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VII
NATURE LEAVES
I.
IN WARBLER TIME
THIS early
May morning, as I walked through the fields, the west wind brought to
me a sweet, fresh odor, like that of our little white sweet violet
(Viola
blanda).
It came probably from sugar maples, just shaking out their fringelike
blossoms, and from the blooming elms. For a few hours, when these
trees first bloom, they shed a decided perfume. It was the first
breath of May, and very welcome. April has her odors, too, very
delicate and suggestive, but seldom is the wind perfumed with the
breath of actual bloom before May. I said, It is warbler time; the
first arrivals of the pretty little migrants should be noted now.
Hardly had my thought defined itself, when before me, in a little
hemlock, I caught the flash of a blue, white-barred wing; then
glimpses of a yellow breast and a yellow crown. I approached
cautiously, and in a moment more had a full view of one of our rarer
warblers, the blue-winged yellow warbler. Very pretty he was, too,
the yellow cap, the yellow breast, and the black streak through the
eye being conspicuous features. He would not stand to be looked at
long, but soon disappeared in a near-by tree.
The
ruby-crowned kinglet was piping in an evergreen tree not far away,
but him I had been hearing for several days. With me the kinglets
come before the first warblers, and may be known to the attentive eye
by their quick, nervous movements, and small, olive-gray forms, and
to the discerning ear by their hurried, musical, piping strains. How
soft, how rapid, how joyous and lyrical their songs are! Very few
country people, I imagine, either see them or hear them. The powers
of observation of country people are seldom fine enough and trained
enough. They see and hear coarsely. An object must be big and a sound
loud, to attract their attention. Have you seen and heard the
kinglet? If not, the finer inner world of nature is a sealed book to
you. When your senses take in the kinglet they will take in a
thousand other objects that now escape you.
My
first warbler in the spring is usually the yellow redpoll, which I
see in April. It is not a bird of the trees and woods, but of low
bushes in the open, often alighting upon the ground in quest of food.
I sometimes see it on the lawn. The last one I saw was one April day,
when I went over to the creek to see if the suckers were yet running
up. The bird was flitting amid the low bushes, now and then dropping
down to the gravelly bank of the stream. Its chestnut crown and
yellow under parts were noticeable.
The
past season I saw for the first time the golden-winged warbler a shy
bird, that eluded me a long time in an old clearing that had grown up
with low bushes. The song first attracted my attention, it is so like
in form to that of the black-throated green-back, but in quality so
inferior. The first distant glimpse of the bird, too, suggested the
greenback, so for a time I deceived myself with the notion that it
was the green-back with some defect in its vocal organs. A day or two
later I heard two of them, and then concluded my inference was a
hasty one. Following one of the birds up, I caught sight of its
yellow crown, which is much more conspicuous than its yellow
wing-bars. Its song is like this, 'n-'n
de de de,
with a peculiar reedy quality, but not at all musical, falling far
short of the clear, sweet, lyrical song of the green-back. Nehrling
sees in it a resemblance to that of the Maryland yellow-throat, but I
fail to see any resemblance whatever.
One
appreciates how bright and gay the plumage of many of our warblers is
when he sees one of them alight upon the ground. While passing along
a wood road in June, a male black-throated green came down out of the
hemlocks and sat for a moment on the ground before me. How out of
place he looked, like a bit of ribbon or millinery just dropped
there! The throat of this warbler always suggests the finest black
velvet. Not long after I saw the chestnut-sided warbler do the same
thing. We were trying to make it out in a tree by the roadside, when
it dropped down quickly to the ground in pursuit of an insect, and
sat a moment upon the brown surface, giving us a vivid sense of its
bright new plumage.
When
the leaves of the trees are just unfolding, or, as Tennyson says,
"When
all the woods stand in a mist of green.
And
nothing perfect,"
the
tide of migrating warblers is at its height. They come in the night,
and in the morning the trees are alive with them. The apple-trees are
just showing the pink, and how closely the birds inspect them in
their eager quest for insect food! One cold, rainy day at this season
Wilson's black-cap
a bird that is said
to go north nearly to the
Arctic Circle
explored an
apple-tree in front of my window. It came
down within two feet of my face, as I stood by the pane, and paused a
moment in its hurry and peered in at me, giving me an admirable view
of its form and markings. It was wet and hungry, and it had a long
journey before it. What a small body to cover such a distance!
The
black-poll warbler, which one may see about the same time, is a much
larger bird and of slower movement, and is colored much like the
black and white creeping warbler with a black cap on its head. The
song of this bird is the finest in volume and most insect-like of
that of any warbler known to me. It is the song of the black and
white creeper reduced, high and swelling in the middle and low and
faint at its beginning and ending. When one has learned to note and
discriminate the warblers, he has made a good beginning in his
ornithological studies.
II.
A SHORT WALK
One
midsummer afternoon I went up to "Scotland" and prowled
about amid the raspberry-bushes, finding a little fruit, black and
red, here and there, and letting my eyes wander to the distant farms
and mountains. The wild but familiar prospect dilated and rested me.
