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In The Hemlocks
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Most people receive with incredulity a statement of the number of
birds that annually visit our climate. Very few even are aware of
half the number that spend the summer in their own immediate
vicinity. We little suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose privacy
we are intruding upon,-what rare and elegant visitants from Mexico,
from Central and South America, and from the islands of the sea, are
holding their reunions in the branches over our heads, or pursuing
their pleasure on the ground before us. |
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I recall the altogether admirable and shining family which Thoreau
dreamed he saw in the upper chambers of Spaulding's woods, which
Spaulding did not know lived there, and which were not put out when
Spaulding, whistling, drove his team through their lower halls. They
did not go into society in the village; they were quite well; they
had sons and daughters; they neither wove nor spun; there was a sound
as of suppressed hilarity.
I take it for granted that the forester was only saying a pretty
thing of the birds, though I have observed that it does sometimes
annoy them when Spaulding's cart rumbles through their house.
Generally, however, they are as unconscious of Spaulding as Spaulding
is of them. |
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Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I counted over forty
varieties of these summer visitants, many of them common to other
woods in the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these ancient
solitudes, and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quite
unusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest,-and that not
a large one,-most of them nesting and spending the summer there. Many
of those I observed commonly pass this season much farther north. But
the geographical distribution of birds is rather a climatical one.
The same temperature, though under different parallels, usually
attracts the same birds; difference in altitude being equivalent to
the difference in latitude. A given height above the sea-level under
the parallel of thirty degrees may have the same climate as places
under that of thirty-five degrees, and similar flora and fauna. At
the headwaters of the Delaware, where I write, the latitude is that
of Boston, but the region has a much greater elevation, and hence a
climate that compares better with the northern part of the State and
of New England. Half a day's drive to the southeast brings me down
into quite a different temperature, with an older geological
formation, different forest timber, and different birds,-even with
different mammals. Neither the little gray rabbit nor the little gray
fox is found in my locality, but the great northern hare and the red
fox are. In the last century a colony of beavers dwelt here, though
the oldest inhabitant cannot now point to even the traditional site
of their dams. The ancient hemlocks, whither I propose to take the
reader, are rich in many things besides birds. Indeed, their wealth
in this respect is owing mainly, no doubt, to their rank vegetable
growths, their fruitful swamps, and their dark, sheltered retreats.
Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and torn by the tanner
in his thirst for bark, preyed upon by the lumberman, assaulted and
beaten back by the settler, still their spirit has never been broken,
their energies never paralyzed. Not many years ago a public highway
passed through them, but it was at no time a tolerable road; trees
fell across it, mud and limbs choked it up, till finally travelers
took the hint and went around; and now, walking along its deserted
course, I see only the footprints of coons, foxes, and squirrels.
Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal upon them. Here she
shows me what can be done with ferns and mosses and lichens. The soil
is marrowy and full of innumerable forests. Standing in these
fragrant aisles, I feel the strength of the vegetable kingdom, and am
awed by the deep and inscrutable processes of life going on so
silently about me.
No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these solitudes. The cows
have half-hidden ways through them, and know where the best browsing
is to be had. In spring, the farmer repairs to their bordering of
maples to make sugar; in July and August, women and boys from all the
country about penetrate the old Barkpeelings for raspberries and
blackberries; and I know a youth who wonderingly follows their
languid stream casting for trout.
In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June morning go I
also to reap my harvest,-pursuing a sweet more delectable than sugar,
fruit more savory than berries, and game for another palate than that
tickled by trout.
June, of all the months, the student of ornithology can least afford
to lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in full song and plumage.
And what is a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the stranger
to speak? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heard
its voice; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses a human
interest to me. I have met the gray-cheeked thrush in the woods, and
held him in my hand; still I do not know him. The silence of the
cedar-bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good looks
nor his petty larcenies in cherry time can dispel. A bird's song
contains a clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an
understanding, between itself and the listener.
