JOHN

Samuel Hmtsfam Marl arlmtd

Tfffi LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

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

.

^

LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY

BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

AUTHOR OF "WAKE ROBIN," "WINTER SUNSHINE,"
AND " BIRDS AND POETS."

BOSTON

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY
Ktoerstte

1879

Copyright, 1879,
BY JOHN BURROUGHS.

All rights reserved.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. 0. HOUOHTON AND COMPANY.

PKEFACE. LlbvAYW

I AM aware that for the most part the title of my
book is an allegory rather than an actual description ;
but readers who have followed me heretofore, I trust,
will not be puzzled or misled in the present case by
any want of literalness in the matter of the title. If
the name carries with it a suggestion of the wild and
delectable in nature, of the free and ungarnered har-
vests which the wilderness everywhere affords to the
observing eye and ear, it will prove sufficiently ex-
plicit for my purpose.

ESOPUS, N. Y.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE PASTORAL BEES 7

SHARP EYES 35

STRAWBERRIES 63

Is IT GOING TO KAIN ? 77

SPECKLED TROUT 107

BIRDS AND BIRDS 141

A BED OF BOUGHS . . 167

BIHDS'-NESTING 197

THE HALCYON IN CANADJL .211

THE PASTORAL BEES.

THE PASTORAL BEES.

THE honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring
like the dove from Noah's ark, and it is not till
after many days that she brings back the olive leaf,
which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon
each hip, usually obtained from the alder or swamp
willow. In a country where maple sugar is made
the bees get their first taste of sweet from the sap
as it flows from the spiles, or as it dries and is con-
densed upon the sides of the buckets. They will
sometimes, in their eagerness, come about the boil-
ing place and be overwhelmed by the steam and the
smoke. But bees appear to be more eager for bread
in the spring than for honey; their supply of this
article, perhaps, does not keep as well as their stores
of the latter ; hence fresh bread, in the shape of new
pollen, is diligently sought for. My bees get their
first supplies from the catkins of the willows. How
quickly they find them out. If but one catkin opens
anywhere within range a bee is on hand that very
hour to rifle it, and it is a most pleasing experience
to stand near the hive some mild April day and see

10 THE PASTORAL BEES.

them come pouring in with their little baskets packed
with this first fruitage of the spring. They will have
new bread now ; they have been to mill in good ear-
nest ; see their dusty coats, and the golden grist they
bring home with them.

When a bee brings pollen into the hive he ad-
vances to the cell in which it is to be deposited and
kicks it off as one might his overalls or rubber boots,
making one foot help the other ; then he walks off
without ever looking behind him ; another bee, one
of the indoor hands, comes along and rams it down
with his head and packs it into the cell as the dairy-
maid packs butter into a firkin.

The first spring wild-flowers, whose shy faces
among the dry leaves and rocks are so welcome,
yield no honey. The anemone, the hepatica, the
bloodroot, the arbutus, the numerous violets, the
spring beauty, the corydalis, etc., woo all lovers of
nature, but do not woo the honey-loving bee. It
requires more sun and warmth to develop the sac-
charine element, and the beauty of these pale strip-
lings of the woods and groves is their sole and suffi-
cient excuse for being. The arbutus, lying low and
keeping green all winter, attains to perfume, but not
to honey.

The first honey is perhaps obtained from the flow-
ers of the red maple and the golden willow. The
latter sends forth a wild, delicious perfume. The
sugar maple blooms a little later, and from its silken
tassels a rich nectar is gathered. My bees will not

THE PASTORAL BEES. 11

label these different varieties for me as I really wish
they would. Honey from the maple, a tree so clean
and wholesome, and full of such virtues every way,
would be something to put one's tongue to. Or that
from the blossoms of the apple, the peach, the cherry,
the quince, the currant, — one would like a card of
each of these varieties to note their peculiar qualities.
The apple-blossom is very important to the bees. A
single swarm has been known to gain twenty pounds
in weight during its continuance. Bees love the
ripened fruit, too, and in August and September will
suck themselves tipsy upon varieties like the sops-of-
wine.

The interval between the blooming of the fruit-
trees and that of the clover and raspberry is bridged
over in many localities by the honey locust. What
a delightful summer murmur these trees send forth
at this season. I know nothing about the quality
of the honey, but it ought to keep well. But when
the red raspberry blooms, the fountains of plenty
are unsealed indeed ; what a commotion about the
hives then, especially in localities where it is ex-
tensively cultivated, as in places along the Hudson.
The delicate white clover, which begins to bloom
about the same time, is neglected; even honey it-
self is passed by for this modest, colorless, all but
odorless flower. A field of these berries in June
sends forth a continuous murmur like that of an
enormous hive. The honey is not so white as that
obtained from clover, but it is easier gathered ; it is

12 THE PASTORAL BEES.

in shallow cups while that of the clover is in deep
tubes. The bees are up and at it "before sunrise,
and it takes a brisk shower to drive them in. But
the clover blooms later and blooms everywhere, and
is the staple source of supply of the finest quality of
honey. The red clover yields up its stores only to
the longer proboscis of the bumble-bee, else the bee
pasturage of our agricultural districts would be un-
equaled. I do not know from what the famous honey
of Chamouni in the Alps is made, but it can hardly
surpass our best products. The snow-white honey
of Anatolia in Asiatic Turkey, which is regularly
sent to Constantinople for the use of the grand
seignior and the ladies of his seraglio, is obtained
from the cotton plant, which makes me think that the
white clover does not flourish there. The white clover
is indigenous with us ; its seeds seem latent in the
ground, and the application of certain stimulants to
the soil, like wood ashes, causes them to germinate
and spring up.

The rose, with all its beauty and perfume, yields
no honey to the bee, unless the wild species be
sought by the bumble-bee.

Among the humbler plants let me not forget the
dandelion that so early dots the sunny slopes, and
upon which the bee languidly grazes, wallowing to
his knees in the golden but not over-succulent past-
urage. From the blooming rye and wheat the bee
gathers pollen, also from the obscure blossoms of
Indian corn. Among weeds, catnip is the great favor-

THE PASTORAL BEES. 13

ite. It lasts nearly the whole season and yields
richly. It could no doubt be profitably cultivated
in some localities, and catnip honey would be a
novelty in the market. It would probably partake
of the aromatic properties of the plant from which
it was derived.

Among your stores of honey gathered before mid-
summer you may chance upon a card, or mayhap
only a square inch or two of comb, in which the
liquid is as transparent as water, of a delicious qual-
ity, with a slight flavor of mint. This is the product
of the linden or basswood, of all the trees in our
forest the one most beloved by the bees. Melissa,
the goddess of honey, has placed her seal upon this
tree. The wild swarms in the woods frequently reap
a choice harvest from it. I have seen a mountain-side
thickly studded with it, its straight, tall, smooth, light-
gray shaft carrying its deep-green crown far aloft,
like the tulip or maple.

In some of the Northwestern States there are
large forests of it, and the amount of honey reported
stored by strong swarms in this section during the
time the tree is in bloom is quite incredible. As a
shade and ornamental tree the linden is fully equal
to the maple, and if it was as extensively planted and
cared for our supplies of virgin honey would be
greatly increased. The famous honey of Lithuania
in Russia is the product of the linden.

It is a homely old stanza current among bee folk
that

14 THE PASTORAL BEES.

"A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon ;
But a swarm in July
Is not worth a fly."

A swarm in May is indeed a treasure ; it is, like an
April baby, sure to thrive, and will very likely itself
send out a swarm a month or two later ; but a swarm
in July is not to be despised ; it will store no clover
or linden honey for the " grand seignior and the ladies
of his seraglio," but plenty of the rank and whole-
some poor man's nectar, the sun-tanned product of
the plebeian buckwheat. Buckwheat honey is the
black sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and
character in it. It lays hold of the taste in no equivo-
cal manner, especially when at a winter breakfast it
meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. Bread
with honey to cover it from the same stalk is double
good fortune. It is not black, either, but nut-brown,
and belongs to the same class of goods as Herrick's

" Nut-brown mir.th and russet wit."

How the bees love it, and they bring the delicious
odor of the blooming plant to the hive with them, so
that in the moist warm twilight the apiary is redolent
with the perfume of buckwheat.

Yet evidently it is not the perfume of any flower
that attracts the bees ; they pay no attention to the
sweet-scented lilac, or to heliotrope, but work upon
sumach, silkweed, and the hateful snapdragon. In
September they are hard pressed, and do well if they

THE PASTORAL BEES. 15

pick up enough sweet to pay the running expenses
of their establishment. The purple asters and the
golden-rod are about all that remain to them.

Bees will go three or four miles in quest of honey,
but it is a great advantage to move the hive near the
good pasturage, as has been the custom from the
earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprising
person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyp-
tians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, has tried
the experiment of floating several hundred colonies
north on the Mississippi, starting from New Orleans
and following the opening season up, thus realizing a
sort of perpetual May or June, the chief attraction
being the blossoms of the river willow, which yield
honey of rare excellence. Some of the bees were no
doubt left behind, but the amount of virgin honey
secured must have been very great. In September
they should have begun the return trip, following the
retreating summer South.

It is the making of the wax that costs with the
bee. As with the poet, the form, the receptacle,
gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills it,
though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty
comb in both cases. The honey he can have for the
gathering, but the wax he must make himself — must
evolve from his own inner consciousness. When
wax is to be made the wax-makers fill themselves
with honey and retire into their chamber for private
meditation : it is like some solemn religious rite ;
they take hold of hands, or hook themselves together

16 THE PASTOEAL BEES.

in long lines that hang in festoons from the top of
the hive, and wait for the miracle to transpire. After
about twenty-four hours their patience is rewarded,
the honey is turned into wax, minute scales of which
are secreted from between the rings of the abdomen
of each bee ; this is taken off and from it the comb
is built up. It is calculated that about twenty-
five pounds of honey are used in elaborating one
pound of comb, to say nothing of the time that is
lost. Hence the importance, in an economical point
of view, of a recent device by which the honey is ex-
tracted and the comb returned intact to the bees.
But honey without the comb is the perfume without
the rose, — it is sweet merely, and soon degenerates
into candy. Half the delectableness is in breaking
down these frail and exquisite walls yourself, and
tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness by
contact with the air. Then the comb is a sort of
shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being
overwhelmed by the first shock of the sweet.

The drones have the least enviable time of it.
Their foothold in the hive is very precarious. They
look like the giants, the lords of the swarm, but they
are really the tools. Their loud, threatening hum has
no sting to back it up, and their size and noise make
them only the more conspicuous marks for the birds.
They are all candidates for the favors of the queen,
a fatal felicity that is vouchsafed to but one. Fatal,
I say, for it is a singular fact in the history of bees,
that the fecundation of the queen costs the male his

THE PASTORAL BEES. 17

life. Yet day after day the drones go forth, thread-
ing the mazes of the air in hopes of meeting her
whom to meet is death. The queen only leaves the
hive once, except when she leads away the swarm,
and as she makes no appointment with the male, but
wanders here and there, drones enough are provided
to meet all the contingencies of the case.

One advantage, at least, results from this system of
things : there is no incontinence among the males in
this republic !

Toward the close of the season, say in July or
August, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die ;
there is no further use for them. Then the poor
creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about,
trying to hide in corners and by-ways. There is no
loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes
them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have
seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into
a small space between the glass and the comb, where
the bees could not get hold of them, or where they
seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter.
They will also crawl outside and hide under the edges
of the hive. But sooner or later they are all killed
or kicked out. The drone makes no resistance, ex-
cept to pull back and try to get away ; but (putting
yourself in his place) with one bee a-hold of your col-
lar or the hair of your head, and another a-hold of each
arm or leg, and still another feeling for your waist-
bands with his sting, the odds are greatly against you.

It is a singular fact, also, that the queen is made,
2

18 THE PASTOKAL BEES.

not born. If the entire population of Spain or Great
Britain were the offspring of one mother, it might be
found necessary to hit upon some device by which a
royal baby could be manufactured out of an ordinary
one, or else give up the fashion of royalty. All the
bees in the hive have a common parentage, and the
queen and the worker are the same in the egg and in
the chick ; the patent of royalty is in the cell and in
the food ; the cell being much larger, and the food a
peculiar stimulating kind of jelly. In certain contin-
gencies, such as the loss of the queen with no eggs
in the royal cells, the workers take the larva of an
ordinary bee, enlarge the cell by taking in the two
adjoining ones, and nurse it and stuff it and coddle it,
till at the end of sixteen days it comes out a queen.
But ordinarily, in the natural course of events, the
young queen is kept a prisoner in her cell till the
old queen has left with the swarm. Not only kept,
but guarded against the mother queen, who only
wants an opportunity to murder every royal scion in
the hive. Both the queens, the one a prisoner and
the other at large, pipe defiance at each other at this
time, a shrill, fine, trumpet-like note that any ear will
at once recognize. This challenge, not being allowed
to be accepted by either party, is followed, in a day
or two, by the abdication of the old queen ; she leads
out the swarm, and her successor is liberated by her
keepers, who, in her time, abdicates in favor of the
next younger. When the bees have decided that no
more swarms can issue, the reigning queen is allowed

THE PASTORAL BEES. 19

to use her stiletto upon her unhatched sisters. Cases
have been known where two queens issued at the
same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged
by the workers, who formed a ring about them, but
showed no preference, and recognized the victor as
the lawful sovereign. For these and many other curi-
ous facts we are indebted to the blind Huber.

It is worthy of note that the position of the queen
cells is always vertical, while that of the drones and
workers is horizontal; majesty stands on its head,
which fact may be a part of the secret.

The notion has always very generally prevailed
that the queen of the bees is an absolute ruler, and
issues her royal orders to willing subjects. Hence
Napoleon the First sprinkled the symbolic bees over
the imperial mantle that bore the arms of his dynasty ;
and in the country of the Pharaohs the bee was used
as the emblem of a people sweetly submissive to the
orders of its king. But the fact is, a swarm of bees
is an absolute democracy, and kings and despots can
find no warrant in their example. The power and
authority are entirely vested in the great mass, the
workers. They furnish all the brains and foresight
of the colony, and administer its affairs. Their word
is law, and both king and queen must obey. They
regulate the swarming, and give the signal for the
swarm to issue from the hive ; they select and make
ready the tree in the woods and conduct the queen
to it.

The peculiar office and sacredness of the queen

20 THE PASTORAL BEES.

consists in the fact that she is the mother of the
swarm, and the bees love and cherish her as a mother
and not as a sovereign. She is the sole female bee
in the hive and the swarm clings to her because she
is their life. Deprived of their queen, and of all
brood from which to rear one, the swarm loses all
heart and soon dies, though there be an abundance
of honey in the hive.

The common bees will never use their sting upon
the queen; if she is to be disposed of they starve her
to death ; and the queen herself will sting nothing but
royalty — nothing but a rival queen.

The queen, I say, is the mother bee ; it is undoubt-
edly complimenting her to call her a queen and in-
vest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb
creature, and looks every inch a queen. It is an
event to distinguish her amid the mass of bees when
the swarm alights ; it awakens a thrill. Before you
have seen a queen you wonder if this or that bee,
which seems a little larger than its fellows, is not she,
but when you once really set eyes upon her you do
not doubt for a moment. You know that is the queen.
That long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking creature
can be none less than royalty. How beautifully her
body tapers, how distinguished she looks, how delib-
erate her movements ! The bees do not fall down be-
fore her but caress her and touch her person. The
drones, or males, are large loeea too, but coarse, blunt,
broad-shouldered, masculine-looking. There is but
one fact or incident in the life of the queen that looks

THE PASTOKAL BEES. 21

imperial and authoritative : Huber relates that when
the old queen is restrained in her movements by the
workers, and prevented from destroying the young
queens in their cells, she assumes a peculiar attitude
and utters a note that strikes every bee motionless,
and makes every head bow; while this sound lasts
not a bee stirs, but all look abashed and humbled, yet
whether the emotion is one of fear, or reverence, or
of sympathy with the distress of the queen mother
is hard to determine. The moment it ceases and she
advances again toward the royal cells the bees bite
and pull and insult her as before.

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune
if I am away from home when my bees swarm.
What a delightful summer sound it is ; how they come
pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand
bees each striving to get out first ; it is as when the
dam gives way and lets the waters loose, it is a flood
of bees which breaks upward into the air and becomes
a maze of whirling black lines to the eye and a soft
chorus of myriad musical sounds to the ear. This
way and that way they drift, now contracting, now
expanding, rising, sinking, growing thick about some
branch or bush, then dispersing and massing at some
other point, till finally they begin to alight in earnest,
when in a few moments the whole swarm is collected
upon the branch, forming a bunch perhaps as large
as a two-gallon measure. Here they will hang from
one to three or four hours or until a suitable tree
in the woods is looked up, when, if they have not

22 THE PASTORAL BEES.

been offered a hive in the mean time, they are up
and off. In hiving them, if any accident happens
to the queen the enterprise miscarries at once. One
day I shook a swarm from a small pear-tree into a
tin pan, set the pan down on a shawl spread beneath
the tree, and put the hive over it. The bees presently
all crawled up into it, and all seemed to go well for
ten or fifteen minutes, when I observed that some-
thing was wrong ; the bees began to buzz excitedly
and to rush about in a bewildered manner, then they
took to the wing and all returned to the parent stock.
On lifting up the pan, I found beneath it the queen
with three or four other bees. She had been one of
the first to fall, had missed the pan in her descent, and
I had set it upon her. I conveyed her tenderly back
to the hive, but either the accident terminated fatally
with her or else the young queen had been liberated
in the interim, and one of them had fallen in combat,
for it was ten days before the swarm issued a second
time.

No one, to my knowledge, has ever seen the bees
house-hunting in the woods. Yet there can be no
doubt that they look up new quarters either before
or on the day the swarm issues. For all bees are
wild bees and incapable of domestication ; that is, the
instinct to go back to nature and take up again their
wild abodes in the trees is never eradicated. Years
upon years of life in the apiary seems to have no ap-
preciable effect towards their final, permanent domes-
tication. That every new swarm contemplates mi-

THE PASTORAL BEES. 23

grating to the woods, seems confirmed by the fact
that they will only come out when the weather is
favorable to such an enterprise, and that a passing
cloud, or a sudden wind, after the bees are in the air,
will usually drive them back into the parent hive.
Or an attack upon them with sand or gravel, or loose
earth or water, will quickly cause them to change
their plans. I would not even say but that, when the
bees are going off, the apparently absurd practice, now
entirely discredited by regular bee-keepers but still
resorted to by unscientific folk, of beating upon tin
pans, blowing horns, and creating an uproar generally,
might not be without good results. Certainly not by
drowning the " orders " of the queen, but by im-
pressing the bees as with some unusual commotion in
nature. Bees are easily alarmed and disconcerted,
and I have known runaway swarms to be brought
down by a farmer plowing in the field who showered
them with handfuls of loose soil.

I love to see a swarm go off — if it is not mine,
and if mine must go I want to be on hand to see the
fun. It is a return to first principles again by a very
direct route. The past season I witnessed two such
escapes. One swarm had come out the day before,
and, without alighting, had returned to the parent
hive — some hitch in the plan, perhaps, or may be
the queen had found her wings too weak. The next
day they came out again, and were hived. But
something offended them, or else the tree in the
woods — perhaps some royal old maple or birch,

24 THE PASTORAL BEES.

holding its head high above all others, with snug,
spacious, irregular chambers and galleries — had too
many attractions ; for they were presently discovered
filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly
around. Gradually they began to drift over the
street ; a moment more, and they had become sepa-
rated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a
more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a hum-
ming, flying vortex of bees, the queen in the centre,
and the swarm revolving around her as a pivot, —
over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight
for the heart of the mountain, about a mile distant,
— slow at first, so that the youth who gave chase
kept up with them, but increasing their speed till
only a fox-hound could have kept them in sight. I
saw their pursuer laboring up the side of the mount-
ain ; saw his white shirt-sleeves gleam as he entered
the woods ; but he returned a few hours afterward
without any clew as to the particular tree in which
they had taken refuge out of the ten thousand that
covered the side of the mountain.

The other swarm came out about one o'clock of a
hot July day, and at once showed symptoms that
alarmed the keeper, who, however, threw neither
dirt nor water. The house was situated on a steep
side-hill. Behind it the ground rose, for a hundred
rods or so, at an angle of nearly forty -five degrees,
and the prospect of having to chase them up this hill,
if chase them we should, promised a good trial of
wind at least ; for it soon became evident that their

THE PASTORAL BEES. 25

course lay in this direction. Determined to have a
hand, or rather a foot, in the chase, I threw off my
coat and hurried on, before the swarm was yet fairly
organized and under way. The route soon led me
.into a field of standing rye, every spear of which
held its head above my own. Plunging recklessly
forward, my course marked to those watching from
below by the agitated and wriggling grain, I emerged
from the miniature forest just in time to see the run-
aways disappearing over the top of the hill, some
fifty rods in advance of me. Lining them as well
as I could, I soon reached the hill-top, my breath ut-
terly gone and the perspiration streaming from every
pore of my skin. On the other side the country
opened deep and wide. A large valley swept around
to the north, heavily wooded at its head and on its
sides. It became evident at once that the bees had
made good their escape, and that whether they had
stopped on one side of the valley or the other, or
had indeed cleared the opposite mountain and gone
into some unknown forest beyond, was entirely prob-
lematical. I turned back, therefore, thinking of the
honey-laden tree that some of these forests woulc
hold before the falling of the leaf.

I heard of a youth in the neighborhood, more
lucky than myself on a like occasion. It seems that
he had got well in advance of the swarm, whose
route lay over a hill, as in my case, and as he neared
the summit, hat in hand, the bees had just come up
and were all about him. Presently he noticed them

26 THE PASTORAL BEES.

hovering about his straw hat, and alighting on his
arm ; and in almost as brief a time as it takes to re-
late it, the whole swarm had followed the queen into
his hat. Being near a stone wall, he coolly depos-
ited his prize upon it, quickly disengaged himself
from the accommodating bees, and returned for a
hive. The explanation of this singular circumstance
no doubt is, that the queen, unused to such long and
heavy nights, was obliged to alight from very ex-
haustion. It is not very unusual for swarms to be
thus found in remote fields, collected upon a bush or
branch of a tree.

When a swarm migrates to the woods in this man-
ner, the individual bees, as I have intimated, do not
move in right lines or straight forward, like a flock
of birds, but round and round, like chaff in a whirl-
wind. Unitedly they form a humming, revolving,
nebulous mass, ten or fifteen feet across, which keeps
just high enough to clear all obstacles, except in
crossing deep valleys, when, of course, it may be
very high. The swarm seems to be guided by a line
of couriers, which may be seen (at least at the out-
set) constantly going and coming. As they take a
direct course there is always some chance of follow-
ing them to the tree, unless they go a long distance,
and some obstruction, like a wood, or a swamp, or
a high hill, intervenes — enough chance, at any rate,
to stimulate the lookers-on to give vigorous chase
as long as their wind holds out. If the bees are
successfully followed to their retreat, two plans are

THE PASTORAL BEES. 27

feasible : either to fell the tree at once, and seek to
hive them, perhaps bring them home in the section of
the tree that contains the cavity ; or to leave the tree
till fall, then invite your neighbors, and go and cut
it, and see the ground flow with honey. The former
course is more business-like ; but the latter is the
one usually recommended by one's friends and neigh-
bors.

Perhaps nearly one third of all the runaway swarms
leave when no one is about, and hence are unseen and
unheard, save, perchance, by some distant laborers
in the field, or by some youth plowing on the side of
the mountain, who hears an unusual humming noise,
and sees the swarm dimly whirling by overhead, and,
may be, gives chase ; or he may simply catch the
sound, when he pauses, looks quickly around, but sees
nothing. When he comes in at night he tells how
he heard or saw a swarm of bees go over ; and, per-
haps, from beneath one of the hives in the garden a
black mass of bees has disappeared during the day.

They are not partial as to the kind of tree, — pine,
hemlock, elm, birch, maple, hickory, — any tree with a
good cavity high up or low down. A swarm of mine
ran away from the new patent hive I gave them, and
took up their quarters in the hollow trunk of an old
apple-tree across an adjoining field. The entrance
was a mouse-hole near the ground.

Another swarm in the neighborhood deserted their
keeper and went into the cornice of an out-house that
stood amid evergreens in the rear of a large mansion.

28 THE PASTOKAL BEES.

But there is no accounting for the taste of bees, as
Samson found when he discovered the swarm in the
carcass, or more probably the skeleton, of the lion he
had slain.

In any given locality, especially in the more
wooded and mountainous districts, the number of
swarms that thus assert their independence forms
quite a large per cent. In the Northern States these
swarms very often perish before spring ; but in such
a country as Florida they seem to multiply, till bee-
trees are very common. In the West, also, wild
honey is often gathered in large quantities. I no-
ticed, not long since, that some wood-choppers on
the west slope of the Coast Range felled a tree that
had several pailfuls in it.

One night on the Potomac a party of us unwit-
tingly made our camp near the foot of a bee-tree,
which next day the winds of heaven blew down, for
our special delectation, at least so we read the sign.
Another time while sitting by a waterfall in the leaf-
less April woods I discovered a swarm in the top of
a large hickory. I had the season before remarked
the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen of
leaves concealed them from me. This time my for-
mer presentiment occurred to me, and, looking sharply,
sure enough there were the bees, going out and in a
large, irregular opening. In June a violent tempest
of wind and rain demolished the tree, and the honey
was all lost in the creek into which it fell. I hap-
pened along that way two or three days after the

THE PASTORAL BEES. 29

tornado, when I saw a remnant of the swarm, those,
doubtless, that escaped the flood and those that were
away when the disaster came, hanging in a small
black mass to a branch high up near where their
home used to be. They looked forlorn enough. If
the queen was saved the remnant probably sought
another tree ; otherwise the bees have soon died.

I have seen bees desert their hive in the spring
when it was infested with worms or when the honey
was exhausted ; at such times the swarm seems to
wander aimlessly, alighting here and there, and per-
haps in the end uniting with some other colony. In
case of such union, it would be curious to know if
negotiations were first opened between the parties,
and if the houseless bees are admitted at once to all
the rights and franchises of their benefactors. It
would be very like the bees to have some preliminary
plan and understanding about the matter on both
sides.

Bees will accommodate themselves to almost any
quarters, yet no hive seems to please them so well as
a section of a hollow tree — " gums " as they are
called in the South and West where the sweet gum
grows. In some European countries the hive is al-
ways made from the trunk of a tree, a suitable cavity
being formed by boring. The old-fashioned straw
hive is picturesque, and a great favorite with the bees
also.

The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and
hazardous campaign of an army ; the ranks are being

30 THE PASTORAL BEES.

continually depleted, and continually recruited. What
adventures they have by flood and field, and what
hair-breadth escapes ! A strong swarm during the
honey season loses, on an average, about four or five
thousand per month, or one hundred and fifty per
day. They are overwhelmed by wind and rain,
caught by spiders, benumbed by cold, crushed by
cattle, drowned in rivers and ponds, and in many
nameless ways cut off or disabled. In the spring
the principal mortality is from the cold. As the sun
declines they get chilled before they can reach home.
Many fall down outside the hive, unable to get in
with their burden. One may see them come utterly
spent and drop hopelessly into the grass in front of
their very doors. Before they can rest the cold has
stiffened them. I go out in April and May and pick
them up by the handfuls, their baskets loaded with
pollen, and warm them in the sun or in the house, or
by the simple warmth of my hand, until they can
crawl into the hive. Heat is their life, and an appar-
ently lifeless bee may be revived by warming him.
I have also picked them up while rowing on the
river and seen them safely to shore. It is amusing
to see them come hurrying home when there is a
thunder-storm approaching. They come piling in
till the rain is upon them. Those that are overtaken
by the storm doubtless weather it as best they can
in the sheltering trees or grass. It is not probable
that a bee ever gets lost by wandering into strange
and unknown parts. With their myriad eyes they see

THE PASTORAL BEES. 31

everything ; and then, their sense of locality is very
acute, is, indeed, one of their ruling traits. When a
bee marks the place of his hive, or of a bit of good
pasturage in the fields or swamps, or of the bee-
hunter's box of honey on the hills or in the woods,
he returns to it as unerringly as fate.

Honey was a much more important article of food
with the ancients than it is with us. As they appear
to have been unacquainted with sugar, honey, no doubt,
stood them instead. It is too rank and pungent for
the modern taste ; it soon cloys upon the palate. It
demands the appetite of youth, and the strong, robust
digestion of people who live much in the open air.
It is a more wholesome food than sugar, and modern
confectionery is poison beside it. Beside grape sugar,
honey contains manna, mucilage, pollen, acid, and
other vegetable odoriferous substances and juices. It
is a sugar with a kind of wild natural bread added.
The manna of itself is both food and medicine, and
the pungent vegetable extracts have rare virtues.
Honey promotes the excretions and dissolves the
glutinous and starchy impedimenta of the system.

Hence it is not without reason that with the
ancients a land flowing with milk and honey should
mean a land abounding in all good things ; and
the queen in the nursery rhyme, who lingered in the
kitchen to eat " bread and honey " while the " king
was in the parlor counting out his money/' was doing
a very sensible thing. Epaminondas is said to have
rarely eaten anything but bread and honey. The

32 THE PASTORAL BEES.

Emperor Augustus one day inquired of a centena-
rian how he had kept his vigor of mind and body so
long ; to which the veteran replied that it was by
" oil without and honey within." Cicero, in his " Old
Age," classes honey with meat and milk and cheese
as among the staple articles with which a well-kept
farm-house will be supplied.

Italy and Greece, in fact all the Mediterranean
countries, appear to have been famous lands for
honey. Mount Hymettus, Mount Hybla, and Mount
Ida produced what may be called the classic honey of
antiquity, an article doubtless in no wise superior to
our best products. Leigh Hunt's " Jar of Honey " is
mainly distilled from Sicilian history and literature,
Theocritus furnishing the best yield. Sicily has always
been rich in bees. Swinburne (the traveler of a hun-
dred years ago) says the woods on this island abounded
in wild honey, and that the people also had many hives
near their houses. The idyls of Theocritus are native
to the island in this respect, and abound in bees —
" flat-nosed bees " as he calls them in the Seventh
Idyl— and comparisons in which comb-honey is the
standard of the most delectable of this world's goods.
His goatherds can think of no greater bliss than that
the mouth be filled with honey-combs, or to be in-
closed in a chest like Daphnis and fed on the combs
of bees ; and among the delectables with which Ar-
sinoe cherishes Adonis are " honey-cakes," and other
lid-bits made of " sweet honey." In the country of
Theocritus this custom is said still to prevail : when

THE PASTORAL BEES. 33

a couple are married the attendants place honey in
their mouths, by which they would symbolize the
hope that their love may be as sweet to their souls
as honey to the palate.

It was fabled that Homer was suckled by a priest-
ess whose breasts distilled honey ; and that once when
Pindar lay asleep the bees dropped honey upon his
lips. In the Old Testament the food of the promised
Immanuel was to be butter and honey (there is much
doubt about the butter in the original), that he might
know good from evil ; and Jonathan's eyes were en-
lightened by partaking of some wood or wild honey :
" See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been en-
lightened, because I tasted a little of this honey."
So far as this part of his diet was concerned, therefore,
John the Baptist, during his sojourn in the wilderness,
his divinity school-days in the mountains and plains
of Judea, fared extremely well. About the other
part, the locusts, or, not to put too fine a point on it,
the grasshoppers, as much cannot be said, though
they were among the creeping and leaping things the
children of Israel were permitted to eat. They were
probably not eaten raw but roasted in that most
primitive of ovens, a hole in the ground made hot by
building a fire in it. The locusts and honey may have
been served together, as the Bedas of Ceylon are said
to season their meat with honey. At any rate, as the
locust is often a great plague in Palestine, the prophet
in eating them found his account in the general weal,
and in the profit of the pastoral bees ; the fewer lo-
3

34 THE PASTORAL BEES.

custs, the more flowers. Owing to its numerous wild
flowers and flowering shrubs, Palestine has always
been a famous country for bees. They deposit their
honey in hollow trees as our bees do when they es-
cape from the hive, and in holes in the rocks as ours
do not. In a tropical or semi-tropical climate bees
are quite apt to take refuge in the rocks, but where
ice and snow prevail, as with us, they are much safer
high up in the trunk of a forest tree.

The best honey is the product of the milder parts
of the temperate zone. There are too many rank
and poisonous plants in the tropics. Honey from cer-
tain districts of Turkey produces headache and vomit-
ing and that from Brazil is used chiefly as medicine.
The honey of Mount Hymettus owes its fine quality
to wild thyme. The best honey in Persia and in
Florida is collected from the orange blossom. The
celebrated honey of Narbonne in the south of France
is obtained from a species of rosemary. In Scotland
good honey is made from the blossoming heather.

California honey is white and delicate and highly
perfumed, and now takes the lead in the market.
But honey is honey the world over ; and the bee is
the bee still. " Men may degenerate," says an old
traveler, " may forget the arts by which they acquired
renown ; manufacturies may fail, and commodities be
debased, but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the
wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of the
bee, will continue without change or derogation."

SHAKP EYES.

SHARP EYES.

NOTING how one eye seconds and reinforces the
other, I have often amused myself by wondering
what the effect would be if one could go on opening
eye after eye to the number say of a dozen or more.
What would he see ? Perhaps not the invisible —
not the odors of flowers or the fever germs in the air
— not the infinitely small of the microscope or the in-
finitely distant of the telescope. This would require,
not more eyes so much as an eye constructed with
more and different lenses ; but would he not see with
augmented power within the natural limits of vision ?
At any rate, some persons seem to have opened more
eyes than others, they see with such force and distinct-
ness ; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity
where that of others fails like a spent or impotent
bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open?
how many did Henry Thoreau ? how many did Au-
dubon? how many does the hunter, matching his
sight against the keen and alert sense of a deer or
a moose, or a fox or a wolf ? Not outward eyes, but
inward. We open another eye whenever we see be-

38 SHARP EYES.

yond the first general features or outlines of things
— whenever we grasp the special details and charac-
teristic markings that this mask covers. Science
confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have
learned to discriminate the birds, or the plants, or
the geological features of a country, it is as if new
and keener eyes were added.

