Charles C. Abbott

“ Too cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its life at night; and how tragic the result when, nearly at the journey’s end, it is seized by a lurking foe; dragged down, it may be, by a snake or a turtle!
The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the tall wild rice, there is daily enacted scene after scene as full of import as those which caused the very forest to tremble when the wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or deer that had fallen. ”

“ Whether in leaf or bare of foliage, there is a fixedness that palls at last. We are given to looking from the tree to the world beyond; to hurrying from beneath their branches to the open country. To live in a dense forest is akin to living in a great city. There is a sense of confinement against which, sooner or later, we are sure to rebel. We long for change. The man who is perfectly satisfied has no knowledge of what satisfaction really is. ”

“ How well the birds know the wild meadow tracts! They have not forsaken my tree and its surroundings, but for one here I see a dozen there. Mere inky specks, as seen from my point of view, but I know them as marsh-wrens and swamp-sparrows, kingbirds and red-wings, that will soon form those enormous flocks that add so marked a feature to the autumn landscape. It needs no field-glass to mark down the passing herons that, coming from the river-shore, take a noontide rest in the overgrown marsh. ”

“ There had been adventure enough; and yet, as seen from a distance, this bit of marsh was but weeds and water.
Southward there stands the remnant of a forest: second- and third-growth woodland usually; for trees of really great age are now generally alone. I can see from where I sit three primeval beeches that are known to be over two centuries old, and not far away towered one giant tulip-tree that since the country’s earliest settlement had stood like a faithful sentinel, guarding the south bank of a nameless spring brook. ”

“ What is a bird’s nest? Every one knows, after a fashion, and yet few have ever considered how much that bunch of twigs, hollow in a tree, or hole in the ground really means. Like so much that is familiar, we glance at it in a careless way and never stop to consider its full significance. Except in a very few instances, a bird’s nest is never the result of a single individual’s labor. Even if but one bird does all the work, there has previously been a decision reached by two birds as to where the nest shall be placed, and how much this means! ”

“ The stain of winter is washed away by an April shower, and the freshest green of the pasture is ever that which is newest. There is at times a subtle element in the atmosphere that the chemist calls “ozone,” but a better name is “snap.” It dwells in April sunshine and is the inveterate foe of inertia. It moves us, whether we will or not, and we are now in a hurry even when there is no need of haste. The “spring fever” that we hear of as a malady in town never counts as its victim the lover of an April outing. The beauty of novelty is greater than the beauty of abundance. ”

“ Nowadays we generally outgrow this love of trapping, or it remains in the love of sport with gun or rod. But, old Izaak Walton and Frank Forrester to the contrary notwithstanding, I hold that nothing in fishing or shooting has that freshness, that thrilling excitement, that close touch with nature, that clings to our early days, when, in autumn and winter, we went the round of the traps. How through the long night we had visions of the rabbit cautiously approaching the box-trap on the edge of the swamp! ”

“ CORN-STALK FIDDLES It is a merit of our climate that at no time of the year are we, as children, shut out from healthy out-door pleasure. There are shady nooks along our creeks and rivers and delightful old mill-ponds wherein we may bathe in midsummer, and there are acres of glassy ice over which to skate in midwinter. Spring and autumn are too full of fun to particularize, the average day being available for scores of methods whereby to make life a treasure beyond compare, spending it, to the mind of a boy, in that most rational way, having sport. ”

“ The pretty peacock minnows throng the grassy beach at high tide, playing with their fellows in water just deep enough to cover them, and are, when here, very tame and careless. They even get stranded upon the airy side of floating leaves, and enjoy the excitement. They realize, it would seem, that where they are no pike can rush down upon them, no snake work its way unseen among them, no turtle crawl into their playground; but as the tide goes out and these minnows are forced nearer to the river’s channel, they lose their carelessness and are suspicious of all about them. ”

“ What a change! and would that this old traveller could revisit the Delaware to-day. My boat is free again and the mists are gone. Through the trees are sifted the level sunbeams. There is at least a chance now to compare notes. The forest is now a field, 179the trackless marsh a meadow; wild life is largely a thing of the past; silence, both day and night, replaces sound. No, not that; but only the minor sounds are left. There are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet song of the thrush. No stags now swim the river, but there remain the mink and the musk-rat. ”

