Books: The Writings of John Burroughs
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John Burroughs >> The Writings of John Burroughs
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A few days later I saw a smaller species carrying fragments of a
yellow autumn leaf under a stone in a cornfield. On examining the
place about sundown to see if the bee lodged there, I found her
snugly ensconced in a little rude cell that adhered to the under
side of the stone. There was no pollen in it, and I half suspected
it was merely a berth in which to pass the night.
These bees do not live even in pairs, but absolutely alone. They
have large baskets on their legs in which to carry pollen, an
article they are very industrious in collecting.
Why the larger species above described should have waited till
October to build its nest is a mystery to me. Perhaps this was the
second brood of the season, or can it be that the young were not to
hatch till the following spring?
THE WEATHERWISE MUSKRAT
I am more than half persuaded that the muskrat is a wise little
animal, and that on the subject of the weather, especially, he
possesses some secret that I should be glad to know. In the fall
of 1878 I noticed that he built unusually high and massive nests.
I noticed them in several different localities. In a shallow,
sluggish pond by the roadside, which I used to pass daily in my
walk, two nests were in process of construction throughout the
month of November. The builders worked only at night, and I could
see each day that the work had visibly advanced. When there was a
slight skim of ice over the pond, this was broken up about the
nests, with trails through it in different directions where the
material had been brought. The houses were placed a little to one
side of the main channel, and were constructed entirely of a
species of coarse wild grass that grew all about. So far as I
could see, from first to last they were solid masses of grass, as
if the interior cavity or nest was to be excavated afterward, as
doubtless it was. As they emerged from the pond they gradually
assumed the shape of a miniature mountain, very bold and steep on
the south side, and running down a long, gentle grade to the
surface of the water on the north. One could see that the little
architect hauled all his material up this easy slope, and thrust it
out boldly around the other side. Every mouthful was distinctly
defined. After they were two feet or more above the water, I
expected each day to see that the finishing stroke had been given
and the work brought to a close. But higher yet, said the builder.
December drew near, the cold became threatening, and I was
apprehensive that winter would suddenly shut down upon those
unfinished nests. But the wise rats knew better than I did; they
had received private advices from headquarters, that I knew not of.
Finally, about the 6th of December, the nests assumed completion;
the northern incline was absorbed or carried up, and each structure
became a strong, massive cone, three or four feet high, the largest
nest of the kind I had ever seen. Does it mean a severe winter? I
inquired. An old farmer said it meant "high water," and he was
right once, at least, for in a few days afterward we had the
heaviest rainfall known in this section for half a century. The
creeks rose to an almost unprecedented height. The sluggish pond
became a seething, turbulent water-course; gradually the angry
element crept up the sides of these lake dwellings, till, when the
rain ceased, about four o'clock, they showed above the flood no
larger than a man's hat. During the night the channel shifted till
the main current swept over them, and next day not a vestige of the
nests was to be seen; they had gone downstream, as had many other
dwellings of a less temporary character. The rats had built wisely,
and would have been perfectly secure against any ordinary high
water, but who can foresee a flood? The oldest traditions of their
race did not run back to the time of such a visitation.
Nearly a week afterward another dwelling was begun, well away from
the treacherous channel, but the architects did not work at it with
much heart: the material was very scarce, the ice hindered; and
before the basement story was fairly finished, Winter had the pond
under his lock and key.
In other localities I noticed that, where the nests were placed on
the banks of streams, they were made secure against the floods by
being built amid a small clump of bushes. When the fall of 1879
came, the muskrats were very tardy about beginning their house,
laying the corner-stone--or the corner-sod--about December 1, and
continuing the work slowly and indifferently. On the 15th of the
month the nest was not yet finished. This, I said, indicates a
mild winter; and, sure enough, the season was one of the mildest
known for many years. The rats had little use for their house.
