
of concealing itself among the rank weeds. But this is of no
avail, for the Eagles follow it in all its motions, and the mo-
ment it approaches the margin, one of them darts upon it,
and kills it in an instant, after which they divide the spoil."

The hunters and Indians say that a pair of these birds will
sometimes attack, with success, a deer or antelope, upon the
prairies. They select some animal which, being wounded or
for other cause, has separated itself from the herd. They
assault it from above, something after the manner just de-
scribed, striking in swift dives at the eyes with beak and
talons, until the speed of the agonized creature is gradually
checked, and reeling blindly along for a little while, it falls,
to be torn an easy prey. The same fact is related concern-
ing the Great Vulture of the East and the Condor of South
America, both of which are known in this way to destroy
large animals that have been ever so slightly wounded —
being stimulated to the unusual assault by the smell of
blood.

The vital power of the Eagle is most amazing. In addi-
tion to the surprising fact, that it has been known to live as
many as twenty days without food, and exhibit little appa-
rent distress therefrom, it has been found to be about invul-
nerable to poisons, both gaseous and mineral, that are surely
fatal to other creatures. Two instances in point are men-
tioned in the Biography of Birds. In the first, a White-
headed Eagle was sentenced to contribute to a cabinet of
natural history, etc.

" A variety of experiments was made with a view to de-
stroy him without injuring his plumage, and a number of
mineral poisons were successively given him in large doses,
but without effect. At length a drachm of corrosive subli-
mate of mercury was inclosed in a small fish, and given him
to eat. After swallowing the whole of this, he continued to
appearance perfectly well, and free from inconvenience.

EAGLES AND ART- 269

The next day an equal quantity of white arsenic was given
him, without any greater effect ; so that in the end the re-
fractory bird was obliged to be put to death by mechanical
means."

In the second, a Golden Eagle was the victim. It had
been taken in a fox-trap, on the White Mountains, and was
procured alive and in fine condition, by Mr. Audubon, who
found it necessary to take its life that he might paint its por-
trait. The passage, though long for our space, is so charac-
teristic that we cannot refrain from giving it entire. He
says: — "I occupied myself a whole day in watching his
movements ; on the next I came to a determination as to the
position in which I might best represent him ; and on the
third thought of how I could take away his life with the
least pain to him. I consulted several persons on the sub-
ject, and among others my most worthy and generous friend,
GEORGE PARKMAN, Esq., M.D., who kindly visited my family
every day. He spoke of suffocating him by means of burn
ing charcoal, of killing him by electricity, &c., and we both
concluded that the first method would probably be the easiest
for ourselves, and the least painful to him. Accordingly the
bird was removed in his prison into a very small room, and
closely covered with blankets, into which was introduced a
pan of lighted charcoal, when the windows and doors were
fastened, and the blankets tucked in beneath the cage. I
waited, expecting every moment to hear him fall down from
his perch ; but after listening for hours, I opened the door,
raised the blankets, and peeped under them amidst a mass
of suffocating fumes. There stood the Eagle on his perch,
with his bright unflinching eye turned towards me, and as
lively and vigorous as ever ! Instantly reclosing every
aperture, I resumed my station at the door, and towards
midnight, not having heard the least noise, I again took a
peep at my victim. He was still uninjured, although the air
of the closet was insupportable to my son and myself, and
that of the adjoining apartment began to feel unpleasant. I

270 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

persevered, however, ten hours in all, when finding that the
charcoal fumes would not produce the desired effect, I re-
tired to rest wearied and disappointed.

" Early next morning I tried the charcoal anew, adding to
it a quantity of sulphur, but we were nearly driven from our
home in a few hours by the stifling vapors, while the noble
bird continued to stand erect, and to look defiance at us
whenever we approached his post of martyrdom. His fierce
demeanor precluded all internal application, and at last I
was compelled to resort to a method always used as the last
expedient, and a most effectual one. I thrust a long-pointed
piece of steel through his heart, when my proud prisoner
instantly fell dead, without even ruffling a feather.

"I sat up nearly the whole of another night to outline
him, and worked so constantly at the drawing, that it nearly
cost me my life. I was suddenly seized with a spasmodic
affection, that much alarmed my family, and completely
prostrated me for some days ; but, thanks to my heavenly
Preserver, and the immediate and unremitting attention of
my most worthy friends, Drs. PARKMAN, SHATTUCK, and
WARREN, I was soon restored to health, and enabled to pur-
sue my labors. The drawing of this Eagle took me fourteen
days, and I had never before labored so incessantly except-
ing at that of the Wild Turkey."

Ah, what an insight have we here of the patient, careful
processes and unsparing self-devotion of the Art-Naturalist !
Think ! — fourteen days of such ardent and unceasing labor
as to bring the strong man near to the grave ! — and all to
draw a single bird. Ye stupid contemners of such " lowly
themes" as the Art-Naturalist chose, think of this! — and
remember it was thus he won his illustrious name among
the Eagle-men of Earth !

This incessant and hurried labor was rendered necessary
by the fact, that the plumage and skin of the dead specimen
rapidly lose both color and gloss ! What an image of seem-
ingly unconquerable vitality is that of the Eagle on its perch,

EAGLES AND ART. 271

with bright unflinching eye, after thus breathing that deadly
gas for hours ! And now let us add, from the same source,
another sketch, that of the Old Eagle, illustrating this same
point.

"It is supposed that Eagles live to a very great age, —
some persons have ventured to say even a hundred years.
On this subject, I can only observe, that I once found one
of these birds, which, on being killed, proved to be a female,
and which, judging by its appearance, must have been very
old. Its tail and wing-feathers were so worn out, and of
such a rusty color, that I imagined the bird had lost the
power of moulting. The legs and feet were covered with
large warts, the claws and bill were much blunted, it could
scarcely fly more than a hundred yards at a time, and this it
did with a heaviness and unsteadiness of motion such as I
never witnessed in any other bird of the species. The body
was poor and very tough. The eye was the only part which
appeared to have sustained no injury. It remained spark-
ling and full of animation, and even after death seemed to
have lost little of its lustre. No wounds were perceivable
on its body."

Think of the gem-like glittering of that tameless glance
beneath the deepening shadows of the gathered years ! — it
seems as if the glorious bird would die into a diamond to
shine on, night-piercing and defiant there forever ! — as if the
light of that fierce life the storms have fed, would remain a
thing imperishable within that eyelet-hole, although the skull
should fall away to dust — the bloody beak leave but a hooked
line where it went out — and plumes that have been ruffled by
the thunder, float away impalpable upon a breath of air !

What changes has not that century-piercing vision wit-
nessed? The young Eagle, in its brown plumage, sailed
above silent woods, along the valleys of our great rivers in
the West, and there was nothing to make it afraid in the
shades beneath, except the whistling arrow of the Red-man,
when it passed above his wigwam, or rustled, brushing by

272 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

his still form, watching with sinew-strung bow amidst path-
less solitudes. When it had donned the blanched insignia
of Eagle-hood, and on steadier wings with swifter rushing
flight, spread its white tail and threw its white head far back
to utter resounding war-cries, then, with a shock, upsprung
in answer, the sharp ring of the rifle, and the hissing bullet
told that a more fearful foe had come ! And now it became
more wary and learned to fear for its wild empire ; for from
afar the gradual hum of an approaching civilization swelled
upon the ancient silence, until the belching roar of a Steam-
boat roused the startled echoes to reverberate on distant hills
as it passed up the quiet-gliding river ! Then in fire, in
thunder, and in smoke, the mysterious and terrible Advent
was announced to all the creatures of a wilderness which
was henceforth to own a new dominion, and with sullen
flappings the Eagle passed away towards the West, above
falling forests and uprising cities, to find the unviolated
solitudes.

There again the same sights and sounds would follow it
apace, until at last the Steam Horse, snorting flames, came
tearing through the bowels of the old solemn hills, to fill the
wide valleys beyond with the iron clangor of its hurtling
speed, and then the astounded guardian of Earth's Primeval
sleep whirled away on hurried wings, deeper yet deeper to-
wards the West ! Still the inexorable pursuers came upon
its track, and still it passed on before, in shortening flights,
until at last its earliest foe no longer answered with the war-
whoop to its scream, and the forests seemed oppressed with
the silence of a pause, as if it but awaited, breathlessly, the
terrible coming !

And here the swift- winged bird first felt that it was weary !
The steel-hinged pinions that had " sheared the subtile ay re"
so long, seemed to have lost their free, triumphing spring,
and it went heavily upon its way. Now its savage pride
becomes reconciled in a degree to the tumults and strange
sounds from which it fled at first in fiercest wrath, because

EAGLES AND ART. 273

it finds the lambs, pigs, geese and turkeys of the farm-yard
to be easier prey to its decaying powers than the wild crea-
tures it had proudly conquered in the earlier lustrums of the
century it is living to a close.

Now the Koyal Eagle sinks into a petty plunderer, and the
final decadence of its grandeur is, when, from the last patch
of its forest-home it launches out on stiffened wings above
the villages on some " Independence morning," and hears,
as it wheels slowly over the gathered crowds, wild shouts of
patriotic recognition as the youthful Orator points aloft to
the omen of Liberty ! — Shouts that but frighten the super-
annuated Cloud-King, which rushes on to the nearest covert
to hide, until the warty barnacles of age overtake it, and its
rusty plumes no longer lift it to the clouds !

18

CHAPTER XII.

MY WIFE'S STORY OF HER PET CAT-BIRD, " GENERAL BEM."

Two years ago we were residing in C . We had very few

friends near us, and sometimes the days seemed very dreary
and long to us, for our pet Brownie had been dead many
months, and we had said we could never have another such
pet ; to lose him had grieved us too much, and we would not
have our hearts so nearly broken again.

Still we could not but admire the taste of our new ac-
quaintance, "W , who kept his bachelor establishment

solely for the accommodation of pet song-birds, and that his
own love and genius for music might be nourished by this
association of all our most charming songsters. "We spent
many an hour in his " bird rooms," listening to the gay mim-
icry of mocking birds, the clear, musical piping of his English
black birds, and the loud, enchanting whistle of the cardinal
birds, carrying us dreamily deep into the shadow of wild-
woods, where other sounds faded from the ear, and all our
senses merged towards one centre, where gleamed the glow-
ing breast of the cardinal bird, lifted above the bare branches,
which stood gauntly out from the green, embosoming leaves
which would have shut him from the sunlight had he de-
scended.

The lark leaping upward, chaunted his song with a sad-
dened tone that made us weep, while we felt how even the
presence of those gay companions was no compensation for
the clear sky, which had filled his eye with such liquid light,

275

which had sunk into his soul, and so filled it with melody as
he beat the still air with his gentle wings.

Then hid away among the bushes which filled one corner,
we could sometimes catch a glimpse of Bob White, as he
called his " wife " back from her inquisitive peering at us, and
the little shore larks who were so shy and gliding, looking
ever as if some still wave from the sea was chasing them
higher on the sands, and as if they must in a moment take
wing, while we gaze steadily to distinguish their rapid quiv-
ering flight in the sunshine, from the dash of glittering spray.

But what have we here ? What a lovely figure — what
perfect plumage ! What do you call this gentleman who
seems to be protector general of all that crowd of canaries ?
See ! the scamp has pounced upon that large mocking bird,
and has sent him screaming in rage across the room. And
how cool he is ; he evidently does not consider that a great
feat. What a knowing air he has! — how, he determines to
make our acquaintance — to retort to our questionings. We
beg the honor of an introduction to this extremely nonchal-
ant gentleman. No ! do not tell me he is called simple
" Master Cat-Bird " — let me confer upon him his rightful title.
Henceforth we shall know him as " General Bern " — the
brave general — the magnanimous, the impulsive though calm,
the handsome, our favorite General Bern. Come here, and
take this berry in proof that your honors are real, not vision-
ary, as the world too often makes them. Henceforth thou
art Bern ! Great Bern — we take thee to our heart and — may
we be permitted to take him to our home !

Well, General Bern went home with us at once, and was
immediately given his liberty, which he made use of by peer-
ing into every closet, examining and dragging everything
from its proper place, which he could manage, pecking and
squalling, dashing hither and thither, until at night he quietly
went into his cage as if he was nearly or quite positive that
he must commence a new career on the morrow ; it was evi-
dent that he had to begin the world over again, yet, as he

276 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

was not superannuated, and was, withal, ambitious, his case
was still not a desperate one, although we had assured him
most positively, that we would not fall in love with him — we
had only invited him there to help us pass the time.

Bern looked wise at the assertion, but said nothing. The
next morning we gave him water for a bath, which he im-
mediately used, and then sprang upon my head very much
to my surprise ; then he darted to the window, then back to
my head, screaming all the time most vociferously, until
finally I went to the window, for peace sake, and stood in
the sunshine while Bern composedly dressed his feathers,
standing on my head first on one foot, then on the other,
evidently using my scalp as a sort of foot-stove, and my head
for a movable pedestal for his impudent generalship to perch
on when he felt disposed to be comfortably elevated ; and had
clearly come to the conclusion — as I was so fond of trans-
porting him from his native land — that I should serve as a
convenient craft to bear him where his moods commanded.
In a word, he had determined to turn tyrant ; if I had had
the deliberate purpose of using him as a mere toy, he had at
least the coolness to make me available, and from that time
I became the victim of the most unequalled tyranny. Did
I neglect his morning bath beyond the instant, my ears were
assailed with screams and cries till I was forced to my
duty ; I must bear him into the sunshine or my hair was
pulled ; 1 must bring him his breakfast or he pecked my
cheeks and lips ; in fine, I was compelled to become his con-
stant attendant, while, in the meantime, he most diligently
assailed my heart by endearing confidences. He would sit
upon my arm and sleep, he would get into my work-box, and
while I watched that he did not pilfer a little, he would
quietly seat himself on its edge, and in a low, sweet voice, lull
my suspicions by such tender melodies, that finally I could no
longer say — "I will not love you, Bern I" — but gave him the
satisfactory assurance that he was not quite so much of a
tease as I had tried to think him ; and he now received my

"GENERAL BEM." 277

daily offering of small spiders and worms with gestures of
evident pleasure. These were always presented to him en-
veloped in white paper, which he carefully opened and se-
cured then his prey before it could escape, even although
it was sometimes a difficult task to keep his vigilant eye
upon so many apparently escapading — when I was called to
the field, and appointing me a station, I was expected to give
the alarm when one attempted to get away on my side, which
he immediately killed and dropped, and then darted after
those on the outskirts of the field of action.

At last, one day, Mr. Webber brought for my sister a
wood thrush, which was very wild and savage, and was, be-
sides, extremely ugly, but had the reputation of being a good
singer, which made us forgive his sullen temper and hope to
win him back to more gentle ways, when he should see thaA
we would be his friends and that he should be almost free ;
besides, Gen. Bern was evidently much inclined to make his
acquaintance, and took the first occasion to pay him a visit
in his cage-house. This the stranger did not fancy, and drove
him out. Bern resented this, by turning on the threshold
and pouring forth a torrent of screams and mewings which
came near distracting the poor thrush, who darted at him
and chased him to the bed, under which Bern darted, and
was secure for the present. But from that time there were
no more overtures of friendship — they were sworn enemies ;
the thrush, from detestation of the impudent fellow who in-
vaded his residence, and finally appropriated it, to the entire
desertion of his own, which, by-the-bye, was much larger, and
with which the thrush eventually consoled himself, and Bern
continued to occupy, because it amused him to pester the ill-
natured fellow which he had set down the thrush to be. Many
were the quaint scenes which now daily occurred. If Bern de-
sired to take a bathe, the thrush would endeavor to push him
out; but Bern was not to be ousted in that style if he could pre-
vent it, and commonly sent the poor thrush away in consterna-
tion, his musical ear stunned by such direful din as threatened

278 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

to rend his delicate heart as well as tympanum. Ne rer shall
I forget one droll scene. One day, Bern found on the floor a
white grape which he seemed to be disposed comfortably to dis-
cuss, after having rolled it out into the broad sunshine. Just
at this moment the thrush stepped up in a cool and dignified
manner, and carried the grape off — dropped it in the shade,
and deliberately drawing up one foot among his feathers,
seemed to say : "I claim this grape as my own, I stand on
the defensive, come and get it if you dare !" — so closed the
"off" eye, and looked as if the matter was settled to his en-
tire satisfaction.

