PART II
IN SPRING
The April Moon
Of the thirteen moons of the year, not one is of such significance to the outdoor naturalist as that of April. I think that there can be no doubt but that a clear sky, rather than temperature, is the important factor in the migratory movement of our birds that come from the South in spring. Certainly the morning of April 14th, of this year, was cool enough to have retarded birds sensitive to cold. Ice formed on shallow ponds and a heavy frost rested upon all the upland fields; yet at sunrise the old beeches were alive with those beautiful birds, the yellow red-polled warblers. Nor were they numb or dumb. There was not an instant that they rested, nor a moment that they did not sing. The April moon, too, has the merit of brightening the marshes, when in fullest force the frog-world comes to the fore, and perhaps never are these slimy batrachians so noisy as when the night is warm, the sky clear, and the moon full in April. Take a midnight ramble then, and see if I am not right. Of course, no one wishes to be confined to the company of croaking frogs, but other creatures will doubtless cross your path, and I assume the reader does not live in an utterly desolate region. My reference to frogs may seem to imply contempt, but it is not deserved. If they are not overwise, neither are they wholly stupid, and it is well for all men to be chary of their judgments. There are times and occasions when a frog may outwit a philosopher. Try to catch one on slippery mud, and see which sprawls the more gracefully.
I recently rambled for half a night over acres of wild marsh, and, while I often wished myself at home or that I could grasp the arm of a friend, yet am heartily glad, now that it is over, that I undertook to trespass upon the haunts of owls, frogs, bitterns, and a host of minor creatures. But let me be more explicit, and a word further concerning frogs. In the tide marshes, where the shallow water has been warmed by the noonday sun, the pretty little hylodes were holding high carnival. I strolled leisurely, at this stage of my ramble, to the water’s edge, but only to find that the creatures could only be heard, not seen; unless, indeed, the trembling specks upon the glimmering pools, which faded out at my approach, were they. The piercing shrillness of their united songs was something wonderful. It was not so much a chorus as the wildest orgies of Lilliputian fifers. At times the song of this same frog is the sharp clicking of a castanet, hence their name in zoölogy, Acris crepitans, but none were crepitating that night. Yesterday I waded into a wet meadow and crouched upon a projecting hassock. Thousands of the fifing frogs were about me, but I could see none. I long sat there, hoping that my patience would be rewarded in time, and so it was. At last one came cautiously from its hiding-place in the submerged grass, thrusting but its head above the water’s surface, and scanned closely its surroundings. It eyed me most suspiciously, and then slowly crawled out upon outreaching grass until quite above the water. It seemed very long before it was suited to its perch but when comfortably fixed, appeared to gulp in a great mouthful of air; in fact, must have done so, for immediately an enormous globular sac formed beneath its lower jaw. The sunlight being favorable, I could see that the sac contained about two drops of water. Then the fifing commenced. The motion of the mouth was too slight to be detected, but the membranous globe decreased or increased with each utterance. At no time did it wholly disappear. Noting so much, I then moved slightly to attract the creature’s attention. Immediately it ceased fifing, but the sac remained slightly diminished in size. As I was again perfectly quiet, its confidence returned, and the shrill monotonous “peep!” was resumed, but pitched in even a higher key, as though to make good the loss of time my slight interference had caused.
When Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, was studying the natural history of New Jersey, he was much struck with the noises made by certain small frogs which he heard, and supposed that he saw; but it would appear, from a recent study of the subject by Prof. Garman, of Cambridge, Mass. that Kalm attributed the voices of one species to a very different and much larger frog. The reasons given for this opinion by Prof. Garman are conclusive; that author remarks; “Apparently the frog Kalm heard was not the one he caught. The cry is that of Hyla Pickeringii; the frog taken was probably … the leopard, frog.” So far, Garman; but I am convinced my friend is mistaken, and that Kalm heard the shrill peeping of the little Acris crepitans, which is extraordinarily abundant, while, in the locality where Kalm was, Pickering’s hyla is comparatively rare.
I lingered long by the resounding marsh – so long that the chilly damp provoked an aguish pain, and admonished by it I turned toward the leafless trees upon the bluff, where I hoped to find a drier atmosphere. The moon was well upon her westward course when I reached higher ground, and what a change from the open meadows to gloomy woodland! The dark shadows of noonday are not repeated during a moonlit night. They are not only less distinct, but quivering, as though they, too, shivered as the air grew cold. It is not strange that one peoples the distance then with uncouth shapes, and sees a monster wherever moves a mite. However one may argue to himself that this is the same wood-path down which he daily passes without a thought, and that since sunset no strange creatures can have come upon the scene, he sees a dozen such, it may be, in spite of every effort to laugh them out of existence. Let a spider crawl over your face at noon, and you brush the creature from you almost unconsciously. Let a filmy cobweb rest upon your damp forehead at midnight, and you struggle to be rid of it, as though bound with a rope. The mingled sounds of myriad frogs, the hooting of owls, the rustling leaves beneath the shrew’s light tread, even the chirping of a dreaming bird, can not assure you. Every tree is the ambush of a lurking elf; ghosts and hobgoblins follow in your steps. I have abundant sympathy for those who, walking through moonlit woods, whistle to keep their courage up.
