Locusts and Wild Honey - John Burroughs
But I am making slow headway toward finding the birds'-nests, for I had
set out on this occasion in hopes of finding a rare nest,--the nest of
the black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with one or
two others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblers
complete. The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and
looking for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task as
searching for a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where to
begin, and how? But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen's
nest,--first find your bird, then watch its movements.
The bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores of times, but
whether he builds high or low, on the ground or in the trees, is all
unknown to me. That is his song now,--"twe-twea-twe-e-e-a," with a
peculiar summer languor and plaintiveness, and issuing from the lower
branches and growths. Presently we--for I have been joined by a
companion--discover the bird, a male, insecting in the top of a newly
fallen hemlock. The black, white, and blue of his uniform are seen at a
glance. His movements are quite slow compared with some of the
warblers. If he will only betray the locality of that little domicile
where his plainly clad mate is evidently sitting, it is all we will ask
of 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 often
refinding him by his song; but the clew to his nest, how shall we get
it? Does he never go home to see how things are getting on, or to see
if his presence is not needed, or to take madam a morsel of food? No
doubt he keeps within earshot, and a cry of distress or alarm from the
mother bird would bring him to the spot in an instant. Would that some
evil fate would make her cry, then! Presently he encounters a rival.
His feeding-ground infringes upon that of another, and the two birds
regard each other threateningly. This is a good sign, for their nests
are evidently near.
Their battle-cry is a low, peculiar chirp, not very fierce, but
bantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a very
fantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy
their sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither party gets
the better of the other, and they separate a few paces and sing, and
squeak, and challenge each other in a very happy frame of mind. The
gauntlet is no sooner thrown down than it is again taken up by one or
the other, and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes they have
three or four encounters, separating a little, then provoked to return
again like two cocks, till finally they withdraw beyond hearing of each
other,--both, no doubt, claiming the victory. But the secret of the
nest is still kept. Once I think I have it. I catch a glimpse of a
bird which looks like the female, and near by, in a small hemlock
about eight feet from the ground, my eye detects a nest. But as I
come up under it, I can see daylight through it, and that it is
empty,--evidently only part finished, not lined or padded yet. Now if
the bird will only return and claim it, the point will be gained. But
we wait and watch in vain. The architect has knocked off to-day, and
we must come again, or continue our search.
While loitering about here we were much amused by three chipmunks, who
seemed to be engaged in some kind of game. It looked very much as if
they were playing tag. Round and round they would go, first one taking
the lead, then another, all good-natured and gleeful as schoolboys.
There is one thing about a chipmunk that is peculiar: he is never more
than one jump from home. Make a dive at him anywhere and in he goes. He
knows where the hole is, even when it is covered up with leaves. There
is no doubt, also, that he has his own sense of humor and fun, as what
squirrel has not? I have watched two red squirrels for a half hour
coursing through the large trees by the roadside where branches
interlocked, and engaged in a game of tag as obviously as two boys. As
soon as the pursuer had come up with the pursued, and actually touched
him, the palm was his, and away he would go, taxing his wits and his
speed to the utmost to elude his fellow.
Despairing of finding either of the nests of the two males, we pushed
on through the woods to try our luck elsewhere. Before long, just as we
were about to plunge down a hill into a dense, swampy part of the
woods, we discovered a pair of the birds we were in quest of. They had
food in their beaks, and, as we paused, showed great signs of alarm,
indicating that the nest was in the immediate vicinity. This was
enough. We would pause here and find this nest, anyhow. To make a sure
thing of it, we determined to watch the parent birds till we had wrung
from them their secret. So we doggedly crouched down and watched them,
and they watched us. It was diamond cut diamond. But as we felt
constrained in our movements, desiring, if possible, to keep so quiet
that the birds would, after a while, see in us only two harmless stumps
or prostrate logs, we had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes were
quite taken with our quiet, and knew us from logs and stumps in a
moment. Neither were the birds deceived, not even when we tried the
Indian's tactics, and plumed ourselves with green branches. Ah, the
suspicious creatures, how they watched us with the food in their beaks,
abstaining for one whole hour from ministering that precious charge
which otherwise would have been visited every moment! Quite near us
they 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 no
serious cause for alarm, that the male would now and then strike up in
full song and move off to some distance through the trees? But the
mother bird did not allow herself to lose sight of us at all, and both
birds, after carrying the food in their beaks a long time, would
swallow it themselves. Then they would obtain another morsel and
apparently approach very near the nest, when their caution or prudence
would come to their aid, and they would swallow the food and hasten
away. I thought the young birds would cry out, but not a syllable from
them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the parent birds away from the
nest. The clamor the young would have set up on the approach of the old
with food would have exposed everything.
