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 WORKS. New Riverside Edition. With several 
 Portraits of Burroughs, and engraved Title-pages. 
 Printed from entirely new plates. 10 vols. i2mo, 
 cloth, gilt top, the set, $15.00, net ; uncut, paper 
 labels, #15.00, net ; half calf, gilt top, $30.00, net. 
 
 RlVERBY. 
 
 Wake-Robin. 
 
 Winter Sunshine. 
 
 Locusts and Wild Honey. 
 
 Fresh Fields. 
 
 Indoor Studies. 
 
 Birds and Poets, with Other Papers. 
 
 Pepacton, and Other Sketches. 
 
 Signs and Seasons. 
 
 Whitman : A Study. 
 
 The Same. Each volume, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25; the 
 set, 10 vols., uniform, $12.50; half calf, $22.50. 
 
 WAKE-ROBIN. Riverside Aldine Series. i6mo, 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 Boston and New York. 
 
PEPACTON 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN BURROUGHS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (£fre Iftrticrstbe press, Ca.nbntirrr 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1881. 1895, 
 By JOHN BURROUGHS, 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 I have all the more pleasure in calling my book 
 after the title of the first chapter, " Pepacton," be- 
 cause this is the Indian name of my native stream. 
 In its watershed I was born and passed my youth, 
 and here on its banks my kindred sleep. Here, also, 
 I have gathered much of the harvest, poor though 
 it be, that I have put in this and in previous vol- 
 umes of my writings. 
 
 The term " Pepacton " is said to mean " marriage 
 of the waters ; ' and with this significance it suits 
 my purpose well, as this book is also a union of many 
 currents. 
 
 The Pepacton rises' in a deep cleft or gorge in the 
 mountains, the scenery of which is of the wildest 
 and ruggedest character. For a mile or more there 
 is barely room for the road and the creek at the bot- 
 tom of the chasm. On either hand the mountains, 
 interrupted by shelving, overhanging precipices, rise 
 abruptly to a great height. About half a century 
 ago a pious Scotch family, just arrived in this coun- 
 try, came through this gorge. One of the little boys, 
 gazing upon the terrible desolation of the scene, 
 unlike in its savage and inhuman aspects anything 
 
 A 
 
vi PREFAl I 
 
 he had ever seen at home, nestled close to his mother, 
 and asked with bated breath, "Mither, is there a 
 God here ? " 
 
 Set the Pepacton is a placid current, especially in 
 its upper portions, where my youth fell ; but all its 
 tributaries are swift mountain brooks fed by springs 
 the best in the world. It drains a high pastoral 
 country Lifted into long, round-backed hills and rug- 
 ged, wooded ranges by the subsiding impulse of the 
 Catskill range of mountains, and famous for its supe- 
 rior dairy and other farm products. It is many long 
 years since, with the restlessness of youth, I broke 
 away from the old ties amid those hills ; but my 
 heart has always been there, and why should I not 
 come back and name one of my books for the old 
 stream ? 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Pepacton : A Summer Voyage .... 1 
 II. Springs .35 
 
 III. An Idyl of the Honey-Bee 53 
 
 IV. Nature and the Poets 79 
 
 V. Notes by the Way 115 
 
 VI. Footpaths 1"5 
 
 VII. A Bunch of Herrs 185 
 
 VIII. Winter Pictures 213 
 
 Index 235 
 
* C jj 
 
 PEPACTON 
 
 PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE 
 
 ~TT7~HEISr one summer day I bethought me of 
 * * a voyage down the east or Pepacton branch 
 of the Delaware, I seemed to want some excuse for 
 the start, some send-off, some preparation, to give 
 the enterprise genesis and head. This I found in 
 building my own boat. It was a happy thought. 
 How else should I have got under way, how else 
 should I have raised the breeze ? The boat-building 
 warmed the blood ; it made the germ take ; it whetted 
 my appetite for the voyage. There is nothing like 
 serving an apprenticeship to fortune, like earning 
 the right to your tools. In most enterprises the 
 temptation is always to begin too far along; we 
 want to start where somebody else leaves off. Go 
 back to the stump, and see what an impetus you 
 get. Those fishermen who wind their own flies 
 before they go a-fishing, — how they bring in tin- 
 trout; and those hunters who run their own bullets 
 or make their own cartridges, — the game is already 
 mortgaged to them. 
 
2 PEPACTON 
 
 When my boat was finished — and it was a very 
 simple affair — I was eager as a boy to be off; I 
 feared the river would all run by before I could wet 
 her bottom in it. This enthusiasm begat great 
 expectations of the trip. I should surely surprise 
 Nature and win some new secrets from her. I 
 should glide down noiselessly upon her and see 
 what all those willow screens and baffling curves 
 concealed. As a fisherman and pedestrian I had 
 been able to come at the stream only at certain 
 points: now the most private and secluded retreats 
 of the nymph would be opened to me ; every bend 
 and eddy, every cove hedged in by swamps or pas- 
 sage walled in by high alders, would be at the beck 
 of my paddle. 
 
 Whom shall one take with him when he goes 
 a-courting Nature 1 This is always a vital question. 
 There are persons who will stand between you and 
 that which you seek: they obtrude themselves; 
 they monopolize your attention; they blunt your 
 sense of the shy, half-revealed intelligences about 
 you. I want for companion a dog or a boy, or a 
 person who has the virtues of dogs and boys, — 
 transparency, good-nature, curiosity, open sense, 
 and a nameless quality that is akin to trees and 
 growths and the inarticulate forces of nature. With 
 him you are alone, and yet have company ; you are 
 free; you feel no disturbing element; the influences 
 of nature stream through him and around him; he 
 is a good conductor of the subtle fluid. The qual- 
 ity or qualification I refer to belongs to most per- 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 3 
 
 sons who spend their lives in the open air, — to 
 soldiers, hunters, fishers, laborers, and to artists 
 and poets of the right sort. How full of it, to 
 choose an illustrious example, was such a man as 
 Walter Scott! 
 
 But no such person came in answer to my prayer, 
 so I set out alone. 
 
 It was fit that I put my boat into the water at 
 Arkville, but it may seem a little incongruous that 
 I should launch her into Dry Brook ; yet Dry Brook 
 is here a fine large trout stream, and I soon found 
 its waters were wet enough for all practical pur- 
 poses. The Delaware is only one mile distant, and 
 I chose this as the easiest road from the station 
 to it. A young farmer helped me carry the boat to 
 the water, but did not stay to see me off; only 
 some calves feeding alongshore witnessed my em- 
 barkation. It would have been a godsend to boys, 
 but there were no boys about. I stuck on a rift 
 before I had gone ten yards, and saw with misgiv- 
 ing the paint transferred from the bottom of my 
 little scow to the tops of the stones thus early in 
 the journey. But I was soon making fair headway, 
 and taking trout for my dinner as I floated along. 
 My first mishap was when I broke the second joint 
 of my rod on a bass, and the first serious impedi- 
 ment to my progress was when I encountered the 
 trunk of a prostrate elm bridging the stream within 
 a few inches of the surface. My rod mended and 
 the elm cleared, I anticipated better sailing when 
 I should reach the Delaware itself; but I found on 
 
4 PEPACTOfl 
 
 this day and on subsequent days that the Delaware 
 has a way of dividing up that is very embarrassing 
 to the navigator. It is a stream of many minds: 
 its waters cannot long agree to go all in the same 
 channel, and whichever branch I took I was pretty 
 sure to wish I had taken one of the others. I was 
 constantly sticking on rifts, where I would have to 
 dismount, or running full tilt into willow banks, 
 where I would lose my hat or endanger my fishing- 
 tackle. On the whole, the result of my first day's 
 voyaging was not encouraging. I made barely eight 
 miles, and my ardor was a good deal dampened, to 
 say nothing about my clothing. In mid-afternoon 
 I went to a well-to-do-looking farmhouse and got 
 some milk, which I am certain the thrifty housewife 
 skimmed, for its blueness infected my spirits, and 
 I went into camp that night more than half per- 
 ided to abandon the enterprise in the morning. 
 The loneliness of the river, too, unlike that of the 
 fields and woods, to which I was more accustomed, 
 oppressed me. In the woods, things are close to 
 you, and you touch them and seem to interchange 
 something with them; but upon the river, even 
 though it be a narrow and shallow one like this, 
 you are more isolated, farther removed from the 
 soil and its attractions, and an easier prey to the 
 unsocial demons. The long, unpeopled vistas 
 ahead; the still, dark eddies; the endless monotone 
 and soliloquy of the stream; the unheeding rocks 
 basking like monsters along the shore, half out of 
 the water, half in ; a solitary heron starting up here 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 
 
 and there, as you rounded some point, and napping 
 disconsolately ahead till lost to view, or standing 
 like a gaunt spectre on the umbrageous side of the 
 mountain, his motionless form revealed against the 
 dark green as you passed; the trees and willows 
 and alders that hemmed you in on either side, and 
 hid the fields and the farmhouses and the road that 
 ran near by, — these things and others aided the 
 skimmed milk to cast a gloom over my spirits that 
 argued ill for the success of my undertaking. Those 
 rubber boots, too, that parboiled my feet and were 
 clogs of lead about them, — whose spirits are elastic 
 enough to endure them 1 A malediction upon the 
 head of him who invented them! Take your old 
 shoes, that will let the water in and let it out again, 
 rather than stand knee-deep all day in these extin- 
 guishers. 
 
 I escaped from the river, that first night, and 
 took to the woods, and profited by the change. In 
 the woods I was at home again, and the bed of 
 hemlock boughs salved my spirits. A cold spring 
 run came down off the mountain, and beside it, 
 underneath birches and helmocks, I improvised my 
 hearthstone. In sleeping on the ground it is a 
 great advantage to have a back-log; it braces and 
 supports you, and it is a bedfellow that will not 
 grumble when, in the middle of the night, you 
 crowd sharply up against it. It serves to keep in 
 the warmth, also. A heavy stone or other point de 
 resistance at your feet is also a help. Or, better 
 still, scoop out a little place in the earth, a iVw 
 
6 PEPACTON 
 
 inches deep, so as to admit your body from your 
 hips to your shoulders; you thus get an equal bear- 
 ing the whole length of you. I am told the West- 
 ern hunters and guides do this. On the same prin- 
 ciple, the sand makes a good bed, and the snow. 
 You make a mould in which you fit nicely. My 
 berth that night was between two logs that the 
 barkpeelers had stripped ten or more years before. 
 As they had left the bark there, and as hemlock 
 bark makes excellent fuel, I had more reasons than 
 one to be grateful to them. 
 
 In the morning I felt much refreshed, and as if 
 the night had tided me over the bar that threatened 
 to stay my progress. If I can steer clear of skimmed 
 milk, I said, I shall now finish the voyage of fifty 
 miles to Hancock with increasing pleasure. 
 
