Chilblains

“ When Chilblains seem to be nourished by some Fault in the Temperament or Humours, the Consideration of a Physician becomes necessary, to direct a proper Method of removing or altering it. I have seen Children from the Age of three, to that of twelve or thirteen Years, in whom their Chilblains, raw and flead, as it were, for eight Months of the Year, seemed to be a particular Kind of Issue, by which Nature freed herself of an inconvenient Superfluity of Humours, when the Perspiration was diminished by the Abatement of the violent Heats. ”

“ These women come in from a walk and put their feet to the fire to warm—the most effective plan of cultivating chilblains. At night they put their feet to the fire, and have a hot bottle in bed. But it is all of no use; their feet still remain cold. ”

“ Not one of us, when smeared with the celebrated ointment, saw the chilblains on his fingers decrease nor felt the irritation relieved in the slightest degree by the albuminous varnish of the crushed tigno. It seems probable that others are no more successful and that the popular reputation of the specific nevertheless survives, probably because of a mere identity of name between the remedy and the disease: the Provençal for chilblain is tigno. Once that the nest of the Praying Mantis and the chilblain are [168] known by the same name, do not the virtues of the former become obvious? ”

“ Their energies, slowly developed, stored up, and handed on to us, pass into our veins and sustain our weakness. We live by their death. The world is an endless circle. Everything finishes so that everything may begin again; everything dies so that everything may live. [53]
In many ages the Mantis has been regarded with superstitious awe. In Provence its nest is held to be the best remedy for chilblains. ”

“ If the feet be cold, and the child be too young to take exercise, then let them be well rubbed with the warm hand. If adults suffer from chilblains, I have found friction, night and morning, with horse-hail flesh-gloves, the best means of preventing them.
Secondly, the way to cure them.—If they be unbroken: the old-fashioned remedy of onion and salt is one of the best of remedies. ”

“ Those liable to chilblains should take open-air exercise, nourishing food, cod-liver oil, and tonics. Woollen stockings and gloves should be worn in cold weather, and sudden changes of temperature avoided. ”

“ If the chilblain has destroyed the deeper structures, as it does sometimes when untreated, especially in persons with feeble circulations, it will leave a hard knotty scar which nothing on this earth will remove. ”

“ In winter, especially, the pine woods are alive with red squirrels. I recall seeing twenty red squirrels in a single midwinter day. Chipmunks may be seen late in December, and by the end of February, if it is warm, and the mouths of their holes are not covered by snow, they are ready to take a peep at the sky. They store enormous quantities of food, and the heat and moisture of their nests is such that they can eat corn sprouts and acorn shoots in midwinter while poor Chickaree is scratching about in the cold snow for an unnibbled pine cone. ”

“ With two such broods in a season the chestnut feathers on the father's jaunty head might well turn gray.
Unlike most of the sparrows, the little chippy frequents high trees, where its nest is built quite as often as in the low bushes of the garden. The horse-hair, which always lines the grass" up that holds its greenish-blue, speckled eggs, is alone responsible for the name hair-bird, and not the chippy's hair-like trill, as some suppose. ”

“ If I can set him to scolding, all the birds in the neighborhood will flock this way to ascertain what the trouble is. The device works to a charm; in half a minute the excitement is intense. Nuthatches, white-throats, chickadees, kinglets, and wren, all take a hand in vituperating the intruder, and a youthful redstart comes from the opposite side of the way to satisfy his more gentle curiosity. One creature, strangely enough, remains neutral: a red squirrel, who sits on end at the top of a stump and gazes at me in silence. ”

“ Suddenly, as Chippy still gnawed and tugged, the lashings of the tail lessened, and through his clenched teeth he could feel something tugging and biting at it. Little by little the struggles of the snake became fainter, and Chippy no longer felt himself dragged forward. When at last they had died down to convulsive twists and shudders, which would last for hours, the battling chipmunk unlocked his jaws and backed out of the burrow. Bloody, bruised and exhausted he found himself once more safe in the sunlight. ”

