THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHSWITH PORTRAITS AND MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IV

LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY

PREFACE

I am aware that for the most part the title of my book is an allegoryrather than an actual description; but readers who have followed meheretofore, I trust, will not be puzzled or misled in the present caseby any want of literalness in the matter of the title. If the namecarries with it a suggestion of the wild and delectable in nature, ofthe free and ungarnered harvests which the wilderness everywhereaffords to the observing eye and ear, it will prove sufficientlyexplicit for my purpose. 

ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, N. Y. 

 CONTENTS I. THE PASTORAL BEES II. SHARP EYES III. STRAWBERRIES IV. IS IT GOING TO RAIN? V. SPECKLED TROUT VI. BIRDS AND BIRDS VII. A BED OF BOUGHS VIII. BIRDS'-NESTING IX. THE HALCYON IN CANADA INDEX

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JOHN BURROUGHS From a photograph WHIP-POOR WILL From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes TROUT STREAM From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason YELLOW BIRCHES From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason LEDGES From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason KINGFISHER (colored) From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes

LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY

I

THE PASTORAL BEES

The honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove fromNoah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back theolive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon eachhip, usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. In a countrywhere maple sugar is made the bees get their first taste of sweet fromthe sap as it flows from the spiles, or as it dries and is condensedupon the sides of the buckets. They will sometimes, in their eagerness, come about the boiling-place and be overwhelmed by the steam and thesmoke. But bees appear to be more eager for bread in the spring thanfor honey: their supply of this article, perhaps, does not keep as wellas their stores of the latter; hence fresh bread, in the shape of newpollen, is diligently sought for. My bees get their first supplies fromthe catkins of the willows. How quickly they find them out! If but onecatkin opens anywhere within range, a bee is on hand that very hour torifle it, and it is a most pleasing experience to stand near the hivesome mild April day and see them come pouring in with their littlebaskets packed with this first fruitage of the spring. They will havenew bread now; they have been to mill in good earnest; see their dustycoats, and the golden grist they bring home with them. 

When a bee brings pollen into the hive he advances to the cell in whichit is to be deposited and kicks it off, as one might his overalls orrubber boots, making one foot help the other; then he walks off withoutever looking behind him; another bee, one of the indoor hands, comesalong and rams it down with his head and packs it into the cell, as thedairymaid packs butter into a firkin with a ladle. 

The first spring wild-flowers, whose sly faces among the dry leaves androcks are so welcome, are rarely frequented by the bee. The anemone, the hepatica, the bloodroot, the arbutus, the numerous violets, thespring beauty, the corydalis, etc. , woo all lovers of nature, butseldom woo the honey-loving bee. The arbutus, lying low and keepinggreen all winter, attains to perfume and honey, but only once have Iseen it frequented by bees. 

The first honey is perhaps obtained from the flowers of the red mapleand the golden willow. The latter sends forth a wild, deliciousperfume. The sugar maple blooms a little later, and from its silkentassels a rich nectar is gathered. My bees will not label thesedifferent varieties for me, as I really wish they would. Honey from themaple, a tree so clean and wholesome, and full of such virtues everyway, would be something to put one's tongue to. Or that from theblossoms of the apple, the peach, the cherry, the quince, thecurrant, --one would like a card of each of these varieties to notetheir peculiar qualities. The apple-blossom is very important to thebees. A single swarm has been known to gain twenty pounds in weightduring its continuance. Bees love the ripened fruit, too, and inAugust and September will such themselves tipsy upon varieties suchas the sops-of-wine. 

The interval between the blooming of the fruit-trees and that of theclover and the raspberry is bridged over in many localities by thehoney locust. What a delightful summer murmur these trees send forth atthis season! I know nothing about the quality of the honey, but itought to keep well. But when the red raspberry blooms, the fountains ofplenty are unsealed indeed; what a commotion about the hives then, especially in localities where it is extensively cultivated, as inplaces along the Hudson! The delicate white clover, which begins tobloom about the same time, is neglected; even honey itself is passed byfor this modest, colorless, all but odorless flower. A field of theseberries in June sends forth a continuous murmur like that of anenormous hive. The honey is not so white as that obtained from clover, but it is easier gathered; it is in shallow cups, while that of theclover is in deep tubes. The bees are up and at it before sunrise, andit takes a brisk shower to drive them in. But the clover blooms laterand blooms everywhere, and is the staple source of supply of the finestquality of honey. The red clover yields up its stores only to thelonger proboscis of the bumblebee, else the bee pasturage of ouragricultural districts would be unequaled. I do not know from what thefamous honey of Chamouni in the Alps is made, but it can hardly surpassour best products. The snow-white honey of Anatolia in Asiatic Turkey, which is regularly sent to Constantinople for the use of the grandseignior and the ladies of his seraglio, is obtained from the cottonplant, which makes me think that the white clover does not flourishthere. The white clover is indigenous with us; its seeds seem latent inthe ground, and the application of certain stimulants to the soil, suchas 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 bumblebee. 

Among the humbler plants let me not forget the dandelion that so earlydots the sunny slopes, and upon which the bee languidly grazes, wallowing to his knees in the golden but not over-succulent pasturage. From the blooming rye and wheat the bee gathers pollen, also from theobscure blossoms of Indian corn. Among weeds, catnip is the greatfavorite. It lasts nearly the whole season and yields richly. It couldno doubt be profitably cultivated in some localities, and catnip honeywould be a novelty in the market. It would probably partake of thearomatic properties of the plant from which it was derived. 

Among your stores of honey gathered before midsummer you may chanceupon a card, or mayhap only a square inch or two of comb, in which theliquid is as transparent as water, of a delicious quality, with aslight 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. Thewild swarms in the woods frequently reap a choice harvest from it. Ihave seen a mountain-side thickly studded with it, its straight, tall, smooth, light gray shaft carrying its deep green crown far aloft, likethe tulip-tree or the maple. 

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

It is a homely old stanza current among bee folk that

 "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 tothrive, and will very likely itself send out a swarm a month or twolater: but a swarm in July is not to be despised; it will store noclover or linden honey for the "grand seignior and the ladies of hisseraglio, " but plenty of the rank and wholesome poor man's nectar, thesun-tanned product of the plebeian buckwheat. Buckwheat honey is theblack sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and character init. It lays hold of the taste in no equivocal manner, especially whenat a winter breakfast it meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. Bread with honey to cover it from the same stalk is double goodfortune. It is not black, either, but nut-brown, and belongs to thesame class of goods as Herrick's

 "Nut-brown mirth and russet wit. "

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

Yet evidently it is not the perfume of any flower that attracts thebees; they pay no attention to the sweet-scented lilac, or toheliotrope, but work upon sumach, silkweed, and the hateful snapdragon. In September they are hard pressed, and do well if they pick up enoughsweet to pay the running expenses of their establishment. The purpleasters and the goldenrod are about all that remain to them. 

Bees will go three or four miles in quest of honey, but it is a greatadvantage to move the hive near the good pasturage, as has been thecustom from the earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprisingperson, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyptians, who hadfloating apiaries on the Nile, has tried the experiment of floatingseveral hundred colonies north on the Mississippi, starting from NewOrleans and following the opening season up, thus realizing a sort ofperpetual May or June, the chief attraction being the blossoms of theriver willow, which yield honey of rare excellence. Some of the beeswere no doubt left behind, but the amount of virgin honey secured musthave been very great. In September they should have begun the returntrip, following the retreating summer south. 

It is the making of wax that costs with the bee. As with the poet, theform, the receptacle, gives him more trouble than the sweet that fillsit, though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty comb in bothcases. The honey he can have for the gathering, but the wax he mustmake himself, --must evolve from his own inner consciousness. When waxis to be made, the wax-makers fill themselves with honey and retireinto their chamber for private meditation; it is like some solemnreligious rite: they take hold of hands, or hook themselves together inlong lines that hang in festoons from the top of the hive, and wait forthe miracle to transpire. After about twenty-four hours their patienceis rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, minute scales of which aresecreted from between the rings of the abdomen of each bee; this istaken off and from it the comb is built up. It is calculated that abouttwenty-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 aneconomical point of view, of a recent device by which the honey isextracted and the comb returned intact to the bees. But honey withoutthe comb is the perfume without the rose, --it is sweet merely, and soondegenerates into candy. Half the delectableness is in breaking downthese frail and exquisite walls yourself, and tasting the nectar beforeit has lost its freshness by contact with the air. Then the comb is asort of shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being overwhelmedby the first shock of the sweet. 

The drones have the least enviable time of it. Their foothold in thehive is very precarious. They look like the giants, the lords of theswarm, but they are really the tools. Their loud, threatening hum hasno sting to back it up, and their size and noise make them only themore conspicuous marks for the birds. They are all candidates for thefavors 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 thefecundation of the queen costs the male his life. Yet day after day thedrones go forth, threading the mazes of the air in hopes of meeting herwhom to meet is death. The queen only leaves the hive once, except whenshe leads away the swarm, and as she makes no appointment with themale, but wanders here and there, drones enough are provided to meetall the contingencies of the case. 

One advantage, at least, results from this system of things: there isno incontinence among the males in this republic!

Toward the close of the season, say in July or August, the fiat goesforth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. Thenthe poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying tohide in corners and byways! There is no loud, defiant humming now, butabject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seena dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between theglass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them, or wherethey seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. They will alsocrawl outside and hide under the edges of the hive. But sooner or laterthey are all killed or kicked out. The drone makes no resistance, except to pull back and try to get away; but (putting yourself in hisplace) with one bee a-hold of your collar or the hair of your head, andanother a-hold of each arm or leg, and still another feeling for yourwaistbands with his sting, the odds are greatly against you. 

It is a singular fact, also, that the queen is made, not born. If theentire population of Spain or Great Britain were the offspring of onemother, it might be found necessary to hit upon some device by which aroyal baby could be manufactured out of an ordinary one, or else giveup the fashion of royalty. All the bees in the hive have a commonparentage, and the queen and the worker are the same in the egg and inthe chick; the patent of royalty is in the cell and in the food; thecell being much larger, and the food a peculiar stimulating kind ofjelly. In certain contingencies, such as the loss of the queen with noeggs 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 andstuff it and coddle it, till at the end of sixteen days it comes out aqueen. But ordinarily, in the natural course of events, the young queenis kept a prisoner in her cell till the old queen has left with theswarm. Later on, the unhatched queen is guarded against the reigningqueen, who only wants an opportunity to murder every royal scion in thehive. At this time both the queens, the one a prisoner and the other atlarge, pipe defiance at each other, a shrill, fine, trumpet-like notethat any ear will at once recognize. This challenge, not being allowedto be accepted by either party, is followed, in a day or two, by theabdication of the reigning queen; she leads out the swarm, and hersuccessor is liberated by her keepers, who, in her time, abdicates infavor of the next younger. When the bees have decided that no moreswarms can issue, the reigning queen is allowed to use her stilettoupon her unhatched sisters. Cases have been known where two queensissued at the same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged by theworkers, who formed a ring about them, but showed no preference, andrecognized the victor as the lawful sovereign. For these and many othercurious facts we are indebted to the blind Huber. 

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

The notion has always very generally prevailed that the queen of thebees is an absolute ruler, and issues her royal orders to willingsubjects. Hence Napoleon the First sprinkled the symbolic bees over theimperial mantle that bore the arms of his dynasty; and in the countryof the Pharaohs the bee was used as the emblem of a people sweetlysubmissive to the orders of its king. But the fact is, a swarm of beesis an absolute democracy, and kings and despots can find no warrant intheir example. The power and authority are entirely vested in the greatmass, the workers. They furnish all the brains and foresight of thecolony, and administer its affairs. Their word is law, and both kingand queen must obey. They regulate the swarming, and give the signalfor the swarm to issue from the hive; they select and make ready thetree in the woods and conduct the queen to it. 

The peculiar office and sacredness of the queen consists in the factthat she is the mother of the swarm, and the bees love and cherish heras a mother and not as a sovereign. She is the sole female bee in thehive, and the swarm clings to her because she is their life. Deprivedof their queen, and of all brood from which to rear one, the swarmloses all heart and soon dies, though there be an abundance of honey inthe hive. 

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

The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimentingher to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she isa superb creature, and looks every inch a queen. It is an event todistinguish her amid the mass of bees when the swarm alights; itawakens a thrill Before you have seen a queen, you wonder if this orthat 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 amoment. You know _that_ is the queen. That long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking creature can be none less than royalty. Howbeautifully her body tapers, how distinguished she looks, howdeliberate her movements! The bees do not fall down before her, butcaress her and touch her person. The drones, or males, are largebees, too, but coarse, blunt, broad-shouldered, masculine-looking. There is but one fact or incident in the life of the queen that looksimperial and authoritative: Huber relates that when the old queenis restrained in her movements by the workers, and prevented fromdestroying the young queens in their cells, she assumes a peculiarattitude and utters a note that strikes every bee motionless andmakes every head bow; while this sound lasts, not a bee stirs, butall 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 againtoward the royal cells, the bees bite and pull and insult her asbefore. 

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away fromhome when my bees swarm. What a delightful summer sound it is! how theycome pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand bees, eachstriving to get out first! It is as when the dam gives way and lets thewaters 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 softchorus of myriad musical sounds to the ear. This way and that way theydrift, now contracting, now expanding, rising, sinking, growing thickabout some branch or bush, then dispersing and massing at some otherpoint, till finally they begin to alight in earnest, when in a fewmoments the whole swarm is collected upon the branch, forming a bunchperhaps as large as a two-gallon measure. Here they will hang from oneto three or four hours or until a suitable tree in the woods is lookedup, when, if they have not been offered a hive in the mean time, theyare up and off. In hiving them, if any accident happens to the queenthe enterprise miscarries at once. One day I shook a swarm from a smallpear-tree into a tin pan, set the pan down on a shawl spread beneaththe tree, and put the hive over it. The bees presently all crawled upinto it, and all seemed to go well for ten or fifteen minutes, when Iobserved that something was wrong; the bees began to buzz excitedly andto rush about in a bewildered manner, then they took to the wing andall returned to the parent stock. On lifting up the pan, I foundbeneath it the queen with three or four other bees. She had been one ofthe first to fall, had missed the pan in her descent, and I had set itupon her. I conveyed her tenderly back to the hive, but either theaccident terminated fatally with her, or else the young queen had beenliberated in the interim, and one of them had fallen in combat, for itwas ten days before the swarm issued a second time. 

No one, to my knowledge, has ever seen the bees house-hunting in thewoods. Yet there can be no doubt that they look up new quarters eitherbefore or on the day the swarm issues. For all bees are wild bees andincapable of domestication; that is, the instinct to go back to natureand take up again their wild abodes in the trees is never eradicated. Years upon years of life in the apiary seem to have no appreciableeffect towards their final, permanent domestication. That every newswarm contemplates migrating to the woods, seems confirmed by the factthat they will only come out when the weather is favorable to such anenterprise, and that a passing cloud, or a sudden wind, after the beesare in the air, will usually drive them back into the parent hive. Oran attack upon them with sand or gravel, or loose earth or water, willquickly cause them to change their plans. I would not even say butthat, when the bees are going off, the apparently absurd practice, nowentirely discredited by regular bee keepers but still resorted to byunscientific folk, of beating upon tin pans, blowing horns, andcreating an uproar generally, might not be without good results. Certainly not by drowning the "orders" of the queen, but by impressingthe bees, as with some unusual commotion in nature. Bees are easilyalarmed and disconcerted, and I have known runaway swarms to be broughtdown by a farmer plowing in the field who showered them with handfulsof 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 principlesagain by a very direct route. The past season I witnessed two suchescapes. One swarm had come out the day before, and, without alighting, had returned to the parent hive, --some hitch in the plan, perhaps, ormay be the queen had found her wings too weak. The next day they cameout again and were hived. But something offended them, or else the treein the woods--perhaps some royal old maple or birch, holding its headhigh above all others, with snug, spacious, irregular chambers andgalleries--had too many attractions; for they were presently discoveredfilling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly around. Gradually they began to drift over the street; a moment more, and theyhad become separated from the other bees, and, drawing together in amore compact mass or cloud, away they went, a humming, flying vortex ofbees, the queen in the centre, and the swarm revolving around her as apivot, --over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight for the heartof the mountain, about a mile distant, --slow at first, so that theyouth who gave chase kept up with them, but increasing their speed tillonly a foxhound could have kept them in sight. I saw their pursuerlaboring up the side of the mountain; saw his white shirtsleeves gleamas he entered the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward withoutany clue as to the particular tree in which they had taken refuge outof 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 atonce showed symptoms that alarmed the keeper, who, however, threwneither 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 ofnearly forty-five degrees, and the prospect of having to chase them upthis hill, if chase them we should, promised a good trial of wind atleast; for it soon became evident that their course lay in thisdirection. Determined to have a hand, or rather a foot, in the chase, Ithrew off my coat and hurried on, before the swarm was yet fairlyorganized and under way. The route soon led me into a field of standingrye, every spear of which held its head above my own. Plungingrecklessly forward, my course marked to those watching from below bythe agitated and wriggling grain, I emerged from the miniature forestjust in time to see the runaways disappearing over the top of the hill, some fifty rods in advance of me. Lining them as well as I could, Isoon reached the hilltop, my breath utterly gone and the perspirationstreaming from every pore of my skin. On the other side the countryopened deep and wide. A large valley swept around to the north, heavilywooded at its head and on its sides. It became evident at once that thebees had made good their escape, and that whether they had stopped onone side of the valley or the other, or had indeed cleared the oppositemountain and gone into some unknown forest beyond, was entirelyproblematical. I turned back, therefore, thinking of the honey-ladentree that some of these forests would hold before the falling of theleaf. 

I heard of a youth in the neighborhood more lucky than myself on a likeoccasion. It seems that he had got well in advance of the swarm, whoseroute lay over a hill, as in my case, and as he neared the summit, hatin hand, the bees had just come up and were all about him. Presently henoticed them hovering about his straw hat, and alighting on his arm;and in almost as brief a time as it takes to relate it, the whole swarmhad followed the queen into his hat. Being near a stone wall, he coollydeposited his prize upon it, quickly disengaged himself from theaccommodating bees, and returned for a hive. The explanation of thissingular circumstance no doubt is, that the queen, unused to such longand heavy flights, was obliged to alight from very exhaustion. It isnot 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 manner, 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 whirlwind. Unitedly they form a humming, revolving, nebulous mass, ten or fifteenfeet 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 outset) constantly going and coming. As they take adirect course, there is always some chance of following them to thetree, unless they go a long distance, and some obstruction, like a woodor a swamp or a high hill, intervenes, --enough chance, at any rate, tostimulate the lookers-on to give vigorous chase as long as their windholds out. If the bees are successfully followed to their retreat, twoplans are feasible, --either to fell the tree at once, and seek to hivethem, perhaps bring them home in the section of the tree that containsthe cavity; or to leave the tree till fall, then invite your neighborsand go and cut it, and see the ground flow with honey. The formercourse is more business-like; but the latter is the one usuallyrecommended by one's friends and neighbors. 

Perhaps nearly one third of all the runaway swarms leave when no one isabout, and hence are unseen and unheard, save, perchance, by somedistant laborers in the field, or by some youth plowing on the side ofthe mountain, who hears an unusual humming noise, and sees the swarmdimly whirling by overhead, and, maybe, gives chase; or he may simplycatch the sound, when he pauses, looks quickly around, but seesnothing. When he comes in at night he tells how he heard or saw a swarmof bees go over; and perhaps from beneath one of the hives in thegarden 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 lowdown. 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-treeacross an adjoining field. The entrance was a mouse-hole near theground. Another swarm in the neighborhood deserted their keeper, andwent into the cornice of an out-house that stood amid evergreens inthe rear of a large mansion. But there is no accounting for the tasteof 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 mountainousdistricts, the number of swarms that thus assert their independenceforms quite a large per cent. In the Northern States these swarms veryoften perish before spring; but in such a country as Florida they seemto multiply, till bee-trees are very common. In the West, also, wildhoney is often gathered in large quantities. I noticed, not long since, that some wood-choppers on the west slope of the Coast Range felled atree that had several pailfuls in it. 

One night on the Potomac a party of us unwittingly made our camp nearthe 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. Anothertime, while sitting by a waterfall in the leafless April woods, Idiscovered a swarm in the top of a large hickory. I had the seasonbefore remarked the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen ofleaves concealed them from me. This time my former presentimentoccurred to me, and, looking sharply, sure enough there were the bees, going out and in a large, irregular opening. In June a violent tempestof wind and rain demolished the tree, and the honey was all lost in thecreek into which it fell. I happened along that way two or three daysafter the 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 homeused to be. They looked forlorn enough. If the queen was saved, theremnant probably sought another tree; otherwise the bees soon died. 

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

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

The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign ofan army; the ranks are being continually depleted, and continuallyrecruited. What adventures they have by flood and field, and whathairbreadth escapes! A strong swarm during the honey season loses, onan average, about four or five thousand a month, or one hundred andfifty a day. They are overwhelmed by wind and rain, caught by spiders, benumbed by cold, crushed by cattle, drowned in rivers and ponds, andin many nameless ways cut off or disabled. In the spring the principalmortality is from the cold. As the sun declines they get chilled beforethey can reach home. Many fall down outside the hive, unable to get inwith their burden. One may see them come utterly spent and drophopelessly into the grass in front of their very doors. Before they canrest the cold has stiffened them. I go out in April and May and pickthem up by the handfuls, their baskets loaded with pollen, and warmthem 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 anapparently lifeless bee may be revived by warming him. I have alsopicked them up while rowing on the river and seen them safely toshore. It is amusing to see them come hurrying home when there is athunder-storm approaching. They come piling in till the rain is uponthem. Those that are overtaken by the storm doubtless weather it asbest they can in the sheltering trees or grass. It is not probablethat a bee ever gets lost by wandering into strange and unknownparts. With their myriad eyes they see everything; and then theirsense of locality is very acute, is, indeed, one of their rulingtraits. When a bee marks the place of his hive, or of a bit of goodpasturage in the fields or swamps, or of the bee-hunter's box ofhoney on the hills or in the woods, he returns to it as unerringly asfate. 

Honey was a much more important article of food with the ancients thanit 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 themodern taste; it soon cloys upon the palate. It demands the appetite ofyouth, and the strong, robust digestion of people who live much in theopen air. It is a more wholesome food than sugar, and modernconfectionery is poison beside it. Besides grape sugar, honey containsmanna, mucilage, pollen, acid, and other vegetable odoriferoussubstances and juices. It is a sugar with a kind of wild natural breadadded. The manna of itself is both food and medicine, and the pungentvegetable 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 flowingwith 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 hismoney, " was doing a very sensible thing. Epaminondas is said to haverarely eaten anything but bread and honey. The Emperor Augustus one dayinquired of a centenarian how he had kept his vigor of mind and body solong; to which the veteran replied that it was by "oil without andhoney within. " Cicero, in his "Old Age, " classes honey with meat andmilk and cheese as among the staple articles with which a well-keptfarmhouse will be supplied. 

Italy and Greece, in fact all the Mediterranean countries, appear tohave been famous lands for honey. Mount Hymettus, Mount Hybla, andMount Ida produced what may be called the classic honey of antiquity, an article doubtless in no wise superior to our best products. LeighHunt's "Jar of Honey" is mainly distilled from Sicilian history andliterature, Theocritus furnishing the best yield. Sicily has alwaysbeen rich in bees. Swinburne (the traveler of a hundred years ago) saysthe woods on this island abounded in wild honey, and that the peoplealso had many hives near their houses. The idyls of Theocritus arenative to the island in this respect, and abound in bees--"flat-nosedbees, " as he calls them in the Seventh Idyl--and comparisons in whichcomb-honey is the standard of the most delectable of this world'sgoods. His goatherds can think of no greater bliss than that the mouthbe filled with honeycombs, or to be inclosed in a chest like Daphnisand fed on the combs of bees; and among the delectables with whichArsinoė cherishes Adonis are "honey-cakes, " and other tidbits made of"sweet honey. " In the country of Theocritus this custom is said stillto prevail: when a couple are married, the attendants place honey intheir mouths, by which they would symbolize the hope that their lovemay be as sweet to their souls as honey to the palate. 

It was fabled that Homer was suckled by a priestess whose breastsdistilled honey; and that once, when Pindar lay asleep, the beesdropped honey upon his lips. In the Old Testament the food of thepromised Immanuel was to be butter and honey (there is much doubt aboutthe butter in the original), that he might know good from evil; andJonathan's eyes were enlightened by partaking of some wood or wildhoney: "See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because Itasted a little of this honey. " So far as this part of his diet wasconcerned, therefore, John the Baptist, during his sojourn in thewilderness, his divinity-school days in the mountains and plains ofJudea, fared extremely well. About the other part, the locusts, or, notto put too fine a point on it, the grasshoppers, as much cannot besaid, though they were among the creeping and leaping things thechildren of Israel were permitted to eat. They were probably not eatenraw, but roasted in that most primitive of ovens, a hole in the groundmade hot by building a fire in it. The locusts and honey may have beenserved together, as the Bedas of Ceylon are said to season their meatwith honey. At any rate, as the locust is often a great plague inPalestine, the prophet in eating them found his account in the generalweal, and in the profit of the pastoral bees; the fewer locusts, themore flowers. Owing to its numerous wild-flowers, and flowering shrubs, Palestine has always been a famous country for bees. They deposittheir honey in hollow trees, as our bees do when they escape from thehive, and in holes in the rocks, as ours do not. In a tropical orsemi-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 highup in the trunk of a forest tree. 

The best honey is the product of the milder parts of the temperatezone. There are too many rank and poisonous plants in the tropics. Honey from certain districts of Turkey produces headache and vomiting, and that from Brazil is used chiefly as medicine. The honey of MountHymettus owes its fine quality to wild thyme. The best honey in Persiaand in Florida is collected from the orange blossom. The celebratedhoney of Narbonne in the south of France is obtained from a species ofrosemary. In Scotland good honey is made from the blossoming heather. 

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

II

SHARP EYES

Noting how one eye seconds and reinforces the other, I have oftenamused myself by wondering what the effect would be if one could go onopening eye after eye to the number say of a dozen or more. What wouldhe see? Perhaps not the invisible, --not the odors of flowers or thefever germs in the air, --not the infinitely small of the microscope orthe infinitely distant of the telescope. This would require, not moreeyes so much as an eye constructed with more and different lenses; butwould he not see with augmented power within the natural limits ofvision? At any rate, some persons seem to have opened more eyes thanothers, they see with such force and distinctness; their visionpenetrates the tangle and obscurity where that of others fails like aspent or impotent bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open? howmany did Henry Thoreau? how many did Audubon? how many does the hunter, matching his sight against the keen and alert sense of a deer or amoose, or fox or a wolf? Not outward eyes, but inward. We open anothereye whenever we see beyond the first general features or outlines ofthings, --whenever we grasp the special details and characteristicmarkings that this mask covers. Science confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to discriminate the birds, or the plants, orthe geological features of a country, it is as if new and keener eyeswere 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 likewritten words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. Or thewriting is in cipher and he must furnish the key. A female oriole wasone day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refusefrom the horse stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barnfowls, scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable, dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding what shewanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and was presentlycaptured by the farmer. What did she want? was the query. What but ahorsehair for her nest which was in an apple-tree near by? and she wasso bent on having one that I have no doubt she would have tweaked oneout of the horse's tail had he been in the stable. Later in the seasonI examined her nest, and found it sewed through and through withseveral long horsehairs, so that the bird persisted in her search tillthe hair was found. 

Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our eyes aresharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw this little comedyplayed among some English sparrows, and wrote an account of it in hisnewspaper; it is too good not to be true: A male bird brought to hisbox a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrowand much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered hisgratulations over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-doorneighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in andseized the feather; and here the wit of the bird came out, for insteadof carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and hidit in a fork of the branches, then went home, and when her neighborreturned with his mate was innocently employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a highstate of excitement, and, with wrath in his manner and accusation onhis tongue, rushed into the cote of the female. Not finding his goodsand chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile, abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, then wentaway as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, theshrewd thief went and brought the feather home and lined her owndomicile with it. 

I was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her youngone in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada orharvest-fly, and, after bruising it awhile on the ground, flew with itto a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. It was a largemorsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability todispose of it, for she stood near and watched its efforts with greatsolicitude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, butmade no headway in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him andflew to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it morethoroughly. Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to say, "There, try it now, " and sympathized so thoroughly with his effortsthat she repeated many of his motions and contortions. But the greatfly was unyielding, and, indeed, seemed ridiculously disproportioned tothe beak that held it. The young bird fluttered and fluttered, andscreamed, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck!" till the anxious parent again seizedthe morsel and carried it to an iron railing, where she came down uponit for the space of a minute with all the force and momentum her beakcould command. Then she offered it to her young a third time, but withthe same result as before, except that this time the bird dropped it;but she reached the ground as soon as the cicada did, and taking it inher beak flew some distance to a high board fence, where she satmotionless for some moments. While pondering the problem how that flyshould be broken, the male bluebird approached her, and said veryplainly, and I thought rather curtly, "Give me that bug, " but shequickly resented his interference and flew farther away, where she satapparently quite discouraged when I last saw her. 