Again, in the fall of 1880, while the weather-wise were wagging
their heads, some forecasting a mild, some a severe winter, I
watched with interest for a sign from my muskrats. About November
1, a month earlier than the previous year, they began their nest,
and worked at it with a will. They appeared to have just got
tidings of what was coming. If I had taken the hint so palpably
given, my celery would not have been frozen up in the ground, and
my apples caught in unprotected places. When the cold wave struck
us, about November 20, my four-legged "I-told-you-so's" had nearly
completed their dwelling; it lacked only the ridge-board, so to
speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give it a finished
look. But this it never got. The winter had come to stay, and it
waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the last
days of December must have astonished even the wise muskrats in
their snug retreat. I approached their nest at this time, a white
mound upon the white, deeply frozen surface of the pond, and
wondered if there was any life in that apparent sepulchre. I
thrust my walking-stick sharply into it, when there was a rustle
and a splash into the water, as the occupant made his escape. What
a damp basement that house has, I thought, and what a pity to rout
a peaceful neighbor out of his bed in this weather, and into such a
state of things as this! But water does not wet the muskrat; his
fur is charmed, and not a drop penetrates it.
Where the ground is favorable, the muskrats do not build these
mound-like nests, but burrow into the bank a long distance, and
establish their winter-quarters there.
Shall we not say, then, in view of the above facts, that this
little creature is weatherwise? The hitting of the mark twice might
be mere good luck; but three bull's-eyes in succession is not a
mere coincidence; it is a proof of skill. The muskrat is not found
in the Old World, which is a little singular, as other rats so
abound there, and as those slow-going English streams especially,
with their grassy banks, are so well suited to him. The water-rat
of Europe is smaller, but of similar nature and habits. The
muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, but is pretty active
all winter. In December I noticed in my walk where they had made
excursions of a few yards to an orchard for frozen apples. One
day, along a little stream, I saw a mink track amid those of the
muskrat; following it up, I presently came to blood and other marks
of strife upon the snow beside a stone wall. Looking in between
the stones, I found the carcass of the luckless rat, with its head
and neck eaten away. The mink had made a meal of him.
CHEATING THE SQUIRRELS
For the largest and finest chestnuts I had last fall I was indebted
to the gray squirrels. Walking through the early October woods one
day, I came upon a place where the ground was thickly strewn with
very large unopened chestnut burrs. On examination, I found that
every burr had been cut square off with about an inch of the stem
adhering, and not one had been left on the tree. It was not
accident, then, but design. Whose design? The squirrels'. The
fruit was the finest I had ever seen in the woods, and some wise
squirrel had marked it for his own. The burrs were ripe, and had
just begun to divide, not "threefold," but fourfold, "to show the
fruit within." The squirrel that had taken all this pains had
evidently reasoned with himself thus: "Now, these are extremely
fine chestnuts, and I want them; if I wait till the burrs open on
the tree, the crows and jays will be sure to carry off a great many
of the nuts before they fall; then, after the wind has rattled out
what remain, there are the mice, the chipmunks, the red squirrels,
the raccoons, the grouse, to say nothing of the boys and the pigs,
to come in for their share; so I will forestall events a little: I
will cut off the burrs when they have matured, and a few days of
this dry October weather will cause every one of them to open on
the ground; I shall be on hand in the nick of time to gather up my
nuts." The squirrel, of course, had to take the chances of a
prowler like myself coming along, but he had fairly stolen a march
on his neighbors. As I proceeded to collect and open the burrs, I
was half prepared to hear an audible protest from the trees about,
for I constantly fancied myself watched by shy but jealous eyes.
It is an interesting inquiry how the squirrel knew the burrs would
open if left to lie on the ground a few days. Perhaps he did not
know, but thought the experiment worth trying.
The gray squirrel is peculiarly an American product, and might
serve very well as a national emblem. The Old World can beat us on
rats and mice, but we are far ahead on squirrels, having five or
six species to Europe's one.
THE SKYLARK ON THE HUDSON
My note-book of the past season is enriched with the unusual
incident of an English skylark in full song above an Esopus meadow.
