In Bird Land :: I. WAYSIDE RAMBLES.

I. WAYSIDE RAMBLES.

Looking out of my study window one fair spring morning, I noticed a friend—a professional man—walking along the street, evidently taking his “constitutional.” Having reached the end of the brick pavement, he paused, glanced around a moment undecidedly, and then, instead of walking out into the beckoning fields and woods, turned down another street which led into a thickly populated part of the city. Surely, I mused, we are not all cast in the same mould. While he carefully avoided going beyond the suburbs and the beaten paths, as if afraid he might soil his polished shoes, I should have plunged boldly into the country, “across lots,” to find some sequestered nook or grass-grown by-way, “far from human neighborhood,” to hold undisturbed converse with Nature. My friend’s conduct, however, did not put me in a critical mood, but rather stirred some grateful reflections on the wise adaptation of all things in the world of being. How fortunate that men are so variously constituted! If some did not naturally choose the bustle and stir and excitement of the city, where would be our philanthropists, our Howards and Peabodys and Dodges? On the other hand, if others did not voluntarily seek quiet and solitude in Nature’s unfrequented haunts, the world would never have been blessed with a Wordsworth, an Emerson, or a Lowell; and in that case, for some of us at least, life would have been bare and arid.

It is true, we cannot accept Pope’s dictum, “Whatever is, is right.” We know that many things that are, are wrong; but doubtless more things in this paradoxical old world are right than moralists sometimes suppose. To the genuine lover of Nature, and especially to the lover of her unbeaten pathways, the ringing lines of Emerson come home with thrilling power:—

“If I could put my woods in song

And tell what’s there enjoyed,

All men would to my gardens throng,

And leave the cities void.”

Yet I doubt if any spot in Nature’s domain could be made so attractive as to overcome most persons’ natural love of human association. Mayhap even if this could be done, it would not be desirable. Should all men hie to the woods and leave the cities void, it would spoil both the woods and the cities. The charm of the woods is their quiet, their solitude; the enchantment of the city, its thronging life and activity. While I may be lonesome in a crowd, my neighbor is almost sure to feel lonesome in the marsh or the deep ravine. If all men loved Nature with a passion that could not be controlled, much work would be left undone that is indispensable to human life and happiness. I am glad, therefore, that there are many birds of many kinds; glad, too, that there are many men of many minds. The apostle does well to remind his brethren in the church that there are “diversities of gifts” and “diversities of operations,” even if all do spring from “the same Spirit.”

Albeit, as for me, give me

“A secret nook in a pleasant land,

Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.”

Emerson voices my own feeling when he sings:—

“A woodland walk,

A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush,

A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,

Salve my worst wounds;”

for,

“What friend to friend cannot convey,

Shall the dumb bird instructed say.”

And it is true that a wayside ramble will often do, by way of self-revelation and conviction, what no human voice of chastisement can accomplish. Mr. Howells says, in one of his most trenchant analytical novels: “If you’re not in first-rate spiritual condition, you’re apt to get floored if you undertake to commune with Nature.” There are times when the very immaculateness of the sky, or the purity of a woodland flower, rebukes one, gives one a keen sense of one’s sins, and makes one long for absolution; or when the pensive moaning of the wind through the gray, branchless trees on a winter’s day forces on the mind a prevision of a judgment about to be visited upon one’s misdoings. Yet this is seldom my own experience while idling in out-of-the-way places. Usually I feel soothed and comforted, or, at most, a sort of glad melancholy steals over me, which is as enchanting as a magician’s spell; while I often win exhilaration from the whispering breezes, as if they carried a tonic on their pulsing wings.