Bern had been in the very act of pecking the grape
when it was so unceremoniously withdrawn ; he drew him-
self up on tip-toe fairly with astonishment, his eye seemed
to grow larger and rounder, the feathers on his head stood
alternately erect and clung close to the scalp ; he stood a mo-
ment or two, and then with a loud "mew," darted forward
to re-capture the stolen fruit, but the thrush coolly and si-
lently met him with open mouth and body thrown forward,
yet still covering the grape. Bern's wit returned to him — he
quietly turned off, as if it was a small matter anyhow. We
were astonished — was Bern a coward after all ? would he per-
mit this bird, even if he was larger, to impose upon him in
this fashion, and he able to whip mocking birds at that ? We
shook our heads ; if Bern does that we shall withdraw his
laurels. But see ! he comes cautiously about the thrush —
what does he mean ? ah, we perceive ; Bern has sagaciously
only changed his tactics, we will watch him ; he thinks the
thrush will want some dinner pretty soon, and then, as Bern dis-
dains to be called quarrelsome, he will quietly appropriate his
treasure. Four hours things retained this position, the thrush
never moving more than six inches from his post, though
evidently becoming hungry and weary, while Bern silently
wandered about the room, feasting in the most provokingly
cool way in both cages, and continually making inadvertent
incursions in the neighborhood of his enemy, as if for the

"GENEKAL BEM. " 279

purpose of throwing Mm off his guard. At last, Bern was
on the other side of the room, the thrush had been eyeing
a dainty morsel which Bern had dropped about two feet from
him. He looked, Bern was too much engaged to notice him, he
could easily venture — he would — he did. Bern, whose keen
eye had seen all, darted like lightning, and before the thrush
could turn about and seize again the contested treasure, Bern
had alighted on the centre of the bed — the only place in the
room where the thrush would not follow him — and there
quietly tore the grape to pieces and left it.

But, alas ! we had to send our brave, sagacious Bern home
again. We were to make a long journey to the South, and.
he must stay behind. Ah, the poor fellow knew as well as
we, that we were bidding him adieu. He pecked our fin-
gers in great distress, and bit our lips till the blood came, in
the energy of his farewell — while he uttered such sad low
cries as made us mourn for many a day in the remembrance.

During our absence we wrote frequently inquiring of Bern,
and many an injunction to him, to live and die, if need be,
the same brave general we had known him. We never ex-
pected to see him again ; but, after a year of wanderings, we
did return to our old home. At once we went to see the
general, little dreaming that we should be remembered.
What was our surprise, then, when we called " Bern ! Bern !
General Bern !" to see our dear friend and pet dart down to
us from his hiding-place, and most evidently recognize us —
his eye sparkling, his scalp feathers raised, his wings droop-
ing, and that same low cry which had haunted us so long,
greeting us again. Our happiness was real — and when we
offered him the white paper, he instantly darted upon it, and
tore it asunder to get the well-remembered treasure he had
always found within.

Again Bern went home with us — this time to fill our
hearts with affection by his quaint impish ways and gentle
waywardness. Now, he became a privileged character ; my
paint-box was his especial admiration — he treated it with

280 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

great veneration, having discovered that birds grew out of
the little square pebbles, as he doubtless considered them —
until one day he perceived that I objected to his lifting from
its case a black-looking, ill-shaped piece of paint, that I was
even decidedly opposed to his meddling with it ; from that
moment that particular piece became a treasure — its value
so great to him, that hide where I might, it had ever an in-
visible glitter, which to his eyes was brighter than any gem ;
he would find and hide it from me, and thus I had at least
once every day to search the room over for this indispen-
sable color. No matter that I threatened him, he coolly
dressed his feathers and commenced so dreamy a song as to
soothe my rage at once. He became my constant compan-
ion, he bathed with me in the morning, he took his dinners
with me from my plate, and perched at night close to my head.
He sat on my shoulder or head when I worked, and seemed
to express his opinion in regard to my progress in bird-
making, with quite a connoisseuring air. He grew to be
profoundly jealous of all other birds, and if I talked to a
fine mocking bird, whose cage hung in my room, he would
become so enraged and finally depressed, that I became
alarmed — I feared he would die. One day I had given this
bird some water, my hand was in the cage, the mocking bird
was pecking at rny fingers, when with a loud and vicious
scream, General Bern dashed from the floor up into the
cage, and commenced a violent assault upon the inmate.
The struggle was but for a moment — he dashed out and I
shut the cage door — while Bern, mounted on the bed-post,
sent forth such yells of fury as I never heard from bird's
lungs before. I could not pacify him for a long time — seve-
ral hours — he hid in the shade of the furniture, and would
not be induced to come out. The next day the mocker was
flying about the room, Bern assailed him, and the fight be-
came so desperate, that I was obliged to send the mocking
bird away, while my poor Bern was seized with convulsions,
and I thought him dead after a few moments. But his time

281

had not yet come, lie lived to pass through, many such scenes
of painful suffering.

I had about the same time a Painted Finch. This was
the most quarrelsome little rogue in the world, and con-
tinually invited Bern to a trial of skill. But Bern refused,
with the most decisive manner, to have anything to do with
him, and although the Finch was the most tyrannical com-
panion, preventing Bern from entering his own cage, driving
him from certain parts of the room, and really making him-
self intensely disagreeable at times, yet Bern magnanimously
refused to become provoked into a quarrel with his petite
enemy, and seemed rather to be amused, never even conde-
scending to become jealous of the pretty Finch.

One cold day, the Finch concluded to take a flight among
the bare branches of the trees in the garden. The window
was down about two inches, and he went out. We had
much difficulty in catching the fellow, and only succeeded
when he had become numbed with the cold. When we re-
turned from our chase after him, what was our consterna-
tion at finding that both doors and windows had been left

open. Bern must be gone — he had gone away from W

on every possible occasion, and the town time after time had
been thrown into confusion by the hue and cry, " Bern has
escaped! come to the rescue !"

Had I any hope ? would he be more likely to stay now
than when snow was on the ground ? He had gone 1 My
eyes were too dim with tears to search for him. I called with
fearful voice: "Bern! Bern! where are you, my bird?" A
soft chirp, and Bern hopped from the perch he had made,
and looked so confidingly at me and kissed me so prettily,
that I felt quite assured that he would never leave me. Yet
he often after teased me by hiding when I went away, as if
he enjoyed, coquettishly, the pain he gave me.

He now refused to allow anybody to caress him except us,
and seemed to imagine that he was sent to be my especial
protector. One day, early in the spring, we had been walk-

282 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

ing in the fields and had caught from the grass some frag-
ments of burr. These "W was brushing off from my

dress, when we were attracted by a singular hissing sound,
resembling that made by a snake. We turned, Bern stood
upon a stick of fire-wood, one of several which lay in the
corner, his body straightened almost horizontally with the
stick, his feathers erect on his whole body, the wings droop-
ing below his feet, his eyes distended and glistening with
the fire and animosity of a snake, the bill turned slightly
upward and partially open, while the hissing continued,
increasing in vehemence with every movement made by

W . If he approached him with his hand, Bern would

dart at it and peck at it with the greatest violence, and seemed

to think W had not only caused me to absent myself

from him, but had now become my foe, consequently he must

protect me. Ever after, he treated W with the most

malignant expressions of dislike, never permitting him to
touch me in any possible way. Yet he afterwards, when

our friend J. W. F visited as, exhibited towards him all

the confidential affection with which he treated us — making
it a point to visit him in his room every morning, to inspect
his toilet, and going to sleep on his shoulder or head at night.
But Bern became too human, his little body could not be
expected long to enshroud the soul which had been develop-
ing in him. His eye had grown too large, and his intelli-
gence fearful. He had to suffer too much as men do, and we
loved him too much. "Who could have resisted him ? Some-
times, when I grew sick or sad, and would throw myself on
a lounge and weep childishly, as I will sometimes, then my
poor Bern would come to me and peck gently at my fingers,
gradually increasing the force of his blow until I noticed and
spoke to him. One day I would not speak to him — his
efforts were all unheeded — I would not be roused. His dis-
tress was pitiable, his rage unbounded; he imagined that
something behind me was injuring me, he scolded and beat
the cushions with his wings and bill ; he caressed me by

"GENERAL BEM." 283

gently pecking my face and hands, and tried to make me
speak by tugging at my dress ; he sang to me a meek, loving
song, so softly in my ear, as he sat on my shoulder, that I
could not wickedly resist the good angel — my precious Bern !

There was yet another charming trait of our pet which I
must mention. He was, of course, always astir very early
in the morning, and then, after flitting about the room impa-
tiently for some time, he would alight upon one or the other
of our foreheads, and begin to peck at our eye-lashes and
lids until he had succeeded in waking us both fully, then he
would dart away and commence singing in great glee. He
had grown tired of loneliness, and had no toleration for the
thought of wasting his sweetness !

His faith in our friendship was so charming. One night
Mr. Webber was sitting at the window, I on my knees, gaz-
ing out into the gathering twilight ; Bern forsook his ordinary
perch for the night, and alit upon my shoulder, nestling
closer and closer to my cheek, until his warm breast and
throat were pressed close to my cheek. How we loved the
dear little fellow I Oh, to think that I should have lost my
sweet pet the very next day. That, that was to be his last ca-
ress ! My heart feels very sad and lonely when I recall that
night — when I remember the last farewell of my pet Bern !

The next morning I went from my room into another —
the door was left open — Bern followed in search — became
finally alarmed, and darted from an upper window into the
wilderness of leaves below. He found his way back, and
would have been my own again, but a wicked woman who
had less soul than a wild cat-bird, startled him again and
again, until, panic-stricken, he fled. That evening came a ter-
rible storm, and my poor, poor Bern never returned.

I leave this " ower true tale " to tell for itself the story of
this branch of the illustrious family of the Turdinae, as it
appears when so strangely humanized by being thrown into
intimate relations to the higher spiritualities of our race.

284 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

Wilson and Audubon have both some touching passages,
which go so strikingly to illustrate the exceeding amiability
and sympathetic tenderness of this most gentle but perse-
cuted creature, that I cannot refrain from giving them as a
plea on its behalf.

Wilson says : " In passing through the woods in summer,
I have sometimes amused myself with imitating the violent
chirping or squeaking of young birds, in order to observe
what different species were around — for such sounds, at such
a season, in the woods, are no less alarming to the feathered
tenants of the bushes, than the cry of fire or murder in the
streets is to the inhabitants of a large and populous city.

" On such occasions of alarm and consternation, the cat-bird
is the first to make his appearance, not singly, but sometimes
half-a-dozen at a time, flying from different quarters to the
spot. At this time, those who are disposed to play with his
feelings may almost throw him into fits, his emotion and agi-
tation are so great at the distressing cries of what he supposes
to be his suffering young.

" Other birds are variously affected, but none show symp-
toms of such extreme suffering. He hurries backwards and
forwards, with hanging wings and open mouth, calling out
louder and faster, and actually screaming with distress, till
he appears hoarse with his exertions. He attempts no offen-
sive means, but he bewails, he implores in the most pathetic
terms with which nature has supplied him, and with an agony
of feeling which is truly affecting. Every feathered neigh-
bor within hearing hastens to the place, to learn tLe cause
of the alarm, peeping about with looks of consternation and
sympathy. But their own powerful parental duties and do-
mestic concerns soon oblige each to withdraw. At other
seasons, the most perfect imitations have no effect whatever
upon him."

Wilson, also, in a note from Mr. Bartram, gives a fine in-
stance of the courage of the cat-bird in defending its nest,
and even the very neighborhood thereof. I have witnessed

"GENERAL BEM." 285

many such instances of its devoted valor, in battling with
snakes and cats.

" Yesterday," says Mr. Bartram, " I observed a conflict or
contest between a cat-bird and a snake. It took place in a
gravel walk in the garden, near a dry wall of stone. I was
within a few yards of the combatants. The bird pounced or
darted upon the snake, snapping his bill ; the snake would
then draw himself quickly into a coil, ready for a blow, but
the bird would cautiously circumvent him at a little distance,
now and then running up to and snapping at him, but keep-
ing at a sufficient distance to avoid a blow. After some
minutes it became a running fight, the snake retreating, and
at last he took shelter in the wall. The cat-bird had young
ones in the bushes near the field of battle."

Audubon also bears ample testimony to the unhesitating
self-devotion of this charming little songster, when once its
sympathies have been aroused, as well as to the attractive
character of its song, and its sagacious estimate of the mo-
tives and character of those who approach its nest :

" No sooner has the cat-bird made its appearance in the
country of its choice, than its song is heard from the topmost
branches of the trees around, in the dawn of the morning.
This song Is a compound of many of the gentler trills and
sweet modulations of our various woodland choristers, de-
livered with apparent caution, and with all the attention and
softness necessary to enable the performer to please the ear
of his mate. Each cadence passes on without faltering, and
if you are acquainted with the songs of the birds he so sweetly
imitates, you are sure to recognize the manner of the differ-
ent species. "When the warmth of his loving bosom engages
him to make choice of the notes of our best songsters, he
brings forth sounds as mellow and as powerful as those of
the thrasher and mocking bird. These medleys, when heard
in the calm and balmy hours of retiring day, always seem to
possess a double power, and he must have a dull ear indeed.

286 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

and little relish for the simple melodies of nature, who can
listen to them without delight.

" The manners of this species are lively, and at intervals
border on the grotesque. It is extremely sensitive, and will
follow an intruder to a considerable distance, wailing and
mewing as it passes from one tree to another, its tail now
jerked and thrown from side to side, its wings drooping and
its breast deeply inclined. On such occasions it would fain
peck at your hand ; but these exhibitions of irritated feeling
seldom take place after the young are sufficiently grown to
be able to take care of themselves. In some instances, I
have known this bird to recognize at once its friend from its
foe, and to suffer the former even to handle the treasure de-
posited in its nest, with all the marked assurance of the
knowledge it possessed of its safety ; when, on the contrary,
the latter had to bear all its anger. The sight of a dog sel-
dom irritates it, while a single glance at the wily cat excites
the most painful paroxysms of alarm. It never neglects to
attack a snake with fury, although it often happens that it
becomes the sufferer for its temerity."

Now if any one who reads all that we have already given
in its behalf, still feels his or her sympathies untouched in
favor of our loving and heroic Cat-Bird, we would, to such,
make one other last appeal in a short passage more from Au-
dubon. Those who can resist such traits as we find here de-
picted, must weep hailstones for tears, if they ever do weep.

"The attachment which the cat-bird shows towards its
eggs or young, is affecting. It even possesses a humanity,
or rather a generosity and gentleness worthy of being more
elevated in the scale of nature. It has been known to nurse,
feed and raise the young of other species, for which no room
could be afforded in their nests. It will sit on its eggs after
the nest has been displaced, or even after it has been carried
from one bush to another."

CHAPTER XIII.