Such, in a measure, were my own feelings until I reached a glade where the light fell softly upon the wind-swept sod. There the immaterial world vanished, and I was no longer the companion of uncanny sprites. Resting from a long journey, yet not disposed to sleep, a pair of woodcocks stalked leisurely across my path without deigning to notice my approach. I drew back a pace or two, and watched them pass by. They did not leave the glade, but seemed to be scanning every foot of it, perhaps discussing its merits as a summer resort. Then first one and then the other took a short upward and circuitous flight, and in a few seconds returned. This was frequently done. Was it to hail passing migrants? I ask this seriously, for I have known several pairs to frequent a cluster of rhododendrons all through the month of March, and yet none nested until late in April: per contra, I have found their eggs in February. The movements of this pair, as I saw them, were mysterious, but I could do nothing in so uncertain a light toward unraveling the mystery, and contented myself with attracting their attention. I whistled shrilly but a single note, and as if shot the birds came to a halt. I whistled again, and they drew nearer to me, as I thought; but if so, I became no mystery to them, and upward and outward over the meadows, with a great whirring of their wings, they vanished.
This was so trivial an incident that, had it no sequel, would not be worthy of record. I have said I whistled shrilly a single note. It roused a sleeping cardinal near by, which straightened its crest, shook out its rumpled down, stared into vacant space, and whistled in return. I quickly replied, and so we had the woods to echo with our calls. “What can the matter be?” asked another and another of these birds, until the whole hillside sounded with their cries. I was lonely no longer. The moon shone with added luster, the grewsome shadows of the dwarfed cedars fled, and, but for the twinkling of a million stars, I might have thought it day. But the pleasing fancy was of short duration. Bird after bird resumed its slumbers. Silence and a deeper gloom reigned in the forest, nor did my heart cease to beat nervously until I reached my home.
Concerning Small Owls
It may be April according to the almanac, and yet midwinter, judging by the thermometer; and perhaps, as a rule, March winds continue their chilly gustiness until the fourth month is well advanced. I have scoured a weather-wise neighborhood for some “saying” about this feature of our climate, but gathered nothing not absolutely childish; but, if so run the days, the nights of April have a merit peculiarly their own; by the light of the waxing moon, let the temperature be high or low, the north-bound migratory birds begin to come. I saw a few of them during the last week in March; but it was when the April moon was eight days old that field sparrows trooped hitherward by thousands, and how the bare upland fields rang with their glee!
There is another happy feature of spring’s initial days. The winds, be they never so boisterous from dawn to sunset, rest during the night, and nocturnal life rejoices. What a mighty volume of sound arises from the marshes when the wind-tossed waters are at rest! The tiny hylodes, the smallest of our frogs, is fairly ecstatic now, and, were there no other voices to be heard, this creature alone would dispel all feeling of loneliness.
But what of a ramble during an April night? After an almost tempestuous day, there was little promise of anything akin to adventure, judging the landscape from my open door. However confirmed in the strolling habit might be the saunterer, rambling at night, with but frogs for company, is scarcely tempting, even though the moon shines brilliantly. Then, it occurred to me, is it not enough that the wind had ceased, and that out-of-doors it is something more than merely April in name? Therefore, expecting little and hoping less, I ventured abroad, directing my steps, as usual, meadow-ward. And it was not with, as might seem at first, an altogether undesirable and non-receptive frame of mind. One is far more likely to be content with little, and not wholly disappointed if his walk proves without adventure. But the latter is seldom or never the result. It is a strange night that finds the whole world asleep. Certainly I never found it so before, and did not to-night. By the pale light of the cloud-wrapped moon, stately herons wended their way from the river to the meadows, and twice a little owl hooted at me as I passed by the hollow hickory that stands as a lonely sentinel in the midst of a wide reach of pasture. Here was an instance when to be hooted at was a positive pleasure. The little owlet questioned the propriety of my being abroad at night, nor was he at all mealy-mouthed. He did not complain merely, but scolded unmistakably; and hovering above me as well as when flitting from branch to branch, he snapped his little beak most viciously. It was evident that fear of myself did not influence the owl at all, but he was provoked because my presence interfered with his plans. The bird knew well enough that I would keep the mice away by standing in full sight out in the open meadow. I have been puzzled, at times, to interpret the chirps and twitters of excited birds, and this irate little owl cried “Get out!” as plainly as man could speak it, and I got out.