I was poking about a marshy place in a low field one morning in
early May, when, through the maze of bird-voices,--laughter of
robins, call of meadowlarks, song of bobolinks, ditty of sparrows,
whistle of orioles, twitter of swallows,--with which the air was
filled, my ear suddenly caught an unfamiliar strain. I paused to
listen: can it be possible, I thought, that I hear a lark, or am I
dreaming? The song came from the air, above a wide, low meadow many
hundred yards away. Withdrawing a few paces to a more elevated
position, I bent my eye and ear eagerly in that direction. Yes,
that unstinted, jubilant, skyward, multitudinous song can be none
other than the lark's! Any of our native songsters would have
ceased while I was listening. Presently I was fortunate enough to
catch sight of the bird. He had reached his climax in the sky, and
was hanging with quivering wings beneath a small white cloud,
against which his form was clearly revealed. I had seen and heard
the lark in England, else I should still have been in doubt about
the identity of this singer. While I was climbing a fence I was
obliged to take my eye from the bird, and when I looked again the
song had ceased and the lark had gone. I was soon in the meadow
above which I had heard him, and the first bird I flushed was the
lark.
How strange he looked to my eye (I use the masculine gender because
it was a male bird, but an Irishman laboring in the field, to whom
I related my discovery, spoke touchingly of the bird as "she," and
I notice that the old poets do the same); his long, sharp wings,
and something in his manner of flight suggested a shore-bird. I
followed him about the meadow and got several snatches of song out
of him, but not again the soaring, skyward flight and copious
musical shower. By appearing to pass by, I several times got
within a few yards of him; as I drew near he would squat in the
stubble, and then suddenly start up, and, when fairly launched,
sing briefly till he alighted again fifteen or twenty rods away. I
came twice the next day and twice the next, and each time found
the lark in the meadow or heard his song from the air or the sky.
What was especially interesting was that the lark had "singled out
with affection" one of our native birds, and the one that most
resembled its kind, namely, the vesper sparrow, or grass finch. To
this bird I saw him paying his addresses with the greatest
assiduity. He would follow it about and hover above it, and by
many gentle indirections seek to approach it. But the sparrow was
shy, and evidently did not know what to make of her distinguished
foreign lover. It would sometimes take refuge in a bush, when the
lark, not being a percher, would alight upon the ground beneath it.
This sparrow looks enough like the lark to be a near relation. Its
color is precisely the same, and it has the distinguishing mark of
the two lateral white quills in its tail. It has the same habit of
skulking in the stubble or the grass as you approach; it is
exclusively a field-bird, and certain of its notes might have been
copied from the lark's song. In size it is about a third smaller,
and this is the most marked difference between them. With the
nobler bipeds, this would not have been any obstacle to the union,
and in this case the lark was evidently quite ready to ignore the
difference, but the sparrow persisted in saying him nay. It was
doubtless this obstinacy on her part that drove the lark away, for,
on the fifth day, I could not find him, and have never seen nor
heard him since. I hope he found a mate somewhere, but it is
quite improbable. The bird had, most likely, escaped from a cage,
or, maybe, it was a survivor of a number liberated some years ago
on Long Island. There is no reason why I the lark should not
thrive in this country as well as in Europe, and, if a few hundred
were liberated in any of our fields in April or May, I have little
doubt they would soon become established. And what an acquisition
it would be! As a songster, the lark is deserving of all the
praise that has been bestowed upon him. He would not add so much
to the harmony or melody of our bird-choir as he would add to its
blithesomeness, joyousness, and power. His voice is the jocund and
inspiring voice of a spring morning. It is like a ceaseless and
hilarious clapping of hands. I was much interested in an account a
friend gave me of the first skylark he heard while abroad. He had
been so full of the sights and wonders of the Old World that he had
quite forgotten the larks, when one day, as he was walking
somewhere near the sea, a brown bird started up in front of him,
and mounting upward began to sing. It drew his attention, and as
the bird went skyward, pouring out his rapid and jubilant notes,
like bees from a hive in swarming-time, the truth suddenly flashed
upon the observer.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "that is a skylark; there is no
mistaking that bird."
It is this unique and unmistakable character of the lark's song,
and its fountain-like sparkle and copiousness, that are the main
sources of its charm.
NOCTURNAL INSECTS
How the nocturnal insects, the tree-crickets and katydids, fail as
the heat fails! They are musicians that play fast or slow, strong
or feeble, just as the heat of the season waxes or wanes; and they
play as long as life lasts: when their music ceases, they are dead.