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 theprogress of the season; things are never quite the same after one hasheard that note. The past spring the males came about a week in advanceof the females. A fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard allthat time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate. He called andwarbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within ear-shot and couldbe hurried up. Now he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly, thencoaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in aplaintive, far-away manner. He would half open his wings, and twinklethem caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morningshe had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to aknothole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard afine confidential warble, --the old, old story. But the female flew to anear tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went andgot some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole inthe old tree, and promised unremitting devotion, but the other said, "Nay, " and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going, or ratherheard her distant note, he dropped his stuff, and cried out in a tonethat said plainly enough, "Wait a minute. One word, please, " and flewswiftly in pursuit. He won her before long, however, and early in Aprilthe pair were established in one of the four or five boxes I had put upfor them, but not until they had changed their minds several times. Assoon as the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under theirparents' care, they began another nest in one of the other boxes, thefemale, as usual, doing all the work, and the male all thecomplimenting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother birdwas a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had neverbeen known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watching them that wasvery embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she appeared, the motherbluebird would set up that pitiful melodious plaint. One morning thecat was standing by me, when the bird came with her beak loaded withbuilding material, and alighted above me to survey the place beforegoing into the box. When she saw the cat she was greatly disturbed, andin her agitation could not keep her hold upon all her material. Strawafter straw came eddying down, till not half her original burdenremained. After the cat had gone away the bird's alarm subsided, tillpresently, seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box andpitched in her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and, without going in to arrange them, as was her wont, flew away in evidentrelief. 

In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much nearer thehouse than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or golden-shaftedwoodpeckers, took up their abode. A knothole which led to the decayedinterior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as clean as asquirrel would have done it. The inside preparations I could notwitness, but day after day, as I passed near, I heard the birdhammering away, evidently beating down obstructions and shaping andenlarging the cavity. The chips were not brought out, but were usedrather 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 inthe heart of the old tree, --at first feebly, but waxing stronger day byday until they could be heard many rods distant. When I put my handupon the trunk of the tree, they would set up an eager, expectantchattering; but if I climbed up it toward the opening, they soondetected the unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and thenuttering a warning note. Long before they were fully fledged theyclambered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one couldstand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing andstruggling for this position. It was a very desirable one aside fromthe advantages it had when food was served; it looked out upon thegreat, shining world, into which the young birds seemed never tired ofgazing. The fresh air must have been a consideration also, for theinterior of a high-hole's dwelling is not sweet. When the parent birdscame with food, the young one in the opening did not get it all, butafter he had received a portion, either on his own motion or on a hintfrom the old one, he would give place to the one behind him. Still, onebird evidently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was twoor three days in advance of them. His voice was loudest and his headoftenest at the window. But I noticed that, when he had kept theposition too long, the others evidently made it uncomfortable in hisrear, and, after "fidgeting" about awhile, he would be compelled to"back down. " But retaliation was then easy, and I fear his mates spentfew easy moments at that lookout. They would close their eyes and slideback into the cavity as if the world had suddenly lost all its charmsfor them. 

This bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest. For two daysbefore that event he kept his position in the opening most of the timeand sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old ones abstainedfrom feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to encourage his exit. As Istood looking at him one afternoon and noting his progress, he suddenlyreached a resolution, --seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear, --andlaunched forth upon his untried wings. They served him well, andcarried him about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second dayafter, the next in size and spirit left in the same manner; thenanother, till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visitsto him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tiredof the sound. His was the faintest heart of all. Then he had none toencourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung to the outer boleof the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour longer; then he committedhimself 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 tamehigh-hole he once had. 

"Did you ever notice, " says he, "that the high-hole never eats anythingthat he cannot pick up with his tongue? At least this was the case witha young one I took from the nest and tamed. He could thrust out histongue two or three inches, and it was amusing to see his efforts toeat currants from the hand. He would run out his tongue and try tostick it to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tonguearound it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. But henever succeeded, the round fruit would roll and slip away every time. He never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was inconstant use to find out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-holein a board or any similar hole was carefully explored. If he was heldnear the face he would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust histongue into it. In this way he gained the respect of a number ofhalf-grown cats that were around the house. I wished to make themfamiliar to each other, so there would be less danger of theirkilling him. So I would take them both on my knee, when the birdwould soon notice the kitten's eyes, and, leveling his bill ascarefully as a marksman levels his rifle, he would remain so aminute, when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This washeld by the cats to be very mysterious: being struck in the eye bysomething invisible to them. They soon acquired such a terror of himthat they would avoid him and run away whenever they saw his billturned in their direction. He never would swallow a grasshopper evenwhen it was placed in his throat; he would shake himself until he hadthrown it out of his mouth. His 'best hold' was ants. He never wassurprised at anything, and never was afraid of anything. He woulddrive the turkey gobbler and the rooster. He would advance upon themholding one wing up as high as possible, as if to strike with it, and shuffle along the ground toward them, scolding all the whilein a harsh voice. I feared at first that they might kill him, butI soon found that he was able to take care of himself. I would turnover stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he would lick upthe ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going into his mouthunceasingly. I kept him till late in the fall, when he disappeared, probably going south, and I never saw him again. " My correspondent alsosends me some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He says alarge gooseberry-bush standing in the border of an old hedge-row, inthe midst of open fields, and not far from his house, was occupied by apair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and, after an intervalof a year, for two seasons more. This gave him a good chance to observethem. He says the mother bird lays a single egg, and sits upon it anumber of days before laying the second, so that he has seen one youngbird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg, all in thenest at once. "So far as I have seen, this is the settled practice, --theyoung 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 manyrespects. When nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-feathersas long as darning-needles, without a bit of plumage on them. Theypart on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious feathers and misshapen body, the young bird isanything but handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, asmany young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving whentouched. " He also notes the unnatural indifference of the mother birdwhen her nest and young are approached. She makes no sound, but sitsquietly on a near branch in apparent perfect unconcern. 

These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the cuckoois occasionally found in the nests of other birds, raise the inquirywhether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the Europeanspecies, which always foists its egg upon other birds; or whether, onthe other hand, it is not mending its manners in this respect. It hasbut little to unlearn or to forget in the one case, but great progressto make in the other. How far is its rudimentary nest--a mere platformof coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds--from the deep, compact, finelywoven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or the kingbird, andwhat a gulf between its indifference toward its young and theirsolicitude! Its irregular manner of laying also seems better suited toa parasite like our cowbird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regularnest-builder. 

This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of interestingthings as he goes about his work. He one day saw a white swallow, whichis of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a sparrow he thinks, fly againstthe side of a horse and fill his beak with hair from the loosened coatof the animal. He saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latterescaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in earlyspring he saw two hen-hawks, that were circling and screaming high inair, approach each other, extend a claw, and, clasping them together, fall toward the earth, flapping and struggling as if they were tiedtogether; 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 thehawks were toying fondly with each other. 

He further relates a curious circumstance of finding a hummingbird inthe upper part of a barn with its bill stuck fast in a crack of one ofthe large timbers, dead, of course, with wings extended, and as dry asa chip. The bird seems to have died, as it had lived, on the wing, andits last act was indeed a ghastly parody of its living career. Fancythis nimble, flashing sprite, whose life was passed probing the honeyeddepths of flowers, at last thrusting its bill into a crack in a drytimber in a hay-loft, and, with spread wings, ending its existence!

When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk for insectsabout cattle and moving herds in the field. My farmer describes howthey attended him one foggy day, as he was mowing in the meadow with amowing-machine. It had been foggy for two days, and the swallows werevery hungry, and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of hismachine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like a broodof hungry chickens. He says there was a continued rush of purple wingsover the "cut-bar, " and just where it was causing the grass to trembleand fall. Without his assistance the swallows would doubtless have gonehungry yet another day. 

Of the hen-hawk, he has observed that both male and female take part inincubation. "I was rather surprised, " he says, "on one occasion, to seehow quickly they change places on the nest. The nest was in a tallbeech, and the leaves were not yet fully out. I could see the head andneck of the hawk over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawkcoming down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alightnear by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest, his mategetting out of the way barely in time to avoid being hit; it seemedalmost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I hardly see how they canmake such a rush on the nest without danger to the eggs. "

The kingbird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will worry a bear. Itis by his persistence and audacity, not by any injury he is capable ofdealing his great antagonist. The kingbird seldom more than dogs thehawk, keeping above and between his wings, and making a great ado; butmy correspondent says he once "saw a kingbird riding on a hawk's back. The hawk flew as fast as possible, and the kingbird sat upon hisshoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight, "--tweaking hisfeathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the next moment. 

That near relative of the kingbird, the great crested flycatcher, hasone well-known peculiarity: he appears never to consider his nestfinished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My alertcorrespondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion skin and makeoff with it, either deceived by it or else thinking it a goodsubstitute for the coveted material. 

One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon the nest of awhip-poor-will, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest, --twoelliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My footwas within a yard of the mother bird before she flew. I wondered whata sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of thebird, so I came to the place many times and had a look. It was alwaysa task to separate the bird from her surroundings, though I stoodwithin a few feet of her, and knew exactly where to look. One hadto bear on with his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. Thesticks and leaves, and bits of black or dark brown bark, were allexactly 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, notedhow difficult it was for him to make out there, in full view upon thedry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the bird returned afterbeing 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. Iwas on hand the next day, I think. The mother bird sprang up when I waswithin a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wingstill 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 birdwas a trying task to any eye. I came the next day, when the sametactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds andnearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish down, like a youngpartridge, and soon follow their mother about. When disturbed, theygave but one leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions, made franticefforts to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces andfall upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would runthrough her tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept asharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and, if it didnot, she was quickly cured, and, moving about to some other point, tried to draw my attention as before. When followed she always alightedupon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The second orthird day both old and young had disappeared. 

The whip-poor-will walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which is as awkwardas a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead her young about thewoods. The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, theirprotective coloring shielding them most effectively. Wilson once cameupon the mother bird and her brood in the woods, and, though they wereat his very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the young thathe was about to give up the search, much disappointed, when heperceived something "like a slight mouldiness among the witheredleaves, and, on stooping down, discovered it to be a youngwhip-poor-will, seemingly asleep. " Wilson's description of the youngis very accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a"slight mouldiness. " Returning a few moments afterward to the spot toget 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 theleaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell in hounds andpointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to see thebird and to shoot it before it takes wing. I think he sees it as soonas it sees him, and before it suspects itself seen. What a training tothe eye is hunting! to pick out the game from its surroundings, thegrouse from the leaves, the gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb ithugs so closely, the red fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, therabbit from the stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires thebest powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or upona rock looks very much like a large stone or boulder, yet a keen eyeknows 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 wildcreatures, but not so sharp an ear or nose. But in the birds he findshis match. How quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere speckagainst the sky, and how quickly the hawk discovers you if you happento be secreted in the bushes, or behind the fence near which healights! One advantage the bird surely has, and that is, owing to theform, structure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field ofvision, --indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the sameinstant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces lessthan half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his browand brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of the zenithwithout a movement of the head; the bird, on the other hand, takes innearly the whole sphere at a glance. 

I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every bird within sight inthe field or wood I pass through (a flit of the wing, a flirt of thetail are enough, though the flickering leaves do all conspire to hidethem), and that with like ease the birds see me, though unquestionablythe chances are immensely in their favor. The eye sees what it has themeans of seeing, truly. You must have the bird in your heart before youcan find it in the bush. The eye must have purpose and aim. No one everyet found the walking fern who did not have the walking fern in hismind. A person whose eye is full of Indian relics picks them up inevery field he walks through. 

One season I was interested in the tree-frogs, especially the tinypiper that one hears about the woods and brushy fields, --the hyla ofthe swamps become a denizen of the trees; I had never seen him in thisnew role. But this season, having hylas in mind, or rather being ripefor them, I several times came across them. One Sunday, walking amidsome bushes, I captured two. They leaped before me, as doubtless theyhad done many times before; but though not looking for or thinking ofthem, yet they were quickly recognized, because the eye had beencommissioned to find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, Iwas hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes ofovertaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the treetops, when one of these lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellowingleaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the corner of my eye andyet bagged him, because I had already made him my own. 

Nevertheless the habit of observation is the habit of clear anddecisive gazing: not by a first casual glance, but by a steady, deliberate aim of the eye, are the rare and characteristic thingsdiscovered. You must look intently, and hold your eye firmly to thespot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. Thesharpshooter picks out his man, and knows him with fatal certainty froma stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The phrenologists do well tolocate, not only form, color, and weight, in the region of the eye, butalso a faculty which they call individuality, --that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every object its essential character. Thisis just as necessary to the naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes specific points and differences, --it seizes uponand 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 adozen, or else it is totally unlike any bird found on this continent. They have either seen falsely or else vaguely. Not so the farm youthwho wrote me one winter day that he had seen a single pair of strangebirds, 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 malewas of the same color, while that of the female was much lighter; theirrumps were also faintly tinged with red. If I have described them sothat you would know them, please write me their names. " There can belittle doubt but the young observer had, seen a pair of redpolls, --abird related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes down to usin the winter from the far north. Another time, the same youth wrotethat he had seen a strange bird, the color of a sparrow, that alightedon fences and buildings as well as upon the ground, and that walked. This last fact showed the youth's discriminating eye and settled thecase. From this and the season, and the size and color of the bird, Iknew he had seen the pipit or titlark. But how many persons would haveobserved that the bird walked instead of hopped?

Some friends of mine who lived in the country tried to describe to me abird that built a nest in a tree within a few feet of the house. As itwas a brown bird, I should have taken it for a wood thrush, had not thenest been described as so thin and loose that from beneath the eggscould be distinctly seen. The most pronounced feature in thedescription was the barred appearance of the under side of the bird'stail. I was quite at sea, until one day, when we were driving out, acuckoo 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 frombeneath; but if the bird had been described in its most obviousfeatures, as slender, with a long tail, cinnamon brown above and whitebeneath, with a curved bill, any one who knew the bird would haverecognized the portrait. 

We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked for itsspecific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of the leaf of thetulip-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 ofthe facts of nature, especially in the life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see the play because we do not lookintently enough. The other day I was sitting with a friend upon a highrock in the woods, near a small stream, when we saw a water-snakeswimming across a pool toward the opposite bank. Any eye would havenoted it, perhaps nothing more. A little closer and sharper gazerevealed the fact that the snake bore something in its mouth, which, aswe went down to investigate, proved to be a small catfish, three orfour inches long. The snake had captured it in the pool, and, like anyother fisherman, wanted to get its prey to dry land, although it itselflived mostly in the water. Here, we said, is being enacted a littletragedy that would have escaped any but sharp eyes. The snake, whichwas itself small, had the fish by the throat, the hold of vantage amongall creatures, and clung to it with great tenacity. The snake knew thatits best tactics was to get upon dry land as soon as possible. It couldnot swallow its victim alive, and it could not strangle it in thewater. For a while it tried to kill its game by holding it up out ofthe water, but the fish grew heavy, and every few moments its strugglesbrought down the snake's head. This would not do. Compressing thefish's throat would not shut off its breath under such circumstances, so the wily serpent tried to get ashore with it, and after severalattempts succeeded in effecting a landing on a flat rock. But the fishdied hard. Catfish do not give up the ghost in a hurry. Its throat wasbecoming congested, but the snake's distended jaws must have ached. Itwas like a petrified gape. Then the spectators became very curious andclose in their scrutiny, and the snake determined to withdraw fromthe public gaze and finish the business in hand to its own notions. But, when gently but firmly remonstrated with by my friend with hiswalking-stick, it dropped the fish and retreated in high dudgeonbeneath a stone in the bed of the creek. The fish, with a swollenand angry throat, went its way also. 

Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone or a pieceof meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon the crows willdiscover it and be on hand. If it be near the house or barn, the crowthat first discovers it will alight near it, to make sure he is notdeceived; then he will go away, and soon return with a companion. Thetwo alight a few yards from the bone, and after some delay, duringwhich the vicinity is sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advancesboldly to within a few feet of the coveted prize. Here he pauses, andif no trick is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes itand makes off. 

One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple-tree near thehouse and scattered some corn there. I had not seen a blue jay forweeks, yet that very day one found my corn, and after that several camedaily and partook of it, holding the kernels under their feet upon thelimbs of the trees and pecking them vigorously. 

Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes, still I wassurprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones that wereplaced in a convenient place under the shed to be pounded up for thehens. In going out to the barn I often disturbed him making a meal offthe bits of meat that still adhered to them. 

"Look intently enough at anything, " said a poet to me one day, "and youwill see something that would otherwise escape you. " I thought of theremark as I sat on a stump in an opening of the woods one spring day. Isaw a small hawk approaching; he flew to a tall tulip-tree, andalighted on a large limb near the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Thenthe bird disclosed a trait that was new to me: he hopped along the limbto a small cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulledout some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken ofit for some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and flewaway. I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly down as thehawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers of a sparrowhere and there clinging to the bushes beneath the tree. The hawk, then, --commonly called the chicken hawk, --is as provident as a mouse ora squirrel, and lays by a store against a time of need, but I shouldnot have discovered the fact had I not held my eye on him. 

An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotionamong them. In May or June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay isa silent bird; he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves assilent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is veryanxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none soquick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning atroop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollowtrunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out isa mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but theydid, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect thebluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peeping intoholes and crannies both spring and fall. Some unsuspecting bird hadprobably entered the cavity prospecting for a place for next year'snest, or else looking out a likely place to pass a cold night, and thenhad rushed out with important news. A boy who should unwittinglyventure into a bear's den when Bruin was at home could not be moreastonished and alarmed than a bluebird would be on finding itself in acavity of a decayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joinedthe jays in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to thefact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day inthe old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm andapproached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious and hoveredabout uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but the jays werebolder and took turns looking in at the cavity, and deriding the poor, shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the entrance of the hole, andflirt 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 owlclinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was asred 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 thatsoon grew uncomfortable. I placed him in the loft of an outhouse, inhopes of getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a verywilling prisoner, scarcely moving at all, even when approached andtouched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-closed, sleepy eyes. But at night what a change! how alert, how wild, howactive! He was like another bird; he darted about with wide, fearfuleyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I opened the window, andswiftly, but as silent as a shadow, he glided out into the congenialdarkness, and perhaps, ere this, has revenged himself upon the sleepingjay or bluebird that first betrayed his hiding-place. 

III

STRAWBERRIES

Was it old Dr. Parr who said or sighed in his last illness, "Oh, if Ican 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 had turned from the drugs and the nostrums, or from thehateful food, to the memory of the pungent, penetrating, andunspeakably fresh quality of the strawberry with the deepest longing. The very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it were the firstglow and ardor of the young summer, and with their power to unsheathethe taste and spur the nagging appetite, made life seem possible anddesirable to him. 

The strawberry is always the hope of the invalid, and sometimes, nodoubt, his salvation. It is the first and finest relish among fruits, and well merits Dr. Boteler's memorable saying, that "doubtless Godcould have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did. "

On the threshold of summer, Nature proffers us this her virgin fruit;more rich and sumptuous are to follow, but the wild delicacy and fillipof the strawberry are never repeated, --that keen feathered edge greetsthe tongue in nothing else. 

Let me not be afraid of overpraising it, but probe and probe for wordsto hint its surprising virtues. We may well celebrate it with festivalsand music. It has that indescribable quality of all first things, --thatshy, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. It is eager and sanguine asyouth. It is born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tenderskies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds isin it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product ofliquid 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 smellof clover in the fields, of blooming rye on the hills, of the wildgrape beside the woods, and of the sweet honeysuckle and the spiręaabout the house. The first hot, moist days. The daisies and thebuttercups; the songs of the birds, their first reckless jollity andlove-making over; the full tender foliage of the trees; the beesswarming, and the air strung with resonant musical chords. The time ofthe sweetest and most, succulent grass, when the cows come home withaching udders. Indeed, the strawberry belongs to the juiciest time ofthe year. 

What a challenge it is to the taste! how it bites back again! and isthere any other sound like the snap and crackle with which it salutesthe ear on being plucked from the stems? It is a threat to one sensethat the other is soon to verify. It snaps to the ear as it smacks tothe 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 slightprotection. The frost leaves its virtues in it. The berry is a kind ofvegetable snow. How cool, how tonic, how melting, and how perishable!It is almost as easy to keep frost. Heat kills it, and sugar quicklybreaks up its cells. 

Is there anything like the odor of strawberries? The next best thing totasting them is to smell them; one may put his nose to the dish whilethe fruit is yet too rare and choice for his fingers. Touch not andtaste not, but take a good smell and go mad! Last fall I potted some ofthe Downer, and in the winter grew them in the house. In March theberries were ripe, only four or five on a plant, just enough, all told, to make one consider whether it were not worth while to kill off therest of the household, so that the berries need not be divided. But ifevery tongue could not have a feast, every nose banqueted daily uponthem. They filled the house with perfume. The Downer is remarkable inthis respect. Grown in the open field, it surpasses in its odor anystrawberry of my acquaintance. And it is scarcely less agreeable to thetaste. It is a very beautiful berry to look upon, round, light pink, with a delicate, fine-grained expression. Some berries shine, theDowner glows as if there were a red bloom upon it. Its core is firm andwhite, its skin thick and easily bruised, which makes it a poor marketberry, but, with its high flavor and productiveness, an admirable onefor home use. It seems to be as easily grown as the Wilson, while it ismuch more palatable. The great trouble with the Wilson, as everybodyknows, is its rank acidity. When it first comes, it is difficult to eatit without making faces. It is crabbed and acrimonious. Like somepersons, the Wilson will not ripen and sweeten till its old age. Itslargest and finest crop, if allowed to remain on the vines, will softenand fail unregenerated, or with all its sins upon it. But wait tilltoward the end of the season, after the plant gets over its hurry andtakes time to ripen its fruit. The berry will then face the sun fordays, and, if the weather is not too wet, instead of softening willturn dark and grow rich. Out of its crabbedness and spitefulness comethe finest, choicest flavors. It is an astonishing berry. It lays holdof the taste in a way that the aristocratic berries, like the Jocundaor the Triumph, cannot approximate to. Its quality is as penetrating asthat of ants and wasps, but sweet. It is, indeed, a wild bee turnedinto a berry, with the sting mollified and the honey disguised. A quartof these rare-ripes I venture to say contains more of the peculiarvirtue and excellence of the strawberry kind than can be had in twicethe same quantity of any other cultivated variety. Take these berriesin a bowl of rich milk with some bread, --ah, what a dish!--too good toset before a king! I suspect this was the food of Adam in Paradise, only Adam did not have the Wilson strawberry; he had the wildstrawberry that Eve plucked in their hill-meadow and "hulled" withher own hands, and that, take it all in all, even surpasses thelate-ripened Wilson. 

Adam is still extant in the taste and the appetite of most countryboys; lives there a country boy who does not like wild strawberries andmilk, --yea, prefer it to any other known dish? I am not thinking of adessert of strawberries and cream; this the city boy may have, too, after a sort; but bread-and-milk, with the addition of wildstrawberries, is peculiarly a country dish, and is to the taste what awild bird's song is to the ear. When I was a lad, and went afield withmy hoe or with the cows, during the strawberry season, I was sure toreturn at meal-time with a lining of berries in the top of my strawhat. They were my daily food, and I could taste the liquid and gurglingnotes of the bobolink in every spoonful of them; and to this day, tomake a dinner or supper off a bowl of milk with bread andstrawberries, --plenty of strawberries, --well, is as near to being a boyagain as I ever expect to come. The golden age draws sensibly near. Appetite becomes a kind of delicious thirst, --a gentle and subtlecraving of all parts of the mouth and throat, --and those nerves oftaste that occupy, as it were, a back seat, and take little cognizanceof grosser foods, come forth, and are played upon and set vibrating. Indeed, I think, if there is ever rejoicing throughout one's alimentaryhousehold, --if ever that much-abused servant, the stomach, says Amen, or those faithful handmaidens, the liver and spleen, nudge each otherdelightedly, it must be when one on a torrid summer day passes by thesolid 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 truerustic sweetness and piquancy. What it lacks in size, when comparedwith the garden berry, it makes up in intensity. It is never dropsicalor overgrown, but firm-fleshed and hardy. Its great enemies are theplow, gypsum, and the horse-rake. It dislikes a limestone soil, butseems to prefer the detritus of the stratified rock. Where the sugarmaple abounds, I have always found plenty of wild strawberries. We havetwo kinds, --the wood berry and the field berry. The former is as wildas a partridge. It is found in open places in the woods and along theborders, growing beside stumps and rocks, never in abundance, but verysparsely. It is small, cone-shaped, dark red, shiny, and pimply. Itlooks woody, and tastes so. It has never reached the table, nor madethe acquaintance of cream. A quart of them, at a fair price for humanlabor, would be worth their weight in silver at least. (Yet a carefulobserver writes me that in certain sections in the western part of NewYork they are very plentiful. )

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

This is, perhaps, the same as the alpine strawberry, which is said togrow in the mountains of Greece, and thence northward. This wasprobably the first variety cultivated, though our native species wouldseem as unpromising a subject for the garden as club-moss orwintergreens. 

Of the field strawberry there are a great many varieties, --some growingin meadows, some in pastures, and some upon mountain-tops. Some areround, and stick close to the calyx or hull; some are long and pointed, with long, tapering necks. These usually grow upon tall stems. Theyare, indeed, of the slim, linear kind. Your corpulent berry keeps closeto 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 hasmore juice. You are more apt to find the tall varieties upon knolls inlow, wet meadows, and again upon mountain-tops, growing in tussocks ofwild grass about the open summits. These latter ripen in July, and giveone his last taste of strawberries for the season. 

But the favorite haunt of the wild strawberry is an uplying meadow thathas been exempt from the plow for five or six years, and that haslittle timothy and much daisy. When you go a-berrying, turn your stepstoward the milk-white meadows. The slightly bitter odor of the daisiesis very agreeable to the smell, and affords a good background for theperfume of the fruit. The strawberry cannot cope with the rank anddeep-rooted clover, and seldom appears in a field till the clover hashad its day. But the daisy with its slender stalk does not crowd orobstruct the plant, while its broad white flower is like a lightparasol that tempers and softens the too strong sunlight. Indeed, daisies and strawberries are generally associated. Nature fills herdish with the berries, then covers them with the white and yellow ofmilk and cream, thus suggesting a combination we are quick to follow. Milk alone, after it loses its animal heat, is a clod, and begetstorpidity of the brain; the berries lighten it, give wings to it, andone 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 thefragrant memories of boyhood. Indeed, for boy or man to go a-berryingin a certain pastoral country I know of, where a passer-by along thehighway is often regaled by a breeze loaded with a perfume of theo'er-ripe fruit, is to get nearer to June than by almost any course Iknow of. Your errand is so private and confidential! You stoop low. You part away the grass and the daisies, and would lay bare theinmost secrets of the meadow. Everything is yet tender and succulent;the very air is bright and new; the warm breath of the meadow comesup in your face; to your knees you are in a sea of daisies andclover; from your knees up, you are in a sea of solar light andwarmth. Now you are prostrate like a swimmer, or like a surf-batherreaching for pebbles or shells, the white and green spray breaksabove you; then, like a devotee before a shrine or naming his beads, your rosary strung with luscious berries; anon you are a grazingNebuchadnezzar, or an artist taking an inverted view of the landscape. 

The birds are alarmed by your close scrutiny of their domain. Theyhardly know whether to sing or to cry, and do a little of both. Thebobolink follows you and circles above and in advance of you, and isready to give you a triumphal exit from the field, if you will onlydepart. 

 "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, togo and pick the strawberries that grow in quantities on the mountainsand among bushes. " But there is no serpent here, --at worst, only abumblebee's or yellow-jacket's nest. You soon find out the spring inthe corner of the field under the beechen tree. While you wipe yourbrow and thank the Lord for spring water, you glance at the initials inthe bark, some of them so old that they seem runic and legendary. Youfind out, also, how gregarious the strawberry is, --that the differentvarieties exist in little colonies about the field. When you strike theoutskirts of one of these plantations, how quickly you work toward thecentre of it, and then from the centre out, then circumnavigate it, andfollow up all its branchings and windings!

Then the delight in the abstract and in the concrete of strolling andlounging about the June meadows; of lying in pickle for half a day ormore in this pastoral sea, laved by the great tide, shone upon by thevirile sun, drenched to the very marrow of your being with the warm andwooing influences of the young summer!

I was a famous berry-picker when a boy. It was near enough to huntingand fishing to enlist me. Mother would always send me in preference toany of the rest of the boys. I got the biggest berries and the most ofthem. There was something of the excitement of the chase in theoccupation, and something of the charm and preciousness of game aboutthe trophies. The pursuit had its surprises, its expectancies, itssudden disclosures, --in fact, its uncertainties. I went forthadventurously. I could wander free as the wind. Then there were momentsof inspiration, for it always seemed a felicitous stroke to light upona particularly fine spot, as it does when one takes an old and warytrout. You discovered the game where it was hidden. Your geniusprompted you. Another had passed that way and had missed the prize. Indeed, the successful berry-picker, like Walton's angler, is born, notmade. It is only another kind of angling. In the same field one boygets big berries and plenty of them; another wanders up and down, andfinds only a few little ones. He cannot see them; he does not knowhow to divine them where they lurk under the leaves and vines. Theberry-grower knows that in the cultivated patch his pickers are veryunequal, the baskets of one boy or girl having so inferior a lookthat it does not seem possible they could have been filled from thesame vines with certain others. But neither blunt fingers nor blunteyes are hard to find; and as there are those who can see nothingclearly, so there are those who can touch nothing deftly or gently. 