On the spring morning on which my friend so studiously avoided Nature’s by-paths, my stint of labor for the day was soon despatched, and then, flinging my lunch-bag over my shoulders, I hurried across the fields, anxious to put a comfortable distance between myself and bothering human tenements. By noon I had reached a green hollow at the border of a woodland, where Nature, to a large extent at least, has had her own sweet way. Here, on the grassy bank of a rivulet, I sat down to eat my luncheon. The spring near by filled my cup with ale that sparkles, but never burns; that quenches thirst, but never creates it. Not a human habitation was in sight; nothing but the tinkling brook, the sloping hills, the quiet woods, and the overarching sky. The haunt was not without music. The far-away cadences of the bush-sparrows on the hillside filled the place like melodious sunshine. A short distance down the hollow a song-sparrow thrummed his harp, while a cooing dove lent her dreamy threnody to the wayside trio. Although engaged in the prosaic act of eating my luncheon, I breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and romance, and half expected a company of water-witches and dryads to leap upon the greensward before me and dance to the music of bird and brook. A pagan I am not,—at least, such is my hope; but moods subjunctive sometimes seize me when I do not blame the Greeks—aye, rather, when I praise them—for peopling the woods with Pan and his retinue; for I feel the influence of a strange, mystical, and more than impersonal presence.

Yes, one’s dreams sometimes take on a speculative cast, even on a day that seems to be “the bridal of the earth and sky.” In this unfrequented spot the birds sing their sweetest carols, be there a human ear to hear or not. Do they sing merely for their own delectation, these little creatures of a day? Is there not far too much sweetness wasted on the desert air? Would there not be more purpose in Nature could these dulcet strains be treasured in some way, so that they might be poured into man’s appreciative ear? Why has Nature made no phonographs? Wherefore all this waste of ointment? Does Nature encourage the habits of the spendthrift? I recall a summer day when I strolled along a deep, lonely ravine. It was at least a mile to the nearest human dwelling. Suddenly a clear, melodious trill from a song-sparrow’s lusty throat rippled through the stillness, making my pulses flutter. Here, doubtless, the little Arion had sung his roundels all summer long, and perhaps I had been the only person who had heard him, and then I had caught only a few tantalizing strains—simply enough to give a taste for more. Why was the peerless triller apparently burying his talents in this solitary haunt?

It may be true of bird song, as of the recluse flower, that “beauty is its own excuse for being;” but I am not ashamed to record my confession of faith, my creed, on this matter; not my dreamy cogitations with ifs and mayhaps. There is a divine ear which catches every strain of wayside melody, and appreciates it at its true value. Thus, no beauty or sweetness is ever lost, no bird or flower is really an anchorite. A bird may flit away in alarm at the approach of a human intruder, and may not lisp a note until he is well out of the haunt; but the same songster will unconsciously pour his dithyrambs all summer long into the ear of God. Nature was not made for man alone; it was also made for its Creator. Never has the brown thrasher sung with such enchanting vigor and abandon as he did the other day at the corner of the woods when he thought no human auditor within ear-shot. He was singing for God, albeit unconsciously.

It is high time to get back to my waysiding, if I may coin a word. You must go to an out-of-the-way resort, far from the din of loom and factory, to feel the quaint, delicate fancy of Sidney Lanier’s lines,—

“Robins and mocking-birds that all day long

Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,

Shuttles of music.”

The wayside rambler often is witness of delightful bird-pranks that must escape other eyes. On a bright day in February I strolled to the hollow to which I have already referred. The sun was melting the ice-mantle from the brook, and causing the snow to pour in runlets down the banks. In a broad, shallow curve of the stream the tree-sparrows and song-sparrows were taking a bath. I watched them for a long time. Some of them would remain in the ice-cold water for from three to five minutes, fluttering their wings and tails in perfect glee; and sending the pearl-drops and spray glimmering into the air. Their ablutions done, they would fly up to the saplings near by, and carefully preen and dry their moistened robes.