I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks through a large
sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of
the forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and
happy as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most
common and widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour
of the day, in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the
Middle or Eastern districts, and the chances are that the first note
you hear will be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the
deep forest or in the village grove,-when it is too hot for the
thrushes or too cold and windy for the warblers,-it is never out of
time or place for this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful
strain. In the deep wilds of the Adirondacks, where few birds are
seen and fewer heard, his note was almost constantly in my ear.
Always busy, making it a point never to suspend for one moment his
occupation to indulge his musical taste, his lay is that of industry
and contentment. There is nothing plaintive or especially musical in
his performance, but the sentiment expressed is eminently that of
cheerfulness. Indeed, the songs of most birds have some human
significance, which, I think, is the source of the delight we take in
them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song
sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the
white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit
thrush, spiritual serenity: while there is something military in the
call of the robin.
The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but is
much more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of the
Muscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warbling
vireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers.
Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter more
continuously and rapidly. The red-eye is a larger, slimmer bird, with
a faint bluish crown, and a light line over the eye. His movements
are peculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring the
under side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flitting
a few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly,
occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite
distance: When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwise
of the limb and bruises its head with his beak before devouring it.
As I enter the woods the slate-colored snowbird starts up before me
and chirps sharply. His protest when thus disturbed is almost
metallic in its sharpness. He breeds here, and is not esteemed a
snow-bird at all, as he disappears at the near approach of winter,
and returns again in spring, like the song sparrow, and is not in any
way associated with the cold and the snow. So different are the
habits of birds in different localities. Even the crow does not
winter here, and is seldom seen after December or before March.
The snowbird, or "black chipping-bird," as it is known
among the farmers, is the finest architect of any of the-builders
known to me. The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the
roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially
concealed entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow
hair are plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest
great symmetry and firmness as well as softness. |
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Passing down through the maple arches, barely pausing to observe the
antics of a trio of squirrels,-two gray ones and a black one,-I cross
an ancient brush fence and am fairly within the old hemlocks, and in
one of the most primitive, undisturbed nooks. In the deep moss I
tread as with muffled feet, and the pupils of my eyes dilate in the
dim, almost religious light. The irreverent red squirrels, however,
run and snicker at my approach, or mock the solitude with their
ridiculous chattering and frisking. |
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This nook is the chosen haunt of the winter wren. This is the only
place and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity.
His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous
sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird,
and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I
think of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it is
the song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character; but you must
needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially while in the
act of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground and the leaves;
he never ascends the tall trees, but keeps low, flitting from stump
to stump and from root to root, dodging in and out of his
hiding-places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He
has a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more than a
perpendicular: it points straight toward his head. He is the least
ostentatious singer I know of. He does not strike an attitude, and
lift up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat;
but sits there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight
before him, or even down at the ground. As a songster, he has but few
superiors. I do not hear him after the first week in July.
While sitting on this soft-cushioned log, tasting the pungent
acidulous wood-sorrel, the blossoms of which, large and pink-veined,
rise everywhere above the moss, a rufous-colored bird flies quickly
past, and, alighting on a low limb a few rods off, salutes me with
"Whew! Whew!" or "Whoit! Whoit!" almost as you
would whistle for your dog. I see by his impulsive, graceful
movements, and his dimly speckled breast, that is a thrush. Presently
he utters a few soft, mellow, flute-like notes, one of the most
simple expressions of melody to be heard, and scuds away, and I see
it is the veery, or Wilson's thrush. He is the least of the thrushes
in size, being about that of the common bluebird, and he may be
distinguished from his relatives by the dimness of the spots upon his
breast. The wood thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a
white ground; in the hermit, the spots run more into lines, on a
ground of a faint bluish white; in the veery, the marks are almost
obsolete, and a few rods off his breast presents only a dull
yellowish appearance. To get a good view of him you have only to sit
down in his haunts, as in such cases he seems equally anxious to get
a good view of you.