The cultivation of the strawberry is thought to be comparativelymodern. The ancients appear to have been a carnivorous race: theygorged themselves with meat; while the modern man makes larger andlarger use of fruits and vegetables, until this generation is doubtlessbetter fed than any that has preceded it. The strawberry and the apple, and such vegetables as celery, ought to lengthen human life, --at leastto correct its biliousness and make it more sweet and sanguine. 

The first impetus to strawberry culture seems to have been given by theintroduction of our field berry (_Fragaria Virginiana_) into England inthe seventeenth century, though not much progress was made till theeighteenth. This variety is much more fragrant and aromatic than thenative berry of Europe, though less so in that climate than when grownhere. Many new seedlings sprang from it, and it was the prevailingberry in English and French gardens, says Fuller, until the SouthAmerican species, _grandiflora, _ was introduced and supplanted it. Thisberry is naturally much larger and sweeter, and better adapted to theEnglish climate, than our _Virginiana. _ Hence the English strawberriesof to-day surpass ours in these respects, but are wanting in thataromatic pungency that characterizes most of our berries. 

The Jocunda, Triumph, Victoria, are foreign varieties of theGrandiflora species; while the Hovey, the Boston Pine, the Downer, arenatives of this country. 

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

IV

IS IT GOING TO RAIN?

I suspect that, like most countrymen, I was born with a chronic anxietyabout the weather. Is it going to rain or snow, be hot or cold, wet ordry?--are inquiries upon which I would fain get the views of every manI meet, and I find that most men are fired with the same desire to getmy views upon the same set of subjects. To a countryman the weathermeans something, --to a farmer especially. The farmer has sowed andplanted and reaped and vended nothing but weather all his life. Theweather must lift the mortgage on his farm, and pay his taxes, and feedand clothe his family. Of what use is his labor unless seconded by theweather? Hence there is speculation in his eye whenever he looks at theclouds, or the moon, or the sunset, or the stars; for even the MilkyWay, in his view, may point the direction of the wind to-morrow, andhence is closely related to the price of butter. He may not take thesage's advice to "hitch his wagon to a star, " but he pins his hopes tothe moon, and plants and sows by its phases. 

Then the weather is that phase of Nature in which she appears not theimmutable fate we are so wont to regard her, but on the contrarysomething quite human and changeable, not to say womanish, --a creatureof moods, of caprices, of cross purposes; gloomy and downcast to-day, and all light and joy to-morrow; caressing and tender one moment, andsevere 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 subtlesigns and indirections, --by a look, a glance, a presence, as we readand 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 tillnight. They are positive and fill one with celestial fire. Other daysare negative and drain one of his electricity. 

Sometimes the elements show a marked genius for fair weather, as in thefall 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-treeput out a blossom and developed young fruit. The warring of theelements was chiefly done on the other side of the globe, where itformed an accompaniment to the human war raging there. In our usuallymerciless skies was written only peace and good-will to men, formonths. 

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

But I am not going to abuse the weather; rather to praise it, and makesome amends for the many ill-natured things I have said, within hearingof the clouds, when I have been caught in the rain or been parched andwithered 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 ofprofound wisdom, that "when the atmosphere and hemisphere come togetherit causes the earth to sweat, and thereby produces the rain, "--or thefog, as the case may be. The explanation is a little vague, as hisbiographer suggests, but it is picturesque, and there can be littledoubt that two somethings do come in contact that produce a sweatingwhen it rains or is foggy. More than that, the philosophy is simple andcomprehensive, which Goethe said was the main matter in such things. Goethe's explanation is still more picturesque, but I doubt if it is abit better philosophy. "I compare the earth and her atmosphere, " hesaid to Eckermann, "to a great living being perpetually inhaling andexhaling. If she inhale she draws the atmosphere to her, so that, coming near her surface, it is condensed to clouds and rain. This stateI call water-affirmative. " The opposite state, when the earth exhalesand sends the watery vapors upward so that they are dissipated throughthe whole space of the higher atmosphere, he called "water-negative. "

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

The poets, more perhaps than the scientists, have illustrated and heldby 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 does a vacuum. If the moisture of the airwere uniform, or the heat uniform, that is, _in equilibrio, _ how couldit rain? what would turn the scale? But these things are heaped up, arein waves. There is always a preponderance one way or the other; always"a steep inequality. " Down this incline the rain comes, and up theother 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 inone place, it is correspondingly depressed in some other. When the eastis 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 onlythe abuse of a law on the part of the elements which is at the bottomof all the life and motion on the globe. 

The rain itself comes in shorter or longer waves, --now fast, nowslow--and sometimes in regular throbs or pulse-beats. The fall andwinter rains are, as a rule, the most deliberate and general, butthe spring and summer rains are always more or less impulsive andcapricious. One may see the rain stalking across the hills or comingup the valley in single file, as it were. Another time it moves invast masses or solid columns, with broad open spaces between. I haveseen a spring snowstorm lasting nearly all day that swept down inrapid intermittent sheets or gusts. The waves or pulsations of thestorm were nearly vertical and were very marked. But the greatfact about the rain is that it is the most beneficent of all theoperations of nature; more immediately than sunlight even, it meanslife and growth. Moisture is the Eve of the physical world, the softteeming principle given to wife to Adam or heat, and the mother ofall that lives. Sunshine abounds everywhere, but only where the rainor dew follows is there life. The earth had the sun long before ithad the humid cloud, and will doubtless continue to have it after thelast drop of moisture has perished or been dissipated. The moon hassunshine enough, but no rain; hence it is a dead world--a lifelesscinder. It is doubtless true that certain of the planets, as Saturnand Jupiter, have not yet reached the condition of the cooling andameliorating rains, while in Mars vapor appears to be precipitatedonly in the form of snow; he is probably past the period of thesummer shower. There are clouds and vapors in the sun itself, --cloudsof flaming hydrogen and metallic vapors, and a rain every drop ofwhich is a burning or molten meteor. Our earth itself has doubtlesspassed through the period of the fiery and consuming rains. Mr. Proctor thinks there may have been a time when its showers weredownpourings of "muriatic, nitric, and sulphuric acid, not onlyintensely hot, but fiercely burning through their chemical activity. "Think of a dew that would blister and destroy like the oil ofvitriol! but that period is far behind us now. When this fearfulfever was past and the earth began to "sweat;" when these soft, delicious drops began to come down, or this impalpable rain ofthe cloudless nights to fall, --the period of organic life wasinaugurated. Then there was hope and a promise of the future. Thefirst rain was the turning-point, the spell was broken, relief wasat hand. Then the blazing furies of the fore world began to giveplace to the gentler divinities of later times. 

The first water, --how much it means! Seven tenths of man himself iswater. Seven tenths of the human race rained down but yesterday! It ismuch more probable that Alexander will flow out of a bung-hole thanthat any part of his remains will ever stop one. Our life is indeed avapor, a breath, a little moisture condensed upon the pane. We carryourselves as in a phial. Cleave the flesh, and how quickly we spillout! Man begins as a fish, and he swims in a sea of vital fluids aslong as his life lasts. His first food is milk; so is his last and allbetween. He can taste and assimilate and absorb nothing but liquids. The same is true throughout all organic nature. 'Tis water-power thatmakes every wheel move. Without this great solvent, there is no life. Iadmire immensely this line of Walt Whitman's:--

 "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 commerceof vital growth, tiny vessels, fleets and succession of fleets, ladenwith material bound for distant shores, to build up, and repair, andrestore the waste of the physical frame. 

Then the rain means relaxation; the tension in Nature and in all hercreatures is lessened. The trees drop their leaves, or let go theirripened fruit. The tree itself will fall in a still, damp day, when butyesterday it withstood a gale of wind. A moist south wind penetrateseven the mind and makes its grasp less tenacious. It ought to take lessto kill a man on a rainy day than on a clear. The direct support of thesun is withdrawn; life is under a cloud; a masculine mood gives placeto something like a feminine. In this sense, rain is the grief, theweeping of Nature, the relief of a burdened or agonized heart. Buttears from Nature's eyelids are always remedial and prepare the way forbrighter, purer skies. 

I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. Who does notsuffer in his spirit in a drought and feel restless and unsatisfied? Myvery thoughts become thirsty and crave the moisture. It is hard work tobe generous, or neighborly, or patriotic in a dry time, and as forgrowing in any of the finer graces or virtues, who can do it? One'svery manhood shrinks, and, if he is ever capable of a mean act or ofnarrow views, it is then. 

Oh, the terrible drought! When the sky turns to brass; when the cloudsare like withered leaves; when the sun sucks the earth's blood like avampire; when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish; when thegrass whitens and crackles under your feet; when the turf turns todust; when the fields are like tinder; when the air is the breath of anoven; when even the merciful dews are withheld, and the morning is nofresher than the evening; when the friendly road is a desert, and thegreen woods like a sick-chamber; when the sky becomes tarnished andopaque with dust and smoke; when the shingles on the houses curl up, the clapboards warp, the paint blisters, the joints open; when thecattle rove disconsolate and the hive-bee comes home empty; whenthe earth gapes and all nature looks widowed, and deserted, andheart-broken, --in such a time, what thing that has life does notsympathize and suffer with the general distress?

The drought of the summer and early fall of 1876 was one of thosesevere stresses of weather that make the oldest inhabitant search hismemory for a parallel. For nearly three months there was no rain to wetthe ground. Large forest trees withered and cast their leaves. Inspots, the mountains looked as if they had been scorched by fire. Thesalt sea-water came up the Hudson ninety miles, when ordinarily itscarcely comes forty. Toward the last, the capacity of the atmosphereto absorb and dissipate the smoke was exhausted, and innumerable firesin forests and peat-swamps made the days and the weeks--not blue, but adirty yellowish white. There was not enough moisture in the air to takethe sting out of the smoke, and it smarted the nose. The sun was redand dim even at midday, and at his rising and setting he was asharmless to the eye as a crimson shield or a painted moon. Themeteorological conditions seemed the farthest possible remove fromthose that produce rain, or even dew. Every sign was negatived. Somemalevolent spirit seemed abroad in the air, that rendered abortiveevery effort of the gentler divinities to send succor. The clouds wouldgather back in the mountains, the thunder would growl, the tall masseswould rise up and advance threateningly, then suddenly cower, theirstrength and purpose ooze away; they flattened out; the hot, parchedbreath of the earth smote them; the dark, heavy masses were re-resolvedinto thin vapor, and the sky came through where but a few momentsbefore there had appeared to be deep behind deep of water-loggedclouds. Sometimes a cloud would pass by, and one could see trailingbeneath and behind it a sheet of rain, like something let down that didnot quite touch the earth, the hot air vaporizing the drops before theyreached the ground. 

Two or three times the wind got in the south, and those low, dun-coloredclouds that are nothing but harmless fog came hurrying up and coveredthe 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 clearsky was just behind them; they were only the nightcap of the southwind, which the sun burnt up before ten o'clock. 

Every storm has a foundation that is deeply and surely laid, and thoseshallow surface-clouds that have no root in the depths of the skydeceive none but the unwary. 

At other times, when the clouds were not reabsorbed by the sky and rainseemed imminent, they would suddenly undergo a change that looked likecurdling, and when clouds do that no rain need be expected. Time andagain I saw their continuity broken up, saw them separate into smallmasses, --in fact saw a process of disintegration and disorganizationgoing on, and my hope of rain was over for that day. Vast spaces wouldbe affected suddenly; it was like a stroke of paralysis: motion wasretarded, the breeze died down, the thunder ceased, and the storm wasblighted on the very threshold of success. 

I suppose there is some compensation in a drought; Nature doubtlessprofits 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 intoplay. How the big trees and big plants do rob the little ones! there isnot drink enough to go around, and the strongest will have what thereis. It is a rest to vegetation, too, a kind of torrid winter that isfollowed by a fresh awakening. Every tree and plant learns a lessonfrom it, learns to shoot its roots down deep into the perennialsupplies of moisture and life. 

But when the rain does come, the warm, sun-distilled rain; thefar-traveling, vapor-born rain; the impartial, undiscriminating, unstinted rain; equable, bounteous, myriad-eyed, searching out everyplant and every spear of grass, finding every hidden thing that needswater, falling upon the just and upon the unjust, sponging off everyleaf of every tree in the forest and every growth in the fields;music to the ear, a perfume to the smell, an enchantment to the eye;healing the earth, cleansing the air, renewing the fountains; honeyto the bee, manna to the herds, and life to all creatures, --whatspectacle so fills the heart? "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down on theplowed fields of the Athenians, and on the plains. "

There is a fine sibilant chorus audible in the sod, and in the dust ofthe road, and in the porous plowed fields. Every grain of soil andevery root and rootlet purrs in satisfaction, Because something morethan water comes down when it rains; you cannot produce this effect bysimple water; the good-will of the elements, the consent andapprobation of all the skyey influences, come down; the harmony, theadjustment, the perfect understanding of the soil beneath and the airthat swims above, are implied in the marvelous benefaction of the rain. The earth is ready; the moist winds have wooed it and prepared it, theelectrical conditions are as they should be, and there are love andpassion in the surrender of the summer clouds. How the drops areabsorbed into the ground! You cannot, I say, succeed like this withyour hose or sprinkling-pot. There is no ardor or electricity in thedrops, no ammonia, or ozone, or other nameless properties borrowed fromthe air. 

Then one has not the gentleness and patience of Nature; we puddle theground in our hurry, we seal it up and exclude the air, and the plantsare worse off than before. When the sky is overcast and it is gettingready to rain, the moisture rises in the ground, the earth opens herpores and seconds the desire of the clouds. 

Indeed, I have found there is but little virtue in a sprinkling-potafter the drought has reached a certain pitch. The soil will not absorbthe water. 'Tis like throwing it on a hot stove. I once concentrated myefforts upon a single hill of corn and deluged it with water night andmorning for several days, yet its leaves curled up and the ears failedthe same as the rest. Something may be done, without doubt, if onebegins in time, but the relief seems strangely inadequate to the meansoften used. In rainless countries good crops are produced byirrigation, but here man can imitate in a measure the patience andbounty of Nature, and, with night to aid him, can make his thirstyfields drink, or rather can pour the water down their throats. 

I have said the rain is as necessary to man as to vegetation. Youcannot have a rank, sappy race, like the English or the German, withoutplenty of moisture in the air and in the soil. Good viscera and anabundance of blood are closely related to meteorological conditions, unction of character, and a flow of animal spirits, too; and I suspectthat much of the dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as thethin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rainenough, but not equability of temperature or moisture, --no steady, abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain itis said to rain on an average three days out of four the year through;yet the depth of rainfall is no greater than in this country, where itrains but the one day out of four. John Bull shows those three rainydays both in his temper and in his bodily habit; he is better for themin many ways, and perhaps not quite so good in a few others: they makehim juicy and vascular, and maybe a little opaque; but we in thiscountry could well afford a few of his negative qualities for the sakeof his stomach and full-bloodedness. 

We have such faith in the virtue of the rain, and in the capacity ofthe clouds to harbor and transport material good, that we more thanhalf believe the stories of the strange and anomalous things that havefallen in showers. There is no credible report that it has ever yetrained pitchforks, but many other curious things have fallen. Fish, flesh, and fowl, and substances that were neither, have been picked upby veracious people after a storm. Manna, blood, and honey, frogs, newts, and fish-worms, are among the curious things the clouds aresupposed to yield. If the clouds scooped up their water as the flyingexpress train does, these phenomena could be easier explained. I myselfhave seen curious things. Riding along the road one day on the heels ofa violent summer tempest, I saw the ground swarming with minute hoppingcreatures. I got out and captured my hands full. They proved to betree-toads, many of them no larger than crickets, and none of themlarger than a bumblebee. There seemed to be thousands of them. The markof the tree-toad was the round, flattened ends of their toes. I tooksome of them home, but they died the next day. Where did they comefrom? I imagined the violent wind swept them off the trees in the woodsto windward of the road. But this is only a guess; maybe they crept outof the ground, or from under the wall near by, and were out to wettheir jackets. 

I have never yet heard of a frog coming down chimney in a shower. Somecircumstantial evidence may be pretty conclusive, Thoreau says, as whenyou find a trout in the milk; and if you find a frog or toad behind thefire-board immediately after a shower, you may well ask him to explainhimself. 

When I was a boy I used to wonder if the clouds were hollow and carriedtheir water as in a cask, because had we not often heard of cloudsbursting and producing havoc and ruin beneath them? The hoops gave way, perhaps, or the head was pressed out. Goethe says that when thebarometer rises, the clouds are spun off from the top downward like adistaff of flax; but this is more truly the process when it rains. Whenfair weather is in the ascendant, the clouds are simply reabsorbed bythe air; but when it rains, they are spun off into something morecompact: 'tis like the threads that issue from the mass of flax orroll of wool, only here there are innumerable threads, and the fingersthat hold them never tire. The great spinning-wheel, too, what ahumming it makes at times, and how the footsteps of the invisiblespinner resound through the cloud-pillared chambers!

The clouds are thus literally spun up into water; and were they notconstantly recruited from the atmosphere as the storm-centre travelsalong, --was new wool not forthcoming from the white sheep and the blacksheep that the winds herd at every point, --all rains would be brief andlocal; the storm would quickly exhaust itself, as we sometimes see athunder-cloud do in summer. A storm will originate in the far West orSouthwest--those hatching-places of all our storms--and travel acrossthe continent, and across the Atlantic to Europe, pouring downincalculable quantities of rain as it progresses and recruiting as itwastes. It is a moving vortex, into which the outlying moisture of theatmosphere is being constantly drawn and precipitated. It is notproperly the storm that travels, but the low pressure, the stormimpulse, the meteorological magnet that makes the storm wherever itspresence may be. The clouds are not watering-carts, that are driven allthe way from Arizona or Colorado to Europe, but growths, developmentsthat spring up as the Storm-deity moves his wand across the land. Inadvance of the storm, you may often see the clouds grow; thecondensation of the moisture into vapor is a visible process; slender, spiculę-like clouds expand, deepen, and lengthen; in the rear of thelow pressure, the reverse process, or the wasting of the clouds, may bewitnessed. In summer, the recruiting of a thunder-storm is often verymarked. I have seen the clouds file as straight across the sky toward agrowing storm or thunder-head in the horizon as soldiers hastening tothe point of attack or defense. They would grow more and more black andthreatening as they advanced, and actually seemed to be driven by moreurgent winds than certain other clouds. They were, no doubt, more inthe line of the storm influence. All our general storms are cyclonic intheir character, that is, rotary and progressive. Their type may beseen in every little whirlpool that goes down the swollen current ofthe river; and in our hemisphere they revolve in the same direction, namely, from right to left, or in opposition to the hands of a watch. When the water finds an outlet through the bottom of a dam, a suctionor whirling vortex is developed that generally goes round in the samedirection. A morning-glory or a hop-vine or a pole-bean winds aroundits support in the same course, and cannot be made to wind in anyother. I am aware there are some perverse climbers among the plantsthat persist in going around the pole in the other direction. In thesouthern hemisphere the cyclone revolves in the other direction, orfrom left to right. How do they revolve at the equator, then? They donot revolve at all. This is the point of zero, and cyclones are neverformed nearer than the third parallel of latitude. Whether hop-vinesalso 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 allthe filmy, hazy, cirrus and cirro-stratus clouds first appear from thegeneral direction of the sunset? Who ever saw them pushing their opaquefilaments over the sky from the east or north? Yet do we not have"northeasters" both winter and summer? True, but the storm does notcome from that direction. In such a case we get that segment of thecyclonic 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 arethe boss-clouds above them, the great captains themselves, movingserenely on in the opposite direction. 

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

What a spur and impulse the summer shower is! How its coming quickensand hurries up the slow, jogging country life! The traveler along thedusty road arouses from his reverie at the warning rumble behind thehills; the children hasten from the field or from the school; thefarmer steps lively and thinks fast. In the hay-field, at the firstsignal-gun of the elements, what a commotion! How the horserakerattles, how the pitchforks fly, how the white sleeves play and twinklein the sun or against the dark background of the coming storm! One mandoes the work of two or three. It is a race with the elements, and thehay-makers do not like to be beaten. The rain that is life to the grasswhen growing is poison to it after it becomes cured hay, and it must begot under shelter, or put up into snug cocks, if possible, before thestorm overtakes it. 

The rains of winter are cold and odorless. One prefers the snow, whichwarms and covers; but can there be anything more delicious than thefirst warm April rain, --the first offering of the softened and pacifiedclouds of spring? The weather has been dry, perhaps, for two or threeweeks; we have had a touch of the dreaded drought thus early; the roadsare dusty, the streams again shrunken, and forest fires send up columnsof smoke on every hand; the frost has all been out of the ground manydays; the snow has all disappeared from the mountains; the sun is warm, but the grass does not grow, nor the early seeds come up. Thequickening spirit of the rain is needed. Presently the wind gets in thesouthwest, and, late in the day, we have our first vernal shower, gentle and leisurely, but every drop condensed from warm tropic vaporsand charged with the very essence of spring. Then what a perfume fillsthe air! One's nostrils are not half large enough to take it in. Thesmoke, washed by the rain, becomes the breath of woods, and the soiland 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 birdsrejoice! Hear the robins laugh! This will bring out the worms and theinsects, and start the foliage of the trees. A summer shower has morecopiousness and power, but this has the charm of freshness and of allfirst things. 

The laws of storms, up to a certain point, have come to be pretty wellunderstood, but there is yet no science of the weather, any more thanthere is of human nature. There is about as much room for speculationin the one case as in the other. The causes and agencies are subtle andobscure, and we shall, perhaps, have the metaphysics of the subjectbefore we have the physics. 

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

It is a masculine subject, and quite beyond the province of woman. Askthose 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 weatherdaily, as the doctor a patient: he feels the pulse of the wind; heknows when the clouds have a scurfy tongue, or when the cuticle of theday is feverish and dry, or soft and moist. Certain days he calls"weather-breeders, " and they are usually the fairest days in thecalendar, --all sun and sky. They are too fair; they are suspiciouslyso. They come in the fall and spring, and always mean mischief. When aday of almost unnatural brightness and clearness in either of theseseasons follows immediately after a storm, it is a sure indication thatanother storm follows close, --follows to-morrow. In keeping with thisfact is the rule of the barometer, that, if the mercury suddenly risesvery high, the fair weather will not last. It is a high peak thatindicates a corresponding depression close at hand. I observed one ofthese angelic mischief-makers during the past October. The second dayafter a heavy fall of rain was the fairest of the fair, --not a speck orfilm in all the round of the sky. Where have all the clouds and vaporsgone to so suddenly? was my mute inquiry, but I suspected they wereplotting together somewhere behind the horizon. The sky was a deepultramarine blue; the air so transparent that distant objects seemednear, and the afternoon shadows were sharp and clear. At night thestars were unusually numerous and bright (a sure sign of an approachingstorm). The sky was laid bare, as the tidal wave empties the shore ofits water before it heaps it up upon it. A violent storm of wind andrain the next day followed this delusive brightness. So the weather, like human nature, may be suspiciously transparent. A saintly day mayundo you. A few clouds do not mean rain; but when there are absolutelynone, when even the haze and filmy vapors are suppressed or held back, then beware. 

Then the weather-wise know there are two kinds of clouds, rain-cloudsand wind-clouds, and that the latter are always the most portentous. Insummer they are black as night; they look as if they would blot out thevery earth. They raise a great dust, and set things flying and slammingfor a moment, and that is all. They are the veritable wind-bags ofĘolus. There is something in the look of rain-clouds that isunmistakable, --a firm, gray, tightly woven look that makes you rememberyour umbrella. Not too high nor too low, not black nor blue, but theform and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You see the river water in them;they are heavy-laden, and move slow. Sometimes they develop what arecalled "mares' tails, "--small cloud-forms here and there against aheavy background, that look like the stroke of a brush, or thestreaming tail of a charger. Sometimes a few under-clouds will becombed and groomed by the winds or other meteoric agencies at work, asif for a race. I have seen coming storms develop well-definedvertebrę, --a long backbone of cloud, with the articulations andprocesses clearly marked. Any of these forms, changing, growing, denoterain, because they show unusual agencies at work. The storm is brewingand fermenting. "See those cowlicks, " said an old farmer, pointing tocertain patches on the clouds; "they mean rain. " Another time, he saidthe clouds were "making bag, " had growing udders, and that it wouldrain before night, as it did. This reminded me that the Orientals speakof the clouds as cows which the winds herd and milk. 

In the winter, we see the sun wading in snow. The morning has perhapsbeen clear, but in the afternoon a bank of gray filmy or cirrus cloudmeets him in the west, and he sinks deeper and deeper into it, till, athis going down, his muffled beams are entirely hidden. Then, on themorrow, _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 sunrise, or flushed cloudsat evening. Many a hope of rain have I seen dashed by a painted sky atsunset. 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 offthe trees, the next storm will be snow; if it rains off, the next stormwill be rain. "

Morning rains 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 upward, as if afraid ofbeing left behind, the fair weather is near. 

Shoddy clouds are of little account, and soon fall to pieces. Have yourclouds show a good strong fibre, and have them lined, --not with silver, but with other clouds of a finer texture, --and have them wadded. Itwants two or three thicknesses to get up a good rain. Especially, unless you have that cloud-mother, that dim, filmy, nebulous mass thathas its root in the higher regions of the air, and is the source andbacking of all storms, your rain will be light indeed. 

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

We were encamping in the primitive woods, by a little trout lake whichthe mountain carried high on his hip, like a soldier's canteen. Therewere wives in the party, curious to know what the lure was thatannually drew their husbands to the woods. That magical writing on atrout's back they would fain decipher, little heeding the warning thatwhat is written here is not given to woman to know. 

Our only tent or roof was the sheltering arms of the great birches andmaples. What was sauce for the gander should be sauce for the goose, too, so the goose insisted. A luxurious couch of boughs upon springingpoles was prepared, and the night should be not less welcome than theday, which had indeed been idyllic. (A trout dinner had been served bya little spring brook, upon an improvised table covered with moss anddecked with ferns, with strawberries from a near clearing. )

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

As darkness came on, the rumbling increased, and the mountains and thewoods and the still air were such good conductors of sound that the earwas vividly impressed. One seemed to feel the enormous convolutions ofthe clouds in the deep and jarring tones of the thunder. The coming ofnight in the woods is alone peculiarly impressive, and it is doubly sowhen out of the darkness comes such a voice as this. But we fed thefire the more industriously, and piled the logs high, and kept thegathering gloom at bay by as large a circle of light as we couldcommand. The lake was a pool of ink and as still as if congealed; not amovement or a sound, save now and then a terrific volley from the cloudbatteries now fast approaching. By nine o'clock little puffs of windbegan to steal through the woods and tease and toy with our fire. Shortly after, an enormous electric bombshell exploded in the treetopsover our heads, and the ball was fairly opened. Then followed threehours, with only two brief intermissions, of as lively elemental musicand as copious an outpouring of rain as it was ever my lot to witness. It was a regular meteorological carnival, and the revelers were drunkwith the wild sport. The apparent nearness of the clouds and theelectric explosions was something remarkable. Every discharge seemed tobe in the branches immediately overhead and made us involuntarilycower, as if the next moment the great limbs of the trees, or the treesthemselves, would come crashing down. The mountain upon which we wereencamped appeared to be the focus of three distinct but convergingstorms. The last two seemed to come into collision immediately over ourcamp-fire, and to contend for the right of way, until the heavens wereready to fall and both antagonists were literally spent. We stood ingroups about the struggling fire, and when the cannonade became tooterrible would withdraw into the cover of the darkness, as if to be aless conspicuous mark for the bolts; or did we fear that the fire, withits currents, might attract the lightning? At any rate, some other spotthan the one where we happened to be standing seemed desirable whenthose onsets of the contending elements were the most furious. Something that one could not catch in his hat was liable to drop almostanywhere any minute. The alarm and consternation of the wivescommunicated itself to the husbands, and they looked solemn andconcerned. The air was filled with falling water. The sound upon themyriad leaves and branches was like the roar of a cataract. We put ourbacks up against the great trees, only to catch a brook on ourshoulders or in the backs of our necks. Still the storm waxed. The firewas beaten down lower and lower. It surrendered one post after another, like a besieged city, and finally made only a feeble resistance frombeneath a pile of charred logs and branches in the centre. Our garmentsyielded to the encroachments of the rain in about the same manner. Ibelieve my necktie held out the longest, and carried a few dry threadssafely through. Our cunningly devised and bedecked table, which thehousekeepers had so doted on and which was ready spread for breakfast, was washed as by the hose of a fire-engine, --only the bare polesremained, --and the couch of springing boughs, that was to make Sleepjealous and o'er-fond, became a bed fit only for amphibians. Still theloosened floods came down; still the great cloud-mortars bellowed andexploded their missiles in the treetops above us. But all nervousnessfinally passed away, and we became dogged and resigned. Our mindsbecame water-soaked; our thoughts were heavy and bedraggled. We werepast the point of joking at one another's expense. The witticismsfailed to kindle, --indeed, failed to go, like the matches in ourpockets. About midnight the rain slackened, and by one o'clock ceasedentirely. How the rest of the night was passed beneath the drippingtrees and upon the saturated ground, I have only the dimmestremembrance. All is watery and opaque; the fog settles down andobscures the scene. But I suspect I tried the "wet pack" without beinga convert to hydropathy. When the morning dawned, the wives begged tobe taken home, convinced that the charms of camping-out were greatlyoverrated. We, who had tasted this cup before, knew they had read atleast a part of the legend of the wary trout without knowing it. 