Of course one must not only see sharply, but read
aright what he sees. The facts in the life of Nature
that are transpiring about us are like written words
that the observer is to arrange into sentences. Or
the writing is in cipher and he must furnish the key.
A female oriole was one day observed very much pre-
occupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse
stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn
fowls, scolding them sharply when they came too
near her. The stable, dark and cavernous, was just
beyond. The bird, not finding what she wanted out-
side, boldly ventured into the stable, and was pres-
ently captured by the farmer. What did she want ?
was the query. What, but a horsehair for her nest
which was in an apple-tree near by ; and she was so
bent on having one that I have no doubt she would
have tweaked one out of the horse's tail had he been
in the stable. Later in the season I examined her
nest and found it sewed through and through with
several long horsehairs, so that the bird persisted in
her search till the hair was found.

Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little
characteristic scenes, are always being enacted in the

SHARP EYES. 39

lives of the birds, if our eyes are sharp enough to
See them. Some clever observer saw this little eom-
edy played among some English sparrows and wrote
an account of it in his newspaper ; it is too good
not to be true : A male bird brought to his box a
large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a
sparrow and much coveted. After he had deposited
his prize and chattered his gratulations over it he
went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly
slipped in and seized the feather, — and here the wit
of the bird came out, for instead of carrying it into her
own box she flew with it to a near tree and hid it in
a fork of the branches, then went home, and when
her neighbor returned with his mate was innocently
employed about her own affairs. The proud male,
finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a
high state of excitement, and, with wrath in his man-
ner and accusation on his tongue, rushed into the
cot of the female. Not finding his goods and chattels
there as he had expected, he stormed around a while,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in
particular, and then went away as if to repair the
loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd
thief went and brought the feather home and lined
her own domicile with it.

I was much amused one summer day in seeing a
bluebird feeding her young one in the shaded street of
a large town. She had captured a cicada or harvest-fly,
and after bruising it a while on the ground flew with it

40 SHARP EYES.

to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird.
It was a large morsel, and the mother seemed to have
doubts of her chick's ability to dispose of it, for she
stood near and watched its efforts with great solici-
tude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the
cicada, but made no headway in swallowing it, when
the mother took it from him and flew to the sidewalk,
and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly.
Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to
say, " There, try it now," and sympathized so thor-
oughly with his efforts that she repeated many of
his motions and contortions. But the great fly was
unyielding, and, indeed, seemed ridiculously dispropor-
tioned to the beak that held it. The young bird flut-
tered and fluttered, and screamed, " I 'm stuck, I 'm
stuck," till the anxious parent again seized the morsel
and carried it to an iron railing, where she came down
upon it for the space of a minute with all the force
and momentum her beak could command. Then she
offered it to her young a third time, but with the
same result as before, except that this time the bird
dropped it ; but she was to the ground as soon as the
cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew some dis-
tance to a high board fence where she sat motionless
for some moments. While pondering the problem
how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird ap-
proached her, and said very plainly, and I thought
rather curtly, " Give me that bug," but she quickly
resented his interference and flew farther away, where
she sat apparently quite discouraged when I last saw
her.

SHARP EYES. 41

The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired
of recurring to him. His coming or reappearance in
the spring marks a new chapter in the progress of
the season ; things are never quite the same after
one has heard that note. The past spring the males
came about a week in advance of the females. A
fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard all
that time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate.
He called and warbled every day, as if he felt sure
she was within ear-shot, and could be hurried up.
Now he warbled half -angrily or upbraidingly, then
coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next
moment in a plaintive, far-away manner. He would
half open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly,
as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morn-
ing she had come, but was shy and reserved. The
fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree,
and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confi-
dential warble, — the old, old story. But the female
flew to a near tree, and uttered her plaintive, home-
sick note. The male went and got some dry grass
or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in
the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion,
but the other said " Nay," and flew away in the dis-
tance. When he saw her going, or rather heard
her distant note, he dropped his stuff, and cried out
in a tone that said plainly enough, " Wait a min-
ute-. One word, please," and flew swiftly in pursuit.
He won her before long, however, and early in April
the pair were established in one of the four or five

42 SHARP EYES.

boxes I had put up for them, but not until they had
changed their minds several times. As soon as the
first brood had flown, and while they were yet under
their parents' care, they began another nest in one of
the other boxes, the female, as usual, doing all the
work, and the male all the complimenting. A source
of occasional great distress to the mother-bird was a
white cat that sometimes followed me about. The
cat had never been known to catch a bird, but she
had a way of watching them that was very embarrass-
ing to the bird. Whenever she appeared, the mother
bluebird would set up that pitiful melodious plaint.
Oiie morning the cat was standing by me, when the
bird came with her beak loaded with building mate-
rial, and alighted above me to survey the place, be-
fore going into the box. When she saw the cat, she
was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could not
keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after
straw came eddying down, till not half her original
burden remained. After the cat had gone away, the
bird's alarm subsided, till, presently seeing the coast
clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in her
remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and,
without going in to arrange them, as was her wont,
flew away in evident relief.

In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off,
and much nearer the house than they usually build,
a pair of high-holes, or golden-shafted wood-peck-
ers, took up their abode. A knot-hole which led to
the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood be-

SHARP EYES. 43

ing cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done
it. The inside preparations I could not witness, but
day after day, as I passed near, I heard the bird ham-
mering away, evidently beating down obstructions and
shaping and enlarging the cavity. The chips were
not brought out, but were used rather to floor the
interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but
rather nest-carvers.

The time seemed very short before the voices of
the young were heard in the heart of the old tree, —
at first feebly, but waxing stronger day by day until
they could be heard many rods distant. When I put
my hand upon the trunk of the tree, they would set
up an eager, expectant chattering; but if I climbed
up it toward the opening, they soon detected the un-
usual sound and would hush quickly, only now and
then uttering a warning note. Long before they
were fully fledged they clambered up to the orifice
to receive their food. As but one could stand in the
opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing
and struggling for this position. It was a very desir-
able one aside from the advantages it had whvjn food
was served; it looked out upon the great, shining
world, into which the young birds seemed never tired
of gazing. The fresh air must have been a consider-
ation also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is
not sweet. When the parent birds came with food,
the young one in the opening did not get it all, but
after he had received a portion, either on his own
motion or on a hint from the old one, he would give

44 SHARP EYES.

place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evidently
outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two
or three days in advance of them. His voice was
loudest and his head oftenest at the window. But I
noticed that when he had kept the position too long,
the others evidently made it uncomfortable in his
rear, and, after "fidgeting" about a while, he would
be compelled to " back down." But retaliation was
then easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy mo-
ments at that lookout. They would close their eyes
and slide back into the cavity as if the world had sud-
denly lost all its charms for them.

This bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest.
For two days before that event he kept his position
in the opening most of the time and sent forth his
strong voice incessantly. The old ones abstained
from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to en-
courage his exit. As I stood looking at him one aft-
ternoon and noting his progress, he suddenly reached
a resolution, — seconded, I have no doubt, from the
rear, — and launched forth upon his untried wings.
They served him well and carried him about fifty
yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after,
the next in size and spirit left in the same manner ;
then another, till only one remained. The parent
birds ceased their visits to him, and for one day he
called and called till our ears were tired of the sound.
His was the faintest heart of all. Then he had none
to encourage him from behind. He left the nest and
clung to the outer bowl of the tree, and yelped and

SHARP EYES. 45

piped for an hour longer ; then he committed himself
to his wings and went his way like the rest.

A young farmer in the western part of New York,
who has a sharp, discriminating eye, sends me some
interesting notes about a tame high-hole he once had.

"Did you ever notice," says he, "that the high-
hole never eats anything that he cannot pick up with
his tongue ? At least this was the case with a young
one I took from the nest and tamed. He could
thrust out his tongue two or three inches, and it was
amusing to see his efforts to eat currants from the
hand. He would run out his tongue and try to stick
it to the currant ; failing in that, he would bend his
tongue around it like a hook and try to raise it by a
sudden jerk. But he never succeeded, the round
fruit would roll and slip away every time. H£ never
seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue
was in constant use to find out the nature of every-
thing he saw; a nail-hole in a board or any sim-
ilar hole was carefully explored. If he was held
near the face he would soon be attracted by the eye
and thrust his tongue into it. In this way he gained
the respect of a number of half-grown cats that were
around the house. I wished to make them familiar
to each other, so there would be less danger of their
killing him. So I would take them both on my knee,
when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes,
and leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman lev-
els his rifle, he would remain so a minute when he
would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was

46 SHARP EYES.

held by the cats to be very mysterious : being struck
in the eye by something invisible to them. They
soon acquired such a terror of him that they would
avoid him and run away whenever they saw his bill
turned in their direction. He never would swallow
a grasshopper even when it was placed in his throat ;
he would shake himself until he had thrown it out of
his mouth. His 'best hold' was ants. He never
was surprised at anything, and never was afraid of
anything. He would drive the turkey gobbler and
the rooster. He would advance upon them holding
one wing up as high as possible, as if to strike with
it, and shuffle along the ground toward them, scold-
ing all the while in a harsh voice. I feared at first
that they might kill him, but I soon found that he
was able to take care of himself. I would turn over
stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he would
lick up the ants so fast that a stream of them seemed
going into his mouth unceasingly. I kept him till
late in the fall, when he disappeared, probably going
south, and I never saw him again."

My correspondent also sends me some interest-
ing observations about the cuckoo. He says a large
gooseberry-bush standing in the border of an old
hedge-row, in the midst of open fields, and not far
from his house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for
two seasons in succession, and, after an interval of a
year, for two seasons more. This gave him a good
chance to observe them. He says the mother-bird
lays a single egg, and sits upon it a number of days

SHAEP EYES. 47

before laying the second, so that he has seen one
young bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and
a whole egg all in the nest at once. " So far as I
have seen, this is the settled practice, — the young
leaving the nest one at a time to the number of six or
eight. The young have quite the look of the young
of the dove in many respects. When nearly grown
they are covered with long blue pin-feathers as long
as darning-needles, without a bit of plumage on them.
They part on the back and hang down on each side
by their own weight. With its curious feathers and
misshapen body the young bird is anything but hand-
some. They never open their mouths when ap-
proached, as many young birds do, but sit perfectly
still, hardly moving when touched." He also notes
the unnatural indifference of the mother-bird when
her nest and young are approached. She makes no
sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent
perfect unconcern.

These observations, together with the fact that the
egg of the cuckoo is occasionally found in the nests
of other birds, raise the inquiry whether our bird is
slowly relapsing into the habit of the European spe-
cies, which always foists its egg upon other birds ; or
whether, on the other hand, it be not mending its
manners in this respect. It has but little to unlearn
or forget in the one case, but great progress to make
in the other. How far is its rudimentary nest — a
mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds
— from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely

48 SHARP EYES.

modeled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what
a gulf between its indifference toward its young and
their solicitude ! Its irregular manner of laying also
seems better suited to a parasite like our cow-bird, or
the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder. '

This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees
plenty of interesting things as he goes about his
work. He one day saw a white swallow, which is of
rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a sparrow he thinks,
fly against the side of a horse and fill his beak with
hair from the loosened coat of the animal. He saw a
shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by
taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in
early spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling
and screaming high in air, approach each other, ex-
tend a claw and clasping them together, fall toward
the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together ; on nearing the ground they separated and
soared aloft again. He supposed that it was not a
passage of war but of love, and that the hawks were
toying fondly with each other.

He further relates a curious circumstance of find-
ing a humming-bird in the upper part of a barn with
its bill stuck fast in a crack of one of the large tim-
bers, dead, of course, with wings extended, and as dry
as a chip. The bird seems to have died as it had
lived, on the wing, and its last act was indeed a
ghastly parody of its living career. Fancy this nim-
ble, flashing sprite, whose life was passed probing the
honeyed depths of flowers, at last thrusting its bill

SHARP EYES. 49

into a crack in a dry timber in a hay -loft, and, with
spread wings, ending its existence.

When the air is damp and heavy, swallows fre-
quently hawk for insects about cattle and moving
herds in the field. My farmer describes how they
attended him one foggy day, as he was mowing in the
meadow with a mowing-machine. It had been foggy
for two days, and the swallows were very hungry,
and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of
his machine was heard, the swallows appeared and at-
tended him like a brood of hungry chickens. He
says there was a continued rush of purple wings over
the "cut-bar," and just where it was causing the
grass to tremble and fall. Without his assistance the
swallows would doubtless have gone hungry yet an-
other day.

Of the hen-hawk, he has observed that both male
and female take part in incubation. " I was rather
surprised," he says, "on one occasion, to see how
quickly they change places on the nest. The nest
was in a tall beech, and the leaves were not yet
fully out. I could see the head and neck of the
hawk over the edge of the nest, when I saw the
other hawk coming down through the air at full
speed. I expected he would alight near by, but in-
stead of that he struck directly upon the nest, his
mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid
being hit ; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her
off the nest. I hardly see how they can make such a
rush on the nest without danger to the eggs."
4

50 SHARP EYES.

The king-bird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog
will worry a bear. It is by his persistence and au-
dacity, not by any injury he is capable of dealing his
great antagonist. The king-bird seldom more than
dogs the hawk, keeping above and between his wings.
and making a great ado ; but my correspondent says
he once "saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back.
The hawk flew as fast as possible, and the king-bird
sat upon his shoulders in triumph until they had
passed out of sight," — tweaking his feathers, no
doubt, and threatening to scalp him the next moment.

That near relative of the king-bird, the great
crested fly-catcher, has one well known peculiarity :
he appears never to consider his nest finished until it
contains a cast-off snake-skin. My alert correspond-
ent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion skin
and make off with it, either deceived by it or else
thinking it a good substitute for the coveted material.

One day in May, walking in the woods, I came
upon the nest of a whip-poor-will, or rather its eggs,
for it builds no nest, — two elliptical whitish spotted
eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My foot was within
a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I won-
dered what a sharp eye would detect curious or char-
acteristic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the
place many times and had a look. It was always a
task to separate the bird from her surroundings,
though I stood within a few feet of her, and knew
exactly where to look. One had to bear on with his
eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks

SHARP EYES. 51

and leaves, and bits of black or dark-brown bark, were
all exactly copied in the bird's plumage. And then
she did sit so close, and simulate so well a shapeless
decaying piece of wood or bark! Twice I brought
a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot, noted
how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full
view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird.
When the bird returned after being disturbed, she
would alight within a few inches of her eggs, and
then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly upon
them.

After the young had appeared all the wit of the
bird came into play. I was on hand the next day,
I think. The mother-bird sprang up when I was
within a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the
leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as
the leaves started the young started, and, being of
the same color, to tell which was the leaf and which
the bird was a trying task to any eye. I came the
next day, when the same tactics were repeated. Once
a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and nearly
hid it. The young are covered with a reddish down,
like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother
about. When disturbed, they gave but one leap,
then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid,
with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occa-
sions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from
her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon
her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would
run through her tremulous outstretched wings and

52 SHARP EYES.

prostrate body. She kept a shart eye out the mean
while to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point,
tried to draw my attention as before. When followed
she always alighted upon the ground, dropping down
in a sudden peculiar way. The second or third day
both old and young had disappeared.

The whip-poor-will walks as awkwardly as a swal-
low, which is as awkward as a man in a bag, and
yet she manages to lead her young about the woods.
The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts,
their protective coloring shielding them most effect-
ively. Wilson once came upon the mother-bird and
her brood in the woods, and, though they were at his
very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the
young that he was about to give up the search, much
disappointed, when he perceived something " like a
slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and, on
stooping down, discovered it to be a young whip-poor-
will, seemingly asleep." Wilson's description of the
young is very accurate, as its downy covering does
look precisely like a " slight moldiness." Returning
a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil
he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor young.

It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods,
motionless upon the leaves ; this sense needs to be
as sharp as that of smell in hounds and pointers, and
yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to
see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I
think he sees it as soon as it sees him, and before

SHARP EYES. 53

its suspects itself seen. What a training to the eye
is hunting ! to pick out *the game from its surround-
ings, the grouse from the leaves, the gray squirrel
from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red
fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit
from the stubble, or the white hare from the snow,
requires the best powers of this sense. A woodchuck
motionless in the fields or upon a rock, looks very
much like a large stone or bowlder, yet a keen eye
knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile
away.

• A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or
than any of the wild creatures, but not so sharp an ear
or nose. But in the birds he finds his match. How
quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere
speck against the sky, and how quickly the hawk
discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights.
One advantage the bird surely has, and that is. owing
to the form, structure, and position of the eye, it has
a much larger field of vision — indeed, can probably
see in nearly every direction at the same instant,
behind as well as before. Man's field of vision em-
braces less than half a circle horizontally, and still
less vertically ; his brow and brain prevent him from
seeing within many degrees of the zenith without a
movement of the head ; the bird, on the other hand,
takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance.

I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every
bird within sight in the field or wood I pass through

54 SHARP EYES.

(a flit of the wing, a flirt of the tail are enough,
though the flickering leaves do all conspire to hide
them), and that with like ease the birds see me,
though, unquestionably, the chances are immensely
in their favor. The eye sees what it has the means
of seeing, truly. You must have the bird in your
heart before you can find it in the bush. The -eye
must have purpose and aim. No one ever yet found
the walking fern who did not have the walking fern
in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian
relics picks them up in every field he walks through.
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs ?
especially the tiny pipers that one hears about the
woods and brushy fields — the hylas of the swamps
become a denizen of the trees ; I had never seen him
in this new role. But this season having them in
mind, or rather being ripe for them, I several times
came across them. One Sunday, walking amid some
bushes, I captured two. They leaped before me as
doubtless they had done many times before, but though
not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were
quickly recognized, because the eye had been com-
missioned to find them. On another occasion, not
long afterward, I was hurriedly loading my gun in the
October woods in hopes of overtaking a gray squirrel
that was fast escaping through the tree tops, when
one of these lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellow-
ing leaves leaped near me. I saw him only out of
the corner of my eye and yet bagged him, because I
had already made him my own.

SHARP EYES. 55

Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit
of clear and decisive gazing ; not by a first casual
glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye
are the rare and characteristic things discovered.
You must look intently and hold your eye firmly to
the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of
mankind. The sharp-shooter picks out his man and
knows him with fatal certainty from a stump, or a
rock, or a cap on a pole. The phrenologists do
well to locate, not only form, color, weight, etc., in
the region of the eye, but a faculty which they call
individuality — that which separates, discriminates,
and sees in every object its essential character. This
is just as necessary to the naturalist as to the artist
or the poet. The sharp eye notes specific points
and differences, — it seizes upon and preserves the
individuality of the thing.

Persons frequently describe to me some bird they
have seen or heard and ask me to name it, but in most
cases the bird might be any one of a do/en, or else
it is totally unlike any bird found on this continent.
They have either seen falsely or else vaguely. Not
so the farm youth who wrote me one winter day that
he had seen a single pair of strange birds, which he
describes as follows : " They were about the size of
the ' chippie/ the tops of their heads were red, and
the breast of the male was of the same color, while
that of the female was much lighter ; their rumps
were also faintly tinged with red. If I have described
them so that you would know them, please write me

56 SHARP EYES.

their names." There can be little doubt but the
young observer had seen a pair of red-polls, — a bird
related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes
down to us in the winter from the far north. An-
other time, the same youth wrote that he had seen a
strange bird, the color of a sparrow, that alighted on
fences and buildings as well as upon the ground and
that walked. This last fact showed the youth's dis-
criminating eye and settled the case. I knew it to
be a species of lark, and from the size, color, season,
etc., the tit-lark. But how many persons would have
observed that the bird walked instead of hopped ?

Some friends of mine who lived in the country
tried to describe to me a bird that built a nest in a
tree within a few feet of the house. As it was a
brown bird, I should have taken it for a wood-thrush,
had not the nest been described as so thin and loose
that from beneath the eggs could be distinctly seen.
The most pronounced feature in the description was
the barred appearance of the under side of the bird's
tail. I was quite at sea, until one day, when we
were driving out, a cuckoo flew across the road in
front of us, when my friends exclaimed, " There is
our bird!" I had never known a cuckoo to build
near a house, and I had never noted the appearance
the tail presents when viewed from beneath ; but if
the bird had been described in its most obvious
features, as slender, with a long tail, cinnamon brown
above and white beneath, with a curved bill, any one
who knew the bird would have recognized the por-
trait.

SHARP EYES. 57

We think we have looked at a thing sharply until
we are asked for its specific features. I thought I
knew exactly the form of the leaf of the tulip-tree,
until one day a lady asked me to draw the outlines
of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and
to follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, espe-
cially in the life of the birds and animals, are well
screened. We do not see the play because we do
not look intently enough. The other day I was
sitting with a friend upon a high rock in the woods,
near a small stream, when we saw a water-snake
swimming across a pool toward the opposite bank.
Any eye would have noted it, perhaps nothing more.
A little closer and sharper gaze revealed the fact that
the snake bore something in its mouth, which, as we
went down to investigate, proved to be a small cat-
fish, three or four inches long. The snake had cap-
tured it in the pool, and, like any other fisherman,
wanted to get its prey to dry land, although it itself
lived mostly in the water. Here, we said, is being
enacted a little tragedy, that would have escaped any
but sharp eyes. The snake, which was itself small,
had the fish by the throat, the hold of vantage among
all creatures, and clung to it with great tenacity. The
snake knew that its best tactics was to get upon dry
land as soon as possible. It could not swallow its
victim alive, and it could not strangle it in the water.
For a while it tried to kill its game by holding it up
out of the water, but the fish grew heavy, and every
few moments its struggles brought down the snake's

58 SHARP EYES.

head. This would not do. Compressing the fish's
throat would not shut off its breath under such cir-
cumstances, so the wily serpent tried to get ashore
with it, and after several attempts succeeded in
effecting a landing on a flat rock. But the fish died
hard. Cat-fish do not give up the ghost in a hurry.
Its throat was becoming congested, but the snake's
distended jaws must have ached. It was like a pet-
rified gape. Then the spectators became very curious
and close in their scrutiny, and the snake determined
to withdraw from the public gaze and finish the busi-
ness in hand to its own notions. But, when gentty
but firmly remonstrated with by my friend with his
walking-stick, it dropped the fish and retreated in
high dudgeon beneath a stone in the bed of the creek.
The fish, with a swollen and angry throat, went its
way also.

Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw
a fresh bone or a piece of meat upon the snow in
winter, and see how soon the crows will discover it
and be on hand. If it be near the house or barn,
the crow that first discovers it will alight near it, to
make sure he is not deceived ; then he will go away,
and soon return with a companion. The two alight
a few yards from the bone, and after some delay,
during which the vicinity is sharply scrutinized, one
of the crows advances boldly to within a few feet of
the coveted prize. Here he pauses, and if no trick
is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes
it and makes off.

SHARP EYES. 59

One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an
apple-tree near the house and scattered some corn
there. I had not seen a blue-jay for weeks, yet that
very day they found my corn, and after that they
came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels
under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and
pecking them vigorously.

Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp
eyes, still I was surprised to see how quickly Downy
found out some bones that were placed in a con-
venient place under the shed to be pounded up for
the hens. In going out to the barn I often disturbed
him making a meal off the bits of meat that still ad-
hered to them.

" Look intently enough at anything," said a poet
to me one day, " and you will see something that
would otherwise escape you." I thought of the re-
mark as I sat on a stump in an opening of the woods
one spring day. I saw a small hawk approaching ;
he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large
limb near the top. He eyed me and I eyed him.
Then the bird disclosed a trait that was new to me ;
he hopped along the limb to a small cavity near the
trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out
some small object and fell to eating it. After he had
partaken of it for some minutes he put the remainder
back in his larder and flew away. I had seen some-
thing like feathers eddying slowly down as the hawk
ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers
of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes

60 SHARP EYES.

beneath the tree. The hawk then — commonly
called the chicken hawk — is as provident as a mouse
or squirrel, and lays by a store against a time of need,
but I should not have discovered the fact had I not
held my eye to him.

An observer of the birds is attracted by any un-
usual sound or commotion among them. In May or
June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay is a
silent bird ; he goes sneaking about the orchards and
the groves as silent as a pickpocket ; he is robbing
birds'-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should
be said about it, but in the fall none so quick and
loud to cry " Thief, thief " as he. One December
morning a troop of them discovered a little screech-
owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree
near my house. How they found the owl out is a
mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of
day ; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with great
emphasis. I suspect the bluebirds first told them,
for these birds are constantly peeping into holes and
crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsuspecting
bird probably entered the cavity prospecting for a
place for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely
place to pass a cold night, when it has rushed out
with important news. A boy who should unwit-
tingly venture into a bear's den when Bruin was at
home could not be more astonished and alarmed than
a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of
a decayed tree with an owl. At any rate the blue-
birds joined the jays in calling the attention of all

SHARP EYES. 61

whom it might concern to the fact that a culprit of
some sort was hiding from the light of day in the old
apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm
and approached to within eye-shot. The bluebirds
were cautious and hovered about uttering their pe-
culiar twittering calls ; but the jays were bolder and
took turns looking in at the cavity, and deriding the
poor, shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the en-
trance of the hole and flirt and peer and attitudinize,
and then fly away crying " Thief, thief, thief," at
the top of his voice.

I climbed up and peered into the opening, and
could just descry the owl clinging to the inside of
the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving lit-
tle heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He
was as red as a fox and as- yellow-eyed as a cat. He
made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my
forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon
grew uncomfortable. I placed him in the loft of an
out-house in hopes of getting better acquainted with
him. By day he was a very willing prisoner, scarcely
moving at all, even when approached and touched
with the hand, but looking out upon the world with
half -closed, sleepy eyes. But at night what a change ;
how alert, how wild, how active ! He was like an-
other bird ; he darted about with wide, fearful eyes,
and regarded me like a cornered cat. I opened the
window, and swiftly, but as silent as a shadow, he
glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps,
ere this, has revenged himself upon the sleeping jay
or bluebird that first betrayed his hiding-place.

STRAWBERRIES.

STRAWBERRIES.

WAS it old Dr. Parr who said or sighed in his last
illness, " Oh, if I can only live till strawberries come ! "
The old scholar imagined that if he could weather it
till then, the berries would carry him through. No
doubt he has turned from the drugs and the nos-
trums, or from the hateful food, to the memory of the
pungent, penetrating, and unspeakably fresh quality
of the strawberry with the deepest longing. The
very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it
were the first glow and ardor of the young summer,
and with their power to unsheathe the taste and spur
the flagging appetite, made life seem possible and
desirable with him.

The strawberry is always the hope of the invalid,
and sometimes, no doubt, his salvation. It is the
first and finest relish among fruits, and well merits
Dr. Boteler's memorable saying, that " doubtless God
might have made a better berry than the strawberry,
but, doubtless, God never did."

On the threshold of summer, nature proffers us
this, her virgin fruit ; more rich and sumptuous are

66 STRAWBERRIES.

to follow, but the wild delicacy and fillip of the straw-
berry are never repeated, — that keen feathered edge
greets the tongue in nothing else.

Let me not be afraid of overpraising it, but probe
and probe for words to hint its surprising virtues.
"We may well celebrate it with festivals and music.
It has that indescribable quality of all first things —
that shy, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. It
is eager and sanguine as youth. It is born of the
copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender skies,
the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing
of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty
nature. It is the product of liquid May touched by
the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness, the
unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity
of summer.

Oh, the strawberry days ! how vividly they come
back to one ! The smell of clover in the fields, of
blooming rye on the hills, of the wild grape beside
the woods, and of the sweet honeysuckle and spiraea
about the house. The first hot, moist days. The
daisies and buttercups, the songs of the birds, their
first reckless jollity and love-making over, the full
tender foliage of the trees, the bees swarming, and the
air strung with resonant musical chords. The time
of the sweetest and most succulent grass, when the
cows come home with aching udders. Indeed, the
strawberry belongs to the juciest time of the year.

What a challenge it is to the taste, how it bites
back again ! and is there any other sound like the

STRAWBERRIES. 67

snap and crackle with which it salutes the ear on be-
ing plucked from the stems ? It is a threat to one
sense that the other is soon to verify. It snaps to
the ear as it smacks to the tongue. All other berries
are tame beside it.

The plant is almost an evergreen ; it loves the
coverlid of the snow, and will keep fresh through the
severest winters with a slight protection. The frost
leaves its virtues in it. The berry is a kind of vege-
table snow. How cool, how tonic, how melting, and
how perishable ! It is almost as easy to keep frost.
Heat kills it, and sugar quickly breaks up its cells.

Is there anything like the odor of strawberries ?
The next best thing to tasting them is to smell them ;
one may put his nose to the dish while the fruit is
yet too rare and choice for his fingers. Touch not
and taste not, but take a good smell and go mad.
Last fall I potted some of the Downer, and in the
winter grew them in the house. In March the ber-
ries were ripe, only four or five on a plant, just
enough, all told, to make one consider whether it was
not worth while to kill off the rest of the household,
so that the berries need not be divided. But if every
tongue could not have a feast, every nose banqueted
daily upon them. They filled the house with per-
fume. The Downer is remarkable in this respect.
Grown in the open field, it surpasses in its odor any
strawberry of my acquaintance. And it is scarcely
less agreeable to the taste. It is a very beautiful
berry to look upon, round, light pink, with a delicate,

68 STRAWBERRIES.

fine-grained expression. Some berries shine, the
Downer glows as if there were a red bloom upon it.
Its core is firm and white, its skin thin and easily
bruised, which makes it a poor market berry, but
with its high flavor and productiveness, an admirable
one for home use. It seems to be as easily grown as
the Wilson, while it is much more palatable. The
great trouble with the Wilson, as everybody knows,
is its rank acidity. When it first comes, it is difficult
to eat it without making faces. It is crabbed and
acrimonious. Like some persons, the Wilson will
not ripen and sweeten till its old age. Its largest
and finest crop, if allowed to remain on the vines, will
soften and fail unregenerated, or with all its sins
upon it. But wait till toward the end of the season,
after the plant gets over its hurry and takes time to
ripen its fruit. The berry will then face the sun for
days, and if the weather is not too wet, instead of
softening will turn dark and grow rich. Out of its
crabbedness and spitefulness come the finest, choicest
flavors. It is an astonishing berry. It lays hold of
the taste in a way that the aristocratic berries, like
the Jecunda or Triumph, cannot approximate to.
Its quality is as penetrating as that of ants and wasps,
but sweet. It is indeed a wild bee turned into a
berry, with the sting mollified and the honey dis-
guised. A quart of these rare-ripes I venture to say
contains more of the peculiar virtue and excellence
of the strawberry kind than can be had in twice the
same quantity of any other cultivated variety. Take

STRAWBERRIES. 69

these berries in a bowl of rich milk with some bread,

— ah, what a dish, — too good to set before a king !
I suspect this was the food of Adam in Paradise,
only Adam did not have the Wilson strawberry ; he
had the wild strawberry that Eve plucked in their
hill-meadow and " hulled " with her own hands, and
that, take it all in all, even surpasses the late ripened
Wilson.

Adam is still extant in the taste and appetite of
most country boys ; lives there a country boy who
does not like wild strawberries-and-milk, — yea, pre-
fers it to any other known dish ? I am not thinking
of a dessert of strawberries-and-cream ; this the city
boy may have too, after a sort ; but bread-and-milk,
with the addition of wild strawberries, is peculiarly
a country dish, and is to the taste what a wild bird's
song is to the ear. When I was a lad, and went
afield with my hoe or with the cows, during the
strawberry season, I was sure to return at meal-time
with a lining of berries in the top of my straw hat.
They were my daily food, and I could taste the liquid
and gurgling notes of the bobolink in every spoonful
of them ; and at this day, to make a dinner or sup-
per off a bowl of milk with bread and strawberries,

— plenty of strawberries, — well, is as near to being
a boy again as I ever expect to come. The golden
age draws sensibly near. Appetite becomes a kind
of delicious thirst, — a gentle and subtle craving of
all parts of the mouth and throat, — and those nerves
of taste that occupy, as it were, a back seat, and take

70 STKAWBEERIES.

little cognizance of grosser foods, come forth, and are
played upon and set vibrating. Indeed, I think, if
there is ever rejoicing throughout one's alimentary
household, — if ever that much-abused servant, the
stomach, says Amen, or those faithful handmaidens,
the liver and spleen, nudge each other delightedly, it
must be when one on a torrid summer day passes by
the solid and carnal dinner for this simple Arcadian
dish.

The wild strawberry, like the wild apple, is spicy
and high-flavored, but, unlike the apple, it is also
mild and delicious. It has the true rustic sweetness
and piquancy. What it lacks in size, when compared
with the garden berry, it makes up in intensity. It
is never dropsical or overgrown, but firm-fleshed and
hardy. Its great enemies are the plow, gypsum, and
the horse-rake. It dislikes a limestone soil, but seems
to prefer the detritus of the stratified rock. Where
the sugar-maple abounds, I have always found plenty
of wild strawberries. We have two kinds, — the wood
berry and the field berry. The former is as wild as
a partridge. It is found in open places in the woods
and along the borders, growing beside stumps and
rocks, never in abundance, but very sparsely. It is
small, cone-shaped, dark red, shiny, and pimply. It
looks woody, and tastes so. It has never reached
the table, nor made the acquaintance of cream. A
quart of them, at a fair price for human labor, would
be worth their weight in silver, at least. (Yet a care-
ful observer writes me that in certain sections in

STKAWBERRIES. 71

the western part of New York they are very plen-
tiful.)

Ovid mentions the wood strawberry, which would
lead one to infer that they were more abundant in his
time and country than in ours.

This is, perhaps, the same as the Alpine straw-
berry, which is said to grow in the mountains of
Greece, and thence northward. This was probably
the first variety cultivated, though our native species
would seem as unpromising a subject for the garden
as club-moss or winter-greens.