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH HAWK

WE must premise in speaking of the " Bird of Washing-
ton," that the existence of any such distinct species, as to
entitle it to a new name, is still regarded by the majority of
American naturalists, at least, as hypothetical. Indeed, the
savans of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
utterly repudiate the existence, of any such species, persisting
that it is merely the great Cinerious, or Sea-Eagle, which
Mr. Audubon has mistaken for a new variety. This bird,
Falco Albicilla, even Mr. Audubon acknowledges to bear so
strong a resemblance to the Bird of Washington, Falco
Washingtoniis, as to be easily confounded with it by a super-
ficial observer. Now the Philadelphia Academicians assert
that the specimen referred to by Audubon as having been
deposited for the Washington Eagle, by Dr. Kichard Harlan, in
their collection, is nothing more nor less than a very large Sea-
Eagle, and that the drawing by Audubon himself is clearly
of a bird of the same species. Here doctors disagree, to be
sure, and I am not entirely certain that the Philadelphia^
are not in some degree right ; but that there is a new eagle,
which has not yet been figured, or described, peculiar to the
North American continent, I am perfectly sure, and that this
eagle is the one noticed by Mr. Audubon, who saw it several
times on the wing, I am equally certain, even although the
particular bird figured by him may have been a Sea-Eagle.
In a word, though there can be no doubt that he several

288 WILD SCENES AND SONG BIKDS.

times saw a new eagle on the wing, there may be some doubt
about the particular specimen shot by him at Henderson be-
ing the same bird. I shall first, although having previously
furnished a portion of these extracts in my first volume, give
his description of the discovery by him of the Washington
Eagle, feeling myself fully justified by the importance of the
subject, in quoting them entire, before I proceed to explain
my reasons for the seemingly paradoxical opinion given
here.

Mr. Audubon says :

" It was in the month of February, 1814, that I obtained
the first sight of this noble bird, and never shall I forget the
delight which it gave me. Not even Herschel, when he dis-
covered the planet which bears his name, could have ex-
perienced more rapturous feelings. We were on a trading
voyage, ascending the Upper Mississippi. The keen wintry
blasts whistled around us, and the cold from which I suffered
had, in a great degree, extinguished the deep interest which,
kt other seasons, this magnificent sight has been wont to
wake in me. I lay stretched beside our patroon. The safety
of the cargo was forgotten, and the only thing that called my
attention was the multitude of ducks of different species, ac-
companied by vast flocks of swans, which from time to time
passed us. My patroon, a Canadian, had been years en-
gaged in the fur trade. He was a man of much intelligence .;
and, perceiving that these birds had engaged my curiosity,
seemed anxious to find some new object to divert me. An
eagle flew over us. ' How fortunate !' he exclaimed, ' this
is what I could have wished. Look, sir, the Great Eagle,
and the only one I have seen since I left the lakes.' I was
instantly on my feet, and having observed it attentively,
concluded, as I lost it in the distance, that it was a species
quite new to me. My patroon assured me that such birds
were indeed rare ; that they sometimes followed the hunters,
to feed on the entrails of the animals which they had killed
when the lakes were frozen over ; but that when the lakes

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 289

were open, they would dive in the day-time after fish, and
snatch them up in the manner of the fish-hawk ; and that
they roosted generally on the shelves of the rocks, where
they built their nests, of which he had discovered several by
the quantity of white dung scattered below.

u Convinced that the bird was unknown to naturalists, I
felt particularly anxious to learn its habits, and to discover
in what particulars it differed from the rest of its genus. My
next meeting with this bird was a few years afterward,
whilst engaged in collecting cray-fish on one of those flats
which border and divide Green river, in Kentucky, near
its junction with the Ohio. The river is there bordered by
a range of high cliffs, which, for some distance, follow its
windings. I observed on the rocks, which, at that place,
are nearly perpendicular, a quantity of white ordure, which
I attributed to owls, that might have resorted thither. I
mentioned the circumstance to my companions, when one of
them, who lived within a mile and a half of the place, told
me it was from the nest of the Brown Eagle, meaning the
White-headed Eagle (Falco Leucocephalus), in its immature
state. I assured him this could not be, and remarked, that
neither the old nor the young birds of that species ever build
in such places, but always in trees. Although he could not
answer my objection, he stoutly maintained that a Brown
Eagle of some kind, above the usual size, had built there ;
and added, that he had espied the nest some days before,
and had seen one of the old birds dive and catch a fish. •
This he thought strange, having, till then, always observed
that both Brown Eagles and Bald Eagles procured this kind
of food by robbing the fish-hawks. He said, that if I felt
particularly anxious to know what nest it was, I might soon
satisfy myself, as the old birds would come and feed their
young with fish, for he had seen them do so before.

" In high expectation, I seated myself about a hundred
yards from the foot of the rock. Never did time pass more
slowly. I could not help betraying the most impatient

19

290 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

curiosity, for my hopes whispered it was a Sea Eagle's nest.
Two long hours elapsed before the old bird made his appear-
ance, which was announced to us by the loud hissings of the
two young ones, which crawled to the extremity of the hole
to receive a fine fish. I had a perfect view of this noble
bird as he held himself to the edging rock, hanging like the
barn bank, or social swallow, his tail spread, and his wings
partly so. I trembled lest a word should escape my com-
panions. The slightest murmur had been treason from them.
They entered into my feelings, and, though little interested,
gazed with me. In a few minutes the other parent joined
her mate ; and, from the difference in size (the female of
rapacious birds being much larger), we knew this to be the
mother bird. She also brought a fish ; but more cautious
than her mate, she glanced her quick and piercing eye
around, and instantly perceived that her abode had been dis-
covered. She dropped her prey, with a loud shriek com-
municated the alarm to the male, and, hovering with him
over our heads, kept up a growling cry, to intimidate us
from our suspected design. This watchful solicitude I have
ever found peculiar to the female — must I be understood to
speak only of birds ?

" The young having concealed themselves, we went and
picked up the fish which the mother had let fall. It was a
white perch, weighing about five and a half pounds. The
upper part of the head was broken in, and the back torn by
the talons of the eagle. We had plainly seen her bearing it
in the manner of the fish-hawk.

" This day's sport being at an end, we journeyed home-
ward, we agreed to return the next morning, with the view
of obtaining both the old and young birds ; but rainy and
tempestuous weather setting in, it became necessary to defer
the expedition till the third day following, when, with guns
and men all in readiness, we reached the rock. Some post-
ed themselves at the foot, others upon it, but in vain. We
passed the entire day without either seeing or hearing an

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. . 291

eagle, the sagacious birds, no doubt, having anticipated an
invasion, and removed their young to new quarters.

" I come at last to the day which I had so often and so
ardently desired. Two years had gone by since the dis-
covery of the nest, in fruitless excursions ; but my wishes
were no longer to remain ungratified. In returning from
the little village of Henderson, to the house of Dr. Rankin,
about a mile distant, I saw an eagle rise from a small in-
closure, not a hundred yards before me, where the doctor
had, a few days before, slaughtered some hogs, and alight
upon a low tree branching over the road. I prepared my
double-barrelled piece, which I constantly carry, and went
slowly and cautiously toward him. Quite fearlessly he
awaited my approach, looking on me with undaunted eye.
I fired, and he fell. Before I reached him he was dead.
With what delight did I survey the magnificent bird ! Had
the finest salmon ever pleased him, as he did me ? Never.
I ran and presented him to my friend with a pride which
they alone feel who, like me, have devoted themselves from
their earliest childhood to such persuits, and who have de-
rived from them their first pleasures. To others, I must
seem to l prattle out of fashion.' The doctor, who was an
experienced hunter, examined the bird with much satisfac-
tion, and frankly acknowledged he had never before seen or
heard of it.

" The name which I have chosen for this new species of
eagle — the Bird of Washington — may, by some, be con-
sidered as preposterous and unfit ; but as it is, indisputably,
the noblest bird of its genus that has yet been discovered
in the United States, I trust I shall be allowed to honor it
with the name of one yet nobler, who was the savior of his
country, and whose name will ever be dear to it. To those
who may be curious to know my reasons, I can only say
that, as the new world gave me birth and liberty, the great
man who insured its independence is next my heart. He
had a nobility of mind and a generosity of soul, such as are

292 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

seldom possessed. He was brave, so is the eagle ; like it, too,
he was the terror of his foes ; and his fame, extending from
pole to pole, resembles the majestic soaring of the mightiest
of the feathered tribe If America has reason to be proud
of her Washington, so has she to be proud of her great
eagle.

" In the month of January following, I saw a pair of these
eagles flying over the falls of the Ohio, one in pursuit of the
other. The next day I saw them again. The female had
relaxed her severity, and laid aside her coyness, and to a
favorite tree they continually resorted. I pursued them un-
successfully for several days, when they forsook the place.

" The flight of this bird is very different from that of the
"White-headed Eagle. The former encircles a greater space
whilst sailing, keeps nearer to the land and the surface of the
water, and when about to dive for fish, falls in a spiral man-
ner, as if with the intention of checking any retreating move-
ment which its prey might attempt, darting upon it only
when a few "yards distant. The Fish-Hawk often does the
same. When rising with a fish, the Bird of Washington flies
to a considerable distance, forming, in its line of course, a
very acute angle with the surface line of the water. My last
opportunity of seeing this bird, was on the loth of Novem-
ber, 1821, a few miles above the mouth of the Ohio, when
two passed over our boat, moving down the river with a
gentle motion. In a letter from a kind relative, Mr. W.
Bakewell, dated " Falls of the Ohio, July, 1819," and con-
taining particulars relative to the swallow-tailed hawk (Falco
furcatus), that gentleman says : ' Yesterday, for the first time,
I had an opportunity of viewing one of these magnificent
birds, which you call the Sea Eagle, as it passed low over
me, whilst fishing. I shall be really glad when I can again
have the pleasure of seeing your drawing of it.' "

I can mention but one instance in my life — and it has been
no inactive one — in which I have seen what I knew to be
this or a similar new species. Nearly fifteen years, ago when

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 293

standing on the deck of a steamer, in which I was ascending
the Upper Mississippi, beyond Galena, I saw pass over us,
flying very low, an immense eagle which I instantly new to
be a new bird, and conjectured must be the Bird of Washing-
ton'— but conjectures won't do in science. I distinctly re-
member the strangeness of the sensation — the wild thrill —
half awe and wonder — with which I looked up when the
strange bird stirred the dim evening with the rush of mighty
pinions just above me. With what an eager eye I followed
up its slow and far recession — with what tumultuous images
of fierce exulting freedom, boundless wilds and hidden mira-
cles of strength and beauty, I was filled ! 0, the power and
splendor of the world that weareth wings ! How should our
tyrannous will have known the infinite and conquered space,
but that these winged eagles taught us — how tamed the ele-
ments, but that storm-cleaving pinions learned us first
defiance ?

But this is scarcely to the point of our narrative. I have
fortunately seen the new bird vis-a-vis, within a few months,
and now know beyond conjecture that it does exist. During
a short stay in Louisville, in February of this year, '53, 1 was
informed by some kind friends of mine, of the existence of
a large specimen of eagles in the neighborhood — at Cave-Hill
Cemetery — which had been raised from a fledging by a gen-
tleman who has charge of the grounds. My friends asserted
confidently that it was the Bird of Washington, and I, with
great eagerness, immediately proposed a visit to the cemetery.
A small party of us accordingly rode out the next morning.
We were courteously received by the gentleman owning the
bird, and forthwith conducted to its barred prison. There I
found perched, to my great delight, a magnificent eagle, of
greater size than any with which I was familiar, in full and
perfect health and splendid plumage. The owner assured
me that he had held the bird in his possession for five years.

Having heard through some correspondent of his, that
there was a pair of large Fishing Eagles frequenting certain

294 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

bluffs along the shores of Lake Huron, he wrote to him im-
mediately to endeavor to find its eyrie and send him one of
the young.

His friend had been successful, and sent him this young
bird ; stating, at the same time, that the location of the nest
and the general habits of the old birds, entirely corresponded
with the description Mr. Audubon had given of his dis-
covery and observation of the nest and habits of the Bird
of Washington, in the cliffs of Green River, Kentucky.

I had no copy of Audubon's plate at hand, to compare the
drawing with the living bird ; but perceiving surely that it
was entirely new, I concluded hastily that it must be the
veritable " Falco Washingtonii" — especially as its owner
stated that he had several times had this specimen compared
with Audubon's original plate, and found its markings to
agree fully. Still I had some little doubt, fearing that my
memory might have deceived me, and therefore requested
my wife — as the period of our stay had now nearly closed —
to at least take an accurate sketch of the head of this fine
specimen in pencil. She did so, and I was particularly careful
to note the proportions. I know these to be perfectly accu-
rate, and on comparing them when I returned to Philadelphia,
both with the drawing of Audubon and the specimens in the
Academy of Natural Sciences, so much talked of, I became con-
vinced that this was a different species from either, and that,
too, in characteristics admitting of no close correspondence.

In Audubon's plate the correspondence is not accurate by
any means, in coloring of the plumage in the first place — and
then the outlines of the head and form of the beak are in
too many respects dissimilar to admit of the possibility of so
accurate an artist having been guilty of such omissions in a
subject so important to his reputation. He had clearly seen
the new bird on the wing, and not having as yet chanced to
meet with the great Cinerious Eagle in his wanderings, he
has unguardedly confounded it with the new bird which he
had seen before on the wing, and which he meant to name

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 295

" The Bird of Washington " — and which beside has quite as
positive existence as any winged aerial monarch of them all.
Though Audubon may have failed in figuring the right sub-
ject— still the observation of this new variety — ay, and its
discovery, ever belongs to him, the Eagle-eyed ! He knew
his mates, though they were strangers fleeting and swift as
broadest wings could make them 1 He may have erred, but
then the great Sea Eagle is a bird of mighty scope of wing —
a continent to him is but a narrow Isthmus of full flight.
He drops here and there as at "mine inn" along the zones,
and finds new hemispheres to perch !

It surely may be reconciled to ordinary coincidences of
this class when we have the singular fact that the " Jer
Falcon," which is well known as a habitant of the Northern
and Polar regions of our Continent, was shot within a few
miles of Louisville, Kentucky, a year or two since. I had an
opportunity of examining the splendid specimen of this
bird, which had been carefully stuffed and mounted, and
found it to be much finer than any I had yet seen in the
Academies and Museums of the North and East. How came
it there ? What storm had been resistless enough to drift its
unconquerable wings thus far inland ? It was one of Nature's
mysteries. But there it was — the veritable Jer Falcon, with
its broad breast and swallow-like wings — its keen beak and
powerful claws ! Some tornado must have caught it in its
gusts, and whirled it, dizzied and blind, amidst the huge tur-
moil of space — away ! away in baffled battling into unfami-
liar realms. That the bird was both weary and confounded
was evidenced in the fact, that the most vigilant, wary and
ferocious of all the falcons could be approached and killed
by a boy, with a small fowling-piece, loaded with bird-shot.

Could the great Cinerious Eagle, shot by Mr. Audubon,
have been, too, astray ? At all events, the bird I saw is not
identical with Audubon's Bird of Washington, as figured!
Of this I am equally certain, as he supposed himself to be in
the figuring and identification of the species, and hope to

296 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

give in iny next volume of the Hunter Naturalist, a correct
figure, under the artistic hand of my wife.

We have, too, a great Sea-Eagle, which nearly agrees in
its proportions with that described as the Bird of Washing-
ton, and which inhabits the British possessions on the Pacific
coast, north of Oregon. This bird, Haliaetus pelagicus, has
been figured for the new work of John Cassin, Esq., and
will appear in his second number. This work is supple-
mentary to that of Mr. Audubon, and will contain the latest
discoveries of ornithological species since his publication.
Mr. Audubon says further, in relation to his discovery :

" Whilst in Philadelphia, about twelve months ago, I had
the gratification of seeing a fine specimen of this eagle at
Mr. Brano's Museum. It was a male, in fine plumage, and
beautifully preserved. I wished to purchase it, with a view
to carry it to Europe, but the price put upon it was above
my means.