V

SPECKLED TROUT

I

The legend of the wary trout, hinted at in the last sketch, is to befurther illustrated in this and some following chapters. We shall getat more of the meaning of those dark water-lines, and I hope, also, notentirely miss the significance of the gold and silver spots and theglancing iridescent hues. The trout is dark and obscure above, butbehind this foil there are wondrous tints that reward the believingeye. Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts are quite sure to getthe full force of the sombre and uninviting aspects, --the wet, thecold, the toil, the broken rest, and the huge, savage, uncompromisingnature, --but the true angler sees farther than these, and is neverthwarted of his legitimate reward by them. 

I have been a seeker of trout from my boyhood, and on all theexpeditions in which this fish has been the ostensible purpose I havebrought home more game than my creel showed. In fact, in my matureyears I find I got more of nature into me, more of 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 andmarrowy places of field and wood. Then the fisherman has a harmless, preoccupied look; he is a kind of vagrant that nothing fears. He blendshimself with the trees and the shadows. All his approaches are gentleand indirect. He times himself to the meandering, soliloquizing stream;its impulse bears him along. At the foot of the waterfall he sitssequestered and hidden in its volume of sound. The birds know he has nodesigns upon them, and the animals see that his mind is in the creek. His enthusiasm anneals him, and makes him pliable to the scenes andinfluences he moves among. 

Then what acquaintance he makes with the stream! He addresses himselfto it as a lover to his mistress; he wooes it and stays with it till heknows its most hidden secrets. It runs through his thoughts not lessthan through its banks there; he feels the fret and thrust of every barand boulder. Where it deepens, his purpose deepens; where it isshallow, he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every glanceand dimple; its beauty haunts him for days. 

I am sure I run no risk of overpraising the charm and attractiveness ofa well-fed trout stream, every drop of water in it as bright and pureas if the nymphs had brought it all the way from its source in crystalgoblets, and as cool as if it had been hatched beneath a glacier. Whenthe 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 flowthrough him a few hours, it suggests such healing freshness andnewness. How his roily thoughts would run clear; how the sediment wouldgo downstream! Could he ever have an impure or an unwholesome wishafterward? The next best thing he can do is to tramp along its banksand surrender himself to its influence. If he reads it intently enough, he will, in a measure, be taking it into his mind and heart, andexperiencing its salutary ministrations. 

Trout streams coursed through every valley my boyhood knew. I crossedthem, and was often lured and detained by them, on my way to and fromschool. We bathed in them during the long summer noons, and felt forthe trout under their banks. A holiday was a holiday indeed thatbrought permission to go fishing over on Rose's Brook, or upHardscrabble, or in Meeker's Hollow; all-day trips, from morning tillnight, through meadows and pastures and beechen woods, wherever theshy, limpid stream led. What an appetite it developed! a hunger thatwas fierce and aboriginal, and that the wild strawberries we plucked aswe crossed the hill teased rather than allayed. When but a few hourscould be had, gained perhaps by doing some piece of work about the farmor garden in half the allotted time, the little creek that headed inthe paternal domain was handy; when half a day was at one's disposal, there were the hemlocks, less than a mile distant, with theirloitering, meditative, log-impeded stream and their dusky, fragrantdepths. Alert and wide-eyed, one picked his way along, startled now andthen by the sudden bursting-up of the partridge, or by the whistlingwings of the "dropping snipe, " pressing through the brush and thebriers, 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 inand out amid the moss-covered boulders. In my first essayings I used togo to the edge of these hemlocks, seldom dipping into them beyond thefirst pool where the stream swept under the roots of two large trees. From this point I could look back into the sunlit fields where thecattle were grazing; beyond, all was gloom and mystery; the trout wereblack, and to my young imagination the silence and the shadows wereblacker. But gradually I yielded to the fascination and penetrated thewoods farther and farther on each expedition, till the heart of themystery was fairly plucked out. During the second or third year of mypiscatorial experience I went through them, and through the pasture andmeadow beyond, and through another strip of hemlocks, to where thelittle stream joined the main creek of the valley. 

In June, when my trout fever ran pretty high, and an auspicious dayarrived, 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 rapidmountain 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 mossynests of the phoebe-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 goodhiding-places are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow thecharacter of the creek changes: it goes slower and lies deeper; ittarries to enjoy the high, cool banks and to half hide beneath them; itloves the willows, or rather the willows love it and shelter it fromthe sun; its spring runs are kept cool by the overhanging grass, andthe heavy turf that faces its open banks is not cut away by the sharphoofs of the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks and thestarlings and the meadowlarks, always interested spectators of theangler; there are also the marsh marigolds, the buttercups, or thespotted lilies, and the good angler is always an interested spectatorof them. In fact, the patches of meadow land that lie in the angler'scourse are like the happy experiences in his own life, or like the finepassages in the poem he is reading; the pasture oftener contains theshallow and monotonous places. In the small streams the cattle scarethe fish, and soil their element and break down their retreats underthe banks. Woodland alternates the best with meadow: the creek loves toburrow under the roots of a great tree, to scoop out a pool afterleaping over the prostrate trunk of one, and to pause at the foot of aledge of moss-covered rocks, with ice-cold water dripping down. Howstraight the current goes for the rock! Note its corrugated, muscularappearance; it strikes and glances off, but accumulates, deepens withwell-defined eddies above and to one side; on the edge of these thetrout lurk and spring upon their prey. 

The angler learns that it is generally some obstacle or hindrance thatmakes a deep place in the creek, as in a brave life; and his idealbrook is one that lies in deep, well-defined banks, yet makes many ashift from right to left, meets with many rebuffs and adventures, hurled back upon itself by rocks, waylaid by snags and trees, trippedup by precipices, but sooner or later reposing under meadow banks, deepening and eddying beneath bridges, or prosperous and strong in somelevel stretch of cultivated land with great elms shading it here andthere. 

But I early learned that from almost any stream in a trout country thetrue angler could take trout, and that the great secret was this, that, whatever bait you used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there was onething you must always put upon your hook, namely, your heart: when youbait your hook with your heart the fish always bite; they will jumpclear from the water after it; they will dispute with each other overit; it is a morsel they love above everything else. With such bait Ihave seen the born angler (my grandfather was one) take a noble stringof trout from the most unpromising waters, and on the most unpromisingday. He used his hook so coyly and tenderly, he approached the fishwith such address and insinuation, he divined the exact spot where theylay: if they were not eager, he humored them and seemed to steal bythem; if they were playful and coquettish, he would suit his mood totheirs; if they were frank and sincere, he met them halfway; he was sopatient and considerate, so entirely devoted to pleasing the criticaltrout, and so successful in his efforts, --surely his heart was upon hishook, and it was a tender, unctuous heart, too, as that of every angleris. How nicely he would measure the distance! how dexterously he wouldavoid an overhanging limb or bush and drop the line exactly in theright spot! Of course there was a pulse of feeling and sympathy to theextremity of that line. If your heart is a stone, however, or an emptyhusk, there is no use to put it upon your hook; it will not tempt thefish; the bait must be quick and fresh. Indeed, a certain quality ofyouth is indispensable to the successful angler, a certainunworldliness and readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise thatdoesn't pay in the current coin. Not only is the angler, like thepoet, born and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of thepoet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victimof his genius: those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will playtruant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat oftheir own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eightyyears old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step offwith wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; it used to try myyoung legs a good deal to follow him, specially on the return trip. Andno poet was ever more innocent of worldly success or ambition. For, toparaphrase 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, thoughthe kindest of husbands, I fear he was not what the country people calla "good provider, " except in providing trout in their season, though itis doubtful if there was always fat in the house to fry them in. But hecould tell you they were worse off than that at Valley Forge, and thattrout, or any other fish, were good roasted in the ashes under thecoals. He had the Walton requisite of loving quietness andcontemplation, and was devout withal. Indeed, in many ways he was akinto those Galilee fishermen who were called to be fishers of men. How heread the Book and pored over it, even at times, I suspect, nodding overit, and laying it down only to take up his rod, over which, unless thetrout were very dilatory and the journey very fatiguing, he nevernodded!

II

The Delaware is one of our minor rivers, but it is a stream beloved ofthe trout. Nearly all its remote branches head in mountain springs, andits collected waters, even when warmed by the summer sun, are as sweetand wholesome as dew swept from the grass. The Hudson wins from it twostreams that are fathered by the mountains from whose loins most of itsbeginnings issue, namely, the Rondout and the Esopus. These swell amore illustrious current than the Delaware, but the Rondout, one of thefinest trout streams in the world, makes an uncanny alliance before itreaches its destination, namely, with the malarious Wallkill. 

In the same nest of mountains from which they start are born theNeversink and the Beaverkill, streams of wondrous beauty that flowsouth and west into the Delaware. From my native hills I could catchglimpses of the mountains in whose laps these creeks were cradled, butit was not till after many years, and after dwelling in a country wheretrout are not found, that I returned to pay my respects to them as anangler. 

My first acquaintance with the Neversink was made in company with somefriends in 1869. We passed up the valley of the Big Ingin, marveling atits copious ice-cold springs, and its immense sweep of heavy-timberedmountain-sides. Crossing the range at its head, we struck the Neversinkquite unexpectedly about the middle of the afternoon, at a point whereit was a good-sized trout stream. It proved to be one of those blackmountain brooks born of innumerable ice-cold springs, nourished inthe shade, and shod, as it were, with thick-matted moss, that everycamper-out remembers. The fish are as black as the stream and very wild. They dart from beneath the fringed rocks, or dive with the hook intothe dusky depths, --an integral part of the silence and the shadows. Thespell of the moss is over all. The fisherman's tread is noiseless, ashe leaps from stone to stone and from ledge to ledge along the bed ofthe stream. How cool it is! He looks up the dark, silent defile, hearsthe solitary voice of the water, sees the decayed trunks of fallentrees bridging the stream, and all he has dreamed, when a boy, of thehaunts of beasts of prey--the crouching feline tribes, especially if itbe near nightfall and the gloom already deepening in the woods--comesfreshly to mind, and he presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to hiscompanions in low tones. 

After an hour or so the trout became less abundant, and with nearly ahundred of the black sprites in our baskets we turned back. Here andthere I saw the abandoned nests of the pigeons, sometimes half a dozenin one tree. In a yellow birch which the floods had uprooted, a numberof nests were still in place, little shelves or platforms of twigsloosely arranged, and affording little or no protection to the eggs orthe young birds against inclement weather. 

Before we had reached our companions the rain set in again and forcedus to take shelter under a balsam. When it slackened we moved on andsoon came up with Aaron, who had caught his first trout, and, considerably drenched, was making his way toward camp, which one of theparty had gone forward to build. After traveling less than a mile, wesaw a smoke struggling up through the dripping trees, and in a fewmoments were all standing round a blazing fire. But the rain nowcommenced again, and fairly poured down through the trees, renderingthe prospect of cooking and eating our supper there in the woods, andof 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 ofmiles farther down the creek, and thitherward we speedily took up ourline 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 sightof a bark-peeling, in the midst of which a small log house lifted itsnaked rafters toward the now breaking sky. It had neither floor norroof, and was less inviting on first sight than the open woods. But aboard partition was still standing, out of which we built a rude porchon the east side of the house, large enough for us all to sleep underif well packed, and eat under if we stood up. There was plenty ofwell-seasoned timber lying about, and a fire was soon burning in frontof our quarters that made the scene social and picturesque, especiallywhen the frying-pans were brought into requisition, and the coffee, incharge of Aaron, who was an artist in this line, mingled its aroma withthe wild-wood air. At dusk a balsam was felled, and the tips of thebranches used to make a bed, which was more fragrant than soft; hemlockis better, because its needles are finer and its branches more elastic. 

There was a spirt or two of rain during the night, but not enough tofind out the leaks in our roof. It took the shower or series of showersof the next day to do that. They commenced about two o'clock in theafternoon. The forenoon had been fine, and we had brought into campnearly three hundred trout; but before they were half dressed, or thefirst panfuls fried, the rain set in. First came short, sharp dashes, then a gleam of treacherous sunshine, followed by more and heavierdashes. The wind was in the southwest, and to rain seemed the easiestthing in the world. From fitful dashes to a steady pour the transitionwas natural. We stood huddled together, stark and grim, under ourcover, like hens under a cart. The fire fought bravely for a time, andretaliated with sparks and spiteful tongues of flame; but gradually itsspirit was broken, only a heavy body of coal and half-consumed logs inthe centre holding out against all odds. The simmering fish were soonfloating about in a yellow liquid that did not look in the leastappetizing. Point after point gave way in our cover, till standingbetween the drops was no longer possible. The water coursed down theunderside of the boards, and dripped in our necks and formed puddles onour hat-brims. We shifted our guns and traps and viands, till there wasno longer any choice of position, when the loaves and the fishes, thesalt and the sugar, the pork and the butter, shared the same wateryfate. The fire was gasping its last. Little rivulets coursed about it, and bore away the quenched but steaming coals on their bosoms. Thespring run in the rear of our camp swelled so rapidly that part of thetrout that had been hastily left lying on its banks again foundthemselves 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 thanthat, --he had been washed and rinsed in at least half a dozen waters, and the trout that he bore dangling at the end of a string hardlyknew that they had been out of their proper element. 

But he brought welcome news. He had been two or three miles down thecreek, and had seen a log building, --whether house or stable he did notknow, but it had the appearance of having a good roof, which wasinducement enough for us instantly to leave our present quarters. Ourcourse lay along an old wood-road, and much of the time we were to ourknees in water. The woods were literally flooded everywhere. Everylittle rill and springlet ran like a mill-tail, while the main streamrushed and roared, foaming, leaping, lashing, its volume increasedfifty-fold. The water was not roily, but of a rich coffee-color, fromthe leachings of the woods. No more trout for the next three days! wethought, as we looked upon the rampant stream. 

After we had labored and floundered along for about an hour, the roadturned to the left, and in a little stumpy clearing near the creek agable uprose on our view. It did not prove to be just such a place aspoets love to contemplate. It required a greater effort of theimagination than any of us were then capable of to believe it had everbeen a favorite resort of wood-nymphs or sylvan deities. It savoredrather of the equine and the bovine. The bark-men had kept their teamsthere, horses on the one side and oxen on the other, and no Herculeshad ever done duty in cleansing the stables. But there was a dry loftoverhead with some straw, where we might get some sleep, in spite ofthe rain and the midges; a double layer of boards, standing at a veryacute angle, would keep off the former, while the mingled refuse hayand muck beneath would nurse a smoke that would prove a thoroughprotection against the latter. And then, when Jim, the two-handed, mounting the trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had severed it thricewith easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the logs in front of theshanty, had kindled a fire, which, getting the better of the dampness, soon cast a bright glow over all, shedding warmth and light even intothe dingy stable, I consented to unsling my knapsack and accept thesituation. The rain had ceased, and the sun shone out behind the woods. We had trout sufficient for present needs; and after my first meal inan ox-stall, I strolled out on the rude log bridge to watch the angryNeversink rush by. Its waters fell quite as rapidly as they rose, andbefore sundown it looked as if we might have fishing again on themorrow. We had better sleep that night than either night before, thoughthere were two disturbing 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, andhugged my pallet of straw the closer. But the day dawned bright, and aplunge in the Neversink set me all right again. The creek, to oursurprise and gratification, was only a little higher than before therain, and some of the finest trout we had yet seen we caught thatmorning near camp. 

We tarried yet another day and night at the old stable, but taking ourmeals outside squatted on the ground, which had now become quite dry. Part of the day I spent strolling about the woods, looking up oldacquaintances among the birds, and, as always, half expectant of makingsome new ones. Curiously enough, the most abundant species were amongthose I had found rare in most other localities, namely, the smallwater-wagtail, the mourning ground warbler, and the yellow-belliedwoodpecker. The latter seems to be the prevailing woodpecker throughthe woods of this region. 

That night the midges, those motes that sting, held high carnival. Welearned afterward, in the settlement below and from the barkpeelers, that it was the worst night ever experienced in that valley. We haddone no fishing during the day, but had anticipated some fine sportabout sundown. Accordingly Aaron and I started off between six andseven o'clock, one going upstream and the other down. The scene wascharming. The sun shot up great spokes of light from behind the woods, and beauty, like a presence, pervaded the atmosphere. But torment, multiplied as the sands of the seashore, lurked in every tangle andthicket. In a thoughtless moment I removed my shoes and socks, andwaded in the water to secure a fine trout that had accidentally slippedfrom my string and was helplessly floating with the current. Thiscaused some delay and gave the gnats time to accumulate. Before I hadgot one foot half dressed I was enveloped in a black mist that settledupon my hands and neck and face, filling my ears with infinitesimalpipings and covering my flesh with infinitesimal bitings. I thought Ishould have to flee to the friendly fumes of the old stable, with "onestocking off and one stocking on;" but I got my shoe on at last, thoughnot without many amusing interruptions and digressions. 

In a few moments after this adventure I was in rapid retreat towardcamp. Just as I reached the path leading from the shanty to the creek, my companion in the same ignoble flight reached it also, his hat brokenand rumpled, and his sanguine countenance looking more sanguinary thanI had ever before seen it, and his speech, also, in the highest degreeinflammatory. His face and forehead were as blotched and swollen as ifhe had just run his head into a hornets' nest, and his manner asprecipitate as if the whole swarm was still at his back. 

No smoke or smudge which we ourselves could endure was sufficient inthe earlier part of that evening to prevent serious annoyance from thesame cause; but later a respite was granted us. 

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

After we had climbed to our loft and had lain down to sleep, anotheradventure befell us. This time a new and uninviting customer appearedupon the scene, the _genius loci_ of the old stable, namely, the"fretful porcupine. " We had seen the marks and work of these animalsabout the shanty, and had been careful each night to hang our traps, guns, etc. , beyond their reach, but of the prickly night-walker himselfwe feared we should not get a view. 

We had lain down some half hour, and I was just on the threshold ofsleep, ready, as it were, to pass through the open door into the landof dreams, when I heard outside somewhere that curious sound, --a soundwhich I had heard every night I spent in these woods, not only on thisbut on former expeditions, and which I had settled in my mind asproceeding from the porcupine, since I knew the sounds our other commonanimals were likely to make, --a sound that might be either a gnawing onsome hard, dry substance, or a grating of teeth, or a shrill grunting. 

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

"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 lastnight also. "

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

"Not far off, perhaps fifteen or twenty yards from our fire, where theshadows begin to deepen. "

Orville slipped into his trousers, felt for my gun, and in a moment haddisappeared down through the scuttle hole. I had no disposition tofollow him, but was rather annoyed than otherwise at the disturbance. Getting the direction of the sound, he went picking his way over therough, uneven ground, and, when he got where the light failed him, poking every doubtful object with the end of his gun. Presently hepoked a light grayish object, like a large round stone, which surprisedhim by moving off. On this hint he fired, making an incurable wound inthe "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 Wesson, Ihastened, shoeless and hatless, to the scene of action, wondering whatwas up. I found my companion struggling to detain, with the end of thegun, an uncertain object that was trying to crawl off into thedarkness. "Look out!" said Orville, as he saw my bare feet, "the quillsare lying thick around here. "

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

He proved to be an unusually large Canada porcupine, --an old patriarch, gray and venerable, with spines three inches long, and weighing, Ishould say, twenty pounds. The build of this animal is much like thatof the woodchuck, that is, heavy and pouchy. The nose is blunter thanthat of the woodchuck, the limbs stronger, and the tail broader andheavier. Indeed, the latter appendage is quite club-like, and theanimal can, no doubt, deal a smart blow with it. An old hunter withwhom I talked thought it aided them in climbing. They are inveterategnawers, and spend much of their time in trees gnawing the bark. Inwinter one will take up its abode in a hemlock, and continue there tillthe tree is quite denuded. The carcass emitted a peculiar, offensiveodor, and, though very fat, was not in the least inviting as game. Ifit is part of the economy of nature for one animal to prey upon someother beneath it, then the poor devil has indeed a mouthful that makesa meal off the porcupine. Panthers and lynxes have essayed it, but haveinvariably left off at the first course, and have afterwards been founddead, or nearly so, with their heads puffed up like a pincushion, andthe quills protruding on all sides. A dog that understands the businesswill manoeuvre round the porcupine till he gets an opportunity to throwit over on its back, when he fastens on its quilless underbody. Aaronwas puzzled to know how long-parted friends could embrace, when it wassuggested that the quills could be depressed or elevated at pleasure. 

The next morning boded rain; but we had become thoroughly sated withthe delights of our present quarters, outside and in, and packed up ourtraps to leave. Before we had reached the clearing, three miles below, the rain set in, keeping up a lazy, monotonous drizzle till the afternoon. 

The clearing was quite a recent one, made mostly by barkpeelers, whofollowed their calling in the mountains round about in summer, andworked in their shops making shingle in winter. The Biscuit Brook camein here from the west, --a fine, rapid trout stream six or eight milesin length, with plenty of deer in the mountains about its head. On itsbanks we found the house of an old woodman, to whom we had beendirected for information about the section we proposed to traverse. 

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

"Not to me; I could go it the darkest night ever was. And I can directyou so you can find the way without any trouble. You go down theNeversink about a mile, when you come to Highfall Brook, the firststream 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, prettywell up on the side of the mountain, you will find a wood-road, whichwas made by a fellow below here who stole some ash logs off the top ofthe ridge last winter and drew them out on the snow. When the roadfirst begins to tilt over the mountain, strike down to your left, andyou can reach the Beaverkill before sundown. "

As it was then after two o'clock, and as the distance was six or eightof these terrible hunters' miles, we concluded to take a whole day toit, and wait till next morning. The Beaverkill flowed west, theNeversink south, and I had a mortal dread of getting entangled amid themountains and valleys that lie in either angle. 

Besides, I was glad of another and final opportunity to pay my respectsto the finny tribes of the Neversink. At this point it was one of thefinest trout streams I had ever beheld. It was so sparkling, its bed sofree 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 alongits margin upward of a mile that afternoon, part of the time wading tomy knees, and casting my hook, baited only with a trout's fin, to theopposite bank. Trout are real cannibals, and make no bones, and breaknone either, in lunching on each other. A friend of mine had several inhis spring, when one day a large female trout gulped down one of hermale friends, nearly one third her own size, and went around for twodays with the tail of her liege lord protruding from her mouth! Afish's eye will do for bait, though the anal fin is better. One of thenatives here told me that when he wished to catch large trout (and Ijudged he never fished for any other, --I never do), he used for baitthe bullhead, or dart, a little fish an inch and a half or two incheslong, that rests on the pebbles near shore and darts quickly, whendisturbed, from point to point. "Put that on your hook, " said he, "andif there is a big fish in the creek, he is bound to have it. " But thedarts were not easily found; the big fish, I concluded, had cleanedthem all out; and, then, it was easy enough to supply our wants with afin. 

Declining the hospitable offers of the settlers, we spread our blanketsthat night in a dilapidated shingle-shop on the banks of the BiscuitBrook, first flooring the damp ground with the new shingle that laypiled in one corner. The place had a great-throated chimney with atremendous expanse of fireplace within, that cried "More!" at everymorsel of wood we gave it. 

But I must hasten over this part of the ground, nor let the deliciousflavor of the milk we had that morning for breakfast, and that was sodelectable after four days of fish, linger on my tongue; nor yet tarryto set down the talk of that honest, weatherworn passer-by who pausedbefore our door, and every moment on the point of resuming his way, yetstood for an hour and recited his adventures hunting deer and bearson these mountains. Having replenished our stock of bread and saltpork at the house of one of the settlers, midday found us at Reed'sshanty, --one of those temporary structures erected by the bark jobberto 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, norfrom the men who had just come in to dinner; so we pushed on, as nearas we could, according to the instructions we had previously received. 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 thewood-road. My companions at first could see no trace of it; but knowingthat a casual wood-road cut in winter, when there was likely to be twoor three feet of snow on the ground, would present only the slightestindications to the eye in summer, I looked a little closer, and couldmake out a mark or two here and there. The larger trees had beenavoided, and the axe used only on the small saplings and underbrush, which had been lopped off a couple of feet from the ground. By beingconstantly on the alert, we followed it till near the top of themountain; but, when looking to see it "tilt" over the other side, itdisappeared altogether. Some stumps of the black cherry were found, anda solitary pair of snow-shoes was hanging high and dry on a branch, butno further trace of human hands could we see. While we were restinghere a couple of hermit thrushes, one of them with some sad defect inhis vocal powers which barred him from uttering more than a few notesof his song, gave voice to the solitude of the place. This was thesecond instance in which I have observed a song-bird with apparentlysome organic defect in its instrument. The other case was that of abobolink, which, hover in mid-air and inflate its throat as it might, could only force out a few incoherent notes. But the bird in each casepresented this striking contrast to human examples of the kind, that itwas apparently just as proud of itself, and just as well satisfied withits performance, as were its more successful rivals. 

After deliberating some time over a pocket compass which I carried, wedecided upon our course, and held on to the west. The descent was verygradual. Traces of bear and deer were noted at different points, butnot a live animal was seen. 

About four o'clock we reached the bank of a stream flowing west. Hailto the Beaverkill! and we pushed on along its banks. The trout wereplenty, and rose quickly to the hook; but we held on our way, designingto go into camp about six o'clock. Many inviting places, first on onebank, then on the other, made us linger, till finally we reached asmooth, dry place overshadowed by balsam and hemlock, where the creekbent around a little flat, which was so entirely to our fancy that weunslung our knapsacks at once. While my companions were cutting woodand making other preparations for the night, it fell to my lot, as themost successful angler, to provide the trout for supper and breakfast. How shall I describe that wild, beautiful stream, with features so likethose of all other mountain streams? And yet, as I saw it in the deeptwilight of those woods on that June afternoon, with its steady, evenflow, and its tranquil, many-voiced murmur, it made an impression uponmy mind distinct and peculiar, fraught in an eminent degree with thecharm of seclusion and remoteness. The solitude was perfect, and I feltthat strangeness and insignificance which the civilized man must alwaysfeel when opposing himself to such a vast scene of silence andwildness. The trout were quite black, like all wood trout, and took thebait eagerly. I followed the stream till the deepening shadows warnedme to turn back. As I neared camp, the fire shone far through thetrees, dispelling the gathering gloom, but blinding my eyes to allobstacles at my feet. I was seriously disturbed on arriving to findthat one of my companions had cut an ugly gash in his shin with the axewhile felling a tree. As we did not carry a fifth wheel, it was notjust the time or place to have any of our members crippled, and I hadbodings of evil. But, thanks to the healing virtues of the balsam whichmust have adhered to the blade of the axe, and double thanks to thecourt-plaster with which Orville had supplied himself before leavinghome, 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 camping out, --that is, sleeping on the ground with no shelter over us but the trees, --and itwas in many respects the pleasantest night we spent in the woods. Theweather was perfect and the place was perfect, and for the first timewe were exempt from the midges and smoke; and then we appreciated theclean new page we had to work on. Nothing is so acceptable to thecamper-out as a pure article in the way of woods and waters. Anyadmixture of human relics mars the spirit of the scene. Yet I amwilling to confess that, before we were through those woods, the marksof an axe in a tree were a welcome sight. On resuming our march nextday we followed the right bank of the Beaverkill, in order to strike astream which flowed in from the north, and which was the outlet ofBalsam Lake, the objective point of that day's march. The distance tothe 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, making detours around swampy places, and forcingour way through woods choked up with much fallen and decayed timber, itseemed at least twice that distance, and the mid-afternoon sun wasshining when we emerged into what is called the "Quaker Clearing, "ground that I had been over nine years before, and that lies about twomiles south of the lake. From this point we had a well-worn path thatled us up a sharp rise of ground, then through level woods till we sawthe bright gleam of the water through the trees. 

I am always struck, on approaching these little mountain lakes, withthe extensive preparation that is made for them in the conformation ofthe ground. I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin, in theside of the mountain or on its top, the brink of which I shall reachafter a little steep climbing; but instead of that, after I haveaccomplished the ascent, I find a broad sweep of level or gentlyundulating 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'shand. 

Balsam Lake was oval-shaped, scarcely more than half a mile long and aquarter of a mile wide, but presented a charming picture, with a groupof dark gray hemlocks filling the valley about its head, and themountains rising above and beyond. We found a bough house in goodrepair, also a dug-out and paddle and several floats of logs. In thedug-out I was soon creeping along the shady side of the lake, where thetrout were incessantly jumping for a species of black fly, that, sheltered from the slight breeze, were dancing in swarms just above thesurface of the water. The gnats were there in swarms also, and didtheir best toward balancing the accounts by preying upon me while Ipreyed upon the trout which preyed upon the flies. But by dint ofkeeping my hands, face, and neck constantly wet, I am convinced thatthe balance of blood was on my side. The trout jumped most within afoot or two of shore, where the water was only a few inches deep. Theshallowness of the water, perhaps, accounted for the inability of thefish to do more than lift their heads above the surface. They came upmouths wide open, and dropped back again in the most impotent manner. Where there is any depth of water, a trout will jump several feet intothe air; and where there is a solid, unbroken sheet or column, theywill scale falls and dams fifteen feet high. 