Of the field strawberry there are a great many
varieties, — some growing in meadows, some in past-
ures, and some upon mountain-tops. Some are round,
and stick close to the calyx or hull ; some are long
and pointed, with long, tapering necks. These usu-
ally grow upon tall stems. They are, indeed, of the
slim, linear kind. Your corpulent berry keeps close
to the ground ; its stem and foot-stalk are short, and
neck it has none. Its color is deeper than that of its
tall brother, and of course it has more juice. You
are more apt to find the tall varieties upon knolls in
low, wet meadows, and again upon mountain-tops,
growing in tussocks of wild grass about the open
summits. These latter ripen in July, and give one
his last taste of strawberries for the season.

But the favorite haunt of the wild strawberry is an
up-lying meadow that has been exempt from the
plow for five or six years, and that has little timothy
and much daisy. When you go a-berrying turn your

72 STRAWBERRIES.

steps toward the milk-white meadows. The slightly
bitter odor of the daisies is very agreeable to the
smell, and affords a good background for the per-
fume of the fruit. The strawberry cannot cope with
the rank and deep-rooted clover, and seldom appears
in a field till the clover has had its day. But the
daisy with its slender stalk does not crowd or ob-
struct the plant, while its broad white flower is like a
light parasol that tempers and softens the too strong
sunlight. Indeed, daisies and strawberries are gen-
erally associated. Nature fills her dish with the ber-
ries, then covers them with the white and yellow of
milk and cream, thus suggesting a combination we
are quick to follow. Milk alone, after it loses its
animal heat, is a clod, and begets torpidity of the
brain ; the berries lighten it, give wings to it, and
one is fed as by the air he breathes or the water he
drinks.

Then the delight of " picking " the wild berries !
It is one of the fragrant memories of boyhood. In-
deed, for boy or man to go a-berrying in a certain
pastoral country I know of, where a passer-by along
the highway is often regaled by a breeze loaded with
a perfume of the o'er-ripe fruit, is to get nearer to
June than by almost any course I know of. Your
errand is so private and confidential ! You stoop
low. You part away the grass and the daisies, and
would lay bare the inmost secrets of the meadow.
Everything is yet tender and succulent ; the very air
is bright and new ; the warm breath of the meadow

STRAWBERRIES. 73

comes up in your face ; to your knees you are in a
sea of daisies and clover ; from your knees up you
are in a sea of solar light and warmth. Now you are
prostrate like a swimmer, or like a surf-bather reach-
ing for pebbles or shells, the" white and green spray
breaks above you ; then like a devotee before a
shrine, or naming his beads, your rosary strung with
luscious berries ; anon you are a grazing Nebuchad-
nezzar, or an artist taking an inverted view of the
landscape.

The birds are alarmed by your close scrutiny of
their domain. They hardly know whether to sing or
to cry, and do a little of both. The bobolink follows
you and circles above and in advance of you, and is
ready to give you a triumphal exit from the field, if
you will only depart.

" Ye boys that gather flowers and strawberries,
Lo, hid within the grass, an adder lies,"

Warton makes Virgil sing; and Montaigne, in his
Journey to Italy, says, " The children very often are
afraid, on account of the snakes, to go and pick the
strawberries that grow in quantities on the mountains
and among the bushes." But there is no serpent
here — at worst, only a bumble-bee's or yellow- jack-
et's nest. You soon find out the spring in the corner
of the field under the beechen tree. While you wipe
your brow and thank the Lord for spring water, you
glance at the initials in the bark, some of them so old
that they seem runic and legendary. You find out,
also, how gregarious the strawberry is — that the dif-

74 STRAWBERRIES.

ferent varieties exist in little colonies about the field.
When you strike the outskirts of one of these plan-
tations, how quickly you work toward the centre of
it, and then from the centre out, then circumnavigate
it, and follow up all its branchings and windings !

Then the delight in the abstract and in the con-
crete of strolling and lounging about the June mead-
ows ; of lying in pickle for half a day or more in this
pastoral sea, laved by the great tide, shone upon by
the virile sun, drenched to the very marrow of your
being with the warm and wooing influences of the
young summer !

I was a famous berry-picker when a boy. It was
near enough to hunting and fishing to enlist me.
Mother would always send me in preference to any of
the rest of the boys. I got the biggest berries and the
most of them. There was something of the excite-
ment of the chase in the occupation, and something of
the charm and preciousness of game about the tro-
phies. The pursuit had its surprises, its expectancies,
its sudden disclosures, — in fact, its uncertainties. I
went forth adventurously. I could wander free as the
wind. Then there were moments of inspiration, for
it always seemed a felicitous stroke to light upon a
particularly fine spot, as its does when one takes an
old and wary trout. You discovered the game where
it was hidden. Your genius prompted you. Another
had passed that way and had missed the prize. In-
deed, the successful berry-picker, like Walton's an-
gler, is born, not made. It is only another kind of

STRAWBERRIES. 75

angling. In the same field one boy gets big berries
and plenty of them ; another wanders up and down,
and finds only a few little ones. He cannot see
them ; he does not know how to divine them where
they lurk under the leaves and vines. The berry-
grower knows that in the cultivated patch his pick-
ers are very unequal, the baskets of one boy or girl
having so inferior a look that it does not seem possi-
ble they could have been filled from the same vines
with certain others. But neither blunt fingers nor
blunt eyes are hard to find, and as there are those
who can see nothing clearly, so there are those who
can touch nothing deftly or gently.

The cultivation of the strawberry is thought to be
comparatively modern. The ancients appear to have
been a carnivorous race ; they gorged themselves
with meat, while the modern man makes larger and
larger use of fruits and vegetables, until this genera-
tion is doubtless better fed than any that has pre-
ceded it. The strawberry and the apple, and such
vegetables as celery, ought to lengthen human life, —
at least to correct its biliousness and make it more
sweet and sanguine.

The first impetus to strawberry culture seems to
have been given by the introduction of our field berry
(Frag aria Virginiana) into England in the seven-
teenth century, though not much progress was made
till the eighteenth. This variety is much more fra-
grant and aromatic than the native berry of Europe,
though less so in that climate than when grown here.

76 STRAWBERRIES.

Many new seedlings sprang from it, and it was the
prevailing berry in English and French gardens,
says Fuller, until the South American species Grand-
iflora was introduced and supplanted it. This berry
is naturally much larger and sweeter and better
adapted to the English climate than our Virginiana.
Hence the English strawberries of to-day surpass
ours in these respects, but are wanting in that aro-
matic pungency that characterizes most of our ber-
ries.

The Jecunda, Triumph, Victoria, etc., are foreign
varieties of the Grandinora species ; while the Hovey,
the Boston Pine, the Downer, etc., are natives of
this country.

The strawberry, in the main, repeats the form of
the human heart, and perhaps of all the small fruits
known to man none other is so deeply and fondly
cherished, or hailed with such universal delight, as
this lowly but youth-renewing berry.

IS IT GOING TO EAIN?

IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

I SUSPECT that, like most countrymen, I was born
with a chronic anxiety about the weather. Is it go-
ing to rain or snow, be hot or cold, wet or dry ? —
are inquiries upon which I would fain get the views
of every man I meet, and I find that most men are
fired with the same desire to get my views upon the
same set of subjects. To a countryman the weather
means something, — to a farmer especially. The
farmer has sowed and planted and reaped and vended
nothing but weather all his life. The weather must
lift the mortgage on his farm, and pay his taxes, and
feed and clothe his family. Of what use is his labor
unless seconded by the weather? Hence there is
speculation in his eye whenever he looks at the
clouds, or the moon, or the sunset, or the stars ; for
even the milky way, in his view, may point the di-
rection of the wind to-morrow, and hence is closely
related to the price of butter. He may not take the
sage's advice to " hitch his wagon to a star," but he
pins his hopes to the moon and plants and sows by
its phases.

80 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

Then the weather is that phase of Nature in which
she appears not the immutable fate we are so wont to
regard her, but on the contrary something quite
human and changeable, not to say womanish, — a
creature of moods, of caprices, of cross purposes ;
gloomy and downcast to-day, and all light and joy
to-morrow; caressing and tender one moment, and
severe and frigid the next ; one day iron, the next
day vapor ; inconsistent, inconstant, incalculable, full
of genius, full of folly, full of extremes, to be read
and understood, not by rule, but by subtle signs and
indirections, by a look, a glance, a presence, as we
read and understand a man or a woman. Some days
are like a rare poetic mood. There is a felicity and
an exhilaration about them from morning till night.
They are positive and fill one with celestial fire.
Other days are negative and drain one of his electric-
ity.

Sometimes the elements show a marked genius for
fair weather, as in the fall and early winter of 1877,
when October, grown only a little stern, lasted till
January. Every shuffle of the cards brought these
mild, brilliant days uppermost. There was not enough
frost to stop the plow, save once perhaps, till the new
year set in. Occasionally a fruit-tree put out a blos-
som and developed young fruit. The warring of the
elements was chiefly done on the other side of the
globe, where it formed an accompaniment to the hu-
man war raging there. In our usually merciless skies
was written only peace and good-will to men, for
months.

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? . 81

What a creature of habit, too, Nature is as she ap-
pears in the weather ! If she miscarry once she will
twice and thrice, and a dozen times. In a wet time
it rains to-day because it rained yesterday, and will
rain to-morrow because it rained to-day. Are the
crops in any part of the country drowning ? They
shall continue to drown. Are they burning up ?
They shall continue to burn. The elements get in
a rut and can't get out without a shock. I know a
farmer who, in a dry time, when the clouds gather
and look threatening, gets out his watering-pot at
once, because, he says, " it won't rain, and 't is an ex-
cellent time to apply the water." Of course, there
comes a time when the farmer is wrong, but he is
right four times out of five.

But I am not going to abuse the weather ; rather
to praise it, and make some amends for the many
ill-natured tilings I have said within hearing of the
clouds, when I have been caught in the rain or been
parched and withered by the drought.

When Mr. Fields's " Village Dogmatist " was
asked what caused the rain, or the fog, — he leaned
upon his cane and answered with an air of profound
wisdom, that " when the atmosphere and hemi-
sphere come together it causes the earth to sweat,
and thereby produces the rain," — or the fog, as the
case may be. The explanation is a little vague, as his
biographer suggests, but it is picturesque, and there
can be little doubt that two somethings do come in
contact that produce a sweating when it rains or is
6

82 IS IT GOING TO KAIN?

foggy. More than that, the philosophy is simple
and comprehensive, which Goethe said was the main
matter in such things. Goethe's explanation is still
more picturesque, but I doubt if it is a bit better phi-
losophy. " I compare the earth and her atmosphere,"
he said to Eckermann, " to a great living being per-
petually inhaling and exhaling. If she inhale she
draws the atmosphere to her, so that coming near her
surface it is condensed to clouds and rain. This state
I call water-affirmative." The opposite state, when
the earth exhales and sends the watery vapors upward
so that they are dissipated through the whole space of
the higher atmosphere, he called " water-negative."

This is good literature, and worthy the great poet ;
the science of it I would not be so willing to vouch
for.

The poets, more perhaps than the scientists, have
illustrated and held by the great law of alternation,
of ebb and flow, of turn and return, in nature. An
equilibrium, or what is the same thing, a straight
line, nature abhors more than she dose a vacuum. If
the moisture of the air were uniform, or the heat
uniform, that is, in equilibria, how could it rain?
what would turn the scale? But these things are
heaped up, are in waves. There is always a prepon-
derance one way or the other ; always " a steep in-
equality." Down this incline the rain comes, and up
the other side it goes. The high barometer travels
like the crest of a sea, and the low barometer like
the trough. When the scale kicks the beam in one

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 83

place, it is correspondingly depressed in some other.
When the east is burning up, the west is generally
drowning out. The weather, we say, is always in
extremes ; it never rains but it pours ; but this is
only the abuse of a law on the part of the elements
which is at the bottom of all the life and motion
on the globe.

The rain itself comes in shorter or longer waves
— now fast, now slow — and sometimes in regular
throbs or pulse-beats. The fall and winter rains are,
as a rule, the most deliberate and general, but the
spring and summer rains are always more or less im-
pulsive and capricious. One may see the rain stalk-
ing across the hills or coming up the valley in single
file as it were. Another time it moves in vast masses
or solid columns, with broad open spaces between.
I have seen a spring snow-storm lasting nearly all
day that swept down in rapid intermittent sheets' or
gusts. The waves or pulsations of the storm were
nearly vertical and were very marked.

But the great fact about the rain is that it is the
most beneficent of all the operations of nature ; more
immediately than sunlight even, it means life and
growth. Moisture is the Eve of the physical world,
the soft teeming principle given to wife to Adam or
heat, and the mother of all that lives. Sunshine
abounds everywhere, but only where the rain or dew
follows is there life. The earth had the sun long
before it had the humid cloud, and will doubtless
continue to have it after the last drop of moisture

84 IS IT GOING TO KAIN?

has perished or been dissipated. The moon has sun-
shine enough, but no rain ; hence it is a dead world
— a lifeless cinder. It is doubtless true that certain
of the planets, as Saturn and Jupiter, have not yet
reached the condition of the cooling and ameliorat-
ing rains, while in Mars vapor appears to be precipi-
tated only in the form of snow ; he is probably past
the period of the summer shower. There are clouds
and vapors in the sun itself, — clouds of flaming hy-
drogen and metallic vapors, and a rain every drop
of which is a burning or molten meteor. Our earth
itself has doubtless passed through the period of the
fiery and consuming rains. Mr. Proctor thinks there
may have been a time when its showers were down-
pourings of " muriatic, nitric, and sulphuric acid, not
only intensely hot, but fiercely burning through their
chemical activity." Think of a dew that would blis-
ter and destroy like the oil of vitriol ! but that period
is far behind us now. When this fearful fever was
past and the earth began to " sweat ; " when these
soft, delicious drops began to come down, or this im-
palpable rain of the cloudless nights to fall, the pe-
riod of organic life was inaugurated. Then there
was hope and a promise of the future. The first
rain was the turning-pcint, the spell was broken, re-
lief was at hand. Then the blazing furies of the fore
world began to give place to the gentler divinities of
later times.

The first water, — how much it means! Seven
tenths of man himself is water. Seven-tenths of the

IS IT GOING TO RAIN ? 85

human race rained down but yesterday ! It is much
more probable that Caesar will flow out of a bung-hole
than that any part of his remains will ever stop one.
Our life is indeed a vapor, a breath, a little moisture
condensed upon the pane. We carry ourselves as in
a phial. Cleave the flesh, and how quickly we spill
out! Man begins as a fish, and he swims in a sea
of vital fluids as long as his life lasts. His first food
is milk ; so is his last and all between. He can taste
and assimilate and absorb nothing but liquids. The
same is true throughout all organic nature. 'T is
water-power that makes every wheel move. Without
this great solvent, there is no life. I admire im-
mensely this line of Walt Whitman : —

"The slumbering and liquid trees."

The tree and its fruit are like a sponge which the
rains have filled. Through them and through all
living bodies there goes on the commerce of vital
growth, tiny vessels, fleets and succession of fleets,
laden with material bound for distant shores, to build
up, and repair, and restore the waste of the physical
frame.

Then the rain means relaxation ; the tension in
Nature and in all her creatures is lessened. The
trees drop their leaves, or l«t go their ripened fruit.
The tree itself will fall in a still, damp day, when
but yesterday it withstood a gale of wind. A moist
south wind penetrates even the mind and makes its
grasp less tenacious. It ought to take less to kill a
man on a rainy day than on a clear. The direct sup-

86 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

port of the sun is withdrawn ; life is under a cloud ;
a masculine mood gives place to something like a
feminine. In this sense, rain is the grief, the weep-
ing of Nature, the relief of a burdened or agonized
heart. But tears from Nature's eyelids are always
remedial and prepare the way for brighter, purer
skies.

I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vege-
tation. Who does not suffer in his spirit in a drought
and feel restless and unsatisfied ? My very thoughts
become thirsty and crave the moisture. It is hard
work to be generous, or neighborly, or patriotic in a
dry time, and as for growing in any of the finer
graces or virtues, who can do it ? One's very man-
hood shrinks, and if he is ever capable of a mean act
or of narrow views, it is then.

Oh, the terrible drought, when the sky turns to
brass ; when the clouds are like withered leaves ;
when the sun sucks the earth's blood like a vampire ;
when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish ; when
the grass whitens and crackles under your feet;
when the turf turns to dust ; when the fields are like
tinder ; when the air is the breath of an oven ; when
even the merciful dews are withheld, and the morn-
ing is no fresher than the evening ; when the friendly
road is a desert and the green woods like a sick-
chamber ; when the sky becomes tarnished ' and
opaque with dust and smoke ; when the shingles on
the houses curl up, the clapboards warp, the paint
blisters, the joints open; when the cattle rove dis-

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 87

consolate and the hive-bee comes home empty ; when
the earth gapes and all nature looks widowed, and
deserted, and heart-broken, — in such a time, what
thing that has life does not sympathize and suffer
with the general distress ?

The drought of the summer and early fall of 1876
was one of those severe stresses of weather that make
the oldest inhabitant search his memory for a par-
allel. For nearly three months there was no rain to
wet the ground. Large forest-trees withered and cast
their leaves. In spots, the mountains looked as if
they had been scorched by fire. The salt sea-water
came up the Hudson ninety miles, when ordinarily
it scarcely comes forty. Toward the last, the capacity
of the atmosphere to absorb and dissipate the smoke
was exhausted, and innumerable fires in forests and
peat-swamps made the days and the weeks — not
blue, but a dirty yellowish-white. There was not
enough moisture in the air to take the sting out of
the smoke, and it smarted the nose. The sun was
red and dim even at midday, and at his rising and
setting he was as harmless to the eye as a crimson
shield or a painted moon. The meteorological con-
ditions seemed the farthest possible remove from
those that produce rain, or even dew. Every sign
was negatived. Some malevolent spirit seemed abroad
in the air, that rendered abortive every effort of the
gentler divinities to send succor. The clouds would
gather back in the mountains, the thunder would
growl, the tall masses would rise up and advance

88 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

threateningly, then suddenly cower, their strength
and purpose ooze away ; they flattened out ; the hot,
parched breath of the earth smote them ; the dark,
heavy masses were re-resolved into thin vapor and
the sky came through where but a few moments be-
fore there had appeared to be deep behind deep of
water-logged clouds. Sometimes a cloud would pass
by, and one could see trailing beneath and behind it a
sheet of rain, like something let down that did not
quite touch the earth, the hot air vaporizing the
drops before they reached the ground.

Two or three times the wind got in the south, and
those low, dun-colored clouds that are nothing but
harmless fog came hurrying up and covered the sky,
and city folk and women folk said the rain was at
last near. But the wise ones knew better. The
clouds had no backing, the clear sky was just behind
them ; they were only the night-cap of the south
wind which the sun burnt up before ten o'clock.

Every storm has a foundation that is deeply and
surely laid, and those shallow surface clouds that
have no root in the depths of the sky deceive none
but the unwary.

At other times, when the clouds were not re-
absorbed by the sky, and the rain seemed imminent,
they would suddenly curdle, and when the clouds
curdle the clerk of the weather has a sour stomach
and you need expect no good turn from him. Time
and again I saw them do that, saw their continuity
broken up, saw them separate into small masses — in

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 89

fact saw a process of disintegration and disorganiza-
tion going on, and my hope of rain was over for that
day. Vast spaces would be affected suddenly ; it was
like a stroke of paralysis ; motion was retarded, the
breeze died down, the thunder ceased, and the storm
was blighted on the very threshold of success.

I suppose there is some compensation in a drought ;
Nature doubtless profits by it in some way. It is a
good time to thin out her garden and give the law of
the survival of the fittest a chance to come into play.
How the big trees and big plants do rob the little
ones ! there is not drink enough to go around and
' the strongest will have what there is. It is a rest to
vegetation, too, a kind of torrid winter that is followed
by a fresh awakening. Every tree and plant learns
a lesson from it, learns to shoot its roots down deep
into the perennial supplies of moisture and life.

But when the rain does come, the warm, sun-
distilled rain ; the far-traveling, vapor-born rain ;
the impartial, undiscriminating, unstinted rain ; equa-
ble, bounteous, myriad-eyed, searching out every
plant and every spear of grass, finding every hidden
thing that needs water, falling upon the just and
upon the unjust, sponging off every leaf of every
tree in the forest and every growth in the fields ;
music to the ear, a perfume to the smell, an enchant-
ment to the eye ; healing the earth, cleansing the air,
renewing the fountains ; honey to the bee, manna to
the herds, and life to all creatures — what spectacle
so fills the heart ? " Rain, rain, 0 dear Zeus, down

90 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

on the plowed fields of the Athenians, and on the
plains."

There is a fine sibilant chorus audible in the sod
and in the dust of the road and in the porous plowed
fields. Every grain of soil and every root and root-
let purrs in satisfaction. Because, something more
than water comes down when it rains ; you cannot
produce this effect by simple water ; the good-will of
the elements, the consent and approbation of all the
skyey influences, come down ; the harmony, the ad-
justment, the perfect understanding of the soil be-
neath and the air that swims above are implied in
the marvelous benefaction of the rain. The earth is
ready ; the moist winds have wooed it and prepared
it, the electrical conditions are as they should be,
and there are love and passion in the surrender of
the summer clouds. How the drops are absorbed
into the ground ! You cannot, I say, succeed like this
with your hose or sprinkling pot. There is no ardor
or electricity in the drops, no ammonia, or ozone, or
other nameless properties borrowed from the air.

Then one has not the gentleness and patience of
Nature ; we puddle the ground in our hurry, we seal
it up and exclude the air and the plants are worse off
than before. When the sky is overcast and it is get-
ting ready to rain, the moisture rises in the ground,
the earth opens her pores and seconds the desire of
the clouds.

Indeed, I have found there is but little virtue in a
sprinkling pot after the drought has reached a certain

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 91

pitch. The soil will not absorb the water. 'Tis
like throwing it on a hot stove. I once concentrated
my efforts upon a single hill of corn and deluged it
with water night and morning for several days, yet
its leaves curled up and the ears failed the same as
the rest. Something may be done, without doubt, if
one begins in time, but the relief seems strangely in-
adequate to the means often used. In rainless coun-
tries good crops are produced by irrigation, but here
man can imitate in a measure the patience and bounty
of Nature, and with night to aid him can make his
thirsty fields drink, or rather can pour the water
down their throats.

I have said the rain is as necessary to man as to
vegetation. You cannot have a rank, sappy race like
the English or German without plenty of moisture
in the air and in the soil. Good viscera and an
abundance of blood are closely related to meteoro-
logical conditions ; unction of character, and a flow
of animal spirits, too, and I suspect that much of the
dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as
the thin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic re-
sults. We have rain enough, but not equability of
temperature or moisture, — no steady abundant sup-
ply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain
it is said to rain on an average three days out of four
the year through, yet the depth of rain-fall is no
greater than in this country where it rains but the
one day out of four. John Bull shows those three
rainy days both in his temper and in his bodily habit ;

92 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

lie is better for them in many ways, and perhaps not
quite so good in a few others : they make him juicy
and vascular, and may be a little opaque ; but we, in
this country, could well afford a few of his negative
qualities for the sake of his stomach and full-blooded-
ness.

We have such faith in the virtue of the rain and
in the capacity of the clouds to harbor and transport
material good that we more than half believe the
stories of the strange and anomalous things that have
fallen in showers. There is no credible report that
it has ever yet rained pitchforks, but many other
curious things have fallen. Fish, flesh, and fowl, and
substances that were neither, have been picked up
by veracious people after a storm. Manna, blood,
and honey, frogs, newts, and fish-worms are among
the curious things the clouds are supposed to yield.
If the clouds scooped up their water as the flying ex-
press train does, these phenomena could be easier
explained. I myself have seen curious things. Rid-
ing along the road, one day, on the heels of a violent
summer tempest, I saw the ground swarming with
minute hopping creatures. I got out and captured
my hands full. They proved to be tree-toads, many
of them no larger than crickets, and none of them
larger than a bumble-bee. There seemed to be thou-
sands of them. The mark of the tree-toad was the
round, flattened ends of their toes. I took some of
them home, but they died the next day. Where did
they come from ? I imagined the violent wind swept

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 93

them off the trees in the woods to windward of the
road. But this is only a guess ; may be they crept
out of the ground, or from under the wall near by,
and were out to wet their jackets.

I have never yet heard of a frog coming down
chimney in a showe". ' ome circumstantial evidence
may be pretty conclusive, Thoreau says, as when
you find a trout in the milk, and if you find a frog or
toad behind the fire-board immediately after a shower,
you may well ask him to explain himself.

When I was a boy I used to wonder if the clouds
were hollow and carried their water as in a cask,
because, had we not often heard of clouds bursting
and producing havoc and ruin beneath them ? The
hoops gave way, perhaps, or the head was pressed
out. Goethe says that when the barometer rises the
clouds are spun off from the top downward like a
distaff of flax ; but this is more truly the process
when it rains. When fair weather is in the ascend-
ant, the clouds are simply re-absorbed by the air ;
but, when it rains, they are spun off into something
more compact ; 't is like the threads that issue from
the mass of flax or roll of wool, only here there are
innumerable threads and the fingers that hold them
never tire. The great spinning-wheel, too, what a
humming it makes at times, and how the footsteps
of the invisible spinner resound through the cloud-
pillared chambers !

The clouds are thus literally spun up into water ;
and were they not constantly recruited from the at-

94 IS IT GOING TO EAIN?

mosphere as the storm-centre travels along, — was
new wool not forthcoming from the white sheep and
the black sheep that the winds herd at every point, —
all rains would be brief and local ; the storm wrould
quickly exhaust itself, as we sometimes see a thunder-
cloud do in summer. A storm will originate in the
far West or Southwrest — those hatching-places of
all our storms — and travel across the continent, and
across the Atlantic to Europe, pouring down incal-
culable quantities of rain as it progresses and recruit-
ing as it wastes. It is a moving vortex into which
the outlying moisture of the atmosphere is being
constantly drawn and precipitated. It is not properly
the storm that travels, but the low pressure, the storm
impulse, the meteorological magnet that makes the
storm wherever its presence may be. The clouds
are not watering-carts, that are driven all the way
from Arizona or Colorado to Europe, but growths,
developments that spring up as the Storm-deity
moves his wand across the land. In advance of the
storm, you may often see the clouds grow ; the con-
densation of the moisture into vapor is a visible proc-
ess, slender, spiculas-like clouds expand, deepen, and
lengthen; in the rear of the low pressure, the re-
verse process, or the wasting of the clouds, may be
witnessed. In summer, the recruiting of a thunder-
storm is often very marked. I have seen the clouds
file as straight across the sky toward a growing storm
or thunder-head in the horizon as soldiers hastening
to the point of attack or defense. They would grow

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 95

more and more black and threatening as they ad-
vanced, and actually seemed to be driven by more
urgent winds than certain other clouds. They were,
no doubt, more in the line of the storm influence.

All our general storms are cyclonic in their char-
acter, that is, rotary and progressive. Their type
may be seen in every little whirlpool that goes down
the swollen current of the river, and in our hemi-
sphere they revolve in the same direction, namely,
from right to left, or in opposition to the hands of a
watch. When the water iinds an outlet through the
bottom of a dam, a suction or whirling vortex is de-
veloped that generally goes round in the same direc-
tion. A morning-glory or a hop-vine or a pole-bean
winds around its support in the same course, and can-
not be made to wind in any other. I am aware there
are some perverse climbers among the plants that
persist in going around the pole in the other direc-
tion. In the southern hemisphere, the cyclone re-
volves in the other direction, or from left to right.
How do they revolve at the equator, then ? They do
not revolve at all. This is the point of zero, and cy-
clones are never formed nearer than the third par-
allel of latitude. Whether hop-vines also refuse to
wind about the pole there, I am unable to say.

All our cyclones originate in the far Southwest
and travel northeast. Why did we wait for the
Weather Bureau to tell us this fact ? Do not all the
filmy, hazy, cirrus and cirro-stratus clouds first ap-
pear from the general direction of the sunset ? Who

96 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

ever saw them pushing their opaque filaments over
the sky from the east or north? Yet, do we not
have " northeasters " both winter and summer ? True,
but the storm does not come from that direction. In
such a case, we get that segment of the cyclonic
whirl. A northeaster in one place may be an easter,
a norther, or a souther in some other locality. See
through those drifting, drenching clouds that come
hurrying out of the northeast, and there are the
boss-clouds, above them, the great captains them-
selves, moving serenely on in the opposite direction.

Electricity is of course an important agent in
storms. It is the great organizer and ring-master.
How a clap of thunder will shake down the rain!
It gives the clouds a smart rap ; it jostles the vapor
so that the particles fall together more quickly ; it
makes the drops let go in double and treble ranks.
Nature likes to be helped in that way, — likes to have
the water agitated when she is freezing it or heating
it, and the clouds smitten when she is compressing
them into rain. So does a shock of surprise quicken
the pulse in man, and in the crisis of action help
him to a decision.

What a spur and impulse the summer shower is !
How its coming quickens and hurries up the slow,
jogging country life ! The traveler along the dusty
road arouses from his reverie at the warning rumble
behind the hills ; the children hasten from the field
or from the school ; the farmer steps lively and thinks
fast. In the hay-field, at the first signal-gun of the

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 97

elements, what a commotion ! How the horse-rake
rattles, how the pitchforks fly, how the white sleeves
play and twinkle in the sun or against the dark back-
ground of the coming storm ! One man does the
work of two or three. It is a race with the elements,
and the hay-makers do not like to be beaten. The
rain that is life to the grass when growing is poison
to it after it becomes cured hay, and it must be got
under shelter, or put up into snug cocks, if possible,
before the storm overtakes it.

The rains of winter are cold and odorless. One
prefers the snow which warms and covers, but can
there be anything more delicious than the ;first warm
April rain, the first offering of the softened and
pacified clouds of spring ? The weather has been dry,
perhaps, for two or three weeks ; we have had a
touch of the dreaded drought thus early ; the roads
are dusty, the streams again shrunken, and forest
fires send up columns of smoke on every hand ; the
frost has all been out of the ground many days ; the
snow has all disappeared from the mountains ; the sun
is warm, but the grass does not grow, nor the early
seeds come up. The quickening spirit of the rain is
needed. Presently the wind gets in the southwest,
and, late in the day, we have our first vernal shower,
gentle and leisurely, but every drop condensed from
warm tropic vapors and charged with the very es-
sence of spring. Then what a perfume fills the air !
One's nostrils are not half large enough to take it
in. The smoke, washed by the rain, becomes the

98 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

breath of woods, and the soil and the newly plowed
fields give out an odor that dilates the sense. How
the buds of the trees swell, how the grass greens,
how the birds rejoice ! Hear the robins laugh !
This will bring out the worms and the insects, and
start the foliage of the trees. A summer shower has
more copiousness and power, but this has the charm
of freshness and of all first things.

The laws of storms, up to a certain point, have
come to be pretty well understood, but there is yet
no science of the weather, any more than there is of
human nature. There is about as much room for
speculation in the one case as in the other. The
causes and agencies are subtle and obscure, and we
shall, perhaps, have the metaphysics of the subject
before we have the physics.

But as there are persons who can read human
nature pretty well, so there are those who can read
the weather.

It is a masculine subject, and quite beyond the
province of woman. Ask those who spend their
time in the open air — the farmer, the sailor, the
soldier, the walker ; ask the birds, the beasts, the
tree-toads ; they know, if they will only tell. The
farmer diagnoses the weather daily, as the doctor a
patient ; he feels the pulse of the wind, he knows
when the clouds have a scurfy tongue, or when the
cuticle of the day is feverish and dry or soft and
moist. Certain days he calls " weather breeders,"
and they are usually the fairest days in the calendar

IS IT GOING TO EAIN? 99

— all sun and sky. They are too fair; they are
suspiciously so. They come in the fall and spring,
and always mean mischief. When a day of almost
unnatural brightness and clearness in either of these
seasons follows immediately after a storm, it is a
sure indication that another storm follows close —
follows to-morrow. In keeping with this fact is the
rule of the barometer, that if the mercury suddenly
rises very high, the fair weather will not last. It is
a high peak that indicates a corresponding depression
close at hand. I observed one of these angelic mis-
chief-makers during the past October. The second
day after a heavy fall of rain was the fairest of the
fair — not a speck or film in all the round of the sky.
Where have all the clouds and vapors gone to so
suddenly ? was my mute inquiry, but I suspected
they were plotting together somewhere behind the
horizon. The sky was a deep ultramarine blue ; the
air so transparent that distant objects seemed near,
and the afternoon shadows were sharp and clear. At
night the stars were unusually numerous and bright
(a sure sign of an approaching storm). The sky was
laid bare, as the tidal wave empties the shore of its
water before it heaps it up upon it. A violent storm
of wind and rain, the next day, followed this delusive
brightness. So the weather, like human nature, may
be suspiciously transparent. A saintly day may undo
you. A few clouds do not mean rain ; but when there
are absolutely none, when even the haze and filmy
vapors are suppressed or held back, then beware.

100 IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

Then, the weather-wise know there are two kinds
of clouds, rain clouds and wind clouds, and that the
latter are always the most portentous. In summer,
they are black as night ; they look as if they would
blot out the very earth. They raise a great dust,
and set things flying and slamming for a moment,
and that is all. They are the veritable wind-bags of
-ZEolus. There is something in the look of rain
clouds that is unmistakable, — a firm, gray, tightly
woven look that makes you remember your umbrella.
Not too high, nor too low, not black, nor blue, but
the form and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You see
the river water in them ; they are heavy laden, and
move slow. Sometimes they develop what are called
" mares' tails," — small cloud-forms here and there
against a heavy background, that look like the stroke
of a brush, or the streaming tail of a charger. Some-
times a few under-clouds will be combed and groomed
by the winds or other meteoric agencies at work, as
if for a race. I have seen coming storms develop
well-defined vertebra, — a long backbone of cloud,
with the articulations and processes clearly marked.
Any of these forms, changing, growing, denote rain,
because they show unusual agencies at work. The
storm is brewing and fermenting. " See those cow-
licks," said an old farmer, pointing to certain patches
on the clouds ; " they mean rain." Another time,
he said the clouds were " making bag," had growing
udders, and that it would rain before night, as it did.
This reminded me that the Orientals speak of the
clouds as cows which the winds herd and milk.