In all works treating of the intelligence of animals there is much said of the mental status of parrots, and little or nothing of the mother-wit of owls. Why this oversight is a mystery, unless it arises from the fact that “from the nocturnal preferences of most owls their habits are very slightly known, and many interesting facts are doubtless to be discovered in this direction. More often heard than seen, even their notes are only imperfectly known as yet.” Notwithstanding this, owls are well known in a general way – better known, indeed, than any other family of birds. Their appearance is striking, their expression intelligent, and that they were selected, in ancient and more poetical times, as the emblem of wisdom, is not to be wondered at. The bird of Minerva does not belie its looks. To speak of an owl’s wisdom in a Pickwickian sense, is to publish one’s own ignorance. I would that I might venture to give in merited detail an account of the wise doings, if not sayings, of little red owls that I have held captives for months. And, better yet, narrate the summer histories of owls at freedom that nested in the old orchard. Or write of the cunning ways of the handsome barn-owls, those beautiful cosmopolite birds, that made their home in a hollow oak upon an upland field.
To do this would be to place our common owls where, in the scale of intelligence, they rightfully belong. Of all our birds, they are the least governed by mere impulse, and pass their days, as it has appeared to me, in a most methodical and reasonable manner. It has been admitted by many a traveler that to shoot a monkey was too like murder; they could not do it. Would that every farmer in the land had the same feeling with reference to the owls; for the same reason holds good, only to a less extent.
It is true that we know very little about the various cries of owls, but every country lad, at least, knows that the bird’s utterances are not merely slight variations of a typical hoot, or the to-whit to-whoo of the poets. Well I remember how, evening after evening, when in camp in southern Ohio, the great horned owls made night melancholy rather than hideous, by their sonorous hoo-hoo-hoo! At first afar off, and then nearer and clearer, sounded their incessant call, as, flitting from one tall sycamore to another, they slowly approached the red glare of the camp-fire. Their hooting varied not a whit, but merely grew more distinct, and for long I thought them capable of no other utterance, but how great an error this was evident, when at last one of these huge birds perched in the oak that sheltered my tent. The melancholy hoo-hoo-hoo! was the same, but with this were a host of minor notes, and these were once followed by a series of explosive, ill-tempered ejaculations when the little red owls that had their home in this same oak scolded without ceasing at the intrusion. I can liken the hubbub to nothing but the subdued clamor of excited geese. In like manner I was scolded by the little owl on the meadow hickory. The moonlit September night on the bluff of Brush Creek was vividly recalled.
Owls need but to be more closely studied, and, if in confinement, to be treated with kindness and attended by one person, to demonstrate that all the wisdom seeming to lurk behind their expressive faces is really there. In matters of animal intelligence I know that I am heterodox, for I give the crow prominence equal to the parrot, and strongly doubt if owls should stand much behind them.
A Hidden Highway
A wide tract of meadows that skirt the river near my home, and upon which much wealth and labor have been expended in years past, was the abode of desolation in the eyes of the sturdy settlers two hundred years ago, and so treacherous the footing in every direction – so the record runs – that the hunted bears and deer would come to a stand rather than plunge headlong into the trackless waste. With proper caution the tract was finally explored, mapped, and ditched, and now there is small chance of disaster unless the rambler is culpably negligent.
I hold that one should think kindly of a ditch. The commonly imputed repulsiveness of such a waterway is more often wanting than present, and nearly all that I have seen have teemed with interesting life. What are the brooks, indeed, that turn a poet’s head, but Nature’s own ditches? As to those of man’s creation, they need but a little time, and they will assume every function of a natural watercourse.
As I stood recently upon rising ground overlooking a pasture meadow that was brown as a nut with its carpet of dead grass, I noticed a long, straight line of weed-like growths still showing a tinge of green, as if the frost had spared a narrow strip of the exposed tract. Viewing it from other points, it was evident that a ditch had once been dug where these ranker grasses grew, and through long neglect it had finally been choked with weeds and almost obliterated. It was a delightful discovery. Armed with a spade, a hoe, and sundry tools of greater or less efficiency, I set out to explore this one-time watercourse, thinking it child’s play to move tons of matted weeds and mud. How much or how little I accomplished it matters not, but the fierce onslaught of unreasoning enthusiasm broke in the door of a zoölogical El Dorado.