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

There were two varieties of trout in the lake, --what it seems proper tocall silver trout and golden trout; the former were the slimmer, andseemed to keep apart from the latter. Starting from the outlet andworking round on the eastern side toward the head, we invariably caughtthese first. They glanced in the sun like bars of silver. Their sidesand 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 ofwatergrass that grew in the deeper part of the lake, the other varietywould begin to take the hook, their bellies a bright gold color, whichbecame a deep orange on their fins; and as we returned to the place ofdeparture with the bottom of the boat strewn with these bright formsintermingled, it was a sight not soon to be forgotten. It pleased myeye so, that I would fain linger over them, arranging them in rows andstudying the various hues and tints. They were of nearly a uniformsize, rarely one over ten or under eight inches in length, and itseemed as if the hues of all the precious metals and stones werereflected from their sides. The flesh was deep salmon-color; that ofbrook trout is generally much lighter. Some hunters and fishers fromthe valley of the Mill Brook, whom we met here, told us the trout weremuch 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 instreams that have been long and much fished that I have caught them asmuch as sixteen inches in length. 

The "porcupigs" were numerous about the lake, and not at all shy. Onenight the heat became so intolerable in our oven-shaped bough housethat I was obliged to withdraw from under its cover and lie down alittle to one side. Just at daybreak, as I lay rolled in my blanket, something awoke me. Lifting up my head, there was a porcupine with hisforepaws on my hips. He was apparently as much surprised as I was; andto my inquiry as to what he at that moment might be looking for, he didnot pause to reply, but hitting me a slap with his tail which leftthree or four quills in my blanket, he scampered off down the hill intothe brush. 

Being an observer of the birds, of course every curious incidentconnected with them fell under my notice. Hence, as we stood about ourcamp-fire one afternoon looking out over the lake, I was the only oneto see a little commotion in the water, half hidden by the nearbranches, as of some tiny swimmer 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. Ibrought the drenched and helpless thing to camp, and, putting it into abasket, hung it up to dry. An hour or two afterward I heard itfluttering in its prison, and cautiously lifted the lid to get a betterglimpse of the lucky captive, when it darted out and was gone in atwinkling. How came it in the water? That was my wonder, and I can onlyguess that it was a young bird that had never before flown over a pondof 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. Howmy eye was delighted also with the redbird that alighted for a momenton a dry branch above the lake, just where a ray of light from thesetting sun fell full upon it! A mere crimson point, and yet how itoffset that dark, sombre background!

I have thus run over some of the features of an ordinary troutingexcursion to the woods. People inexperienced in such matters, sittingin their rooms and thinking of these things, of all the poets have sungand romancers written, are apt to get sadly taken in when they attemptto realize their dreams. They expect to enter a sylvan paradise oftrout, cool retreats, laughing brooks, picturesque views, and balsamiccouches, instead of which they find hunger, rain, smoke, toil, gnats, mosquitoes, dirt, broken rest, vulgar guides, and salt pork; and theyare very apt not to see where the fun comes in. But he who goes in aright spirit will not be disappointed, and will find the taste of thiskind of life better, though bitterer, than the writers have described. 

VI

BIRDS AND BIRDS

I

There is an old legend which one of our poets has made use of about thebird in the brain, --a legend based, perhaps, upon the humansignificance of our feathered neighbors. Was not Audubon's brain fullof birds, and very lively ones, too? A person who knew him says helooked like a bird himself; keen, alert, wide-eyed. It is not unusualto see the hawk looking out of the human countenance, and one may seeor have seen that still nobler bird, the eagle. The song-birds mightall have been brooded and hatched in the human heart. They are typicalof its highest aspirations, and nearly the whole gamut of human passionand emotion is expressed more or less fully in their varied songs. Among our own birds, there is the song of the hermit thrush fordevoutness and religious serenity; that of the wood thrush for themusing, melodious thoughts of twilight; the song sparrow's for simplefaith and trust, the bobolink's for hilarity and glee, the mourningdove's for hopeless sorrow, the vireo's for all-day and every-daycontentment, and the nocturne of the mockingbird for love. Then thereare the plaintive singers, the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confidentsingers, the gushing and voluble singers, and the half-voiced, inarticulate singers. The note of the wood pewee is a human sigh; thechickadee has a call full of unspeakable tenderness and fidelity. Thereis pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the catbird. There is something distinctly human about the robin; his is the note ofboyhood. I have thoughts that follow the migrating fowls northward andsouthward, and that go with the sea-birds into the desert of the ocean, lonely and tireless as they. I sympathize with the watchful crowperched yonder on that tree, or walking about the fields. I hurryoutdoors when I hear the clarion of the wild gander; his comrade in myheart sends back the call. 

II

Here comes the cuckoo, the solitary, the joyless, enamored of theprivacy 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. Heis mentioned in the Bible, and is discussed by Pliny and Aristotle. Jupiter himself once assumed the form of the cuckoo in order to takeadvantage of Juno's compassion for the bird. 

We have only a reduced and modified cuckoo in this country. Our bird issmaller, and is much more solitary and unsocial. Its color is totallydifferent from the Old World bird, the latter being speckled, or a kindof dominick, while ours is of the finest cinnamon-brown or drab above, and bluish white beneath, with a gloss and richness of texture in theplumage that suggests silk. The bird has also mended its manners inthis 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 otherwell-disposed birds. 

The European cuckoo is evidently much more of a spring bird than oursis, much more a harbinger of the early season. He comes in April, whileours seldom appears till late in May, and hardly then appears. He isprinted, as they say, but not published. Only the alert ones know he ishere. This old English rhyme on the cuckoo does not apply this side theAtlantic:--

 "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 were alone in theworld, and called upon the Fates to witness his desolation. I havenever seen two cuckoos together, and I have never heard their callanswered; it goes forth into the solitudes unreclaimed. Like a trueAmerican, the bird lacks animal spirits and a genius for socialintercourse. One August night I heard one calling, calling, a longtime, not far from my house. It was a true night sound, more fittingthen than by day. 

The European cuckoo, on the other hand, seems to be a joyous, vivaciousbird. 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, andthe outcome of a light heart. Thomas Hardy, whose touches always seemtrue to nature, describes in one of his books an early summer scenefrom amid which "the loud notes of three cuckoos were resoundingthrough the still air. " This is totally unlike our bird, which does notsing in concert, but affects remote woods, and is most frequently heardin cloudy weather. Hence the name of rain-crow that is applied to himin some parts of the country. I am more than half inclined to believethat his call does indicate rain, as it is certain that of thetree-toad does. 

The cuckoo has a slender, long-drawn-out appearance on account of thegreat length of tail. It is seldom seen about farms or near humanhabitations until the June canker-worm appears, when it makes frequentvisits to the orchard. It loves hairy worms, and has eaten so many ofthem that its gizzard is lined with hair. 

The European cuckoo builds no nest, but puts its eggs out to behatched, as does our cow blackbird, and our cuckoo is master of onlythe rudiments of nest-building. No other bird in the woods builds soshabby a nest; it is the merest makeshift, --a loose scaffolding oftwigs through which the eggs can be seen. One season, I knew of a pairthat built within a few feet of a country house that stood in the midstof 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 oursis, it could never have figured so conspicuously in literature as itdoes, --having a prominence that we would give only to the bobolink orto the wood thrush, --as witness his frequent mention by Shakespeare, orthe 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. "

III

I think it will be found, on the whole, that the European birds are amore hardy and pugnacious race than ours, and that their song-birdshave more vivacity and power, and ours more melody and plaintiveness. In the song of the skylark, for instance, there is little or no melody, but wonderful strength and copiousness. It is a harsh strain near athand, but very taking when showered down from a height of severalhundred feet. 

Daines Barrington, the naturalist of the last century, to whom White ofSelborne addressed so many of his letters, gives a table of thecomparative merit of seventeen leading song-birds of Europe, markingthem under the heads of mellowness, sprightliness, plaintiveness, compass, and execution. In the aggregate, the songsters stand highestin sprightliness, next in compass and execution, and lowest in theother two qualities. A similar arrangement and comparison of oursongsters, I think, would show an opposite result, --that is, apredominance of melody and plaintiveness. The British wren, forinstance, stands in Barrington's table as destitute of both thesequalities; the reed sparrow also. Our wren-songs, on the contrary, aregushing and lyrical, and more or less melodious, --that of the winterwren being preeminently so. Our sparrows, too, all have sweet, plaintive ditties, with but little sprightliness or compass. TheEnglish house sparrow has no song at all, but a harsh chatter that isunmatched among our birds. But what a hardy, prolific, pugnaciouslittle wretch it is! These birds will maintain themselves where ourbirds will not live at all, and a pair of them will lie down in thegutter and fight like dogs. Compared with this miniature John Bull, thevoice and manners of our common sparrow are gentle and retiring. TheEnglish sparrow is a street gamin, our bird a timid rustic. 

The English robin redbreast is tallied in this country 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 birdsoft and plaintive. 

The nightingale stands at the head in Barrington's table, and is butlittle short of perfect in all the qualities. We have no one bird thatcombines such strength or vivacity with such melody. The mockingbirddoubtless surpasses it in variety and profusion of notes; but fallsshort, I imagine, in sweetness and effectiveness. The nightingale willsometimes warble twenty seconds without pausing to breathe, and whenthe condition of the air is favorable, its song fills a space a mile indiameter. There are, perhaps, songs in our woods as mellow andbrilliant, 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 volumeand power. 

Strength and volume of voice, then, seem to be characteristic of theEnglish birds, and mildness and delicacy of ours. How much thethousands of years of contact with man, and familiarity with artificialsounds, over there, have affected the bird voices, is a question. Certain it is that their birds are much more domestic than ours, andcertain 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 thecoon, or the call and clang of wild geese and ducks, or the war-cry ofsavage tribes, is this true; but not true in the same sense ofdomesticated or semi-domesticated animals and fowls. How different thevoice of the common duck or goose from that of the wild species, or ofthe tame dove from that of the turtle of the fields and groves! Wherecould the English house sparrow have acquired that unmusical voice butamid the sounds of hoofs and wheels, and the discords of the street?And the ordinary notes and calls of so many of the British birds, according to their biographers, are harsh and disagreeable; even thenightingale has an ugly, guttural "chuck. " The missel-thrush has aharsh scream; the jay a note like "wrack, " "wrack;" the fieldfare arasping chatter; the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony, willsometimes crow like a cock and cackle like a hen; the flocks ofstarlings make a noise like a steam saw-mill; the white-throat has adisagreeable note; the swift a discordant scream; and the bunting aharsh song. Among our song-birds, on the contrary, it is rare to hear aharsh or displeasing voice. Even their notes of anger and alarm aremore or less soft. 

I would not imply that our birds are the better songsters, butthat their songs, if briefer and feebler, are also more wild andplaintive, --in fact, that they are softer-voiced. The British birds, as I have stated, are more domestic than ours; a much larger numberbuild about houses and towers and outbuildings. The titmouse with usis exclusively a wood-bird; but in Britain three or four species ofthem resort more or less to buildings in winter. Their redstart alsobuilds under the eaves of houses; their starling in church steeplesand in holes in walls; several thrushes resort to sheds to nest; andjackdaws breed in the crannies of the old architecture, and this in amuch milder climate than our own. 

They have in that country no birds that answer to our tiny, lispingwood-warblers, --genus _Dendroica, _--nor to our vireos, _Vireonidoe. _On the other hand, they have a larger number of field-birds andsemi-game-birds. They have several species like our robin; thrusheslike him, and some of them larger, as the ring ouzel, the missel-thrush, the fieldfare, the throstle, the redwing, White's thrush, theblackbird, --these, besides several species in size and habits more likeour wood thrush. 

Several species of European birds sing at night besides the truenightingale, --not fitfully and as if in their dreams, as do a few ofour birds, but continuously. They make a business of it. The sedge-birdceases at times as if from very weariness; but wake the bird up, saysWhite, by throwing a stick or stone into the bushes, and away it goesagain in full song. We have but one real nocturnal songster, and thatis the mockingbird. One can see how this habit might increase among thebirds of a long-settled country like England. With sounds and voicesabout them, why should they be silent, too? The danger of betrayingthemselves to their natural enemies would be less than in our woods. 

That their birds are more quarrelsome and pugnacious than ours Ithink evident. Our thrushes are especially mild-mannered, but themissel-thrush is very bold and saucy, and has been known to fly in theface of persons who have disturbed the sitting bird. No jay nor magpienor 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 insome countries he is known as storm-cock. He sometimes kills the young ofother birds and eats eggs, --a very unthrushlike trait. The whitethroatsings with crest erect, and attitudes of warning and defiance. Thehooper is a great bully; so is the greenfinch. The wood-grouse--nowextinct, I believe--has been known to attack people in the woods. Andbehold the grit and hardihood of that little emigrant or exile to ourshores, the English sparrow! Our birds have their tilts and spats also;but the only really quarrelsome members in our family are confined tothe flycatchers, as the kingbird and the great crested flycatcher. Noneof our song-birds are bullies. 

Many of our more vigorous species, as the butcherbird, the crossbills, the pine grosbeak, the redpoll, the Bohemian chatterer, the shore lark, the longspur, the snow bunting, etc. , are common to both continents. 

Have the Old World creatures throughout more pluck and hardihood thanthose that are indigenous to this continent? Behold the common mouse, how he has followed man to this country and established himself hereagainst all opposition, overrunning our houses and barns, while thenative species is rarely seen. And when has anybody seen the Americanrat, while his congener from across the water has penetrated to everypart of the continent! By the next train that takes the family to someWestern frontier, arrives this pest. Both our rat and mouse or mice aretimid, harmless, delicate creatures, compared with the cunning, filthy, and prolific specimens that have fought their way to us from the OldWorld. There is little doubt, also, that the red fox has beentransplanted to this country from Europe. He is certainly on theincrease, and is fast running out the native gray species. 

Indeed, I have thought that all forms of life in the Old World weremarked by greater prominence of type, or stronger characteristic andfundamental qualities, than with us, --coarser and more hairy andvirile, and therefore more powerful and lasting. This opinion is stillsubject to revision, but I find it easier to confirm it than toundermine it. 

IV

But let me change the strain and contemplate for a few moments thisfeathered bandit, --this bird with the mark of Cain upon him, _Laniusborealis, _--the great shrike or butcher-bird. Usually the character ofa 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 thefact that he subsists upon live creatures; he is armed to catch themand 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 tomaintain his own, and it is a public and universally known fact. Naturehas sent him abroad in that character, and has advised all creatures ofit. Not so with the shrike; here she has concealed the character of amurderer under a form as innocent as that of the robin. Feet, wings, tail, color, head, and general form and size are all those of asongbird, --very much like that master songster, the mockingbird, --yetthis bird is a regular Bluebeard among its kind. Its onlycharacteristic feature is its beak, the upper mandible having two sharpprocesses and a sharp hooked point. It cannot fly away to any distancewith the bird it kills, nor hold it in its claws to feed upon it. Itusually impales its victim upon a thorn, or thrusts it in the fork of alimb. For the most part, however, its food seems to consist ofinsects, --spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. It is the assassin ofthe small birds, whom it often destroys in pure wantonness, or merelyto sup on their brains, as the Gaucho slaughters a wild cow or bull forits tongue. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Apparently its victimsare unacquainted with its true character and allow it to approach them, when the fatal blow is given. I saw an illustration of this the otherday. A large number of goldfinches in their fall plumage, together withsnowbirds and sparrows, were feeding and chattering in some low bushesback of the barn. I had paused by the fence and was peeping through atthem, hoping to get a glimpse of that rare sparrow, the white-crowned. Presently I heard a rustling among the dry leaves as if some largerbird was also among them. Then I heard one of the goldfinches cry outas if in distress, when the whole flock of them started up in alarm, and, circling around, settled in the tops of the larger trees. Icontinued my scrutiny of the bushes, when I saw a large bird, with someobject in its beak, hopping along on a low branch near the ground. Itdisappeared from my sight for a few moments, then came up through theundergrowth into the top of a young maple where some of the finches hadalighted, and I beheld the shrike. The little birds avoided him andflew about the tree, their pursuer following them with the motions ofhis head and body as if he would fain arrest them by his murderousgaze. The birds did not utter the cry or make the demonstration ofalarm they usually do on the appearance of a hawk, but chirruped andcalled and flew about in a half-wondering, half-bewildered manner. Asthey flew farther along the line of trees the shrike followed them asif bent on further captures. I then made my way around to see what theshrike had caught, and what he had done with his prey. As I approachedthe bushes I saw the shrike hastening back. I read his intentions atonce. Seeing my movements, he had returned for his game. But I was tooquick for him, and he got up out of the brush and flew away from thelocality. On some twigs in the thickest part of the bushes I found hisvictim, --a goldfinch. It was not impaled upon a thorn, but wascarefully disposed upon some horizontal twigs, --laid upon the shelf, soto speak. It was as warm as in life, and its plumage was unruffled. Onexamining it I found a large bruise or break in the skin on the back ofthe neck, at the base of the skull. Here the bandit had no doubt gripedthe bird with his strong beak. The shrike's blood-thirstiness was seenin the fact that he did not stop to devour his prey, but went in questof more, as if opening a market of goldfinches. The thicket was hisshambles, and if not interrupted, he might have had a fine display oftitbits in a short time. 

The shrike is called a butcher from his habit of sticking his meat uponhooks and points; further than that, he is a butcher because he devoursbut a trifle of what he slays. 

A few days before, I had witnessed another little scene in which theshrike was the chief actor. A chipmunk had his den in the side of theterrace above the garden, and spent the mornings laying in a store ofcorn which he stole from a field ten or twelve rods away. In traversingabout half this distance, the little poacher was exposed; the firstcover going from his den was a large maple, where he always brought upand took a survey of the scene. I would see him spinning along towardthe maple, then from it by an easy stage to the fence adjoining thecorn; then back again with his booty. One morning I paused to watch himmore at my leisure. He came up out of his retreat and cocked himself upto see what my motions meant. His forepaws were clasped to his breastprecisely as if they had been hands, and the tips of the fingers thrustinto his vest pockets. Having satisfied himself with reference to me, he sped on toward the tree. He had nearly reached it, when he turnedtail and rushed for his hole with the greatest precipitation. As heneared it, I saw some bluish object in the air closing in upon him withthe speed of an arrow, and, as he vanished within, a shrike brought upin front of the spot, and with spread wings and tail stood hovering amoment, and looking in, then turned and went away. Apparently it was anarrow escape for the chipmunk, and, I venture to say, he stole no morecorn that morning. The shrike is said to catch mice, but it is notknown to attack squirrels. He certainly could not have strangled thechipmunk, and I am curious to know what would have been the result hadhe overtaken him. Probably it was only a kind of brag on the part ofthe 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 mountain road early inApril, a bird started from the fence where I was passing, and flewheavily to the branch of a near apple-tree. It proved to be a shrikewith a small bird in his beak. He thrust his victim into a fork of abranch, then wiped his bloody beak upon the bark. A youth who was withme, 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, " saidhe, and jumping out of the wagon, he pulled off his mittens and fumbledabout for a stone. Having found one to his liking, with greatearnestness and deliberation he let drive. The bird was in more dangerthan I had imagined, for he escaped only by a hair's breadth; aguiltless bird like the robin or sparrow would surely have been slain;the missile grazed the spot where the shrike sat, and cut the ends ofhis wings as he darted behind the branch. We could see that themurdered bird had been brained, as its head hung down toward us. 

The shrike is not a summer bird with us in the Northern States, butmainly a fall and winter one; in summer he goes farther north. I seehim most frequently in November and December. I recall a morning duringthe former month that was singularly clear and motionless; the air waslike a great drum. Apparently every sound within the compass of thehorizon was distinctly heard. The explosions back in the cementquarries ten miles away smote the hollow and reverberating air likegiant fists. Just as the sun first showed his fiery brow above thehorizon, 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 blue jay. Thenote presently became a crude, broken warble. Even this scalper of theinnocents had music in his soul on such a morning. He saluted the sunas a robin might have done. After he had finished, he flew away towardthe east. 

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

To make my portrait of the shrike more complete, I will add anothertrait of his described by an acute observer who writes me from westernNew York. He saw the bird on a bright midwinter morning when thethermometer stood at zero, and by cautious approaches succeeded ingetting under the apple-tree upon which he was perched. The shrike wasuttering a loud, clear note like _clu-eet, clu-eet, clu-eet, _ and, onfinding he had a listener who was attentive and curious, varied hisperformance and kept it up continuously for fifteen minutes. He seemedto enjoy having a spectator, and never took his eye off him. Theobserver approached within twenty feet of him. "As I came near, " hesays, "the shrike began to scold at me, a sharp, buzzing, squeakingsound not easy to describe. After a little he came out on the end ofthe limb nearest me, then he posed himself, and, opening his wings alittle, began to trill and warble under his breath, as it were, with anoccasional squeak, and vibrating his half-open wings in time with hissong. " Some of his notes resembled those of the bluebird, and the wholeperformance is described as pleasing and melodious. 

This account agrees with Thoreau's observation, where he speaks of theshrike "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 disagreeable. 

I have often wondered how this bird was kept in check; in the strugglefor existence it would appear to have greatly the advantage of otherbirds. It cannot, for instance, be beset with one tenth of the dangersthat threaten the robin, and yet apparently there are a thousand robinsto every shrike. It builds a warm, compact nest in the mountains anddense 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 somepart of the country is swarming with untold numbers of them. [Footnote:This is no longer the case. The passenger pigeon now seems on the vergeof extinction (1895). ] But the shrike is one of our rarest birds. Imyself seldom see more than two each year, and before I became anobserver of birds I never saw any. 

In size the shrike is a little inferior to the blue jay, with much thesame form. If you see an unknown bird about your orchard or fields inNovember or December of a bluish grayish complexion, with dusky wingsand tail that show markings of white, flying rather heavily from pointto point, or alighting down in the stubble occasionally, it is prettysure to be the shrike. 

V

Nature never tires of repeating and multiplying the same species. Shemakes a million bees, a million birds, a million mice or rats, or otheranimals, so nearly alike that no eye can tell one from another; but itis rarely that she issues a small and a large edition, as it were, ofthe same species. Yet she has done it in a few cases among the birdswith hardly more difference than a foot-note added or omitted. Thecedar-bird, for instance, is the Bohemian waxwing or chatterer insmaller type, copied even to the minute, wax-like appendages thatbedeck the ends of the wing-quills. It is about one third smaller, anda little lighter in color, owing perhaps to the fact that it isconfined to a warmer latitude, its northward range seeming to end aboutwhere that of its larger brother begins. Its flight, its note, itsmanners, its general character and habits, are almost identical withthose of its prototype. It is confined exclusively to this continent, while the chatterer is an Old World bird as well, and ranges thenorthern parts of both continents. The latter comes to us from thehyperborean regions, brought down occasionally by the great cold wavesthat originate in those high latitudes. It is a bird of Siberian andAlaskan evergreens, and passes its life for the most part far beyondthe haunts of man. I have never seen the bird, but small bands of themmake excursions every winter down into our territory from BritishAmerica. Audubon, I believe, saw them in Maine; other observers haveseen them in Minnesota. It has the crest of the cedar-bird, the sameyellow border to its tail, but is marked with white on its wings, as ifa snowflake or two had adhered to it from the northern cedars andpines. If you see about the evergreens in the coldest, snowiest weatherwhat appear to be a number of very large cherry-birds, observe themwell, for the chances are that visitants from the circumpolar regionsare before your door. It is a sign, also, that the frost legions of thenorth are out in great force and carrying all before them. 

Our cedar or cherry bird is the most silent bird we have. Ourneutral-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 ontaking flight. This note is the cedar-berry rendered back in sound. When the ox-heart cherries, which he has only recently becomeacquainted with, have had time to enlarge his pipe and warm hisheart, I shall expect more music from him. But in lieu of music, whata pretty compensation are those minute, almost artificial-like, plumes of orange and vermilion that tip the ends of his wing quills!Nature could not give him these and a song too. She has given thehummingbird a jewel upon his throat, but no song, save the hum of hiswings. 

Another bird that is occasionally borne to us on the crest of the coldwaves from the frozen zone, and that is repeated on a smaller scale ina permanent resident, is the pine grosbeak; his _alter ego, _ reduced insize, is the purple finch, which abounds in the higher latitudes of thetemperate zone. The color and form of the two birds are againessentially the same. The females and young males of both species areof a grayish brown like the sparrow, while in the old males this tintis imperfectly hidden beneath a coat of carmine, as if the color hadbeen poured upon their heads, where it is strongest, and so oozed downand through the rest of the plumage. Their tails are considerablyforked, their beaks cone-shaped and heavy, and their flight undulating. Those who have heard the grosbeak describe its song as similar to thatof the finch, though no doubt it is louder and stronger. The finch'sinstrument 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. Hishardier relative with that larger beak and deeper chest must fill thewoods with sounds. Audubon describes its song as exceedingly rich andfull. 

As in the case of the Bohemian waxwing, this bird is also common toboth worlds, being found through Northern Europe and Asia and thenorthern parts of this continent. It is the pet of the pine-tree, andone of its brightest denizens. Its visits to the States are irregularand somewhat mysterious. A great flight of them occurred in the winterof 1874-75. They attracted attention all over the country. Severalother flights of them have occurred during the century. When this birdcomes, it is so unacquainted with man that its tameness is delightfulto behold. It thrives remarkably well in captivity, and in a couple ofweeks will become so tame that it will hop down and feed out of itsmaster's or mistress's hand. It comes from far beyond the region of theapple, 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 toeach other, are two other birds that come to us from the oppositezone, --the torrid, --namely, the blue grosbeak and his petit duplicate, the indigo-bird. The latter is a common summer resident with us, --abird of the groves and bushy fields, where his bright song may be heardall through the long summer day. I hear it in the dry and parchedAugust when most birds are silent, sometimes delivered on the wing andsometimes from the perch. Indeed, with me its song is as much amidsummer sound as is the brassy crescendo of the cicada. The memory ofits note calls to mind the flame-like quiver of the heated atmosphereand the bright glare of the meridian sun. Its color is much moreintense than that of the common bluebird, as summer skies are deeperthan those of April, but its note is less mellow and tender. Itsoriginal, the blue grosbeak, is an uncertain wanderer from the south, as the pine grosbeak is from the north. I have never seen it north ofthe District of Columbia. It has a loud, vivacious song, of which it isnot 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 sameas its lesser brother, the males being a deep blue and the females amodest drab. Its nest is usually placed low down, as is the indigo's, and the male carols from the tops of the trees in its vicinity in thesame manner. Indeed, the two birds are strikingly alike in everyrespect except in size and in habitat, and, as in each of the othercases, the lesser bird is, as it were, the point, the continuation, ofthe larger, carrying its form and voice forward as the reverberationcarries the sound. 

I know the ornithologists, with their hair-splittings, or ratherfeather-splittings, point out many differences, but they areunimportant. The fractions may not agree, but the whole numbers arethe same. 

VII

A BED OF BOUGHS

When Aaron came again to camp and tramp with me, or, as he wrote, "toeat locusts and wild honey with me in the wilderness, " It was past themiddle of August, and the festival of the season neared its close. Wewere belated guests, but perhaps all the more eager on that account, especially as the country was suffering from a terrible drought, andthe only promise of anything fresh or tonic or cool was in primitivewoods 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 ofthis 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, andcontent ourselves with one week instead of four, with the prospect of akeen relish to the last. Four sylvan weeks sound well, but the poetryis mainly confined to the first one. We can take another slice or twoof the Catskills, can we not, without being sated with kills anddividing ridges?"

"Anywhere, " replied Aaron, "so that we have a good tramp and plenty ofprimitive 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 thatled to the valley of the Rondout. 

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

In the depressions in the mountains the rocky fragments seemed to haveaccumulated, and to have formed what might be called stone glaciersthat were creeping slowly down. 

Two hours' march brought us into heavy timber where the stone cataclysmhad not reached, and before long the soft voice of the Rondout washeard in the gulf below us. We paused at a spring run, and I followedit a few yards down its mountain stairway, carpeted with black moss, and had my first glimpse of the unknown stream. I stood upon rocks andlooked many feet down into a still, sunlit pool and saw the troutdisporting themselves in the transparent water, and I was ready toencamp at once; but my companion, who had not been tempted by the view, insisted upon holding to our original purpose, which was to go fartherup the stream. We passed a clearing with three or four houses and asaw-mill. The dam of the latter was filled with such clear water thatit seemed very shallow, and not ten or twelve feet deep, as it reallywas. The fish were as conspicuous 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 bythem, held and fondled in a rocky lap or tossed in rocky arms, thatstream is the Rondout. Its course for several miles from its head isover the stratified rock, and into this it has worn a channel thatpresents most striking and peculiar features. Now it comes silentlyalong 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 drawninto a narrow canal only four or five feet wide, through which itshoots, black and rigid, to be presently caught in a deep basin withshelving, overhanging rocks, beneath which the phoebe-bird builds insecurity, and upon which the fisherman stands and casts his twenty orthirty feet of line without fear of being thwarted by the brush; theninto 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 thewater glides without a ripple. 

The surface rock is a coarse sandstone superincumbent upon alighter-colored conglomerate that looks like Shawangunk grits, andwhen this latter is reached by the water it seems to be rapidlydisintegrated by it, thus forming the deep excavations alluded to. 

My eyes had never before beheld such beauty in a mountain stream. Thewater was almost as transparent as the air, --was, indeed, like liquidair; and as it lay in these wells and pits enveloped in shadow, or litup by a chance ray of the vertical sun, it was a perpetual feast to theeye, --so cool, so deep, so pure; every reach and pool like a vastspring. You lay down and drank or dipped the water up in your cup, andfound it just the right degree of refreshing coldness. One is neverprepared for the clearness of the water in these streams. It is alwaysa surprise. See them every year for a dozen years, and yet, when youfirst come upon one, you will utter an exclamation. I saw nothing likeit in the Adirondacks, nor in Canada. Absolutely without stain or hintof impurity, it seems to magnify like a lens, so that the bed of thestream and the fish in it appear deceptively near. It is rare to findeven a trout stream that is not a little "off color, " as they say ofdiamonds, but the waters in the section of which I am writing have thegenuine ray; it is the undimmed and untarnished diamond. 