IS IT GOING TO EAIN ? 101

In the winter, we see the sun wading in snow.
The morning has perhaps been clear, but in the after-
noon a bank of gray filmy or cirrus cloud meets him
in the west, and he sinks deeper and deeper into it,
till, at his going down, his muffled beams are entirely
hidden. Then, on the morrow, not

" Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,"
but silent as night, the white legions are here.

The old signs seldom fail, — a red and angry sun-
rise, or flushed clouds at evening. Many a hope of
rain have I seen dashed by a painted sky at sunset.
There is truth in the old couplet, too : —

" If it rains before seven,
It will clear before eleven."

An old Indian had a sign for winter : " If the
wind blows the snow off the trees, the next storm
will be snow ; if it rains off the next storm will be
rain."

Morning rams are usually short-lived. Better
wait till ten o'clock.

When the clouds are chilled, they turn blue and
rise up.

When the fog leaves the mountains, reaching up-
ward, as if afraid of being left behind, the fair
weather is near.

Shoddy clouds are of little account, and soon fall
to pieces. Have your clouds show a good strong
fibre, and have them lined, — not with silver, but with
other clouds of a finer texture, — and have them
wadded. It wants two or three thicknesses to get

102 IS IT GOING TO EAIN?

up a good rain. Especially, unless you have that
cloud-mother, that dim, filmy, nebulous mass that has
its root in the higher regions of the air, and is the
source and backing of all storms, — your rain will be
light indeed.

I fear my readers' jacket is not thoroughly soaked
yet. I must give him a final dash, a "clear-up"
shower.

We were encamping in the primitive woods, by a
little trout-lake which the mountain carried high on
his hip, like a soldier's canteen. There were wives
in the party, curious to know what the lure was that
annually drew their husbands to the woods. That
magical writing on a trout's back they would fain de-
cipher, little heeding the warning that what is writ-
ten here is not given to woman to know.

Our only tent or roof was the sheltering arms of
the great birches and maples. What was sauce for
the gander should be sauce for the goose too, so the
goose insisted.

A luxurious couch of boughs upon springing poles
was prepared, and the night should be not less wel-
come than the day, which had indeed been idyllic.
(A trout dinner had been served by a little spring
brook, upon an improvised table covered with moss
and decked with ferns, with strawberries from a near
clearing.)

At twilight, there was an ominous rumble behind
the mountains. I was on the lake, and could see
what was brewing there in the west.

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 103

As darkness came on, the rumbling increased, and
the mountains and the woods and the still air were
such good conductors of sound that the ear was viv-
idly impressed. One seemed to feel the enormous
convolutions of the clouds in the deep and jarring
tones of the thunder. The coming of night in the
woods is alone peculiarly impressive, and it is doubly
so when out of the darkness comes such a voice as
this. But we fed the fire the more industriously,
and piled the logs high, and kept the gathering gloom
at bay by as large a circle of light as we could com-
mand. The lake was a pool of ink and as still as if
congealed ; not a movement or a sound, save now
and then a terrific volley from the cloud-batteries
now fast approaching. By nine o'clock little puffs
of wind began to steal through the woods and tease
and toy with our fire. Shortly after, an enormous
electric bomb-shell exploded in the tree-tops over
our heads, and the ball was fairly opened. Then fol-
lowed three hours, with only two brief intermissions,
of as lively elemental music and as copious an out-
pouring of rain as it was ever my lot to witness. It
was a regular meteorological carnival, and the rev-
elers were drunk with the wild sport. The apparent
nearness of the clouds and the electric explosion was
something remarkable. Every discharge seemed to
be in the branches immediately overhead and made us
involuntarily cower, as if the next moment the great
limbs of the trees, or the trees themselves, would come
crashing down. The mountain upon which we were

104 IS IT GOING TO RAIN ?

encamped appeared to be the focus of three distinct
but converging storms. The last two seemed to come
into collision immediately over our camp-fire and to
contend for the right of way until the heavens were
ready to fall and both antagonists were literally
spent. We stood in groups about the struggling fire,
and when the cannonade became too terrible would
withdraw into the cover of the darkness as if to be
a less conspicuous mark for the bolts ; or did we
fear the fire, with its currents, might attract the light-
ning ? At any rate, some other spot than the one
where we happened to be standing seemed desira-
ble when those onsets of the contending elements
were the most furious. Something that one could
not catch in his hat was liable to drop almost any-
where any minute. The alarm and consternation of
the wives communicated itself to the husbands, and
they looked solemn and concerned. The air was
filled with falling water. The sound upon the myriad
leaves and branches was like the roar of a cataract.
We put our backs up against the great trees only to
catch a brook on our shoulders or in the backs of our
necks. Still the storm waxed. The fire was beaten
down lower and lower. It surrendered one post after
another, like a besieged city, and finally made only
a feeble resistance from beneath a pile of charred
logs and branches in the centre. Our garments
yielded to the encroachments of the rain in about the
same manner. I believe my neck-tie held out the
longest and carried a few dry threads safely through.

IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 105

Our cunningly devised and bedecked table, which the
housekeepers had so doted on and which was ready
spread for breakfast, was washed as by the hose of a
fire-engine, — only the bare poles remained, — and
the couch of springing boughs that was to make sleep
jealous and o'erfond became a bed fit only for am-
phibians. Still the loosened floods came down ; still
the great cloud mortars bellowed and exploded their
missiles in the tree-tops above us. But all nervous-
ness finally passed away, and we became dogged and
resigned. Our minds became water-soaked ; our
thoughts were heavy and bedraggled. We were past
the point of joking at one another's expense. The
witticisms failed to kindle, — indeed, failed to go,
like the matches in our pockets. About midnight
the rain slackened, and by one o'clock ceased entirely.
How the rest of the night was passed beneath the
dripping trees and upon the saturated ground, I have
only the dimmest remembrance. All is watery and
opaque ; the fog settles down and obscures the scene.
But I suspect I tried the " wet pack " without being
a convert to hydropathy. When the morning dawned,
the wives begged to be taken home, convinced that
the charms of camping- out were greatly overrated.
We who had tasted this cup before, knew they had
read at least a part of the legend of the wary trout
without knowing it.

SPECKLED TROUT.

SPECKLED TROUT.

THE legend of the wary trout, hinted at in the last
sketch, is to be further illustrated in this and some
following chapters. We shall get at more of the
meaning of those dark water-lines, and I hope, also,
not entirely miss the significance of the gold and sil-
ver spots and the glancing iridescent hues. The
trout is dark and obscure above, but behind this foil
there are wondrous tints that reward the believing
eye. Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts
are quite sure to get the full force of the sombre and
uninviting aspects, — the wet, the cold, the toil, the
broken rest', and the huge, savage, uncompromising
nature, etc., — but the true angler sees farther than
these, and is never thwarted of his legitimate reward
by them.

I have been a seeker of trout from my boyhood,
and on all the expeditions in which this fish has been
the ostensible purpose I have brought home more
game than my creel showed. In fact, in my mature
years I find I got more of nature into me, more of

110 SPECKLED TROUT.

the woods, the wild, nearer to bird and beast, while
threading my native streams for trout, than in almost
any other way. It furnished a good excuse to go
forth : it pitched one in the right key : it sent one
through the fat and marrowy places of field and
wood. Then the fisherman has a harmless preoc-
cupied look ; he is a kind of vagrant that nothing
fears. He blends himself with the trees and the
shadows. All his approaches are gentle and indi-
rect. He times himself to the meandering soliloquiz-
ing stream; its impulse bears him along. At the
foot of the water-fall he sits Sequestered and hidden
in its volume of sound. The birds know he has no
designs upon them, and the animals see that his mind
is in the creek. His enthusiasm anneals him and
makes him pliable to the scenes and influences he
moves among.

Then what acquaintance he makes with the stream !
He addresses himself to it as a lover to his mistress :
he wooes it and stays with it till he knows its most
hidden secrets. It runs through his thoughts not less
than through its banks there ; he feels the fret and
thrust of every bar and bowlder. Where it deepens
his purpose deepens ; where it is shallow he is indif-
ferent. He knows how to interpret its every glance
and dimple ; its beauty haunts him for days.

I am sure I run no risk of over-praising the
charm and attractiveness of a well-fed trout stream,
every drop of water in it as bright and pure as if the
nymphs had brought it all the way from its source

SPECKLED TROUT. Ill

in crystal goblets, and as cool as if it had been
hatched beneath a glacier. "When the heated and
soiled and jaded refugee from the city first sees one
he feels as if he would like to turn it into his bosom
and let it flow through him a few hours, it suggests
such healing freshness and newness. How his roily
thoughts would run clear : how the sediment would go
down stream. Could he ever have an impure or an
unwholesome wish afterward ? The next best thing
he can do is to tramp along its banks and surrender
himself to its influence. If he reads it intently
enough he will, in a measure, be taking it into his
mind and heart, and experiencing its salutary minis-
trations.

Trout streams coursed through every valley my
boyhood knew. I crossed them, and was often
lured and detained by them, on my way to and from
school. We bathed in them during the long sum-
mer noons and felt for the trout under their banks.
A holiday was a holiday indeed that brought permis-
sion to go fishing over on Rose's Brook, or up Hard-
scrabble or in Meeker's Hollow ; all-day trips, from
morning till night, through meadows and pastures
and beechen woods wherever the shy limpid stream
led. What an appetite it developed ! a hunger that
was fierce and aboriginal, and that the wild straw-
berries we plucked as we crossed the hill teased
rather than allayed. When but a few hours could
be had, gained perhaps by doing some piece of work
about the farm or garden in half the allotted time

112 SPECKLED TROUT.

the little creek that headed in the paternal domain
was handy ; when half a day was at one's disposal
there were the hemlocks, less than a mile distant,
with their loitering, meditative, log -impeded stream
and their dusky, fragrant depths. Alert and wide-
eyed, one picked his way along, startled now and
then by the sudden bursting up of the partridge, or
by the whistling wings of the " dropping snipe,"
pressing through the brush and the briers, or finding
an easy passage over the trunk of a prostrate tree,
carefully letting his hook down through some tangle
into a still pool, or standing in some high sombre
avenue and watching his line float in and out amid
the moss-covered bowlders. In my first essayings I
used to go to the edge of these hemlocks, seldom dip-
ping into them beyond the first pool when the stream
swept under the roots of two large trees. From this
point I could look back into the sunlit fields where
the cattle were grazing ; beyond, all was gloom and
mystery; the trout were black, and to my young
imagination the silence and the shadows were blacker.
But gradually I yielded to the fascination and pene-
trated the woods farther and farther on each expedi-
tion, till the heart of the mystery was fairly plucked
out. , During the second or third year of my piscato-
rial experience I went through them, and through the
pasture and meadow beyond, and through another
strip of hemlocks, to where the little stream joined
the main creek of the valley.

In June, when my trout fever ran pretty high, and

SPECKLED TROUT. 113

an auspicious day arrived, I would make a trip to a
stream a couple of miles distant, that came down out
of a comparatively new settlement. It was a rapid
mountain brook presenting many difficult problems to
the young angler, but a very enticing stream for all
that, with its two saw-mill dams, its pretty cascades,
its high, shelving rocks sheltering the mossy nests of
the phcebe bird, and its general wild and forbidding
aspects.

But a meadow brook was always a favorite. The
trout like meadows ; doubtless their food is more
abundant there, and, usually, the good hiding-places
are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow
the character of the creek changes ; it goes slower
and lies deeper; it tarries to enjoy the high, cool
banks and to half hide beneath them; it loves the
willows, or rather, the willows love it and shelter it
from the sun ; its spring runs are kept cool by the
overhanging grass, and the heavy turf that face its
open banks is not cut away by the sharp hoofs of
the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks and
starlings and meadow larks, always interested spec-
tators of the angler ; there are also the marsh mar-
igolds, the buttercups, or the spotted lilies, and the
good angler is always an interested spectator of them.
In fact, the patches of meadow land that lie in the
angler's course are like the happy experiences in his
own life, or like the fine passages in the poem he
is reading ; the pasture of tener contains the shallow
and monotonous places. In the small streams the
8

114 SPECKLED TROUT.

cattle scare the fish, and soil their element and break
down their retreats under the banks. Wood-land
alternates the best with meadow : the creek loves to
burrow under the roots of a great tree, to scoop out
a pool after leaping over the prostrate trunk of one,
and to pause at the foot of a ledge of moss-covered
rocks, with ice-cold water dripping down. How
straight the current goes for the rock ; note its cor-
rugated, muscular appearance, it strikes and glances
off, but accumulates, deepens with well-defined ed-
dies above arid to one side ; on the edge of these the
trout lurk and spring upon their prey.

The angler learns that it is generally some obsta-
cle or hindrance that makes a deep place in the creek,
as in a brave life, and his ideal brook is one that lies
in deep, well-defined banks, yet makes many a shift
from right to left, meets with many rebuffs and ad-
ventures, hurled back upon itself by rocks, waylaid
by snags and- trees, tripped up by precipices, but
sooner or later reposing under meadow banks, deep-
ening and eddying beneath bridges, or prosperous
and strong in some level stretch of cultivated land
with great elms shading it here and there.

But I early learned that from almost any stream in
a trout country the true angler could take trout, and
that the great secret was this, that whatever bait you
used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there was one
thing you must always put upon your hook, namely,
your heart ; when you bait your hook with your
heart the fish always bite ; they will jump clean

SPECKLED TROUT. 115

from the water after it ; they will dispute with each
other over it ; it is a morsel they love above every-
thing else. With such bait I have seen the born
angler (my grandfather was one) take a noble string
of trout from the most unpromising waters, and on
the most unpromising day. He used his hook so
coyly and tenderly, he approached the fish with such
address and insinuation, he divined the exact spot
where they lay ; if they were not eager he humored
them and seemed to steal by them; if they were
playful and coquettish he would suit his mood to
theirs ; if they were frank and sincere he met them
half way ; he was so patient and considerate, so en-
tirely devoted to pleasing the critical trout, and so
successful in his efforts — surely his heart was upon
his hook, and it was a tender, unctuous heart, too, as
that of every angler is. How nicely he would meas-
ure the distance, how dexterously he would avoid an
overhanging limb or bush and drop the line in exactly
the right spot ; of course there was a pulse of feel-
ing and sympathy to the extremity of that line. If
your heart is a stone, however, or an empty husk,
there is no use to put it upon your hook ; it will not
tempt the fish ; the bait must be quick and fresh.
Indeed, a certain quality of youth is indispensable to
the successful angler, a certain unworldliness and
readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise that
don't pay in the current coin. Not only is the an-
gler, like the poet, born and not made, as Walton
says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he

116 SPECKLED TROUT.

is to be judged no more harshly ; he is the victim of
his genius ; those wild streams, how they haunt him ;
he will play truant to dull care, and flee to them ;
their waters impart somewhat of their own perpetual
youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty
years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any
boy, and step off with wonderful elasticity toward the
beloved streams ; it used to try my young legs a good
deal to follow him, especially on the return trip.
And no poet was ever more innocent of worldly suc-
cess or ambition. For, to paraphrase Tennyson, —

" Lusty trout to him were scrip and share.
And babbling waters more than cent for cent."

He laid up treasures, but they were not in this world.
In fact, though the kindest of husbands, I fear he
was not what the country people call a " good pro-
vider," except in providing trout in their season,
though it is doubtful if there was always fat in the
house to fry them in. But he could tell you they
were worse off than that at Valley Forge, and that
trout, or any other fish, were good roasted in the
ashes under the coals. He had the Walton requisite
of loving quietness and contemplation, and was de-
vout withal. Indeed in many ways he was akin to
those Galilee fishermen who were called to be fishers
of men. How he read the Book and pored over it,
even at times I suspect nodding over it, and laying
it down only to take up his rod, over which, unless
the trout were very dilatory and the journey very
fatiguing, he never nodded.

SPECKLED TROUT. 117

II.

The Delaware is one of our minor rivers, but it is
a stream beloved of the trout. Nearly all its remote
branches head in mountain springs, and its collected
waters, even when warmed by the summer sun, are as
sweet and wholesome as dew swept from the grass.
The Hudson wins from it two streams that are fath-
ered by the mountains from whose loins most of its
beginnings issue, namely, the Rondout and the Eso-
pus. These swell a more illustrious current than
the Delaware, but the Rondout, one of the finest trout
streams in the world, makes an uncanny alliance be-
fore it reaches its destination, namely with the ma-
larious Wallkill.

In the same nest of mountains from which they
start are born the Neversink and the Beaverkill,
streams of wondrous beauty that flow south and we^t
into the Delaware. From my native hills I could
catch glimpses of the mountains in whose laps these
creeks were cradled, but it was not till after many
years, and after dwelling in a country where trout
are not found, that I returned to pay my respects to
them as an angler.

My first acquaintance with the Neversink was
made in company with some friends in 1869. We
passed up the valley of the Big Ingin, marveling at
its copious ice-cold springs, and its immense sweep of
heavy timbered mountain sides. Crossing the range
at its head we struck the Neversink quite unexpect-

118 SPECKLED TROUT.

edly about the middle of the afternoon, at a point
where it was a good-sized trout stream. It proved
to be one of those black mountain brooks born of in-
numerable ice-cold springs, nourished in the shade,
and shod, as it were, with thick-matted moss, that
every camper-out remembers. The fish are as black
as the stream and very wild. They dart from be-
neath the fringed rocks, or dive with the hook into
the dusky depths, — an integral part of the silence
and the shadows. The spell of the moss is over all.
The fisherman's tread is noiseless, as he leaps from
stone to stone and from ledge to ledge along the bed
of the stream. How cool it is ! He looks up the
dark, silent defile, hears the solitary voice of the
water, sees the decayed trunks of fallen trees bridg-
ing the stream, and all he has dreamed, when a boy,
of the haunts of beasts of prey — the crouching
feline tribes, especially if it be near nightfall and
the gloom already deepening in the woods — comes
freshly to mind, and he presses on, wary and alert,
and speaking to his companions in low tones.

After an hour or so the trout became less abun-
dant, and with nearly a hundred of the black sprites
in our baskets we turned back. Here and there I
saw the abandoned nests of the pigeons, sometimes
half a dozen in one tree. In a yellow birch which
the floods had uprooted a number of nests were still
in place, little shelves or platforms of twigs loosely
arranged and affording little or no protection to the
eggs or the young birds against inclement weather.

SPECKLED TROUT. 119

Before we had reached our companions the rain
set in again and forced us to take shelter under a
balsam. When it slackened we moved on, and soon
came up with Aaron, who had caught his first trout,
and, considerably drenched, was making his way
toward camp, which one of the party had gone for-
ward to build. After traveling less than a mile, we
saw a smoke struggling up through the dripping trees,
and in a few moments were all standing round a
blazing fire. But the rain now commenced again,
and fairly poured down through the trees, render-
ing the prospect of cooking and eating our supper
there in the woods, and of passing the night on the
ground without tent or cover of any kind, rather
disheartening. We had been told of a bark shanty,
a couple of miles farther down the creek, and thither-
ward we speedily took up our line of march. When
we were on the point of discontinuing the search,
thinking we had been misinformed or had passed it
by, we came in sight of a bark-peeling, in the midst
of which a small log-house lifted its naked rafters
toward the now breaking sky. It had neither floor
nor roof, and was less inviting on first sight than the
open woods. But a board partition was still stand-
ing, out of which we built a rude porch on the east
side of the house, large enough for us all to sleep
under, if well packed, and eat under, if we stood up.
There was plenty of well-seasoned timber lying
about, and a fire was soon burning in front of our
quarters that made the scene social and picturesque,

120 SPECKLED TROUT.

especially when the frying-pans were brought into
requisition, and the coffee, in charge of Aaron, who
was an artist in this line, mingled its aroma with the
wild-wood air. At dusk a balsam was felled, and
the tips of the branches used to make a bed, which
was more fragrant than soft ; hemlock is better, be-
cause its needles are finer and its branches more
elastic.

There was a spirt or two of rain during the night,
but not enough to find out the leaks in our roof. It
took the shower or series of showers of the next day
to do that. They commenced about two o'clock in
the afternoon. The forenoon had been fine, and we
had brought into camp nearly three hundred trout ;
but before they were half dressed or the first panfuls
fried, the rain set in. First came short, sharp dashes,
then a gleam of treacherous sunshine, followed by
more and heavier dashes. The wind was in the
southwest, and to rain seemed the easiest thing in
the world. From fitful dashes to a steady pour the
transition was natural. We stood huddled together,
stark and grim, under our .cover, like hens under a
cart. The fire fought bravely for a time, and retal-
iated with sparks and spiteful tongues of flame ; but
gradually its spirit was broken, only a heavy body of
coal and half -consumed logs in the centre holding out
against all odds. The simmering fish were soon
floating about in a yellow liquid that did not look in
the least appetizing. Point after point gave way in
our cover, till standing between the drops was no

SPECKLED TROUT. 121

longer possible. The water coursed down the under-
side of the boards, and dripped in our necks and
formed puddles on our hat-brims. We shifted our
guns and traps and viands, till there was no longer
any choice of position, when the loaves and the fishes,
the salt and the sugar, the pork and the butter,
shared the same watery fate. The fire was gasp-
ing its last. Little rivulets coursed about it, and
bore away the quenched but steaming coals on their
bosoms. The spring run in the rear of our camp
swelled so rapidly that part of the trout that had
been hastily left lying on its banks again found them-
selves quite at home. For over two hours the floods
came down. About four o'clock, Orville, who had
not yet come from the day's sport, appeared. To
say Orville was wet is not much ; he was better than
that, — he had been washed and rinsed in at least
half a dozen waters, and the trout that he bore dan-
gling at the end of a string hardly knew that they
had been out of their proper element.

But he brought welcome news. He had been
two or three miles down the creek, and had seen a
log-building, — whether house or stable he did not
know, but it had the appearance of having a good
roof, which was inducement enough for us instantly to
leave our present quarters. Our course lay along an
old wood road, and much of the time we were to
our knees in water. The woods were literally flooded
everywhere. Every little rill and springlet ran like
a mill-tail, while the main stream rushed and roared,

122 SPECKLED TROUT.

foaming, leaping, lashing, its volume increased fifty-
fold. The water was not roily, but of a rich coffee-
color, from the leechings of the woods. No more
trout for the next three days ! we thought as we
looked upon the rampant stream.

After we had labored and floundered along for
about an hour, the road turned to the left, and in
a little stumpy clearing near the creek a gable up-
rose on our view. It did not prove to be just such
a place as poets love to contemplate. It required a
greater effort of the imagination than any of us were
then capable of, to believe it had ever been a favorite
resort of wood-nymphs or sylvan deities. It savored
rather of the equine and the bovine. The bark-men
had kept their teams there, horses on the one side
and oxen on the other, and no Hercules had ever
done duty in cleansing the stables. But there was a
dry loft overhead with some straw, where we might
get some sleep, in spite of the rain and the midges ;
a double layer of boards, standing at a very acute an-
gle, would keep off the former, while the mingled ref-
use hay and muck beneath would nurse a smoke that
would prove a thorough protection against the latter.
And then, when Jim, the two-handed, mounting the
trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had severed it
thrice with easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the
logs in front of the shanty, had kindled a fire, which,
getting the better of the dampness, soon cast a bright
glow over all, shedding warmth and light even into
the dingy stable, I consented to unsling my knapsack

SPECKLED TROUT. 123

and accept the situation. The rain had ceased and
the sun shone out behind the woods. We had trout
sufficient for present needs ; and after my first meal
in an ox stall I strolled out on the rude log bridge
to watch the angry Neversink rush by. Its waters
fell quite as rapidly as they rose, and before sun-
down it looked as if we might have fishing again on
the morrow. We had better sleep that night than
either night before, though there were two disturb-
ing causes, — the smoke in the early part of it, and
the cold in the latter. The " no-see-ems " left in
disgust ; and, though disgusted myself, I swallowed
the smoke as best I could, and hugged my pallet of
straw the closer. But the day dawned bright, and a
plunge in the Neversink set me all right again. The
creek, to our surprise and gratification, was only a
little higher than before the rain, and some of the
finest trout we had yet seen we caught that morning
near camp.

We tarried yet another day and night at the old
stable, but taking our meals outside squatted on the
ground, which had now become quite dry. Part of
the day I spent strolling about the woods, looking up
old acquaintances among the birds, and, as always,
half expectant of making some new ones. Curiously
enough, the most abundant species were among those
I had found rare in most other localities, namely, the
small water wagtail (Seiurus noveboracensis), the
mourning ground warbler, and the yellow-bellied
woodpecker. The latter seems to be the prevailing
woodpecker through the woods of this region.

124 SPECKLED TROUT.

That night the midges, those motes that 'sting,
held high carnival. We learned afterward, in the
settlement below and from the bark-peelers, that it
was the worst night ever experienced in that valley.
"We had done no fishing during the day, but had
anticipated some fine sport about sundown. Accord-
ingly Aaron and I started off between six and seven
o'clock, one going up stream and the other down.
The scene was charming. The sun shot up great
spokes of light from behind the woods, and beauty,
like a presence, pervaded the atmosphere. But tor-
ment, multiplied as the sands of the sea-shore, lurked
in every tangle and thicket. In a thoughtless mo-
ment I removed my shoes and socks, and waded in
the water to secure a fine trout that had accident-
ally slipped from my string and was helplessly float-
ing with the current. This caused some delay and
gave the gnats time to accumulate. Before I had
got one foot half dressed I was enveloped in a black
mist that settled upon my hands and neck and face,
filling my ears with infinitesimal pipings and cover-
ing my flesh with infinitesimal bitings. I thought I
should have to flee to the friendly fumes of the old
stable, with "one stocking off and one stocking on";
but I got my shoe on at last, though not without
many amusing interruptions and digressions.

In a few moments after this adventure I was in
rapid retreat toward camp. Just as I reached the
path leading from the shanty to the creek, my com-
panion in the same ignoble flight reached it also,

SPECKLED TROUT. 125

his hat broken and rumpled, and his sanguine coun-
tenance looking more sanguinary than I had ever
before seen it, and his speech, also, in the highest
degree inflammatory. His face and forehead were as
blotched and swollen as if he had just run his head
into a hornets' nest, and his manner as precipitate as
if the whole swarm was still at his back.

No smoke or smudge which we ourselves could
endure was sufficient in the earlier part of that even-
ing to prevent serious annoyance from the same
cause ; but later a respite was granted us.

About ten o'clock, as we stood round our camp-
fire, we were startled by a brief but striking display
of the aurora borealis. My imagination had already
been excited by talk of legends and of weird shapes
and appearances, and when, on looking up toward
the sky, I saw those pale, phantasmal waves of mag-
netic light chasing each other across the little open-
ing above our heads, and at first sight seeming barely
to clear the tree-tops, I was as vividly impressed as
if I had caught a glimpse of a veritable spectre of
the Neversink. The sky shook and trembled like a
great white curtain.

After we had climbed to our loft and had lain
down to sleep, another adventure befell us. This
time a new and uninviting customer appears upon
the scene, the genius loci of the old stable, namely,
the "fretful porcupine." We had seen the marks
and works of these animals about the shanty, and
had been careful each night to hang our traps, guns,

126 SPECKLED TROUT.

etc., beyond their reach, but of the prickly night-
walker himself we feared we should not get a view.

We had lain down some half -hour, and I was just
on the threshold of sleep, ready, as it were, to pass
through the open door into the land of dreams, when
I heard outside somewhere that curious sound, — a
sound which I had heard every night I spent in these
woods, not only on this but on former expeditions,
and which I had settled in my mind as proceeding
from the porcupine, since I knew the sounds our
other common animals were likely to make, — a
sound that might be either a gnawing on some hard,
dry substance, or a grating of teeth, or a shrill grunt-
ing.

Orville heard it also, and, raising up on his elbow,
asked, " What is that ? "

" What the hunters call a ' porcupig,' " said I.

" Sure ? "

" Entirely so."

" Why does he make that noise ? "

" It is a way he has of cursing our fire," I replied.
" I heard him last night also."

" Where do you suppose he is ? " inquired my
companion, showing a disposition to look him up.

" Not far of, perhaps fifteen or twenty yards from
our fire, where the shadows begin to deepen."

Orville slipped into his trousers, felt for my gun,
and in a moment had disappeared down through the
scuttle hole. I had no disposition to follow him, but
was rather annoyed than otherwise at the disturbance.

SPECKLED TROUT. 127

Getting the direction of the sound, he went picking
his way over the rough, uneven ground, and when
he got where the light failed him, poking every
doubtful object with the end of his gun. Presently
he poked a light grayish object, like a large round
stone, which surprised him by moving off. On this
hint he fired, making an incurable wound in the
" porcupig," which, nevertheless, tried harder than
ever to escape. I lay listening when, close on the
heels of the report of the gun, came excited shouts
for a revolver. Snatching up my Smith and Wes-
son, I hastened, shoeless and hatless, to the scene of
action, wondering what was up. I found my com-
panion struggling to detain, with the end of the gun,
an uncertain object that was trying to crawl off into
the darkness. " Look out ! " said Orville, as he saw
my bare feet, " the quills are lying thick around
here."

And so they were ; he had blown or beaten them
nearly all off the poor creature's back, and was in a
fair way completely to disable my gun, the ramrod
of which was already broken and splintered clubbing
his victim. But a couple of shots from the revolver,
sighted by a lighted match, at the head of the animal,
quickly settled him.

It proved to be an unusually large Canada por-
cupine, an old patriarch, gray and venerable, with
spines three inches long, and weighing, I should say,
twenty pounds. The build of this animal is much
like that of the woodchuck, that is, heavy and

128 SPECKLED TROUT.

pouchy. The nose is blunter than that of the wood-
chuck, the limbs stronger, and the tail broader and
heavier. Indeed, the latter appendage is quite club-
like, and the animal can, no doubt, deal a smart
blow with it. An old hunter with whom I talked
thought it aided them in climbing. They are invet-
erate gnawers, and spend much of their time in trees
gnawing the bark. In winter one will take up its
abode in a hemlock, and continue there till the tree
is quite denuded. The carcass emitted a peculiar
offensive odor, and, though very fat, was not in the
least inviting as game. If it is part of the economy
of nature for one animal to prey upon some other
beneath it, then the poor devil has indeed a mouth-
ful that makes a meal' off the porcupine. Panthers
and lynxes have essayed it, but have invariably left
off at the first course, and have afterwards been
found dead or nearly so, with their heads puffed up
like a pincushion, and the quills protruding on all
sides. A dog that understands the business will
manoeuvre round the porcupine till he gets an op-
portunity to throw it over on its back, when he fast-
ens on its quilless underbody. Aaron was puzzled
to know how long-parted friends could embrace,
when it was suggested that the quills could be de-
pressed or elevated at pleasure.

The next morning boded rain ; but we had become
thoroughly sated with the delights of our present
quarters, outside and in, and packed up our traps to
leave. Before we had reached the clearing, three

SPECKLED TROUT. 129

miles below, the rain set in, keeping up a lazy, mo-
notonous drizzle till the afternoon.

The clearing was quite a recent one, made mostly
by bark-peelers, who followed their calling in the
mountains round about in summer, and worked in
their shops making shingle in winter. The Biscuit
Brook came in here from the west, — a fine, rapid
trout stream six or eight miles in length, with plenty
of deer in the mountains about its head. On its
banks we found the house of an old woodman, to
whom we had been directed for information about
the section we proposed to traverse.

" Is the way very difficult," we inquired, " across
from the Neversink into the head of the Beaver-
kill ? "

" Not to me ; I could go it the darkest night ever
was. And I can direct you so you can find the way
without any trouble. You go down the Neversink
about a mile, when you come to Highfall Brook, the
first stream that comes down on the right. Follow
up it to Jim Reed's shanty, about three miles. Then
cross the stream, and on the left bank, pretty well
up on the side of the mountain, you will find a wood-
road, which was made by a fellow below here who
stole some ash logs off the top of the ridge last win-
ter and drew them out on the snow. When the road
first begins to tilt over the mountain, strike down to
your left, and you can reach the Beaverkill before
sundown."

As it was then after two o'clock, and as the dis-
9

130 SPECKLED TROUT.

tance was six or eight of these terrible hunters' miles,
we concluded to take a whole day to it, and wait
till next morning. The Beaverkill flowed west-, the
Neversink south, and I had a mortal dread of getting
entangled amid the mountains and valleys that lie in
either angle.

Besides, I was glad of another and final opportu-
nity to pay my respects to the finny tribes of the
Neversink. At this point it was one of the finest
trout streams I had ever beheld. It was so spark-
ling, its bed so free from sediment or impurities of
any kind, that it had a new look, as if it had just
come from the hand of its Creator. I tramped along
its margin upward of a mile that afternoon, part of
the time wading to my knees, and casting my hook,
baited only with a trout's fin, to the opposite bank.
Trout are real cannibals, and make no bones, and
break none either, in lunching on each other. A
friend of mine had several in his spring, when one
day a large female trout gulped down one of her
male friends, nearly one third her own size and went
around for two days with the tail of her liege lord
protruding from her mouth. A fish's eye will do for
bait, though the anal fin is better. One of the na-
tives here told me that when he wished to catch large
trout (and I judged he never fished for any other, —
I never do), he used for bait the bullhead or dart, a
little fish an inch and a half or two inches long, that
rests on the pebbles near shore and darts quickly,
when disturbed, from point to point. " Put that on

SPECKLED TROUT. 131

your hook," said he, " and if there is a big fish in
the creek he is bound to have it." But the darts
were not easily found ; the big fish, I concluded, had
cleaned them all out ; and, then, it was easy enough
to supply our wants with a fin.

Declining the hospitable offers of the settlers, we
spread our blankets that night in a dilapidated shin-
gle-shop on the banks of the Biscuit Brook, first
flooring the damp ground with the new shingle that
lay piled in one corner. The place had a great-
throated chimney with a tremendous expanse of fire-
place within, that cried " More " at every morsel of
wood we gave it.