It was in the depth of the woods that my saucy black-cap, the titmouse, clambered straight up the vertical hole of an oak sapling, as if he had learned the trick from the brown creeper or the white-breasted nuthatch. No less interesting was the conduct of the downy woodpecker, that little drum-major of the woods. He is the tilter par excellence of the woodpecker family. He flings himself in the most reckless manner from trunk to branch, and from branch to twig, often alighting back-downward on the slenderest stems. Shall I describe one of his odd tricks? I had often seen him clinging to the slender withes of the willows at the border of the swamp, and had wondered how he could hold himself with his claws to so meagre a support. It was a problem. How much I longed to solve it! However, for a long time the bird so completely baffled me that I felt like another Tantalus. One winter day, however, he happened to be quite near the ground as I stood beneath the willows, so that I could see just how he accomplished the mysterious feat. Imagine my surprise! He did not cling to the withes with his claws at all, as he clings to a tree-trunk or a large bough, but grasped the slender perches with his feet, precisely as if they were hands, flinging his long toes, like fingers, clear around the stems, one foot above the other. In ascending, he would go foot over foot; in descending, he would simply loosen his hold slightly and slip down. Sir Isaac Newton may have made more important discoveries, but he did not feel prouder or happier when he solved the binomial theorem than did I when my little avian problem was solved. I am not aware that any one else has ever described this performance, and am strongly tempted to announce it as an original discovery. Yet a certain writer once declared, patronizingly, that there are some writers—himself excepted, of course—on natural history themes who proclaim as original discoveries many facts that are perfectly familiar to every tyro in science. Spite of the scornful reflection, however, it is my modest opinion that there are very few observers who have seen a woodpecker ascending a willow-withe foot over foot.

Many, many a cunning bird prank would have been missed had I kept, like the majority of pedestrians, to the beaten track. There, for example, is that odd little genius in mottled robes, the brown creeper, who has performed a sufficient number of quaint gambols to repay me for all the time and effort expended in pursuing my wayside rambles. He is always sui generis, apparently priding himself on his eccentricities, like some people you may know. A genuine arboreal creeper, he almost invariably coasts up hill. Unlike his congeners, the nuthatch and the creeping warbler, he never goes head-downward. Dear me, no! Whether it is because it makes him light-headed, or he regards it as bad form, I am unable to say. He does not even hitch down backward after the manner of the woodpeckers, but marches up, up, up, until he thinks it time to descend, which he does by taking to wing, bounding around in an arc as if he were an animated rubber ball. You may almost imagine him saying: “Pah! such vulgar sport as creeping head-downward may be well enough for mere plebeians like the nuthatches and the striped creepers, but it is quite beneath the caste of a patrician like myself! Tseem! tseem!” At rare intervals he will slip down sidewise for a short distance, in a slightly oblique direction, especially when he comes to a fork of the branches.

However, he does not think it beneath his dignity to take a promenade on the under side of a horizontal bough. One day as I watched him doing this, he reached a point where the limb made an obtuse angle by bending obliquely downward. Now what would he do? Would he really hitch down that branch head-foremost, only for once? By no means. Catch him committing such a breach of creeper decorum! He suddenly spread his wings and hurled himself to the lower end of that oblique section of the branch, and then ambled up to the angle in regular orthodox fashion. You will never find him doing anything to give employment to the heresy hunters![1]

Have any of my fellow-observers ever seen this merry-andrew convert himself into a whirligig? I once witnessed this droll performance, which seemed almost like a vagary. A creeper was clinging to a large oak-tree near the base, when he took it into his crazy little pate, for what earthly—or unearthly—reason I know not, to wheel around like a top several times in quick succession. He rested a moment, and then repeated the comedy.

On another occasion a creeper was preening his ruffled feathers, having evidently just taken a bath; and how do you suppose he went about it? In quite a characteristic fashion, you may rest assured. Instead of sitting crosswise on a perch, as most birds would have done, he clung to the vertical bole of a large oak-tree, holding himself firmly against the shaggy bark, and daintily straightening out every feather from his breast to his flexible tail. Growing tired of this position—apparently so, at least—he shuffled up to a fork made by the trunk and a large limb, where he found a more comfortable slanting perch on which to complete his toilet. Once, afterward, I saw a creeper arranging his plumes in the same way.