After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet where the nest was
concealed. Indeed, I thought I knew the identical bush. Then the birds
approached each other again and grew very confidential about another
locality some rods below. This puzzled us, and, seeing the whole
afternoon might be spent in this manner, and the mystery unsolved, we
determined to change our tactics and institute a thorough search of the
locality. This procedure soon brought things to a crisis, for, as my
companion clambered over a log by a little hemlock, a few yards from
where we had been sitting, with a cry of alarm out sprang the young
birds from their nest in the hemlock, and, scampering and fluttering
over the leaves, disappeared in different directions. This brought the
parent birds on the scene in an agony of alarm. Their distress was
pitiful. They threw themselves on the ground at our very feet, and
fluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves before us, to draw us away
from the place, or distract our attention from the helpless young. I
shall not forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp the
contrast as he trailed his painted plumage there on the dry leaves.
Apparently he was seriously disabled. He would start up as if exerting
every muscle to fly away, but no use; down he would come, with a
helpless, fluttering motion, before he had gone two yards, and
apparently you had only to go and pick him up. But before you could
pick him up, he had recovered somewhat and flown a little farther; and
thus, if you were tempted to follow him, you would soon find yourself
some distance from the scene of the nest, and both old and young well
out of your reach. The female bird was not less solicious, and
practiced the same arts upon us to decoy us away, but her dull plumage
rendered her less noticeable. The male was clad in holiday attire, but
his mate in an every-day working-garb.
The nest was built in the fork of a little hemlock, about fifteen
inches from the ground, and was a thick, firm structure, composed of
the finer material of the woods, with a lining of very delicate roots
or rootlets. There were four young birds and one addled egg. We found
it in a locality about the head-waters of the eastern branch of the
Delaware, where several other of the rarer species of warblers, such as
the mourning ground, the Blackburnian, the chestnut-sided, and the
speckled Canada, spend the summer and rear their young.
Defunct birds'-nests are easy to find; when the leaves fall, then they
are in every bush and tree; and one wonders how he missed them; but a
live nest, how it eludes one! I have read of a noted criminal who could
hide himself pretty effectually in any room that contained the usual
furniture; he would embrace the support of a table so as to seem part
of it. The bird has studied the same art: it always blends its nest
with the surroundings, and sometimes its very openness hides it; the
light itself seems to conceal it. Then the birds build anew each year,
and so always avail themselves of the present and latest combination of
leaves and screens, of light and shade. What was very well concealed
one season may be quite exposed the next.
Going a-fishing or a-berrying is a good introduction to the haunts of
the birds, and to their nesting-places. You put forth your hand for the
berries, and there is a nest; or your tread by the creeks starts the
sandpiper or the water-thrush from the ground where its eggs are
concealed, or some shy wood-warbler from a bush. One day, fishing down
a deep wooded gorge, my hook caught on a limb overhead, and on pulling
it down I found I had missed my trout, but had caught a hummingbird's
nest. It was saddled on the limb as nicely as if it had been a grown
part of it.