 When one breaks camp in the morning, he turns 
 back again and again to see what he has left. 
 Surely he feels he has forgotten something; what is 
 it? But it is only his own sad thoughts and mus- 
 ings he has left, the fragment of his life he has 
 lived there. Where he hung his coat on the tree, 
 where he slept on the boughs, where he made his 
 coffee or broiled his trout over the coals, where he 
 drank again and again at the little brown pool in 
 the spring run, where he looked long and long up 
 into the whispering branches overhead, he has left 
 what he cannot bring away with him, — the flame 
 and the ashes of himself. 
 
 Of certain game-birds it is thought that at times 
 they have the power of withholding their scent; no 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 7 
 
 hint or particle of themselves goes out upon the air. 
 I think there are persons whose spiritual pores are 
 always sealed up, and I presume they have the best 
 time of it. Their hearts never radiate into the 
 void; they do not yearn and sympathize without 
 return; they do not leave themselves by the way- 
 side as the sheep leaves her wool upon the brambles 
 and thorns. 
 
 This branch of the Delaware, so far as I could 
 learn, had never before been descended by a white 
 man in a boat. Rafts of pine and hemlock timber 
 are run down on the spring and fall freshets, but of 
 pleasure-seekers in boats I appeared to be the first. 
 Hence my advent was a surprise to most creatures 
 in the water and out. I surprised the cattle in the 
 field, and those ruminating leg-deep in the water 
 turned their heads at my approach, swallowed their 
 unfinished cuds, and scampered off as if they had 
 seen a spectre. I surprised the fish on their spawn- 
 ing beds and feeding grounds; they scattered, as 
 my shadow glided down upon them, like chickens 
 when a hawk appears. I surprised an ancient fish- 
 erman seated on a spit of gravelly beach, with his 
 back up stream, and leisurely angling in a deep, 
 still eddy, and mumbling to himself. As I slid 
 into the circle of his vision his grip on his pole 
 relaxed, his jaw dropped, and he was too bewil- 
 dered to reply to my salutation for some moments. 
 As I turned a bend in the river I looked back, and 
 saw him hastening away with great precipitation. 
 T presume he had angled there for forty years with- 
 
8 PEPACTON 
 
 out having his privacy thus intruded upon. I 
 surprised hawks and herons and kingfishers. I 
 came suddenly upon muskrats, and raced with them 
 down the rifts, they having no time to take to their 
 holes. At one point, as I rounded an elbow in the 
 stream, a black eagle sprang from the top of a dead 
 tree, and flapped hurriedly away. A kingbird gave 
 chase, and disappeared for some moments in the 
 gulf between the great wings of the eagle, and I 
 imagined him seated upon his back delivering his 
 puny blows upon the royal bird. I interrupted 
 two or three minks fishing and hunting alongshore. 
 They would dart under the bank when they saw 
 me, then presently thrust out their sharp, weasel- 
 like noses, to see if the danger was imminent. At 
 one point, in a little cove behind the willows, I 
 surprised some schoolgirls, with skirts amazingly 
 abbreviated, wading and playing in the water. 
 And as much surprised as any, I am sure, was that 
 hard-worked-looking housewife, when I came up 
 from under the bank in front of her house, and 
 with pail in hand appeared at her door and asked 
 for milk, taking the precaution to intimate that I 
 had no objection to the yellow scum that is supposed 
 to rise on a fresh article of that kind. 
 "What kind of milk do you want? " 
 "The best you have. Give me two quarts of 
 it," I replied. 
 
 "What do you want to do with it?' with an 
 anxious tone, as if I might want to blow up some- 
 thing or burn her barns with it. 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 9 
 
 "Oh, drink it," I answered, as if I frequently 
 put milk to that use. 
 
 " Well, I suppose I can get you some ; " and she 
 presently reappeared with swimming pail, with those 
 little yellow flakes floating about upon it that one 
 likes to see. 
 
 I passed several low dams the second day, but 
 had no trouble. I dismounted and stood upon the 
 apron, and the boat, with plenty of line, came over 
 as lightly as a chip, and swung around in the eddy 
 below like a steed that knows its master. In the 
 afternoon, while slowly drifting down a long eddy, 
 the moist southwest wind brought me the welcome 
 odor of strawberries, and running ashore by a 
 meadow, a short distance below, I was soon parting 
 the daisies and filling my cup with the dead-ripe 
 fruit. Berries, be they red, blue, or black, seem 
 like a special providence to the camper-out; they 
 are luxuries he has not counted on, and I prized 
 these accordingly. Later in the day it threatened 
 rain, and I drew up to shore under the shelter of 
 some thick overhanging hemlocks, and proceeded to 
 eat my berries and milk, glad of an excuse not to 
 delay my lunch longer. While tarrying here I 
 heard young voices up stream, and looking in that 
 direction saw two boys coming down the rapids on 
 rude floats. They were racing along at a lively 
 pace, each with a pole in his hand, dexterously 
 avoiding the rocks and the breakers, and schooling 
 themselves thus early in the duties and perils of the 
 raftsmen. As they saw me one observed to the 
 other, — 
 
10 PEPACTON 
 
 "There is the man we saw go by when we were 
 building our floats. If we had known he was com- 
 ing so far, maybe we could have got him to give 
 us a ride." 
 
 They drew near, guided their crafts to shore 
 beside me, and tied up, their poles answering for 
 hawsers. They proved to be Johnny and Denny 
 Dwire, aged ten and twelve. They were friendly 
 boys, and though not a bit bashful were not a bit 
 impertinent. And Johnny, who did the most of 
 the talking, had such a sweet, musical voice; it was 
 like a bird's. It seems Denny had run away, a day 
 or two before, to his uncle's, five miles above, and 
 Johnny had been after him, and was bringing his 
 prisoner home on a float; and it was hard to tell 
 which was enjoying the fun most, the captor or the 
 captured. 
 
 "Why did you run away 1 " said I to Denny. 
 
 "Oh, 'cause," replied he, with an air which said 
 plainly, "The reasons are too numerous to mention." 
 
 "Boys, you know, will do so, sometimes," said 
 Johnny, and he smiled upon his brother in a way 
 that made me think they had a very good under- 
 standing upon the subject. 
 
 They could both swim, yet their floats looked 
 very perilous, — three pieces of old plank or slabs, 
 with two cross-pieces and a fragment of a board for 
 a rider, and made without nails or withes. 
 
 "In some places, " said Johnny, "one plank was 
 here and another off there, but we managed, some- 
 how, to keep atop of them." 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 11 
 
 "Let's leave our floats here, and ride with him 
 the rest of the way," said one to the other. 
 
 "All right; may we, mister?" 
 
 I assented, and we were soon afloat again. How 
 they enjoyed the passage; how smooth it was; how 
 the boat glided along; how quickly she felt the 
 paddle ! They admired her much ; they praised my 
 steersmanship ; they praised my fish-pole and all 
 my fixings down to my hateful rubber boots. AYhen 
 we stuck on the rifts, as we did several times, they 
 leaped out quickly, with their bare feet and legs, 
 and pushed us off. 
 
 "I think," said Johnny, "if you keep her straight 
 and let her have her own way, she will find the 
 deepest water. Don't you, Denny?" 
 
 "I think she will," replied Denny; and I found 
 the boys were pretty nearly right. 
 
 I tried them on a point of natural history. I had 
 observed, coming along, a great many dead eels 
 lying on the bottom of the river, that I supposed 
 had died from spear wounds. "No," said Johnny, 
 "they are lamper-eels. They die as soon as they 
 have built their nests and laid their eggs. " 
 
 "Are you sure? " 
 
 "That 's what they all say, and I know they are 
 lampers. " 
 
 So I fished one up out of the deep water with 
 my paddle-blade and examined it; and sure enough 
 it was a lamprey. There was the row of holes 
 along its head, and its ugly suction mouth. I had 
 noticed their nests, too, all along, where the water 
 
12 PEPACTON 
 
 in the pools shallowed to a few feet and began to 
 hurry toward the rifts: they were low mounds of 
 small stones, as if a bushel or more of large pebbles 
 had been dumped upon the river bottom; occasion- 
 ally they were so near the surface as to make a big 
 ripple. The eel attaches itself to the stones by its 
 mouth, and thus moves them at will. An old fish- 
 erman told me that a strong man could not pull a 
 large lamprey loose from a rock to which it had 
 attached itself. It fastens to its prey in this way, 
 and sucks the life out. A friend of mine says he 
 once saw in the St. Lawrence a pike as long as his 
 arm with a lamprey eel attached to him. The fish 
 was nearly dead and was quite white, the eel had 
 so sucked out his blood and substance. The fish, 
 when seized, darts against rocks and stones, and 
 tries in vain to rub the eel off, then succumbs to 
 the sucker. 
 
 "The lampers do not all die," said Denny, "be- 
 cause they do not all spawn ; " and I observed that 
 the dead ones were all of one size and doubtless 
 of the same age. 
 
 The lamprey is the octopus, the devil-fish, of these 
 waters, and there is, perhaps, no tragedy enacted 
 here that equals that of one of these vampires slowly 
 sucking the life out of a bass or a trout. 
 
 My boys went to school part of the time. Did 
 they have a good teacher? 
 
 "Good enough for me," said Johnny. 
 
 " Good enough for me, " echoed Denny. 
 
 Just below Bark-a-boom — the name is worth 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 13 
 
 keeping — they left me. I was loath to part with 
 them; their musical voices and their thorough good- 
 fellowship had been very acceptable. With a little 
 persuasion, I think they would have left their home 
 and humble fortunes, and gone a-roving with me. 
 
 About four o'clock the warm, vapor-laden south- 
 west wind brought forth the expected thunder- 
 shower. I saw the storm rapidly developing behind 
 the mountains in my front. Presently I came in 
 sight of a long covered wooden bridge that spanned 
 the river about a mile ahead, and I put my paddle 
 into the water with all my force to reach this cover 
 before the storm. It was neck and neck most of 
 the way. The storm had the wind, and I had it 
 
 — in my teeth. The bridge was at Shavertown, 
 
 and it was by a close shave that I got under it 
 
 before the rain was upon me. How it poured and 
 
 rattled and whipped in around the abutment of the 
 
 bridge to reach me! I looked out well satisfied 
 
 upon the foaming water, upon the- wet, unpainted 
 
 houses and barns of the Shavertowners, and upon 
 
 the trees, 
 
 " Caught and cuffed by the gale." 
 
 Another traveler — the spotted-winged nighthawk 
 
 — was also roughly used by the storm. He faced 
 it bravely, and beat and beat, but was unable to 
 stem it, or even hold his own; gradually he drifted 
 back, till he was lost to sight in the wet obscurity. 
 The water in the river rose an inch while I waited, 
 about three quarters of an hour. Only one man, 
 I reckon, saw me in Shavertown, and he came and 
 
1 4 PEPACTON 
 
 gossiped with me from the bank above when the 
 storm had abated. 
 
 The second night I stopped at the sign of the 
 elm-tree. The woods were too wet, and I con- 
 cluded to make my boat my bed. A superb elm, 
 on a smooth grassy plain a few feet from the water's 
 edge, looked hospitable in the twilight, and I drew 
 my boat up beneath it. I hung my clothes on the 
 jagged edges of its rough bark, and went to bed 
 with the moon, "in her third quarter," peeping 
 under the branches upon me. I had been reading 
 Stevenson's amusing "Travels with a Donkey," and 
 the lines he pretends to quote from an old play kept 
 running in my head : — 
 
 " The bed was made, the room was fit, 
 By punctual eve the stars were lit; 
 The air was sweet, the water ran ; 
 No need was there for maid or man, 
 When we put up, my ass and I, 
 At God's green caravanserai." 
 