But I must hasten over this part of the ground,
nor let the delicious flavor of the milk we had that
morning for breakfast, and that was so delectable
after four days of fish, linger on my tongue, nor yet
tarry to set down the talk of that honest, weather-
worn passer-by who paused before our door, and
every moment on the point of resuming his way, yet
stood for an hour and recited his adventures hunting
deer and bears on these mountains. Having replen-
ished our stock of bread and salt pork at the house
of one of the settlers, midday found us at Reed's
shanty, — one of those temporary structures erected
by the bark jobber, to lodge and board his " hands "
near their work. Jim not being at home, we could
gain no information from the " women folks " about
the way, nor from the men who had just come in to
dinner ; so we pushed on, as near as we could, ac-

132 SPECKLED TROUT.

cording to the instructions we had previously re-
ceived. Crossing the creek, we forced our way up
the side of the mountain, through a perfect cheval-de-
frise of fallen and peeled hemlocks, and entering the
dense woods above, began to look anxiously about
for the wood-road. My companions at first could see
no trace of it ; but knowing that a casual wood-road
cut in winter, when there was likely to be two or
three feet of snow on the ground, would present only
the slightest indications to the eye in summer, I
looked a little closer, and could make out a mark or
two here and there. The larger trees had been
avoided, and the axe used only on the small saplings
and underbrush, which had been lopped off a couple
of feet from the ground. By being constantly on
the alert, we followed it till near the top of the mount-
ain ; but when looking to see it " tilt " over the
other side, it disappeared altogether. Some stumps
of the black cherry were found, and a solitary pair
of snow-shoes were hanging high and dry on a branch,
but no further trace of human hands could we see.
While we were resting here a couple of hermit
thrushes, one of them with some sad defect in his
vocal powers which barred him from uttering more
than a few notes of his song, gave voice to the soli-
tude of the place. This was the second instance in
which I have observed a song-bird with apparently
some organic defect in its instrument. The other
case was that of a bobolink, which, hover in mid air
and innate its throat as it might, could only force

SPECKLED TROUT. 133

out a few incoherent notes. But the bird in each
case presented this striking contrast to human exam-
ples of the kind, that it was apparently just as proud
of itself and just as well satisfied with its perform-
ance as its more successful rivals.

After deliberating some time over a pocket-com-
pass which I carried, we decided upon our course, and
held on to the west. The descent was very gradual.
Traces of bear and deer were noted at different points,
but not a live animal was seen.

About four o'clock we reached the bank of a stream
flowing west. Hail to the Beaverkill ! and we pushed
on along its banks. The trout were plenty, and rose
quickly to the hook ; but we held on our way, de-
signing to go into camp about six o'clock. Many
inviting places, first on one bank, then on the other,
made us linger, till finally we reached a smooth, dry
place overshadowed by balsam and hemlock, where
the creek bent around a little flat, which was so
entirely to our fancy that we unslung our knap-
sacks at once. While my companions were cutting
wood and making other preparations for the night, it
fell to my lot, as the most successful angler, to pro-
vide the trout for supper and breakfast. How shall
I describe that wild, beautiful stream, with features
so like those of all other mountain streams ? And
yet, as I saw it in the deep twilight of those woods
on that June afternoon, with its steady, even flow,
and its tranquil, many-voiced murmur, it made an
impression upon my mind distinct and peculiar,

134 SPECKLED TROUT.

fraught in an eminent degree with the charm of se-
clusion and remoteness. The solitude was perfect ;
and I felt that strangeness and insignificance which
the civilized man must always feel when opposing
himself to such a vast scene of silence and wildness.
The trout were quite black, like all wood trout, and
took the bait eagerly. I followed the stream till the
deepening shadows warned me to turn back. As I
neared camp, the fire shone far through the trees,
dispelling the gathering gloom, but blinding my eyes
to all obstacles at my feet. I was seriously disturbed
on arriving to find that one of my companions had
cut an ugly gash in his shin with the axe, while fell-
ing a tree. As we did not carry a fifth wheel, it
was not just the time or place to have any of our
members crippled, and I had bodings of evil. But,
thanks to the healing virtues of the balsam, which
must have adhered to the blade of the axe, and
double thanks to the court-plaster with which Orville
had supplied himself before leaving home, the wounded
leg, by being favored that night and the next day,
gave us little trouble.

That night we had our first fair and square camp-
ing out, — that is, sleeping on the ground with no
shelter over us but the trees, — and it was in many
respects the pleasantest night we spent in the woods.
The weather was perfect and the place was perfect,
and for the first time we were exempt from the
midges and smoke ; and then we appreciated the
clean new page we had to work on. Nothing is so

SPECKLED TEOUT. 135

acceptable to the camper-out as a pure article in the
way of woods and waters. Any admixture of human
relics mars the spirit of the scene. Yet I am willing
to confess that, before we were through those woods,
the marks of an axe in a tree was a welcome sight.
On resuming our march next day we followed the
right bank of the Beaverkill, in order to strike a
stream which flowed in from the north, and which
was the outlet of Balsam Lake, the objective point
of that day's march. The distance to the lake from
our camp could not have been over six or seven
miles ; yet, traveling as we did, without path or
guide, climbing up banks, plunging into ravines, mak-
ing detours around swampy places, and forcing our
way through woods choked up with much fallen and
decayed timber, it seemed at least twice that distance,
and the mid-afternoon sun was shining when we
emerged into what is called the " Quaker Clearing,"
ground that I had been over nine years before, and
that lies about two miles south of the lake. From
this point we had a well-worn path that led us up a
sharp rise of ground, then through level woods till
we saw the bright gleam of the water through the
trees.

I am always struck on approaching these little
mountain lakes with the extensive preparation that
is made for them in the conformation of the ground.
I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin in
the side of the mountain or on its top, the brink of
which I shall reach after a little steep climbing ; but

136 SPECKLED TROUT.

instead of that, after I have accomplished the ascent,
I find a broad sweep of level or gently undulating
woodland that brings me after a half hour or so to
the lake, which lies in this vast lap like a drop of
water in the palm of a man's hand.

Balsam Lake was oval shaped, scarcely more than
half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, but
presented a charming picture, with a group of dark
gray hemlocks filling the valley about its head, and
the mountains rising above and beyond. We found
a bough house in good repair, also a dug-out and
paddle and several floats of logs. In the dug-out I
was soon creeping along the shady side of the lake,
where the trout were incessantly jumping for a
species of black fly, that, sheltered from the slight
breeze, were dancing in swarms just above the sur-
face of the water. The gnats were there in swarms
also, and did their best toward balancing the accounts
by preying upon me while I preyed upon the trout
which preyed upon the flies. But by dint of keeping
my hands, face, and neck constantly wet, I am con-
vinced that the balance of blood was on my side.
The trout jumped most within a foot or two of shore,
where the water was only a few inches deep. The
shallowness of the water perhaps accounted for the
inability of the fish to do more than lift their heads
above the surface. They came up mouth wide open,
and dropped back again in the most impotent man-
ner. Where there is any depth of water, a trout
will jump several feet into the air ; and where there

SPECKLED TEOUT. 137

is a solid, unbroken sheet or column, they will scale
falls and dams fifteen feet high.

We had the very cream and flower of our 'trout-
fishing at this lake. For the first time we could use
the fly to advantage ; and then the contrast between
laborious tramping along shore, on the one hand, and
sitting in one end of a dug-out and casting your line
right and left with no fear of entanglement in brush
or branch, while you was gently propelled along, on
the other, was of the most pleasing character.

There were two varieties of trout in the lake, —
what it seems proper to call silver trout and golden
trout ; the former were the slimmer and seemed to
keep apart from the latter. Starting from the outlet
and working round on the eastern side toward the
head, we invariably caught these first. They glanced
in the sun like bars of silver. Their sides and bellies
were indeed as white as new silver. As we neared
the head, and especially as we came near a space
occupied by some kind of watergrass that grew in
the deeper part of the lake, the other variety would
begin to take the hook, their bellies a bright gold
color, which became a deep orange on their fins ;
and as we returned to the place of departure with
the bottom of the boat strewn with these bright
forms intermingled, it was a sight not soon to be
forgotten. It pleased my eye so, that I would fain
linger over them, arranging them in rows and study-
ing the various hues and tints. They were of nearly
a uniform size, rarely one over ten or under eight

138 SPECKLED TROUT.

inches in length, and it seemed as if the hues of all
the precious metals and stones were reflected from
their sides. The flesh was deep salmon-color ; that
of brook trout is generally much lighter. Some
hunters and fishers from the valley of the Mill Brook,
whom we met here, told us the trout were much
larger in the lake, though far less numerous than
they used to be. Brook-trout do not grow large till
they become scarce. It is only in streams that have
been long and much fished that I have caught them
as much as sixteen inches in length.

The " porcupigs " were numerous about the lake,
and not at all shy. One night the heat became so
intolerable in our oven-shaped bough house, that I
was obliged to withdraw from under its cover «and
lie down a little to one side. Just at daybreak, as I
lay rolled in my blanket, something awoke me. Lift-
ing up my head, there was a porcupine with his fore-
paws on my hips. He was apparently as much sur-
prised as I was ; and to my inquiry as to what he at
that moment might be looking for, he did not pause
to reply, but hitting me a slap with his tail which
left three or four quills in my blanket, he scampered
off down the hill into the brush.

Being an observer of the birds, of course every
curious incident connected with them fell under my
notice. Hence as we stood about our camp-fire one
afternoon, looking out over the lake, I was the only
one to see a little commotion in the water, half hid-
den by the near branches, as of some tiny swimmer

SPECKLED TROUT. 139

struggling to reach the shore. Rushing to its rescue
in the canoe, I found a yellow-rumped warbler, quite
exhausted, clinging to a twig that hung down into
the water ; I brought the drenched and helpless
thing to camp, and, putting it into a basket, hung it
up to dry. An hour or two afterward I heard it flut-
tering in its prison, and cautiously lifting the lid to
get a better glimpse of the lucky captive, it darted
out and was gone in a twinkling. How came it in
the water ? That was my wonder, and I can only
guess that it was a young bird that had never before
flown over a pond of water, and, seeing the clouds
and blue sky so perfect down there, thought it was a
vast opening or gateway into another summer land,
perhaps a short cut to the tropics, and so got itself
into trouble. How my eye was delighted also with
the red-bird that alighted for a moment on a dry
branch above the lake, just where a ray of light
from the setting sun fell full upon it. A mere crim-
son point, and yet how it offset that dark, sombre
background !

I have thus run over some of the features of an
ordinary trouting excursion to the woods. People,
inexperienced in such matters, sitting in their rooms
and thinking of these things, of all the poets have
sung and romancers written, are apt to get sadly
taken in when they attempt to realize their dreams.
They expect to enter a sylvan paradise of trout, cool
retreats, laughing brooks, picturesque views, balsamic

140 SPECKLED TROUT.

couches, etc., instead of which they find hunger, rain,
smoke, toil, gnats, mosquitoes, dirt, broken rest, vul-
gar guides, and salt pork ; and they are very apt not
to see where the fun comes in. But he who goes in
a right spirit will not be disappointed, and will find
the taste of this kind of life better, though bitterer,
than the writers have described.

BIEDS AND BIRDS.

BIKDS AND BIRDS.

i.

THERE is an old legend which one of our poets
has made use of about the bird in the brain — a
legend based, perhaps, upon the human significance of
our feathered neighbors. Was not Audubon's brain
full of birds, and very lively ones too ? A person
who knew him says he looked like a bird himself :
keen, alert, wide-eyed. It is not unusual to see the
hawk looking out of the human countenance, and one
may see or have seen that still nobler bird, the
eagle. The song-birds might all have been brooded
and hatched in the human heart. They are typical
of its highest aspirations, and nearly the whole
gamut of human passion and emotion is expressed
more or less fully in their varied songs. Among our
own birds there is the song of the hermit-thrush for
devoutness and religious serenity, that of the wood-
thrush for the musing, melodious thoughts of twilight,
the song-sparrow's for simple faith and trust, the
bobolink's for hilarity and glee, the mourning-dove's
for hopeless sorrow, the vireo's for all-day and every-

144 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

day contentment, and the nocturn of the mocking-
bird for love. Then there are the plaintive singers,
the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confident singers,
the gushing and voluble singers, and the half -voiced,
inarticulate singers. The note of the pewee is a
human sigh, the chickadee has a call full of unspeak-
able tenderness and fidelity. There is pride in the
song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the cat-
bird. There is something distinctly human about the
robin ; his is the note of boyhood. I have thoughts
that follow the migrating fowls northward and south-
ward, and that go with the sea-birds into the desert of
the ocean, lonely and tireless as they. I sympathize
with the watchful crow perched yonder on that tree,
or walking about the fields. I hurry outdoors when
I hear the clarion of the wild gander ; his comrade
in my heart sends back the call.

ii.

Here comes the cuckoo, the solitary, the joyless,
enamored of the privacy of his own thoughts ; when
did he fly away out of this brain ? The cuckoo is
one of the famous birds, and is known the world
over. He is mentioned in the Bible, and is discussed
by Pliny and Aristotle. Jupiter himself once as-
sumed the form of the cuckoo in order to take advan-
tage of Juno's compassion for the bird.

We have only a reduced and modified cuckoo in
this country. Our bird is smaller, and is much more
solitary and unsocial. Its color is totally different

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 145

from the Old World bird, the latter being speckled,
or a kind of dominick, while ours is of the finest
cinnamon-brown or drab above, and bluish-white be-
neath, with a gloss and richness of texture in the
plumage that suggests silk. The bird has also
mended its manners in this country, and no longer
foists its eggs and young upon other birds, but builds
a nest of its own and rears its own brood like other
well-disposed birds.

The European cuckoo is evidently much more of
a spring bird than ours is, much more a harbinger of
the early season. He comes in April, while ours s.el-
dom appears before June, and hardly then appears.
He is printed, as they say, but not published. Only
the alert ones know he is here. This old English
rhyme on the cuckoo does not apply this side the
Atlantic : —

" In April

Come he will,

In flow'ry May

He sings all day,

In leafy June

He changes his tune,

In bright July

He 's ready to fly,

In August

Go he must."

Our bird must go in August too, but at no time does
he sing all day. Indeed, his peculiar guttural call
has none of the character of a song. It is a solitary,
hermit-like sound, as if the bird was alone in the

world, and called upon the fates to witness his desola-
10

146 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

tion. I have never seen two cuckoos together, and I
have never heard their call answered ; it goes forth
into the solitudes unreclaimed. Like a true Ameri-
can, the bird lacks animal spirits and a genius for
social intercourse. One August night I heard one
calling, calling, a long time not far from my house.
It was a true night sound, more fitting then than by
day.

The European cuckoo, on the other hand, seems
to be a joyous, vivacious bird. Wordsworth applies
to it the adjective " blithe," and says : —

" I hear thee babbling to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers."

English writers all agree that its song is animated
and pleasing, and the outcome of a light heart.
Thomas Hardy, whose touches always seem true to
nature, describes in one of his books an early sum-
mer scene from amid which " the loud notes of three
cuckoos were resounding through the still air." This
is totally unlike our bird, which does not sing in
concert, but affects remote woods, and is most fre-
quently heard in cloudy weather. Hence the name
of rain-crow that is applied to him in some parts of
the country. I am more than half inclined to believe
that his call does indicate rain, as it is certain that of
the tree-toad does.

The cuckoo has a slender, long-drawn-out appear-
ance on account of the great length of tail. It is
seldom seen about farms or near human habitations
until the June cankerworm appears, when it makes

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 147

frequent visits to the orchard. It loves hairy worms,
and has eaten so many of them that its gizzard is
lined with hair.

The European cuckoo builds no nest, but puts its
eggs out to be hatched, as does our cow blackbird,
and our cuckoo is master of only the rudiments of
nest-building. No bird in the woods builds so shabby
a nest ; it is the merest make-shift, — - a loose scaffold-
ing of twigs through which the eggs can be seen.
One season, I knew of a pair that built within a few
feet of a country house that stood in the midst of a
grove, but a heavy storm of rain and wind broke up
the nest.

If the Old World cuckoo had been as silent and
retiring a bird as ours is, it could never have figured
so conspicuously in literature as it does, — having a
prominence that we would give only to the bobolink
or to the wdod-thrush, — as witness his frequent men-
tion by Shakespeare, or the following early English
ballad (in modern guise) : —

" Summer is come in,
Loud sings the cuckoo ;
Groweth seed and bloweth mead,
And springs the wood now.

Sing, cuckoo;
The ewe bleateth for her lamb,

The cow loweth for her calf,

The bullock starteth,
The buck verteth,
Merrily sings the cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo;
Well sings the cuckoo,
Mayest thou never cease."

148 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

III.

I think it will be found, on the whole, that the
European birds are a more hardy and pugnacious
race than ours, and that their song-birds have more
vivacity and power, and ours more melody and plain-
tiveness. In the song of the sky-lark, for instance,
there is little or no melody, but wonderful strength
and copiousness. It is a harsh strain near at hand,
but very taking when showered down from a height
of several hundred feet.

Daines Barrington, the naturalist of the last cent-
ury, to whom White of Selborne addressed so many
of his letters, gives a table of the comparative merit
of seventeen leading song-birds of Europe, marking
them under the heads of mellowness, sprightliness,
plaintiveness, compass and execution. In the aggre-
gate, the songsters stand highest in sprightliness,
next in compass and execution, and lowest in the
other two qualities. A similar arrangement and
comparison of our songsters, I think, would show an
opposite result, — that is, a predominance of melody
and plaintiveness. The British wren, for instance,
stands in Barrington's table as destitute of both
these qualities ; the reed-sparrow also. Our wren-
songs, on the contrary, are gushing and lyrical, and
more or less melodious, — that of the winter-wren
being preeminently so. Our sparrows, too, all have
sweet, plaintive ditties, with but little sprightliness or
compass. The English house-sparrow has no song at

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 149

all, but a harsh chatter that is unmatched among our
birds. But what a hardy, prolific, pugnacious little
wretch it is ! They will maintain themselves where
our birds will not live at all, and a pair of them will
lie down in the gutter and fight like dogs. Com-
pared with this miniature John Bull, the voice and
manners of our common sparrow are gentle and re-
tiring. The English sparrow is a street gamin, our
bird a timid rustic.

The English robin-redbreast is tallied in this coun-
try by the bluebird, which was called by the early
settlers of New England the blue-robin. The song
of the British bird is bright and animated ; that of
our bird soft and plaintive.

The nightingale stands at the head in Barrington's
table, and is but little short of perfect in all the
qualities. We have no one bird that combines such
strength or vivacity with such melody. The mock-
ing-bird doubtless surpasses it in variety and profu-
sion of notes ; but falls short, I imagine, in sweetness
and effectiveness. The nightingale will sometimes
warble twenty seconds without pausing to breathe,
and when the condition of the air is favorable its
song fills a space a mile in diameter. There are,
perhaps, songs in our woods as mellow and brilliant,
as is that of the closely allied species, the water-
thrush ; but our bird's song has but a mere fraction
of the nightingale's volume and power.

Strength and volume of voice, then, seem to be
characteristic of the English birds, and mildness and

150 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

delicacy of ours. How much the thousands of years
of contact with man, and familiarity with artificial
sounds, over there, have affected the bird voices is a
question. Certain it is that their birds are much
more domestic than ours, and certain it is that all
purely wild sounds are plaintive and elusive. Even
of the bark of the fox, the cry of the panther, the
voice of the 'coon, or the call and clang of wild
geese and ducks, or the war-cry of savage tribes, is
this true ; but not true in the same sense of domesti-
cated or semi-domesticated animals and fowls. How
different the .,voice of the common duck or goose from
that of the wild species, or of the tame dove from
that of the turtle of the fields and groves. Where
could the English house-sparrow have acquired that
unmusical voice but amid the sounds of hoofs and
wheels, and the discords of the street. And the or-
dinary notes and calls of so many of the British birds,
according to their biographers, are harsh and disa-
greeable ; even the nightingale has an ugly, guttural
" chuck." The missel-thrush has a harsh scream ;
the jay a note like " wrack," " wrack " ; the field-
fare a rasping chatter ; the blackbird, which is our
robin cut in ebony, will sometimes crow like a cock
and cackle like a hen ; the flocks of starlings make
a noise like a steam saw-mill; the whitethroat has
a disagreeable note ; the swift a discordant scream ;
and the bunting a harsh song. Among our song-
birds, on the contrary, it is rare to hear a harsh or
displeasing voice. Even their notes of anger and
alarm are more or less soft.

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 151

I would not imply that our birds are the better
songsters ; but that their songs, if briefer and fee-
bler, are also more wild and plaintive, — in fact, that
they are softer-voiced. The British birds, as I have
stated, are more domestic than ours ; a much larger
number build about houses and towers and out-build-
ings. The titmouse with us is exclusively a wood-
bird ; but in Britain three or four species of them
resort more or less to buildings in winter. Their red-
start also builds under the eaves of houses ; their
starling in church steeples and in holes in walls ;
several thrushes resort to sheds to nest, and jackdaws
breed in the crannies of the old architecture, and this
in a much milder climate than our own.

They have in that country no birds that answer to
our tiny lisping wood-warblers — genus Dendroica,
nor to our vireos, Vireonidce. On the other hand,
they have a larger number of field-birds and semi-
game birds. They have several species like our
robin ; thrushes like him and some of them larger, as
the ring-ouzel, the missel-thrush, the field-fare, the
throstle, the red-wing, White's thrush, the blackbird,
— these, besides several species in size and habits
more like our wood-thrush.

Several species of European birds sing at night
besides the true nightingale — not fitfully and as if
in their dreams, as do a few of our birds, but con-
tinuously. They make a business of it. The sedge-
bird ceases at times as if from very weariness ; but
wake the bird up, says White, by throwing a stick

152 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

or stone into the bushes, and away it goes again in
full song. We have but one real nocturnal songster,
and that is the mocking-bird. One can see how this
habit might increase among the birds of a long-set-
tled country like England. With sounds and voices
about them, why should they be silent too? The
danger of betraying themselves to their natural ene-
mies would be less than in our woods.

That their birds are more quarrelsome and pugna-
cious than ours I think evident. Our thrushes are
especially mild-mannered, but the missel-thrush is
very bold and saucy, and has been known to fly in
the face of persons who have disturbed the sitting
bird. No jay nor magpie nor crow can stand before
him. The Welsh call him master of the coppice,
and he welcomes a storm with such a vigorous and
hearty song that in some countries he is known as
storm-cock. He sometimes kills the young of other
birds and eats eggs, — a very unthrushlike trait.
The whitethroat sings with crest erect, and attitudes
of warning and defiance. The hooper is a great
bully; so is the greenfinch. The wood-grouse —
now extinct I believe — has been known to attack
people in the woods. And behold the grit and hard-
ihood of that little emigrant or exile to our shores,
the English sparrow. Our birds have their tilts and
spats also ; but the only really quarrelsome members
in our family are confined to the fly-catchers, — as
the kingbird, and great-crested fly-catcher. None of
our song-birds are bullies.

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 153

Many of our more vigorous species, as the butcher-
bird, the cross-bills, the pine grosbeak, the red-pole,
the Bohemian chatterer, the shore-lark, the long-
spur, the snow-bunting, etc., are common to both
continents.

Have the Old World creatures throughout more
pluck and hardihood than those that are indigenous
to this continent ? Behold the common mouse, how
he has followed man to this country and established
himself here against all opposition, overrunning our
houses and barns, while the native species is rarely
seen. And when has anybody seen the American
rat, while his congener from across the water has
penetrated to every part of the continent ! By the
next train that takes the family to some "Western
frontier, arrives this pest. Both our rat and mouse
or mice are timid, harmless, delicate creatures, com-
pared with the cunning, filthy, and prolific specimens
that have fought their way to us from the Old World.
There is little doubt, also, that the red fox has been
transplanted to this country from Europe. He is
certainly on the increase, and is fast running out the
native gray species.

Indeed, I have thought that all forms of life in the
Old World were marked by greater prominence of
type, or stronger characteristic and fundamental qual-
ities, than with us, — coarser and more hairy and
virile, and therefore more powerful and lasting. This
opinion is still subject to revision, but I find it easier
to confirm it than to undermine it.

154 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

IV.

But let me change the strain and contemplate for
a few moments this feathered bandit, — this bird
with the mark of Cain upon him — Collyris borealis, —
the great shrike or butcher-bird. Usually, the char-
acter of a bird of prey is well defined ; there is no
mistaking him. His claws, his beak, his head, his
wings, in fact his whole build point to the fact that
he subsists upon live creatures ; he is armed to catch
them and to slay them. Every bird knows a hawk
and knows him from the start, and is on the lookout
for him. The hawk takes life, but he does it to
maintain his own, and it is a public .and universally
known fact. Nature has sent him abroad in that
character and has advised all creatures of it. Not so
with the shrike ; here she has concealed the charac-
ter of a murderer under a form as innocent as that
of the robin. Feet, wings, tail, color, head, and gen-
eral form and size are all those of a song-bird —
very much like that master songster, the mocking-
bird T- yet this bird is a regular Bluebeard among its
kind. Its only characteristic feature is its beak, the
upper mandible having two sharp processes and a
sharp hooked point. It cannot fly away to any dis-
tance with the bird it kills nor hold it in its claws to
feed upon it. It usually impales its victim upon a
thorn or thrusts it in the fork of a limb. For the
most part, however, its food seems to consist of in-
sects — spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. It is the

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 155

assassin of the small birds, whom it often destroys in
pure wantonness, or merely to sup on their brains, as
the Gaucho slaughters a wild cow or bull for its
tongue. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Appar-
ently its victims are unacquainted with its true char-
acter and allow it to approach them, when the fatal
blow is given. I saw an illustration of this the other
day. A large number of goldfinches in their full
plumage, together with snow-birds and sparrows, were
feeding and chattering in some low bushes back of
the barn. I had paused by the fence and was peep-
ing through at them, hoping to get a glimpse of that
rare sparrow, the white-crowned. Presently I heard
a rustling among the dry leaves as if some larger
bird was also among them. Then I heard one of the
goldfinches cry out as if in distress, when the whole
flock of them started up in alarm and, circling
around, settled in the tops of the larger trees. I
continued my scrutiny of the bushes, when I saw a
large bird, with some object in its beak, hopping
along on a low branch near the ground. It disap-
peared from my sight for a few moments, then came
up through the undergrowth into the top of a young
maple where some of the finches had alighted, and I
beheld the shrike. The little birds avoided him and
flew about the tree, their pursuer following them
with the motions of his head and body as if he
would fain arrest them by his murderous gaze. The
birds did not utter the cry or make the demonstration
of alarm they usually do on the appearance of a

156 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

hawk, but chirruped and called and flew about in a
half-wondering, half-bewildered manner. As they
flew farther along the line of trees the shrike fol-
lowed them as if bent on further captures. I then
made my way around to see what the shrike had
caught and what he had done with his prey. As I
approached the bushes I saw the shrike hastening
back. I read his intentions at once. Seeing my
movements, he had returned for his game. But I
was too quick for him, and he got up out of the
brush and flew away from the locality. On some
twigs in the thickest part of the bushes I found his
victim — a goldfinch. It was not impaled upon a
thorn, but was carefully disposed upon some hori-
zontal twigs — laid upon the shelf, so to speak. It
was as warm as in life and its plumage was unruffled.
On examining it I found a large bruise or break in
the skin, on the back of the neck at the base of the
skull. Here the bandit had no doubt griped the bird
with his strong beak. The shrike's bloodthirstiness
was seen in the fact that it did not stop to devour its
prey but went in quest of more, as if opening a mar-
ket of goldfinches. The thicket was his shambles,
and if not interrupted he might have had a fine dis-
play of tidbits in a short time.

The shrike is called a butcher from his habit of
sticking his meat upon hooks and points ; further
than that he is a butcher because he devours but a
trifle of what he slays.

A few days before, I had witnessed another little

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 157

scene in which the shrike was the chief actor. A
chipmunk had his den in the side of the terrace above
the garden, and spent the mornings laying in a store
of corn which he stole from a field ten or twelve
rods away. In traversing about half this distance,
the little poacher was exposed ; the first cover go-
ing from his den was a large maple, where he al-
ways brought up and took a survey of the scene.
I would see him spinning along toward the maple,
then from it by an easy stage to the fence adjoining
the corn; then back again with his booty. One
morning I paused to watch him more at my leisure.
He came up out of his retreat and cocked himself up
to see what my motions meant. His fore paws were
clasped to his breast precisely as if they had been
hands, and the tips of the fingers thrust into his vest
pockets. Having satisfied himself with reference to
me, he sped on toward the tree. He had nearly
reached it, when he turned tail and rushed for his
hole with the greatest precipitation. As he neared
it, I saw some bluish object in the air closing in upon
him with the speed of an arrow, and as he vanished
within, a shrike brought up in front of the spot, and
with spread wings and tail stood hovering a moment,
and, looking in, then turned and went away. Appar-
ently it was a narrow escape for the chipmunk, and,
I venture to say, he stole no more corn that morning.
The shrike is said to catch mice, but it is not known
to attack squirrels. He certainly could not have
strangled the chipmunk, and I am curious to know

158 BIRDS AND Blips.

what would have been the result had he overtaken
him. Probably it was only a kind of brag on the
part of the bird, — a bold dash where no risk was
run. He simulated the hawk, the squirrel's real
enemy, and no doubt enjoyed the joke.

On another occasion, as I was riding along a mount-
ain road early in April, a bird started from the fence
where I was passing, and flew heavily to the branch
of a near apple-tree. It proved to be a shrike with
a small bird in his beak. He thrust his victim into a
fork of a branch, then wiped his bloody beak upon
the bark. A youth who was with me, to whom I
pointed out the fact, had never heard of such a thing,
and was much incensed at the shrike. " Let me fire
a stone at him," said he, and jumping out of the
wagon he pulled off his mittens, and fumbled about
for a stone. Having found one to his liking, with
great earnestness and deliberation he let drive. The
bird was in more danger than I had imagined, for he
escaped only by a hair's breadth ; a guiltless bird like
the robin or sparrow would surely have been slain ;
the missile grazed the spot where the shrike sat, and
cut the ends of his wings as he darted behind the
branch. We could see that the murdered bird had
been brained, as its head hung down toward us.

The shrike is not a summer bird with us in the
Northern States, but mainly a fall and winter one.
In summer he goes farther north. I see him most
frequently in November and December. I recall a
morning during the former month that was singularly

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 159

clear and motionless ; the air was like a great drum.
Apparently every sound within the compass of the
horizon was distinctly heard. The explosions back
in the cement quarries ten miles away smote the
hollow and reverberating air like giant fists. Just
as the sun first showed his fiery brow above the
horizon, a gun was discharged over the river. On
the instant, a shrike, perched on the topmost spray of
a maple above the house, set up a loud, harsh call or
whistle, suggestive of certain notes of the bluejay.
The note presently became a crude, broken warble.
Even this scalper of the innocents had music in his
soul on such a morning. He saluted the sun as a
robin might have done. After he had finished he
flew away toward the east.

The shrike is a citizen of the world, being found
in both hemispheres. It does not appear that the
European species differs essentially from our own.
In Germany he is called the nine-killer, from the
belief that he kills and sticks upon thorns nine grass-
hoppers a day.

To make my portrait of the shrike more complete
I will add another trait of him described by an acute
observer who writes me from western New York.
He saw the bird on a bright mid-winter morning
when the thermometer stood at zero, and by cautious
approaches succeeded in getting under the apple-tree
upon which he was perched. The shrike was utter-
ing a loud, clear note like clu-eet, clu-eet, clu-eet, and
on finding he had a listener who was attentive and

160 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

curious, varied his performance and kept it up con-
tinuously for fifteen minutes. He seemed to enjoy
having a spectator, and never took his eye off him.
The observer approached within twenty feet of him.
" As I came near," he says, " the shrike began to
scold at me, a sharp, buzzing, squeaking sound not
easy to describe. After a little he came out on the
end of the limb nearest me, then he posed himself, and
opening his wings a little, began to trill and warble
under his breath, as it were, with an occasional
squeak, and vibrating his half-open wings in time with
his song." Some of his notes resembled those of the
bluebird and the whole performance is described as
pleasing and melodious.

This account agrees with Thoreau's observation,
where he speaks of the shrike "with heedless and
unfrozen melody bringing back summer again."
Sings Thoreau : —

"His steady sails he never furls

At any time o' year,
And perching now on winter's curls,
He whistles in his ear."

But his voice is that of a savage — strident and dis-
agreeable.

I have often wondered how this bird was kept in
check ; in the struggle for existence it would appear
to have greatly the advantage of other birds. It
cannot, for instance, be beset with one tenth of the
dangers that threaten the robin, and yet apparently
there are a thousand robins to every shrike. It

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 161

builds a warm, compact nest in the mountains and
dense woods, and lays six eggs, which would indicate
a rapid increase. The pigeon lays but two eggs, and
is preyed upon by both man and beast, millions of
them meeting a murderous death every year ; yet
always some part of the country is swarming with
untold numbers of them. But the shrike is one of
our rarest birds. I myself seldom see more than
two each year, and before I became an observer of
birds I never saw any.

In size the shrike is a little inferior to the blue-
jay, with much the same form. If you see an un-
known bird about your orchard or fields in November
or December of a bluish grayish complexion, with
dusky wings and tail that show markings of white,
flying rather heavily from point to point, or alighting
down in the stubble occasionally, it is pretty sure to
be the shrike.

v.

Nature never tires of repeating and multiplying
the same species. She makes a million bees, a mill-
ion birds, a million mice, or rats, or other animals, so
nearly alike that no eye can tell one from another ;
but it is rarely that she issues a small and a large edi-
tion, as it were, of the same species. Yet she has
done it in a few cases among the birds with hardly
more difference than a foot-note added or omitted.
The cedar-bird, for instance, is the Bohemian wax-
wing or chatterer in smaller type, copied even to the
minute, wax-like appendages that bedeck the ends of
11

162 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

the wing-quills. It is about one third smaller, and a
little lighter in color, owing perhaps to the fact that
it is- confined to a warmer latitude, its northward
range seeming to end about where that of its larger
brother begins. Its flight, its note, its manners, its
general character and habits are almost identical
with those of its prototype. It is confined exclu-
sively to this continent, while the chatterer is an Old
World bird as well, and ranges the northern parts of
both continents. The latter comes to us from the
hyperborean regions, brought down occasionally by
the great cold waves that originate in those high
latitudes. It is a bird of Siberian and Alaskan ever-
greens, and passes its life for the most part far be-
yond the haunts of man. I have never seen the
bird, but small bands of them make excursions every
winter down into our territory from British America.
Audubon, I believe, saw them in Maine ; other ob-
servers have seen them in Minnesota. It has the
crest of the cedar-bird, the same yellow border to its
tail, but is marked with white on its wings, as if a
snow-flake or two had adhered to it from the north-
ern cedars and pines. If you see about the ever-
greens in the coldest, snowiest weather what appear
to be a number of very large cherry-birds, observe
them well, for the chances are that visitants from
the circumpolar regions are before your door. It is
a sign also that the frost legions of the north are out
in great force and carrying all before them.