As I lingered near the torn edge of the woods in a tangle of
raspberry-bushes, I caught a glimpse of some large bird dropping
suddenly to the ground from a tall basswood that stood in the edge of
the open, where it was hidden from my view. Was it a crow or a hawk?
A hawk, I guessed, from its manner of descent. I threw a stone after
waiting some moments for it to reappear, but it made no sign. Then I
moved slowly toward the spot, and presently up sprang a hen-hawk and,
uttering its characteristic squeal, circled around near me and then
alighted not far off. A young hawk, I saw it was, and quite
unsophisticated. Presently, as I made my way along, just touching the
edge of the woods, a covey of nearly full-grown partridges burst up
out of the berry-bushes, ten or twelve of them, and went humming up
into the denser woods, some of them alighting in the trees, whence
they stretched their necks to watch me as I passed along. The dust
flew from their plumage as they jumped up, as if they had been
earthing their wings.
My
next adventure was with a young but fully grown bluebird, which
crawled and fluttered away from my feet as I came upon it in the
open. It could not fly, and I easily picked it up. Its plumage showed
the mingled blue and speckled brown of the immature bird. I looked it
over, but could see no mark or sign of injury to wing or body. Its
plumage was unruffled and its eye bright, but its movements were
feeble. Was it ill or starved? I could not tell which, probably the
latter. It may have got lost from the brood and was not yet able to
forage for itself. I left it under the edge of a rock, where the
fresh blue of the ends of its wings and tail held my eye a moment as
I turned to go.
Farther
along, under some shelving rocks, I came upon two empty phbes'
nests a relic of bird-life that
always gives a touch to the rocks
that I delight in. I find none of these nests placed lower than three
feet from the ground, and always in places that seem to be carefully
chosen with reference to enemies that can reach and climb.
Two
or three woodchucks, which I bagged with my eye, completed my
afternoon's adventures.
III.
IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In
southern California the seasons all go hand in hand, and dance around
one like a ring of girls, first one season, then another in front of
you, Spring, Summer, Autumn,
Winter. Now in March I see January on
Mt. San Antonio, with wraiths of snow blowing over his white summit
against the blue sky. In the valley I see them harvesting oranges and
planting their gardens. The camphor-trees are shedding their leaves,
and the eucalyptus and other trees are blooming. The oak-trees are
shaking out their catkins and resound with the hum of bees. I see
calla lilies in bloom four feet high, and wild flowers an inch high
just opening. Along the road the wild sunflowers and other tall
plants are in bloom, as in August in the Atlantic States. June is in
the knee-high grass and oats and blooming white clover, and April in
the bursting apple-tree buds and pink peach- and almond-trees, yes,
and in the new furrow and the early planting, autumn in the golden
orange-orchards, and the red berries of the pepper-trees, and the
black berries of the camphor-trees. The birds are nesting, the shad
are running, and swallows are in the air, midsummer butterflies dance
by, and house-flies tease you indoors. I see and hear the
white-crowned sparrow that at home I see in May. Spring, Summer,
Autumn, and Winter, I say, all nudge you, and claim your attention at
once.
During
the last ten days of March there were heavy rains with four feet of
snow in the near-by mountains. The air was like cold spring-water
full of just melted frost.
Yesterday
friends took us to Claremont, a ride of thirty miles, in their
automobile. The day was all sun and sky above, and all fresh green
earth below, with a line of snow-white peaks behind dark near-by
mountain barriers on the horizon. After a week or more of cloud and
rain, how we enjoyed the brightness and the sunshine! Especially did
that line of white peaks cut off by that dark mountain wall in front
of them draw and hold my eye. Over the top of the highest one, San
Antonio, we could see the snow lifted by the west wind and carried
high in the air over on the east side. It was like a thin, white
flame, swaying, flickering, sinking and falling, but clinging
tenaciously to the mountain-peak. Thus have I seen this frost flame
stalk across my native hills in midwinter. All the time we were
speeding through orange-groves yellow with fruit, along improved
lands red with the new furrow, and past wild, unclaimed places
spotted with the bloom of many flowers.
I
think the bird I most want to take home with me, and establish in our
towns and villages, is the blackbird, Brewer's blackbird, one of the
best-mannered, best-dressed, best-groomed birds I ever saw. He is
like a bit of polished ebony moving quietly over your lawn. His coat
has the same rich iridescent hues as that of our crow blackbird, and
he has the same yellow eye, but he is much less in size and much more
graceful in form and movement, and much softer-voiced. Besides, he is
a bird of the streets and dooryards, very noticeable everywhere, and,
so far as I can learn, has no tastes or habits that incur the enmity
of the farmer or the fruit-grower. I pass within a few feet of him
and his duller-colored mate walking about the smooth lawns, picking
some minute insects from the ends of the grass-blades. This seems to
be his chief occupation. Like all blackbirds, these are social and
gregarious, and at times, when in flocks, their musical instincts are
stimulated. I have heard a band of them in the later afternoon
discourse a wild, pleasing music much superior to the crude, harsh
cackle and split whistles of the related species with us.