But the quaintest exploit of this bird still remains to be described. One autumn day, while rambling along the foot of a range of steep cliffs, I caught sight of one of these birds darting from a tree toward the perpendicular wall of rock. For a few moments I lost him, but followed post-haste, muttering to myself, “What if I should find the little clown climbing up the face of the cliff! That would be a performance worth describing to my bird-loving friends, wouldn’t it?” (Surely a monomaniac may talk aloud to himself.) I could scarcely believe my eyes, for the next moment my happy presentiment was realized; there was the creeper scaling the vertical face of the cliff, with as much ease and aplomb, apparently, as a fly creeping up the smooth surface of a window-pane! Then he flew ahead a short distance, and began mounting the cliff where its face was quite smooth and hard. Presently he encountered a bulging protuberance, and tried to creep along the oblique under side of it; but that feat proved to be beyond his skill, agile as he was, and so he abandoned the attempt, and swung away to another part of the vertical wall. I have never seen, in any of the manuals which I have consulted, a description of a similar performance; and if any of my readers have ever witnessed such a “coruscation” of creeper genius, I should be glad to hear from them.

In one’s out-of-the-way saunterings, one dashes up against many a faunal problem that defies, even while it challenges, solution. On a cold day of early winter I was strolling along the bare, windswept banks of a river, keeping my eyes alert, as usual, for bird curios. In the small bushes that fringed the bank were some cunningly placed nests. In the bottom of one of them lay many seeds of dogwood berries, with the kernels bored out,—the work, no doubt, of the crested tits. But there were no dogwood-trees within twenty-five rods of the place! Why had the birds carried the shells to this nest, and dropped them into it? This is all the more curious because it was not a tit’s nest, but very likely a cat-bird’s. One can only surmise that the tits had gathered these seeds in the fall, and stowed them away in the nest for winter use, and then had eaten out the kernels when hunger drove them to it. That would be in perfect keeping with the habits of these thrifty little providers for the morrow.

During the winter of 1892-1893 a red-bellied woodpecker, often called the zebra-bird, took up his residence in my woodland. (I call it mine by a sort of usufruct, because I ramble through its pleasant archways or sit in its quiet boudoirs at all hours and in all seasons.) With the exception of several brief absences, for which I could not account, the woodpecker remained until the following spring, giving me some delightful surprises. It was the first winter he had shown the good grace to keep me company. Perhaps he was lazy; or he may have been a clumsy flier; or perchance he got separated from his fellows by accident, and so was left behind in the autumn when the southward pilgrimage began.

He was, by all odds, the handsomest woodpecker I had ever seen. His entire crown and hind-neck were brilliant crimson, which fairly shimmered like a flambeau when the sun peeped through a rift in the clouds and shone upon it; and then his back was beautifully mottled and striped with black and white, while his tail was bordered with a broad band of deep black. What a splendid picture he made, too, whenever he spread his wings and bolted from one tree to another! I wish an artist could have caught him on the wing, and transferred him to canvas. He performed a trick that was new to me, and did it several times. He would dash to some twigs, balance before them a moment on the wing, pick a nit or a worm from a dead leaf-clump, and then swing back to his upright perch. Once he found a grain of corn in a pocket of the bark, placed there, perhaps, by a nuthatch; but he did not seem to care for johnny-cake, and so he dropped it back into the pocket. How cunningly he canted his head and peered into the crannies of the bark for grubs, calling, Chack! chack!

During the entire winter he uttered only this harsh, stirring note, half jocose, half spiteful; but, greatly to my surprise, when spring arrived, especially if the weather happened to be pleasant, he began to call, K-t-r-r! k-t-r-r! precisely like a red-headed woodpecker; indeed, at first I laid siege to every tree, looking in vain for a red-head come prematurely northward, until I discovered the trick of my winter intimate, the red-bellied wood-chopper. Why it should have been so I cannot explain; but whenever a cold wave struck this latitude during the spring, he would invariably revert to his harsh Chack! chack! and then when the breezes grew balmy again, he would resume his other reveille, making the woods echo. I also discovered—it was a discovery to myself, at least—that the red-bellied is a drummer, like most of his relatives; but not once did he thrum his merry ra-ta-ta before spring arrived,—another avian conundrum for the naturalist to beat his brains against.

But hold! I might go rambling on in this way forever, like Tennyson’s brook,—or, possibly, like Ixion revolving on his wheel,—describing the odd pranks witnessed in my wayside rambles. It is high time, however, to call a halt; yet, after a brief breathing-space, these miscellanies will be resumed in the next chapter, which may, with some degree of propriety, be entitled “Bird Curios.”

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