“ Where the brook that drains the meadow finds its way, the little rail-birds have congregated. Many spent their summer along the Musketaquid, where Thoreau spent his best days, but they bring no message from New England. They very seldom speak above a whisper. Not so the king-rail. He chatters as he threads the marsh and dodges the great blue barrier that sweeps above the cat-tail grasses and has to be content with a sparrow or a mouse. ”

“ There is every year the one memorable morning when we can say, in broad terms, “The birds are here.” When the oriole whistles from the tallest tree in the lawn; when the wren chatters from the portal of his old-time home; when the indigo-finch sings in the weedy pasture; when lisping warblers throng every tree and shrub; while over all, high in air, the twittering swallows dart in ecstasy ”

“ DEAD LEAVES I have often wondered why the Indians did not call November the month of dead leaves. The out-of-town world is full of them now. They replace the daisies and dandelions in the open fields, the violets and azaleas in the shady woods. They are a prominent feature of the village street. Many will cling to the trees the winter long, but millions are scattered over the ground. Even on the river I find them floating, borne slowly by the tide or hurrying across the rippled surface, chased by the passing breeze. ”

“ Not necessarily one where man has never been: it will suffice if Nature has withstood his interference; and this is true of these pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this 64silent battle-field where the struggle for existence never ceases, and yet, as we see it, peaceful as the fleecy clouds that fleck an April sky.
Though the wind that swept the wide reach of waters close at hand still smacked of wintry weather, there was a welcome warmth on shore. The oaks even hinted of the coming leaf. Their buds were so far swollen that the sharp outlines of bare twigs against the sky were rounded off. ”

“ The world dead, indeed! What more vigorous and full of life than the mosses covering the rich wood-mould? Before me, too, lies a long-fallen tree cloaked in moss greener than the summer pastures. Not the sea alone possesses transforming magic; there is also “a wood-change into something rich and strange.” Never does the thought of death and decay centre about such a sight. The chickadee drops from the bushes above, looks the moss-clad log over carefully, and, when again poised on an overhanging branch, loudly lisps its praises. ”

“ It does not need trees or rank shrubbery to make a wilderness. This low-lying tract to-day, with but a summer’s growth above it, is as wild and lonely as are the Western plains. Lonely, that is, as man thinks, but not forsaken. The wily mink, the pert weasel, the musk-rat, and the meadow-mouse ramble in safety through it. ”

“ Then, too, the gulls and crows screamed above the roar and crunching of the ice as it struck the scattered trees, while in every sheltered nook was a full complement of song-sparrows. Why any one should bother about geology at such a time I could not see; but my companion was intent upon problems of the ice age, and continually remarked, “Now, if” or “Don’t you see?” but I always cut him short with “See that crow?” or “Hear that sparrow?” No, he had not seen or heard the birds, and neither had I his particular impressions. ”

“ Though the sky may be 82gray, the earth brown, and the wind out of the north, let a thrush sing, a kinglet lisp, a crested tit whistle, and a tree-sparrow chirp among the swelling leaf-buds, and you have seen and heard that which is not only a delight in itself, but the more pleasing that it is the prelude announcing the general coming of the birds. ”

“ Small, recent growths of timber, even where they have succeeded an ancient forest, are not, as a rule, attractive. Their newness is too evident, and, except for a few passing birds, they are not apt to harbor much wild life. As I look at the mingled foliage of oaks and elms, beeches, hickories, and wild cherry, I give little heed to that before me and recall forests worthy of the name, doing precisely what I have declared unwise. A naturalist could find more material in these few acres of woodland than he could “work up” in a lifetime. ”

“ In the so-called pine barrens there is a luxuriant vegetation; but here about the deserted house and out-building there was nothing but glistening sand, moss, and those pallid grasses that suggest death rather than life, however feeble. And how widely different is it to be surrounded by ruin wrought by man, and to be in a forest where man has never been! ”

“ There never was an April that had not its full complement of robins and blithe meadow-larks, of glorious crested tits and gay cardinals, of restless red-wings and stately grakles, and these are quite equal to driving dull care away, and keeping it away, if the migrants did not come at all. Even in March, and early in the month, we often have a foretaste of abundant bird-life ”