Our cedar or cherry-bird is the most silent bird

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 163

we have. Our neutral-tinted birds, like him, as a
rule, are our finest songsters ; but he has no song or
call, uttering only a fine bead-like note on taking
flight This note is the cedar-berry rendered back in
sound. When the ox-heart cherries, which he has
only recently become acquainted with, have had time
to enlarge his pipe and warm his heart, I shall ex-
pect more music from him. ^ But in lieu of music,
what a pretty compensation are those minute, almost
artificial-like, plumes of orange and vermilion that
tip the ends of his primaries. Nature could not give
him these and a song too. She has given the hum-
ming-bird a jewel upon his throat, but no song, save
the hum of his wings.

Another bird that is occasionally borne to us on
the crest of the cold waves from the frozen zone,
and that is repeated on a smaller scale in a permanent
resident, is the pine grosbeak ; his alter ego, reduced
in size, is the purple finch, which abounds in the
higher latitudes of the temperate zone. The color
and form of the two birds are again essentially the
same. The females and young males of both species
are of a grayish-brown like the sparrow, while in the
old males this tint is imperfectly hidden beneath a
coat of carmine, as if the color had been poured upon
their heads, where it is strongest, and so oozed down
and through the rest of the plumage. Their tails
are considerably forked, their beaks cone-shaped and
heavy, and their flight undulating. Those who have
heard the grosbeak, describe its song as similar to

164 BIRDS AND BIRDS.

that of the finch, though no doubt it is louder and
stronger. The finch's instrument is a fife tuned to
love and not to war. He blows a clear, round note,
rapid and intricate, but full of sweetness and melody.
His hardier relative with that larger beak and deeper
chest must fill the woods with sounds. Audubon
describes its song as exceedingly rich and full.

As in the case of the Bohemian wax-wing, this
bird is also common to both worlds, being found
through Northern Europe and Asia and the northern
parts of this continent. It is the pet of the pine-tree
and one of its brightest denizens. Its visits to the
States are irregular and somewhat mysterious. A
great flight of them occurred in the winter of 1874-
75. They attracted attention all over the country.
Several other flights of them have occurred during
the century. When this bird comes, it is so unac-
quainted with man that its tameness is delightful to
behold. It thrives remarkably well in captivity, and
in a couple of weeks will become so tame that it will
hop down and feed out of its master's or mistress's
hand. It comes from far beyond the region of the
apple, yet it takes at once to this fruit, or rather to
the seeds, which it is quick to divine, at its core.

Close akin to these two birds, and standing in the
same relation to each other, are two other birds that
come to us from the opposite zone, — the torrid, —
namely, the blue grosbeak and his petit duplicate,
the indigo-bird. The latter is a common summer
resident with us, — a bird of the groves and bushy
fields, where his bright §ong may be heard all through

BIRDS AND BIRDS. 165

the long summer day. I hear it in the dry and
parched August when most birds are silent, sometimes
delivered on the wing and sometimes from the perch.
Indeed, with me its song is as much a midsummer
sound as is the brassy crescendo of the cicada. The
memory of its note calls to mind the flame-like quiver
of the heated atmosphere and the bright glare of the
meridian sun. Its color is much more intense than
that of the common bluebird, as summer skies are
deeper than those of April, but its note is less mellow
and tender. Its original, the blue grosbeak, is an un-
certain wanderer from the south, as the pine gros-
beak is from the north. I have never seen it north
of the District of Columbia. It has a loud, vivacious
song, of which it is not stingy, and which is a large
and free rendering of the indigo's, and belongs to
summer more than to spring. The bird is colored
the same as its lesser brother, the males being a deep
blue and the females a modest drab. Its nest is usu-
ally placed low down, as is the indigo's, and the male
carols from the tops of the trees in its vicinity in the
same manner. Indeed, the two birds are strikingly
alike in every respect except in size and in habitat,
and, as in each of the other cases, the lesser bird is,
as it were, the point, the continuation, of the larger,
carrying its form and voice forward as the reverbera-
tion carries the sound.

I know the ornithologists, with their hair-split-
tings, or, rather, feather-splittings, point out many
differences, but they are unimportant. The fractions
may not agree, but the whole numbers are the same.

A BED OF BOUGHS.

A BED OF BOUGHS.

WHEN Aaron came again to camp and tramp with
me, or, as he wrote, " to eat locusts and wild honey
with me in the wilderness," it was past the middle
of August, and the festival of the season neared its
close. We were belated guests, but perhaps all the
more eager on that account, especially as the coun-
try was suffering from a terrible drought, and the
only promise of anything fresh or tonic or cool was
in primitive woods and mountain passes.

" Now, my friend/' said I, " we can go to Canada,
or to the Maine woods, or to the Adirondacks, and
thus have a whole loaf and a big loaf of this bread
which you know as well as I will have heavy streaks
in it, and will not be uniformly sweet ; or we can
seek nearer woods, and content ourselves with one
week instead of four, with the prospect of a keen
relish to the last. Four sylvan weeks sound well,
but the poetry is mainly confined to the first one.
We can take another slice or two of the Catskills,
can we not, without being sated with kills and divid-
ing ridges ? "

170 A BED OF BOUGHS.

" Anywhere," replied Aaron, " so that we have a
good tramp and plenty of primitive woods. No
doubt we should find good browsing on Peakamoose,
and trout enough in the streams at its base."

So without further ado we made ready, and in due
time found ourselves, with our packs on our backs,
entering upon a pass in the mountains that led to the
valley of the Rondout.

The scenery was wild and desolate in the extreme,
the mountains on either hand looking as if they had
been swept by a tornado of stone. Stone avalanches
hung suspended on their sides or had shot down into
the chasm below. It was a kind of Alpine scenery
where crushed and broken bowlders covered the
earth instead of snow.

In the depressions in the mountains the rocky
fragments seemed to have accumulated and to have
formed what might be called stone glaciers that were
creeping slowly down.

Two hours' march brought us into heavy timber
where the stone cataclysm had not reached, and be-
fore long the soft voice of the Rondout was heard in
the gulf below us. We paused at a spring run, and
I followed it a few yards down its mountain stair-
way, carpeted with black moss, and had my first
glimpse of the unknown stream. I stood upon rocks
and looked many feet down into a still, sunlit pool
and saw the trout disporting themselves in the trans-
parent water, and I was ready to encamp at once;
but my companion, who had not been tempted by the

A BED OF BOUGHS. 171

view, insisted upon holding to our original purpose,
which was to go farther up the stream. We passed
a clearing with three or four houses and a saw-mill.
The dam of the latter was filled with such clear water
that it seemed very shallow, and not ten or twelve
feet deep, as it really was. The fish were as conspic-
uous as if they had been in a pail.

Two miles farther up we suited ourselves and went
into camp.

If there ever was a stream cradled in the rocks,
detained lovingly by them, held and fondled in a
rocky lap or tossed in rocky arms, that stream is the
Rondout. Its course for several miles from its head
is over the stratified rock, and into this it has worn a
channel that presents most striking and peculiar feat-
ures. Now it comes silently along on the top of the
rock, spread out and flowing over that thick, dark-
green moss that is found only in the coldest streams ;
then drawn into a narrow canal only four or five feet
wide, through. which it shoots, black and rigid, to be
presently caught in a deep basin with shelving, over-
hanging rocks, beneath which the phoebe-bird builds
in security and upon which the fisherman stands and
casts his twenty or thirty feet of line without fear of
being thwarted by the brush ; then into a black, well-
like pool, ten or fifteen feet deep, with a smooth,
circular wall of rock on one side worn by the water
through long ages, or else into a deep, oblong pocket,
into which and out of which the water glides without
a ripple.

172 A BED OF BOUGHS.

The surface rock is a coarse sandstone superin-
cumbent upon a lighter-colored conglomerate that
looked like Shawangunk grits, and when this latter
is reached by the water it seems to be rapidly disin-
tegrated by it, thus forming the deep excavations al-
luded to.

My eyes had never before beheld such beauty in
a mountain stream. The water was almost as trans-
parent as the air — was, indeed like liquid air ; and
as it lay in these wells and pits enveloped in shadow,
or lit up by a chance ray of the vertical sun, it was
a perpetual feast to the eye, — so cool, so deep, so
pure ; every reach and pool like a vast spring. You
lay down and drank or dipped the water up in your
cup and found it just the right degree of refreshing,
coldness. One is never prepared for the clearness
of the water in these streams. It is always a sur-
prise. See them every year for a dozen years, and
yet, when you first come upon one, you will utter an
exclamation ; I saw nothing like it in the Adiron-
dacks, nor in Canada. Absolutely without stain or
hint of impurity, it seems to magnify like a lens, so
that the bed of the stream and the fish in it appear
deceptively near. It is rare to find even a trout-
stream that is not a little " off color," as they say of
diamonds, but the waters in the section of which I
am writing have the genuine ray ; it is the undimmed
and untarnished diamond.

If I were a trout, I should ascend every stream till
I found the Rondout. It is the ideal brook. What

A BED OF BOUGHS. 173

homes these fish have, what retreats under the rocks,
what paved or flagged courts and areas, what crystal
depths where no net or snare can reach them ! — no
mud, no sediment, but here and there in the clefts
and seams of the rock patches of white gravel, —
spawning beds ready-made.

The finishing touch is given by the moss with
which the rock is everywhere carpeted. Even in the
narrow grooves or channels where the water runs the
swiftest, the green lining is unbroken. It sweeps
down under the stream and up again on the other
side like some firmly-woven texture. It softens every
outline and cushions every stone. At a certain depth
in the great basins and wells it of course ceases, and
only the smooth, swept flagging of the place-rock is
visible.

The trees are kept well back from the margin of
the stream by the want of soil, and the large ones
unite their branches far above it, thus forming a high
winding gallery, along which the fisherman passes
and makes his long casts with scarcely an interrup-
tion from branch or twig. In a few places he makes
no cast, but sees from his rocky perch the water
twenty feet below him, and drops his hook into it as
into a well.

We made camp at a bend in the creek where
there was a large surface of mossy rock uncovered
by the shrunken stream — a clean, free space left for
us in the wilderness that was faultless as a kitchen
and dining-room, and a marvel of beauty as a loung-

174 A BED OF BOUGHS.

ing-room, or an open court, or what you will. An
obsolete wood or bark road conducted us to it, and
disappeared up the hill in the woods beyond. A loose
bowlder lay in the middle, and on the edge next the
stream were three or four large natural wash-basins
scooped out of the rock, and ever filled ready for use.
Our lair we carved out of the thick brush under a
large birch on the bank. Here we planted our flag
of smoke and feathered our nest with balsam and
hemlock boughs and ferns, and laughed at your four
walls and pillows of down.

Wherever one encamps in the woods there is home,
and every object and feature about the place take on
a new interest and assume a near and friendly relation
to one.

We were at the head of the best fishing. There
was an old bark clearing not far off which afforded
us a daily dessert of most delicious blackberries, —
an important item in the woods, — and then all the
features of the place — a sort of cave above ground
— were of the right kind.

There was not a mosquito, or gnat, or other pest in
the woods, the cool nights having already cut them
off. The trout were sufficiently abundant, and af-
forded us a few hours' sport daily to supply our
wants. The only drawback was, that they were out
of season, and only palatable to a woodman's keen
appetite. What is this about trout-spawning in Oc-
tober and November, and in some cases not till
March ? These trout had all spawned in August,

A BED OF BOUGHS. 175

every one of them. The coldness and purity of the
water evidently made them that much earlier. The
game laws of the State protect the fish after Septem-
ber first, proceeding upon the theory that its spawn-
ing season is later than that, — as it is in many cases,
but not in all, as we found out.

The fish are small in these streams, seldom weigh-
ing over a few ounces. Occasionally a large one is
seen of a pound or pound and a half weight. I re-
member one such, as black as night, that ran under
a black rock. But I remember much more distinctly
a still larger one that I caught and lost one eventful
day.

I had him on my hook ten minutes, and actually
got my thumb in his mouth, and yet he escaped.

It was only the over-eagerness of the sportsman, I
imagined I could hold him by the teeth.

The place where I struck him was a deep well-
hole and I was perched upon a log that spanned it
ten or twelve feet above the water. The situation
was all the more interesting because I saw no pos-
sible way to land my fish; I could not lead him
ashore, and my frail tackle could not be trusted to
lift him sheer from that pit to my precarious perch ;
what should I do ? call for help ? but no help was
near. I had a revolver in my pocket and might
have shot him through and through, but that novel
proceeding did not occur to me until it was too late.
I would have taken a Sam Patch leap into the water
and have wrestled with my antagonist in his own

176 A BED OF BOUGHS.

element, but I knew the slack, thus sure to occur,
would probably free him ; so I peered down upon the
beautiful creature and enjoyed my triumph as far as
it went. He was caught very lightly through his
upper jaw and I expected every struggle and somer-
sault would break the hold ; presently I saw a place
in the rocks where I thought it possible, with such
an incentive, to get down within reach of the water ;
by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind me
and got hold of the line, which I cut and wound
around my finger ; then I made my way toward the
end of the log and the place in the rocks, leading my
fish along much exhausted on the top of the water.
By an effort worthy the occasion I got down within
reach of the fish, and, as I have already confessed,
thrust my thumb into his mouth and pinched his
cheek; he made a spring and was free from my
hand and the hook at the same time ; for a moment
he lay panting on the top of the water, then, recover-
ing himself slowly, made his way down through the
clear, cruel element beyond all hope of recapture.
My blind impulse to follow and try to seize him was
very strong, but I kept my hold and peered and peered
long after the fish was lost to view, then looked my
mortification in the face and laughed a bitter laugh.

" But, hang it ! I had all the fun of catching the
fish, and only miss the pleasure of eating him, which
at this time would not be great."

" The fun, I take it," said my soldier, " is in tri-
umphing and not in being beaten at the last."

A BED OF BOUGHS. 177

"Well, have it so; but I would not exchange
those ten or fifteen minutes with that trout for the
tame two hours you have spent in catching that string
of thirty. To see a big fish after days of small fry is
an event ; to have a jump from one is a glimpse of
the sportsman's paradise ; and to hook one and actu-
ally have him under your control for ten minutes, —
why, that is the paradise itself as long as it lasts."

One day I went down to the house of a settler a
mile below, and engaged the good dame to make us
a couple of loaves of bread, and in the evening we
went down after them. How elastic and exhilarating
the walk was through the cool, transparent shadows !
The sun was gilding the mountains and its yellow
light seemed to be reflected through all the woods.
At one point we looked through and along a valley
of deep shadow upon a broad sweep of mountain
quite near and densely clothed with woods, flooded
from base to summit by the setting sun. It was a
wild, memorable scene. What power and effective-
ness in Nature, I thought, and how rarely an artist
catches her touch ! Looking down upon or squarely
into a mountain covered with a heavy growth of
birch and maple and shone upon by the sun, is a
sight peculiarly agreeable to me. How closely the
swelling umbrageous heads of the trees fit together,
and how the eye revels in the flowing and easy uni-
formity while the mind feels the ruggedness and ter-
rible power beneath !

12

178 A BED OF BOUGHS.

As we came back the light yet lingered on the top
of Slide Mountain.

"The last that parleys with the setting sun,"

said I, quoting Wordsworth.

" That line is almost . Shakespearean," said my
companion. " It suggests that great hand at least,
though it has not the grit and virility of the more
primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning
power in Shakespeare's lines that will occur to us at

sunrise to-morrow! —

" 'And jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.'

Or in this : —

" ' Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain tops with sovran eye.'

There is savage, perennial beauty there, the quality
that Wordsworth and nearly all the modern poets
lack."

" But Wordsworth is the poet of the mountains,"
said I, " and of lonely peaks. True, he does not
express the power and aboriginal grace there is in
them, nor toy with them and pluck them up by the
hair of their heads as Shakespeare does. There is
something in Peakamoose yonder, as we see it from
this point, cutting the blue vault with its dark, ser-
rated edge, not in the bard of Grasmere ; but he ex-
presses the feeling of loneliness and insignificance
that the cultivated man has in the presence of mount-
ains, and the burden of solemn emotion they give

A BED OF BOUGHS. 179

rise to. Then there is sonrething much more wild
and merciless, much more remote from human inter-
ests and ends, in our long, high, wooded ranges than
is expressed by the peaks and scarred groups of the
lake country of Britain. These mountains we be-
hold and cross are not picturesque, — they are wild
and inhuman as the sea. In them you are in a maze,
in a weltering world of woods ; you can see neither
the earth nor the sky, but a confusion of the growth
and decay of centuries, and must traverse them by
your compass or your science of wood-craft, — a rift
through the trees giving one a glimpse of the oppo-
site range or of the valley beneath, and he is more at
sea than ever ; one does not know his own farm or
settlement when framed in these mountain tree-tops ;
all look alike unfamiliar."

Not the least of the charm of camping out is your
camp-fire at night. What an artist ! What pictures
are boldly thrown or faintly outlined upon the can-
vas of the night! Every object, every . attitude of
your companion is striking and memorable. You
see effects and groups every moment that you would
give money to be able to carry away with you in en-
during form. How the shadows leap, and skulk, and
hover about ! Light and darkness are in perpetual
tilt and warfare, with first the one unhorsed, then
the other. The friendly and cheering fire, what ac-
quaintance we make with it ! We had almost for-
gotten there was such an element, we had so long
known only its dark offspring, heat. Now we see

180 A BED OF BOUGHS.

the wild beauty uncaged and note its manner and
temper. How surely it creates its own draft and
sets the currents going, as force and enthusiasm
always will ! It carves itself a chimney out of the
fluid and houseless air. A friend, a ministering an-
gel in subjection ; a fiend, a fury, a monster, ready
'to devour the world, if ungoverned. By day it bur-
rows in the ashes and sleeps ; at night it comes forth
and sits upon its throne of rude logs, and rules the
camp a sovereign queen.

Near camp stood a tall, ragged yellow birch, its
partially cast-off bark hanging in crisp sheets or
dense rolls.

" That tree needs the barber," we said, " and shall
have a call from him to-night."

So after dark I touched a match into it and we
saw the flames creep up and wax in fury until the
whole tree and its main branches stood wrapped in a
sheet of roaring flame. It was a wild and striking
spectacle, and must have advertised our camp to
every nocturnal creature in the forest.

What does the camper think about when lounging
around the fire at night ? Not much, — of the sport
of the day, of the big fish he lost and might have
saved, of the distant settlement, of to-morrow's plans.
An owl hoots off in the mountain and he thinks of
him ; if a wolf were to howl or a panther to scream
he would think of him the rest of the night. As it
is, things flicker and hover through his mind, and he
hardly knows whether it is the past or the present

A BED OF BOUGHS. 181

that possesses him. Certain it is he feels the hush
and solitude of the great forest, and whether he will
or not all his musings are in some way cast upon
that huge background of the night. Unless he is an
old camper-out there will be an under-current of
dread or half fear. My companion said he could not
help but feel all the time that there 'ought to be a
sentinel out there pacing up and down. One seems
to require less sleep in the woods, as if the ground
and the untempered air rested and refreshed him
sooner. The balsam and the hemlock heal his aches
very quickly. If one is awakened often during the
night, as he invariably is, he does not feel that sedi-
ment of sleep in his mind next day that he does
when the same interruption occurs at home ; the
boughs have drawn it all out of him.

And it is wonderful how rarely any of the housed
and tender white man's colds or influenzas come
through these open doors and windows of the woods.
It is our partial isolation from Nature that is dan-
gerous ; throw yourself unreservedly upon her and
she rarely betrays you.

If one takes anything to the woods to read he sel-
dom reads it ; it does not taste good with such primi-
tive air.

There are very few camp poems that I know of,
poems that would be at home with one on such an
expedition ; there is plenty that is weird and spectral,
as in Poe, but little that is woody and wild as this
scene is. I recall a Canadian poem by the late C.

182 A BED OF BOUGHS.

D. Shanly, — the- only one I believe the author ever
wrote, — that fits well the distended pupil of the
mind's eye about the camp-fire at night. It was
printed many years ago in the Atlantic Monthly,
and is called ' The Walker of the Snow; ' it begins
thus : —

" ' Speed on, speed on, good master;

The camp lies far away ;
We must cross the haunted valley
Before the close of day.' "

" That has a Canadian sound," said Aaron ; " give
us more of it."

(l ' How the snow-blight came upon me

I will tell you as we go, —
The blight of the shadow hunter
Who walks the midnight snow.'

And so on. The intent seems to be to personify the
fearful cold that overtakes and benumbs the traveler
in the great Canadian forests in winter. This stanza
brings out the silence or desolation of the scene very
effectively, — a scene without sound or motion, —

" ' Save the wailing of the moos- bird

With a plaintive note and low ;
And the skating of the red leaf
Upon the frozen snow.'

" llie rest of the poem runs thus : —

" 'And said I— Though dark is falling,

And far the camp must be,
Yet my heart it would be lightsome
If I had but company.

A BED OF BOUGHS. 183

" 'And then I sang and shouted,

Keeping measure as I sped,
To the harp-twang of the snow-shoe
As it sprang beneath my tread.

" * Nor far into the valley

Had I dipped upon my way,
When a dusky figure joined me
In a capuchin of gray,

" 'Bending upon the snow-shoes

With a long and limber stride ;
And I hailed the dusky stranger,
As we traveled side by side-

" ' But no token of communion
Gave he by word or look,
And the fear-chill fell upon me
At. the crossing of the brook.

" ' For I saw by the sickly moonlight,

As I followed, bending low,
That the walking of the stranger
Left no foot-marks on the snow.

" ' Then the fear-chill gathered o'er me,

Like a shroud around me cast,
As I sank upon the snow-drift
Where the shadow hunter passed.

" « And the otter-trappers found me,

Before the break of day,
With my dark hair blanched and whitened
As the snow in which I lay.

11 ' But they spoke not as they raised me;

For they knew that in the night
I had seen the shadow hunter
And had withered in his sight.

184 A BED OF BOUGHS.

f; ' Sancta Maria speed us !
The sun is fallen low :
Before us lies the valley
Of the Walker of the Snow ! '"

" Ah ! " exclaimed my companion. " Let us pile
on more of those dry birch-logs ; I feel both the
* fear-chill ' and the i cold-chill ' creeping over me.
How far is it to the valley of the Neversink ? "
" About three or four hours' march, the man said."
" I hope we have no haunted valleys to cross."
"None," said I, "but we pass an old log-cabin
about which there hangs a ghostly superstition. At
a certain hour in the night, during the time the bark
is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to
steal from it and grope its way into the wilderness.
The tradition runs that her lover, who was a bark-
peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by his rival,
who felled a tree upon him while they were at work.
The girl, who helped her mother cook for the
' hands ' was crazed by the shock, and that night
stole forth into the woods and was never seen or
heard of more. There are old hunters who aver
that her cry may still be heard at night at the head
of the valley whenever a tree falls in the stillness of
the forest."

" Well, I heard a tree fall not ten minutes ago,"
said Aaron ; " a distant rushing sound with a sub-
dued crash at the end of it, and the only answering
cry I heard was the shrill voice of the screech-owl
off yonder against the mountain. But may be it

A BED OF BOUGHS. 185

was not an owl," said he after a moment; "let us
help the legend along by believing it was the voice
of the lost maiden."

" By the way," continued he, " do you remember
the pretty creature we saw seven years ago in the
shanty on the West Branch, who was really help-
ing her mother cook for the hands, a slip of a girl
twelve or thirteen years old, with eyes as beautiful
and bewitching as the waters that flowed by her
cabin ? I was wrapped in admiration till she spoke :
then how the spell was broken ! Such a voice ! It
was like the sound of pots and pans when you ex-
pected to hear a lute."

The next day we bade farewell to the Rondout,
and set out to cross the mountain to the east branch
of the Beaverkill.

" We shall find tame waters compared with these,
I fear, — a shriveled stream brawling along over
loose stone, with few pools or deep places."

Our course was along the trail of the barkmen
who had pursued the doomed hemlock to the last
tree at the head of the valley. As we passed along,
a red steer stepped out of the bushes into the road
ahead of us where the sunshine fell full upon him,
and with a half-scared, beautiful look begged alms
of salt. We passed the Haunted Shanty ; but both
it and the legend about it looked very tame at ten
o'clock in the morning. After the road had faded
out we took to the bed of the stream to avoid the
gauntlet of the underbrush, skipping up the mount-

186 A BED OF BOUGHS.

ain from bowlder to bowlder. Up and up we went,
with frequent pauses, and copious quaffing of the
cold water. My soldier declared a "haunted val-
ley " would be a god-send ; anything but endless
dragging of one's self up such an Alpine stair-way.
The winter-wren, common all through the woods,
peeped and scolded at us as we sat blowing near the
summit, and the oven-bird, not quite sure as to what
manner of creatures we were, hopped down a limb
to within a few feet of us and had a good look, then
darted off into the woods to tell the news. I also
noted the Canada warbler, the chestnut-sided warbler,
and the black-throated blue-back, — the latter most
abundant of all. Up these mountain brooks, too,
goes the belted kingfisher, swooping around through
the woods when he spies the fisherman, then wheel-
ing into the open space of the stream and literally
making a "blue streak" down under the branches.

At last the stream which had been our guide was
lost under the rocks, and before long the top was
gained. These mountains are horse-shaped. There
is always a broad, smooth back more or less depressed,
which the hunter aims to bestride ; rising rapidly
from this is pretty sure to be a rough, curving ridge
that carries the forest up to some highest peak. We
were lucky in hitting the saddle, but we could see a
little to the south the sharp, steep neck of the steed
sweeping up toward the sky with an erect mane of
balsam fir.

These mountains are steed-like in other respects ;

A BED OF BOUGHS. 187

any timid and vacillating course with them is sure to
get you into trouble. One must strike out boldly
and not be disturbed by the curveting and shying ;
the valley you want lies squarely behind them, but
farther off than you think, and if you do not go for
it resolutely you will get bewildered and the mount-
ain will play you a trick.

I may say that Aaron and I kept a tight rein and
a good pace till we struck a watercourse on the other
side, and that we clattered down it with no want -of
decision till it emptied into a larger stream which we
knew must be the East Branch. An abandoned fish-
pole lay on the stones, marking the farthest point
reached by some fisherman. According to our reck-
oning, we were five or six miles above the settlement,
with a good depth of primitive woods all about us.

We kept on down the stream, now and then paus-
ing at a likely place to take some trout for dinner,
and with an eye out for a good camping-ground.
Many of the trout were full of ripe spawn and a
few had spawned, the season with them being a little
later than on the stream we had left, perhaps, be-
cause the water was less cold. Neither had the
creek here any such eventful and startling care'er.
It led, indeed, quite a humdrum sort of life under
the roots and fallen tree-tops and among the loose
stones. At rare intervals it beamed upon us from
some still reach or dark cover, and won from us our
best attention in return.

The day was quite spent before we had pitched

188 A BED OF BOUGHS.

our air-woven tent and prepared our dinner, and we
gathered boughs for our bed in the gloaming. Break-
fast had to be caught in the morning and was not
served early, so that it was nine o'clock before we
were in motion. A little bird, the red-eyed vireo, war-
bled most cheerily in the trees above our camp, and,
as Aaron said, " gave us a good send-off." We kept
down the stream, following the inevitable bark road.

My companion had refused to look at another " di-
viding ridge" that had neither path nor way, and
henceforth I must keep to the open road or travel
alone. Two hours' tramp brought us to an old clear-
ing with some rude, tumble-down log-buildings that
many years before had been occupied by the bark and
lumber men. The prospect for trout was so good in
the stream hereabouts, and the scene so peaceful and
inviting, shone upon by the dreamy August sun, that
we concluded to tarry here until the next day. It
was a page of pioneer history opened to quite unex-
pectedly. A dim footpath led us a few yards to a
superb spring, in which a trout from the near creek
had taken up his abode. We took possession of what
had been a shingle shop, attracted by its huge fire-
place. We floored it with balsam boughs, hung its
walls with our "traps," and sent the smoke curling
again from its disused chimney.

The most musical and startling sound we heard in
the woods greeted our ears that evening about sun-
down as we sat on a log in front of our quarters, —
the sound of slow, measured oounding in the valley

A BED OF BOUGHS. 189

below us. We did not know how near we were to
human habitations, and the report of the lumber-
man's mallet, like the hammering of a great wood-
pecker, was music to the ear and news to the mind.
The air was still and dense, and the silence such as
alone broods over these little openings in the primi-
tive woods. My soldier started as if he had heard a
signal-gun. The sound, coming so far through the
forest, sweeping over those great wind-harps of trees,
became wild and legendary, though probably made
by a lumberman driving a wedge or working about
his mill.'

We expected a friendly visit from porcupines that
night, as we saw where they had freshly gnawed all
about us ; hence, when a red squirrel came and looked
in upon us very early in the morning and awoke us
by his snickering and giggling, my comrade cried
out, "There is your porcupig." How the frisking
red rogue seemed to enjoy what he had found. He
looked in at the door and snickered, then in at the
window, then peeked down from between the raft-
ers and cachinnated till his sides must have ached ;
then struck an attitude upon the chimney and fairly
squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact he grew
so obstreperous and so disturbed our repose that we
had to " shoo " him away with one of our boots. He
declared most plainly that he had never before seen
so preposterous a figure as we cut lying there in the
corner of that old shanty.

The morning boded rain, the week to which we

190 A BED OF BOUGHS.

had limited ourselves drew near its close, and we
concluded to finish our holiday worthily by a good
square tramp to the railroad station, twenty-three
miles distant, as it proved. Two miles brought us
to stumpy fields and to the house of the upper in-
habitant. They told us there was a short cut across
the mountain, but my soldier shook his head.

" Better twenty miles of Europe," said he, getting
Tennyson a little mixed, " than one of Cathay, or
Slide Mountain either."

Drops of the much-needed rain began to come
down and I hesitated in front of the wood-shed.

" Sprinkling weather always comes to some bad
end," said Aaron, with a reminiscence of an old
couplet in his mind, and so it proved, for it did not
get beyond a sprinkle, and the sun shone out before
noon.

In the next woods I picked up from the middle of
the road the tail and one hind leg of one of our native
rats, the first I had ever seen except in a museum.
An owl or fox had doubtless left it the night before.
It was evident the fragments had once formed part of
a very elegant and slender creature. The fur that
remained (for it was not hair) was tipped with red.
My reader doubtless knows that the common rat is
an importation, and that there is a native American
rat, usually found much farther south than the local-
ity of which I am writing, that lives in the woods —
a sylvan rat, very wild and nocturnal in his habits,
and seldom seen even by hunters or woodmen. Its

A BED OF BOUGHS. 191

eyes are large and fine, and its form slender. It
looks like only a far-off undegenerate cousin of the
filthy creature that has come to us from the long-
peopled Old World. Some creature ran between my
feet and the fire toward morning, the last night we
slept in the woods, and I have little doubt it was one
of these wood-rats.

The people in these back settlements are almost as
shy and furtive as the animals. Even the men look
a little scared when you stop them by your questions.
The children dart behind their parents when you
look at them. As we sat on a bridge, resting, — for
our packs still weighed fifteen or twenty pounds each,
— two women passed us with pails on their arms,
going for blackberries. They filed by with their eyes
down like two abashed nuns.

In due time we found an old road, to which we
had been directed, that led over the mountain to the
West Branch. It was a hard pull, sweetened by
blackberries and a fine prospect. The snow-bird was
common along the way, and a solitary wild pigeon
shot through the woods in front of us, recalling the
nests we had seen on the East Branch — little scaf-
foldings of twigs scattered all through the trees.

It was nearly noon when we struck the West
Branch and the sun was scalding hot. We knew that
two and three pound trout had been taken there, and
yet we wet not a line in its waters. The scene was
primitive, and carried one back to the days of his
grandfather, stumpy fields, log-fences, log-houses and

192 A BED OF BOUGHS.

barns. A boy twelve or thirteen years old came out
of a house ahead of us eating a piece of bread and-
butter. We soon overtook him and held converse
with him. He knew the land well, and what there
was in the woods and the waters. He had walked
out to the railroad station, fourteen miles distant, to
see the cars, and back the same day. I asked him
about the flies and mosquitoes, etc. He said they
were all gone except the " blunder-heads ; " there
were some of them left yet.

" What are blunder-heads ? " I inquired, sniffing
new game.

" The pesky little fly that gets into your eye when
you are a-fishing."

Ah, yes ! I knew him well. We had got acquainted
some days before, arid I thanked the boy for the
name. It is an insect that hovers before your eye
as you thread the streams, and you are forever
vaguely brushing at it under the delusion that it is a
little spider suspended from your hat-brim, and just
as you want to see clearest, into your eye it goes,
head and ears, and is caught between the lids. You
miss your cast, but you catch a " blunder-head."

We paused under a bridge at the mouth of Biscuit
Brook and ate our lunch, and I can recommend it to
be as good a wayside inn as the pedestrian need look
for. Better bread and milk than we had there I
never expect to find. The milk was indeed so good
that Aaron went down to the little log-house under
the hill a mile farther on and asked for more ; and

A BED OF BOUGHS. 193

being told they had no cow, he lingered five minutes
on the door-stone with his sooty pail in his hand,
putting idle questions about the way and distance,
etc., to the mother while he refreshed himself with
the sight of a well-dressed and comely-looking young
girl, her daughter.

"I got no milk," said he, hurrying on after me,
" but I got something better, only I cannot divide it."