 But the stately elm played me a trick : it slyly and 
 at long intervals let great drops of water down upon 
 me, now with a sharp smack upon my rubber coat; 
 then with a heavy thud upon the seat in the bow or 
 stern of my boat ; then plump into my upturned ear, 
 or upon my uncovered arm, or with a ring into my 
 tin cup, or with a splash into my coffee-pail that 
 stood at my side full of water from a spring I had 
 just passed. After two hours' trial I found drop- 
 ping off to sleep, under such circumstances, was out 
 of the question; so I sprang up, in no very amiable 
 mood toward my host, and drew my boat clean from 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE l.j 
 
 under the elm. I had refreshing slumber thence- 
 forth, and the birds were astir in the morning long 
 before I was. 
 
 There is one way, at least, in which the denud- 
 ing the country of its forests has lessened the rain- 
 fall: in certain conditions of the atmosphere every 
 tree is a great condenser of moisture, as I had just 
 observed in the case of the old elm; little showers 
 are generated in their branches, and in the aggre- 
 gate the amount of water precipitated in this way 
 is considerable. Of a foggy summer morning one 
 may see little puddles of water standing on the 
 stones beneath maple-trees, along the street; and 
 in winter, when there is a sudden change from cold 
 to warm, with fog, the water fairly runs down the 
 trunks of the trees, and .streams from their naked 
 branches. The temperature of the tree is so much 
 below that of the atmosphere in such cases that the 
 condensation is very rapid. In lieu of these arboreal 
 rains we have the dew upon the grass, but it is 
 doubtful if the grass ever drips as does a tree. 
 
 The birds, I say, were astir in the morning before 
 I was, and some of them were more wakeful through 
 the night, unless they sing in their dreams. At 
 this season one may hear at intervals numerous bird 
 voices during the night. The whip-poor-will was 
 piping when I lay down, and I still heard one when 
 I woke up after midnight. I heard the song spar- 
 row and the kingbird also, like watchers calling the 
 hour, and several times I heard the cuckoo. In- 
 deed, I am convinced that our cuckoo is to a con- 
 
16 PEPACTON 
 
 siderable extent a night bird, and that he moves 
 about freely from tree to tree. His peculiar gut- 
 tural note, now here, now there, may be heard 
 almost any summer night, in any part of the coun- 
 try, and occasionally his better known cuckoo call. 
 He is a great recluse by day, but seems to wander 
 abroad freely by night. 
 
 The birds do indeed begin with the day. The 
 farmer who is in the field at work while he can yet 
 see stars catches their first matin hymns. In the 
 longest June days the robin strikes up about half 
 past three o'clock, and is quickly followed by the 
 song sparrow, the oriole, the catbird, the wren, the 
 wood thrush, and all the rest of the tuneful choir. 
 Along the Potomac I have heard the Virginia car- 
 dinal whistle so loudly and persistently in the tree- 
 tops above, that sleeping after four o'clock was out 
 of the question. Just before the sun is up, there 
 is a marked lull, during which, I imagine, the birds 
 are at breakfast. While building their nest, it is 
 very early in the morning that they put in their big 
 strokes; the back of their day's work is broken 
 before you have begun yours. 
 
 A lady once asked me if there was any individ- 
 uality among the birds, or if those of the same kind 
 were as near alike as two peas. I was obliged to 
 answer that to the eye those of the same species 
 were as near alike as two peas, but that in their 
 songs there were often marks of originality. Caged 
 or domesticated birds develop notes and traits of 
 their own, and among the more familiar orchard and 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 17 
 
 garden birds one may notice the same tendency. I 
 observe a great variety of songs, and even qualitii - 
 of voice, among the orioles and among the song 
 sparrows. On this trip my ear was especially 
 attracted to some striking and original sparrow 
 songs. At one point I was half afraid I had let 
 pass an opportunity to identify a new warbler, but 
 finally concluded it was a song sparrow. On an- 
 other occasion I used to hear day after day a spar- 
 row that appeared to have some organic defect in 
 its voice : part of its song was scarcely above a whis- 
 per, as if the bird was suffering from a very bad 
 cold. I have heard a bobolink and a hermit thrush 
 with similar defects of voice. I have heard a robin 
 with a part of the whistle of the quail in his song. 
 It was out of time and out of tune, but the robin 
 seemed insensible of the incongruity, and sang as 
 loudly and as joyously as any of his mates. A cat- 
 bird will sometimes show a special genius for mim- 
 icry, and I have known one to suggest very plainly 
 some notes of the bobolink. 
 
 There are numerous long covered bridges span- 
 ning the Delaware, and under some of these I saw 
 the cliff swallow at home, the nests being fastened 
 to the under sides of the timbers, — as it were, sus- 
 pended from the ceiling instead of being planted 
 upon the shelving or perpendicular side, as is usual 
 with them. To have laid the foundation, indeed, 
 to have sprung the vault downward and finished it 
 successfully, must have required special engineering 
 skill. I had never before seen or heard of these 
 
18 PEPACTON 
 
 nests being so placed. But birds are quick to adjust 
 their needs to the exigencies of any case. Not long 
 before, I had seen in a deserted house, on the head 
 of the Rondout, the chimney swallows entering the 
 chamber through a stove-pipe hole in the roof, and 
 gluing their nests to the sides of the rafters, like 
 the barn swallows. 
 
 I was now, on the third day, well down in the 
 wilds of Colchester, with a current that made 
 between two and three miles an hour, — just a sum- 
 mer idler's pace. The atmosphere of the river had 
 improved much since the first day, — was, indeed, 
 without taint, — and the water was sweet and good. 
 There were farmhouses at intervals of a mile or so; 
 but the amount of tillable land in the river valley 
 or on the adjacent mountains was very small. 
 Occasionally there would be forty or fifty acres of 
 flat, usually in grass or corn, with a thrifty looking 
 farmhouse. One could see how surely the land 
 made the house and its surrounding; good land 
 bearing good buildings, and poor land poor. 
 
 In mid-forenoon I reached the long placid eddy 
 at Downsville, and here again fell in with two boys. 
 They were out paddling about in a boat when I 
 drew near, and they evidently regarded me in the 
 light of a rare prize which fortune had wafted them. 
 
 "Ain't you glad we come, Benny? " I heard one 
 of them observe to the other, as they were conduct- 
 ing me to the best place to land. They were bright, 
 good boys, off the same piece as my acquaintances of 
 the day before, and about the same ages, — differ- 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE ]'.i 
 
 ing only in being village boys. With what curios- 
 ity they looked me over! Where had I come from ; 
 where was I going; how long had I been on the 
 way; who built my boat; was I a carpenter, to 
 build such a neat craft, etc. ? They never had seen 
 such a traveler before. Had I had no mishaps? 
 And then they bethought them of the dangerous 
 passes that awaited me, and in good faith began to 
 warn and advise me. They had heard the tales of 
 raftsmen, and had conceived a vivid idea of the 
 perils of the river below, gauging their notions of 
 it from the spring and fall freshets tossing about 
 the heavy and cumbrous rafts. There was a whirl- 
 pool, a rock eddy, and a binocle within a mile. 1 
 might be caught in the binocle, or engulfed in the 
 whirlpool, or smashed up in the eddy. But I felt 
 much reassured when they told me I had already 
 passed several whirlpools and rock eddies ; but that 
 terrible binocle, — what was that ? I had never 
 heard of such a monster. Oh, it was a still, miry 
 place at the head of a big eddy. The current might 
 carry me up there, but I could easily get out again ; 
 the rafts did. But there was another place I must 
 beware of, where two eddies faced each other ; rafts- 
 men were sometimes swept off there by the oars 
 and drowned. And when I came to rock eddy, 
 which I would know, because the river divided 
 there (a part of the water being afraid to risk the 
 eddy, I suppose), I must go ashore and survey the 
 pass; but in any case it would be prudent to keep 
 to the left. I might stick on the rift, but that was 
 
20 PEPACTON 
 
 nothing to being wrecked upon those rocks. The 
 boys were quite in earnest, and I told them I would 
 walk up to the village and post some letters to my 
 friends before I braved all these dangers. So they 
 marched me up the street, pointing out to their 
 chums what they had found. 
 
 "Going way to Phil — What place is that near 
 where the river goes into the sea 1 " 
 
 "Philadelphia?" 
 
 "Yes; thinks he may go way there. Won't he 
 have fun 1 " 
 
 The boys escorted me about the town, then back 
 to the river, and got in their boat and came down 
 to the bend, where they could see me go through 
 the whirlpool and pass the binocle (I am not sure 
 about the orthography of the word, but I suppose 
 it means a double, or a sort of mock eddy). I 
 looked back as I shot over the rough current beside 
 a gentle vortex, and saw them watching me with 
 great interest. Rock eddy, also, was quite harm- 
 less, and I passed it without any preliminary sur- 
 vey. 
 
 I nooned at Sodom, and found good milk in a 
 humble cottage. In the afternoon I was amused by 
 a great blue heron that kept flying up in advance 
 of me. Every mile or so, as I rounded some point, 
 I would come unexpectedly upon him, till finally 
 he grew disgusted with my silent pursuit, and took 
 a long turn to the left up along the side of the 
 mountain, and passed back up the river, uttering a 
 hoarse, low note. 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 21 
 
 The wind still boded rain, and about four o'clock, 
 announced by deep- toned thunder and portentous 
 clouds, it began to charge down the mountain-side 
 in front of me. I ran ashore, covered my traps, 
 and took my way up through an orchard to a quaint 
 little farmhouse. But there was not a soul about, 
 outside or in, that I could find, though the door 
 was unfastened; so I went into an open shed with 
 the hens, and lounged upon some straw, while the 
 unloosed floods came down. It was better than 
 boating or fishing. Indeed, there are few summer 
 pleasures to be placed before that of reclining at 
 ease directly under a sloping roof, after toil or 
 travel in the hot sun, and looking out into the rain- 
 drenched air and fields. It is such a vital yet 
 soothing spectacle. We sympathize with the earth. 
 We know how good a bath is, and the unspeakable 
 deliciousness of water to a parched tongue. The 
 office of the sunshine is slow, subtle, occult, unsus- 
 pected; but when the clouds do their work the 
 benefaction is so palpable and copious, so direct and 
 wholesale, that all creatures take note of it, and for 
 the most part rejoice in it. It is a completion, a 
 consummation, a paying of a debt with a royal hand ; 
 the measure is heaped and overflowing. It was the 
 simple vapor of water that the clouds borrowed of 
 the earth; now they pay back more than water: 
 the drops are charged with electricity and with the 
 gases of the air, and have new solvent i cowers. 
 Then, how the slate is sponged off, and left all 
 clean and new again! 
 