Other collectors beside the ooelogists are looking for birds'-nests,--
the squirrels and owls and jays and crows. The worst depredator in this
direction I know of is the fish crow, and I warn him to keep off my
premises, and charge every gunner to spare him not. He is a small
sneak-thief, and will rob the nest of every robin, wood thrush, and
oriole he can come at. I believe he fishes only when he is unable to
find birds' eggs or young birds. The genuine crow, the crow with the
honest "caw," "caw," I have never caught in such small business, though
the kingbird makes no discrimination between them, but accuses both
alike.
IX
THE HALCYON IN CANADA
The halcyon or kingfisher is a good guide when you go to the woods. He
will not insure smooth water or fair weather, but he knows every stream
and lake like a book, and will take you to the wildest and most
unfrequented places. Follow his rattle and you shall see the source of
every trout and salmon stream on the continent. You shall see the Lake
of the Woods, and far-off Athabasca and Abbitibbe, and the unknown
streams that flow into Hudson's Bay, and many others. His time is the
time of the trout, too, namely, from April to September. He makes his
subterranean nest in the bank of some favorite stream, and then goes on
long excursions up and down and over woods and mountains to all the
waters within reach, always fishing alone, the true angler that he is,
his fellow keeping far ahead or behind, or taking the other branch. He
loves the sound of a waterfall, and will sit a long time on a dry limb
overhanging the pool below it, and, forgetting his occupation, brood
upon his own memories and fancies.
The past season my friend and I took a hint from him, and, when the
dog-star began to blaze, set out for Canada, making a big detour to
touch 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 couple
of days and caught an editor, a philosopher, and a poet, and might have
caught 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 the
way of scenery that arrested our attention until we beheld the St.
Lawrence, though one gets glimpses now and then, as he is whirled along
through New Hampshire and Vermont, that make him wish for a fuller
view. It is always a pleasure to bring to pass the geography of one's
boyhood; 'tis like the fulfilling of a dream; hence it was with partial
eyes that I looked upon the Merrimac, the Connecticut, and the
Passumpsic,--dusky, squaw-colored streams, whose names I had learned so
long ago. The traveler opens his eyes a little wider when he reaches
Lake Memphremagog, especially if he have the luck to see it under such
a sunset as we did, its burnished surface glowing like molten gold.
This lake is an immense trough that accommodates both sides of the
fence, though by far the larger and longer part of it is in Canada. Its
western shore is bold and picturesque, being skirted by a detachment of
the Green Mountains, the main range of which is seen careering along
the horizon far to the southwest; to the east and north, whither the
railroad takes you, the country is flat and monotonous.
The first peculiarity one notices about the farms in this northern
country is the close proximity of the house and barn, in most cases the
two buildings touching at some point,--an arrangement doubtless
prompted by the deep snows and severe cold of this latitude. The
typical Canadian dwelling-house is also presently met with on entering
the Dominion,--a low, modest structure of hewn spruce logs, with a
steep roof (containing two or more dormer windows) that ends in a smart
curve, a hint taken from the Chinese pagoda. Even in the more costly
brick or stone houses in the towns and vicinity this style is adhered
to. It is so universal that one wonders if the reason of it is not in
the climate also, the outward curve of the roof shooting the sliding
snow farther away from the dwelling. It affords a wide projection, in
many cases covering a veranda, and in all cases protecting the doors
and windows without interfering with the light. In the better class of
clapboarded houses the finish beneath the projecting eaves is also a
sweeping curve, opposing and bracing that of the roof. A two-story
country house, or a Mansard roof, I do not remember to have seen in
Canada; but in places they have become so enamored of the white of the
snow that they even whitewash the roofs of their buildings, giving a
cluster of them the impression, at a distance, of an encampment of
great tents.
