Whigs

“ Put a whip-poor-will and a ruby-throated hummer side by side and they certainly do look very little alike—the big whip-poor-will, with its mottled plumage and its short, gaping beak, and the tiny hummingbird with its burnished feathers and its long needle of a bill. ”

“ Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds,
The wild bees go and come.
Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel,
They wander wide and far,
Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell,
Through vales once choked with war. ”

“ Blessed Virgin! when shall I again shire the long crooked slices of the red meat, mixed with white, from the flats and the hollows of a broad spool-bone!
"He is hungering and yearning to pick my bones, the cannibal dog," said Gibby. "But it brings me in mind of a good saying and a true: The swine that is most eager to feed itself is the first slaughtered to feed others."
"The horse-leach hath drawn thee aside from thy onward relation, thou froward and voracious one," said the friar: "Verily, it is better for thee that thou return to thy tale, before thy strength be consumed within thee." ”

“ On this long quotation, I shall merely take the liberty of remarking, that the only inconvenience ascribed to the storied hives, invented and made by my Father—the only objection made to them—is, that they are too dear, "that they will cost more than a louis each; a price infinitely beyond the reach of a labouring man." ”

“ It was unexpected news, for only the day before a new nucleus hive had been built up from the brood frames of No. 5 and all the queen cells visible had been removed. But there was no doubt about the swarm. Around the hive the air was thick with the whirring mass and filled with the thrilling strum of innumerable wings. There is no sound in nature more exciting and more stimulating. At one moment the hive is normal. You pass it without a suspicion of the great adventure that is being hatched within. ”

“ The boy put the arrow in his quiver.
Red Squirrel said, “You pass my wigwam very often. You cry because you cannot kill birds. Your fingers are numb with cold. Obey me. Thus it shall always be summer. Thus you can kill many birds.”
From Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Permanent Ash-Bark Wigwam of the Wild Rice Gathering Ojibwa.
[Pg 105] Red Squirrel said again, “Obey me. When you reach your father’s wigwam, throw down your bow and arrows. Begin to weep. If your mother says, ‘My son, what is the matter?’ do not answer her. Continue weeping. ”

“ A swarm, taking flight, rushes out of the hive, and seems bent on fixing itself in some distant quarter, as if it feared the neighbourhood of other swarms—as if it felt that its most formidable enemies were those of its own kind. ”

“ The males give forth a loud wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, sometimes with a rolling k-k-k-k-k at the end. Very little drumming on resonant objects is done by the male, once a female is located, and in this case almost none was done except when one male was out of sight and hearing of the female and the other courting bird. To the casual observer, the chasing of the female by the male to a tree, and from tree to tree, in a seemingly idle manner (often, but not always, by both males) is in reality a part of the mating manoeuvres. ”

“ As I sat looking from my window the other morning upon a red squirrel gathering hickory nuts from a small hickory, and storing them up in his den in the bank, I was forcibly reminded of the state of constant fear and apprehension in which the wild creatures live, and I tried to picture to myself what life would be to me, or to any of us, hedged about by so many dangers, real or imaginary. ”

“ You see that large white-oak on the lower side of the yard, that is the place to have your hog pen; it will always produce acorns enough to fatten a hog; then see that large hickory in front of the house; it is full of squirrels every day in the fall, and while your hog is fattening you can sit in the door and shoot a mess as you need them. Then, if you get tired eating squirrels, just look out yonder in that old field at the ’simmon trees. They are full of ’possoms every night, and you can gather a mess as you need them. ”

“ It will surprise unscientific readers to be told that the nearest relatives of whip-poor-wills and nighthawks are the swifts and the hummingbirds. As if a chimney swift were more like a whip-poor-will than like a swallow! ”

“ The front was covered, to a depth of an inch or more, three-quarters of the way up, and from the ledge before the entrance hung a huge inverted cone of bees, clinging firmly together. The hive was about to swarm. It had prospered, and multiplied, and grown overfull. There were throngs of young workers, moreover, just ready to emerge full grown from their cells and take up the business and duties of the hive. ”