22 PEPACTON 
 
 In the shed where I was sheltered were many 
 relics and odds and ends of the farm. In juxtapo- 
 sition with two of the most stalwart wagon or truck- 
 wheels I ever looked upon, was a cradle of ancient 
 and peculiar make, — an aristocratic cradle, with 
 high-turned posts and an elaborately carved and 
 moulded body, that was suspended upon rods and 
 swung from the top. How I should have liked to 
 hear its history and the story of the lives it had 
 rocked, as the rain sang and the boughs tossed 
 without! Above it was the cradle of a phcebe-bird 
 saddled upon a stick that ran behind the rafter; its 
 occupants had not flown, and its story was easy to 
 read. 
 
 Soon after the first shock of the storm was over, 
 and before I could see breaking sky, the birds 
 tuned up with new ardor, — the robin, the indigo- 
 bird, the purple finch, the song sparrow, and in the 
 meadow below the bobolink. The cockerel near 
 me followed suit, and repeated his refrain till my 
 meditations were so disturbed that I was compelled 
 to eject him from the cover, albeit he had the best 
 right there. But he crowed his defiance with droop- 
 ing tail from the yard in front. I, too, had men- 
 tally crowed over the good fortune of the shower ; 
 but before I closed my eyes that night my crest was 
 a good deal fallen, and I could have wished the 
 friendly elements had not squared their accounts 
 quite so readily and uproariously. 
 
 The one shower did not exhaust the supply a bit ; 
 Nature's hand was full of trumps yet, — yea, and 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 23 
 
 her sleeve too. I stopped at a trout brook, which 
 came down out of the mountains on the right, and 
 took a few trout for my supper; but its current was 
 too roily from the shower for fly-fishing. Another 
 farmhouse attracted me, but there was no one at 
 home; so I picked a quart of strawberries in the 
 meadow in front, not minding the wet grass, and 
 about six o'clock, thinking another storm that had 
 been threatening on my right had miscarried, I 
 pushed off, and went floating down into the deep- 
 ening gloom of the river valley. The mountains, 
 densely wooded from base to summit, shut in the 
 view on every hand. They cut in from the right 
 and from the left, one ahead of the other, matching 
 like the teeth of an enormous trap; the river was 
 caught and bent, but not long detained, by them. 
 Presently I saw the rain creeping slowly over them 
 in my rear, for the wind had changed; but I appre- 
 hended nothing but a moderate sundown drizzle, 
 such as we often get from the tail end of a shower, 
 and drew up in the eddy of a big rock under an 
 overhanging tree till it should have passed. But 
 it did not pass; it thickened and deepened, and 
 reached a steady pour by the time I had calculated 
 the sun would be gilding the mountain-tops. I 
 had wrapped my rubber coat about my blankets and 
 groceries, and bared my back to the storm. In 
 sullen silence I saw the night settling down and the 
 rain increasing; my roof- tree gave way, and every 
 leaf poured its accumulated drops upon me. There 
 were streams and splashes where before there had 
 
% 
 
 24 PEPACTON 
 
 been little more than a mist. I was getting well 
 soaked and uncomplimentary in my remarks on the 
 weather. A saucy catbird, near by, flirted and 
 squealed very plainly, "There! there! What did 
 I tell you! what did I tell you! Pretty pickle! 
 pretty pickle ! pretty pickle to be in ! " But I had 
 been in worse pickles, though if the water had been 
 salt my pickling had been pretty thorough. Seeing 
 the wind was in the northeast, and that the weather 
 had fairly stolen a march on me, I let go my hold 
 of the tree, and paddled rapidly to the opposite 
 shore, which was low and pebbly, drew my boat 
 up on a little peninsula, turned her over upon a 
 spot which I cleared of its coarser stone, propped 
 up one end with the seat, and crept beneath. I 
 would now test the virtues of my craft as a roof, 
 and I found she was without flaw, though she was 
 pretty narrow. The tension of her timber was such 
 that the rain upon her bottom made a low, musical 
 hum. 
 
 Crouched on my blankets and boughs, — for I 
 had gathered a good supply of the latter before the 
 rain overtook me, — and dry only about my middle, 
 I placidly took life as it came. A great blue heron 
 flew by, and let off something like ironical horse 
 laughter. Before it became dark I proceeded to eat 
 my supper, — my berries, but not my trout. What 
 a fuss we make about the "hulls" upon strawber- 
 ries ! We are hypercritical ; we may yet be glad to 
 dine off the hulls alone. Some people see some- 
 thing to pick and carp at in every good that comes 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 25 
 
 to them; I was thankful that I had the berries, and 
 resolutely ignored their little scalloped ruffles, which 
 I found pleased the eye and did not disturb the palate. 
 When bedtime arrived, I found undressing a lit- 
 tle awkward, my berth was so low ; there was plenty 
 of room in the aisle, and the other passengers were 
 nowhere to be seen, but I did not venture out. It 
 rained nearly all night, but the train made good 
 speed, and reached the land of daybreak nearly on 
 time. The water in the river had crept up during 
 the night to within a few inches of my boat, but I 
 rolled over and took another nap, all the same. 
 Then I arose, had a delicious bath in the sweet, 
 swift-running current, and turned my thoughts 
 toward breakfast. The making of the coffee was 
 the only serious problem. With everything soaked 
 and a fine rain still falling, how shall one build a 
 fire? I made my way to a little island above in 
 quest of driftwood. Before I had found the wood 
 I chanced upon another patch of delicious wild 
 strawberries, and took an appetizer of them out of 
 hand. Presently I picked up a yellow birch stick 
 the size of my arm. The wood was decayed, but 
 the bark was perfect. I broke it in two, punched 
 out the rotten wood, and had the bark intact. The 
 fatty or resinous substance in this bark preserves it, 
 and makes it excellent kindling. With some sea- 
 soned twigs and a scrap of paper I soon had a fire 
 going that answered my every purpose. More ber- 
 ries were picked while the coffee was brewing, and 
 the breakfast was a success. 
 
26 PEPACTON 
 
 The camper-out often finds himself in what seems 
 a distressing predicament to people seated in their 
 snug, well-ordered houses; but there is often a real 
 
 satisfaction when things come to their worst, a 
 
 satisfaction in seeing what a small matter it is, after 
 all; that one is really neither sugar nor salt, to be 
 afraid of the wet; and that life is just as well worth 
 living beneath a scow or a dug-out as beneath the 
 highest and broadest roof in Christendom. 
 
 By ten o'clock it became necessary to move, on 
 account of the rise of the water, and as the rain had 
 abated I picked up and continued my journey. 
 Before long, however, the rain increased again, and 
 I took refuge in a barn. The snug, tree-embowered 
 farmhouse looked very inviting, just across the road 
 from the barn; but as no one was about, and no 
 faces appeared at the window that I might judge of 
 the inmates, I contented myself with the hospital- 
 ity the barn offered, filling my pockets with some 
 dry birch shavings I found there where the farmer 
 had made an ox-yoke, against the needs of the next 
 kindling. 
 
 After an hour's detention I was off again. I 
 stopped at Baxter's Brook, which flows hard by the 
 classic hamlet of Harvard, and tried for trout, but 
 with poor success, as I did not think it worth while 
 to go far up stream. 
 
 At several points I saw rafts of hemlock lumber 
 tied to the shore, ready to take advantage of the 
 first freshet. Kafting is an important industry for 
 a hundred miles or more along the Delaware. The 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 27 
 
 lumbermen sometimes take their families or friends, 
 and have a jollification all the way to Trenton or to 
 Philadelphia. In some places the speed is very- 
 great, almost equaling that of an express train. 
 The passage of such places as Cochecton Falls and 
 "Foul Kift" is attended with no little danger. 
 The raft is guided by two immense oars, one before 
 and one behind. I frequently saw these huge im- 
 plements in the driftwood alongshore, suggesting 
 some colossal race of men. The raftsmen have 
 names of their own. From the upper Delaware, 
 where I had set in, small rafts are run down which 
 they call "colts." They come frisking down at a 
 lively pace. At Hancock they usually couple two 
 rafts together, when I suppose they have a span of 
 colts ; or do two colts make one horse ? Some parts 
 of the framework of the raft they call "grubs;" 
 much depends upon these grubs. The lumbermen 
 were and are a hardy, virile race. The Hon. Charles 
 Knapp, of Deposit, now eighty-three years of age, 
 but with the look and step of a man of sixty, told 
 me he had stood nearly all one December day in the 
 water to his waist, reconstructing his raft, which had 
 gone to pieces on the head of an island. Mr. Knapp 
 had passed the first half of his life in Colchester and 
 Hancock, and, although no sportsman, had once taken 
 part in a great bear hunt there. The bear was an 
 enormous one, and was hard pressed by a gang of 
 men and dogs. Their muskets and assaults upon 
 the beast with clubs had made no impression. Mr. 
 Knapp saw where the bear was coming, and he 
 
28 PEPACTON 
 
 thought he would show them how easy it was to 
 dispatch a bear with a club, if you only knew where 
 to strike. He had seen how quickly the largest hog 
 would wilt beneath a slight blow across the "small 
 of the back." So, armed with an immense hand- 
 spike, he took up a position by a large rock that the 
 bear must pass. On she came, panting and nearly 
 exhausted, and at the right moment down came the 
 club with great force upon the small of her back. 
 "If a fly had alighted upon her," said Mr. Knapp, 
 "I think she would have paid just as much attention 
 to it as she did to me." 
 
 Early in the afternoon I encountered another 
 boy, Henry Ingersoll, who was so surprised by my 
 sudden and unwonted appearance that he did not 
 know east from west. "Which way is west?" I 
 inquired, to see if my own head was straight on the 
 subject. 
 
 "That way," he said, indicating east within a 
 few degrees. 
 
 "You are wrong," I replied. "Where does the 
 sun rise ? " 
 
 "There," he said, pointing almost in the direc- 
 tion he had pointed before. 
 
 "But does not the sun rise in the east here as 
 well as elsewhere? " I rejoined. 
 
 "Well, they call that west, anyhow." 
 
 But Henry's needle was subjected to a disturbing 
 influence just then. His house was near the river, 
 and he was its sole guardian and keeper for the 
 time; his father had gone up to the next neighbor's 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 29 
 
 (it was Sunday), and his sister had gone with the 
 schoolmistress down the road to get "black birch. 
 He came out in the road, with wide eyes, to view 
 me as I passed, when I drew rein, and demanded 
 the points of the compass, as above. Then I shook 
 my sooty pail at him and asked for milk. Yes, I 
 could have some milk, but I would have to wait till 
 his sister came back; after he had recovered a little, 
 he concluded he could get it. He came for my 
 pail, and then his boyish curiosity appeared. My 
 story interested him immensely. He had seen 
 twelve summers, but he had only been four miles 
 from home up and down the river: he had been 
 down to the East Branch, and he had been up to 
 Trout Brook. He took a pecuniary interest in me. 
 What did my pole cost? What my rubber coat, 
 and what my revolver ? The latter he must take in 
 his hand; he had never seen such a thing to shoot 
 with before in his life, etc. He thought I might 
 make the trip cheaper and easier by stage and by 
 the cars. He went to school: there were six schol- 
 ars in summer, one or two more in winter. The 
 population is not crowded in the town of Hancock, 
 certainly, and never will be. The people live close 
 to the bone, as Thoreau would say, or rather close 
 to the stump. Many years ago the young men 
 there resolved upon having a ball. They concluded 
 not to go to a hotel, on account of the expense, and 
 so chose a private house. There was a man in the 
 neighborhood who could play the fife; he olfered to 
 furnish the music for seventy-five cents. But this 
 
30 PEPACTON 
 
 was deemed too much, so one of the party agreed to 
 whistle. History does not tell how many beaux 
 there were bent upon this reckless enterprise, but 
 there were three girls. For refreshments they 
 bought a couple of gallons of whiskey and a few 
 pounds of sugar. When the spree was over, and 
 the expenses were reckoned up, there was a shilling 
 — a York shilling — apiece to pay. Some of the 
 revelers were dissatisfied with this charge, and inti- 
 mated that the managers had not counted themselves 
 in, but taxed the whole expense upon the rest of 
 the party. 
 