As we neared Point Levi, opposite Quebec, we got our first view of the
St. Lawrence. "Iliad of rivers!" exclaimed my friend. "Yet unsung!" The
Hudson must take a back seat now, and a good way back. One of the two
or 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. Nearly
all its feeders are trout and salmon streams, and what an airing and
what a bleaching it gets on its course! Its history, its antecedents,
are unparalleled. The great lakes are its camping-grounds; here its
hosts repose under the sun and stars in areas like that of states and
kingdoms, and it is its waters that shake the earth at Niagara. Where
it receives the Saguenay it is twenty miles wide, and when it debouches
into the Gulf it is a hundred. Indeed, it is a chain of Homeric
sublimities from beginning to end. The great cataract is a fit sequel
to the great lakes; the spirit that is born in vast and tempestuous
Superior takes its full glut of power in that fearful chasm. If
paradise is hinted in the Thousand Islands, hell is unveiled in that
pit of terrors.
Its last escapade is the great rapids above Montreal, down which the
steamer shoots with its breathless passengers, after which, inhaling
and exhaling its mighty tides, it flows calmly to the sea.
The St. Lawrence is the type of nearly all the Canadian rivers, which
are strung with lakes and rapids and cataracts, and are full of peril
and adventure.
Here we reach the oldest part of the continent, geologists tell us; and
here we encounter a fragment of the Old World civilization. Quebec
presents the anomaly of a mediaeval European city in the midst of the
American landscape. This air, this sky, these clouds, these trees, the
look 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 and
song sparrow, and there in the tree, by the Wolfe Monument, our summer
warbler was at home. I presently saw, also, that our republican crow
was a British subject, and that he behaved here more like his European
brother than he does in the States, being less wild and suspicious. On
the Plains of Abraham excellent timothy grass was growing and cattle
were grazing. We found a path through the meadow, and, with the
exception of a very abundant weed with a blue flower, saw nothing new
or strange,--nothing but the steep tin roofs of the city and its
frowning wall and citadel. Sweeping around the far southern horizon, we
could catch glimpses of mountains that were evidently in Maine or New
Hampshire; while twelve or fifteen miles to the north the Laurentian
ranges, dark and formidable, arrested the eye. Quebec, or the walled
part of it, is situated on a point of land shaped not unlike the human
foot, looking northeast, the higher and bolder side being next the
river, with the main part of the town on the northern slope toward the
St. Charles. Its toes are well down in the mud where this stream joins
the St. Lawrence, while the citadel is high on the instep and commands
the whole field. The grand Battery is a little below, on the brink of
the instep, so to speak, and the promenader looks down several hundred
feet into the tops of the chimneys of this part of the lower town, and
upon the great river sweeping by northeastward like another Amazon. The
heel of our misshapen foot extends indefinitely toward Montreal. Upon
it, on a level with the citadel, are the Plains of Abraham. It was up
its high, almost perpendicular, sides that Wolfe clambered with his
army, and stood in the rear of his enemy one pleasant September morning
over a hundred years ago.
To the north and northeast of Quebec, and in full view from the upper
parts of the city, lies a rich belt of agricultural country, sloping
gently toward the river, and running parallel with it for many miles,
called the Beauport slopes. The division of the land into uniform
parallelograms, as in France, was a marked feature, and is so
throughout the Dominion. A road ran through the midst of it lined with;
trees, and leading to the falls of the Montmorenci. I imagine that this
section is the garden of Quebec. Beyond it rose the mountains. Our eyes
looked wistfully toward them, for we had decided to penetrate the
Canadian woods in that direction.
One hundred and twenty-five miles from Quebec as the loon flies, almost
due north over unbroken spruce forests, lies Lake St. John, the cradle
of the terrible Saguenay. On the map it looks like a great cuttlefish
with its numerous arms and tentacula reaching out in all directions
into the wilds. It is a large oval body of water thirty miles in its
greatest diameter. The season here, owing to a sharp northern sweep of
the isothermal lines, is two or three weeks earlier than at Quebec. The
soil is warm and fertile, and there is a thrifty growing settlement
here with valuable agricultural produce, but no market nearer than
Quebec, two hundred and fifty miles distant by water, with a hard,
tedious land journey besides. In winter the settlement can have little
or no communication with the outside world.