The katydids begin in August, and cry with great vigor and spirit,
"Katy-did," "Katydid," or "Katy-did n't." Toward the last of
September they have taken in sail a good deal, and cry simply,
"Katy," "Katy," with frequent pauses and resting-spells. In
October they languidly gasp or rasp, "Kate," "Kate," "Kate," and
before the end of the month they become entirely inaudible, though
I suspect that if one's ear were sharp enough he might still hear a
dying whisper, "Kate," "Kate." Those cousins of Katy, the little
green purring tree-crickets, fail in the same way and at the same
time. When their chorus is fullest, the warm autumn night fairly
throbs with the soft lulling undertone. I notice that the sound is
in waves or has a kind of rhythmic beat. What a gentle, unobtrusive
background it forms for the sharp, reedy notes of the katydids! As
the season advances, their life ebbs and ebbs: you hear one here
and one there, but the air is no longer filled with that regular
pulse-beat of sound. One by one the musicians cease, till, perhaps
on some mild night late in October, you hear--just hear and that is
all--the last feeble note of the last of these little harpers.
LOVE AND WAR AMONG THE BIRDS
In the spring movements of the fishes up the stream, toward their
spawning-beds, the females are the pioneers, appearing some days in
advance of the males. With the birds the reverse is the case, the
males coming a week or ten days before the females. The female
fish is usually the larger and stronger, and perhaps better able to
take the lead; among most reptiles the same fact holds, and
throughout the insect world there is to my knowledge no exception
to the rule. Among the birds, the only exception I am aware of is
in the case of the birds of prey. Here the female is the larger
and stronger. If you see an exceptionally large and powerful
eagle, rest assured the sex is feminine. But higher in the scale
the male comes to the front and leads in size and strength.
But the first familiar spring birds are cocks; hence the songs and
tilts and rivalries. Hence also the fact that they are slightly in
excess of the other sex, to make up for this greater exposure;
apparently no courting is done in the South, and no matches are
prearranged. The males leave irregularly without any hint, I
suspect, to the females as to when and where they will meet them.
In the case of the passenger pigeon, however, the two sexes travel
together, as they do among the migrating water-fowls.
With the song-birds, love-making begins as soon as the hens are
here. So far as I have observed, the robin and the bluebird win
their mates by gentle and fond approaches; but certain of the
sparrows, notably the little social sparrow or "chippie," appear to
carry the case by storm. The same proceeding may be observed among
the English sparrows, now fairly established on our soil. Two or
three males beset a female, and a regular scuffle ensues. The poor
bird is pulled and jostled and cajoled amid what appears to be the
greatest mirth and hilarity of her audacious suitors. Her plumage
is plucked and ruffled; the rivals roll over each other and over
her; she extricates herself as best she can, and seems to say or
scream "no," "no," to every one of them with great emphasis. What
finally determines her choice would be hard to say. Our own
sparrows are far less noisy and obstreperous, but the same little
comedy in a milder form is often enacted among them. When two
males have a tilt, they rise several feet in the air, beak to beak,
and seek to deal each other blows as they mount. I have seen two
male chewinks facing each other and wrathfully impelled upward in
the same manner, while the female that was the bone of contention
between them regarded them unconcernedly from the near bushes.
The bobolink is also a precipitate and impetuous wooer. It is a
trial of speed, as if the female were to say, "Catch me and I am
yours," and she scurries away with all her might and main, often
with three or four dusky knights in hot pursuit. When she takes to
cover in the grass, there is generally a squabble "down among the
tickle-tops," or under the buttercups, and "Winterseeble" or
"Conquedle" is the winner.
In marked contrast to this violent love-making are the social and
festive reunions of the goldfinches about mating time. All the
birds of a neighborhood gather in a treetop, and the trial
apparently becomes one of voice and song. The contest is a most
friendly and happy one; all is harmony and gayety. The females
chirrup and twitter, and utter their confiding "PAISLEY"
"PAISLEY," while the more gayly dressed males squeak and warble in
the most delightful strain. The matches are apparently all made
and published during these gatherings; everybody is in a happy
frame of mind; there is no jealousy, and no rivalry but to see who
shall be gayest.
It often happens among the birds that the male has a rival after
the nuptials have been celebrated and the work of housekeeping
fairly begun. Every season a pair of phbe-birds have built their
nest on an elbow in the spouting beneath the eaves of my house.