From those tall hemlocks proceeds a very fine insect-like warble, and
occasionally I see a spray tremble, or catch the flit of a wing. I
watch and watch till my head grows dizzy and my neck is in danger of
permanent displacement, and still do not get a good view. Presently
the bird darts, or, as it seems, falls down a few feet in pursuit of
a fly or a moth, and I see the whole of it, but in the dim light am
undecided. It is for such emergencies that I have brought my gun. A
bird in the hand is worth half a dozen in the bush, even for
ornithological purposes; and no sure and rapid progress can be made
in the study without taking life, without procuring specimens. This
bird is a warbler, plainly enough, from his habits and manner; but
what kind of warbler? Look on him and name him: a deep orange or
flame-colored throat and breast; the same color showing also in a
line over the eye and in his crown; black variegated black and white.
The female is less marked and brilliant. The orange-throated warbler
would seem to be his right name, his characteristic cognomen; but no,
he is doomed to wear the name of some discoverer, perhaps the first
who rifled his nest or robbed him of his mate,-Blackburn; hence
Blackburnian warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in these
dark evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a very
fine warble, suggesting that of the redstart, but not especially
musical. I find him in no other woods in this vicinity.
I am attracted by another warble in the same locality, and experience
a like difficulty in getting a good view of the author of it. It is
quite a noticeable strain, sharp and sibilant, and sounds well amid
the old trees. In the upland woods of beech and maple it is a more
familiar sound than in these solitudes. On taking the bird in hand,
one cannot help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" So tiny and
elegant, the smallest of the warblers; a delicate blue back, with a
slight bronze-colored triangular spot between the shoulders; upper
mandible black; lower mandible yellow as gold; throat yellow,
becoming a dark bronze on the breast. Blue yellow-back he is called,
though the yellow is much nearer a bronze. He is remarkably delicate
and beautiful,-the handsomest as he is the smallest of the warblers
known to me. It is never without surprise that I find amid these
rugged, savage aspects of nature creatures so fairy and delicate. But
such is the law. Go to the sea or climb the mountain, and with the
ruggedest and the savagest you will find likewise the fairest and the
most delicate. The greatness and the minuteness of nature pass all understanding.
Ever since I entered the woods, even while listening to the lesser
songsters, or contemplating the silent forms about me, a strain has
reached my ears from out the depths of the forest that to me is the
finest sound in nature,-the song of the hermit thrush. I often hear
him thus a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile away,
when only the stronger and more perfect parts of his music reach me;
and through the general chorus of wrens and warblers I detect this
sound rising pure and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height
were slowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to the
sentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene religious
beatitude as no other sound in nature does. It is perhaps more of an
evening than a morning hymn, though I hear it at all hours of the
day. It is very simple, and I can hardly tell the secret of its
charm. "O spheral, spheral!: he seems to say; "O holy,
holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up, clear up!"
interspersed with the finest trills and the most delicate preludes It
is not a proud, gorgeous strain, like the tanager's or the
grosbeak's; suggests no passion or emotion,-nothing personal,-but
seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in
his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn joy that
only the finest souls may know. A few nights ago I ascended a
mountain to see the world by moonlight, and when near the summit the
hermit commenced his evening hymn a few rods from me. Listening to
this strain on the lone mountain, with the full moon just rounded
from the horizon, the pomp of your cities and the pride of your
civilization seemed trivial and cheap.
I have seldom known two of these birds to be singing at the same time
in the same locality, rivaling each other, like the wood thrush or
the veery. Shooting one from a tree, I have observed another take up
the strain from almost the identical perch in less than ten minutes
afterward. Later in the day, when I had penetrated the heart of the
old Barkpeeling, I came suddenly upon one singing from a low stump,
and a wonder he did not seem alarmed, but lifted up his divine voice
as if his privacy was undisturbed. I open his beak and find the
inside yellow as gold. I was prepared to find it inlaid with pearls
and diamonds, or to see an angel issue from it.