“ On the other hand, a modern “country place,” where Nature is pared down until nothing but the foundation-rocks remain, is, to say the least, an eyesore. There is more pleasure and profit in an Indian trail than in an asphaltum driveway.
Westward lie the meadows, and beyond them the river. Seen as a whole, they are beautiful and, like all of Nature’s work, will bear close inspection. The bird’s-eye view to-day was too comprehensive to be altogether enjoyable: it was bewildering. How completely such a tract epitomizes a continent! The little creek is a river ”

“ Here is the whole matter in a nutshell: the birds are not averse to coming, but the people will not let them. This is the more strange, when we remember that hundreds of dollars were spent to accommodate the pestiferous imported sparrow, that is and always must be a positive curse. Hundreds for sparrows, and not one cent for a bluebird! While the mischief can never be undone, it can be held in check, if we will but take the trouble, and this is a mere matter of town-garden rearrangement; and why, indeed, not treat our ears to music as well as our eyes to color and our palates to sweetness? ”

“ This gave me an excellent idea of what a great oak really is. Birds quite out of sight and hearing of each other were resting on branches from the same trunk. Although the middle of July, there was no lack of song, and second nesting of many familiar birds is, I judge, more common in Maryland than in New Jersey. Of all the birds that came, the little green herons were the most amusing. A pair doubtless had a nest near by, or young that were not yet on the wing. They walked sedately along the level branches, as a man might pace up and down his study, buried in deep thought. ”

“ In the smile of winter sunshine there will be enacted another drama, but now it is comedy rather than tragedy. There are no conflicting interests now, no serious quarrels, no carking cares—the world is really in good humor and our days of early darkness are misunderstood.
Let him who doubts—and there are but few who do not—turn from the worn lines of travel, go well out of the beaten path, and find, in the way-side nooks his neighbors have neglected, most excellent company: birds of brave heart that can sing in the teeth of a storm ”

“ The pleasure—common to us all—we take in crushing them beneath our feet savors of heartlessness. Why should we not recall their kindness when, as bright-green leaves, each cast its mite of grateful shade, so dear to the rambler, and now, when they have fallen, let them rest in peace? We should 204not be ugly and revengeful merely because it is winter. There is nothing to fret us in this change from shade to sunshine, from green leaves to brown. The world is not dead because of it. ”

“ To hear this sound throughout a long summer day is depressing, particularly if you hear nothing else, for the steady hum of insect-life hardly passes for sound. It was only when I listened for it that I was aware that millions of tiny creatures were filling the air with a humming that varied only as the light breeze carried it away or brought it nearer and clearer than before. There is a vast difference between absolute and comparative or apparent silence. ”

“ While eating we listened, and I heard the voices of nine different birds. Some merely chirped in passing, it is true, but the marsh-wrens in the cat-tail thicket just across the creek were not silent for a moment. Here in the valley of the Delaware, as I recently found them on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the wrens are quite nocturnal, and I would have been glad to have heard them sing in the moonlight again; for our enthusiasm would have been strengthened by a few such glimpses of the night side of Nature. ”

“ Even now I hear an overstaying chewink—for this is a warm wood the winter long—tossing them in little clouds about him as he searches for the abundant insects that vainly seek shelter where they have fallen. The birds seem to seek fun as well as food among the leaves. I have often watched them literally dive from the overhanging bushes into a heap of leaves, and then with a flirt of the wings send dozens flying into the air. It is hard to imagine any other purpose than pure sport. ”

“ Carry a little of the home forest to our yards, and birds will follow it. And let me here wander to an allied matter, that of the recently-established Arbor Day. What I have just said recalls it.
To merely transplant a tree, move it from one spot to another, where perhaps it is less likely to remain for any length of time than where it previously stood, is, it seems to me, the very acme of folly. The chances are many that the soil is less suitable, and so growth will be retarded, and the world is therefore not one whit the better off. ”

“ The strange, retiring winter wren is equally a lover of dead leaves. He plays with them in a less boisterous manner, but none the less delights in tossing them to and fro. It is at such a time that a few notes of his marvellous summer song occasionally escape him. The white-throated sparrows fairly dance among or upon the heaped-up leaves, and play bo-peep with the clouds of them they send aloft ”