" I know what it is," replied I ; "I heard her
voice."

" Yes, and it was a good one, too. The sweetest
sound I ever heard," he went on, " was a girl's voice
after I had been four years in the army, and by Jove,
if I didn't experience something of the same pleas-
ure in hearing this young girl speak after a week in
the woods. She had evidently been out in the world
and was home on a visit. It was a different look she
gave me from that of the natives. This is better than
fishing for trout," said he. " You drop in at the next
house."

But the next house looked too unpromising.

" There is no milk there," said I, " unless they
keep a goat."

" But could we not," said my facetious companion,
" go it on that ? "

A couple of miles beyond I stopped at a house
that enjoyed the distinction of being clapboarded,
and had the good fortune to find both the milk and
the young lady. A mother and her daughter were
again the only occupants save a babe in the cradle,
13

194 A BED OF BOUGHS.

which, the young woman quickly took occasion to dis-
claim.

" It has not opened its dear eyes before since its
mother left. Come to aunty," and she put out her
hands.

The daughter filled my pail and the mother re-
plenished our stock of bread. They asked me to sit
and cool myself, and seemed glad of a stranger to
talk with. They had come from an adjoining county
five years before, and had carved their little clearing
out of the solid woods.

" The men folks," the mother said, " came on
ahead and built the house right among the big trees,"
pointing to the stumps near the door.

One no sooner sets out with his pack upon his
back to tramp through the land, than all objects and
persons by the way have a new and curious interest
to him. The tone of his entire being is not a little
elevated, and all his perceptions and susceptibilities
quickened. I feel that some such statement is nec-
essary to justify the interest that I felt in this back-
woods maiden. A slightly pale face it was, strong
and well arched, with a tender, wistful expression
not easy to forget.

I had surely seen that face many times before in
towns and cities, and in other lands, but I hardly ex-
pected to meet it here amid the stumps. What were
the agencies that had given it its fine lines and its
gracious intelligence amid these simple, primitive
scenes ? What did my heroine read, or think ? or

A BED OF BOUGHS. 195

what were her unfulfilled destinies? She wore a
sprig of prince's. pine in her hair, which gave a touch
peculiarly welcome.

" Pretty lonely," she said, in answer to my inquiry ;
" only an occasional fisherman in summer, and in
winter — nobody at all."

And the little new school-house in the woods far-
ther on, with its half dozen scholars and the girlish
face of the teacher seen through the open door —
nothing less than the exhilaration of a journey on
foot could have made it seem the interesting object it
was. Two of the little girls had been to the spring
after a pail of water and came struggling out of the
woods into the road with it as we passed. They set
down their pail and regarded us with a half curious,
half alarmed look.

" What is your teacher's name ? " asked one of us.

"Miss Lucinde Josephine " began the red-
haired one, then hesitated, bewildered, when the
bright, dark-eyed one cut her short with " Miss
Simms," and taking hold of the pail said, " Come
on."

" Are there any scholars from above here ? " I in-
quired.

" Yes, Bobbie and Matie," and they hastened to-
ward the door.

We once more stopped under a bridge for refresh-
ments, and took our time, knowing the train would
not go on without us. By four o'clock we were
across the mountain, having passed from the water-

196 A BED OF BOUGHS.

shed of the Delaware into that of the Hudson. The
next eight miles we had a down grade but a rough
road, and during the last half of it we had blisters
on the bottoms of our feet. It is one of the rewards
of the pedestrian, that, however tired he may be, he
is always more or less refreshed by his journey. His
physical tenement has taken an airing. His respira-
tion has been deepened, his circulation quickened.
A good draught has carried off the fumes and the
vapors. One's quality is intensified ; the color strikes
in. At noon that day I was much fatigued ; at night
I was leg-weary and foot-sore, but a fresh, hardy
feeling had taken oossession of me that lasted for
weeks.

BIEDS'-NESTING.

BIRDS'-NESTING.

BIRDS'-NESTING is by no means a failure, even
though you find no birds'-nests. You are sure to
find other things of interest, plenty of them. A
friend of mine says that, in his youth, he used to go
hunting with his gun loaded for wild turkeys, and,
though he frequently saw plenty of smaller game,
he generally came home empty-handed, because he
was loaded only for turkeys. But the student of
ornithology, who is also a lover of Nature in all her
shows and forms, does not go out loaded for turkeys
merely, but for everything that moves or grows,
and is quite sure, therefore, to bag some game, if
not with his gun, then with his eye, or his nose, or
his ear. Even a crow's nest is not amiss, or a den in
the rocks where the coons or the skunks live, or a
log where a partridge drums, or the partridge him-
self starting up with spread tail, and walking a few
yards in advance of you before he goes humming
through the woods, or a woodchuck hole, with well
beaten and worn entrance, and with the saplings
gnawed and soiled about it, or the strong, fetid smell

200

of the fox, which a sharp nose detects here and there,
and which is a good perfume in the woods. And
then it is enough to come upon a spring in the woods
and stoop down and drink of the sweet, cold water,
and bathe your hands in it, or to walk along a trout-
brook, which has absorbed the shadows till it has it-
self become but a denser shade. Then I am always
drawn out of my way by a ledge of rocks, and love
nothing better than to explore the caverns and dens,
or to sit down under the overhanging crags and let
the wild scene absorb me.

There is a fascination about ledges ! They are an
unmistakable feature, and gave emphasis and charac-
ter to the scene. I feel their spell, and must pause
awhile. Time, old as the hills and older, looks out
of their scarred and weather-worn face. The woods
are of to-day, but the ledges, in comparison, are of
eternity. One jokes about them as he would about
ruins, and with something of the same feeling. They
are ruins of the fore world. Here the foundations
of the hills were laid ; here the earth-giants wrought
and builded. They constrain one to silence and med-
itation ; the whispering and rustling trees seem triv-
ial and impertinent.

And then there are birds'-nests about ledges, too,
exquisite mossy tenements, with white, pebbly eggs,
that I can never gaze upon without emotion. The
little brown bird, the phcebe, looks at you from her
niche till you are within a few feet of her, when she
darts away. Occasionally you may find the nest of

BIRDS'-NESTING. 201

some rare wood-warbler forming a little pocket in
the apron of moss that hangs down over the damp
rocks.

The sylvan folk seem to know when you are on a
peaceful mission, and are less afraid than usual. Did
not that marmot to-day guess my errand did not con-
cern him as he saw me approach there from his cover
in the bushes ? But, when he saw me pause and
deliberately seat myself on the stone wall immedi-
ately over his hole, his confidence was much shaken.
He apparently deliberated awhile, for I heard the
leaves rustle as if he was making up his mind, when
he suddenly broke cover and came for his hole full
tilt. Any other animal would have taken to his heels
and fled ; but a woodchuck's heels do not amount to
much for speed, and he feels his only safety is in his
hole. On he came in the most obstinate and deter-
mined manner, and I dare say if I had sat down in
his hole would have attacked me unhesitatingly. This
I did not give him a chance to do ; but, not to be en-
tirely outdone, attempted to set my feet on him in no
very gentle manner ; but he whipped into his den be-
neath me with a defiant snort. Farther on, a saucy
chipmunk presumed upon my harmless character to
an unwonted degree also. I had paused to bathe my
hands and face in a little trout brook, and had set a
tin cup, which I had partly filled with strawberries
as I crossed the field, on a stone at my feet, when
along came the chipmunk as confidently as if he
knew precisely where he was going, and, perfectly

202 BIRDS'-NESTING.

oblivious of my presence, cocked himself up on the
rim of the cup and proceeded to eat my choicest ber-
ries. I remained motionless and observed him. He
had eaten but two when the thought seemed to occur
to him that he might be doing better, and he began
to fill his pockets. Two, four, six, eight of my ber-
ries quickly disappeared, and the cheeks of the little
vagabond swelled. But all the time he kept eating,
that not a moment might be lost. Then he hopped
off the cup, and went skipping from stone to stone
till the brook was passed, when he disappeared in
the woods. In two or three minutes he was back
again, and went to stuffing himself as before ; then he
disappeared a second time, and I imagined told a
friend of his, for in a moment or two along came a
bobtailed chipmunk, as if in search of something,
and passed up, and down, and around, but did not
quite hit the spot. Shortly, the first returned a third
time, and had now grown a little fastidious, for he
began to sort over my berries, and to bite into them,
as if to taste their quality. He was not long in load-
ing up, however, and in making off again. But I
had now got tired of the joke, and my berries were
appreciably diminishing, so I moved away. What
was most curious about the proceeding was, that the
little poacher took different directions each time, and
returned from different ways. Was this to elude
pursuit, or was he distributing the fruit to his friends
and neighbors about, astonishing them with straw-
berries for lunch ?

BIRDS '-NESTING. 203

But I am making slow headway toward finding
the bird's-nest, for I had set out on this occasion in
hopes of finding a rare nest — the nest of the black-
throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with
one or two others, was still wanting to make the his-
tory of our warblers complete. The woods were ex-
tensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and looking
for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a
task as searching for a needle in a hay-stack, as the
old saying is. Where to begin, and how ? But the
principle is the same as in looking for a hen's nest :
first find your bird, then watch its movements. The
bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores
of times, but whether he builds high or low, on the
ground or in the trees, is all unknown to me. That
is his song now — " twe-twea-twe-e-e-a," with a pe-
culiar summer languor and plaintiveness, and issuing
from the lower branches and growths. Presently
we — for I have been joined by a companion — dis-
cover the bird, a male, insecting in the top of a
newly-fallen hemlock. The black, white, and blue
of his uniform are seen at a glance. His movements
are quite slow compared with some of the sylvinse.
If he will only betray the locality of that little dom-
icile where his plainly-clad mate is evidently sitting,
it is all we will ask of him. But this he seems in no
wise disposed to do. Here and there, and up and
down, we follow him, often losing him, and as often
refinding him by his song ; but the clew to his nest,
how shall we get it ? Does he never go home to see

204

how things are getting on, or to see if his presence is
not needed, or to take madam a morsel of food. No
doubt he keeps within ear-shot, and a cry of distress
or alarm from the mother-bird would bring him to
the spot in an instant. Would that some evil fate
would make her cry then ! Presently he encounters
a rival. His feeding-ground infringes upon that of
another, and the two birds regard each other threat-
eningly. This is a good sign, for their nests are
evidently near.

Their battle-cry is a low, peculiar chirp, not very
fierce, but bantering and confident. They quickly
come to blows, but it is a very fantastic battle, and,
as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy their
sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither
party gets the better of the other, and they separate
a few paces and sing, and squeak, and challenge each
other in a very happy frame of mind. The gauntlet
is no sooner thrown down than it is again taken up
by one or the other, and in the course of fifteen or
twenty minutes they have three or four encounters,
separating a little, then provoked to return again like
two cocks, till finally they withdraw beyond hearing
of each other — both, no doubt, claiming the victory.
But the secret of the nest is still kept. Once I think
I have it. I catch a glimpse of a bird which looks
like the female, and near by, in a small hemlock
about eight feet from the ground, my eye detects a
nest. But as I come up under it, I can see daylight
through it, and that it is empty — evidently only part

BIRDS'-NESTING. 205

finished — not lined or padded yet. Now if the bird
will only return and claim it, the point will be gained.
But we wait and watch in vain. The architect has
knocked off to-day, and we must come again, or con-
tinue our search.

While loitering about here we were much amused
by three chipmunks, who seemed to be engaged in
some kind of game. It looked very much as if they
were playing tag. Round and round they would go,
first one taking the lead, then another, all good-nat-
ured and gleeful as school-boys. There is one thing
about a chipmunk that is peculiar ; he is never more
than one jump from home. Make a dive at him
anywhere and in he goes. He knows where the
hole is, even when it is covered up with leaves.
There is no doubt, also, that he has his own sense
of humor and fun, as what squirrel has not ? I have
watched two red squirrels for a half-hour cours-
ing through the large trees by the road-side where
branches interlocked, and engaged in a game of tag
as obviously as two boys. As soon as the pursuer
had come up with the pursued, and actually touched
him, the palm was his, and away he would go, tax-
ing his wits and his speed to the utmost to elude his
fellow.

Despairing of finding either of the nests of the
two males, we pushed on through the woods to try
our luck elsewhere. Before long, just as we were
about to plunge down a hill, into a dense, swampy
part of the woods, we discovered a pair of the birds

206 BIRDS'-NESTING.

we were in quest of. They had food in their beaks,
and, as we paused, showed great signs of alarm, in-
dicating that the nest was in the immediate vicinity.
This was enough. We would pause here and find
this nest, anyhow. To make a sure thing of it, we
determined to watch the parent birds till we had
wrung from them their secret. So we doggedly
crouched down and watched them, and they watched
us. It was diamond cut diamond. But as we felt
constrained in our movements, desiring, if possible,
to keep so quiet that the birds would, after a while,
see in us only two harmless stumps or prostrate logs,
we had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes were
quite taken with our quiet, and knew us from logs
and stumps in a moment. Neither were the birds
deceived, not even when we tried the Indian's tactics,
and plumed ourselves with green branches. Ah, the
suspicious creatures, how they watched us with the
food in their beaks, abstaining for one whole hour
from ministering that precious charge which other-
wise would have been visited every moment ! Quite
near us they would come at times, between us and
the nest, eying us so sharply. Then they would
move off, and apparently try to forget our presence.
Was it to deceive us, or to persuade himself and mate
that there was no serious cause for alarm, that the
male would now and then strike up in full song and
move off to some distance through the trees ? But
the mother-bird did not allow herself to lose sight of
us at all, and both birds, after carrying the food in

207

their beaks a long time, would swallow it themselves.
Then they would obtain another morsel and appar-
ently approach very near the nest, when their caution
or prudence would come to their aid, and they would
swallow the food and hasten away. I thought the
young birds would cry out, but not a syllable from
them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the parent
birds away from the nest. The clamor the young
would have set up on the approach of the old with
food would have exposed everything.

After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet
where the nest was concealed. Indeed, I thought I
knew the identical bush. Then the birds approached
each other again and grew very confidential about
another locality some rods below. This puzzled us,
and seeing the whole afternoon might be spent in this
manner, and the mystery unsolved, we determined to
change our tactics and institute a thorough search of
the locality. This procedure soon brought things to
a crisis, for, as my companion clambered over a log,
by a little hemlock, a few yards from where we had
been sitting, with a cry of alarm out sprang the young
birds from their nest in the hemlock, and, scampering
and fluttering over the leaves, disappeared in different
directions. This brought the parent birds on the scene
in an agony of alarm. Their distress was pitiful.
They threw themselves on the ground at our very
feet, and fluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves
before us, to draw us away from the place, or distract
our attention from the helpless young. I shall not

208 BIRDS'-NESTING.

forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp
the contrast as he trailed his painted plumage there
on the dry leaves. Apparently he was seriously
disabled. He would start up as if exerting every
muscle to fly away, but no use ; down he would
come with a helpless, fluttering motion before he had
gone two yards, and apparently you had only to go
and pick him up. But before you could pick him
up, he had recovered somewhat and flown a little
farther ; and thus, if you were tempted to follow
him, you would soon find yourself some distance
from the scene of the nest, and both old and young
well out of your reach. The female bird was not
less solicitous, and practiced the same arts upon us,
to decoy us away, but her dull plumage rendered her
less noticeable. The male was clad in holiday attire,
but his mate in an every-day working-garb.

The nest was built in the fork of a little hemlock,
about fifteen inches from the ground, and was a thick,
firm structure, composed of the finer material of the
woods, with a lining of very delicate roots or rootlets.
There were four young birds and one addled egg.
We found it in a locality about the head-waters of
the eastern branch of the Delaware, where several
other of the rarer species of warblers, such as the
mourning-ground, the blackburnian, the chestnut-
sided, and the speckled Canada, spend the summer
and rear their young.

Defunct birds'-nests are easy to find; when the
leaves fall then they are in every bush and tree ;

BIKDS' -NESTING. 209

and one wonders how he missed them ; but a live
nest, how it eludes one ! I have read of a noted
criminal who could hide himself pretty effectually
in any room that contained the usual furniture ; he
would embrace the support of a table so as to seem
part of it. The bird has studied the same art ; it
always blends its nest with the surroundings ; and
sometimes its very openness hides it ; the light itself
seems to conceal it. Then the birds build anew each
year, and so always avail themselves of the present
and latest combination of leaves and screens, of light
and shade. What was very well concealed one sea-
son, may be quite exposed the next.

Going a-fishing or a-berrying is a good introduc-
tion to the haunts of the birds, and to their nesting-
places. You put forth your hand for the berries,
and there is a nest ; on your tread by the creeks
starts the sand-piper or the water-thrush from the
ground where its eggs are concealed, or some shy
wood-warbler from a bush. One day, fishing down a
deep wooded gorge, my hook caught on a limb over-
head, and on pulling it down I found I had missed
my trout, but had caught a humming-bird's nest. It
was saddled on the limb as nicely as if it had been a
grown part of it.

Other collectors beside the oologists are looking
for birds'-nests, — the squirrels and owls and jays and
crows. The worst depredator in this direction I
knew of is the fish-crow, and I warn him to keep
off my premises, and charge every gunner to spare
14

210 ^ BIRBS'-NESTING.

him not. He is a small sneak-thief, and will rob the
nest of every robin, wood-thrush, and oriole he can
come at. I believe he fishes only when he is unable
to find birds' eggs or young birds. The genuine
crow, the crow with the honest "caw," "caw," I
have never caught in such small business, though
the king-bird makes no discrimination between them,
but accuses both alike.

THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

THE halcyon or king-fisher is a good guide when
you go to the woods. He will not insure smooth
water or fair weather, but he knows every stream
and lake like a book, and will take you to the wildest
and most unfrequented places. Follow his rattle and
you shall see the source of every trout and salmon
stream on the continent. You shall see the Lake of
the Woods, and far-off Athabaska and Abbitibbe, and
the unknown streams that flow into Hudson's Bay,
and many others. His time is the time of the trout,
too, namely, from April to September. He makes
his subterranean nest in the bank of some favorite
stream, and then goes on long excursions up and
down and over woods and mountains to all the waters
within reach, always fishing alone, the true angler
that he is, his fellow keeping far ahead or behind, or
taking the other branch. He loves the sound of a
water-fall, and will sit a long time on a dry limb
overhanging the pool below it, and, forgetting his oc-
cupation, brood upon his own memories and fancies.

The past season my friend and I took a hint from

214 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

him, and when the dog-star began to blaze, set out
for Canada, making a big detour to touch at salt
water and to take New York and Boston on our way.

The latter city was new to me and we paused there
and angled a couple of days and caught an editor, a
philosopher, and a poet, and inight have caught more
if we had had a mind to, for these waters are full of
'em, and big ones too.

Coming from the mountainous regions of the
'Hudson, we saw little in the way of scenery that
arrested our attention until we beheld the St. Law-
rence, though one gets glimpses now and then as
he is whirled along through New Hampshire and
Vermont that make him wish for a fuller view. It is
always a pleasure to bring to pass the geography of
one's boyhood; 'tis like the fulfilling of a dream;
hence it was with partial eyes that I looked upon the
Merrimac, the Connecticut, and the Passumpsic, —
dusky, squaw-colored streams, whose names I had
learned so long ago. The traveler opens his eyes a
little wider when he reaches Lake Memphremagog,
especially if he have the luck to see it under such a
sunset as we did, its burnished surface glowing like
molten gold. This lake is an immense trough that
accommodates both sides of the fence, though the
larger and longer part of it by far is in Canada. Its
western shore is bold and picturesque, being skirted
by a detachment of the Green Mountains, the main
range of which is seen careering along the horizon
far to the southwest ; to the east and north, whither

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 215

the railroad takes you, the country is flat and mono-
tonous.

The first peculiarity one notices about the farms in
this northern country is the close proximity of the
house and barn, in most cases the two buildings
touching at some point, — an arrangement doubtless
prompted by the deep snows and severe cold of this
latitude. The typical Canadian dwelling-house is
also presently met with on entering the Dominion, —
a low, modest structure of hewn spruce logs, with a
steep roof (containing two or more dormer windows)
that ends in a smart curve, a hint taken from the
Chinese pagoda. Even in the more costly brick or
stone houses in the towns and vicinity this style is
adhered to. It is so universal that one wonders if the
reason of it also be not in the climate, the outward
curve of the roof shooting the sliding snow farther
away from the dwelling. It affords a wide projection,
in many cases covering a veranda, and in all cases
protecting the doors and windows without interfering
with the light. In the better class of clap-boarded
houses the finish beneath the projecting eaves is also
a sweeping curve, opposing and bracing that of the
roof. A two-story country house, or a Mansard roof,
I do not remember to have seen in Canada, but in
places they have become so enamored of the white
of the snow that they even whitewash the roofs of
their buildings, giving a cluster of them the impres-
sion, at a distance, of an encampment of great tents.

As we neared Point Levi, opposite Quebec, we got

216 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

our first view of the St. Lawrence. "Iliad of riv-
ers ! " exclaimed my friend. " Yet unsung ! " The
Hudson must take a back seat now, and a good ways
back. One of the two or three great water-courses
of the globe is before you. No other river, I imag-
ine, carries such a volume of pure cold water to the
sea. Nearly all its feeders are trout and salmon
streams, and what an airing and what a bleaching it
gets on its course. Its history, its antecedents, are un-
paralleled. The great lakes are its camping grounds ;
here its hosts repose under the sun and stars in areas
like that of states and kingdoms, and it is its waters
that shake the earth at Niagara. Where it receives
the Saguenay it is twenty miles wide, and when it de-
bouches into the Gulf it is a hundred. Indeed, it is a
chain of Homeric sublimities from beginning to end.
The great cataract is a fit sequel to the great lakes ;
the spirit that is born in vast and tempestuous
Superior takes its full glut of power in that fearful
chasm. If paradise is hinted in the Thousand Isl-
ands, hell is unveiled in that pit of terrors.

Its last escapade is the great rapids above Mon-
treal, down which the steamer shoots with its breath-
less passengers, after which, inhaling and exhaling
its mighty tides, it flows calmly to the sea.

The St. Lawrence is the type of nearly all the
Canadian rivers, which are strung with lakes and
rapids and cataracts, and are full of peril and advent-
ure.

Here we reach the oldest part of the continent,

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 217

geologists tell us ; and here we encounter a fragment
of the Old World civilization. Quebec presents the
anomaly of a mediaeval European city in the midst
of the American landscape. This air, this sky, these
clouds, these trees, the look of these fields, are what
we have always known ; but these houses, and streets,
and vehicles, and language, and physiognomy are
strange. As I walked upon the grand terrace I saw
the robin, and king-bird, and song-sparrow, and there
in the tree, by Wolfe Monument, our summer warbler
was at home. I presently saw, also, that our repub-
lican crow was a British subject, and that he behaved
here more like his European brother than he does in
the States, being less wild and suspicious. On the
Plains of Abraham excellent timothy grass was grow-
ing, and cattle were grazing. We found a path
through the meadow, and, with the exception of a
very abundant weed with a blue flower, saw nothing
new or strange, — nothing but the steep tin roofs of
the city and its frowning wall and citadel. Sweep-
ing around the far southern horizon we could catch
glimpses of mountains that were evidently in Maine
or New Hampshire ; while twelve or fifteen miles to
the north the Laurentian ranges, dark and formi-
dable, arrested the eye. Quebec, or the walled part
of it, is situated on a point of land shaped not unlike
the human foot, looking northeast, the higher and
bolder side being next the river, with the main part
of the town on the northern slope toward the St.
Charles. Its toes are well down in the mud where

218 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

this stream joins the St. Lawrence, while the citadel
is high on the instep and commands the whole field.
The grand Battery is a little below, on the brink of
the instep, so to speak, and the promenader looks
down several hundred feet into the tops of the chim-
neys of this part of the lower town, and upon the
great river sweeping by northeastward like another
Amazon. The heel of our misshappen foot extends
indefinitely toward Montreal. Upon it, on a level
with the citadel, are the Plains of Abraham. It was
up its high, almost perpendicular, sides that Wolfe
clambered with his army, and stood in the rear of his
enemy one pleasant September morning over a hun-
dred years ago.

To the north and northeast of Quebec, and in full
view from the upper parts of the city, lies a rich belt
of agricultural country, sloping gently toward the
river, and running parallel with it for many miles,
called the Beauport slopes. The division of the
land into uniform parallelograms, as in France, was
a marked feature, and is so throughout the Domin-
ion. A road ran through the midst of it lined with
trees, and leading to the falls of the Montmorency.
I imagine that this section is the garden of Que-
bec. Beyond it rose the mountains. Our eyes looked
wistfully toward them, for we had decided to pene-
trate the Canadian woods in that direction.

One hundred and twenty-five miles from Quebec,
as the loon flies, almost due north over unbroken
spruce forests, lies Lake St. John, the cradle of the

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 219

terrible Saguenay. On the map it looks like a great
cuttle-fish with its numerous arms and tentacula
reaching out in all directions into the wilds. It is a
large oval body of water thirty miles in its greatest
diameter. The season here, owing to a sharp north-
ern sweep of the isothermal lines, is two or three
weeks earlier than at Quebec. The soil is warm and
fertile, and there is a thrifty growing settlement here
with valuable agricultural produce, but no market
nearer than Quebec, two hundred and fifty miles dis-
tant by water, with a hard, tedious land journey be-
sides. In winter the settlement can have little or no
communication with the outside world.

To relieve this isolated colony and encourage fur-
ther development of the St. John region, the Cana-
dian government is building a wagon-road through
the wilderness from Quebec directly to the lake, thus
economizing half the distance, as the road when com-
pleted will form with the old route, the Saguenay or
St. Lawrence, one side of an equilateral triangle. A
railroad was projected a few years ago over nearly
the same ground, and the contract to build it given to
an enterprising Yankee, who pocketed a part of the
money and has never been heard of since. The road
runs for one hundred miles through an unbroken
wilderness and opens up scores of streams and lakes
abounding with trout, into which until the road-mak-
ers fished them, no white man had ever cast a hook.

It was a good prospect, and we resolved to commit
ourselves to the St. John road. The services of a

220 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

young fellow whom, by reason of his impracticable
French name, we called Joe, was secured, and after
a delay of twenty-four hours we were packed upon
a Canadian buck-board with hard-tack in one bag
and oats in another, and the journey began. It
was Sunday, and we held up our heads more confi-
dently when we got beyond the throng of well-dressed
church-goers. For ten miles we had a good stone
road and rattled along it at a lively pace. In about
half that distance we came to a large brick church,
where we began to see the rural population or habi-
tans. They came mostly in two-wheeled vehicles,
some of the carts quite fancy, in which the young
fellows rode complacently beside their girls. The
two-wheeler predominates in Canada, and is of all
styles and sizes. After we left the stone road, we
began to encounter the hills that are preliminary to
the mountains. The farms looked like the wilder and
poorer parts of Maine or New Hampshire. While
Joe was getting a supply of hay of a farmer to take
into the woods for his horse, I walked through a
field in quest of wild strawberries. The season for
them was past, it being the 20th of July, and I found
barely enough to make me think that the strawberry
here is far less pungent and high-flavored than with
us.

The cattle in the fields and by the roadside looked
very small and delicate, the effect, no doubt, of the
severe climate. We saw many rude implements of
agriculture, — such as wooden plows shod with iron.

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 221

We passed several parties of men, women, and chil-
dren from Quebec picnicking in the " bush." Here it
was little more than a " bush ; " but while in Canada
we never heard the woods designated by any other
term. I noticed, also, that when a distance of a few
miles or of a fraction of a mile is to be designated,
the French Canadian does not use the term miles,
but says it 's so many acres through or to the next
place.

This fondness for the " bush " at this season seems
quite a marked feature in the social life of the av-
erage Quebecker, and is one of the original French
traits that holds its own among them. Parties leave
the city in carts and wagons by midnight, or earlier,
and drive out as far as they can the remainder of
the night, in order to pass the whole Sunday in the
woods, despite the mosquitoes and black flies. Those
we saw seemed a decent, harmless set, whose idea of
a good time was to be in the open air, and as far
into the " bush " as possible.

The post-road, as the new St. John's road is also
called, begins twenty miles from Quebec at Stone-
ham, the farthest settlement. Five miles into the
forest upon the new road is the hamlet of La Chance
(pronounced La Shaunce), the last house till you
reach the lake, one hundred and twenty miles distant.
Our destination the first night was La Chance's ;
this would enable us to reach the Jacques Carder
River forty miles farther, where we proposed to en-
camp, in the afternoon of the next day.

222 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

"We were now fairly among the mountains, and
the sun was well down behind the trees when we
entered upon the post-road. It proved to be a wide,
well-built highway, grass-grown, but in good condi-
tion. After an hour's travel we began to see signs of
a clearing, and about six o'clock drew up in front of
the long, low, log habitation of La Chance. Their
hearth-stone was out-door at this season, and its
smoke rose through the still atmosphere in a frail col-
umn toward the sky. The family was gathered here
and welcomed us cordially as we drew up, the mas-
ter shaking us by the hand as if we were old friends.
His English was very poor and our French was
poorer, but with Joe as a bridge between us, com-
munication on a pitch was kept up. His wife could
speak no English ; but here true French politeness
and graciousness was a language we could readily un-
derstand. Our supper was got ready from our own
supplies, while we sat or stood in the open air about
the fire. The clearing comprised fifty or sixty acres
of rough land in the bottom of a narrow valley, and
bore indifferent crops of pats, barley, potatoes, and
timothy grass. The latter was just in bloom, being
a month or more later than with us. The primitive
woods, mostly of birch, with a sprinkling of spruce,
put a high cavernous wall about the scene. How
sweetly the birds sang, their notes seeming to have
unusual strength and volume in this forest-bound
opening ! The principal singer was the white-throat-
ed sparrow, which we heard and saw everywhere on

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 223

the route. He is called here la siffleur — the whis-
tler, and very delightful his whistle was. From the
forest came the evening hymn of a thrush, the olive-
backed, perhaps, like, but less clear and full than, the
veeries'.

In the evening we sat about the fire in rude home-
made chairs, and had such broken and disjointed
talk as we could manage. Our host had lived in
Quebec and been a school-teacher there ; he had
wielded the birch until he lost his health, when he
came here and the birches gave it back to him. He
was now hearty and well, and had a family of six or
seven children about him.

We were given a good bed that night, and fared
better than we expected. About one o'clock I was
awakened by suppressed voices outside the window.
Who could it be? Had a band of brigands sur-
rounded the house ? As our outfit and supplies had
not been removed from the wagon in front of the
door I got up, and, lifting one corner of the window
paper, peeped out ; I saw in the dim moonlight four
or five men standing about engaged in low conversa-
tion. Presently one of the men advanced to the
door and began to rap and call the name of our host.
Then I knew their errand was not hostile ; but the
weird effect of that regular alternate rapping and
calling ran through my dream all the rest of the
night. Rat-tat, tat, tat, — La Chance. Rat-tat, tat,
— La Chance five or six times repeated, before La
Chance heard and responded. Then the door opened

224 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

and they came in, when it was jabber, jabber, jabber
in the next room till I fell asleep.

In the morning, to my inquiry as to who the
travelers were and what they wanted, La Chance said
they were old acquaintances going a-fishing and had
stopped to have a little talk.

Breakfast was served early and we were upon the
road before the sun. Then began a forty-mile ride
through a dense Canadian spruce forest over the
drift and bowlders of the paleozoic age. Up to this
point the scenery had been quite familiar, — not
much unlike that of the Catskills, — but now there
was a change ; the birches disappeared, except now
and then a slender white or paper birch, and spruce
everywhere prevailed. A narrow belt on each side
of the road had been blasted by fire, and the dry,
white stems of the trees stood stark and stiff. The
road ran pretty straight, skirting the mountains and
threading the valleys, and hour after hour the dark
silent woods wheeled past us. Swarms of black
flies — those insect wolves — waylaid us and hung to
us till a smart spurt of the horse, where the road
favored, left them behind. But a species of large
horse-fly, black and vicious, it was not so easy to get
rid of. When they alighted upon the horse we
would demolish them with the whip or with our felt
hats, a proceeding the horse soon came to under-
stand and appreciate*. The white and gray Lauren-
tian bowlders lay along the roadside. The soil
seemed as if made up of decayed and pulverized

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 225

rock, and doubtless contained very little vegetable
matter. It is so barren that it will never repay
clearing and cultivating.

Our course was an up-grade toward the highlands
that separate the water-shed of St. John Lake from
that of the St. Lawrence, and as we proceeded the
spruce became smaller and smaller till the trees were
seldom more than eight or ten inches in diameter.
.Nearly all of them terminated in a dense tuft at the
top beneath which the stem would be bare for several
feet, giving them the appearance, my friend said, as
they stood sharply defined along the crests of the
mountains, of cannon swabs. Endless, interminable
successions of these cannon swabs, each just like its
fellow, came and went, came and went, all day. Some-
times we could see the road a mile or two ahead, and
it was as lonely and solitary as a path in the desert.
Periods of talk and song and jollity were succeeded
by long stretches of silence. A buck-board upon such
a road does not conduce to a continuous flow of ani-
mal spirits. A good brace for the foot and a good
hold for the hand is one's main lookout much of the
time. We walked up the steeper hills, one of them
nearly a mile long, then clung grimly to the board
during the rapid descent of the other side.

We occasionally saw a solitary pigeon — in every
instance a cock — leading a forlorn life in the wood,
a hermit of his kind, or more probably a rejected
and superfluous male. We came upon two or three
broods of spruce-grouse in the road, so tame that
15

226 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

one could have knocked them over with poles. We
passed many beautiful lakes ; among others the Twe
Sisters, one on each side of the road. At noon wo
paused at a lake in a deep valley, and fed the horse
and had lunch. I was not long in getting ready
my fishing tackle, and upon a raft made of two logs
pinned together floated out upon the lake and quickly
took all the trout we wanted.