"My excellent friend, Eichard Harlan, M.D., of that city,
speaking of this bird, in a letter, dated "Philadelphia,
August 19th, 1830," says, "That fine specimen of the
Washington Eagle, which you noticed in Brano's Museum,
is at present in my possession. I have deposited it in the
academy, where it will most likely remain." I saw the
specimen alluded to, which, as far as I could observe, agreed
in size and markings exactly with my drawing ; to which,
however, I could not at the time refer, as it was, with the whole
of my collection, deposited in the British Museum, under
the care of my ever kind and esteemed friend, 0. Gr. Chil-
dren, Esq., of that Institution.

" The glands, containing the oil used for the purpose of
anointing the surface of the plumage, are extremely large.
Their contents have the appearance of hog's lard which had
been melted and become rancid. This bird makes more
copious use of that substance than the White-headed Eagle,
or any of the tribe to which it belongs, except the Fish-
Hawk, the whole plumage looking, upon close examination,

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 297

as if it had received a general coating of a thin dilution of
gum-arabic, and presenting less of the downy gloss exhibited
in the upper part of the White-headed Eagle's plumage.
The male bird weighs fourteen and a half pounds avoirdupois,
and measures three feet seven inches in length, and ten feet
two inches in extent."

This completes Mr. Audubon's account of what he alwaj^s
considered his greatest discovery, the Bird of "Washington.
We remarked, that the fact of its being a discovery at all has
been warmly disputed by the highest American authorities.
The name is, however, too good a one to be lost ; and if Mr.
Audubon has made a mistake in figuring the wrong bird, he
certainly has made none in regard to the fact of a new
species. It must be a very scarce one of course, as speci-
mens have been so difficult to obtain. He, himself, in the
long years of wandering which made up the sum of his
vigilant and active life, met with only one which it proved
possible for him to obtain, though he mentions several in-
stances of its having been seen on the wing.

The Fish-hawk or Osprey seems to be most naturally re-
garded as the transition species between the eagles, the
falcons proper, and the hawks. Partaking, as it does, of
many of the leading characteristics of these groups, it is yet
clearly entitled to a separate and distinct classification as the
Osprey. Indeed the dispute concerning the separate place
and absolute identification of this bird, has, from the earliest
period of which we have any accounts of its being noticed,
given rise to an infinite series of humorous complexities be-
tween the sense of Cabinet Naturalists, ancient and more
modern, and the clear demonstrations of the practical Field
Naturalist of the present day. Alexander Wilson has set
this forth with such admirable tact that we cannot forbear
quoting him here — though it not the less illustrates the slow
progress of science towards truth, for me to mention that the
extract occurs in an article upon the Sea-Eagle, (Falco Ossi-
fragus,) which he has thus classified, yet with a saving ex-

298 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

pression of doubt, whether it may not still prove to be the
young of the Bald Eagle, (Falco Leucocephalus,) and which
strong doubt of his has since been proven beyond question,
to have suggested the truth. Wilson says :

" We were disposed after the manner of some, to sub-
stitute, for plain matters of fact, all the narratives, conjec-
tures and fanciful theories of travellers, voyagers, compilers,
etc., relative to the history of the eagle ; the volumes of these
writers, from Aristotle down to his admirer, the Count de
Buffon, would furnish abundant materials for this purpose.
But the author of the present work feels no ambition to ex-
cite surprise and astonishment at the expense of truth, or to
attempt to elevate and embellish his subject beyond the plain
realities of nature. On this account he cannot assent to the
assertion, however eloquently made in the celebrated parallel
drawn by the French Naturalist between the lion and the
eagle, viz. : that the eagle, like the lion, * disdains the pos-
session of that property which is not the fruit of his own
industry, and rejects, with contempt, the prey which is not
procured by his own exertions ;' since the very reverse of
this is the case, in the conduct of the Bald and Sea-Eagle,
who, during the summer months, are the constant robbers
and plunderers of the Osprey or Fish-Hawk, by whose indus-
try alone both are fed. Nor that, ' though famished for want
of prey, he disdains to feed on carrion /' since we have our-
selves seen the Bald Eagle, while seated on the dead carcass
of a horse, keep a whole flock of vultures at a respectful
distance, until he has fully sated his own appetite The
Count has also taken great pains to expose the ridiculous
opinion of Pliny, who conceived that the Osprey s formed
no separate race, and that they proceeded from the inter-
mixture of different species of eagles, the young of which
were not Ospreys, only sea eagles : ' which sea eagles] says
he, t'breed small vultures, which engender great vultures, that
have not the power of propagation.'1 But, while laboring to
confute these absurdities, the Count himself in his belief on

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 299

an occasional intercourse between the Osprey and the Sea-
Eagle, contradicts all actual observation, and one of the
most common and fixed laws of nature ; for it may be safely
asserted, that there is no habit more universal among the
feathered race, in their natural state, than that chastity of at-
tachment which confines the amours of individuals to those
of their own species only.

" That perversion of nature, produced by domestication,
is nothing to the purpose. In no instance have I ever ob-
served the slightest appearance of a contrary conduct. Even
in those birds which never build a nest for themselves, nor
hatch their young, nor even pair, but live in a state of gen-
eral concubinage — such as the cuckoo of the old, and the
caw-bunting of the new continent — there is no instance of a
deviation from this striking habit. I cannot, therefore, avoid
considering the opinion above alluded to, that ' the male
Osprey, by coupling with the female Sea-Eagle, produces sea
eagles ; and that the female Osprey, by pairing with the male
Sea-Eagle gives birth of Osprey s,' or Fish-Hawks, as alto-
gether unsupported by facts, and contradicted by the con-
stant and universal habits of the whole feathered race, in
their state of nature."

Wilson seems to have made the same mistake in regard to
Falco Ossifragus, his sea-eagle, that Audubon has undoubtedly
fallen into in relation to Falco Washingtonii and the same
bird. Since, as I remarked in my last paper, the specimen
figured by him as a specimen of the new bird, is so nearly
like to Falco Albicilla, as to leave a doubt whether he has not
figured a fine accidental example of the latter for a new and
unnamed bird which undoubtedly does exist, but the swallow-
like wings of which, not to speak of their immense exten-
sion and the peculiar beak and head, renders it as yet a com-
paratively unknown and certainly an unfigured species.

But however it may be in regard to these curious discuss-
ions, growing out of the different experiences and sources of
information at the command of individual authors belonging

300 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

to widely-separated periods, we find now and then promulga-
ted among all these contradictions a particular biography of
some certain species or individual that seems to constitute a
perfect delineation or monograph, which so far as immediate
science has progressed, cannot be for the time transcended.
Thus it is with Alexander Wilson's description of this Fish-
Hawk. Taking it apart, this biography constitutes one of the
noblest features of his whole life-work, though so mingled as
it is with his story of the White-headed Eagle, it yet so fully
expresses the characteristics of both, that we must give a
scene entire, which has been most universally admired. It
is that of the eagle robbing the Fish -Hawk ! and is from his
paper on the White-headed Eagle :

" Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree
that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore and
ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the
various feathered tribes, that pursue their busy avocations be-
low ; the snow-white gulls slowly winnowing the air ; the
busy tringas coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks
streaming over the surface — silent and watchful cranes intent
and wading ; clamorous crows, and all the winged multitudes
that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of
nature. High over all these hovers one, whose action in-
stantly arrests his whole attention. By his wide curvature
of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be
the Fish-Hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the
deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself
with half-opened wings on the branch, he watches the result.
Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant
object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear
as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around.
At this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardor ;
and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the Fish-Hawk once
more emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting in the
air with screams of exultation. These are the signals for our
hero, who launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 301

soon gains upon the Fish- Hawk ; each exerts his utmost to
mount above the other, displaying in these rencountres, the
most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencum-
bered eagle rapidly advances, and is just upon the point of
reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, proba-
bly of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his
fish ; the eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to take a
more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in
his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten
booty silently away to the wood."

As a further illustration of the dashing style of the Bald
Eagle when engaged in these audacious robberies, Wilson
says:

" I was lately told," continues Mr. Gardiner, "by a man
of truth, that he saw an eagle rob a hawk of its fish, and the
hawk seemed so enraged as to fly down at the eagle, while
the eagle very deliberately, in the air, threw himself partly
over on his back, and, while he grasped with one foot the
fish, extended the other to threaten or seize the hawk. I
have known several hawks unite to attack the eagle ; but
never knew a single one to do it. The eagle seems to regard
the hawk as the hawks do the king-birds, only as teasing,
troublesome fellows."

Can even Jonathan's audacity vault higher than this cool
specimen of the manner in evil-doing of the bird of his en-
sign? I have often witnessed similar scenes among the
Ariondac mountains at the north, where their vaulting crests
throw down huge shadows on the bosom of an hundred
sleeping lakes. Crouched in their deep lairs of silence, these
lakes and lakelets gleam through their blue depths with
many a burnished legion of rare and splendid fish — great
salmon- trout and wondrous shoals from mountain-brook,
slow inlet and tributary river! Here is the rich feeding-
ground of the noble Osprey. Though they are friendly and
sociable birds in an eminent degree, you seldom find more
than a single pair foraging upon the same lake habitually ;

302 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

though on the breaking up of spring, when the suckers
abound at the inlets, you may frequently see several hover-
ing over the same spot. The Bald Eagle, who is a sort of
omnipresent predator wherever the Primeval Nature holds
her own upon the continent, makes his appearance some-
times, suddenly, on his wide-visiting wings, amidst these soli-
tudes, that seem rightfully to belong to the Fish-Hawk alone.
His hoarse bark startles the deep silence from afar, and every
natural sound is mute. Wheeling grandly amidst the dim
blue cliffs, he subsides on slow and royal spread upon some
blasted pine beside the lake-river, and with quick, short
screaming — while he smooths his ruffled plumes — announces
to awed nature that its winged monarch has come down to
rest. The friendly Fish-Hawks, in silent consternation, dart
hither and yon, in vexed, uncertain flight — the tiny song-
sters dive into deep thickets, and the very cricket underneath
dead leaves, pauses for a moment in its cheerful trill, while
the shadow of that drear sound passes over all. But now the
kingly bird grows quiet, and with many a shift of feet and
restless lift of wing — while fierce, far-darting eyes are taking
in all the capabilities of his new perch — he sinks into an at-
titude of deep repose — one yellow-heated eye upturned,
watching the evolutions of the startled Fish-Hawks ; whose
movement becoming less and less irregular as they wheel to
and fro, gradually subsides into the measured windings of
their habitual flight in seeking prey — while the buzz, the
hum, the chirp, the chatter and the carol creep up once again,
and n ature becomes voiceful in her happy silence.

Now, to witness, as I have done, from the mountain-tops,
the Osprey swoop down from the dizzy height, almost level
with my feet, and hear the faint whirr of arrowy-falling
plumes, and see the cloud-spray dimly flash through the blue
steep of distance — ah, that was a sight ! And then the strong
bird's scream of exultation faintly heard, and the" far flash of
scales that glitter as he drags his spoil to sunlight, from its

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 303

dark slumberous home, and on strong vans goes beating up
towards the clouds ; ah, that too, was a sight !

But then to see deep down, that couchant tyrant deep
down below, "levelling his neck for flight" (as the " glorious
Weaver" has it) ! — his war-crest raised, his wings half spread,
pausing for the moment on his stoop, and then, one clamor-
ous shriek of confident savage power, and see him vault —
away, up, up, with a swift cleave, conquering gravitation,
and go lifted on the spell of wings ! Wonderful sight — that
upward struggle ! The Fish-Hawk has taken warning from
the exulting cry of his old enemy, and with yet louder cries,
as if for help, goes up and upward, swifter, still with vain
beatings that scatter the fleece-forms of cloud, above me and
stir them whirling in gyrations. But no, the conqueror,
with overcoming wings, is upon him, with fierce buffetings,
the stirred chaos cannot hide from me, and the Fisher drops
its prey with a despairing shriek, while it goes gleaming head-
long toward its ravished home !

Now but an instant's poise while the sunlight can flash off
a ray from steadied plumes, and the eagle goes, dimmed with
swiftness, roaring down to catch the falling prey, before it
reach the wave ! Monarch humanity ! — with poet's spirit-
wing hast thou in all thy hoary annals an image such as
this of swift all-conquering prowess 1 Napoleon is the near-
est type of the Bald Eagle the world ever saw ! — excepting
the Yankee ! !

But the Fish-Hawk, although the mildest, the most gen-
erous and social of all the Falconidce, still recognizes that
point beyond which forbearance is a virtue. When the
plundering outrages of the Bald Eagle have been at length
carried to an intolerable extreme, in any particular locality,
the Fish-Hawks in the neighborhood combine in a common
assault upon the tyrannical robber. I have frequently wit-
nessed such scenes along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
They abound in great numbers along the estuaries of its
great rivers. I remember particularly to have noted the

804 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

greatest collection of them at the mouth of the Brazos river,
of Texas. Twenty or thirty of them are constantly congre-
gated at this place, during the spring months, to feed upon
the great shoals of the luscious red fish which then make
their appearanee lien'; though otherwise a barren and un-
couth spot it is, constantly enlivened by the aerial gambols
of these powerful and graceful flighted birds, and many's
the battle between them and the Bald Eagle that I have wit-
nessed among the clouds at this place. They seemed to
have formed a sort of colony for mutual protection, and the
moment their foe, the eagle, made his appearance among
them theerv of alarm was raised, and the vigilant eolonists,
hurrying from all quarters, attacked the robber without hesi-
tation, and always succeeded in driving him away.

There was always a desperate battle first before the savage
monarch could bo routed, and I have seen them gathered
about him in such numbers — whirling and tumbling amidst
a chaos of floating feathers through the air — that it was im-
possible for a time to distinguish which was the eagle, until
having got enough of it amidst such fearful odds, he would
fain turn tail, and with most undignified acceleration of
1 light, would dart toward the covert of the heavy forest to
hide his baffled royalty and shako off his pertinacious foes
amidst the boughs, as do the smaller hawks when teased by
the little King-birds. I was told by the residents of Valas-
co, at the mouth, — who from sympathy with the Fish-Hawks
seemed to greatly relish the scenes — that year after year the
eagles made persevering attempts to obtain a lodgment in the
neighborhood of this colony, but were always promptly re-
pulsed and finally driven off! This, therefore, formed a
secure breeding-place as well as feeding-ground for these mild
and amiable birds. There wore several of their nests in I 'nil
view of the river, and many more, I was told, in the sur-
rounding forest.

These birds possess many traits of gentle loyalty which

WASHINGTON EAGLE AND FISH-HAWK. 305

entitle it to the universal sympathy which it commands from
mankind. Wilson gives a fine instance in point.

" A pair of these birds, on the south side of Great Egg Har-
bor river, and near its mouth, were noted for several years.
The female, having but one leg, was regularly furnished,
while sitting, with fish in such abundance that she seldom
left the nest, and never to seek food. This kindness was
continued both before and after incubation. Some animals,
who claim the name and rationality of man, might blush at
the recital of this fact."