“ The doom which always hangs over the Little People fell upon them. In the gray hour just before the dawn, one fatal day, what looked like a brown squirrel, with a white throat and paws and a short tail, came to the chipmunk colony. Yet no squirrel ever had such blood-red eyes, such a serpent-like head, or a body so lithe and sinuous. The deadly visitor was none other than the lesser, or short-tailed weasel, far more dangerous to the Little People than his larger kinsman, since he was small enough to enter their burrows. ”

“ Two or three kinds of tree-squirrels live in the pines and redwoods, the Douglas squirrel being well known in the mountains. The ground squirrel, or chipmunk, digs holes in the ground, where he hides his winter's store of grain and nuts.
Three of our smaller wild animals are very common and very troublesome to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is hard to keep them out of the hen-house. ”

“ Yet, clumsy as its gait appeared, it was scarcely an instant before the bloody muzzle and red glaring eyes were thrust into the hole down which the chipmunk had disappeared. Much can be done, however, even in seconds, with a hair-trigger brain and nerves and muscles tensed by the fear of death. Like a flash, Chippy traversed the main passage of his burrow, dashed into a tunnel that forked off to the right, and then dived into a smaller branch, which angled off sharply from the larger tube. ”

“ Where there is one chickadee there are apt to be more in the neighbourhood; for these sociable, active, cheerful little black-capped fellows in gray like to hunt for their living in loose scattered flocks throughout the fall and winter. When they come near enough, notice the pale rusty wash on the sides of their under parts which are more truly dirty white than gray. Chickadees are wonderfully tame: except the chipping sparrow, perhaps the tamest birds that we have. ”

“ Yet, obeying the little alarm-bell that rings in every chipmunk's brain, he dashed desperately for the shelter of the stone wall. It was well for him that he did. As he crossed the wide stretch of turf like a tawny streak, there was a whirl of wing-beats, the flash of a gray-brown body balanced by a narrow black-balled tail, and the shadow of death fell upon him even as he neared his refuge. With a frightened squeal, Chippy put every atom of the force which pulsed through his little vibrant body into one last spring. ”

“ The chippy is wonderfully tame—perhaps the tamest bird that we have.
You may be sure there was joy in the household when the nest in the boxwood contained baby chippies one morning—not a trace of eggshells which had been carried away early. Insects were the only approved baby-food and we were greatly astonished to see what large ones were thrust down the tiny, gaping throats every few minutes. Instead of flying straight to the nest, both parents would frequently stop to rest or get proper direction on the back or the arm of a chair where some one was sitting. ”

“ Young chewinks are being fed down among the ripening May-apples in the pasture. A catbird with soft "quoots" assembles her family in the hazel and the wood-thrush sounds warning "quirts" as fancied peril approaches her children beneath the ripening blackberries. From the top of a tall white oak a red squirrel leaps to the arching branches of an elm, continuing his foraging there. Sitting straight up on a mossy log the chipmunk holds in his paws a bit of bread thrown from somebody's basket, nibbles at it for a while and then makes a dash for the thicket, carrying the bread in his mouth. ”

“ On the other hand, ground squirrels like the chipmunks (Tamias) and the susliks or gophers (Spermophilus) of North America and Central Asia, at all events in the more northern districts of their range, sleep from the late autumn till the spring in their subterranean burrows, where they accumulate food for use in early spring and for spells of warmer weather in the winter which may rouse them from their slumbers. The North American flying squirrel (Sciuropterus volucella) and its ally Pteromys inornatus are believed to hibernate in hollow trees. ”

“ Chickarees and gray squirrels have been common enough throughout the cold weather, but the chipmunk, or striped squirrel, takes to its burrow in the late autumn, and sleeps away the winter. In other words, along with the woodchuck (the largest and the smallest of our New England squirrels being alike in this respect) , it migrates—into the “land of Nod.” ”