 As I moved on I saw Henry's sister and the 
 schoolmistress picking their way along the muddy 
 road near the river's bank. One of them saw me, 
 and, dropping her skirts, said to the other (I could 
 read the motions), "See that man!" The other 
 lowered her flounces, and looked up and down the 
 road, then glanced over into the field, and lastly 
 out upon the river. They paused and had a good 
 look at me, though I could see that their impulse to 
 run away, like that of a frightened deer, was strong. 
 
 At the East Branch the Big Beaver Kill joins 
 the Delaware, almost doubling its volume. Here I 
 struck the railroad, the forlorn Midland, and here 
 another set of men and manners cropped out, — 
 what may be called the railroad conglomerate over- 
 lying this mountain freestone. 
 
 "Where did you steal that boat?" and "What 
 you running away for ? " greeted me from a hand- 
 car that went by. 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 31 
 
 I paused for some time and watched the fish 
 hawks, or ospreys, of which there were nearly a 
 dozen sailing about above the junction of the two 
 streams, squealing and diving, and occasionally 
 striking a fish on the rifts. I am convinced that 
 the fish hawk sometimes feeds on the wing. I saw 
 him do it on this and on another occasion. He 
 raises himself by a peculiar motion, and brings his 
 head and his talons together, and apparently takes 
 a bite of a fish. While doing this his flight pre- 
 1 sents a sharply undulating line ; at the crest of each 
 rise the morsel is taken. 
 
 In a long, deep eddy under the west shore I 
 came upon a brood of wild ducks, the hooded mer- 
 ganser. The young were about half grown, but of 
 course entirely destitute of plumage. They started 
 off at great speed, kicking the water into foam 
 behind them, the mother duck keeping upon their 
 flank and rear. Near the outlet of the pool I saw 
 them go ashore, and I expected they would conceal 
 themselves in the woods; but as I drew near the 
 place they came out, and I saw by their motions 
 they were going to make a rush by me up stream. 
 At a signal from the old one, on they came, and 
 passed within a few feet of me. It was almost 
 incredible, the speed they made. Their pink feet 
 were like swiftly revolving wheels placed a little to 
 the rear; their breasts just skimmed the surface, 
 and the water was beaten into spray behind them. 
 They had no need of wings; even the mother bird 
 did not use hers; a steamboat could hardly have 
 
32 PEPACTON 
 
 kept up with them, I dropped my paddle and 
 cheered. They kept the race up for a long dis- 
 tance, and I saw them making a fresh spirt as I 
 entered upon the rift and dropped quickly out of 
 sight. I next disturbed an eagle in his meditations 
 upon a dead treetop, and a cat sprang out of some 
 weeds near the foot of the tree. Was he watching 
 for puss, while she was watching for some smaller 
 prey? 
 
 I passed Partridge Island — which is or used to 
 be the name of a post-office — unwittingly, and 
 encamped for the night on an island near Hawk's 
 Point. I slept in my boat on the beach, and in 
 the morning my locks were literally wet with the 
 dews of the night, and my blankets too ; so I waited 
 for the sun to dry them. As I was gathering drift- 
 wood for a fire, a voice came over from the shadows 
 of the east shore : " Seems to me you lay abed pretty 
 late ! " 
 
 "I call this early," I rejoined, glancing at the 
 sun. 
 
 "Wall, it may be airly in the forenoon, but it 
 ain't very airly in the mornin' ; " a distinction I 
 was forced to admit. Before I had reembarked 
 some cows came down to the shore, and I watched 
 them ford the river to the island. They did it 
 with great ease and precision. I was told they will 
 sometimes, during high water, swim over to the 
 islands, striking in well up stream, and swimming 
 diagonally across. At one point some cattle had 
 crossed the river, and evidently got into mischief, 
 
A SUMMER VOYAGE 33 
 
 for a large dog rushed them down the bank into the 
 current, and worried them all the way over, part 
 of the time swimming and part of the time leaping 
 very high, as a dog will in deep snow, coming down 
 with a great splash. The cattle were shrouded with 
 spray as they ran, and altogether it was a novel 
 picture. 
 
 My voyage ended that forenoon at Hancock, and 
 was crowned by a few idyllic days with some friends 
 in their cottage in the woods by Lake Oquaga, a 
 body of crystal water on the hills near Deposit, and 
 a haven as peaceful and perfect as voyager ever 
 came to port in. 
 
n 
 
 SPRINGS 
 I '11 show thee the best springs. — Tempest. 
 
 AMAIN" who came back to the place of his birth 
 in the East, after an absence of a quarter of 
 a century in the West, said the one thing he most 
 desired to see about the old homestead was the 
 spring. This, at least, he would find unchanged. 
 Here his lost youth would come back to him. The 
 faces of his father and mother he might not look 
 upon; but the face of the spring, that had mirrored 
 theirs and his own so oft, he fondly imagined would 
 beam on him as of old. I can well believe that, in 
 that all but springless country in which he had cast 
 his lot, the vision, the remembrance, of the fountain 
 that flowed by his father's doorway, so prodigal of 
 its precious gifts, has awakened in him the keenest 
 longings and regrets. 
 
 Did he not remember the path, also ? for next to 
 the spring itself is the path that leads to it. In- 
 deed, of all foot paths, the spring path is the most 
 suggestive. 
 
 This is a path with something at the end of it, 
 and the best of good fortune awaits him who walks 
 therein. It is a well-worn path, and, though gen- 
 
36 PEPACTON 
 
 erally up or down a hill, it is the easiest of all paths 
 to travel: we forget our fatigue when going to the 
 spring, and we have lost it when we turn to come 
 away. See with what alacrity the laborer hastens 
 along it, all sweaty from the fields; see the boy or 
 girl running with pitcher or pail; see the welcome 
 shade of the spreading tree that presides over its 
 marvelous birth! 
 
 In the woods or on the mountain-side, follow the 
 path and you are pretty sure to find a spring; all 
 creatures are going that way night and day, and 
 they make a path. 
 
 A spring is always a vital point in the landscape; 
 it is indeed the eye of the fields, and how often, 
 too, it has a noble eyebrow in the shape of an over- 
 hanging bank or ledge ! Or else its site is marked 
 by some tree which the pioneer has wisely left 
 standing, and which sheds a coolness and freshness 
 that make the water more sweet. In the shade of 
 this tree the harvesters sit and eat their lunch, and 
 look out upon the quivering air of the fields. Here 
 the Sunday saunterer stops and lounges with his 
 book, and bathes his hands and face in the cool 
 fountain. Hither the strawberry-girl comes with 
 her basket and pauses a moment in the green shade. 
 The plowman leaves his plow, and in long strides 
 approaches the life-renewing spot, while his team, 
 that cannot follow, look wistfully after him. Here 
 the cattle love to pass the heat of the day, and 
 hither come the birds to wash themselves and make 
 their toilets. 
 
SPRINGS 37 
 
 Indeed, a spring is always an oasis in the desert 
 of the fields. It is a creative and generative centre. 
 It attracts all things to itself, — the grasses, the 
 mosses, the flowers, the wild plants, the great trees. 
 The walker finds it out, the camping party seek it, 
 the pioneer builds his hut or his house near it. 
 When the settler or squatter has found a good 
 spring, he has found a good place to begin life; he 
 has found the fountain-head of much that he is 
 seeking in this world. The chances are that he has 
 found a southern and eastern exposure, for it is a 
 fact that water does not readily flow north; the 
 valleys mostly open the other way ; and it is quite 
 certain he has found a measure of salubrity, for 
 where water flows fever abideth not. The spring, 
 too, keeps him to the right belt, out of the low 
 valley, and off the top of the hill. 
 
 When John Winthrop decided upon the site 
 where now stands the city of Boston, as a proper 
 place for a settlement, he was chiefly attracted by 
 a large and excellent spring of water that flowed 
 there. The infant city was born of this fountain. 
 
 There seems a kind of perpetual springtime about 
 the place where water issues from the ground, — a 
 freshness and a greenness that are ever renewed. 
 The grass never fades, the ground is never parched 
 or frozen. There is warmth there in winter and 
 coolness in summer. The temperature is equalized. 
 In March or April the spring runs are a bright 
 emerald, while the surrounding fields are yet brown 
 and sere, and in fall they are yet green when the. 
 
38 PEPACTON 
 
 first snow covers them. Thus every fountain by 
 the roadside is a fountain of youth and of life. 
 This is what the old fables finally mean. 
 
 An intermittent spring is shallow; it has no deep 
 root, and is like an inconstant friend. But a peren- 
 nial spring, one whose ways are appointed, whose 
 foundation is established, what a profound and beau- 
 tiful symbol! In fact, there is no more large and 
 universal symbol in nature than the spring, if there 
 is any other capable of such wide and various appli- 
 cations. 
 
 What preparation seems to have been made for 
 it in the conformation of the ground, even in the 
 deep underlying geological strata! Vast rocks and 
 ledges are piled for it, or cleft asunder that it may 
 find a way. Sometimes it is a trickling thread of 
 silver down the sides of a seamed and scarred preci- 
 pice. Then again the stratified rock is like a just- 
 lifted lid, from beneath which the water issues. 
 Or it slips noiselessly out of a deep dimple in the 
 fields. Occasionally it bubbles up in the valley, 
 as if forced up by the surrounding hills. Many 
 springs, no doubt, find an outlet in the beds of the 
 large rivers and lakes, and are unknown to all but 
 the fishes. They probably find them out and make 
 much of them. The trout certainly do. Find a 
 place in the creek where a spring issues, or where 
 it flows into it from a near bank, and you have 
 found a most likely place for trout. They deposit 
 their spawn there in the fall, warm their noses there 
 in winter, and cool themselves there in summer. I 
 
SPRINGS 39 
 
 have seen the patriarchs of the tribe of an old and 
 much-fished stream, seven or eight enormous fel- 
 lows, congregated in such a place. The boys found 
 it out, and went with a bag and bagged them all. 
 In another place a trio of large trout, that knew 
 and despised all the arts of the fishermen, took up 
 their abode in a deep, dark hole in the edge of the 
 wood, that had a spring flowing into a shallow part 
 of it. In midsummer they were wont to come out 
 from their safe retreat and bask in the spring, their 
 immense bodies but a few inches under water. A 
 youth, who had many times vainly sounded their 
 dark hiding-place with his hook, happening to come 
 along with his rifle one day, shot the three, one 
 after another, killing them by the concussion of the 
 bullet on the water immediately over them. 
 