Audubon also gives another example of the strength and
beautity of this conjugal feeling in his noble paper on this
bird. He says:

"The male assists in incubation, during the continuance
of which the one bird supplies the other with food, although
each in turn goes in quest of some for itself. At such times
the male bird is now and then observed rising to an immense
height in the air, over the spot where his mate is seated. This
he does by ascending almost in a direct line, by means of
continued flappings, meeting the breeze with his white
breast, and occasionally uttering a cackling kind of note, by
which the bystander is enabled to follow him in his progress.
When the Fish-Hawk has attained its utmost elevation,
which is sometimes such that the eye can no longer perceive
him, he utters a loud shriek, and dives smoothly on half-ex-
tended wings toward his nest. But before he reaches it, he
is seen to expand his wings and tail, and in this manner he
glides toward his beloved female, in a beautifully curved
line. The female partially raises herself from her eggs, emits
a low cry, resumes her former posture, and her delighted
partner flies off to the sea, to seek a favorite fish for her
whom he loves."

If there was ever anything more tender and graceful than
this little scene in the love-making of arrogant humanity, I
have it yet to see. The harmlessness of its pursuits and
habits, its many traits of fidelity and courage in its family re-

20

306 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

lations, its coming always as the harbinger of spring and
fresh abundance in the teeming waters, the persecutions to
which it is subjected by the eagle, all combine to render it
a favored bird wherever it appears in this country. Its fond-
ness for particular localities increases this feeling greatly.
"Wilson says that along the Atlantic coast it is frequently as
much as a luckless fowler's safety is worth who is detected
in shooting the Fish-Hawk. He may congratulate himself
on escaping from the rifle of the enraged owner of the prop-
erty upon which it has been in the habit of building.

We give Alexander "Wilson's beautiful welcome to the
Fish-Hawk.

THE FISHERMAN'S HYMN.

The osprey sails above the sound,

The geese are gone, the gulls are flying ;
The herring shoals swarm thick around,
The nets are launch'd, the boats are plying ;
Yo ho, my hearts ! let's seek the deep,

Raise high the song, and cheerly wish her,
Still as the bending net we sweep,

" God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher !

She brings us fish — she brings us spring,

Good times, fair weather, warmth and plenty,
Fine store of shad, trout, herring, ling,

Sheepshead and drum, and old woman's dainty ;
Yo ho, my hearts ! let's seek the deep,
Fly every oar, and cheerly wish her,
Still as the bending net we sweep,

" God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher !"

She rears her young on yonder tree,

She leaves her faithful mate to mind 'em ;
Like us, for fish, she sails the sea,

And plunging, shows us where to find 'em ;
Yo ho, my hearts ! let's seek the deep,
Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her,
While the slow bending net we sweep,
" God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher 1"

CHAPTER XIV.

MY WIFE'S STOKY OF HER PET FINCHES.

THE loss of our pet, General Bern, was deeply felt. There
was a sad vacancy in our home again, which we did not
soon expect to have filled. However, one morning, while I

yet wept for Bern, W came in with a small cage in his

hand, containing an English Bullfinch.

" See !" he said, " I have brought a fine Bullfinch to
cheer you — he sings very sweetly several German airs, and
it will fill Bern's place a little for you !"

" No ! no ! I cannot let him stay — no bird can take Bern's
place. I do not want another bird to love. Take him
away."

" Poor little Bobby. I found him in the room of a rough
fellow, who did not care for him, and who gladly exchanged
the sullen bird, as he called him, for some trinket. A little
girl whom I saw there told me how sweetly he sang, and I
determined to have him at any rate. Must I take the poor
bird away ? He will be so startled among my clamorers,
that he will not sing to me !"

" Well, let the fellow stay — though, I assure you, I cannot
love him !"

So he hung the bird-cage on a nail in my room, and I
tried to turn my back upon him. I could not help ob-
serving, however, that he seemed to relish the glow of my
wood fire, and the warmth of the room, greatly; and was
commencing to dress his feathers and to jump about in his
little cage with quite a cheerful air.

308 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

I thought Mm at all events a sensible bird, and determined
to give him a larger cage during the day. I then discovered
that he had been so unfortunate as to lose three of his toes,
perhaps in the struggles he had made, when he had been
taken prisoner, by means of the deceitful bird-limed twig,
so that he was almost incapable of resistance if one chose to
catch him while in the cage, for in 'his efforts to cling to the
perch, he was apt to lose his hold and tumble to the bottom
of the cage, and then he would only crouch in a corner, and
with his bright black eye, and beseeching chirp, pray to be
left at peace.

For a week or more I took but little notice of him, only
admiring his irresistible song ; for he became so cheerful as
to sing to us once or twice during the twenty-four hours.

One afternoon, however, I caught myself mimicking the
droll whistle, with which he would break his song; and
which had precisely the sound we express by the whew —
o — o — o ! when we make what we know to be some ludicrous
mistake.

He instantly repeated it more slowly. I tried again and
again, till he seemed satisfied, and commenced the first bar
of a strain of German music, and then paused ! I looked
up. " What, do you mean to teach me your song?"

He repeated the notes, and I essayed to reproduce them ;
my effort, however, seemed to amuse the young master, for he
drew out to its fullest extent his whew — ew — o — o — o — o !
But instantly commenced the bar again. By this time I had
become thoroughly interested, and not liking to be laughed at,
made a more successful effort. This time Bob seemed bet-
ter satisfied, and added a few more notes. When I had
achieved those, Tie repeated all and put me to the test, and so
on through his whole song ; every few moments, however,
evidently heartily enjoying the fantastic mistakes which I
made, and uttering his whistle in the most provokingly sar-
castic tone. I was greatly amused, and related the story
with great gusto on Mr. Webber's return.

THE PET FINCHES. 309

The next morning when I came near the cage, the bird
came as near me as he could, and commenced a pleasant
chirping, which evidently meant " Good morning to you."
This I returned in tones resembling his as nearly as I could,
and it finally ended by my taking the young gentleman into
my hand, and feeding him. He took his seeds from my
fingers from that time, every morning, for two or three

weeks. Then we Were to leave C for some time, and I

sent him back to W , congratulating myself that I was

yet heart-whole as far as Bobby was concerned.

In about a month we returned, and we called to see the
birds. What was my surprise, when master Bullfinch in-
stantly descended from his perch to the corner of the cage
nearest to my face, and after the first chirp of greeting, com-
menced singing in a sweet undertone, bowing and turning,
his feathers lifted, his eye gleaming, and his whole express-
ion one of the most profound admiration for little me ! I
was quite heartless — only shrugging my shoulders and turn-
ing away.

But, I do not know exactly how it came about, in a few
weeks I had the Painted Finch and the Bullfinch quite
domesticated in my room ; and, although I still said I did
not love him, yet I talked a great deal to the bird ; and as
the little fellow grew more and more cheerful, and sang
louder and often er each day, was getting so handsome, I
found plenty of reasons for increasing my attentions to him ;
and then, above all things, he seemed to need my presence
quite as much as sunshine, for if I went away, if only to my
breakfast, he would utter the most piteous and incessant cries
until I returned to him ; when, in a breath, his tones were
changed, and he sang his most enchanting airs. He made
himself most fascinating by his polite adoration : he never
considered himself sufficiently well dressed ; he was most de-
voted in his efforts to enchain me by his melodies — art and
nature, both were called to his aid, until finally I could no
longer refrain from expressing in no measured terms my

310 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

admiration. He was then satisfied not to cease his atten-
tions, but, to take a step further, he presented me with a
straw, and even with increased appearance of adulation.

From that time he claimed me wholly, no one else could
approach the cage ; he would fight most desperately if any
one dared, and if they laid a finger on me, his fury was un-
bounded ; he would dash himself against the bars of his
cage and bite the wires, as if he would obtain his iiberty at
all hazards, and thus be enabled to punish the offender.

If I went away now, he would first mourn, then endeavor
to win me back by sweet songs. In the morning I was
awakened by his cries, and if I but moved my hand, his
moans were changed to glad greetings. If I sat too quietly
at my drawing, he would become weary, seemingly, and call
me to him ; if I would not come, he would say in gentle
tone, " Come-e-here ! come-e-here 1" so distinctly, that all
my friends recognized the meaning of the accents at once,
and then he would sing to me. All the day he would watch
me, if I was cheerful, — he sang and was so gay ! If I was
sad, he would sit by the hour watching every movement, and
if I arose from my seat, I was called " Come-e-here," and
whenever he could manage it, if the wind blew my hair
within his cage, he would cut it off, calling me to help him,
as if he thought I had no right to wear anything else than
feathers ; and if I would have hair, it was only suitable for
nest-building ! If I let him fly about the room with the
Painted Finch, he would follow so close in my footsteps that
I was in constant terror that he would be stepped on, or be
lost, in following me from the room. At last he came to the
conclusion that I could not build a nest. I never seemed to
understand what to do with the nice materials he gave me,
and when I offered to return them, he threw his body to one
side ' and looked at me so drolly from one eye, that I was
quite abashed. From that time he seemed to think I mv-st
be a very young creature, and most assiduously fed me at
stated periods during the day, throwing up from his own

THE PET FINCHES. 311

stomach the half-digested food for my benefit, precisely in
the manner of feeding young birds.

But I did not like this sort of relationship very much, and
determined to break it down, and forthwith commenced by
coldly refusing to be fed, and as fast as I could bring my
hard heart to do it, breaking down all the gentle bonds be-
tween us.

The result was sad enough. The poor fellow could not
bear it — he sat in wondering grief — he would not eat ; at
night I took him in my hand and held him to my cheek —
he nestled closely and seemed more happy, although his lit-
tle heart was too full to let him speak. In the morning I
scarcely answered his tender love-call, " Come-e-here" — but
I sat down to my drawing, thinking if I could be so cold
much longer to so gentle and uncomplaining a creature.

I presently arose and went to the cage. Oh ! my poor,
poor bird ! he lay struggling on the floor ! I took him out —
I tried to call him back to life in every way that I knew, but
it was useless, I saw he was dying, his little frame was even
then growing cold within my warm palm. I uttered the
call he knew so well, he threw back his head, with its yet
undimmed eye, and tried to answer — the effort was made
with his last breath. His eye glazed as I gazed, and his atti-
tude was never changed ! His little heart was broken. I
can never forgive myself for my cruelty ! Oh; to kill so
gentle and pure a love as that !

And now I have left me only the little Painted Finch. He
has given up his propensity for quarrelling, and has thrown
off the greater part of his proud shy ways — he is still most es-
sentially a Southerner. He is as exclusive and fastidious as
the knowledge of good blood and delicate breeding can make
him. He has everfelt himself an exile, and has come to con-
sider his cage as his House of Kefuge. He seems not at all
to desire to leave it, although I frequently invite him out.

He without doubt remembers the orange groves of his na-
tive land with all the intense devotion of a true Southerner.

312 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

He had been the most obdurate tormenter of my Bullfinch
in his own proud way — butj when he was dead, when he
could no longer resent his quiet assaults, then he mourned as
deeply as we — his cry became distressing, and ever since he
has been still and gentle, coming nearer to me, as if he felt
that we too missed his dead comrade, and as if we too were
exiles from some far away home

Once I had the skin of a Painted Finch of full plumage —
he recognized it instantly as a countryman — flew down to
greet it with the most delicate and plaintive chirpings, his
wings rapidly flitting in short movements, his whole soul
beaming in ecstasy from his eye — his figure crouching and
thrown into curves, all expressing the tender joy which filled
his bosom at thus meeting so suddenly a countryman, who
had come too in such splendor of costume.

He, poor fellow, had yet to wait many months before he
could hope to complete an entire change in his own dress be-
neath the chary rays of the far away sun of the North.

But he thought not of this, he saw only here, one of his
kindred, one who had sung many a midday hour from the
topmost branches of some orange tree, with his feathers
loosely spread to the warm sunbeams while he sung dream-
ily in the intervals of his naps, anon bursting forth into
clear, shrill notes of defiance, as the voice of a dreamed of
rival crept into his slumbrous fancy.

He saw here only one exiled like himself, and his heart
was filled with sympathy and love — he came to his side — he
pecked gently at his feathers. Ah, what! he will not re-
spond. Poor disappointed Finch. See how he draws his
figure up to its utmost height, and gazes at the motionless
shape before him. Now he gives a quick thrust with his
bill, and uttering a short, shrill note, perches silently in a
corner of his cage.

He will not look again at this deceptive emblem of
hope and home — his disgust is inexpressible — he thought
to take to his heart an embodiment of all the past — he had

THE PET FINCHES. 313

for a brief moment imagined that all the weary interim was
to be as nought, in that he realized the dreams of youth —
but what had shocked him back into the cold, sad world of
his desolation ? What, but that he had taken as the reality
only the outward show, all dimmed as it really was, for the
brilliant and living soul of those vanished reminiscences.

He must be thrown again upon himself — he must shut his
too sensitive eyes, until from the darkness the angels of hope
and faith arise, and bear him into strength again, to endure
the shock which his too gentle spirit has received.

This little finch, now no longer the quarrelsome scamp,
who made General Bern's life so vexed, has become most
docile, reliant, and confiding. Everything we do for him
he seems to consider quite proper and matter-of-course. He
watches our preparations with the eye of a connoisseur, and
at once puts to the test all our new schemes for his comfort.

This seems the more strange because he was formerly so
very pugnacious ; if no better antagonist offered, he would
stand before the looking-glass, and try most desperately to
whip the foe who glared at him with such determined ire.
I believe, however, he discovered that secret, and with char-
acteristic contempt for humbug, gave up this amusement,
when he found, on examination, that there was really no
other bird behind the glass, and contented himself with whip-
ping every bird which I brought to the room. Now, however,
since the death of the Bullfinch, he will not be persuaded
to leave his cage, but sits among the grasses which I give
him, and sings most charmingly during all the heat of the
day.

This concludes my wife's story of her pet Finches.. Be-
fore taking leave of these charming little birds, it may be
interesting to hear through other naturalists the entire con-
firmation of those traits which we have observed to charac-
terize them so strongly in our domestication. The German
Bechstein gives us some highly interesting particulars about

314 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

the Bullfinch, which I cannot forego the pleasure of present-
ing. He says :

" Although the song of the male and female Bullfinch,
in their wild state, is very harsh and disagreeable, yet if well
taught while young, as they are in Hesse and Fulda, where
there are schools of these little musicians for all Germany,
Holland and England, they learn to whistle all kinds of airs and
melodies with so soft and flute-like a tone, that they are great
favorites with amateurs, and particularly with the ladies.
There are some of these little birds which can whistle dis-
tinctly three different airs, without spoiling or confusing
them in the least. Added to this attraction, the Bullfinch
becomes exceedingly tame, sings whenever it is told to do
so, and is susceptible of a most tender and lasting attach-
ment, which is shown by its endearing actions ; it balances
its body, moves its tail from right to left, and spreads it like
a fan. It will even repeat words with an accent and tone
which indicate sensibility, if one could believe that it under-
stood them ; but its memory must not be overloaded. A
single air, with a prelude or a short flourish to begin with, is
as much as the bird can learn and remember, and this it will
execute to the greatest perfection. These little prodigies
would be more interesting and agreeable if their Hessian
instructors possessed a little more musical taste, but these
are generally tradespeople, employed about the house with
their different occupations and trades; and by tunes, airs and
minuets of a hundred years old, public-house songs, or some
learnt of their apprentices, in general compose the whole of
their music."

Tame Bullfinches have been known (says Buffon) to es-
cape from the aviary, and live at liberty in the woods for a
whole year, and then to recollect the voice of the person
who had reared them, return to her, never more to leave her.
Others have been known, which, when forced to leave their
first master, have died of grief. These little birds remember
very well, and often too well, any one who has injured them.