Early in the afternoon, we entered upon what is
called La Grand Brulure, or Great Burning, and to
the desolation of living woods succeeded the greater
desolation of a blighted forest. All the mountains
and valleys, as far as the eye could see, had been
swept by the fire, and the bleached and ghostly skel-
etons of the trees alone met the gaze. The fire had
come over from the Saguenay, a hundred or more
miles to the east, seven or eight years before, and
had consumed or blasted everything in its way. We
saw the skull of a moose said to have perished in
the fire. For three hours we rode through this valley
and shadow of death. In the midst of it, where the
trees had nearly all disappeared, and where the
ground was covered with coarse wild grass, we came
upon the Morancy River, a placid yellow stream
twenty or twenty-five yards wide, abounding with
trout. We walked a short distance along its banks
and peered curiously into its waters. The mountains
on either hand had been burned by the fire until in
places their great granite bones were bare and white.

At another point we were within ear-shot for a

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 227

mile or more of a brawling stream in the valley be-
low us, and now and then caught a glimpse of foam-
ing rapids or cascades through the dense spruce, — a
trout stream that probably no man had ever fished,
as it would be quite impossible to do so in such a
maze and tangle of woods.

We neither met, nor passed, nor saw any travelers
till late in the afternoon, when we descried far ahead
a man on horseback. It was a welcome relief. It
was like a sail at sea. When he saw us he drew rein
and awaited our approach. He, too, had probably
tired of the solitude and desolation of the road. He
proved to be a young Canadian going to join the
gang of workmen at the farther end of the road.

About four o'clock we passed another small lake,
and in a few moments more drew up at the bridge
over the Jacques Cartier River, and our forty-mile
ride was finished. There was a stable here that had
been used by the road-builders, and was now used by
the teams that hauled in their supplies. This would
do for the horse ; a snug log shanty built by an old
trapper and hunter for use in the winter, a hundred
yards below the bridge, amid the spruces on the bank
of the river, when rebedded and refurnished, would
do for us. The river at this point was a swift, black
stream from thirty to forty feet wide, with a strength
and a bound like a moose. It was not shrunken and
emaciated, like similar streams in a cleared country,
but full, copious, and strong. Indeed, one can hardly
realize how the lesser water-courses have suffered by

228 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

the denuding of the land of its forest covering, until
he goes into the primitive woods and sees how bound-
ing and athletic they are there. They are literally
well fed and their measure of life is full. In fact,
a trout-brook is as much a thing of the woods as a
moose or deer, and will not thrive well in the open
country.

Three miles above our camp was Great Lake
Jacques Cartier, the source of the river, a sheet of
water nine miles long and from one to three wide ;
fifty rods below was Little Lake Jacques Cartier, an
irregular body about two miles across. Stretching
away on every hand, bristling on the mountains and
darkling in the valleys, was the illimitable spruce
woods. The moss in them covered the ground nearly
knee-deep, and lay like newly fallen snow, hiding
rocks and logs filling depressions, and muffling the
foot. When it was dry one could find a most de-
lightful couch anywhere.

The spruce seems to have colored the water, which
is a dark amber color, but entirely sweet and pure.
There needed no better proof of the latter fact than
the trout with which it abounded, and their clear and
vivid tints. In its lower portions near the St. Law-
rence, the Jacques Cartier River is a salmon stream,
but these fish have never been found as near its
source as we were, though there is no apparent rea-
son why they should not be.

There is perhaps no moment in the life of an an-
gler fraught with so much eagerness and impatience

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 229

as when he first finds himself upon the bank of a
new arid long-sought stream. When I was a boy
and used to go a-fishing, I could seldom restrain
my eagerness after I arrived in sight of the brook
or pond, and must needs run the rest of the way.
Then the delay in rigging my tackle was a trial my
patience was never quite equal to. After I had made
a few casts, or had caught one fish, I could pause and
adjust my line properly. I found some remnant of
the old enthusiasm still in me when I sprang from
the buck-board that afternoon, and saw the strange
river rushing by. I would have given something if
my tackle had been rigged so that I could have tried
on the instant the temper of the trout that had just
broken the surface within easy reach of the shore.
But I had anticipated this moment coming along, and
had surreptitiously undid my rod-case and got my
reel out of my bag, and was therefore a few moments
ahead of my companion in making the first cast.
The trout rose readily, and almost too soon we had
more than enough for dinner, though no " rod-smash-
ers " had been seen or felt. Our experience the next
morning, and during the day, and the next morning
in the lake, in the rapids, in the pools, was about the
same ; there was a surfeit of trout eight or ten inches
long, though we rarely kept any under ten ; but the
big fish were lazy and would not rise ; they were in
the deepest water and did not like to get up.

The third day, in the afternoon, we had our first
and only thorough sensation in the shape of a big

230 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

trout. It came none too soon. The interest had
begun to flag. But one big fish a week will do. It
is a pinnacle of delight in the angler's experience
that he may well be three days in working up to,
and once reached, it is three days down to the old
humdrum level again. At least it is with me. It
was a dull, rainy day ; the fog rested low upon the
mountains, and the tune hung heavily upon our
hands. About three o'clock the rain slackened and
we emerged from our den, Joe going to look after his
horse, which had eaten but little since coming into
the woods, the poor creature was so disturbed by the
loneliness and the black flies ; I, to make prepara-
tions for dinner, while my companion lazily took his
rod and stepped to the edge of the big pool in front
of camp. At the first introductory cast, and when
his fly was not fifteen feet from him upon the water,
there was a lunge and a strike, and apparently the
fisherman had hooked a bowlder. I was standing a
few yards below engaged in washing out the coffee-
pail, when I heard him call out : —

" I have got him now ! "

" Yes ; I see you have," said I, noticing his bend-
ing pole and moveless line ; " when I am through, I
will help you get loose."

"No; but I'm not joking," said he; "I have got
a big fish."

I looked up again, but saw no reason to change
my impression, and kept on with my work.

It is proper to say that my companion was a nov-

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 231

ice at fly-fishing, he never having cast a fly till upon
this trip.

Again he called out to me, but deceived by his
coolness and nonchalant tones, and by the lethargy of
the fish, I gave little heed. I knew very well that if
I had struck a fish that held me down in that way I
should have been going through a regular war-dance
on that circle of bowlder-tops, and should have scared
the game into activity, if the hook had failed to wake
him up. But as the farce continued I drew near.

" Does that look like a stone or a log ? " said my
friend, pointing to his quivering line, slowly cutting
the current up toward the centre of the pool.

My skepticism vanished in an instant, and I could
hardly keep my place on the top of the rock.

" I can feel him breathe," said the now warming
fisherman ; " just feel of that pole ? "

I put my eager hand upon the butt and could
easily imagine I felt the throb or pant of something
alive down there in the back depths. But whatever
it was moved about like a turtle. My companion
was praying to hear his reel spin, but it gave out
now and then only a few hesitating clicks. Still the
situation was excitingly dramatic, and we were all
actors. I rushed for the landing-net, but being un-
able to find it, shouted desperately for Joe, who came
hurrying back, excited before he had learned what
the matter was. The net had been left at the lake
below, and must be had with the greatest dispatch.
In the mean time, I skipped about from bowlder to

232 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

bowlder as the fish worked this way or that about
the pool, peering into the water to catch a glimpse
of him, for he had begun to yield a little to the
steady strain that was kept upon him. Presently I
saw a shadowy, unsubstantial something just emerge
from the black depths, then vanish. Then I saw it
again, and this time the huge proportions of the fish
were faintly outlined by the white facings of his
fins. The sketch lasted but a twinkling ; it was only
a flitting shadow upon a darker background, but it
gave me the prof oundest Ike "Walton thrill I ever ex-
perienced. I had been a fisher from my earliest boy-
hood. I came from a race of fishers ; trout-streams
gurgled about the roots of the family tree, and there
was a long accumulated and transmitted tendency
and desire in me that that sight gratified. I did not
wish the pole in my own hands ; there was quite
enough electricity overflowing from it and filling the
air for me. The fish yielded more and more to the
relentless pole, till, in about fifteen minutes from the
time he was struck, he came to the surface, then
made a little whirlpool where he disappeared again.
But presently he was up a second time and lashing
the water into foam as the angler led him toward the
rock upon which I was perched net in hand. As I
reached toward him, down he went again, and, taking
another circle of the pool, came up still more ex-
hausted, when, between his paroxysms, I carefully
ran the net over him and lifted him ashore, amid,
it is needless to say, the wildest enthusiasm of the

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 233

spectators. The congratulatory laughter of the loons
down on the lake showed how even the outsiders
sympathized. Much larger trout have been taken in
these waters and in others, but this fish would have
swallowed any three we had ever before caught.

*' What does he weigh ? " was the natural inquiry
of each; and we took turns "hefting" him. But
gravity was less potent to us just then than usual,
and the fish seemed astonishingly light.

" Four pounds," we said ; but Joe said more. So
we improvised a scale : a long strip of board was
balanced across a stick, and our groceries served as
weights. A four-pound package of sugar kicked the
beam quickly ; a pound of coffee was added ; still it
went up ; then a pound of tea, and still the fish had
little the best of it. But we called it six pounds,
not to drive too sharp a bargain with fortune, and
was more than satisfied. Such a beautiful creature !
marked in every respect like a trout of six inches.
We feasted our eyes upon him for half an hour.
We stretched him upon the ground and admired
him ; we laid him across a log and withdrew a few
paces and admired him ; we hung him against the
shanty and turned our heads from side to side as
women do when they are selecting dress goods, the
better to take in the full force of the effect.

He graced the board or stump that afternoon and
was the sweetest fish we had taken. The flesh was
a deep salmon color and very rich. We had before
discovered that there were two varieties of trout in

234 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

these waters, irrespective of size, — the red-fleshed
and the white-fleshed, — and that the former were
best.

This success gave an impetus to our sport that
carried us through the rest of the week finely. We
had demonstrated that there were big trout here and
that they would rise to a fly. Henceforth big fish
were looked to as a possible result of every excur-
sion. To me, especially, the desire to at least match
my companion^ who had been my pupil in the art,
was keen and constant. We built a raft of logs and
upon it I floated out upon the lake, whipping its
waters right and left, morning, noon, and night.
Many fine trout came to my hand and were released
because they did not fill the bill.

The lake became my favorite resort, while my
companion preferred rather the shore or the long
still pool above, where there was a rude make-shift
of a boat, made of common box-boards.

Upon the lake you had the wildness and solitude
at arm's length, and could better take their look and
measure. You became something apart from them ;
you emerged and had a vantage ground like that of
a mountain peak, and could contemplate them at
your ease. Seated upon my raft and slowly carried
by the current or drifted by the breeze, I had many
a long, silent look into the face of the wilderness,
and found the communion good. I was alone with
the spirit of the forest-bound lakes and felt its pres-
ence and magnetism. I played hide-and-seek with

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 235

it about the nooks and corners and lay in wait for it
upon a little island crowned with a clump of trees
that was moored just to one side the current near
the head of the lake.

Indeed there is no depth of solitude that the mind
does not endow with some human interest. As in a
dead silence the ear is filled with its own murmur,
so amid these aboriginal scenes one's feelings and
sympathies become external to him, as it were, and
he holds converse with them. Then a lake is the
ear as well as the eye of a forest. It is the place to
go to listen and ascertain what sounds are abroad in
the air. They all run quickly thither and report.
If any creature had called in the forest for miles
about I should have heard it. At times I could hear
the distant roar of water off beyond the outlet of the
lake. The sound of the vagrant winds purring here
and there in the tops of the spruces reached my ear.
A breeze would come slowly down the mountain,
then strike the lake, and I could see its footsteps ap-
proaching by the changed appearance of the water.
How slowly the winds move at times, sauntering like
one on a Sunday walk ! A breeze always enlivens
the fish ; a dead calm and all pennants sink ; your
activity with your fly is ill-timed, and you soon take
the hint and stop. Becalmed upon my raft, I ob-
served, as I have often done before, that the life of
nature ebbs and flows, comes and departs, in these
wilderness scenes ; one moment her stage is thronged
and the next quite deserted. Then there is a won-

236 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

derful unity of movement in the two elements, air
and water. When there is much going on in one,
there is quite sure to be much going on in the other.
You have been casting, perhaps, for an hour with
scarcely a jump or any sign of life anywhere about
you, when presently the breeze freshens and the
trout begin to respond, and then of a sudden all the
performers rush in ; ducks come sweeping by, loons
laugh and wheel overhead, then approach the water
on a long gentle incline, plowing deeper and deeper
into its surface until their momentum is arrested, or
converted intp foam; the fish-hawk screams, the
bald eagle goes flapping by, and. your eyes and hands
are full. Then the tide ebbs and both fish and fowl
are gone.

Patiently whipping the waters of the lake from my
rude float, I became an object of great interest to the
loons. I had never seen these birds before in their
proper habitat, and the interest was mutual. When
they had paused on the Hudson during their spring
and fall migrations, I had pursued them in my boat
to try to get near them. Now the case was reversed ;
I was the interloper now, and they would come out
and study me. Sometimes six or eight of them would
be swimming about watching my movements, but
they were wary and made a wide circle. One day
one of their number volunteered to make a thorough
reconnoissance. I saw him leave his comrades and
swim straight toward me. He came, bringing first
one eye to bear upon me then the other. When

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 237

about half the distance was passed over he began to
waver and hesitate. To encourage him I stopped
casting, and taking off my hat began to wave it
slowly to and fro, as in the act of fanning myself.
This started him again, — this was a new trait in
the creature that he must scrutinize more closely.
On he came, till all his markings were distinctly
seen. With one hand I pulled a little revolver from
my hip pocket, and when the loon was about fifty
yards distant and had begun to sidle around me, I
fired : at the flash I saw two webbed feet twinkle in
the air, and the loon was gone ! Lead could not
have gone down so quickly. The bullet cut across
the circles where he disappeared. In a few moments
he reappeared a couple of hundred yards away.
" Ha-ha-ha-a-a," said he, " ha-ha-ha-a-a," and " ha-ha-
ha-a-a," said his comrades, who had been looking on ;
and " ha-ha-ha-a-a," said we all, echo included. He
approached a second time, but not so closely, and
when I began to creep back toward the shore with
my heavy craft, pawing the water first upon one side,
then the other, he followed, and with ironical laughter
witnessed my efforts to stem the current at the head
of the lake. I confess it was enough to make a more
solemn bird than the loon laugh, but it was no fun for
me, and generally required my last pound of steam.

The loons flew back and forth from one lake to
the other, and their voices were about the only nota-
ble wild sounds to be heard.

One afternoon quite unexpectedly I struck my

238 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

big fish in the head of the lake. I was first advised
of his approach by two or three trout jumping clear
from the water to get out of his lordship's way.
The water was not deep 'just there, and he swam so
near the surface that his enormous back cut through.
With a swirl he swept my fly under and turned.

My hook was too near home, and my rod too near
a perpendicular to strike well. More than that, my
presence of mind came near being unhorsed by the
sudden apparition of the fish. If I could have had
a moment's notice, or if I had not seen the monster,
I should have fared better and the fish worse. I
struck, but not with enough decision, and before I
could reel up, my empty hook came back. The trout
had carried it in his jaws till the fraud was detected,
and then spat it out. He came a second time and
made a grand commotion in the water, but not in my
nerves, for I was ready then, but failed to take the
fly and so to get his weight and beauty in these
pages. As my luck failed me at the last I will place
my loss at the full extent of the law, and claim that
nothing less than a ten-pounder was spirited away
from my hand that day. I might not have saved
him, netless as I was upon my cumbrous raft ; but I
should at least have had the glory of the fight, and
the consolation of the fairly vanquished.

These trout are not properly lake-trout, but the
common brook-trout (S. fontanalis). The largest
ones are taken with live bait through the ice in win-
ter. The Indians and the habitans bring them out of

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 239

the wood from here and from Snow Lake on their
toboggans, from two and a half to three feet long.
They have kinks and ways of their own. About
half a mile above camp we discovered a deep oval
bay to one side the main current of the river, that
evidently abounded in big fish. Here they disported
themselves. It was a favorite feeding ground, and
late every afternoon the fish rose all about it, mak-
ing those big ripples the angler delights to see. A
trout, when he comes to the surface, starts a ring
about his own length in diameter ; most of the rings
in the pool, when the eye caught them, were like
barrel hoops, but the haughty trout ignored all our
best efforts ; not one rise did we get. We were told
of this pool on our return to Quebec, and that other
anglers had a similar experience there. But occa-
sionally some old fisherman, like a great advocate
who loves a difficult case, would set his wits to work
and bring into camp an enormous trout taken there.

I had been told in Quebec that I would not see a
bird in the woods, not a feather of any kind. But I
knew I should, though they were not numerous. I
saw and heard a bird nearly every day on the tops of
the trees about that I think was one of the cross-bills.
The king-fisher was there ahead of us with his loud
clicking reel. The osprey was there too, and I saw
him abusing the bald eagle who had probably just
robbed him of a fish. The yellow-rumped warbler I
saw, and one of the kinglets was leading its lisping
brood about through the spruces. In every opening

240 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

the white-throated sparrow abounded, striking up his"
clear sweet whistle at times so loud' and sudden that
one's momentary impression was that some farm boy
was approaching, or was secreted there behind the
logs. Many times, amid those primitive solitudes, I
was quite startled by the human tone and quality of
this whistle. It is little more than a beginning ; the
bird never seems to finish the strain suggested. The
Canada jay was there also very busy about some im-
portant private matter.

One lowery morning as I was standing in camp I
saw a lot of ducks borne swiftly down by the current
around the bend in the river a few rods above.
They saw me at the same instant and turned toward
the shore. On hastening up there I found the old
bird rapidly leading her nearly grown brood through
the woods, as if to go around our camp. As I pur-
sued them they ran squawking with outstretched
stubby wings, scattering right and left, and seeking a
hiding-place under the logs and debris ; I captured
one and carried it into camp. It was just what Joe
wanted ; it would make a valuable decoy. So he
kept it in a box, fed it upon oats and took it out of
the woods with him.

We found the camp we had appropriated was a
favorite stopping-place of the carmen who hauled in
supplies for the gang of two hundred road-builders.
One rainy day near nightfall no less than eight carts
drew up at the old stable, and the rain-soaked drivers,
after picketing and feeding their horses, came down

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 241

to our fire. We were away, and Joe met us on our
return with the unwelcome news. We kept open
house so far as the fire was concerned ; but our roof
was a narrow one at the best, and one or two leaky
spots made it still narrower.

"We shall probably sleep out-of-doors to-night,"
said my companion, " unless we are a match for this
posse of rough teamsters."

But the men proved to be much more peaceably
disposed than the same class at home ; they apolo-
gized for intruding, pleading the inclemency of the
weather, and were quite willing with our permission
to take up with pot-luck about the fire and leave us
the shanty. They dried their clothes upon poles and
logs, and had their fun and their bantering amid it
all. An Irishman among them did about the only
growling ; he invited himself into our quarters, and
before morning had Joe's blanket about him in ad-
dition to his own.

On Friday we made an excursion to Great Lake
Jacques Cartier, paddling and poleing up the river in
the rude box-boat. It was a bright, still morning after
the rain, and everything had a new, fresh appear-
ance. Expectation was ever on tiptoe as each turn
in the river opened a new prospect before us. How
wild, and shaggy, and silent it was ! What fascinat-
ing pools, what tempting stretches of trout-haunted
water! Now and then we would catch a glimpse
of long black shadows starting away from the boat
and shooting through the sunlit depths. But no

16

242 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

sound or motion on shore was heard or seen. Near
the lake we came to a long, shallow rapid, when we
pulled off our shoes and stockings and with our trou-
sers rolled above our knees towed the boat up it,
wincing and cringing amid the sharp, slippery stones.
With benumbed feet and legs we reached the still
water that forms the stem of the lake and presently
saw the arms of the wilderness open and the long
deep-blue expanse in their embrace. We rested and
bathed, and gladdened our eyes with the singularly
beautiful prospect. The shadows of summer clouds
were slowly creeping up and down the sides of the
mountains that hemmed it in. On the far eastern
shore near the head, banks of what was doubtless
white sand shone dimly in the sun, and the illusion
that there was a town nestled there haunted my
mind constantly. It was like a section of the Hud-
son below the Highlands, except that these waters
were bluer and colder, and these shores darker than
even those Sir Hendrik first looked upon ; but surely,
one felt, a steamer will round that point presently, or
a sail drift into view ! We paddled a mile or more
up the east shore, then across to the west, and found
such pleasure in simply gazing upon the scene that
our rods were quite neglected. We did some casting
after a while, but raised no fish of any consequence
till we were in the outlet again, when they responded
so freely that the " disgust of trout " was soon upon
us.

At the rapids, on our return, as I was standing to

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 243

my knees in the swift, cold current and casting into
a deep hole behind a huge bowlder that rose four or
five feet above the water amidstream, two trout, one
of them a large one, took my flies, and finding the
fish and the current united too strong for my tackle
I sought to gain the top of the bowlder, in which at-
tempt I got wet to my middle and lost my fish.
After I had gained the rock I could not get away
again with my clothes on without swimming ; which,
to say nothing of wet garments the rest of the way
home, I did not like to do amid those rocks and
swift currents ; so after a vain attempt to communi-
cate with my companion above the roar of the water,
I removed my clothing, left them together with my
tackle upon the rock, and by a strong effort stemmed
the current and reached the shore. The boat was a
hundred yards above, and when I arrived there my
teeth were chattering with the cold, my feet were
numb with bruises, and the black flies were making
the blood stream down my back. We hastened back
with the boat, and by wading out into the current
again and holding it by a long rope, it swung around
with my companion aboard and , was held in the eddy
behind the rock. I clambered up, got my clothes
on, and we were soon shooting down stream toward
home ; but the winter of discontent that shrouded
one half of me made sad inroads upon the placid
feeling of a day well spent that enveloped the other,
all the way to camp.

That night something carried off all our fish, —

244 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

doubtless a fisher or lynx, as Joe had seen an animal
of some kind about camp that day.

I must not forget the two red squirrels that fre-
quented the camp during our stay and that were so
tame they would approach within a few feet of us
and take the pieces of bread or fish tossed to them.
When a particularly fine piece of hard-tack was
secured they would spin off to their den with it
somewhere near by.

Caribou abound in these woods, but we saw only
their tracks, and of bears, which are said to be plen-
tiful, we saw no signs.

Saturday morning we packed up our traps and
started on our return, and found that the other side
of the spruce-trees and the vista of the lonely road
going south were about the same as coming north.
But we understood the road better and the buck-
board better, and our load was lighter, hence the dis-
tance was easier accomplished.

I saw a solitary robin by the road-side and won-
dered what could have brought this social and half-
domesticated bird so far into these wilds. In La
Grand Brulure, a hermit-thrush perched upon a dry
tree in a swampy place and sang most divinely. We
paused to listen to his clear, silvery strain poured out
without stint upon that unlistening solitude. I was
half persuaded I had heard him before on first enter-
ing the woods.

We nooned again at No Man's Inn on the banks
of a trout-lake, and fared well and had no reckoning

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 245

to pay. Late in the afternoon we saw a lonely
pedestrian laboring up a hill far ahead of us. When
he heard us coming he leaned his back against the
bank, and was lighting his pipe as we passed. He
was an old man, an Irishman, and looked tired. He
had come from the farther end of the road, fifty miles
distant, and had thirty yet before him to reach town.
He looked the dismay he evidently felt, when in an-
swer to his inquiry we told him it was yet ten miles
to the first house, La Chance's. But there was a
roof nearer than that, where he doubtldss passed the
night, for he did not claim hospitality at the cabin of
La Chance. We arrived there betimes, but found the
" spare bed " assigned to other guests ; so we were
comfortably lodged upon the hay -mow. One of the
boys lighted us up with a candle and made level
places for us upon the hay.

La Chance was one of the game wardens, or con-
stables appointed by the government to see the game
laws enforced. Joe had not felt entirely at his ease
about the duck he was surreptitiously taking to town,
and when, by its " quack, quack," it called upon La
Chance for protection, he responded at once. Joe
was obliged to liberate it then and there, and to hear
the law read and expounded, and be threatened till
he turned pale beside. It was evident that they
follow the home government in the absurd practice
of enforcing their laws in Canada. La Chance said
he was under oath not to wink at or permit any vio-
lation of the law, and seemed to think that made a
difference.

246 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

We were off early in the morning, and before we
had gone two miles met a party from Quebec who
must have been driving nearly all night to give the
black flies an early breakfast. Before long a slow
rain set in; we saw another party who had taken
refuge in a house in a grove. When the rain had
become so brisk that we began to think of seeking
shelter ourselves, we passed a party of young men
and boys — sixteen of them in a cart turning back to
town, water-soaked and heavy (for the poor horse
had all it co'ald pull), but merry and good-natured.
We paused a while at the farm-house where we had
got our hay on going out, were treated to a drink of
milk and some wild red cherries, and when the rain
slackened drove on, and by ten o'clock saw the city
eight miles distant, with the sun shining upon its
steep tinned roofs.

The next morning we set out per steamer for the
Saguenay, and entered upon the second phase of
our travels, but with less relish than we could have
wished. Scenery-hunting is the least satisfying pur-
suit I have ever engaged in. What one sees in his
necessary travels, or doing his work, or going a-fish-
ing, seems worth while, but the famous view you
go out in cold blood to admire is quite apt to elude
you. Nature loves to enter a door another hand has
opened ; a mountain view, or a water-fall, I have
noticed, never looks better than when one has just
been warmed up by the capture of a big trout. If
we had been bound for some salmon-stream up the

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 247

Saguenay, we should perhaps have possessed that
generous and receptive frame of mind — that open
house of the heart — which makes one " eligible to
any good fortune," and the grand scenery would
have come in as fit sauce to the salmon. An advent-
ure, a bit of experience of some kind, is what one
wants when he goes forth to admire woods and wa-
ters, — something to create a draught and make the
embers of thought and feeling brighten. Nature,
like certain wary game, is best taken by seeming to
pass by her intent on other matters.

But without any such errand, or occupation, or in-
direction, we managed to extract considerable satis-
faction from the view of the lower St. Lawrence and
the Saguenay.

We had not paid the customary visit to the falls
of the Montmorency, but we shall see them after all,
for before we are a league from Quebec they come
into view on the left. A dark glen or chasm there
at the end of the Beaufort Slopes seems suddenly to
have put on a long white apron. By intently gazing
one can see the motion and falling of the water,
though it is six or seven miles away. There is no
sign of the river above or below but this trembling
white curtain of foam and spray.

It was very sultry when we left Quebec, but about
noon we struck much clearer and cooler air, and
soon after ran into an immense wave or puff of fog
that came drifting up the river and set all the fog-
guns booming along shore. We were soon through

248 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

it into clear, crisp space, with room enough for any
eye to range in. On the south the shores of the
great river appear low and uninteresting, but on the
north they are bold and striking enough to make it
up — high, scarred, unpeopled mountain ranges the
whole way. The points of interest to the eye in the
broad expanse of water were the white porpoises
that kept rolling, rolling in the distance, all clay.
They came up like the perimeter of a great wheel,
that turns slowly and then disappears. From mid-
forenoon we could see far ahead an immense column
of yellow smoke rising up and flattening out upon
the sky and stretching away beyond the horizon. Its
form was that of some aquatic plant that shoots a
stem up through the water, and spreads its broad leaf
upon the surface. This smoky lily-pad must have
reached nearly to Maine. It proved to be in the In-
dian country in the mountains beyond the mouth of
the Saguenay, and must have represented an im-
mense destruction of forest timber.

The steamer is two hours crossing the St. Law-
rence from Riviere du Loup to Tadoussac. The
Saguenay pushes a broac] sweep of dark blue water
down into its mightier brother, that is sharply de-
fined from the deck of the steamer. The two rivers
seem to touch, but not to blend, so proud and haughty
is this chieftain from the north. On the mountains
above Tadoussac one could see banks of sand left by
the ancient seas. Naked rock and sterile sand are
all the Tadoussacker has to make his garden of, so

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 249

far as I observed. Indeed, there is no soil along the
Saguenay until you get to Ha-ha Bay, and then there
is not much, and poor quality at that.

What the ancient fires did not burn the ancient
seas have washed away. I overheard an English
resident say to a Yankee tourist, "You will think,
you are approaching the end of the world up here."
It certainly did suggest something apochryphal or
anti-mundane — a segment of. the moon or of a cleft
asteriod, matter dead or wrecked. The world-build-
ers must have had their foundry up in this neighbor-
hood, and the bed of this river was doubtless the
channel through which the molten granite flowed.
Some mischief-loving god has let in the sea while
things were yet red hot and there has been a time
here. But the channel still seems filled with water
from the mid-Atlantic, cold and blue-black, and in
places between seven and eight thousand feet deep
(one and a half miles). In fact the enormous depth
of the Saguenay is one of the wonders of physical
geography. It is as great a marvel in its way as Ni-
agara.

The ascent of the river js made by night, and the
traveler finds himself in Ha-ha Bay in the morning.
The steamer lies here several hours before starting
on her return trip, and takes in large quantities of
white birch wood, as she does also at Tadoussac.
The chief product of the country seemed to be
huckleberries, of which large quantities are shipped
to Quebec in rude board boxes holding about a peck

250 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

each. Little girls came aboard or lingered about the
landing with cornucopias of birch-bark filled with red
raspberries ; five cents for about half a pint was the
usual price. The village of St. Alphonse, where the
steamer tarries, is a cluster of small humble dwellings
dominated, like all Canadian villages, by an immense
church. Usually the church will hold all the houses
in the village ; pile them all up and they would
hardly equal it in size ; it is the one conspicuous ob-
ject, and is seen afar; and on the various lines of
travel one sees many more priests than laymen.
They appear to be about the only class that stir about
and have a good time. Many of the houses were cov-
ered with birch bark — the canoe birch — held to its
place by perpendicular strips of board or split poles.

A man with a horse and a buck-board persuaded
us to give him twenty-five cents each to take us two
miles up the St. Alphonse River to see the salmon
jump. There is a high saw-mill dam there which
every salmon in his upward journey tries his hand at
leaping. A race-way has been constructed around
the dam for their benefit, which it seems they do not
use till they have repeatedly tried to scale the dam.
The day before our visit three dead fish were found
in the pool below, killed by too much jumping.
Those we saw had the jump about all taken out of
them ; several did not get more than half their length
out of the water, and occasionally only an impotent
nose would protude from the foam. One fish made
a leap of three or four feet and landed on an apron

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 251

of the dam and tumbled helplessly back ; he shot up
like a bird and rolled back like a clod. This was the
only view of salmon, the buck of the rivers, we had
on our journey.

It was a bright and flawless midsummer day that
we sailed down the Saguenay, and nothing was want-
ing but a good excuse for being there. The river
was as lonely as the St. John's road ; not a sail or a
smoke-stack the whole sixty-five miles. The scenery
culminates at Cape Eternity, where the rocks rise
sheer from the water to a height of eighteen hundred
feet. This view dwarfed anything I had ever before
seen. There is perhaps nothing this side the Yosem-
ite chasm that equals it, and, emptied of its water,
this chasm would far surpass that famous canon, as
the river here is a mile and a quarter deep. The
bald eagle nests in the niches in the precipice secure
from any intrusion. Immense blocks of the rock had
fallen out, leaving areas of shadow and clinging over-
hanging masses that were a terror and fascination to
the eye. There was a great fall a few years ago,
just as the steamer had passed from under and blown
her whistle to awake the echoes. The echo came
back, and with it a part of the mountain that aston-
ished more than it delighted the lookers-on. The
pilot took us close around the base of the precipice
that we might fully inspect it. And here my eyes
played me a trick the like of which they had never
done before. One of the boys of the steamer brought
to the forward deck his hands full of stones that the

252 THE HALCYON IN CANADA.

curious ones among the passengers might try how
easy it was to throw one ashore. " Any girl ought
to do it," I said to myself, after a man had tried and
had failed to clear half the distance. Seizing a stone,
I cast it with vigor and confidence, and as much ex-
pected to see it smite the rock as I expected to live.
"It is a good while getting there," I mused, as I
watched its course ; down, down it went ; there, it
will ring upon the granite in half a breath ; no, down

— into the water, a little more than half way ! " Has
my arm lost its cunning ? " I said, and tried .again and
again, but with like result. The eye was completely
at fault. There was a new standard of size before
it to which it failed to adjust itself. The rock is so
enormous and towers so above you that you get the
impression it is much nearer than it actually is.
When the eye is full it says " here we are," and the
hand is ready to prove the fact ; but in this case
there is an astonishing discrepancy between what the
eye reports and what the hand finds out.

Cape Trinity, the wife of this colossus, stands
across a chasm through which flows a small tributary
of the Saguenay, and is a head or two shorter as be-
comes' a wife, and less rugged and broken in outline.

From Riviere du Loup, where we passed the night
and ate our first " Tommy-cods," our thread of travel
makes a big loup around New Brunswick to St.
John, thence out and down through Maine to Boston,

— a thread upon which many delightful excursions-
and reminiscences might be strung. We traversed

THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 253

the whole of the valley of the Metapedia and passed
the doors of many famous salmon streams and rivers,
and heard everywhere the talk they inspire; one
could not take a nap in the car for the excitement of
the big fish stories he was obliged to overhear.

The Metapedia is a most enticing-looking stream ;
its waters are as colorless as melted snow ; I could
easily have seen the salmon in it as we shot along, if
they had come out from their hiding-places. It was
the first white-water stream we had seen since leav-
ing the Catskills ; for all the Canadian streams are
black or brown, either from the iron in the soil or
from the leechings of the spruce swamps. But in
New Brunswick we saw only these clear, silver-shod
streams ; I imagined they had a different ring or tone
also. The Metapedia is deficient in good pools in its
lower portions ; its limpid waters flowing with a tran-
quil murmur over its wide, evenly paved bed for
miles at a stretch. The salmon pass over these shal-
lows by night and rest in the pools by day. The
Restigouche, which it joins, and which is a famous
salmon-stream and the father of famous salmon-
streams, is of the same complexion and a delight to
look upon. There is a noted pool where the two
join, and one can sit upon the railroad bridge and
count the noble fish in the lucid depths below. The
valley here is fertile, and has a cultivated, well-kept
look.

We passed the Jacquet, the Belledune, the Nepissis-
quit, the Miramichi (" happy retreat ") in the night,
and have only their bird-call names to report.

14 DAY USE

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