 The ocean itself is known to possess springs, 
 copious ones, in many places the fresh water rising 
 up through the heavier salt as through a rock, and 
 affording supplies to vessels at the surface. Off the 
 coast of Florida many of these submarine springs 
 have been discovered, the outlet, probably, of the 
 streams and rivers that disappear in the "sinks" of 
 that State. 
 
 It is a pleasant conception, that of the unscien- 
 tific folk, that the springs are fed directly by the 
 sea, or that the earth is full of veins or arteries 
 that connect with the great reservoir of waters. 
 But when science turns the conception over and 
 makes the connection in the air, — disclosing the 
 great water-main in the clouds, and that the mighty 
 
40 PEPACTON 
 
 engine of the hydraulic system of nature is the sun, 
 — the fact becomes even more poetical, does it not? 
 This is one of the many cases where science, instead 
 of curtailing the imagination, makes new and large 
 demands upon it. 
 
 The hills are great sponges that do not and can- 
 not hold the water that is precipitated upon them, 
 but that let it filter through at the bottom. This 
 is the way the sea has robbed the earth of its vari- 
 ous salts, its potash, its lime, its magnesia, and 
 many other mineral elements. It is found that the 
 oldest upheavals, those sections of the country that 
 have been longest exposed to the leeching and wash- 
 ing of the rains, are poorest in those substances that 
 go to the making of the osseous framework of man 
 and of the animals. Wheat does not grow well 
 there, and the men born and reared there are apt to 
 have brittle bones. An important part of those 
 men went down stream ages before they were born. 
 The water of such sections is now soft and free from 
 mineral substances, but not more wholesome on that 
 account. 
 
 The gigantic springs of the country that have 
 not been caught in any of the great natural basins 
 are mostly confined to the limestone region of the 
 Middle and Southern States, — the valley of Vir- 
 ginia and its continuation and deflections into Ken- 
 tucky, Tennessee, Northern Alabama, Georgia, and 
 Florida. Through this belt are found the great 
 caves and the subterranean rivers. The waters 
 have here worked like enormous moles, and have 
 
SPRINGS 41 
 
 honeycombed the foundations of the earth. They 
 have great highways beneath the hills. Water 
 charged with carbonic acid gas has a very sharp 
 tooth and a powerful digestion, and no limestone 
 rock can long resist it. Sherman's soldiers tell of 
 a monster spring in Northern Alabama, — a river 
 leaping full-grown from the bosom of the earth; 
 and of another at the bottom of a large, deep pit 
 in the rocks, that continues its way under ground. 
 
 There are many springs in Florida of this charac- 
 ter, large underground streams that have breathing 
 holes, as it were, here and there. In some places 
 the water rises and fills the bottoms of deep bowl- 
 shaped depressions; in other localities it is reached 
 through round natural well-holes; a bucket is let 
 down by a rope, and if it becomes detached is 
 quickly swept away by the current. Some of the 
 Florida springs are perhaps the largest in the world, 
 affording room and depth enough for steamboats to 
 move and turn in them. Green Cove Spring is 
 said to be like a waterfall reversed ; a cataract rush- 
 ing upward through a transparent liquid instead of 
 leaping downward through the air. There are one 
 or two of these enormous springs also in Northern 
 Mississippi, — springs so large that it seems as if 
 the whole continent must nurse them. 
 
 The Valley of the Shenandoah is remarkable for 
 its large springs. The town of Winchester, a town 
 of several thousand inhabitants, is abundantly sup- 
 plied with water from a single spring that issues on 
 higher ground near by. Several other springs in 
 
42 PEPACTON 
 
 the vicinity afford rare mill-power. At Harrison- 
 burg, a county town farther up the valley, I was 
 attracted by a low ornamental dome resting upon a 
 circle of columns, on the edge of the square that 
 contained the court-house, and was surprised to find 
 that it gave shelter to an immense spring. This 
 spring was also capable of watering the town or 
 several towns; stone steps lead down to it at the 
 bottom of a large stone basin. There was a pretty 
 constant string of pails to and from it. Aristotle 
 called certain springs of his country "cements of 
 society," because the young people so frequently 
 met there and sang and conversed ; and I have little 
 doubt this spring is of like social importance. 
 
 There is a famous spring at San Antonio, Texas, 
 which is described by that excellent traveler, Fred- 
 erick Law Olmsted. "The whole river," he says, 
 "gushes up in one sparkling burst from the earth, 
 with all the accessories of smaller springs, — moss, 
 pebbles, foliage, seclusion, etc. Its effect is over- 
 powering. It is beyond your possible conception of 
 a spring." 
 
 Of like copiousness and splendor is the Caledonia 
 spring, or springs, in Western New York. They 
 give birth to a white-pebbled, transparent stream, 
 several rods wide and two or three feet deep, that 
 flows eighty barrels of water per second, and is alive 
 with trout. The trout are fat and gamy even in 
 winter. 
 
 The largest spring in England, called the Well 
 of St. Winifred, at Holywell, flows less than three 
 
SPRINGS l:; 
 
 barrels per second. I recently went many miles out 
 of my way to see the famous trout spring in Warren 
 County, New Jersey. This spring flows about one 
 thousand gallons of water per minute, which has a 
 uniform temperature of fifty degrees winter and 
 summer. It is near the Musconetcong Creek, which 
 looks as if it were made up of similar springs. On 
 the parched and sultry summer day upon which my 
 visit fell, it was well worth walking many miles 
 just to see such a volume of water issue from the 
 ground. I felt with the boy Petrarch, when he 
 first beheld a famous spring, that "were I master 
 of such a fountain I would prefer it to the finest of 
 cities." A large oak leans down over the spring 
 and affords an abundance of shade. The water does 
 not bubble up, but comes straight out with great 
 speed, like a courier with important news, and as if 
 its course underground had been a direct and an 
 easy one for a long distance. Springs that issue in 
 this way have a sort of vertebra, a ridgy and spine- 
 like centre that suggests the gripe and push there 
 is in this element. 
 
 What would one not give for such a spring in 
 his back yard, or front yard, or anywhere near his 
 house, or in any of his fields'? One would be 
 tempted to move his house to it, if the spring could 
 not be brought to the house. Its mere poetic value 
 and suggestion would be worth all the art and orna- 
 ment to be had. It would irrigate one's heart and 
 character as well as his acres. Then one might have 
 a Naiad Queen to do his churning and to saw his 
 
44 PEPACTON 
 
 wood; then one might "see his chore done by the 
 gods themselves," as Emerson says, or by the 
 nymphs, which is just as well. 
 
 I know a homestead, situated on one of the pic- 
 turesque branch valleys of the Housatonic, that has 
 such a spring flowing by the foundation walls of 
 the house, and not a little of the strong overmaster- 
 ing local attachment that holds the owner there is 
 born of that, his native spring. He could not, if 
 he would, break from it. He says that when he 
 looks down into it he has a feeling that he is an 
 amphibious animal that has somehow got stranded. 
 A long, gentle flight of stone steps leads from the 
 back porch down to it under the branches of a lofty 
 elm. It wells up through the white sand and 
 gravel as through a sieve, and fills the broad space 
 that has been arranged for it so gently and imper- 
 ceptibly that one does not suspect its copiousness 
 until he has seen the overflow. It turns no wheel, 
 yet it lends a pliant hand to many of the affairs of 
 that household. It is a refrigerator in summer and 
 a frost-proof envelope in winter, and a fountain of 
 delights the year round. Trout come up from the 
 Weebutook Eiver and dwell there and become do- 
 mesticated, and take lumps of butter from your 
 hand, or rake the ends of your fingers if you tempt 
 them. It is a kind of sparkling and ever-washed 
 larder. Where are the berries ? where is the but- 
 ter, the milk, the steak, the melon 1 In the spring. 
 It preserves, it ventilates, it cleanses. It is a board 
 of health and general purveyor. It is equally for 
 
SPRINGS 45 
 
 use and for pleasure. Nothing degrades it, and 
 nothing can enhance its beauty. It is picture and 
 parable, and an instrument of music. It is servant 
 and divinity in one. The milk of forty cows is 
 cooled in it, and never a drop gets into the cans, 
 though they are plunged to the brim. It is as 
 insensible to drought and rain as to heat and cold. 
 It is planted upon the sand, and yet it abideth like 
 a house upon a rock. It evidently has some rela- 
 tion to a little brook that flows down through a 
 deep notch in the hills half a mile distant, because 
 on one occasion, when the brook was being ditched 
 or dammed, the spring showed great perturbation. 
 Every nymph in it was filled with sudden alarm 
 and kicked up a commotion. 
 
 In some sections of the country, when there is 
 no spring near the house, the farmer, with much 
 labor and pains, brings one from some uplying field 
 or wood. Pine and poplar logs are bored and laid 
 in a trench, and the spring practically moved to the 
 desired spot. The ancient Persians had a law that 
 whoever thus conveyed the water of a spring to a 
 spot not watered before should enjoy many immu- 
 nities under the state not granted to others. 
 
 Hilly and mountainous countries do not always 
 abound in good springs. When the stratum is ver- 
 tical, or has too great a dip, the water is not col- 
 lected in large veins, but is rather held as it falls 
 and oozes out slowly at the surface over the top of 
 the rock. On this account one of the most famous 
 grass and dairy sections of New York is poorly sup- 
 
46 PEPACTON 
 
 plied with springs. Every creek starts in a bog or 
 marsh, and good water can be had only by excavat- 
 ing. 
 
 What a charm lurks about those springs that are 
 found near the tops of mountains, so small that 
 they get lost amid the rocks and ddbris and never 
 reach the valley, and so cold that they make the 
 throat ache! Every hunter and mountain-climber 
 can tell you of such, usually on the last rise before 
 the summit is cleared. It is eminently the hunter's 
 spring. I do not know whether or not the foxes 
 and other wild creatures lap at it, but their pursuers 
 are quite apt to pause there and take breath or eat 
 their lunch. The mountain-climbers in summer 
 hail it with a shout. It is always a surprise, and 
 raises the spirits of the dullest. Then it seems to 
 be born of wildness and remoteness, and to savor of 
 some special benefit or good fortune. A spring in 
 the valley is an idyl, but a spring on the mountain 
 is a genuine lyrical touch. It imparts a mild thrill ; 
 and if one were to call any springs "miracles," as 
 the natives of Cashmere are said to regard their 
 fountains, it would be such as these. 
 