The past spring a belated male made desperate efforts to supplant
the lawful mate and gain possession of the unfinished nest. There
was a battle fought about the premises every hour in the day for at
least a week. The antagonists would frequently grapple and fall to
the ground, and keep their hold like two dogs. On one such
occasion I came near covering them with my hat. I believe the
intruder was finally worsted and withdrew from the place. One
noticeable feature of the affair was the apparent utter
indifference of the female, who went on with her nest-building as
if all was peace and harmony. There can be little doubt that she
would have applauded and accepted the other bird had he finally
been the victor.
One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few
prettier sights than two males challenging and curveting about each
other upon the grass in early spring. Their attentions to each
other are so courteous and restrained. In alternate curves and
graceful sallies, they pursue and circumvent each other. First one
hops a few feet, then the other, each one standing erect in true
military style while his fellow passes him and describes the
segment of an ellipse about him, both uttering the while a fine
complacent warble in a high but suppressed key. Are they lovers or
enemies? the beholder wonders, until they make a spring and are
beak to beak in the twinkling of an eye, and perhaps mount a few
feet into the air, but rarely actually delivering blows upon each
other. Every thrust is parried, every movement met. They follow
each other with dignified composure about the fields or lawn, into
trees and upon the ground, with plumage slightly spread, breasts
glowing, their lisping, shrill war-song just audible. It forms on
the whole the most civil and high-bred tilt to be witnessed during
the season.
When the cock-robin makes love he is the same considerate,
deferential, but insinuating gallant. The warble he makes use of
on that occasion is the same, so far as my ear can tell, as the one
he pipes when facing his rival.
FOX AND HOUND
I stood on a high hill or ridge one autumn day and saw a hound run
a fox through the fields far beneath me. What odors that fox must
have shaken out of himself, I thought, to be traced thus easily,
and how great their specific gravity not to have been blown away
like smoke by the breeze! The fox ran a long distance down the
hill, keeping within a few feet of a stone wall; then turned a
right angle and led off for the mountain, across a plowed field and
a succession of pasture lands. In about fifteen minutes the hound
came in full blast with her nose in the air, and never once did she
put it to the ground while in my sight. When she came to the stone
wall, she took the other side from that taken by the fox, and kept
about the same distance from it, being thus separated several yards
from his track, with the fence between her and it. At the point
where the fox turned sharply to the left, the hound overshot a few
yards, then wheeled, and, feeling the air a moment with her nose,
took up the scent again and was off on his trail as unerringly as
Fate. It seemed as if the fox must have sowed himself broadcast as
he went along, and that his scent was so rank and heavy that it
settled in the hollows and clung tenaciously to the bushes and
crevices in the fence. I thought I ought to have caught a remnant
of it as I passed that way some minutes later, but I did not. But
I suppose it was not that the light-footed fox so impressed himself
upon the ground he ran over, but that the sense of the hound was so
keen. To her sensitive nose these tracks steamed like hot cakes,
and they would not have cooled off so as to be undistinguishable
for several hours. For the time being, she had but one sense: her
whole soul was concentrated in her nose.
It is amusing, when the hunter starts out of a winter morning, to
see his hound probe the old tracks to determine how recent they
are. He sinks his nose down deep in the snow so as to exclude the
air from above, then draws a long full breath, giving sometimes an
audible snort. If there remains the least effluvium of the fox,
the hound will detect it. If it be very slight, it only sets his
tail wagging; if it be strong, it unloosens his tongue.
Such things remind one of the waste, the friction, that is going on
all about us, even when the wheels of life run the most smoothly.
A fox cannot trip along the top of 'a stone wall so lightly but
that he will leave enough of himself to betray his course to the
hound for hours afterward. When the boys play "hare and hounds,"
the hare scatters bits of paper to give a clew to the pursuers, but
he scatters himself much more freely if only our sight and scent
were sharp enough to detect the fragments. Even the fish leave a
trail in the water, and it is said the otter will pursue them by
it. The birds make a track in the air, only their enemies hunt by
sight rather than by scent. The fox baffles the hound most upon a
hard crust of frozen snow; the scent will not hold to the smooth,
bead-like granules.
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