He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am acquainted with scarcely
any writer on ornithology whose head is not muddled on the subject of
our three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either their figures
or their songs. A writer in the "Atlantic" (For December,
1858) gravely tells us the wood thrush is sometimes called the
hermit, and then, after describing the song of the hermit, with great
beauty and correctness, coolly ascribes it to the veery! The new
Cyclopdia, fresh from the study of Audubon, says the hermit's song
consists of a single plaintive note, and that the veery's resembles
that of the wood thrush! The hermit thrush may be easily identified
by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown becoming rufous on
his rump and tail. A quill from his wing placed beside one from his
tail on a dark ground presents quite a marked contrast.
I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in the thin layer of
mud. When do these creatures travel here? I have never yet chanced to
meet one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a woodcock; here,
a squirrel or mink; there, a skunk; there, a fox. What a clear,
nervous track reynard makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of
a little dog,-it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is
coarse and clumsy beside it. There is as much wildness in the track
of an animal as in its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a
goat's? What winged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred from
the sharp, braided track of the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah!
in nature is the best discipline. How wood-life sharpens the senses,
giving a new power to the eye, the ear, the nose! And are not the
rarest and most exquisite songsters wood-birds?
Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with the pensive, almost
pathetic note of the wood pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers,
and are easily identified. They are very characteristic birds, have
strong family traits and pugnacious dispositions. They are the least
attractive or elegant birds of our fields or forests.
Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color,
of little elegance in flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt
of the tail, always quarreling with their neighbors and with one
another, no birds are so little calculated to excite pleasurable
emotions in the beholder, or to become objects of human interest and
affection. The kingbird is the best dressed member of the family, but
he is a braggart; and, though always snubbing his neighbors, is an
arrant coward, and shows the white feather at the slightest display
of pluck in his antagonist. I have seen him turn tail to a swallow,
and have known the little pewee in question to whip him beautifully.
From the great-crested to the little green flycatcher, their ways and
general habits are the same. Slow in flying from point to point, they
yet have a wonderful quickness, and snap up the fleetest insects with
little apparent effort. There is a constant play of quick, nervous
movements underneath their outer show of calmness and stolidity. They
do not scour the limbs and trees like the warblers, but perched upon
the middle branches, wait, like true hunters, for the game to come
along. There is often a very audible snap of the beak as they seize
their prey.
The wood pewee, the prevailing species in this locality, arrests your
attention by his sweet, pathetic cry. There is room for it also in
the deep woods, as well as for the more prolonged and elevated strains.
Its relative, the phoebe-bird, builds an exquisite nest of moss on
the side of some shelving cliff or overhanging rock. The other day,
passing by a ledge near the top of a mountain in a singularly
desolate locality, my eye rested upon one of these structures,
looking precisely as if it grew there, so in keeping was it with the
mossy character of the rock, and I have had a growing affection for
the bird ever since. The rock seemed to love the nest and to claim it
as its own. I said, what a lesson in architecture is here! Here is a
house that was built, but with such loving care and such beautiful
adaptation of the means to the end, that it looks like a product of
nature. The same wise economy is noticeable in the nests of all
birds. No bird could paint its house white or red, or add aught for show.
At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come
suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together
upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause
within four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my
eye lights upon these gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly
upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me,
but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed
to a mere black line; through this crack they are watching me,
evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and
grotesque, and suggests something impish and uncanny. It is a new
effect, the night side of the woods by daylight. After observing them
a moment I take a single step toward them, when, quick as thought,
their eyes fly wide open, their attitude is changed, they bend, some
this way, some that, and, instinct with life and motion,stare wildly
around them. Another step, and they all take flight but one, which
stoops low on the branch, and with the look of a frightened cat
regards me for a few seconds over its shoulder. They fly swiftly and
softly, and disperse through the trees. I shoot one, which is of a
tawny red tint, like that figured by Wilson. It is a singular fact
that the plumage of these owls presents two totally distinct phases,
which "have no relation to sex, age, or season," one being
an ashen gray, the other a bright rufous.
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