The
birds here are abundant both in kinds and in numbers. The
white-crowned sparrows are familiar about the houses and the gardens,
and they sing most sweetly, but the song is not quite equal to the
song they sing along the Hudson for a brief day or two in May. Here
they sing for weeks.
The
mockingbirds are as common as robins are at home all about the lawns
and gardens and streets, flitting, flirting, attitudinizing, and
singing on the housetops, on the
telegraph and telephone wires, on
the curbstones, on the lawn. In the face of this bird's great fame as
a songster, I wonder why I am so indifferent to it. It pleases me
less than do its cousins, the catbird and the brown thrasher. I
detect little or no music
sweet tones in it. It is a series of
disjointed quirks and calls, quite surprising as vocal feats, but, to
my ear, entirely destitute of real bird melody. It is a performance,
the tricks of a vocal acrobat, and not in any sense a serious,
unified song. The bird has much less music in its soul, less of the
spirit of self-forgetting joy and praise, than has our little song
sparrow. I would rather have one robin, or one song sparrow, about my
place than any number of "mockers." Indeed, the more
"mockers" there were, the less welcome they would be. It is
a polyglot, but not a songster. The mockingbird is a theatrical
creature, both in manners and delivery. I have heard it in Jamaica,
in Florida, and now in southern California, and I have heard it by
night and by day, and I have no good word to say for it. It is a
Southern bird and has more the quality of the Southern races than our
birds have. Northern birds are quieter, sweeter-tempered,
softer-voiced, and more religious in tone.
IV.
ARE THERE COUNTERFEITS IN NATURE?
One
day my son killed a duck on the river that an old gunner told him was
a mock duck. It looked like a duck, it acted and quacked like a duck,
but when it came upon the table it mocked us. I now recall that it
was a "coot," a species of duck not usually eaten.
The
incident led me to thinking whether or not there were really any mock
things any counterfeits in nature known to me. Some of our wild
flowers are named "false" this and that, as false indigo,
false Solomon's-seal, false mitrewort, and others; but in designating
them thus we are simply slandering Nature and exposing our own
ignorance. Other things come to mind that are not what they seem, or
what they are popularly called; "cedar plums," for
instance,
those yellow fungous growths
upon the branches of the red
cedar which suddenly develop with the rain and warmth of May or June,
and that look like ripe fruit upon the tree. In sun and dryness they
soon shrink and wither; on the return of a wet day they are again
clammy gelatinous masses. Later in the season they disappear
entirely. They are not the work of an insect, but the result of some
disease like black-knot on our plum- and cherry-trees. They can
scarcely be called counterfeit fruit. The so-called oak-apple bears a
somewhat closer resemblance to a genuine fruit. Its stringy texture
might be taken for the skeleton of the pulp of the apple. It is a
gall caused by the sting of an insect. The oak is made to grow the
cell or house in which the young of the insect is hatched and
developed. The May apples which children gather from the wild azalea
and eat with much relish are also a sham fruit the work of an insect.
Can
we call the infertile flowers of certain plants, like those of the
fringed polygala, shams or counterfeits? They seem to exist for show
merely, while the fertile flowers are small and upon the roots hidden
beneath the surface. What purpose the showy infertile flowers serve
in the economy of the plant I am unable to say.
In
the Southern States the plough sometimes turns out of the soil a
curious vegetable product called "Tuckahoe," or "Indian
loaf," that suggests a counterfeit of some sort. It is a brown
roundish mass, the size of a cocoanut or larger, whitish within, with
a characteristic odor, and it is said to be useful and nutritious in
diseases of the bowels. It is thought that the Indians used it as a
kind of bread. Its origin is shrouded in mystery. What it springs
from, what conditions favor its growth, are all unknown. It is not a
fungus, like the truffle, nor a normal vegetable product. It has no
cellular structure, as has the potato, for instance, and it contains
no starch, but is composed mainly of pectin, which for the most part
makes up the jellies of fruit. It is probably the result of
degeneration in the roots of some plant.
Among
animals shams and imitations are not uncommon. The marsh wren, for
instance, often builds several sham, or cock, nests in the reeds
surrounding the real nest. These nests seem like the mere bubbling
over or surplusage of the breeding-instinct in the male. Many birds,
especially ground-builders, feign lameness or paralysis to draw
attention to themselves and lure the intruder away from their nests.
They know to perfection the art of make-believe. The males of
bumblebees and wasps when caught will imitate perfectly the action of
a bee when it thrusts its stinger into your hand.
The
look of frightfulness which certain caterpillars take on often, in
the shape of two fierce counterfeit eyes, is only a mask to scare the
unsophisticated birds. At least experiment seems to prove that this
is the case. The caterpillars of some of the hawk-moths wear this
frightful mask. These insects can so retract their heads and front
segments as to give an increased look of fearfulness. Weismann found
that certain small birds were afraid of them.
When
one insect mimics another for the purpose of protection, as is now
generally believed to be the case among a number of butterflies, such
insect is sailing under false colors. There is perhaps more
masquerading in nature than we wot of, and yet it is all natural.
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