If I were a trout, I should ascend every stream till I found theRondout. It is the ideal brook. What homes these fish have, whatretreats under the rocks, what paved or flagged courts and areas, whatcrystal depths where no net or snare can reach them!--no mud, nosediment, but here and there in the clefts and seams of the rockpatches of white gravel, --spawning-beds ready-made. 

The finishing touch is given by the moss with which the rock iseverywhere carpeted. Even in the narrow grooves or channels where thewater runs the swiftest, the green lining is unbroken. It sweeps downunder the stream and up again on the other side, like some firmly woventexture. It softens every outline and cushions every stone. At acertain depth in the great basins and wells it of course ceases, andonly the smooth-swept flagging of the place-rock is visible. 

The trees are kept well back from the margin of the stream by the wantof soil, and the large ones unite their branches far above it, thusforming a high winding gallery, along which the fisherman passes andmakes his long casts with scarcely an interruption from branch or twig. In a few places he makes no cast, but sees from his rocky perch thewater 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 surfaceof mossy rock uncovered by the shrunken stream, --a clean, free spaceleft for us in the wilderness that was faultless as a kitchen anddining-room, and a marvel of beauty as a lounging-room, or an opencourt, or what you will. An obsolete wood or bark road conducted usto it, and disappeared up the hill in the woods beyond. A looseboulder lay in the middle, and on the edge next the stream were threeor four large natural wash-basins scooped out of the rock, and everfilled ready for use. Our lair we carved out of the thick brush undera large birch on the bank. Here we planted our flag of smoke andfeathered our nest with balsam and hemlock boughs and ferns, andlaughed at your four walls and pillows of down. 

Wherever one encamps in the woods, there is home, and every object andfeature about the place take on a new interest and assume a near andfriendly 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 dailydessert of most delicious blackberries, --an important item in thewoods, --and then all the features of the place--a sort of cave aboveground--were of the right kind. 

There was not a mosquito, or gnat, or other pest in the woods, the coolnights having already cut them off. The trout were sufficientlyabundant, and afforded us a few hours' sport daily to supply our wants. The only drawback was, that they were out of season, and only palatableto a woodman's keen appetite. What is this about trout spawning inOctober and November, and in some cases not till March? These trout hadall spawned in August, every one of them. The coldness and purity ofthe water evidently made them that much earlier. The game laws of theState protect the fish after September 1, proceeding upon the theorythat its spawning 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 weighing over a few ounces. Occasionally a large one is seen of a pound or pound and a half weight. I remember one such, as black as night, that ran under a black rock. But I remember much more distinctly a still larger one that I caughtand lost one eventful day. 

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

It was only the over-eagerness of the sportsman. I imagined I couldhold him by the teeth. 

The place where I struck him was a deep well-hole, and I was perchedupon a log that spanned it ten or twelve feet above the water. Thesituation was all the more interesting because I saw no possible way toland my fish. I could not lead him ashore, and my frail tackle couldnot 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 revolverin my pocket and might have shot him through and through, but thatnovel proceeding did not occur to me until it was too late. I wouldhave taken a Sam Patch leap into the water, and have wrestled with myantagonist in his own element, but I knew the slack, thus sure tooccur, would probably free him; so I peered down upon the beautifulcreature and enjoyed my triumph as far as it went. He was caught verylightly through his upper jaw, and I expected every struggle andsomersault would break the hold. Presently I saw a place in the rockswhere I thought it possible, with such an incentive, to get down withinreach of the water: by careful manoeuvring I slipped my pole behind meand got hold of the line, which I cut and wound around my finger; thenI 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 aneffort worthy the occasion I got down within reach of the fish, and, asI have already confessed, thrust my thumb into his mouth and pinchedhis cheek; he made a spring and was free from my hand and the hook atthe same time; for a moment he lay panting on the top of the water, then, recovering himself slowly, made his way down through the clear, cruel element beyond all hope of recapture. My blind impulse to followand try to seize him was very strong, but I kept my hold and peered andpeered long after the fish was lost to view, then looked mymortification in the face and laughed a bitter laugh. 

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

"The fun, I take it, " said my soldier, "is in triumphing, and not inbeing beaten at the last. "

"Well, have it so; but I would not exchange those ten or fifteenminutes with that trout for the tame two hours you have spent incatching that string of thirty. To see a big fish after days of smallfry is an event; to have a jump from one is a glimpse of thesportsman's paradise; and to hook one, and actually have him under yourcontrol for ten minutes, --why, that is paradise itself as long as itlasts. "

One day I went down to the house of a settler a mill below, and engagedthe good dame to make us a couple of loaves of bread, and in theevening we went down after them. How elastic and exhilarating the walkwas through the cool, transparent shadows! The sun was gilding themountains, and its yellow light seemed to be reflected through all thewoods. At one point we looked through and along a valley of deep shadowupon a broad sweep of mountain quite near and densely clothed withwoods, flooded from base to summit by the setting sun. It was a wild, memorable scene. What power and effectiveness in Nature, I thought, andhow rarely an artist catches her touch! Looking down upon or squarelyinto a mountain covered with a heavy growth of birch and maple, andshone upon by the sun, is a sight peculiarly agreeable to me. Howclosely the swelling umbrageous heads of the trees fit together, andhow the eye revels in the flowing and easy uniformity, while the mindfeels the ruggedness and terrible power beneath!

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 suggeststhat great hand at least, though it has not the grit and virility ofthe more primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning power inShakespeare'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 Wordsworthand nearly all the modern poets lack. "

"But Wordsworth is the poet of the mountains, " said I, "and of lonelypeaks. True, he does not express the power and aboriginal grace thereis in them, nor toy with them and pluck them up by the hair of theirheads, as Shakespeare does. There is something in Peakamoose yonder, aswe see it from this point, cutting the blue vault with its dark, serrated edge, not in the bard of Grasmere; but he expresses thefeeling of loneliness and insignificance that the cultivated man has inthe presence of mountains, and the burden of solemn emotion they giverise to. Then there is something much more wild and merciless, muchmore remote from human interests and ends, in our long, high, woodedranges than is expressed by the peaks and scarred groups of the lakecountry of Britain. These mountains we behold and cross are notpicturesque, --they are wild and inhuman as the sea. In them you are ina maze, in a weltering world of woods; you can see neither the earthnor the sky, but a confusion of the growth and decay of centuries, andmust traverse them by your compass or your science of woodcraft, --arift through the trees giving one a glimpse of the opposite range or ofthe valley beneath, and he is more at sea than ever; one does not knowhis own farm or settlement when framed in these mountain treetops; alllook 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 outlinedupon the canvas of the night! Every object, every attitude of yourcompanion is striking and memorable. You see effects and groups everymoment that you would give money to be able to carry away with you inenduring form. How the shadows leap, and skulk, and hover about! Lightand darkness are in perpetual tilt and warfare, with first the oneunhorsed, then the other. The friendly and cheering fire, whatacquaintance we make with it! We had almost forgotten there was such anelement, we had so long known only its dark offspring, heat. Now we seethe wild beauty uncaged and note its manner and temper. How surely itcreates its own draught and sets the currents going, as force andenthusiasm always will! It carves itself a chimney out of the fluid andhouseless air. A friend, a ministering angel, in subjection; a fiend, afury, a monster, ready to devour the world, if ungoverned. By day itburrows in the ashes and sleeps; at night it comes forth and sits uponits throne of rude logs, and rules the camp, a sovereign queen. 

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

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

So after dark I touched a match into it, and we saw the flames creep upand wax in fury until the whole tree and its main branches stoodwrapped in a sheet of roaring flame. It was a wild and strikingspectacle, and must have advertised our camp to every nocturnalcreature in the forest. 

What does the camper think about when lounging around the fire atnight? Not much, --of the sport of the day, of the big fish he lost andmight have saved, of the distant settlement, of to-morrow's plans. Anowl hoots off in the mountain and he thinks of him; if a wolf were tohowl or a panther to scream, he would think of him the rest of thenight. As it is, things flicker and hover through his mind, and hehardly knows whether it is the past or the present 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 thathuge background of the night. Unless he is an old camper-out, therewill be an undercurrent of dread or half fear. My companion said hecould not help but feel all the time that there ought to be a sentinelout there pacing up and down. One seems to require less sleep in thewoods, as if the ground and the untempered air rested and refreshed himsooner. The balsam and the hemlock heal his aches very quickly. If oneis awakened often during the night, as he invariably is, he does notfeel that sediment of sleep in his mind next day that he does when thesame interruption occurs at home; the boughs have drawn it all out ofhim. 

And it is wonderful how rarely any of the housed and tender white man'scolds or influenzas come through these open doors and windows of thewoods. It is our partial isolation from Nature that is dangerous; throwyourself unreservedly upon her and she rarely betrays you. 

If one takes anything to the woods to read, he seldom reads it; it doesnot taste good with such primitive air. 

There are very few camp poems that I know of, poems that would be athome with one on such an expedition; there is plenty that is weird andspectral, as in Poe, but little that is woody and wild as this sceneis. I recall a Canadian poem by the late C. D. Shanly--the only one, Ibelieve, the author ever wrote--that fits well the distended pupil ofthe mind's eye about the camp-fire at night. It was printed many yearsago 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. "

 "'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 thatovertakes and benumbs the traveler in the great Canadian forests inwinter. This stanza brings out the silence or desolation of the scenevery effectively, --a scene without sound or motion:--

 "'Save the wailing of the moose-bird With a plaintive note and low; And the skating of the red leaf Upon the frozen snow. '

"The 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. 

 "'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. 

 "'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. 

 "'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 drybirch-logs; I feel both the 'fear-chill' and the '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 aghostly superstition. At a certain hour in the night, during the timethe bark is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to steal fromit and grope its way into the wilderness. The tradition runs that herlover, who was a bark-peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by hisrival, 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 heardof more. There are old hunters who aver that her cry may still be heardat night at the head of the valley whenever a tree falls in thestillness of the forest. "

"Well, I heard a tree fall not ten minutes ago, " said Aaron; "adistant, rushing sound with a subdued crash at the end of it, and theonly answering cry I heard was the shrill voice of the screech owl offyonder against the mountain. But maybe it was not an owl, " said heafter a moment; "let us help the legend along by believing it was thevoice of the lost maiden. "

"By the way, " continued he, "do you remember the pretty creature we sawseven years ago in the shanty on the West Branch, who was reallyhelping her mother cook for the hands, a slip of a girl twelve orthirteen years old, with eyes as beautiful and bewitching as the watersthat 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 ofpots and pans when you expected to hear a lute. "

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

"We shall find tame waters compared with these, I fear, --a shriveledstream brawling along over loose stones, with few pools or deepplaces. "

Our course was along the trail of the bark-men who had pursued thedoomed hemlock to the last tree at the head of the valley. As we passedalong, 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; butboth it and the legend about it looked very tame at ten o'clock in themorning. After the road had faded out, we took to the bed of the streamto avoid the gauntlet of the underbrush, skipping up the mountain fromboulder to boulder. Up and up we went, with frequent pauses and copiousquaffing of the cold water. My soldier declared a "haunted valley"would be a godsend; anything but endless dragging of one's self up suchan Alpine stairway. The winter wren, common all through the woods, peeped and scolded at us as we sat blowing near the summit, and theoven-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 theCanada warbler, the chestnut-sided warbler, and the black-throatedblue-back, --the latter most abundant of all. Up these mountainbrooks, too, goes the belted kingfisher, swooping around through thewoods when he spies the fisherman, then wheeling into the open spaceof the stream and literally making a "blue streak" down under thebranches. 

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 thehunter aims to bestride; rising rapidly from this is pretty sure to bea 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 thesouth the sharp, steep neck of the steed sweeping up toward the skywith an erect mane of balsam fir. 

These mountains are steed-like in other respects: any timid andvacillating course with them is sure to get you into trouble. One muststrike out boldly, and not be disturbed by the curveting and shying;the valley you want lies squarely behind them, but farther off than youthink, and if you do not go for it resolutely, you will get bewilderedand the mountain will play you a trick. 

I may say that Aaron and I kept a tight rein and a good pace till westruck a water-course on the other side, and that we clattered down itwith no want of decision till it emptied into a larger stream which weknew must be the East Branch. An abandoned fishpole lay on the stones, marking the farthest point reached by some fisherman. According to ourreckoning, we were five or six miles above the settlement, with a gooddepth of primitive woods all about us. 

We kept on down the stream, now and then pausing at a likely placeto take some trout for dinner, and with an eye out for a goodcamping-ground. Many of the trout were full of ripe spawn, and afew had spawned, the season with them being a little later than onthe stream we had left, perhaps because the water was less cold. Neither had the creek here any such eventful and startling career. It led, indeed, quite a humdrum sort of life under the roots andfallen treetops and among the loose stones. At rare intervals itbeamed upon us from some still reach or dark cover, and won fromus our best attention in return. 

The day was quite spent before we had pitched our air-woven tent andprepared our dinner, and we gathered boughs for our bed in thegloaming. Breakfast had to be caught in the morning and was not servedearly, so that it was nine o'clock before we were in motion. A littlebird, the red-eyed vireo, warbled most cheerily in the trees above ourcamp, and, as Aaron said, "gave us a good send-off. " We kept down thestream, following the inevitable bark road. 

My companion had refused to look at another "dividing ridge" that hadneither path nor way, and henceforth I must keep to the open road ortravel alone. Two hours' tramp brought us to an old clearing with somerude, tumble-down log buildings that many years before had beenoccupied by the bark and lumber men. The prospect for trout was so goodin the stream hereabouts, and the scene so peaceful and inviting, shoneupon by the dreamy August sun, that we concluded to tarry here untilthe next day. It was a page of pioneer history opened to quiteunexpectedly. A dim footpath led us a few yards to a superb spring, inwhich a trout from the near creek had taken up his abode. We tookpossession of what had been a shingle-shop, attracted by its hugefireplace. 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 ourears that evening about sundown as we sat on a log in front of ourquarters, --the sound of slow, measured pounding in the valley below us. We did not know how near we were to human habitations, and the reportof the lumberman's mallet, like the hammering of a great woodpecker, 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 theprimitive woods. My soldier started as if he had heard a signal-gun. The sound, coming so far through the forest, sweeping over those greatwind-harps of trees, became wild and legendary, though probably made bya lumberman driving a wedge or working about his mill. 

We expected a friendly visit from porcupines that night, as we sawwhere they had freshly gnawed all about us; hence, when a red squirrelcame and looked in upon us very early in the morning and awoke us byhis snickering and giggling, my comrade cried out, "There is yourporcupig. " How the frisking red rogue seemed to enjoy what he hadfound! He looked in at the door and snickered, then in at the window, then peeked down from between the rafters and cachinnated till hissides must have ached; then struck an attitude upon the chimney, andfairly squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact, he grew soobstreperous, and so disturbed our repose, that we had to "shoo" himaway with one of our boots. He declared most plainly that he had neverbefore seen so preposterous a figure as we cut lying there in thecorner of that old shanty. 

The morning boded rain, the week to which we had limited ourselves drewnear its close, and we concluded to finish our holiday worthily by agood square tramp to the railroad station, twenty-three miles distant, as it proved. Two miles brought us to stumpy fields, and to the houseof the upper inhabitant. They told us there was a short cut across themountain, but my soldier shook his head. 

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

Drops of the much-needed rain began to come down, and I hesitated infront of the woodshed. 

"Sprinkling weather always comes to some bad end, " said Aaron, with areminiscence of an old couplet in his mind, and so it proved, for itdid 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 andone hind leg of one of our native rats, the first I had ever seenexcept in a museum. An owl or fox had doubtless left it the nightbefore. It was evident the fragments had once formed part of a veryelegant and slender creature. The fur that remained (for it was nothair) was tipped with red. My reader doubtless knows that the commonrat is an importation, and that there is a native American rat, usuallyfound much farther south than the locality of which I am writing, thatlives in the woods, --a sylvan rat, very wild and nocturnal in hishabits, and seldom seen even by hunters or woodmen. Its eyes are largeand fine, and its form slender. It looks like only a far-offundegenerate cousin of the filthy creature that has come to us from thelong-peopled Old World. Some creature ran between my feet and the firetoward morning, the last night we slept in the woods, and I have littledoubt it was one of these wood-rats. 

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

In due time we found an old road, to which we had been directed, thatled over the mountain to the West Branch. It was a hard pull, sweetenedby blackberries and a fine prospect. The snowbird was common along theway, and a solitary wild pigeon shot through the woods in front of us, recalling the nests we had seen on the East Branch, --littlescaffoldings of twigs scattered all through the trees. 

It was nearly noon when we struck the West Branch, and the sun wasscalding hot. We knew that two and three pound trout had been takenthere, and yet we wet not a line in its waters. The scene wasprimitive, and carried one back to the days of his grandfather, stumpyfields, log fences, log houses and barns. A boy twelve or thirteenyears old came out of a house ahead of us eating a piece of bread andbutter. We soon overtook him and held converse with him. He knew theland well, and what there was in the woods and the waters. He hadwalked out to the railroad station, fourteen miles distant, to see thecars, and back the same day. I asked him about the flies andmosquitoes, 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, and Ithanked the boy for the name. It is an insect that hovers before youreye as you thread the streams, and you are forever vaguely brushing atit under the delusion that it is a little spider suspended from yourhat-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, butyou catch a "blunder-head. "

We paused under a bridge at the mouth of Biscuit Brook and ate ourlunch, and I can recommend it to be as good a wayside inn as thepedestrian need look for. Better bread and milk than we had there Inever expect to find. The milk was indeed so good that Aaron went downto the little log house under the hill a mile farther on and asked formore; and being told they had no cow, he lingered five minutes on thedoorstone with his sooty pail in his hand, putting idle questions aboutthe way and distance to the mother while he refreshed himself with thesight of a well-dressed and comely-looking young girl, her daughter. 

"I got no milk, " said he, hurrying on after me, "but I got somethingbetter, 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, " hewent 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 pleasure inhearing this young girl speak after a week in the woods. She hadevidently been out in the world and was home on a visit. It was adifferent look she gave me from that of the natives. This is betterthan 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 thedistinction of being clapboarded, and had the good fortune to find boththe milk and the young lady. A mother and her daughter were again theonly occupants save a babe in the cradle, which the young woman quicklytook occasion to disclaim. 

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

The daughter filled my pail and the mother replenished our stock ofbread. They asked me to sit and cool myself, and seemed glad of astranger to talk with. They had come from an adjoining county fiveyears before, and had carved their little clearing out of the solidwoods. 

"The men folks, " the mother said, "came on ahead and built the houseright 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 theland than all objects and persons by the way have a new and curiousinterest to him. The tone of his entire being is not a little elevated, and all his perceptions and susceptibilities quickened. I feel thatsome such statement is necessary to justify the interest that I felt inthis backwoods maiden. A slightly pale face it was, strong and wellarched, with a tender, wistful expression not easy to forget. 

I had surely seen that face many times before in towns and cities, andin other lands, but I hardly expected to meet it here amid the stumps. What were the agencies that had given it its fine lines and itsgracious intelligence amid these simple, primitive scenes? What did myheroine read, or think? or what were her unfulfilled destinies? Shewore a sprig of prince's pine in her hair, which gave a touchpeculiarly welcome. 

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

And the little new schoolhouse in the woods farther on, with itshalf-dozen scholars and the girlish face of the teacher seen throughthe open door, --nothing less than the exhilaration of a journey onfoot could have made it seem the interesting object it was. Two of thelittle girls had been to the spring after a pail of water, and camestruggling out of the woods into the road with it as we passed. Theyset down their pail and regarded us with a half-curious, half-alarmedlook. 

"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 "MissSimms, " and taking hold of the pail said, "Come on. "

"Are there any scholars from above here?" I inquired. 

"Yes, Bobbie and Matie, " and they hastened toward the door. 

We once more stopped under a bridge for refreshments, and took ourtime, knowing the train would not go on without us. By four o'clock wewere across the mountain, having passed from the watershed of theDelaware into that of the Hudson. The next eight miles we had a downgrade but a rough road, and during the last half of it we had blisterson the bottoms of our feet. It is one of the rewards of the pedestrianthat, however tired he may be, he is always more or less refreshed byhis journey. His physical tenement has taken an airing. His respirationhas been deepened, his circulation quickened. A good draught hascarried off the fumes and the vapors. One's quality is intensified; thecolor strikes in. At noon that day I was much fatigued; at night I wasleg-weary and footsore, but a fresh, hardy feeling had taken possessionof me that lasted for weeks. 

VIII

BIRDS'-NESTING

Birds's-nesting is by no means a failure, even though you find nobirds'-nests. You are sure to find other things of interest, plenty ofthem. A friend of mine says that, in his youth, he used to go huntingwith his gun loaded for wild turkeys, and, though he frequently sawplenty of smaller game, he generally came home empty-handed, because hewas loaded only for turkeys. But the student of ornithology, who isalso a lover of Nature in all her shows and forms, does not go outloaded for turkeys merely, but for everything that moves or grows, andis quite sure, therefore, to bag some game, if not with his gun, thenwith 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 logwhere a partridge drums, or the partridge himself starting up withspread tail, and walking a few yards in advance of you before he goeshumming through the woods, or a woodchuck hole, with well beaten andworn entrance, and with the saplings gnawed and soiled about it, or thestrong, fetid smell of the fox, which a sharp nose detects here andthere, and which is a good perfume in the woods. And then it is enoughto come upon a spring in the woods and stoop down and drink of thesweet, cold water, and bathe your hands in it, or to walk along a troutbrook, which has absorbed the shadows till it has itself become but adenser 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 sitdown under the overhanging crags and let the wild scene absorb me. 

There is a fascination about ledges! They are an unmistakable feature, and give emphasis and character to the scene. I feel their spell, andmust pause awhile. Time, old as the hills and older, looks out of theirscarred and weather-worn face. The woods are of to-day, but the ledges, in comparison, are of eternity. One pokes about them as he would aboutruins, and with something of the same feeling. They are ruins of thefore world. Here the foundations of the hills were laid; here theearth-giants wrought and builded. They constrain one to silence andmeditation; the whispering and rustling trees seem trivial andimpertinent. 

And then there are birds'-nests about ledges, too, exquisite mossytenements, with white, pebbly eggs, that I can never gaze upon withoutemotion. The little brown bird, the phoebe, looks at you from her nichetill you are within a few feet of her, when she darts away. Occasionally you may find the nest of some rare wood-warbler forming alittle 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, andare less afraid than usual. Did not that marmot to-day guess that myerrand did not concern him as he saw me approach from his cover in thebushes? But when he saw me pause and deliberately seat myself on thestone wall immediately over his hole, his confidence was much shaken. He apparently deliberated awhile, for I heard the leaves rustle as ifhe were making up his mind, when he suddenly broke cover and came forhis hole full tilt. Any other animal would have taken to his heels andfled; but a woodchuck's heels do not amount to much for speed, and hefeels his only safety is in his hole. On he came in the most obstinateand determined 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 chanceto do; but, not to be entirely outdone, attempted to set my feet on himin no very gentle manner; but he whipped into his den beneath me with adefiant snort. Farther on, a saucy chipmunk presumed upon my harmlesscharacter to an unwonted degree also. I had paused to bathe my handsand face in a little trout brook, and had set a tin cup, which I hadpartly filled with strawberries as I crossed the field, on a stone atmy feet, when along came the chipmunk as confidently as if he knewprecisely where he was going, and, perfectly oblivious of my presence, cocked himself up on the rim of the cup and proceeded to eat mychoicest berries. I remained motionless and observed him. He had eatenbut two when the thought seemed to occur to him that he might be doingbetter, and he began to fill his pockets. Two, four, six, eight of myberries quickly disappeared, and the cheeks of the little vagabondswelled. But all the time he kept eating, that not a moment might belost. Then he hopped off the cup, and went skipping from stone to stonetill the brook was passed, when he disappeared in the woods. In two orthree minutes he was back again, and went to stuffing himself asbefore; then he disappeared a second time, and I imagined told a friendof his, for in a moment or two along came a bobtailed chipmunk, as ifin search of something, and passed up, and down, and around, but didnot quite hit the spot. Shortly, the first returned a third time, andhad now grown a little fastidious, for he began to sort over myberries, and to bite into them, as if to taste their quality. He wasnot long in loading up, however, and in making off again. But I had nowgot tired of the joke, and my berries were appreciably diminishing, soI moved away. What was most curious about the proceeding was, that thelittle poacher took different directions each time, and returned fromdifferent ways. Was this to elude pursuit, or was he distributing thefruit to his friends and neighbors about, astonishing them withstrawberries for lunch?

But I am making slow headway toward finding the birds'-nests, for I hadset out on this occasion in hopes of finding a rare nest, --the nest ofthe black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with one ortwo others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblerscomplete. The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, andlooking for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task assearching for a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where tobegin, and how? But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen'snest, --first find your bird, then watch its movements. 

The bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores of times, butwhether he builds high or low, on the ground or in the trees, is allunknown to me. That is his song now, --"twe-twea-twe-e-e-a, " with apeculiar summer languor and plaintiveness, and issuing from the lowerbranches and growths. Presently we--for I have been joined by acompanion--discover the bird, a male, insecting in the top of a newlyfallen hemlock. The black, white, and blue of his uniform are seen at aglance. His movements are quite slow compared with some of thewarblers. If he will only betray the locality of that little domicilewhere his plainly clad mate is evidently sitting, it is all we will askof 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 oftenrefinding him by his song; but the clew to his nest, how shall we getit? Does he never go home to see how things are getting on, or to seeif his presence is not needed, or to take madam a morsel of food? Nodoubt he keeps within earshot, and a cry of distress or alarm from themother bird would bring him to the spot in an instant. Would that someevil fate would make her cry, then! Presently he encounters a rival. His feeding-ground infringes upon that of another, and the two birdsregard each other threateningly. This is a good sign, for their nestsare evidently near. 

Their battle-cry is a low, peculiar chirp, not very fierce, butbantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a veryfantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfytheir sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither party getsthe better of the other, and they separate a few paces and sing, andsqueak, and challenge each other in a very happy frame of mind. Thegauntlet is no sooner thrown down than it is again taken up by one orthe other, and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes they havethree or four encounters, separating a little, then provoked to returnagain like two cocks, till finally they withdraw beyond hearing of eachother, --both, no doubt, claiming the victory. But the secret of thenest is still kept. Once I think I have it. I catch a glimpse of abird which looks like the female, and near by, in a small hemlockabout eight feet from the ground, my eye detects a nest. But as Icome up under it, I can see daylight through it, and that it isempty, --evidently only part finished, not lined or padded yet. Now ifthe bird will only return and claim it, the point will be gained. Butwe wait and watch in vain. The architect has knocked off to-day, andwe must come again, or continue our search. 

While loitering about here we were much amused by three chipmunks, whoseemed to be engaged in some kind of game. It looked very much as ifthey were playing tag. Round and round they would go, first one takingthe lead, then another, all good-natured and gleeful as schoolboys. There is one thing about a chipmunk that is peculiar: he is never morethan one jump from home. Make a dive at him anywhere and in he goes. Heknows where the hole is, even when it is covered up with leaves. Thereis no doubt, also, that he has his own sense of humor and fun, as whatsquirrel has not? I have watched two red squirrels for a half hourcoursing through the large trees by the roadside where branchesinterlocked, and engaged in a game of tag as obviously as two boys. Assoon as the pursuer had come up with the pursued, and actually touchedhim, the palm was his, and away he would go, taxing his wits and hisspeed to the utmost to elude his fellow. 

Despairing of finding either of the nests of the two males, we pushedon through the woods to try our luck elsewhere. Before long, just as wewere about to plunge down a hill into a dense, swampy part of thewoods, we discovered a pair of the birds we were in quest of. They hadfood in their beaks, and, as we paused, showed great signs of alarm, indicating that the nest was in the immediate vicinity. This wasenough. We would pause here and find this nest, anyhow. To make a surething of it, we determined to watch the parent birds till we had wrungfrom them their secret. So we doggedly crouched down and watched them, and they watched us. It was diamond cut diamond. But as we feltconstrained in our movements, desiring, if possible, to keep so quietthat the birds would, after a while, see in us only two harmless stumpsor prostrate logs, we had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes werequite taken with our quiet, and knew us from logs and stumps in amoment. Neither were the birds deceived, not even when we tried theIndian's tactics, and plumed ourselves with green branches. Ah, thesuspicious creatures, how they watched us with the food in their beaks, abstaining for one whole hour from ministering that precious chargewhich otherwise would have been visited every moment! Quite near usthey 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 noserious cause for alarm, that the male would now and then strike up infull song and move off to some distance through the trees? But themother bird did not allow herself to lose sight of us at all, and bothbirds, after carrying the food in their beaks a long time, wouldswallow it themselves. Then they would obtain another morsel andapparently approach very near the nest, when their caution or prudencewould come to their aid, and they would swallow the food and hastenaway. I thought the young birds would cry out, but not a syllable fromthem. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the parent birds away from thenest. The clamor the young would have set up on the approach of the oldwith food would have exposed everything. 