“ The ingenuity exercised in the selection of the bough and in the placing of the twigs is certainly very remarkable. When the wind blows furiously you may see the nest moving gently, riding on the swaying boughs, while one of the birds perches on a branch close by, and goes up and down like a boat on the waves. Except by the concussion of branches beating hard against the nest, it is rarely broken; up to a certain point it would seem as if the older nests are the firmest, perhaps because of their weight. ”

“ High among their branches, the red and yellow mocking-birds still build their hanging nests, uncouth storks and tree-porcupines cling above, and the spotted deer and the tapir drink from the sluggish stream below. The night is still made noisy with a thousand cries of bird and beast ”

“ Our wigwam is raised with skill and care In some quiet forest nook; Our healthful fare is of ven'son rare, Our draught from the crystal brook. In summer we trap the beaver shy, In winter we chase the deer, And, summer or winter, our days pass by In honest and hearty cheer. ”

“ All the wigglers in wigglerdom are out zigzagging themselves to the top of the water to stick their star-shaped noses up for a bit of air, and then falling to the bottom again to feed on the decaying muck. The pond seems alive with them, and the frogs are having a feast, eating wigglers by the dozen at every swallow. My ducks come waddling up from the house, and enter the pond for a swim; but, catching sight of the frogs, they conclude to abandon their bath and have a frog dinner. ”

“ Any sudden or clumsy movement, which jars the combs or frames, will excite the bees, and if but one should be crushed, the odour of their slaughtered comrade rouses the inhabitants of the hive to a pitch of exasperation. ”

“ Upon the surfaces of these combs the bees live, and in their cells they store the honey and raise the young bees. Thus at a moment's notice, and without in the least disturbing any function of the swarm, we can study the whole economy of the hive, whereas, hampered both by his lack of appliances and by the medieval and impracticable interior of the hive, Virgil must either have suffocated the swarm with acrid fumes in order to subdue it or have drowned it in the flowing honey of the broken combs. ”

“ All through breakfast Miss Hazy was in a flutter of excitement. She had once heard of a baby being left on a door-step, but never a horse. When the limit of her curiosity was about reached, she saw Mrs. Wiggs coming across the yard carrying a bucket. She hastened to meet her.
"Mornin'," called Mrs. Wiggs, brightly, in spite of her night's vigil; "ain't we got a fine hoss?"
Miss Hazy put the ash-barrel between herself and the animal, and hazarded a timid inspection, while Mrs. Wiggs made explanations, and called attention to Cuba's fine points.
"Can't you come in an' take a warm?" ”

“ Towns they have none, being alwayes removing from one place to another for conveniency of food, sometimes to those places where one sort of fish is most plentiful, other whiles where others are. I have seen half [p. 127.] a hundred of their Wigwams together in a piece of ground and they shew prettily, within a day or two, or a week they have been all dispersed. They live for the most part by the Sea-side, especially in the spring and summer quarters, in winter they are gone up into the Countrie to hunt Deer and Beaver, the younger webbs going with them. ”

“ Wiggs got up and went toward the bed. The three little girls lay huddled under one old quilt, their faces pale and sunken. She turned away abruptly, and looked toward the corner where Billy slept on a pallet. The blankets on his bed were insufficient even for him. She put her hands over her face, and for a moment dry sobs convulsed her. The hardest grief is often that which leaves no trace. When she went back to the stove she had a smile ready for the sick boy. ”

“ He tried to talk to her, but there was a seal upon his lips; he wanted to tell her of the squirrel, to take her down to the hedgerow and bid her listen to that sweet, sad music among the breeze-swept corn, to show her the linnet's nest, and to give her the honeysuckle he had plucked from the flower-wreathed hedge. ”

“ When a hive is ready to swarm, I had before observed, that the moment of swarming is always preceded by a very lively agitation, which first affects the queen, is then communicated to the workers, and excites such a tumult among them, that they abandon their labours, and rush in disorder to the outlets of the hive. ”