Jetsam and flotsam from the yearly freshets, showers of wind-tossed autumn leaves, a forest of rank growths that revel in the mud, all had added their quota, unchecked, to the baneful work of damming the little stream, which finally had been shut from view, but, as it proved, not wholly overcome. A narrow, tube-like channel still remained, with the mud below and upon each side almost as yielding as the water itself. Here fish, turtles, and creeping things innumerable not only lived, but wended their darksome way from the open ditch not far off to the basins of the sparkling springs at the hill-foot. I had discovered a hidden highway, a busy thoroughfare that teemed with active life.
Except with those forms of life that by their construction are solely adapted to a subterranean existence, as the earth-worm, or to a fixed one, as the oyster, we commonly associate our familiar forms of wild animals with unlimited freedom of movement, and suppose that they have the wide world before them to wander where they list; and, again, that of creatures as high in the scale as fishes and upward the supposition is that in proportion to their freedom of movement are their chances of escape when pursued. Now these, like many another common impression, are true in a general way, but fairly bristle with exceptions. For instance, there are many extremely sluggish fishes, yet what creatures are more agile and swift than the minnows in our brooks? And there are fishes that can walk on the mud with their bodies entirely out of the water. Dr. Gunther tells us that “the Barramunda is said to be in the habit of going on land, or at least on mud-flats; and this assertion appears to be borne out by the fact that it is provided with a lung… It is also said to make a grunting noise, which may be heard at night for some distance.”
So far Australia; and now what of New Jersey mud-flats and the fishes that frequent them? As I continued to explore the hidden highway of snakes, turtles, and fishes, I found in almost every spadeful of mud and matted weeds one or more brown-black fishes that were as much at home as ever an earth-worm in the firmer soil. Blunt-headed, cylindrical, thick-set, and strongly finned, these fishes were built to overcome many an obstacle that would prove insuperable to almost any other. How, indeed, they burrowed even in soft mud is not readily explained; that they do advance head-foremost into such a trackless mass is unquestionable.
How long these mud-fish tarry in such spots I can not say, but during the long-dry summer this one-time ditch must be almost as dry as dust, and then probably it is quite forsaken; but their powers of endurance may be underestimated. Of the African “Lepidosiren” Dr. Gunther remarks: “During the dry season specimens living in shallow waters which periodically dry up form a cavity in the mud, the inside of which they line with a protecting capsule of mucus, and from which they emerge again when the rains refill the pools inhabited by them. While they remain in this torpid state of existence the clay balls containing them are frequently dug out, and if the capsules are not broken the fishes imbedded in them can be transported to Europe, and released by being immersed in slightly tepid water.”
The many mud-fishes that I tossed upon the dead grass had clearly no liking for an atmospheric bath, and floundered about in a typical fish-like fashion; but not for long. Finding no open water near, they became quiet at once when by chance they fell into some little cavity of the mud masses from which the water had not drained. All such fortunate fishes seemed quite at ease, and remained motionless where their good luck had brought them; but the moment I attempted to pick them up they twisted like eels upon their muddy beds, and buried themselves head-foremost with a rapidity that was simply marvelous. This perhaps is what the reader would expect, but it struck me as a little strange, because, when I startled others of these fishes as they rested among the weeds or on the sand of the open ditches, they usually gave a twist of the tail that dug a pit in a twinkling, and in this the fishes sank, tail-foremost.
When in the mud these curious minnows can only feel their way, and if they procure any food at all at such a time it can only be such objects as come directly in contact with their mouths. But how different is it when these same fishes are in open water! They are expert fly-catchers then, and capture many an insect that would be lost to a trout or chub. They have not to wait for flies to fall upon the surface, but seize those that happen to alight upon overhanging blades of grass or any projecting twig. The distance that they will leap above the water is remarkable, the spring being preceded by a withdrawal from the object and a slight sigmoid curvature of the body, involving, I suppose, the same principle as that of a short run before jumping. Mud minnows two inches in length, which I kept in an aquarium, were proved capable of leaping above the water a distance equal to twice their length; but others, much larger, could not or would not leap so far. So far as my own observations extend, exhibitions of this leaping from the water to seize insects are not often witnessed, and it was my aquarium studies that led me to watch these fishes closely when in the muddy ponds and ditches. Once, when so engaged, I saw the following: One of these minnows, little more than an inch in length, sighted an insect at the same moment that it was seen by a huge female minnow more than thrice the other’s length. The little fellow had all the advantage, however, as it was much nearer the fly, and at the proper instant away it leaped, caught the insect, and sank back – but not to the water. That hungry ogress was willing to be fed by proxy, as it were, and, permitting the little minnow to swallow the fly, she promptly swallowed both.