After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet where the nest wasconcealed. Indeed, I thought I knew the identical bush. Then the birdsapproached each other again and grew very confidential about anotherlocality some rods below. This puzzled us, and, seeing the wholeafternoon might be spent in this manner, and the mystery unsolved, wedetermined to change our tactics and institute a thorough search of thelocality. This procedure soon brought things to a crisis, for, as mycompanion clambered over a log by a little hemlock, a few yards fromwhere we had been sitting, with a cry of alarm out sprang the youngbirds from their nest in the hemlock, and, scampering and flutteringover the leaves, disappeared in different directions. This brought theparent birds on the scene in an agony of alarm. Their distress waspitiful. They threw themselves on the ground at our very feet, andfluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves before us, to draw us awayfrom the place, or distract our attention from the helpless young. Ishall not forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp thecontrast as he trailed his painted plumage there on the dry leaves. Apparently he was seriously disabled. He would start up as if exertingevery muscle to fly away, but no use; down he would come, with ahelpless, fluttering motion, before he had gone two yards, andapparently you had only to go and pick him up. But before you couldpick him up, he had recovered somewhat and flown a little farther; andthus, if you were tempted to follow him, you would soon find yourselfsome distance from the scene of the nest, and both old and young wellout of your reach. The female bird was not less solicious, andpracticed the same arts upon us to decoy us away, but her dull plumagerendered her less noticeable. The male was clad in holiday attire, buthis mate in an every-day working-garb. 

The nest was built in the fork of a little hemlock, about fifteeninches from the ground, and was a thick, firm structure, composed ofthe finer material of the woods, with a lining of very delicate rootsor rootlets. There were four young birds and one addled egg. We foundit in a locality about the head-waters of the eastern branch of theDelaware, where several other of the rarer species of warblers, such asthe mourning ground, the Blackburnian, the chestnut-sided, and thespeckled Canada, spend the summer and rear their young. 

Defunct birds'-nests are easy to find; when the leaves fall, then theyare in every bush and tree; and one wonders how he missed them; but alive nest, how it eludes one! I have read of a noted criminal who couldhide himself pretty effectually in any room that contained the usualfurniture; he would embrace the support of a table so as to seem partof it. The bird has studied the same art: it always blends its nestwith the surroundings, and sometimes its very openness hides it; thelight itself seems to conceal it. Then the birds build anew each year, and so always avail themselves of the present and latest combination ofleaves and screens, of light and shade. What was very well concealedone season may be quite exposed the next. 

Going a-fishing or a-berrying is a good introduction to the haunts ofthe birds, and to their nesting-places. You put forth your hand for theberries, and there is a nest; or your tread by the creeks starts thesandpiper or the water-thrush from the ground where its eggs areconcealed, or some shy wood-warbler from a bush. One day, fishing downa deep wooded gorge, my hook caught on a limb overhead, and on pullingit down I found I had missed my trout, but had caught a hummingbird'snest. It was saddled on the limb as nicely as if it had been a grownpart of it. 

Other collectors beside the oölogists are looking for birds'-nests, --the squirrels and owls and jays and crows. The worst depredator in thisdirection I know of is the fish crow, and I warn him to keep off mypremises, and charge every gunner to spare him not. He is a smallsneak-thief, and will rob the nest of every robin, wood thrush, andoriole he can come at. I believe he fishes only when he is unable tofind birds' eggs or young birds. The genuine crow, the crow with thehonest "caw, " "caw, " I have never caught in such small business, thoughthe kingbird makes no discrimination between them, but accuses bothalike. 

IX

THE HALCYON IN CANADA

The halcyon or kingfisher is a good guide when you go to the woods. Hewill not insure smooth water or fair weather, but he knows every streamand lake like a book, and will take you to the wildest and mostunfrequented places. Follow his rattle and you shall see the source ofevery trout and salmon stream on the continent. You shall see the Lakeof the Woods, and far-off Athabasca and Abbitibbe, and the unknownstreams that flow into Hudson's Bay, and many others. His time is thetime of the trout, too, namely, from April to September. He makes hissubterranean nest in the bank of some favorite stream, and then goes onlong excursions up and down and over woods and mountains to all thewaters within reach, always fishing alone, the true angler that he is, his fellow keeping far ahead or behind, or taking the other branch. Heloves the sound of a waterfall, and will sit a long time on a dry limboverhanging the pool below it, and, forgetting his occupation, broodupon his own memories and fancies. 

The past season my friend and I took a hint from him, and, when thedog-star began to blaze, set out for Canada, making a big detour totouch 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 coupleof days and caught an editor, a philosopher, and a poet, and might havecaught 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 theway of scenery that arrested our attention until we beheld the St. Lawrence, though one gets glimpses now and then, as he is whirled alongthrough New Hampshire and Vermont, that make him wish for a fullerview. It is always a pleasure to bring to pass the geography of one'sboyhood; 'tis like the fulfilling of a dream; hence it was with partialeyes that I looked upon the Merrimac, the Connecticut, and thePassumpsic, --dusky, squaw-colored streams, whose names I had learned solong ago. The traveler opens his eyes a little wider when he reachesLake Memphremagog, especially if he have the luck to see it under sucha sunset as we did, its burnished surface glowing like molten gold. This lake is an immense trough that accommodates both sides of thefence, though by far the larger and longer part of it is in Canada. Itswestern shore is bold and picturesque, being skirted by a detachment ofthe Green Mountains, the main range of which is seen careering alongthe horizon far to the southwest; to the east and north, whither therailroad takes you, the country is flat and monotonous. 

The first peculiarity one notices about the farms in this northerncountry is the close proximity of the house and barn, in most cases thetwo buildings touching at some point, --an arrangement doubtlessprompted by the deep snows and severe cold of this latitude. Thetypical Canadian dwelling-house is also presently met with on enteringthe Dominion, --a low, modest structure of hewn spruce logs, with asteep roof (containing two or more dormer windows) that ends in a smartcurve, a hint taken from the Chinese pagoda. Even in the more costlybrick or stone houses in the towns and vicinity this style is adheredto. It is so universal that one wonders if the reason of it is not inthe climate also, the outward curve of the roof shooting the slidingsnow farther away from the dwelling. It affords a wide projection, inmany cases covering a veranda, and in all cases protecting the doorsand windows without interfering with the light. In the better class ofclapboarded houses the finish beneath the projecting eaves is also asweeping curve, opposing and bracing that of the roof. A two-storycountry house, or a Mansard roof, I do not remember to have seen inCanada; but in places they have become so enamored of the white of thesnow that they even whitewash the roofs of their buildings, giving acluster of them the impression, at a distance, of an encampment ofgreat tents. 

As we neared Point Levi, opposite Quebec, we got our first view of theSt. Lawrence. "Iliad of rivers!" exclaimed my friend. "Yet unsung!" TheHudson must take a back seat now, and a good way back. One of the twoor three great watercourses of the globe is before you. No other river, I imagine, carries such a volume of pure cold water to the sea. Nearlyall its feeders are trout and salmon streams, and what an airing andwhat a bleaching it gets on its course! Its history, its antecedents, are unparalleled. The great lakes are its camping-grounds; here itshosts repose under the sun and stars in areas like that of states andkingdoms, and it is its waters that shake the earth at Niagara. Whereit receives the Saguenay it is twenty miles wide, and when it debouchesinto the Gulf it is a hundred. Indeed, it is a chain of Homericsublimities from beginning to end. The great cataract is a fit sequelto the great lakes; the spirit that is born in vast and tempestuousSuperior takes its full glut of power in that fearful chasm. Ifparadise is hinted in the Thousand Islands, hell is unveiled in thatpit of terrors. 

Its last escapade is the great rapids above Montreal, down which thesteamer shoots with its breathless passengers, after which, inhalingand exhaling its mighty tides, it flows calmly to the sea. 

The St. Lawrence is the type of nearly all the Canadian rivers, whichare strung with lakes and rapids and cataracts, and are full of periland adventure. 

Here we reach the oldest part of the continent, geologists tell us; andhere we encounter a fragment of the Old World civilization. Quebecpresents the anomaly of a medięval European city in the midst of theAmerican landscape. This air, this sky, these clouds, these trees, thelook of these fields, are what we have always known; but the houses, and streets, and vehicles, and language, and physiognomy are strange. As I walked upon the grand terrace I saw the robin and kingbird andsong sparrow, and there in the tree, by the Wolfe Monument, our summerwarbler was at home. I presently saw, also, that our republican crowwas a British subject, and that he behaved here more like his Europeanbrother than he does in the States, being less wild and suspicious. Onthe Plains of Abraham excellent timothy grass was growing and cattlewere grazing. We found a path through the meadow, and, with theexception of a very abundant weed with a blue flower, saw nothing newor strange, --nothing but the steep tin roofs of the city and itsfrowning wall and citadel. Sweeping around the far southern horizon, wecould catch glimpses of mountains that were evidently in Maine or NewHampshire; while twelve or fifteen miles to the north the Laurentianranges, dark and formidable, arrested the eye. Quebec, or the walledpart of it, is situated on a point of land shaped not unlike the humanfoot, looking northeast, the higher and bolder side being next theriver, with the main part of the town on the northern slope toward theSt. Charles. Its toes are well down in the mud where this stream joinsthe St. Lawrence, while the citadel is high on the instep and commandsthe whole field. The grand Battery is a little below, on the brink ofthe instep, so to speak, and the promenader looks down several hundredfeet into the tops of the chimneys of this part of the lower town, andupon the great river sweeping by northeastward like another Amazon. Theheel of our misshapen foot extends indefinitely toward Montreal. Uponit, on a level with the citadel, are the Plains of Abraham. It was upits high, almost perpendicular, sides that Wolfe clambered with hisarmy, and stood in the rear of his enemy one pleasant September morningover a hundred years ago. 

To the north and northeast of Quebec, and in full view from the upperparts of the city, lies a rich belt of agricultural country, slopinggently toward the river, and running parallel with it for many miles, called the Beauport slopes. The division of the land into uniformparallelograms, as in France, was a marked feature, and is sothroughout the Dominion. A road ran through the midst of it lined with;trees, and leading to the falls of the Montmorenci. I imagine that thissection is the garden of Quebec. Beyond it rose the mountains. Our eyeslooked wistfully toward them, for we had decided to penetrate theCanadian woods in that direction. 

One hundred and twenty-five miles from Quebec as the loon flies, almostdue north over unbroken spruce forests, lies Lake St. John, the cradleof the terrible Saguenay. On the map it looks like a great cuttlefishwith its numerous arms and tentacula reaching out in all directionsinto the wilds. It is a large oval body of water thirty miles in itsgreatest diameter. The season here, owing to a sharp northern sweep ofthe isothermal lines, is two or three weeks earlier than at Quebec. Thesoil is warm and fertile, and there is a thrifty growing settlementhere with valuable agricultural produce, but no market nearer thanQuebec, two hundred and fifty miles distant by water, with a hard, tedious land journey besides. In winter the settlement can have littleor no communication with the outside world. 

To relieve this isolated colony and encourage further development ofthe St. John region, the Canadian government is building [footnote:Written in 1877] a wagon-road through the wilderness from Quebecdirectly to the lake, thus economizing half the distance, as the roadwhen completed will form with the old route, the Saguenay and St. Lawrence, one side of an equilateral triangle. A railroad was projecteda few years ago over nearly the same ground, and the contract to buildit given to an enterprising Yankee, who pocketed a part of the moneyand has never been heard of since. The road runs for one hundred milesthrough an unbroken wilderness, and opens up scores of streams andlakes abounding with trout, into which, until the road-makers fishedthem, 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 young fellow whom, by reason of hisimpracticable French name, we called Joe, were secured, and after adelay of twenty-four hours we were packed upon a Canadian buckboardwith hard-tack in one bag and oats in another, and the journey began. It was Sunday, and we held up our heads more confidently when we gotbeyond the throng of well-dressed church-goers. For ten miles we had agood stone road and rattled along it at a lively pace. In about halfthat distance we came to a large brick church, where we began to seethe rural population or _habitans. _ They came mostly in two-wheeledvehicles, some of the carts quite fancy, in which the young fellowsrode complacently beside their girls. The two-wheeler predominates inCanada, 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 NewHampshire. While Joe was getting a supply of hay of a farmer to takeinto the woods for his horse, I walked through a field in quest of wildstrawberries. 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 isfar less pungent and high-flavored than with us. 

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

We passed several parties of men, women, and children from Quebecpicnicking in the "bush. " Here it was little more than a "bush;" butwhile 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 fractionof a mile is to be designated, the French Canadian does not use theterm "miles, " but says it's so many acres through, or to the nextplace. 

This fondness for the "bush" at this season seems quite a markedfeature in the social life of the average Quebecker, and is one of theoriginal French traits that holds its own among them. Parties leave thecity in carts and wagons by midnight, or earlier, and drive out as faras they can the remainder of the night, in order to pass the wholeSunday in the woods, despite the mosquitoes and black flies. Those wesaw seemed a decent, harmless set, whose idea of a good time was to bein 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 twentymiles from Quebec at Stoneham, the farthest settlement. Five miles intothe forest upon the new road is the hamlet of La Chance, the last housetill you reach the lake, one hundred and twenty miles distant. Ourdestination the first night was La Chance's; this would enable us toreach the Jacques Cartier River, forty miles farther, where we proposedto encamp, in the afternoon of the next day. 

We were now fairly among the mountains, and the sun was well downbehind the trees when we entered upon the post-road. It proved to be awide, well-built highway, grass-grown, but in good condition. After anhour's travel we began to see signs of a clearing, and about sixo'clock drew up in front of the long, low, log habitation of La Chance. Their hearthstone was outdoor at this season, and its smoke rosethrough the still atmosphere in a frail column toward the sky. Thefamily was gathered here and welcomed us cordially as we drew up, themaster shaking us by the hand as if we were old friends. His Englishwas very poor, and our French was poorer, but, with Joe as a bridgebetween us, communication on a pinch was kept up. His wife could speakno English; but her true French politeness and graciousness was alanguage we could readily understand. Our supper was got ready from ourown supplies, while we sat or stood in the open air about the fire. Theclearing comprised fifty or sixty acres of rough land in the bottom ofa narrow valley, and bore indifferent crops of oats, barley, potatoes, and timothy grass. The latter was just in bloom, being a month or morelater than with us. The primitive woods, mostly of birch with asprinkling of spruce, put a high cavernous wall about the scene. Howsweetly the birds sang, their notes seeming to have unusual strengthand volume in this forest-bound opening! The principal singer was thewhite-throated sparrow, which we heard and saw everywhere on the route. He is called here _le siffleur_ (the whistler), and very delightful hiswhistle was. From the forest came the evening hymn of a thrush, theolive-backed perhaps, like but less clear and full than the veery's. 

In the evening we sat about the fire in rude homemade chairs, and hadsuch broken and disjointed talk as we could manage. Our host had livedin Quebec and been a school-teacher there; he had wielded the birchuntil he lost his health, when he came here and the birches gave itback to him. He was now hearty and well, and had a family of six orseven 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 thewindow. Who could it be? Had a band of brigands surrounded the house?As our outfit and supplies had not been removed from the wagon in frontof 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 aboutengaged in low conversation. Presently one of the men advanced to thedoor and began to rap and call the name of our host. Then I knew theirerrand was not hostile; but the weird effect of that regular alternaterapping 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 sixtimes repeated before La Chance heard and responded. Then the dooropened and they came in, when it was jabber, jabber, jabber in the nextroom till I fell asleep. 

In the morning, to my inquiry as to who the travelers were and whatthey wanted, La Chance said they were old acquaintances goinga-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 forestover the drift and boulders of the paleozoic age. Up to this point thescenery had been quite familiar, --not much unlike that of theCatskills, --but now there was a change; the birches disappeared, exceptnow and then a slender white or paper birch, and spruce everywhereprevailed. A narrow belt on each side of the road had been blasted byfire, and the dry, white stems of the trees stood stark and stiff. Theroad ran pretty straight, skirting the mountains and threading thevalleys, and hour after hour the dark, silent woods wheeled past us. Swarms of black flies--those insect wolves--waylaid us and hung to ustill a smart spurt of the horse, where the road favored, left thembehind. But a species of large horse-fly, black and vicious, it was notso easy to get rid of. When they alighted upon the horse, we woulddemolish them with the whip or with our felt hats, a proceeding thehorse soon came to understand and appreciate. The white and grayLaurentian boulders lay along the roadside. The soil seemed as if madeup of decayed and pulverized rock, and doubtless contained very littlevegetable matter. It is so barren that it will never repay clearing andcultivating. 

Our course was an up-grade toward the highlands that separate thewatershed of St. John Lake from that of the St. Lawrence, and as weproceeded the spruce became smaller and smaller till the trees wereseldom more than eight or ten inches in diameter. Nearly all of themterminated in a dense tuft at the top, beneath which the stem would bebare for several feet, giving them the appearance, my friend said, asthey stood sharply defined along the crests of the mountains, of cannonswabs. Endless, interminable successions of these cannon swabs, eachjust like its fellow, came and went, came and went, all day. Sometimeswe could see the road a mile or two ahead, and it was as lonely andsolitary as a path in the desert. Periods of talk and song and jollitywere succeeded by long stretches of silence. A buckboard upon such aroad does not conduce to a continuous flow of animal spirits. A goodbrace for the foot and a good hold for the hand is one's main lookoutmuch of the time. We walked up the steeper hills, one of them nearly amile long, then clung grimly to the board during the rapid descent ofthe other side. 

We occasionally saw a solitary pigeon--in every instance acock--leading a forlorn life in the wood, a hermit of his kind, ormore probably a rejected and superfluous male. We came upon two orthree broods of spruce grouse in the road, so tame that one could haveknocked them over with poles. We passed many beautiful lakes; amongothers, the Two Sisters, one on each side of the road. At noon wepaused at a lake in a deep valley, and fed the horse and had lunch. Iwas not long in getting ready my fishing tackle, and, upon a raft madeof two logs pinned together, floated out upon the lake and quickly tookall the trout we wanted. 

Early in the afternoon we entered upon what is called _La GrandeBrūlure, _ or Great Burning, and to the desolation of living woodssucceeded the greater desolation of a blighted forest. All themountains and valleys, as far as the eye could see, had been swept bythe fire, and the bleached and ghostly skeletons of the trees alone metthe gaze. The fire had come over from the Saguenay, a hundred or moremiles to the east, seven or eight years before, and had consumed orblasted everything in its way. We saw the skull of a moose said to haveperished in the fire. For three hours we rode through this valley andshadow of death. In the midst of it, where the trees had nearly alldisappeared, and where the ground was covered with coarse wild grass, we came upon the Morancy River, a placid yellow stream twenty ortwenty-five yards wide, abounding with trout. We walked a shortdistance along its banks and peered curiously into its waters. Themountains on either hand had been burned by the fire until in placestheir great granite bones were bare and white. 

At another point we were within ear-shot, for a mile or more, of abrawling stream in the valley below us, and now and then caught aglimpse of foaming rapids or cascades through the dense spruce, --atrout stream that probably no man had ever fished, as it would be quiteimpossible to do so in such a maze and tangle of woods. 

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

About four o'clock we passed another small lake, and in a few momentsmore drew up at the bridge over the Jacques Cartier River, and ourforty-mile ride was finished. There was a stable here that had beenused by the road-builders, and was now used by the teams that hauled intheir supplies. This would do for the horse; a snug log shanty built byan old trapper and hunter for use in the winter, a hundred yards belowthe bridge, amid the spruces on the bank of the river, when rebeddedand 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 abound like a moose. It was not shrunken and emaciated, like similarstreams in a cleared country, but full, copious, and strong. Indeed, one can hardly realize how the lesser water-courses have suffered bythe denuding of the land of its forest covering, until he goes into theprimitive woods and sees how bounding and athletic they are there. Theyare literally well fed, and their measure of life is full. In fact, atrout brook is as much a thing of the woods as a moose or deer, andwill not thrive well in the open country. 

Three miles above our camp was Great Lake Jacques Cartier, the sourceof the river, a sheet of water nine miles long and from one to threewide; fifty rods below was Little Lake Jacques Cartier, an irregularbody about two miles across. Stretching away on every hand, bristlingon the mountains and darkling in the valleys, was the illimitablespruce woods. The moss in them covered the ground nearly knee-deep, andlay like newly fallen snow, hiding rocks and logs, filling depressions, and muffling the foot. When it was dry, one could find a mostdelightful couch anywhere. 

The spruce seems to have colored the water, which is a dark ambercolor, but entirely sweet and pure. There needed no better proof of thelatter fact than the trout with which it abounded, and their clear andvivid tints. In its lower portions near the St. Lawrence, the JacquesCartier River is a salmon stream, but these fish have never been foundas near its source as we were, though there is no apparent reason whythey should not be. 

There is perhaps no moment in the life of an angler fraught with somuch eagerness and impatience as when he first finds himself upon thebank of a new and long-sought stream. When I was a boy and used to goa-fishing, I could seldom restrain my eagerness after I arrived insight 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 neverquite equal to. After I had made a few casts, or had caught one fish, Icould pause and adjust my line properly. I found some remnant of theold enthusiasm still in me when I sprang from the buckboard thatafternoon and saw the strange river rushing by. I would have givensomething if my tackle had been rigged so that I could have tried onthe instant the temper of the trout that had just broken the surfacewithin easy reach of the shore. But I had anticipated this momentcoming along, and had surreptitiously undone my rod-case and got myreel out of my bag, and was therefore a few moments ahead of mycompanion in making the first cast. The trout rose readily, and almosttoo soon we had more than enough for dinner, though no "rod-smashers"had been seen or felt. Our experience the next morning, and during theday and the next morning, in the lake, in the rapids, in the pools, wasabout 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 andwould not rise; they were in the deepest water and did not like to getup. 

The third day, in the afternoon, we had our first and only thoroughsensation in the shape of a big trout. It came none too soon. Theinterest had begun to flag. But one big fish a week will do. It is apinnacle of delight in the angler's experience that he may well bethree days in working up to, and, once reached, it is three days downto 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 time hungheavily on our hands. About three o'clock the rain slackened and weemerged from our den, Joe going to look after his horse, which hadeaten but little since coming into the woods, the poor creature was sodisturbed by the loneliness and the black flies; I, to makepreparations for dinner, while my companion lazily took his rod andstepped to the edge of the big pool in front of camp. At the firstintroductory cast, and when his fly was not fifteen feet from him uponthe water, there was a lunge and a strike, and apparently the fishermanhad hooked a boulder. I was standing a few yards below, engaged inwashing out the coffee-pail, when I heard him call out:--

"I have got him now!"

"Yes, I see you have, " said I, noticing his bending pole and movelessline; "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 kepton with my work. 

It is proper to say that my companion was a novice at fly-fishing, never having cast a fly till upon this trip. 

Again he called out to me, but, deceived by his coolness and nonchalanttones, and by the lethargy a glimpse of the fish, I gave little heed. Of the fish, I gave little heed. I knew very well that, if I had strucka fish that held me down in that way, I should have been going througha regular war-dance on that circle of boulder-tops, and should havescared 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 hisquivering line, slowly cutting the current up toward the centre of thepool. 

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

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

I put my eager hand upon the butt, and could easily imagine I felt thethrob or pant of something alive down there in the black depths. Butwhatever it was moved about like a turtle. My companion was praying tohear his reel spin, but it gave out now and then only a few hesitatingclicks. Still the situation was excitingly dramatic, and we were allactors. I rushed for the landing-net, but being unable to find it, shouted desperately for Joe, who came hurrying back, excited before hehad learned what the matter was. The net had been left at the lakebelow, and must be had with the greatest dispatch. In the mean time Iskipped about from boulder to boulder as the fish worked this way orthat 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 keptupon him. Presently I saw a shadowy, unsubstantial something justemerge from the black depths, then vanish. Then I saw it again, andthis time the huge proportions of the fish were faintly outlined by thewhite facings of his fins. The sketch lasted but a twinkling; it wasonly a flitting shadow upon a darker background, but it gave me theprofoundest Ike Walton thrill I ever experienced. I had been a fisherfrom my earliest boyhood. I came from a race of fishers; trout streamsgurgled about the roots of the family tree, and there was a longaccumulated and transmitted tendency and desire in me that that sightgratified. I did not wish the pole in my own hands; there was quiteenough electricity overflowing from it and filling the air for me. Thefish yielded more and more to the relentless pole, till, in aboutfifteen 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 foamas the angler led him toward the rock upon which I was perched net inhand. As I reached toward him, down he went again, and, taking anothercircle of the pool, came up still more exhausted, when, between hisparoxysms, I carefully ran the net over him and lifted him ashore, amid, it is needless to say, the wildest enthusiasm of the spectators. The congratulatory laughter of the loons down on the lake showed howeven the outsiders sympathized. Much larger trout have been taken inthese waters and in others, but this fish would have swallowed anythree we had ever before caught. 

"What does he weigh?" was the natural inquiry of each; and we tookturns "hefting" him. But gravity was less potent to us just then thanusual, and the fish seemed astonishingly light. 

"Four pounds, " we said; but Joe said more. So we improvised a scale: along strip of board was balanced across a stick, and our groceriesserved as weights. A four-pound package of sugar kicked the beamquickly; a pound of coffee was added; still it went up; then a pound oftea, and still the fish had a little the best of it. But we called itsix pounds, not to drive too sharp a bargain with fortune, and weremore than satisfied. Such a beautiful creature! marked in every respectlike a trout of six inches. We feasted our eyes upon him for half anhour. We stretched him upon the ground and admired him; we laid himacross a log and withdrew a few paces and admired him; we hung himagainst the shanty, and turned our heads from side to side as women dowhen they are selecting dress goods, the better to take in the fullforce of the effect. 

He graced the board or stump that afternoon, and was the sweetestfish we had taken. The flesh was a deep salmon-color and very rich. We had before discovered that there were two varieties of troutin these waters, irrespective of size, --the red-fleshed and thewhite-fleshed, --and that the former were the better. 

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

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

Upon the lake you had the wildness and solitude at arm's length, andcould better take their look and measure. You became something apartfrom them; you emerged and had a vantage-ground like that of a mountainpeak, and could contemplate them at your ease. Seated upon my raft andslowly carried by the current or drifted by the breeze, I had many along, silent look into the face of the wilderness, and found thecommunion good. I was alone with the spirit of the forest-bound lakes, and felt its presence and magnetism. I played hide-and-seek with itabout the nooks and corners, and lay in wait for it upon a littleisland crowned with a clump of trees that was moored just to one sideof the current near the head of the lake. 

Indeed, there is no depth of solitude that the mind does not endow withsome human interest. As in a dead silence the ear is filled with itsown murmur, so amid these aboriginal scenes one's feelings andsympathies become external to him, as it were, and he holds conversewith them. Then a lake is the ear as well as the eye of a forest. It isthe place to go to listen and ascertain what sounds are abroad in theair. They all run quickly thither and report. If any creature hadcalled in the forest for miles about, I should have heard it. At timesI could hear the distant roar of water off beyond the outlet of thelake. The sound of the vagrant winds purring here and there in the topsof the spruces reached my ear. A breeze would come slowly down themountain, then strike the lake, and I could see its footstepsapproaching by the changed appearance of the water. How slowly thewinds move at times, sauntering like one on a Sunday walk! A breezealways enlivens the fish; a dead calm and all pennants sink, youractivity with your fly is ill-timed, and you soon take the hint andstop. Becalmed upon my raft, I observed, as I have often done before, that the life of Nature ebbs and flows, comes and departs, in thesewilderness scenes; one moment her stage is thronged and the next quitedeserted. Then there is a wonderful unity of movement in the twoelements, air and water. When there is much going on in one, there isquite 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 anywhereabout you, when presently the breeze freshens and the trout begin torespond, and then of a sudden all the performers rush in: ducks comesweeping by; loons laugh and wheel overhead, then approach the water ona long, gentle incline, plowing deeper and deeper into its surface, until their momentum is arrested, or converted into foam; the fish hawkscreams; the bald eagle goes flapping by, and your eyes and hands arefull. Then the tide ebbs, and both fish and fowl are gone. 

Patiently whipping the waters of the lake from my rude float, I becamean object of great interest to the loons. I had never seen these birdsbefore in their proper habitat, and the interest was mutual. When theyhad paused on the Hudson during their spring and fall migrations, I hadpursued them in my boat to try to get near them. Now the case wasreversed; I was the interloper now, and they would come out and studyme. Sometimes six or eight of them would be swimming about watching mymovements, but they were wary and made a wide circle. One day one oftheir number volunteered to make a thorough reconnoissance. I saw himleave his comrades and swim straight toward me. He came bringing firstone eye to bear upon me, then the other. When about half the distancewas passed over he began to waver and hesitate. To encourage him Istopped casting, and taking off my hat began to wave it slowly to andfro, as in the act of fanning myself. This started him again, --this wasa new trait in the creature that he must scrutinize more closely. On hecame, till all his markings were distinctly seen. With one hand Ipulled a little revolver from my hip pocket, and when the loon wasabout 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 wasgone! Lead could not have gone down so quickly. The bullet cut acrossthe circles where he disappeared. In a few moments he reappeared acouple 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 secondtime, but not so closely, and when I began to creep back toward theshore with my heavy craft, pawing the water first upon one side, thenthe other, he followed, and with ironical laughter witnessed my effortsto stem the current at the head of the lake. I confess it was enough tomake 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 theirvoices were about the only notable wild sounds to be heard. 