THE PET FINCHES. 315

One of them, having been thrown down with its cage, by
some of the lowest order of the people, did not seem at first
much disturbed by it, but afterwards it would fall into
convulsions as soon as it saw any shabbily-dressed person,
and it died in one of these fits eight months after the first
accident. A Bullfinch, belonging to a lady often mentioned
before, being subject to very frightful dreams, which
made it fall from its perch, and beat itself in the cage, no
sooner heard the affectionate voice of its mistress, than, not-
withstanding the darkness of the night, it became imme-
diately tranquil, and re- ascended its perch to sleep again. It
was very fond of chickweed, and as soon as it perceived one
bringing it to him, however much care was taken to prevent
its finding it easily, it would show its joy by its actions and
cries.

Concerning our little warlike Southron, the Painted Finch
or Nonpareil, Mr. Audubon has some highly attractive pas-
sages. He says :

" The flight of the Pape, by which the Creoles of Louisiana
know this bird best, is short, although regular, and performed
by a nearly constant motion of the wings, which is rendered
necessary by their concave form. It hops on the ground,
moving forward with ease, now and then jetting out the tail
a little, and, like a true Sparrow, picking up and carrying off
a grain of rice or a crumb of bread to some distance where
it may eat in more security. It has a sprightly song, often
repeated, which it continues even when closely confined.
When the bird is at liberty, this song is uttered from the top
branches of an orange tree, or those of a common briar ; and
although not so sonorous as that of the Canary, or of its
nearer relative, the Indigo Bunting, is not far from equalling
either. Its song is continued during the greatest heats of the
day, which is also the case with that of the Indigo Bird.

" About the middle of April, the orange groves of the lower
parts of Louisiana, and more especially those in the imme-
diate vicinity of the city of New Orleans, are abundantly

316 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

supplied with this beautiful Sparrow. But no sooner does it
make its appearance than trap-cages are set, and a regular
business is commenced in the market of that city. The me-
thod employed in securing the male Painted Finch is so
connected with its pugnacious habits, that I feel inclined to
describe it, especially as it is so different from the common
mode of alluring birds, that it may afford you, kind reader,
some amusement.

"A male bird in full plumage is shot and stuffed in a
defensive altitude, and perched among some grass seed, rice,
or other food, on the same platform as the trap-cage. This
is taken to the fields or near the orangeries, and placed in so
open a situation that it would be difficult for a living bird to
fly over it without observing it. The trap is set. A male
Painted Finch passes — perceives it, and dives towards the
stuffed bird, with all the anger which its little breast can
contain. It alights on the edge of the trap for a moment,
and throwing its body against the stuffed bird, brings down
the trap, and is made prisoner. In this manner thousands
of these birds are caught every spring. So pertinacious are
they in their attacks, that even when the trap has closed
upon them, they continue pecking at the features of the sup-
posed rival. The approach of man seems to allay its anger
in a moment. The live bird is removed to the lower apart-
ment of the cage, and is thereby made to assist in decoying
others.

" They feed almost immediately after being caught ; and if
able to bear the loss of liberty for a few days, may be kept
for several years. I have known some instances of their
being kept in confinement for upwards of ten years. Few
vessels leave the port of New Orleans, during the summer
months, without taking some Painted Finches ; and through
this means they are transported probably to all parts of
Europe. I have seen them offered for sale in London and
Paris, with the trifling difference of value on each individual,

THE PET FINCHES. 317

which converted the sixpence paid for it in New Orleans to
three guineas in London.

" The pugnacious habits of this species are common, in a
great degree, to the whole family of Sparrows. Like the
most daring, the common House Sparrow of Europe, they
may be observed in spring time, in little groups of four, five,
or six, fighting together — moving round each other so as to
secure an advantageous position, pecking and pulling at each
other's feathers with all the violence and animosity to which
their small degree of strength can give effect."

CHAPTER XV.

OUT OF BOOKS WITH NATUKE.

OUT of doors ! "We weary of this unceasing labor — are
choking to death of the stagnant air of heaped up cities,
which, with their gutter-defiled trigonometries, set at defiance,
of assoilation, the straight currents of Heaven's fresh air —
leaving us to moan and swelter amidst pestilential stagnations !

Let us go, O ye who yearn for purer odors than the steam
of the kitchen ! Let us go forth — out of doors with Nature !
Aye ! and when her fresh breath shall come upon our seamed
and heated brows, it shall be with an alchemy more strange
than the Elixir of vain Cagliostro — more marvellous than all
Spells, Philosophers' Stones, and Fortunatus' Caps — more
potent than the wizard edicts of that eldest brother of shad-
owy science — hoar Astrology !

To be sure we ought all of us to be astrologists — perhaps
minus the science ; for should we not feel humbly — that, as
we are children of the earth, so we may be moved as she is
moved, in that of us which is earthy ? — and that, as the stars
are God's flowers of thought — so are those meek wild flowers
which we find upon her bosom, the starry bloomings of the
thought of earth 1 Should we not learn, too, to read their
teachings? — perhaps thus the blossoming of Life may be
renewed in us.

Be this as it may — these flowers, and trees, and birds — we
love them best and dearly " out of doors !"

We know that these Stars may speak drear things to us,

OUT OF DOOES WITH NATUEE. 319

they when we are untrue to ourselves — 'that the icy points
dropt in gazing from their dim far homes into our souls,
may freeze us into shudderings of awe ! — but these Flow-
Stars of Earth — they do not so ! They are no deadly-eyed
and distant strangers — but with meek upward faces they
soothe us with soft eyes, and in the warm breath of sweetest
odors, exhale their loving lives in tenderness for us ! This
is the Astrology of Love that cannot lie — the Alchemy,
Elixir, Spell that shall renew our Youth forever.

Then let us go forth — out of doors with Nature !

See how even art has sold her birthright! — for after
all that has been said in a pompous criticism about Art,
old mother nature sets our learning at nought, in " mere sim-
plicity." The Human Artist, working under terror of the
"Rules," attempts too much. He does not deign to look at
Her as his great teacher, but turning in veneration towards
some " Name" — weak as his own except in notoriety — he in-
carnates nature in a school, and tamely strives rather to re-
produce its errors — to perpetuate its dogmas — than to search
for living truths himself.

Thus he attempts too much — if he have one instinct of
art in him — for in the effort to serve both nature and the
" Master," he confounds the two — crowds and over works his
picture, and utterly destroys all unity and directness of
effect.

The fact is, men are afraid of nature — so accustumed are
they to the regalia of honor and of state, that her plainness
repells them. They do not understand dignity or greatness,
or nobility, divested of and separate from the " tricksey
pomps" of "ribbons," "garters," gew gaws, &c.

They convey this morbid appetite into landscape uncon-
sciously, and hence the horrid array of blazing pictures we
find on the walls of our exhibitions. The scenes must be all
Autumn — loaded with garish colors — trees like hay -ricks on
fire ; or, Indian Summer — all haze — with red sunsets, like
the flaming faces of market women from behind their Sun-

320 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

day veils — or else a pot of ochre streaked with indigo, is
turned over on the canvas to " represent" for you an Italian
sky and sunset !

Nature is not always volcanic — neither does she day by
day go into convulsions of the picturesque, as do her "Great
Masters !" I suppose they must be recognized as such, of
course, since they are responsible for the agorising monstros-
ities of their too literal disciples. Nature is altogether too
serene in her habitual moods for these Fire Worshippers of
Art, whose softest shadows are of smoke and storm clouds.

Such minds do not comprehend sublimity — they cannot
understand that as music is rolled up from the abyss, filling
Silence with the gradual volume of its awful symphonies, so
Art must rear its solemn forms upon the plane of vast Ke-
pose!

How simple the accessaries of her grandest pictures 1

Behold a tropical forest! Beneath its deep shadows a
herd of elephants! They browse on the dark green and
glossy leaves, or lean their sage heads in heavy quiet against
the great stems around them !

What association !

The far Orient — the Magii — the ivory and gold of Ophir —
the Barbarian Po, and the world conquering Macedonian,
Darius, Xerxes, with their swarming millions, Xenophon,
the subtle, with his hardy handful, Marathon, Thermopylae
— the pageantry, the glory, the decay — all rise in quick com-
ing shadows to the spell of that simple picture.

The slimy Nile beneath a burning sun — a crocodile — an
Ibis!

And pyramids loom along the sky-rimmed desert —
Sphynx-guarded palaces, mightier than the very dreams of
man's ambition since, and Hecatombs of mummied nations,
come all unbidden with the scene.

A few ostriches, a clump of palm trees 1

Jacob's Well — Hagar in the wilderness — the fire-eyed
barb, tireless and swift of foot — the tinkling bells of the long

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 321

caravan — the solitary vulture coming out of .the cloudless
distance — the green oasis — the dread simoon — we see them
all!

An eagle wheeling through the mists above Niagara !

The loosened thunder of that great river's fall coming
through the silence of a new creation to chord the bass of
northern storms through mighty lakes and groaning moun-
tain pines — Freedom cleaving through the mists of struggle
with the sun upon its golden wing — the Home of a great
people !

It is thus that the true mystery of art lies in suggestion !
But your modern painter is not content with this ; he must
fill up — he must be, to us, a " better nature," and leave us no
scope for memory or imagination. He is poorly jealous of
the power of the wand he has presumed to wield, and must
compel us to be its slaves. But, in spite of the terrors of his
denunciation, we shall introduce you to yet another of those
wondrous, but simple pictures.

In traversing, during the winter months, the vast prairies
of Texas and the Southwest, you frequently realize all the
solitary grandeur of Zahara. The eye aches through the
weary stretching distance — not an object ! One little cloud
holds with the sun the blue heavens above — beneath and
around you, the grass ! — the brown waving grass ! — away ! —
away! — with its dreamy undulating surface — it widens,
widening till blended in a hazy meeting with the sky, the in-
finite seems just begun, and boundless space yet stretched
before you.

You begin to feel strangely and hear your heart beat very
loud. It seems awful to be the only thing alive to breathe
within this vast expanse — the world seems dead — a parched
blank with only one warm vital centre in your own breast.

You gasp for companionship — anything ! — anything that
moves and has a being, for it is crushing thus to stand alone
before the God of this dumb moveless nature ! When sud-
denly, a hoarse cry, "Kewrrooh! Kewrrooli ! KewrroohF

21

322 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

strikes through, the rarified atmosphere, stunning you like a
pistol-shot close to the ear 1

You turnl They are the Cranes! — your heart bounds
from the shock with a gush of joy — you are no longer alone!
There they are — half a mile to the right — see the snowy
phalanx ascending into view over yon wave-like undulation
of the prairie — with every stately stride uttering that loud
and thumping cry, while their long quick-necks cross each
other against the horizon, weaving in and weaving out,
making strange figures on the blue, as they huddle, stalking
to and fro confusedly at sight of the forlorn wanderer.

How stately and how beautiful they are — tall as a tall man
— the dazzling white of their plumage heightened by the
black primary coverts of the wing ! — their motions how pic-
turesque and gracefully solemn !

"What a surprise how they bring the real earth back to you
again ! That wild note has startled you before with its sud-
den rolling croak, but upon far different and distant scenes.

Perhaps it had been heard amidst native surroundings, as
it has been by myself in Kentucky and through the South-
western States, in which it alights during its fall migrations
towards the South, and then how pleasant the associations it
recalls thus in the friendless wilderness ! They seem as if
they brought us news from those we loved — as if but yester-
day they had alighted, as they passed, in their favorite field,
upon our veritable homestead, and now came to us with the
aroma of home upon their wings, annihilating space and
softening- absence !

But here is its winter home, and with us it had only been
a sojourner by the way ; here it seems the incarnate spirit of
the place, an embodiment of latitude sentinaling the repose
of nature — its tall form overlooking the undulations of
the plain with a keenness of vision surpassed only by the
great vulture of the East — nothing can traverse these wastes
without being challenged.

Its tocsin shout rings upon the hurried ear of the Caman-

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 323

che, as lie sweeps startled past with, streaming feathers, and
lance, and bow, upon some bloody foray into the distant set-
tlements ; and the mountain maurader hates the snowy bird
for many a cunning stratagem of his that clamorous warning
has even foiled.

But little care the proud birds for his hate ; their wary
watchfulness is a match for the Indian's cunning. The
Mexican, too, with his fell assassin air and hidden knife,
feels his coward heart leap to his throat at that loud chal-
lenge, and he turns him on his robber-trail, like the sneaking
wolf, to look behind him for the avenger coming !

Strange sights and sounds these guardians of the prairies
have witnessed ; as, with slow and measured tread, they have
paced their stately rounds.

They are as much a part of the scenery of the prairies as
the Ostrich is of that of the great desert ; and if we only
knew so much of the past story of the waste homes of
buried empire — as the pairies beyond doubt were — as we do
even of the home of the Ostrich, what strange and grand as-
sociations with the majestic era their progenitors had lived
through, the sight of this noble bird, amidst such scenes,
would call up ? As it is, they are singularly wild and fasci-
nating.

You are seldom out of sight of the Sand-hill Crane in
these regions more than a day at a time. When the deer
has retreated to the shelter of the timber, the buffalo moved
further to the west, and the wolves have followed in their
trails, leaving the plains tenantless, they are still enlivened
by the numberless flocks of these birds — either the Blue or
Canada Crane, as it is called, or the White.

And yet such tender and magnificent associations are all
called up by a single stroke of the magical and unregarded
pencil of our lowly mother ! Who thinks of her simplicity
when morbidly groping for miracles amidst the pompous
wrecks of humbled human art in poor degraded Rome ?
Who thinks of her amidst the storied frescoes of " Beautiful

324 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Florence " — beautiful as whited sepulchre ? — as though pil-
lared aisles and tinsel stars were equal to God's garniture of
his earth and sky !

The question eternally in the mouth of your muddle-
headed Fogy, " How can any one expect to be an artist who
does not study art in Italy?" has spoiled many a clever
sculptor and painter.

Pah ! absurd ! Does your true man go first to Eome to
study the line of beauty that he may learn to choose a wife ?
Does he not rather trust to that perception of symmetry
which was educated into him by the graceful freedom of his
romping sisters and their bright-haired playmates? And
when he has first gratified his own sense of the beautiful in
securing his bride — then, if he choose, he may take her to
Eome, and proudly contrast her with the Madonnas or the
Venus !

So with the true artist. His art is with him his first love,
and concerning her doth he question only nature. When his
devotion has at last won her for his Bride — his soul Bride —
then may he go to Italy, and with pride in his conscious
heart stand calm-eyed and erect before any marble Titan of
them all ! He goes with sobered firmness to compare and
study methods, not with lips in the dust of abject humiliation,
to imitate forms !

Ours is not the period to be exclusively cowed by worn-
out conventionalities of any sort. The time has come when
man indeed carries "the countenance erect," and dares to
look upward with his own eyes for truth — dares, in a word,
to belong to himself and God, and not to precedent of his
fellow-man 1

It is, indeed, a swift age — a swift race, and well may the
American swift (or chimney swallow) be said to type many
of its chief characteristics.

Yes, the Yankee is the spiritual swallow as well as the
moral — the overcoming speed of his rapid thought has con-
quered space, as do the wings of the bird ; he darts through

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATUKE. 325

the cities to his morning meal, and takes a nation for " mine
inn " by the way, from zone to zone ! Say then, the Ameri-
can is not also the truest poet !

Is the bird upon its tireless pinions " putting a belt around
the world," a beautiful and glorious creature' — the most
poetical of images ? Why not then the man, who, in his
car of power, sits calmly to be borne as by his own will, to
the uttermost parts of the earth — a far more sublime embodi-
ment of all that

" Bottomless conceit "

has shaped to poetry.

Does the swallow breast the opposing winds, and cleave in
undeviating flight the track of storms ? — the Yankee, in his
steamship, follows on his subject waves !