 What secret attraction draws one in his summer 
 walk to touch at all the springs on his route, and 
 to pause a moment at each, as if what he was in 
 quest of would be likely to turn up there ? I can 
 seldom pass a spring without doing homage to it. 
 It is the shrine at which I oftenest worship. If I 
 find one fouled with leaves or trodden full by cattle, 
 I take as much pleasure in cleaning it out as a 
 
SPRINGS 47 
 
 devotee in setting up the broken image of his saint. 
 Though I chance not to want to drink there, I like 
 to behold a clear fountain, and I may want to drink 
 next time I pass, or some traveler, or heifer, or 
 milch cow may. Leaves have a strange fatality for 
 the spring. They come from afar to get into it. 
 In a grove or in the woods they drift into it and 
 cover it up like snow. Late in November, in clear- 
 ing one out, I brought forth a frog from his hiber- 
 nacle in the leaves at the bottom. He was very 
 black, and he rushed about in a bewildered manner 
 like one suddenly aroused from his sleep. 
 
 There is no place more suitable for statuary than 
 about a spring or fountain, especially in parks or 
 improved fields. Here one seems to expect to see 
 figures and bending forms. "Where a spring rises 
 or a river flows," says Seneca, "there should we 
 build altars and offer sacrifices." 
 
 I have spoken of the hunter's spring. The trav- 
 eler's spring is a little cup or saucer-shaped foun- 
 tain set in the bank by the roadside. The har- 
 vester's spring is beneath a wide-spreading tree in 
 the fields. The lover's spring is down a lane under 
 a hill. There is a good screen of rocks and bushes. 
 The hermit's spring is on the margin of a lake in 
 the woods. The fisherman's spring is by the river. 
 The miner finds his spring in the bowels of the 
 mountain. The soldier's spring is wherever he can 
 fill his canteen. The spring where schoolboys go 
 to fill the pail is a long way up or down a hill, and 
 has just been roiled by a frog or muskrat, and the 
 
48 PEPACTON 
 
 boys have to wait till it settles. There is yet the 
 milkman's spring that never dries, the water of 
 which is milky and opaque. Sometimes it flows 
 out of a chalk cliff. This last is a hard spring: 
 all the others are soft. 
 
 There is another side to this subject, — the mar- 
 velous, not to say the miraculous; and if I were to 
 advert to all the curious or infernal springs that are 
 described by travelers or others, — the sulphur 
 springs, the mud springs, the sour springs, the soap 
 springs, the soda springs, the blowing springs, the 
 spouting springs, the boiling springs not one mile 
 from Tophet, the springs that rise and fall with the 
 tide; the spring spoken of by Vitruvius, that gave 
 unwonted loudness to the voice; the spring that 
 Plutarch tells about, that had something of the 
 flavor of wine, because it was supposed that Bacchus 
 had been washed in it immediately after his birth; 
 the spring that Herodotus describes, — wise man 
 and credulous boy that he was, — called the "Foun- 
 tain of the Sun," which was warm at dawn, cold at 
 noon, and hot at midnight; the springs at San 
 Filippo, Italy, that have built up a calcareous wall 
 over a mile long and several hundred feet thick; 
 the renowned springs of Cashmere, that are believed 
 by the people to be the source of the comeliness of 
 their women, etc. , — if I were to follow up my sub- 
 ject in this direction, I say, it would lead me into 
 deeper and more troubled waters than I am in quest 
 of at present. 
 
 Pliny, in a letter to one of his friends, gives the 
 
SPRINGS ::> 
 
 following account of a spring that flowed neai his 
 Laurentine villa : — 
 
 " There is a spring which rises in a neighboring 
 mountain, and running among the rocks is received 
 into a little banqueting-room, artificially formed for 
 that purpose, from whence, after being detained a 
 short time, it falls into the Larian Lake. The 
 nature of this spring is extremely curious: it ebbs 
 and flows regularly three times a day. The increase 
 and decrease are plainly visible, and exceedingly 
 interesting to observe. You sit down by the side 
 of the fountain, and while you are taking a repast 
 and drinking its water, which is exceedingly cool, 
 you see it gradually rise and fall. If you place a 
 ring or anything else at the bottom when it is dry, 
 the water creeps gradually up, first gently washing, 
 finally covering it entirely, and then, little by little, 
 subsides again. If you wait long enough, you may 
 ■ see it thus alternately advance and recede three suc- 
 cessive times." 
 
 Pliny suggests four or five explanations of this 
 phenomenon, but is probably wide of the mark in 
 all but the fourth one : — 
 
 "Or is there rather a certain reservoir that con- 
 tains these waters in the bowels of the earth, and, 
 while it is recruiting its discharges, the stream in 
 consequence flows more slowly and in less quantity, 
 but, when it has collected its due measure, runs on 
 again in its usual strength and fullness." 
 
 There are several of these intermitting springs in 
 
50 PEPACTOX 
 
 different parts of the world, and they are perhaps 
 all to be explained on the principle of the siphon. 
 
 In the Idyls of Theocritus there are frequent 
 allusions to springs. It was at a spring — and a 
 mountain spring at that — that Castor and Pollux 
 encountered the plug-ugly Amycus : — 
 
 "And spying on a mountain a wild wood of vast 
 size, they found under a smooth cliff an ever-flow- 
 ing spring, filled with pure water, and the pebbles 
 beneath seemed like crystal or silver from the 
 depths; and near there had grown tall pines, and 
 poplars, and plane-trees, and cypresses with leafy 
 tops, and fragrant flowers, pleasant work for hairy 
 bees," etc. 
 
 Or the story of Hylas, the auburn-haired boy, 
 who went to the spring to fetch water for supper 
 for Hercules and stanch Telamon, and was seized 
 by the enamored nymphs and drawn in. The spring 
 was evidently a marsh or meadow spring: it was in 
 a "low-lying spot, and around it grew many rushes, 
 and the pale blue swallow-wort, and green maiden- 
 hair, and blooming parsley, and couch grass stretch- 
 ing through the marshes. " As Hercules was tramp- 
 ing through the bog, club in hand, and shouting 
 "Hylas!" to the full depth of his throat, he heard 
 a thin voice come from the water, ■ — ■ it was Hvlas 
 responding, and Hylas, in the shape of the little 
 frog, has been calling from our marsh springs ever 
 since. 
 
 The characteristic flavor and suggestion of these 
 Idyls is like pure spring-water. This is, perhaps, 
 
SPRINGS 51 
 
 why the modern reader is apt to be disappointed in 
 them when he takes them up for the first time. 
 They appear minor and literal and tasteless, as does 
 most ancient poetry; but it is mainly because we 
 have got to the fountain-head, and have come in 
 contact with a mind that has been but little shaped 
 by artificial indoor influences. The stream of liter- 
 ature is now much fuller and broader than it was in 
 ancient times, with currents and counter-currents, 
 and diverse and curious phases ; but the primitive 
 sources seem far behind us, and for the refreshment 
 of simple spring- water in art we must still go back 
 to Greek poetry. 
 
Ill 
 
 AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 
 
 rpHERE is no creature with which man has sur- 
 -*- rounded himself that seems so much like a 
 product of civilization, so much like the result of 
 development on special lines and in special fields, 
 as the honey-bee. Indeed, a colony of bees, with 
 their neatness and love of order, their division of 
 labor, their public-spiritedness, their thrift, their 
 complex economies, and their inordinate love of 
 gain, seems as far removed from a condition of rude 
 nature as does a walled city or a cathedral town. 
 Our native bee, on the other hand, "the burly, 
 dozing humblebee," affects one more like the rude, 
 untutored savage. He has learned nothing from 
 experience. He lives from hand to mouth. He 
 luxuriates in time of plenty, and he starves in times 
 of scarcity. He lives in a rude nest, or in a hole in 
 the ground, and in small communities; he builds a 
 few deep cells or sacks in which he stores a little 
 honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker 
 in wax he is of the most primitive and awkward. 
 The Indian regarded the honey-bee as an ill-omen. 
 She was the white man's fly. In fact she was the 
 epitome of the white man himself. She has the 
 
54 PEPACTON 
 
 white man's craftiness, his industry, his architectu- 
 ral skill, his neatness and love of system, his fore- 
 sight; and, above all, his eager, miserly habits. 
 The honey-bee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay 
 up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower 
 that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough 
 will not satisfy her; she must have all she can get 
 by hook or by crook. She comes from the oldest 
 country, Asia, and thrives best in the most fertile 
 and long-settled lands. 
 
 Yet the fact remains that the honey-bee is essen- 
 tially a wild creature, and never has been and can- 
 not be thoroughly domesticated. Its proper home 
 is the woods, and thither every new swarm counts 
 on going; and thither many do go in spite of the 
 care and watchfulness of the bee-keeper. If the 
 woods in any given locality are deficient in trees 
 with suitable cavities, the bees resort to all sorts of 
 makeshifts; they go into chimneys, into barns and 
 outhouses, under stones, into rocks, and so forth. 
 Several chimneys in my locality with disused flues 
 are taken possession of by colonies of bees nearly 
 every season. One day, while bee-hunting, I devel- 
 oped a line that went toward a farmhouse where I 
 had reason to believe no bees were kept. I fol- 
 lowed it up and questioned the farmer about his 
 bees. He said he kept no bees, but that a swarm 
 had taken possession of his chimney, and another 
 had gone under the clapboards in the gable end of 
 his house. He had taken a large lot of honey out 
 of both places the year before. Another farmer 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 
 
 .").") 
 
 told me that one day his family had seen a number 
 of bees examining a knothole in the side of his 
 house ; the next day, as they were sitting down to 
 dinner, their attention was attracted by a loud 
 humming noise, when they discovered a swarm of 
 bees settling upon the side of the house and pour- 
 ing into the knothole. In subsequent years other 
 swarms came to the same place. 
 
 Apparently every swarm of bees, before it leaves 
 the parent hive, sends out exploring parties to look 
 up the future home. The woods and groves are 
 searched through and through, and no doubt the 
 privacy of many a squirrel and many a wood-mouse 
 is intruded upon. What cozy nooks and retreats 
 they do spy out, so much more attractive than the 
 painted hive in the garden, so much cooler in sum- 
 mer and so much warmer in winter! 
 
 The bee is in the main an honest citizen: she 
 prefers legitimate to illegitimate business; she is 
 never an outlaw until her proper sources of supply 
 fail; she will not touch honey as long as honey 
 yielding flowers can be found; she always prefers 
 to go to the fountain-head, and dislikes to take her 
 sweets at second hand. But in the fall, after the 
 flowers have failed, she can be tempted. The bee- 
 hunter takes advantage of this fact ; he betrays her 
 with a little honey. He wants to steal her stores, 
 and he first encourages her to steal his, then follows 
 the thief home with her booty. This is the whole 
 trick of the bee-hunter. The bees never suspect 
 his game, else by taking a circuitous route they 
 
56 PEPACTON 
 
 could easily baffle him. But the honey-bee has 
 absolutely no wit or cunning outside of her special 
 gifts as a gatherer and storer of honey. She is a 
 simple-minded creature, and can be imposed upon 
 by 8iny novice. Yet it is not every novice that can 
 find a bee-tree. The sportsman may track his game 
 to its retreat by the aid of his dog, but in hunt- 
 ing the honey-bee one must be his own dog, and 
 track his game through an element in which it 
 leaves no trail. It is a task for a sharp, quick 
 eye, and may test the resources of the best wood- 
 craft. One autumn, when I devoted much time to 
 this pursuit, as the best means of getting at nature 
 and the open-air exhilaration, my eye became so 
 trained that bees were nearly as easy to it as birds. 
 I saw and heard bees wherever I went. One day, 
 standing on a street corner in a great city, I saw 
 above the trucks and the traffic a line of bees carry- 
 ing off sweets from some grocery or confectionery 
 shop. 
 