One afternoon, quite unexpectedly, I struck my big fish in the head ofthe lake. I was first advised of his approach by two or three troutjumping clear from the water to get out of his lordship's way. Thewater was not deep just there, and he swam so near the surface that hisenormous back cut through. With a swirl he swept my fly under andturned. 

My hook was too near home, and my rod too near a perpendicular tostrike well. More than that, my presence of mind came near beingunhorsed by the sudden apparition of the fish. If I could have had amoment's notice, or if I had not seen the monster, I should have faredbetter 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 carriedit in his jaws till the fraud was detected, and then spat it out. Hecame a second time and made a grand commotion in the water, but not inmy nerves, for I was ready then, but failed to take the fly, and so toget his weight and beauty in these pages. As my luck failed me at thelast, I will place my loss at the full extent of the law, and claimthat nothing less than a ten-pounder was spirited away from my handthat day. I might not have saved him, netless as I was upon my cumbrousraft; but I should at least have had the glory of the fight, and theconsolation of the fairly vanquished. 

These trout are not properly lake trout, but the common brook trout. The largest ones are taken with live bait through the ice in winter. The Indians and the _habitans_ bring them out of the woods from hereand from Snow Lake, on their toboggans, from two and a half to threefeet long. They have kinks and ways of their own. About half a mileabove camp we discovered a deep oval bay to one side of the maincurrent of the river, that evidently abounded in big fish. Here theydisported themselves. It was a favorite feeding-ground, and late everyafternoon the fish rose all about it, making those big ripples theangler delights to see. A trout, when he comes to the surface, starts aring 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 troutignored all our best efforts; not one rise did we get. We were told ofthis pool on our return to Quebec, and that other anglers had a similarexperience there. But occasionally some old fisherman, like a greatadvocate who loves a difficult case, would set his wits to work andbring into camp an enormous trout taken there. 

I had been told in Quebec that I would not see a bird in the woods, nota feather of any kind. But I knew I should, though they were notnumerous. I saw and heard a bird nearly every day, on the tops of thetrees about, that I think was one of the crossbills. The kingfisher wasthere 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 robbedhim of a fish. The yellow-rumped warbler I saw, and one of the kingletswas leading its lisping brood about through the spruces. In everyopening the white-throated sparrow abounded, striking up his clearsweet whistle, at times so loud and sudden that one's momentaryimpression was that some farm boy was approaching, or was secretedthere behind the logs. Many times, amid those primitive solitudes, Iwas quite startled by the human tone and quality of this whistle. It islittle more than a beginning; the bird never seems to finish the strainsuggested. The Canada jay was there also, very busy about someimportant private matter. 

One lowery morning, as I was standing in camp, I saw a lot of ducksborne swiftly down by the current around the bend in the river a fewrods above. They saw me at the same instant and turned toward theshore. On hastening up there, I found the old bird rapidly leading hernearly grown brood through the woods, as if to go around our camp. As Ipursued them they ran squawking with outstretched stubby wings, scattering right and left, and seeking a hiding-place under the logsand débris. I captured one and carried it into camp. It was just whatJoe wanted; it would make a valuable decoy. So he kept it in a box, fedit upon oats, and took it out of the woods with him. 

We found the camp we had appropriated was a favorite stopping-placeof the carmen who hauled in supplies for the gang of two hundredroad-builders. One rainy day near nightfall no less than eight cartsdrew up at the old stable, and the rain-soaked drivers, after picketingand feeding their horses, came down to our fire. We were away, and Joemet us on our return with the unwelcome news. We kept open house so faras 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 sameclass at home; they apologized for intruding, pleading the inclemencyof the weather, and were quite willing, with our permission, to take upwith pot-luck about the fire and leave us the shanty. They dried theirclothes upon poles and logs, and had their fun and their bantering amidit all. An Irishman among them did about the only growling; he invitedhimself into our quarters, and before morning had Joe's blanket abouthim in addition to his own. 

On Friday we made an excursion to Great Lake Jacques Cartier, paddlingand poling up the river in the rude box-boat. It was a bright, stillmorning after the rain, and everything had a new, fresh appearance. Expectation was ever on tiptoe as each turn in the river opened a newprospect before us. How wild, and shaggy, and silent it was! Whatfascinating pools, what tempting stretches of trout-haunted water! Nowand then we would catch a glimpse of long black shadows starting awayfrom the boat and shooting through the sunlit depths. But no sound ormotion 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, withour trousers rolled above our knees, towed the boat up it, wincing andcringing amid the sharp, slippery stones. With benumbed feet and legswe reached the still water that forms the stem of the lake, andpresently saw the arms of the wilderness open and the long deep blueexpanse in their embrace. We rested and bathed, and gladdened our eyeswith the singularly beautiful prospect. The shadows of summer cloudswere slowly creeping up and down the sides of the mountains that hemmedit in. On the far eastern shore, near the head, banks of what wasdoubtless white sand shone dimly in the sun, and the illusion thatthere was a town nestled there haunted my mind constantly. It was likea section of the Hudson below the Highlands, except that these waterswere bluer and colder, and these shores darker, than even those SirHendrik first looked upon; but surely, one felt, a steamer will roundthat point presently, or a sail drift into view! We paddled a mile ormore up the east shore, then across to the west, and found suchpleasure in simply gazing upon the scene that our rods were quiteneglected. We did some casting after a while, but raised no fish of anyconsequence till we were in the outlet again, when they responded sofreely that the "disgust of trout" was soon upon us. 

At the rapids, on our return, as I was standing to my knees in theswift, cold current, and casting into a deep hole behind a huge boulderthat rose four or five feet above the water amidstream, two trout, oneof them a large one, took my flies, and, finding the fish and thecurrent united too strong for my tackle, I sought to gain the top ofthe boulder, in which attempt I got wet to my middle and lost my fish. After I had gained the rock, I could not get away again with my clotheson without swimming, which, to say nothing of wet garments the rest ofthe way home, I did not like to do amid those rocks and swift currents;so, after a vain attempt to communicate with my companion above theroar of the water, I removed my clothing, left it together with mytackle upon the rock, and by a strong effort stemmed the current andreached the shore. The boat was a hundred yards above, and when Iarrived there my teeth were chattering with the cold, my feet were numbwith bruises, and the black flies were making the blood stream down myback. We hastened back with the boat, and, by wading out into thecurrent again and holding it by a long rope, it swung around with mycompanion aboard, and was held in the eddy behind the rock. I clamberedup, got my clothes on, and we were soon shooting downstream towardhome; but the winter of discontent that shrouded one half of me madesad inroads upon the placid feeling of a day well spent that envelopedthe other, all the way to camp. 

That night something carried off all our fish, --doubtless a fisher orlynx, as Joe had seen an animal of some kind about camp that day. 

I must not forget the two red squirrels that frequented the camp duringour stay, and that were so tame they would approach within a few feetof us and take the pieces of bread or fish tossed to them. When aparticularly fine piece of hard-tack was secured, they would spin offto their den with it somewhere near by. 

Caribou abound in these woods, but we saw only their tracks; and ofbears, which are said to be plentiful, we saw no signs. 

Saturday morning we packed up our traps and started on our return, andfound that the other side of the spruce-trees and the vista of thelonely road going south were about the same as coming north. But weunderstood the road better and the buck-board better, and our load waslighter, hence the distance was more easily accomplished. 

I saw a solitary robin by the roadside, and wondered what could havebrought this social and half-domesticated bird so far into these wilds. In La Grande Brūlure, a hermit thrush perched upon a dry tree in aswampy 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 entering thewoods. 

We nooned again at No Man's Inn on the banks of a trout lake, and faredwell and had no reckoning to pay. Late in the afternoon we saw a lonelypedestrian laboring up a hill far ahead of us. When he heard us cominghe leaned his back against the bank, and was lighting his pipe as wepassed. He was an old man, an Irishman, and looked tired. He had comefrom the farther end of the road, fifty miles distant, and had thirtyyet before him to reach town. He looked the dismay he evidently feltwhen, in answer to his inquiry, we told him it was yet ten miles to thefirst house, La Chance's. But there was a roof nearer than that, wherehe doubtless passed the night, for he did not claim hospitality at thecabin of La Chance. We arrived there betimes, but found the "spare bed"assigned to other guests; so we were comfortably lodged upon thehaymow. One of the boys lighted us up with a candle and made levelplaces for us upon the hay. 

La Chance was one of the game wardens, or constables appointed by thegovernment to see the game laws enforced. Joe had not felt entirely athis ease about the duck he was surreptitiously taking to town, andwhen, 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 heturned pale beside. It was evident that they follow the home governmentin the absurd practice of enforcing their laws in Canada. La Chancesaid he was under oath not to wink at or permit any violation of thelaw, and seemed to think that made a difference. 

We were off early in the morning, and before we had gone two miles meta party from Quebec who--must have been driving nearly all night togive the black flies an early breakfast. Before long a slow rain setin; 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 seekingshelter ourselves, we passed a party of young men and boys--sixteen ofthem--in a cart turning back to town, water-soaked and heavy (for thepoor horse had all it could pull), but merry and good-natured. Wepaused awhile at the farmhouse where we had got our hay on going out, were treated to a drink of milk and some wild red cherries, and whenthe rain slackened drove on, and by ten o'clock saw the city eightmiles distant, with the sun shining upon its steep tinned roofs. 

The next morning we set out by steamer for the Saguenay, and enteredupon the second phase of our travels, but with less relish than wecould have wished. Scenery hunting is the least satisfying pursuit Ihave ever engaged in. What one sees in his necessary travels, or doinghis work, or going a-fishing, seems worth while, but the famous viewyou go out in cold blood to admire is quite apt to elude you. Natureloves to enter a door another hand has opened; a mountain view, or awaterfall, I have noticed, never looks better than when one has justbeen warmed up by the capture of a big trout. If we had been bound forsome salmon stream up the Saguenay, we should perhaps have possessedthat generous and receptive frame of mind-that open house of theheart--which makes one "eligible to any good fortune, " and the grandscenery would have come in as fit sauce to the salmon. An adventure, a bit of experience of some kind, is what one wants when he goesforth to admire woods and waters, --something to create a draught andmake the embers of thought and feeling brighten. Nature, like certainwary game, is best taken by seeming to pass by her intent on othermatters. 

But without any such errand, or occupation, or indirection, we managedto extract considerable satisfaction from the view of the lower St. Lawrence and the Saguenay. 

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

It was very sultry when we left Quebec, but about noon we struck muchclearer and cooler air, and soon after ran into an immense wave or puffof fog that came drifting up the river and set all the fog-guns boomingalong shore. We were soon through it into clear, crisp space, with roomenough for any eye to range in. On the south the shores of the greatriver appear low and uninteresting, but on the north they are bold andstriking enough to make it up, --high, scarred, unpeopled mountainranges the whole way. The points of interest to the eye in the broadexpanse of water were the white porpoises that kept rolling, rolling inthe distance, all day. They came up like the perimeter of a great wheelthat turns slowly and then disappears. From mid-forenoon we could seefar ahead an immense column of yellow smoke rising up and flatteningout upon the sky and stretching away beyond the horizon. Its form wasthat of some aquatic plant that shoots a stem up through the water, andspreads its broad leaf upon the surface. This smoky lily-pad must havereached nearly to Maine. It proved to be in the Indian country in themountains beyond the mouth of the Saguenay, and must have representedan immense destruction of forest timber. 

The steamer is two hours crossing the St. Lawrence from Rivičre du Loupto Tadousac. The Saguenay pushes a broad sweep of dark blue water downinto its mightier brother that is sharply defined from the deck of thesteamer. The two rivers seem to touch, but not to blend, so proud andhaughty is this chieftain from the north. On the mountains aboveTadousac one could see banks of sand left by the ancient seas. Nakedrock and sterile sand are all the Tadousacker has to make his gardenof, so far as I observed. Indeed, there is no soil along the Saguenayuntil you get to Ha-ha Bay, and then there is not much, and poorquality 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 willthink you are approaching the end of the world up here. " It certainlydid suggest something apocryphal or antemundane, --a segment of the moonor of a cleft asteroid, matter dead or wrecked. The world-builders musthave had their foundry up in this neighborhood, and the bed of thisriver was doubtless the channel through which the molten graniteflowed. Some mischief-loving god has let in the sea while things wereyet red-hot, and there has been a time here. But the channel stillseems filled with water from the mid-Atlantic, cold and blue-black, andin places between seven and eight thousand feet deep (one and a halfmiles). In fact, the enormous depth of the Saguenay is one of thewonders of physical geography. It is as great a marvel in its way asNiagara. 

The ascent of the river is made by night, and the traveler findshimself in Ha-ha Bay in the morning. The steamer lies here severalhours before starting on her return trip, and takes in large quantitiesof white birch wood, as she does also at Tadousac. The chief product ofthe country seemed to be huckleberries, of which large quantities areshipped to Quebec in rude board boxes holding about a peck each. Littlegirls came aboard or lingered about the landing with cornucopias ofbirch-bark filled with red raspberries; five cents for about half apint was the usual price. The village of St. Alphonse, where thesteamer tarries, is a cluster of small, humble dwellings dominated, like all Canadian villages, by an immense church. Usually the churchwill hold all the houses in the village; pile them all up and theywould hardly equal it in size; it is the one conspicuous object, and isseen afar; and on the various lines of travel one sees many morepriests than laymen. They appear to be about the only class that stirabout and have a good time. Many of the houses were covered withbirch-bark, --the canoe birch, --held to its place by perpendicularstrips of board or split poles. 

A man with a horse and a buckboard persuaded us to give him twenty-fivecents each to take us two miles up the St. Alphonse River to see thesalmon jump. There is a high saw-mill dam there which every salmon inhis upward journey tries his hand at leaping. A raceway has beenconstructed around the dam for their benefit, which it seems they donot use till they have repeatedly tried to scale the dam. The daybefore our visit three dead fish were found in the pool below, killedby too much jumping. Those we saw had the jump about all taken out ofthem; several did not get more than half their length out of the water, and occasionally only an impotent nose would protrude from the foam. One fish made a leap of three or four feet and landed on an apron ofthe dam and tumbled helplessly back; he shot up like a bird and rolledback like a clod. This was the only view of salmon, the buck of therivers, we had on our journey. 

It was a bright and flawless midsummer day that we sailed down theSaguenay, and nothing was wanting but a good excuse for being there. The river was as lonely as the St. John's road; not a sail or asmokestack the whole sixty-five miles. The scenery culminates at CapeTrinity, where the rocks rise sheer from the water to a height ofeighteen hundred feet. This view dwarfed anything I had ever beforeseen. There is perhaps nothing this side the Yosemite chasm that equalsit, and, emptied of its water, this chasm would far surpass that famouscańon, as the river here is a mile and a quarter deep. The bald eaglenests in the niches in the precipice secure from any intrusion. Immenseblocks of the rock had fallen out, leaving areas of shadow and clingingoverhanging masses that were a terror and fascination to the eye. Therewas a great fall a few years ago, just as the steamer had passed fromunder and blown her whistle to awake the echoes. The echo came back, and with it a part of the mountain that astonished more than itdelighted the lookers-on. The pilot took us close around the base ofthe precipice that we might fully inspect it. And here my eyes playedme a trick the like of which they had never done before. One of theboys of the steamer brought to the forward deck his hands full ofstones, that the curious ones among the passengers might try how easyit was to throw one ashore. "Any girl ought to do it, " I said tomyself, after a man had tried and had failed to clear half thedistance. Seizing a stone, I cast it with vigor and confidence, and asmuch expected to see it smite the rock as I expected to live. "It is agood 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 halfway! "Has my arm lostits cunning?" I said, and tried again and again, but with like result. The eye was completely at fault. There was a new standard of sizebefore it to which it failed to adjust itself. The rock is so enormousand towers so above you that you get the impression it is much nearerthan it actually is. When the eye is full it says, "Here we are, " andthe hand is ready to prove the fact; but in this case there is anastonishing discrepancy between what the eye reports and what the handfinds out. 

Cape Eternity, the wife of this colossus, stands across a chasm throughwhich flows a small tributary of the Saguenay, and is a head or twoshorter, as becomes a wife, and less rugged and broken in outline. 

From Rivičre du Loup, where we passed the night and ate our first"Tommy-cods, " our thread of travel makes a big loop around NewBrunswick to St. John, thence out and down through Maine to Boston, --athread upon which many delightful excursions and reminiscences might bestrung. We traversed the whole of the valley of the Metapedia, andpassed the doors of many famous salmon streams and rivers, and heardeverywhere the talk they inspire; one could not take a nap in the carfor the excitement of the big fish stories he was obliged to overhear. 

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

We passed the Jacquet, the Belledune, the Nepissisquit, the Miramichi("happy retreat") in the night, and have only their bird-call names toreport. 

INDEX

Anemone. 

Angler, a born; eagerness of the. 

Arbutus. 

Asters. 

Audubon, John James. 

Aurora borealis, an. 

Balsam Lake. 

Barrington, Daines, his table of English song-birds. 

Basswood, _or_ linden. 

Bear, black. 

Beaverkill, the; trouting on. 

Bee. _See_ Bumblebee _and_ Honeybee. 

Berries. 

Berrying. 

Big Ingin River. 

Birch, yellow. 

Birds, eyes of; imperfect singers among; human significance of; songsof English; relative pugnaciousness of English and American; speciescommon to Europe and America; small and large editions of variousspecies of; their ingenuity in the concealment of their nests. 

Birds of prey. 

Biscuit Brook. 

Blackbird, European; notes of. 

Blackbird, red-winged. _See_ Starling, red-shouldered. 

Bloodroot. 

Bluebird (_Sialia sialis_), struggling with a cicada; courting; caresof housekeeping; and screech owl; notes of; nest of. 

Blunder-heads. 

Bobolink (_Dolichonyx oryzivorus_); song of. 

Boy. 

Brooks. _See_ Trout streams. 

Buckwheat. 

Bumble-bee. 

Bunting, European, notes of. 

Bunting, indigo. _See_ Indigo-bird. 

Bunting, snow, or snowflake (_Passerina nivalis_). 

Butcher-bird, or northern shrike (_Lanius borealis_); appearance andhabits of; notes of. _See_ Shrike. 

Buttercup. 

Camp, a thunder-storm in; in the rain; books in. 

Camp-fire, the. 

Camping, by trout stream and lake; in a log stable; pleasures anddiscomforts of; in the Catskills; thoughts of the camper; in Canada. 

Canada, an excursion in; dwelling-houses in; churches in. 

Cape Eternity. 

Cape Trinity. 

Caribou. 

Catbird (_Galeoscoptes carolinensis_), song of. 

Catfish and snake. 

Catnip. 

Catskill Mountains, camping in. 

Cattle, in Canada. 

Cedar-bird, _or_ cedar waxwing (_Ampelis cedrorum_), a small editionof the Bohemian waxwing; plumage of; notes of. 

Chickadee (_Parus atricapillus_); notes of. 

Chipmunk, frightened by a shrike; stealing strawberries; playing tag;never more than one jump from home. 

Clouds, natural history of; rain-clouds and wind-clouds. 

Clover, red. 

Clover, white. 

Coon. _See_ Raccoon. 

Corn, Indian. 

Corydalis. 

Crossbills. 

Crow, American (_Corvus brachyrhynchos_); notes of. 

Crow, fish (_Corvus ossifragus_), a sneak thief. 

Cuckoo (_Coccyzus_ sp. ), parents, eggs, and young; breeding habits of;appearance and habits of; notes of; nest of. 

Cuckoo, European; in literature; notes of. 

Daisy, ox-eye. 

Dandelion. 

Deer, Virginia. 

Delaware River. 

Dove, mourning (_Zenaidura macroura_). 

Drought. 

Ducks, wild, voices of. 

Eagle, bald (_Haliaėtus leucocephalus_); nest of. 

Esopus Creek. 

Eyes, of man; of birds. 

Farmer, an observing. 

Farmers, their dependence on the weather; weather-wisdom of. 

Fieldfare; notes of. 

Finch, purple (_Carpodacus purpureus_), the alter ego of the pinegrosbeak; song of. 

Fishing. _See_ Trout-fishing. 

Flicker. _See_ High-hole. 

Flies, black. 

Flycatcher, great crested (_Myiarchus crinitus_); nest of. 

Forest, a spruce; a burnt. 

Fox, red, bark of. 

French Canadians. 

Ghost story, a. 

Girl's voice, a. 

Goethe, on the weather. 

Goldenrod. 

Goldfinch, American (_Astragalinus tristis_), a shrike in a flock of. 

Goose, wild _or_ Canada (_Branta canadensis_), notes of. 

Grande Brūlure, La. 

Greenfinch. 

Grosbeak, blue (_Guiraca cęrulea_), its resemblance to the indigo-bird;song of; nest of. 

Grosbeak, pine (_Pinicola enucleator leucura_); appearance and habits of;song of. 

Grouse, ruffed. _See_ Partridge. 

Grouse, spruce _or_ Canada (_Canachites canadensis canace_). 

Guide, a Canadian. 

Hawk, worried by the kingbird. _See_ Hen-hawk. 

Hawk, chicken, a provident. 

Hawk, fish, _or_ American osprey (_Pandion haliaėtus carolinensis_). 

Hen-hawk, a love passage; in cubating habits. 

Hepatica. 

Highfall Brook. 

High-hole, _or_ golden-shafted woodpecker, _or_ flicker (_Colaptesauratus luteus_), a household of; a tame young one; nest of. 

Honey, as an article of food; with the ancients and in mythology; ofvarious countries. 

Honey-bee, gathering honey and pollen; wax-making; life of the drone;life of the queen; democratic government; description of queen anddrone; swarming; wildness of; favorite hives; mortality of; acutenessof sight. 

Honey-locust. 

Horse-fly. 

Hummingbird, ruby-throated (_Trochilus colubris_), strange death of a;nest of. 

Hyla, Pickering's, in the woods. 

Indigo-bird, or indigo bunting (_Cyanospiza cyanea_), a petit duplicateof the blue grosbeak; song of; nest of. 

Jackdaw, nest of. 

Jacques Cartier River, trouting on. 

Jay, blue (_Cyanocitta cristata_); worrying a screech owl. 

Jay, Canada (_Perisoreus canadensis_). 

Jay, European, notes of. 

Junco, slate-colored. _See_ Snowbird. 

Kingbird (_Tyrannus tyrannus_), worrying hawks. 

Kingfisher, belted (_Ceryle alcyon_); notes of; nest of. 

Kinglet (_Regulus sp. _). 

La Chance. 

Lake, nature as seen from a; life in and about a. 

Lake Jacques Cartier, Great; an excursion to. 

Lake Jacques Cartier, Little; trout-fishing in. 

Lake Memphremagog. 

Lake St. John. 

Lark. _See_ Skylark. 

Lark, shore _or_ horned (_Otocoris alpestris_). 

Ledges, the fascination of. 

Lily, spotted. 

Linden. _See_ Basswood. 

Locusts, as an article of food. 

Longspur, Lapland (_Calcarius lapponicus_). 

Loon (_Gavia imber_); laughter of. 

Maiden, a backwoods. 

Maple, red. 

Maple, sugar. 

Marigold, marsh. 

Marmot. _See_ Woodchuck. 

Meadowlark (_Sturnella magna_). 

Metapedia River. 

Midges. 

Mockingbird (_Mimus polyglottos_); song of. 

Montmorenci, Falls of. 

Moose. 

Morancy River. 

Mountains, poetry of. 

Mouse, common house. 

Neversink River, trouting on; trouting on the East Branch of. 

New Brunswick, journey through; streams of. 

Nightingale, notes of. 

Observation, powers and habits of. 

Oriole, Baltimore (_Icterus galbula_), nest of. 

Osprey, American. _See_ Hawk, fish. 

Ouzel, ring. 

Oven-bird (_Seiurus aurocapillus_). 

Owl, screech (_Megascops asio_), worried by other birds; in captivity;wail of. 

Panther, American, cry of. 

Partridge, _or_ ruffed grouse (_Bonasa umbellus_). 

Peakamoose. 

Pewee, wood (_Contopus virens_), notes of. 

Phoebe-bird (_Sayornis phoebe_); nest of. 

Pigeon, passenger (_Ectopistes migratorius_); nests of. 

Pipit, American, _or_ titlark (_Anthus pensilvanicus_). 

Porcupine, Canada, adventure with a; description of; his armor ofquills; at Balsam Lake. 

Porpoise, white. 

Quebec. 

Raccoon, or coon, voice of; den of. 

Rain, waves and pulsations of; history of; relaxing effect of;necessary to the mind; after drought; importance to man of anabundance; curious things reported to have fallen in; the formation of;storms; effect of electricity on; in winter and spring; signs of; incamp. _See_ Thunder-storms and Weather. 

Raspberry, red. 

Rat. 

Rat, wood. 

Redpoll (_Acanthis linaria_). 

Redstart, European, nest of. 

Redwing. 

Restigouche River. 

Rivičre du Loup. 

Robin, American (_Merula migratoria_); notes of. 

Robin redbreast, song of. 

Rondout Creek; camping and trouting on. 

Rose. 

Rye. 

Saguenay River, scenery of. 

St. Alphonse. 

St. Lawrence; down the. 

Salmon. 

Sapsucker, yellow-bellied. _See_ Woodpecker, yellow-bellied. 

Scenery-hunting. 

Schoolhouse, a country. 

Shakespeare, quotations from; power and beauty in his poetry. 

Shanly, C. D. , his poem, _The Walker of the Snow. _

Shrike (_Lanius_ sp. ). 

Shrike, northern. _See_ Butcherbird. 

Silkweed. 

Skunk, den of. 

Skylark, song of. 

Snake, and catfish. 

Snapdragon. 

Snow, a sign of. 

Snowbird, _or_ slate-colored junco (_Junco hyemalis_). 

Snowflake. _See_ Bunting, snow. 

Sparrow, English (_Passer domesticus_), a comedy; notes of. 

Sparrow, reed, song of. 

Sparrow, song (_Melospiza einerea melodia_), song of. 

Sparrow, white-throated (_Zonotrichia albicollis_), song of. 

Sparrows, songs of. 

Spring-beauty. 

Spruce, a Canadian forest of. 

Squirrel, gray. 

Squirrel, red; playing tag. 

Starling, European, notes of; nest of. 

Starling, red-shouldered, _or_ red-winged blackbird (_Agelaiusphoeniceus_). 

Strawberries, Dr. Parr and Dr. Boteler on; praise of; odor of; Downer;Wilson; wild; alpine; cultivation of. 

Sumach. 

Swallow, an albino. 

Swallows, on damp days. 

Swift, European, notes of. 

Tadousac. 

Tanager, scarlet (_Piranga erythromelas_), song of. 

Thoreau, Henry D. ; quotation from. 

Throstle. 

Thrush, hermit (_Hylocichla guttata pallasii_); song of. 

Thrush, missel; pugnaciousness of; notes of. 

Thrush, White's. 

Thrush, wood (_Hylocichla mustelina_), song of. 

Thunder-storms; in the woods. 

Titlark. _See_ Pipit, American. 

Tree-toads, young. 

Trout, brook, markings of; of the Neversink; cannibals; of theBeaverkill; jumping; of Balsam Lake; spawning of; of the Catskillwaters; an unsuccessful fight with a; a six-pound; two varieties inJacques Cartier River. 

Trout-fishing, as an introduction to nature; the heart the proper baitin; on the Neversink; on the Beaverkill; in Balsam Lake; pleasures anddiscomforts of an excursion; on the Rondout; on the East Branch of theNeversink; in Canada; catching a six-pounder. 

Trout streams, beauties of; the ideal; at the headwaters of theDelaware; clearness of; thriving only in the woods. 

Violets. 

Vireo, song of. 

Vireo, red-eyed (_Vireo olivaceus_), song of. 

_Walker of the Snow, The_, by C. D. Shanly. 

Walking, benefits of. 

Wallkill River. 

Warbler, Blackburnian (Dendroica blackburnię). 

Warbler, black-throated blue (_Dendroica cęrulescens_); finding thenest and young of; notes of; nest of. 

Warbler, Canada (_Wilsonia canadensis_). 

Warbler, chestnut-sided (_Dendroica pensylvanica_). 

Warbler, mourning (_Geothlypis philadelphia_). 

Warbler, yellow-rumped or myrtle (_Dendroica coronata_), rescue of a. 

Water, its importance in nature and in the life of man. 

Water-wagtail, small, _or_ water-thrush (_Seiurus noveboracensis_). 

Waxwing, Bohemian (_Ampelis garrulus_). 

Waxwing, cedar. _See_ Cedar-bird. 

Weather, the, the farmer's dependence on; human changeableness of;getting into a rut; in literature; the law of alternation in; dry; lawsof. _See_ Rain and Thunder-storms. 

Weather-breeders. 

Weather-wisdom. 

Wheat. 

Whip-poor-will (_Antrostomus vociferus_), mother, eggs, and young; anawkward walker; nest of. 

White, Gilbert. 

Whitethroat; notes of. 

Whitman, Walt, quotation from. 

Wilson, Alexander, quotation from. 

Woodchuck, or marmot; hole of. 

Wood-grouse. 

Woodpecker, downy (_Dryobates pubescens medianus_). 

Woodpecker, golden-shafted. _See_ High-hole. 

Woodpecker, yellow-bellied, _or_ yellow-bellied sapsucker (_Sphyrapicusvarius_). 

Wordsworth, William, quotations from; the poet of the mountains. 

Wren, European, song of. 

Wren, winter (_Olbiorchilus hiemalis_). 

Wrens, songs of.