Does the swallow glide across trackless wastes — above the
sea-like crests of mighty forests — rise like a loosened arrow
amidst the snows of mountains, and dive the abyss of val-
veys? — the Yankee on his railroad thunders after it in
clouds and fire — hurtling over plains, cleaving startled
woods, to plunge reverberating through the yawning tunnel,
and burst forth winding on the paths of cities !

Does the swallow lead the south wind's flight, and find its
summer in a day ? — the Yankee can pass it on the way, can
speak across a continent, bid a home arise before he starts,
and offer the swallow lodgings in his chimney-flue, at that,
when it arrives.

There is no mistake about it — this same Yankee is the
highest poet of the most poetical age the world ever saw,
though it is perfectly well known that he has scarcely a vol-
ume of respectable poetry — so called — to bless himself with-
all!

His poetry is a live substantiality — a creation — an entity
of being and of action — of being, real as the firm-based
earth — of action grander than Homeric dreams. The " metre
ballad-monger" is no longer the poet of mankind — the

326 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS.

swarthy mechanician, takes his place — and the faded Trou-
badour lingers a ghostly shadow beneath Barbaric towers.

The soul of the beautiful has triumphed over manacles of
rhyme, and the mere artifice of jingling lines, like the sounds
of the ancient armorer's hammer, become an echo of a dis-
used craft ! Our chivalry has found a new " Plate of Proof,"
in a free thought that " speaketh wide," and is not afraid
of new " deeds of high emprize " in conquering elements to
chain them to the car of Truth.

If it be poetical to have turned the wonders of Aladin's
Lamp into the realities of his every-day life, then is your
Yankee a poet of action more splendid than the Oriental's
gorgeous fancy — a Sinbad of actual voyages on the un-
known seas of miracles, with the weird Science for his
helmsman !

As we Americans are then undoubtedly a " swift" people,
intellectually and physically, we therefore like the chimney
swallow. It is a headlong, rapid, rattling, sociable creature
— a perfect Yankee in morals and manners. It is here and
there and everywhere before you have time to think — it is
strictly utilitarian and always busy ; it is a bird of progress,
having no respect for idle though ancient usages, and hence
we uphold it in appropriating, without the ceremony of, by
your leave — our unoccupied chimney-flues in preference to
the old hollow trees their ancestors lived in.

This sort of sagacity goes to the heart of a Yankee —
nothing can lie idle where he is ; if nobody else takes pos-
session and turns it to account, he feels it to be a moral duty
to do so himself — industry with him covers a multitude of
sins. He absolutely protects and nourishes the swallow on
this account, though an intruder upon himself; but we
should not expect too much of Yankee nature, nor be sur-
prised if we should find him in emulation of the Chinese in-
troducing " bird's-nest soup " into general use at sixpence a
bowl ! The near communication with China, which the
California trade has opened, may lead to such a result at an

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 327

early day : for with the influx of a rich commerce we may
look for these foreign luxuries.

But with all Jonathan's material tendencies in the matter of
practical poetry and Epic deeds, he is nevertheless surrounded
in his daily walks by marvellous harmonies, the etherial tones
of which might

" Wake a soul under the ribs of Death."

As he has never been noted for a laggard, we give him the
credit of greeting many a resurrection of Daedal Earth with

u The top o' the morn to ye !"

as Day rolled grandly forth from its deep lair of Darkness ;
and then how, in spring-time, axled on harmonies, its sono-
rous wheels climbed the low mists, melting them in seeming
snow-flakes, in rose-tints, and in music ! Ah, then it is that
hard-fisted Jonathan knows that he is something more than
a machine maker — that, though he invents, he too had been
invented first ; and his rough heart melts — his brown and
parchment-wrinkled face, grows glistening down its seams
like "dew besprent" sides of gray old granite gorges Avhich
sudden summer storms have cut in sharp narrow tracks, as
they were hurled adown from some element-defying mountain
front ! He hears the morning song of birds, and all his child-
hood is brought back to him — for tough, hard, and indestruc-
tible as his present nature seems, it is not the less true that this
caoutchouc being was once tender as the first fresh-blown
flower of spring, when the earliest morning bird waked with
it in soft, low, garrulous prattling to the coming sun.

He recognizes, one by one, the fellows of that blissful time.
First struggling out from the deep hush of dim and distant
woods, he hears the mellow, liquid strain of that sweet- voiced
Evangel of the solitude — the freckled Song Thrush. Then,
nearer at hand, the little "Wren shrills its piping treble — aye,
it may be from the very chimney-top itself — while now, some

328 WILD SCENES AND SONG BIKDS.

minutes since, the soft twittering of the Blue Martin, under-
neath the eaves; has been becoming more and more musically
discordant, as meek dark eyes are opened amidst the gabble.
Now, from the family tree that shadows the roof, the loud,
clear song of the Eobin awakes his brooding mate. Now
the Cat-Bird's limpid roundelay steals out from the garden
hedge; and, in low ^Eolian twitterings, the delicate Blue
Bird greets the morning — while, from the swinging summit
of some oak bordering the forest, the bold pipe of the Cardi-
nal Grosbeak rings its shrill call, waking the startled echoes
like the tiny clarion of some Knight of Fairie. And now,
from some scented tuft of grasses, delicious as the voice of
all their aromas, a rounded glide of melody, like dew-drops
rolling from a rose's cheek, creeps sudden on the sense from
where the dainty Meadow Lark leans its dark breast against
the clover-tops — and all at once the garrulous clatter of the
gay Orchard Oriole breaks in. Now hush ! hush ! the noble
Brown Thrush has mounted to the spire of yon young maple
— his inspiration is upon him — and lo ! the deep and won-
drous flow of sound I — plaintive, mellow, wild, and wierd —
hark ! the ecstatic measured limpid gushes ! The sultry,
drowsy trill of the Song Sparrow, on the fence-post below,
is scarcely noted, although he rises on tip-toe to it, in his
furious earnest to be heard. And now the full choir is
aroused; and in a mighty burst of harmony the Sun is
greeted as his burnished disk wheels up the Orient. And
now the Monarch of Earth's song, who, like other aristo-
crats, keeps late hours, and therefore is in no hurry to rise
in the morning, thinks it full time to give his noisy subjects a
new lesson in music, and soon his powerful song climbs to
the throne of sound, and all other notes are hushed in the
usurping splendors of his majestic minstrelsy !

Now, too, away in the wild forest, the Hunter-Naturalist,
bearded and brown, as he sits beside his solitary camp firef
hears a consoling minstrelsy, as cheerful, as soft, as sweet
as any in this neighboring choir. Here him tell how a

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 329

strange charmer came to him in the wilds. It is Audubon
who speaks :

" One year, in the month of August, I was trudging along
the shores of the Mohawk river, when night overtook me.
Being little acquainted with that part of the country, I re-
solved to camp where I was. The evening was calm and
beautiful. The sky sparkled with stars, which were reflected
by the smooth waters ; and the deep shade of the rocks and
trees of the opposite shore fell on the bosom of the stream,
while gently from afar came on the ear the muttering sound
of the cataract. My little fire was soon lighted under a rock,
and spreading out my scanty stock of provisions, I reclined
on my grassy couch. As I looked around on the fading
features of the beautiful landscape, my heart turned towards
my distant home, where my friends were doubtless wishing
me, as I wished them, a happy night and peaceful slumbers.
Then were heard the barkings of the watch-dog, and I tapped
my faithful companion to prevent his answering them. The
thoughts of my worldly sins soon then came over my
mind, and having thanked the Creator of all for his never-
failing mercy, I closed my eyes, and was passing away into
the world of dreaming existence, when suddenly there burst
on my soul the serenade of the Kose-breasted bird, so rich,
so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the night, that sleep fled
from my eyelids. Never did I enjoy music more ; it thrilled
through my heart, and surrounded me with an atmosphere of
bliss. One might easily have imagined that even the Owl,
charmed by such delightful music, remained reverently silent.
Long after the sounds ceased did I enjoy them ; and when
all had again become still, I stretched out my wearied limbs,
and gave myself up to the luxury of repose."

After this charming picture, never think of " Savage"
wildernesses again ; for doth not the Hunter-Naturalist tell
you that beauty and melodies go everywhere hand and
hand with nature.

This lovely bird; — a portrait of which my wife has given

330 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

you in its " singing robes," with wings outspread as in the
fluttered ecstasy of song — is quite rare and difficult to ob-
tain, from the peculiarly inaccessible character of its resorts.
I recollect well the first specimen I ever saw — I came upon it
suddenly amidst the sultry stillness of a dark, deep wood. I
was quite a boy, and when I caught sight of its dotted wings
and the strange, delicate pink underneath its wings and
breast, my heart leaped with a wondering thrill, and the
same exquisite sense of strangeness came over me as that
which fills our childhood at hearing some wondrous fairy
tale. I believe I should almost have died of vexation had
I not finally succeeded in shooting the beautiful stranger to
obtain a closer look at it. Ah, how I gazed and wondered
and wept as I saw it close its dark lustrous eyes, and die in
my hand. It was long before I learned to place it. But in
the case of so rare a bird, I shall be excused in quoting still
further from Mr. Audubon. He says :

" I am indebted to my friend, John Bachman, for the fol-
lowing information respecting this interesting Grosbeak:
1 One spring I shot at a beautiful male bird of this species, in
the State of New York. It was wounded in one foot only.
and although I could not perceive any other injury after
wards, it fell from the tree to the ground, and before it re-
covered itself I secured it. Not having a cage at hand, I let
it fly in the room which I had made my study. Before an
hour had elapsed it appeared as if disposed to eat ; it refused
corn and wheat, but fed heartily on bread dipped in milk.
The next day it was nearly quite gentle, and began to ex-
amine the foot injured by the shot, which was much swollen
and quite black. It began to bite off its foot at the wounded
part, and soon succeeded in cutting it quite across. It
healed in a few days, and the bird used the mutilated leg al-
most as well as the other, perching and resting upon it. It
required indeed some care to observe that the patient had
been injured. I procured a cage for it, to which it imme-
diately became reconciled. It ate all kinds of food, but pre-

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 331

ferred Indian corn meal and hempseed. It appeared fonder
of insects than birds of that genus are supposed to be, and
ate grasshoppers and crickets with peculiar relish. It would
at times sit for hours watching the flies as they passed about
it, and snatched at, and often secured such wasps as now
and then approached the pieces of fruit thrown into the cage.
Very often, of fine moonshiny nights, it would tune its pipe,
and sing sweetly, but not loudly, remaining quietly perched
and in the same position. Whilst singing during the day, it
was in the habit of opening its wings and gently raising
them, somewhat in the manner of the Mocking Bird. I
found it very difficult to preserve this bird during winter,
and was obliged for that purpose to place it in a room heated
by a stove to summer temperature. It was a lively and very
gentle companion of my study for nearly three years ; it died
of cold the third winter. It frequently escaped from the
cage, but never exhibited the least desire to leave me, for it
invariably returned to some portion of the house at the ap-
proach of night. Its song continued about six weeks during
summer, and about two in the autumn ; at all other times it
simply uttered a faint cluck, and seemed to possess many of
the ordinary habits of the Blue Grosbeak.' "

This bird frequents the deep forests of the South, and sel-
dom gets farther north than Kentucky. It is very fond of
alder-berries, upon a bunch of which my wife has placed her
bird.

What a fine example of sound logic we have, by the way,
in the incident mentioned above, of the Grosbeak cutting off
its wounded toe with its own sharp beak. Could any learned
Professor of Surgery, scalpel in hand, have managed his
own case better.

Here is another anecdote to the same point, which was
related to Mr. Wilson concerning the Brown Thrush. Wil-
son says:

" Concerning the sagacity and reasoning faculty of this
bird, my venerable friend, Mr. Bartram, writes me as follows:

332 wiur SCENES ANE SONG-BIRDS.

*I remember fcMjave reared one of these birds from the
nest ; which, whep'full grown, became very tame and docile.
I frequently let ,hirii out of his cage to give him a taste of
liberty ; after fluttering and dusting himself in dry sand and
earth, and bathing, washing and dressing himself, he would
proceed to hunt insects, such as beetles, crickets, and other
shelly tribes ; but, being very fond of wasps, after catching
them, and knocking them about, to break their wings, he
would lay them down, then examine if they had a sting, and,
with his bill, squeeze the abdomen to clear it of the reservoir
of poison, before he would swallow his prey. When in his
cage, being very fond of dry crusts of bread, if, upon trial,
the corners of the crumbs were too hard and sharp for his
throat, he would throw them up, carry and put them in his
water dish to soften ; then take them out and swallow them.
Many other remarkable circumstances might be mentioned
that would fully demonstrate faculties of mind, not only
innate, but acquired ideas, (derived from necessity in a state
of domestication,) which we call understanding and knowl-
edge. We see that this bird could associate those ideas, ar-
range and apply them, in a rational manner according to cir-
cumstances. For instance, if he knew that it was the hard
sharp corners of the crumb of bread that hurt his gullet, and
prevented him from swallowing it, and that the water would
soften and render it easy to be swallowed, this knowledge
must be acquired by observation and experience ; or some
other bird taught. Here the bird perceived, by the effect,
the cause, and then took the quickest, the most effectual and
agreeable method to remove that cause. What could the
wisest man have done better ? Call it reason or instinct, it
is the same that a sensible man would have done in this
case.

" * After the same manner this bird reasoned in respect to
the wasps. He found, by experience and observation, that
the first he attempted to swallow hurt his throat and gave
him extreme pain ; and upon examination, observed that the

OUT OF DOORS WITH NATURE. 333

extremity of the abdomen was armed with a poisonous sting ;
and after this discovery, never attempted to swallow a wasp
until he first pinched his abdomen to the extremity, forcing
out the sting with the receptacle of poison.' "

It will be perceived that I have here some pretty staunch
backing in regarding it as an absurdity to call such plainly
practical common -sense proceedings instinctive. Why, you
destroy the higher meaning of the most beautiful facts of
nature by levelling them all to mere mechanical and invol-
untary impulse. Pooh, tell me that the greeting of the
dainty Blue Bird to the opening spring is merely that of a
little feathered music-box, wound up and set going ! You
had as well stigmatize as " machine rhyming" the following
song, which only a happy human soul, brimming over with
that -most tender and delicate inspiration with which God
fills his nobler children here on earth, could have made
articulate !

Aye and verily it was my chivalric and gentle friend — he
of the valorous Blue-Bird heart — Noble Butler, Esq., of
Louisville, Kentucky, who did indite this same song.

THE BLUE BIRD.

Though winter's power fades away,

The tyrant does not yield ;
But still he holds a waning sway

O'er hill, and grove, and field.

But while he still is lingering,

Some lovely days appear —
Bright heralds from the train of Spring,

To tell that she is near.

It is as if a day of heaven

Had fallen from on high,
And God's own smiles, for sunlight given,

Were beaming through the sky.

The Blue Bird now, with joyous note,
His song of triumph sings ;

334 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Joy swells melodious in Ms throat,
Joy quivers in bis wings.

No cunning show of art severe,

But soft and low his lay —
A sunbeam shining to the ear —

Spring's softest, brightest ray.

Those magic tones call from the past

The sunny hours of youth ;
And shining hopes come thronging fast

From worlds of lore and truth.

The harmony is seen and heard ;

For notes and rays combine,
And joys and hopes, and sun and bird,

All seem to sing and shine.

Is not that strain an JEolian of Spirit Land — a " Sunbeam
shining to the ear"< — than which old Herrick never produced
a more dainty image.

But let us take leave of these gentle recreations " out of
Doors with Nature " with a bit of Khymed Philosophy that
may have its uses in reconciling men to our desultory mode
of treating such heretofore strait-laced and science-encrusted
themes.