Tiring of the fish at last, and having long since wearied of reopening the ditch, I turned my attention to the other creatures that I had unearthed. Among them were four species of turtles, each represented by several individuals. One of these was the Muhlenberg tortoise, the rarest of American chelonians. Probably just here, over a few hundred acres of the Delaware meadows, there are more of them than in the whole world besides. The fact of their great rarity makes them the more interesting to a naturalist; but to-day they proved exceedingly stupid, far more so than the others, which in a mild way resented my interference, and pranced over the dead grass quite energetically, reaching the nearest open ditch in good time, and to my surprise they all seemed governed by a sense of direction. They went but little if any out of their way. Not so with the “Muhlenbergs”; they seemed dazed for a long time, and finally, after much looking about, they started, the four together, in the wrong direction, and would have had a weary journey to reach open water. Again and again I faced them about, but they would not go as I wished. Such obstinate turtles I had never seen before, and I almost felt convinced that they were impelled by some common impression very different from that which actuated the others. As is often the case, I was all at sea in my efforts to interpret their purposes. Letting them alone, they waddled through the grass for a few yards only, when they reached little pools that met all their needs.
About what time the summer birds have arrived, and golden-club blooms in the tide-water creeks, gilding the mud-flats that have so long been bare, the turtles, or three at least of our eight aquatic species, begin “sunning” themselves, as it is usually said, but they continue the practice through rainy and cloudy days. Every projecting stump, stranded fence-rail or bit of lumber capable of bearing any weight is sure to be the resting-place of one, and if there is room, of a dozen turtles. I once counted seventeen on a fence-rail, and thirty-nine on a raft-log that the freshets had stranded on the meadows. Why, at such a time, should these creatures be so timid? They certainly have no enemies about here, and their horny shields would effectually protect them if fishing mammals like the mink and otter should acquire aldermanic tastes; and yet, so far as I can determine by experimentation, there is scarcely an animal more timid than the painted or spotted water-turtle. Fear, with nothing to be afraid of, is a contradiction, and I am led to suggest that the timidity is hereditary. Something over two centuries ago the Delaware Indians hunted and fished these meadows without ceasing; and there can still be gathered the bones of such animals as they ate from the ashes of their camp-fires. Turtle-bones almost equal in number those of our larger fishes. Have we a clew here to the mystery? Do the turtles of to-day inherit a fear of man? This may seem an absurdity, or verging toward it, but it is not. A critic at my elbow – a plague upon their race! – reminds me that I once commented upon the tameness of the turtles at Lake Hopatcong, in northern New Jersey, and adds, aggravatingly, that that region was a favorite resort of the Indians. If this stricture holds, then I can suggest for the Delaware Valley turtles that it is a fear, born with each generation, of the railway cars that hourly rumble over an elastic road-bed, and cause the whole meadows to tremble. Terror may seize the turtles when they feel their world shake beneath them, and this disturbance they may attribute to man’s presence. This is not so rational, and I do know that turtles distinguish between men and domestic animals. They are not afraid of cows; of this I have abundant proof, although I do not accept as true the remark of Miles Overfield: “Afeard o’ cattle? Not much. Why, I’ve seen tortles line a cow’s back, when she stood flank-deep in the water.”
I had noticed that the narrow, tube-like channel of the obliterated ditch grew less defined as I dug in one direction, so I paced off a rod in advance and made a cross-section. Here it could not be traced, but a half-dozen very small openings, circular in outline, could be seen, and through some of these the water slowly trickled. I found a single mole-cricket, and attribute to it and others of its kind these little tunnels. Certainly more persistent burrowers do not exist, and I have known them to cause mischief to a mill-dam which was attributed to musk-rats. “They are,” says Prof. Riley, “the true moles of the insect world, and make tortuous galleries, destroying everything that comes in their way, cutting through roots, and eating the fine underground twigs, as well as the worms and grubs, which they meet with during their burrowings.”
A volume would not suffice to enumerate the invertebrate or insect-like life that lived in this dark passage-way beneath the sod; nor do we wonder at finding such low forms groping in utter darkness; but why higher animals that are found, and far more frequently, in the open air and sunlit waters should delight to crowd these same gloomy quarters, is a problem not so easily solved. We are left to conjecture, and invariably do so, and are often overwhelmed when an army of objections confront our theories. Notwithstanding this, there is a pleasure in reopening an obliterated ditch, in letting in the light upon a hidden highway, for by so doing we also let in light upon ourselves, seeing with clearer vision the wonderful world about us.