“ As we neared the wicket gate again we stood upon a bit of jutting rock and peered over the wall, sniffing the hawthorn buds with ecstasy. The white bossy drew closer, treading softly on its daisy carpet; the wondering cows looked up at us as they peacefully chewed their cuds; a man in corduroy breeches came from a corner of the pasture, and with a sharp, narrow hoe rooted out a thistle or two that had found their way into this sweet feeding-ground. ”

“ The men wear feathers often the tails of tropick birds stuck upright in their hair, they have also a kind of wiggs made upon one string of the hair of men, dogs, or Cocoa nut strings, which they tie under their hair upon the back of their heads; I have seen them also wear whimsical garlands made of a variety of flowers stuck into a peice of the rind of plaintain, or of scarlet pease stuck upon a peice of wood with gum, but these are not common. ”

“ The swart gipsy, like the hawk, for ever travels on, but, like the hawk, that seems to have no road, and yet returns to the same trees, so he, winding in circles of which we civilised people do not understand the map, comes, in his own times and seasons, home to the same waste spot, and cooks his savoury bouillon by the same beech. ”

“ It was some days before I correctly interpreted their curious contradictory actions, and as I remember it now, my hint came from a spider-web which had spread its catch all beneath a lilac-bush, and upon which I discerned a number of tiny balls of sawdust which had chanced to fall upon it. Looking directly above, among the branches, I soon found a wiggler, not only gnawing the wood but with one-third of its body in a burrow in a twig the size of my finger. ”

“ The Wigeon ranks next to the Teal and Wild Duck as an article of food, and, being more plentiful than either of these birds, it is among the best known of all the Ducks which frequent our shores. It breeds over most of Sutherland, and sparingly elsewhere in the north; a few pairs are said to nest also in various parts of Ireland.
Flocks of Wigeons repair to our shores in autumn, and either betake themselves to inland lakes and morasses, or keep to the coast, especially where there are extensive salt marshes. In winter their numbers are greatly increased, especially in the south ”

“ There is no doubt that the having a peephole or two in a hive adds very agreeably to its value for amateur bee-keepers, and, to meet the wishes of such, we have had straw hives constructed with windows. It is not every one who would like to lift out the frames as often as is necessary for an inspection of the state of the colony, nor perhaps is it - 138 - advisable to be often thus meddling. ”

“ The female was shivering her wings and repeating the love-call very rapidly. A few yards distant from her a male was hopping from twig to twig, exclaiming in the same manner. Both birds swooped, and during the flight the low rattling cry was uttered exactly as it was yesterday. The low rattle is not always heard. ”

“ If the stock had not been old and overcrowded, the Wax-moth would never have entered; but where bees are too thick on the comb there must be sickness or parasites. The heat of the hive had risen with the June honey-flow, and though the farmers worked, until their wings ached, to keep people cool, everybody suffered. ”

“ If an old hive is full of bees, and yet shows no disposition to swarm, puff in a little smoke at the entrance of the hive, then turn the hive up, and give it some slight strokes on the sides so as to alarm the bees. ”

“ In the autumn I transfer the bees into clean hives and leave them seven or eight frames, and should they be short of food or of bees I add those I may take from the cottagers in the neighbourhood. I feed with sugar and water of the strength of two pounds of sugar to a pint of water boiled a few minutes. They are fed up to a weight of thirty pounds. During winter they have ample ventilation—the hives being raised about one-eighth of an inch from the floor-board, and the top board is also raised about the same height, so that there is a constant current of air through the hive. ”

“ The American Widgeon, the bird which is represented as falling headforemost with collapsed wings, shot perfectly dead without a struggle, in the accompanying woodcut, while the Mallard goes off safely, quacking at the top of his voice in strange terror, though nearly allied to the European species, is yet perfectly distinct, and peculiar to this continent. ”

“ This beautiful bird is easily kept in cages, and may be fed on dried figs, raisins, hard-boiled eggs, and insects. When shot they will often clench the twig so firmly as to remain hanging fast to it until dislodged by another shot or a blow against the twig. ”