To relieve this isolated colony and encourage further development of
the St. John region, the Canadian government is building [footnote:
Written in 1877] a wagon-road through the wilderness from Quebec
directly to the lake, thus economizing half the distance, as the road
when completed will form with the old route, the Saguenay and St.
Lawrence, one side of an equilateral triangle. A railroad was projected
a few years ago over nearly the same ground, and the contract to build
it given to an enterprising Yankee, who pocketed a part of the money
and has never been heard of since. The road runs for one hundred miles
through an unbroken wilderness, and opens up scores of streams and
lakes abounding with trout, into which, until the road-makers fished
them, 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 his
impracticable French name, we called Joe, were secured, and after a
delay of twenty-four hours we were packed upon a Canadian buckboard
with 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 got
beyond the throng of well-dressed church-goers. For ten miles we had a
good stone road and rattled along it at a lively pace. In about half
that distance we came to a large brick church, where we began to see
the rural population or _habitans._ They came mostly in two-wheeled
vehicles, some of the carts quite fancy, in which the young fellows
rode complacently beside their girls. The two-wheeler predominates in
Canada, 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 New
Hampshire. While Joe was getting a supply of hay of a farmer to take
into the woods for his horse, I walked through a field in quest of wild
strawberries. 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 is
far less pungent and high-flavored than with us.
The cattle in the fields and by the roadside looked very small and
delicate, the effect, no doubt, of the severe climate. We saw many rude
implements of agriculture, such as wooden plows shod with iron.
We passed several parties of men, women, and children from Quebec
picnicking in the "bush." Here it was little more than a "bush;" but
while 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 fraction
of a mile is to be designated, the French Canadian does not use the
term "miles," but says it's so many acres through, or to the next
place.
This fondness for the "bush" at this season seems quite a marked
feature in the social life of the average Quebecker, and is one of the
original French traits that holds its own among them. Parties leave the
city in carts and wagons by midnight, or earlier, and drive out as far
as they can the remainder of the night, in order to pass the whole
Sunday in the woods, despite the mosquitoes and black flies. Those we
saw seemed a decent, harmless set, whose idea of a good time was to be
in 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 twenty
miles from Quebec at Stoneham, the farthest settlement. Five miles into
the forest upon the new road is the hamlet of La Chance, the last house
till you reach the lake, one hundred and twenty miles distant. Our
destination the first night was La Chance's; this would enable us to
reach the Jacques Cartier River, forty miles farther, where we proposed
to encamp, in the afternoon of the next day.
We were now fairly among the mountains, and the sun was well down
behind the trees when we entered upon the post-road. It proved to be a
wide, well-built highway, grass-grown, but in good condition. After an
hour's travel we began to see signs of a clearing, and about six
o'clock drew up in front of the long, low, log habitation of La Chance.
Their hearthstone was outdoor at this season, and its smoke rose
through the still atmosphere in a frail column toward the sky. The
family was gathered here and welcomed us cordially as we drew up, the
master shaking us by the hand as if we were old friends. His English
was very poor, and our French was poorer, but, with Joe as a bridge
between us, communication on a pinch was kept up. His wife could speak
no English; but her true French politeness and graciousness was a
language we could readily understand. Our supper was got ready from our
own supplies, while we sat or stood in the open air about the fire. The
clearing comprised fifty or sixty acres of rough land in the bottom of
a narrow valley, and bore indifferent crops of oats, barley, potatoes,
and timothy grass. The latter was just in bloom, being a month or more
later than with us. The primitive woods, mostly of birch with a
sprinkling of spruce, put a high cavernous wall about the scene. How
sweetly the birds sang, their notes seeming to have unusual strength
and volume in this forest-bound opening! The principal singer was the
white-throated sparrow, which we heard and saw everywhere on the route.
He is called here _le siffleur_ (the whistler), and very delightful his
whistle was. From the forest came the evening hymn of a thrush, the
olive-backed perhaps, like but less clear and full than the veery's.