COMMON NATURE.

Every flower that bears an odor,
Gives it to the common wind,
Every star that lives in beaming
Sends a ray to common mind.

Scentless flowers give too their blessing,
From the splendors on their lips,
Every fitful air caressing,
Splendor out of splendor sips.

Tuneless birds tell too their story-
Out on rustling glancing plumes —
Each gives back the sun its glory,
When the shadow it illumes.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GHOST-FLOWER, AND CHILD.
A DREAM.

A shaded creature, dim and fair,
With thin, transparent colors of the gloom ; —
A flower-stalagmite, cold and rare,
Chiseled b j Gnomes of caverned air,
With dew-sweats on it, gathered there —
Then moon-drawn upward into sudden bloom.

I.

Elfin are Wonders — and Elfin are we — •
Elfin is everything under the sea ! — •

They know the godly, where elephants kneel,
They know ungodly, where petty things reel-
Think him ungodly who knows but himself —
Ah, ha ! ungodly is only the Elf I

A Child comes forth, within his eyes
A mournful splendor darkened lies —
A great Bird perching on his arm,
Hears the sad song that fain would charm
This Tom Todd of the world to stay.
But Tom Todd has no time for play —
The world and Tom Todd turn away !

386 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIBDS.

THE CHILD'S SONG.

n.

Tom Todd, Tom Todd come here !
I have brought to you a fierce bird, —
Tom Todd, come here ? —
Tom Todd won't come !

Tom Todd! Tom Todd, come here?
I have brought you a bird that singeth so
Tom Todd, come here ? —
Tom Todd wont come !

Tom Todd ! Tom Todd, come here ?
For this strange bird you should hear ! —
Tom Todd ! Tom Todd, come here ?-
Tom Todd wont come !

Tom Todd ! Tom Todd, come here?
Tom Todd, I pray you come here ?
IVe brought you a singing eagle ! —

Tom Todd, come here ?

Tom Todd wont come I —

Tom Todd's a fool !

Tom Todd, the world is sad ! —
He singeth on wing a rustling song,
And all things fear him on the ground ;
He's fierce, Tom Todd, but he is not bad.
He singeth chorus to the storms —
Sings glory to the upper air !
He wingeth fiercely the dark clouds,
To break in whirling all their shrouds.
He floateth on the coming gleams,
And is the first to feel the beams
That God lets fall from yellow suns.

THE GHOST-FLOWER, AND CHILD. 337

He shakes the clouds that rain down blood.
All beautiful, and strong, and good,
He is the sky's bold robber still. — •
When meaning of his life you seek,
He vanishes in lofty cloud,
And screameth down defiance proud.
The clarion screamer, high and loud —
The type and note of Liberty—-
Of canquering struggles of the free —
He comes like warriors suddenly ;

In fell and silent swoop

He comes so fell a-flying,

It sounds most like the sighing

Of stricken roe-buck dying,

When the feathered arrow sped.
And then he scorns to touch the dead,
E'en though there be much plunder there ;
He leaves it to the vulture dread
His carrion to tear !
He scorneth, like the Lion-cat,
To touch a prey he hath not slain,
It must be won by might and main —
He drinketh no cold blood like that !
Like proud, exulting Thought, on high,
He has strong wings, and why not he,
Be type of all wild liberty ?
Thoughts like him go up toward heaven,
And even souls such wings are given,
And glory, beauty, sunlight first,
Are too thrown down by him from heaven,
And yet of all things winged the worst —
If bloody talons, bloody beak,
Are the types by which you speak !
And yet this blood has set us free !
Blood broke our chains espirituelie, —
22

338 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

All earth is bloody, and must be —
Blood is life and blood is strength,
Blood is glory, and at length
Must robe us for Eternity !

The eagle sings this where the cataract's heard,
And earth shivered and shaken is frightened sore,
While the water comes down with a frown and a roar.

Tom Todd no more ! —
I will not tell you the story I bore,
Ye are not worthy to hear such lore,
You have not the thought, the heart or the height,
You never will know the strange power of might
Tom Todd won't come,
Tom Todd's a fool !

in.

Elfin are wonders and Elfin are we,
Elfin is everything under the sea ! —

He stays on the surface — mocks at all things —
The sad one who all activity brings —
He laughs and mocks us while coldly he flings
The winter that comes of nightly decay ; — •
Winter is lighter than thoughts that we know
There's no dull wretchedness coupled with woe.

Take the Black Bird from me now,

There is fever on my brow ! —

Yes, the red is on its wing —

And this red good hope should bring !

Yes, and there was yellow too,

Yellow goeth up the blue

To where thrones of Power are placed —

Where no gentle thing erased

Is driven to a stupid Hell

Of Bigotrie —

Where all are free 1

THE GHOST-FLOWEE, AND CHILD. 389

0 God ! 0 God, the world is wrong ! — •
It does not know when men are strong.
"When its Prophets come there're slighted —
Black Birds on their heads alighted,
Scare them with a shadowy woe —
It should not let its birds do so !

0 be ye not despairing yet,

Thou child of sorrows and regret, —

For God will send a golden hope,

From out his gladder radiance,

E're he shall call thee, calmly hence !

Be not all hopeless when the world
Is sadder still than your despair !
Wait till the evil wings are furled,
And joy and gladness rule the air !

Darkness is not all forlorn
Light sleeps in it till the morn,
God is light — and light is Love,

Go poor souls and live and love !
O be patient till the light
Cometh to thee from the Dawn,
God yet lives for the forlorn !

Thou art unhappy — yet of men
Thou art not the only bowed,
The poor are rotting vermin-clad —

Life decaying in its shroud !
Ah why shouldst thou, then, still be sad,
Up and work ! — redeem the sod,
Labor is the way to God !

God is motion, stars and light !
God is all that e're was bright !
God is all that e're was fairy !
God is all that e're was airy !—

340 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS.

God is all beneficent,
God is all by whom we're sent
His high behests from Faith to draw
And out of mystery find the law !

The tender and the virtuous souls,
They feel the way a bad world rolls ; —
They write on many a sacred slip
What shall not come from saintly lip ; —
They look to thoughts that men ne'er saw,
And struggle with a holiest awe —
And struggle with a solemn shade ;
For nature gives all solemn things ;
From nature all goes up on wings —
Most like the thought of passive death,
Like one who fears no loss of breath,
Like one who goeth, as flowers die, —
Exhaling Beauty up the sky !

The wings ! the wings I O give us wings !

The world has hurt us so,
The world ! the world is full of wo !

"Wings ! let us, let us go !

The world ! the world, how hard and drear !
The world ! the world, it will not hear !

O give us wings and let us go ! —

The world has hurt us so —

Go where a singing place is found,
Where birds need not their wings,

Where Tom Todd never yet has frowned
Upon all lovely things.

IV.

Elfin are wonders and Elfin are we,
Elfin is everything under the sea.

Soothing wretchedness — making earth bright!
Winter ! — sound thee, for once a delight !

THE GHOST-FLOWEK, AND CHILD. 341

Somebody comes and cometh in might ;
Ah winter ! winter ! there cometh in chase
A Power more strong than thou canst embrace,
For beauty and violets bloom in the race !

Gentle Bird ! gentle Bird, come from the sun,

The blue on your back and sky are as one !

Gentle Bird ! gentle Bird, come ye to day

To tell me of pardon — then go away !

Gentle Bird ! gentle Bird ! why is it so

You and I struggle through such a dark woe ?

Dreary, ah dreary the front of the Earth,

Gentle Bird tell me why pity is dearth ?

Gentle Bird ! gentle Bird ! know they thy song ?

Gentle Bird ! say is it they that are wrong ?

Gentle Bird tell me then — tell me how long

The good God lets us go scorning the wrong ?

Gentle Bird ! gentle Bird ! tell me how long

"Will sad things be humble and bad things be strong ?

Will virtue be poor, yet go yearning ?

Will vice have great store yet go earning —
Earning of weak ones still more ?
Tell it me, gentle bird, I so yearn for thy lore.

Must greatest strength, then, crush the meekest ?

Must greatest length, then, bend the more ?
The greatest height, be all the bleakest —

And the greatest hearts — be they most sore ?
Must the brightest flowers God gave the hours,
Eeach our sad eyes through evil powers ?
Tell me, then, gentle bird, why is it so ?

You twitter, and twitter, and twitter a song,

Art thou never cold — is the day never long ?

Do never Hawks haunt thee and Eagles scream loud ?

Croak Ravens no Portent — see ye no leaf shroud ?

Doth thy bright eye quail — or thy little heart fail

When rustling by thee, they heavily sail ?

342 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS.

Talks not. the tempests too raging and loud

When your delicate form to the leafy twig clings ? —

And is there no hurricane-death where it sings ?

Art never fearful where the hoarse beasts do growl ?

Is your little heart with you when the gray wolves do howl ?

Is Panther your choice when his sweet voice comes out ?

Or dost sing when soft-wing'd owls are about ?

When they hoot in answer to savages' whoop —

While making dark ravages with silent swoop —

And snapping their horny beaks in that dull gloom,

Do they scare thee with thoughts of too warm a tomb,

Beneath yellow light from their great staring eyes ?

Is it where things are gentle, night murder flies ?

Have angels' bright songs any sweeter than thine —

Or angel art thou, then, my sweet bird, in fine ?

Thy notes are too mellow for coarse words of mine,
Thou art braver than conqueror of any bad li ne ;
Thou sing'st midst terrors a sad world to refine ;
The hiss and the horror, the howl and the roar
When thy song is triumphing saddens no more ;
Tell me then, gentle bird, how can you sing so ?

Ye twitter, and twitter, and twitter a song,
But will the world let ye go twittering long ? —
While killing the gentle and pampering wrong,
They go for cowards and the brutes that are strong ;

Mean ye a time of lofty story,

Mean ye a time of peaceful glory ?

Mean ye a time when hope shall see

A thought and a deed of benignity ?

When twittereth, twittereth that small song,

Bring'st thou the graces and flowers along ?

Art thou an aeolian joy from on high,

That cometh here singing that men may not die ?

Knowest thou aught that is gentle and good

THE GHOST-FLOWEB, AND CHILD. 343

That might makes us happy, if happy we would —
Since the good God came in that ancient flood ?
Tell me, gentle bird, tell it to me,
I long for thy lore so exceedingly.

V.

Elfin are wonders, and elfin are we —
Elfin is everything under the sea :

They come as an arrow, go as a thought ;

Space is too narrow, when they would be sought.

They come at no bidding, speed at no will —

Yet ever go ridding earth of some ill 1

They bless and they curse — they heal and destroy,

Their good may seem worse than ill they employ !

From cavern's dark fountain, the spring on the lea —

From Eagle-kept mountain they never shall flee.

Like a beautiful thing,

"With golden wing,
That comes from where suns are lit ;

Like a beautiful thing,

With silver wing,
That comes from where moon-birds sit ;

Like a shadowy thing,

With dim-spread wing,
That comes from where dream-birds flit.

Like an ominous thing,

With boding wing,
That comes on plumes of the night,

And yet doth bring,

On boding wing,
A ray of the golden light !

Like a singing thing,
With purple wing,

344 WILD SCENES AND SONGKBIKDS.

'That comes whence orient stars do spring —
That cometh in burnish of silver and gold,
Through shining mists, to tell as of old,
The story the lowly flowers have told,
How Hope was pinioned, in glory, to fling
The dawn of her future on every high thing !

Like a meek-eyed thing,
"With wing all blue,

That comes from a Temple where hearts are true —
That comes from a Temple so vast,
That when at last

Earth goes like a dot,
There lives not an archangel

Can tell you the spot
"Where the poor thing should dwell !

Like a glorious thing,

"With scarlet wing,

That flashing doth dazzle mortal eye —
That soaring, and soaring, still soaring doth sing,
God is gleamed off from my flashing wing,
See him, poor mortal, though blinded, and sing.
God sent his Justice a right hand to stain
In the blood of a Christ, that ye might remain
To work out his glory, and cease from all pain.

Till sorrow and sadness,

Horror and madness,

Give way to gladness

And cherubic strain !
Joy ! 0 Joy ! then as Winter must go,
Spring must be coming for poor souls below 1

Cufntual

American Song Thrush— Turdus Melodus 2, 190, 327

American Swift — Cypselus Pclasgius 324

Baltimore Oriole — Icterus Baltimore , 30

Blue Grosbeak — Fringilla Ccerulea 329

Bob'o Lank or Rice Bird — Icterus Agripennis 4, 9

Blue 'Bird— Sylvia Sialis 84, 328

Bird of Washington— Falco Washingtonii 267, 287

Bald Eagle— Falco Leucocephalus 298, 301

Bee Martin — Muscicapa Tyranus 264

Blue Martin — Hirundo Purpurea 325

Bullfinch— Lucia Pyrrhula 307

Blue or Canada Crane — Grus Americana 323

Cat Bird — Turdus Felivox 4, 328, 274

California Jay — Cyanocorax Luxuosus 188

Crow — Corvus Americana 19

Caracara Eagle — Polyborus Vulgaris 266

Canada Jay — Corvus Canadcnsis 1 87

California Woodpecker — Melanerpes Formicivorus 188

Crane, Canada 323

Falcon, Jer — Falco Islandicus 295

Falcon, Singing 255

Eagles 233, 154

" Golden — Falco Chrysaetos 241

" White Headed 258

" Brazilian , 266

" Washington.... 267, 287

" Sea.—Haliaetus Pelagicus 292, 296

English Song Thrush— Turdus Musicus 208. 209

346 TECHNICAL INDEX.

Page

Goldfinch 161

Golden Eagle 258

Grosbeak, Blue 329

Grosbeak Scarlet— Fringilla Cardinalis 3, 199, 329

Grouse, Pinnated — Tetrao Gupido 26, 158

Ghost-flower — Monotropa Unijiora 335

Humming Bird 98

" Emerald 108

" Ruby Throated — Trochilus Colubris 110

" Ruffled or Nootka Sound — Trochilus Rufus 122

Hawks 287

" Fish— Falco Haliaetus 265

Indigo Bird — Fringilla Cyanea 4

Jay, Blue — Corvus Cristatus 180

" Canada 187

" California 188

Jer Falcon 295

Lark, Meadow — Sturnus Ludovicianus 3, 325

" Sky 169

Loggerhead Shrike — Lanius Ludovicianus 96

Mexican Eagle 266

Meadow Lark 3, 325

Magpie 188

Martin, Blue 325

Martin, Bee 264

Mocking Bird— Turdus Polyglottus 2, 4, 32, 35, 163, 203, 332

Nightingale — Sylvia Luscinia 7, 16, 21 1

Nootka Sound Humming Bird 123

Oriole, Baltimore 30

" Orchard 2, 12, 325

Ostriches 320

Partridge or Ruffled Grouse — Tetrao Umbellus 4

Pinnated Grouse or Prairie Hen — Tetrao Cupido 21, 158

Painted Finch — Fringilla Ciris 311

Robin — Turdus Migratorius 2, 176, 1 98, 325

Ruffled Humming Bird 122

TECHNICAL INDEX. 347

Page
Ruby Throated — " 110

Scarlet Grosbeak 3, 199, 329

Song Sparrow — Fringilla Melodia 4, 328

Shrike, Loggerhead 96

" Great Cinereous — Lanius Excubitor 90

Sea Eagle 292 296

Sky Lark — Alaudct Arvensis 169

Singing Falcon 254

Swan 267

Swift, American 324

Thrush English Song 203, 209

" American Song, 2, 190, 327

Thrasher — Orpheus Rufus 4, 331, 174

Wren, House — Troglodytes (Edon 3, 327

Woodpecker, California 188

•

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