“ But with all its virtues, the chippy shows lamentable weakness of character in allowing its grown children to impose upon it, as it certainly does. In every group of these birds throughout the summer we can see young ones (which we may know by the black line-stripes on their breasts) hopping around after their parents, that are often no larger or more able-bodied than they, and teasing to be fed ”

“ When nuts or grain are not to be had, these thrifty little creatures will find some substitute to help them over the winter. Two chipmunks near my study were occupied many days in carrying in cherry pits which they gathered beneath a large cherry-tree that stood ten or twelve rods away. As Nig was no longer about to molest them, they grew very fearless, and used to spin up and down the garden path to and from their source of supplies in a way quite unusual with these timid creatures. After they had got enough cherry pits, they gathered the seed of a sugar maple that stood near. ”

“ The little chitmunk does not live in trees, but burrows in the ground, or makes its nest in some large hollow log. It is very pretty to see the little chitmunks, on a warm spring day, running about and chasing each other among the moss and leaves; they are not bigger than mice, but look bright and lively. The fur of all the squirrel tribe is used in trimming, but the grey is the best and most valuable. It has often been remarked by the Indians, and others, that the red and black squirrels never live in the same place; for the red, though the smallest, beat away the black ones. ”

“ The vain little grey squirrels thought themselves much better than these little chitmunks, whom they treated with very little politeness, laughing at them for living in holes in the ground, instead of upon lofty trees, as they did; they even called them low-bred fellows, and wondered why they did not imitate their high breeding and behaviour. ”

“ The guided flock of easy-going warblers and vireos, nuthatches and kinglets, drift on, feeding and frolicking, heedless of what it passes.
If the observer “squeaks,” or if an owl draws the attention of the passing birds, the chickadee comes to the front at once, with his sharp reproving iterations, and his beady eyes snapping indignantly. Along with him come red-eyed and solitary vireos, nuthatches, golden-crested kinglets, black-throated blue warblers, Wilson’s blackcaps, young chestnut-sided warblers, looking puzzlingly unlike their parents. ”

“ They have fewer cares and troubles than the chipmunks and squirrels whose lives they make miserable. Each small boy carries a bow and each one knows how to set cord snares in the runways among the rocks. Sometimes a small hunter is successful and the cliffs ring with his exultant shouts as he brings a chipmunk or a squirrel or even a fat rat to his mother. ”

“ Satisfied that the coast was clear, Chippy at last scurried up to the top of the wall, where he could see on all sides, with a wide cranny conveniently near; for a chipmunk who desires to live out all his days must never be more than two jumps from a hole. ”

“ Lady Mary clapped her hands with joy, and said, "I am so glad, nurse, that the chitmunk ran back to his old friend. I wish it had bitten that Yankee pedlar's fingers."
"When angry these creatures will bite very sharply, set up their tails, and run to and fro, and make a chattering sound with their teeth. The red squirrel is very fearless for its size, and will sometimes turn round and face you, set up its tail, and scold. ”

“ Broad areas of soft, newly-formed epidermis on the shells of juveniles probably afforded a better [Pg 645] place of attachment to chiggers than did the interlaminal seams of adults. The interlaminal seams and transverse hinges of adults were not infested until the height of the season of chigger activity. Heavily infested adults, observed in early July, were literally covered with chiggers; red larvae outlined nearly all the scutes of the shell, the anus, the mouth, and the eyes. ”

“ The red squirrel is quick-witted and full of resources. If new and unusual conditions confront him he is equal to the occasion. I have had proof of this hundreds of times.
I will relate one instance: I feed hemp-seed to the birds. The red squirrels and chipmunks are fond of the seed, and unless I stand guard, will manage to get the lion's share. The chipmunks stuff their pouched cheeks, and would carry away a bushel every day if it was fed to them.
When Tiny is present, no squirrel or chipmunk dares to meddle with the food. ”