 One looks upon the woods with a new interest 
 when he suspects they hold a colony of bees. What 
 a pleasing secret it is, — a tree with a heart of comb 
 honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of Sicily 
 or Mount Hymettus stowed away in its trunk or 
 branches; secret chambers where lies hidden the 
 wealth of ten thousand little freebooters, great nug- 
 gets and wedges of precious ore gathered with risk 
 and labor from every field and wood about ! 
 
 But if you would know the delights of bee-hunt- 
 ing, and how many sweets such a trip yields beside 
 
AN IUYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 57 
 
 honey, come with me some bright, warm, late Sep- 
 tember or early October day. It is the golden sea- 
 son of the year, and any errand or pursuit that 
 takes us abroad upon the hills or by the painted 
 woods and along the amber- colored streams at such 
 a time is enough. So, with haversacks filled with 
 grapes and peaches and apples and a bottle of milk, 
 — for we shall not be home to- dinner, — and armed 
 with a compass, a hatchet, a pail, and a box with a 
 piece of comb honey neatly fitted into it, — any box 
 the size of your hand with a lid will do nearly 
 as well as the elaborate and ingenious contrivance 
 of the regular bee-hunter, — we sally forth. Our 
 course at first lies along the highway under great 
 chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping, then 
 through an orchard and across a little creek, thence 
 gently rising through a long series of cultivated 
 fields toward some high uplying land behind which 
 rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain, the most 
 sightly point in all this section. Behind this ridge 
 for several miles the country is wild, wooded, and 
 rocky, and is no doubt the home of many wild 
 swarms of bees. What a gleeful uproar the robins, 
 cedar-birds, high-holes, and cow blackbirds make 
 amid the black cherry trees as we pass along ! The 
 raccoons, too, have been here after black cherries, 
 and we see their marks at various points. Several 
 crows are walking about a newly sowed wheatfield 
 we pass through, and we pause to note their grace- 
 ful movements and glossy coats. I have seen no 
 bird walk the ground with just the same air the 
 
58 PEPACTON 
 
 crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no 
 strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little 
 condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and 
 self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All 
 these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; 
 men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go 
 there ; and find life sweet and good wherever I am. 
 The hawk looks awkward and out of place on the 
 ground; the game-birds hurry and skulk; but the 
 crow is at home, and treads the earth as if there 
 were none to molest or make him afraid. 
 
 The crows we have always with us, but it is not 
 every day or every season that one sees an eagle. 
 Hence I must preserve the memory of one I saw 
 the last day I went bee-hunting. As I was laboring 
 up the side of a mountain at the head of a valley, 
 the noble bird sprang from the top of a dry tree 
 above me and came sailing directly over my head. 
 I saw him bend his eye down upon me, and I could 
 hear the low hum of his plumage as if the web of 
 every quill in his great wings vibrated in his strong, 
 level flight. I watched him as long as my e} T e could 
 hold him. When he was fairly clear of the moun- 
 tain he began that sweeping spiral movement in 
 which he climbs the sky. Up and up he went, 
 without once breaking his majestic poise, till he 
 appeared to sight some far-off alien geography, when 
 he bent his course thitherward and gradually van- 
 ished in the blue depths. The eagle is a bird of 
 large ideas; he embraces long distances; the conti- 
 nent is his home. I never look upon one without 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 59 
 
 emotion; I follow him with my eye as long as I 
 can. I think of Canada, of the Great Lakes, of 
 the Eocky Mountains, of the wild and sounding 
 seacoast. The waters are his, and the woods and 
 the inaccessible cliffs. He pierces behind the veil 
 of the storm, and his joy is height and depth and 
 vast spaces. 
 
 We go out of our way to touch at a spring run 
 in the edge of the woods, and are lucky to find a 
 single scarlet lobelia lingering there. It seems al- 
 most to light up the gloom with its intense bit of 
 color. Beside a ditch in a field beyond, we find the 
 great blue lobelia, and near it, amid the weeds and 
 wild grasses and purple asters, the most beautiful of 
 our fall flowers, the fringed gentian. What a rare 
 and delicate, almost aristocratic look the gentian 
 has amid its coarse, unkempt surroundings! It 
 does not lure the bee, but it lures and holds every 
 passing human eye. If we strike through the cor- 
 ner of yonder woods, where the ground is moistened 
 by hidden springs, and where there is a little open- 
 ing amid the trees, we> shall find the closed gentian, 
 a rare flower in this locality. I had walked this 
 way many times before I chanced upon its retreat, 
 and then I was following a line of bees. I lost the 
 bees, but I got the gentians. How curious this 
 flower looks with its deep blue petals folded together 
 so tightly, — a bud and yet a blossom ! It is the 
 nun among our wild flowers, — a form closely veiled 
 and cloaked. The buccaneer bumblebee sometimes 
 tries to rifle it of its sweets. I have seen the bios- 
 
60 PEPACTON 
 
 som with the bee entombed in it. He had forced 
 his way into the virgin corolla as if determined to 
 know its secret, but he had never returned with the 
 knowledge he had gained. 
 
 After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we 
 reach a point where we will make our first trial, — 
 a high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded 
 ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad 
 field. There are bees at work there on that golden- 
 rod, and it requires but little manoeuvring to sweep 
 one into our box. Almost any other creature rudely 
 and suddenly arrested in its career, and clapped into 
 a cage in this way, would show great confusion and 
 alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the 
 bee has a passion stronger than its love of life or 
 fear of death, namely, desire for honey, not simply 
 to eat, but to carry home as booty. "Such rage of 
 honey in their bosom beats," says Virgil. It is 
 quick to catch the scent of honey in the box, and 
 as quick to fall . to filling itself. We now set the 
 box down upon the wall and gently remove the 
 cover. The bee is head and shoulders in one of 
 the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything 
 else about it. Come rack, come ruin, it will die at 
 work. We step back a few paces, and sit down 
 upon the ground so as to bring the box against the 
 blue sky as a background. In two or three minutes 
 the bee is seen rising slowly and heavily from the 
 box. It seems loath to leave so much honey behind, 
 and it marks the place well. It mounts aloft in a 
 rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 61 
 
 minute objects first, then the larger and more dis- 
 tant, till, having circled above the spot five or six 
 times and taken all its bearings, it darts away for 
 home. . It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee 
 till it is fairly off. Sometimes one's head will 
 swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out 
 by the sun. This bee gradually drifts down the 
 hill, then strikes away toward a farmhouse half a 
 mile away where I know bees are kept. Then we 
 try another and another, and the third bee, much 
 to our satisfaction, goes straight toward the woods. 
 We could see the brown speck against the darker 
 background for many yards. The regular bee- 
 hunter professes to be able to tell a wild bee from a 
 tame one by the color, the former, he says, being 
 lighter. But there is no difference ; they are both 
 alike in color and in manner. Young bees are 
 lighter than old, and that is all there is of it. If 
 a bee lived many years in the woods it would doubt- 
 less come to have some distinguishing marks, but 
 the life of a bee is only a few months at the far- 
 thest, and no change is wrought in this brief time. 
 
 Our bees are all soon back, and more with them, 
 for we have touched the box here and there with 
 the cork of a bottle of anise oil, and this fragrant 
 and pungent oil will attract bees half a mile or 
 more. When no flowers can be found, this is the 
 quickest way to obtain a bee. 
 
 It is a singular fact that when the bee first finds 
 the hunter's box, its first feeling is one of anger; it 
 is as mad as a hornet; its tone changes, it sounds 
 
G2 PEPA.CTON 
 
 its shrill war trumpet and darts to and fro, and 
 gives vent to its rage and indignation in no uncer- 
 tain manner. It seems to scent foul play at once. 
 It says, "Here is robbery; here is the spoil of 
 some hive, may be my own," and its blood is up. 
 But its ruling passion soon comes to the surface, its 
 avarice gets the better of its indignation, and it 
 seems to say, "Well, I had better take possession 
 of this and carry it home." So after many feints 
 and approaches and dartings off with a loud angry 
 hum as if it would none of it, the bee settles down 
 and fills itself. 
 
 It does not entirely cool off and get soberly to 
 work till it has made two or three trips home with 
 its booty. When other bees come, even if all from 
 the same swarm, they quarrel and dispute over the 
 box, and clip and dart at each other like bantam 
 cocks. Apparently the ill feeling which the sight 
 of the honey awakens is not one of jealousy or 
 rivalry, but wrath. 
 
 A bee will usually make three or four trips from 
 the hunter's box before it brings back a companion. 
 I suspect the bee does not tell its fellows what it 
 has found, but that they smell out the secret; it 
 doubtless bears some evidence with it upon its feet 
 or proboscis that it has been upon honeycomb and 
 not upon flowers, and its companions take the hint 
 and follow, arriving always many seconds behind. 
 Then the quantity and quality of the booty would 
 also betray it. No doubt, also, there are plenty of 
 gossips about a hive that note and tell everything. 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 63 
 
 "Oh, did you see that? Peggy Mel came in a few 
 moments ago in great haste, and one of the upstairs 
 packers says she was loaded till she groaned with 
 apple-blossom honey, which she deposited, and then 
 rushed off again like mad. Apple-blossom honey in 
 October ! Fee, fi, fo, fum ! I smell something ! Let 's 
 after." 
 
 In about half an hour we have three well-defined 
 lines of bees established, — two to farmhouses and 
 one to the woods, and our box is being rapidly 
 depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee 
 goes to the woods, and now that they have learned 
 the way thoroughly they do not make the long pre- 
 liminary whirl above the box, but start directly 
 from it. The woods are rough and dense and the 
 hill steep, and we do not like to follow the line of 
 bees until we have tried at least to settle the prob- 
 lem as to the distance they go into the woods, — 
 whether the tree is on this side of the ridge or into 
 the depth of the forest on the other side. So we 
 shut up the box when it is full of bees and carry 
 it about three hundred yards along the wall from 
 which we are operating. When liberated, the bees, 
 as they always will in such cases, go off in the same 
 directions they have been going ; they do not seem 
 to know that they have been moved. But other 
 bees have followed our scent, and it is not many 
 minutes before a second line to the woods is estab- 
 lished. This is called cross-lining the bees. The 
 new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, 
 and we know at once that the tree is only a few 
 
64 PEPACTON 
 
 rods into the woods. The two lines we have estab- 
 lished form two sides of a triangle of which the 
 wall is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or 
 where the two lines meet in the woods, we are sure 
 to find the tree. We quickly follow up these lines, 
 and where they cross each other on the side of 
 the hill we scan every tree closely. I pause at the 
 foot of an oak and examine a hole near the root; 
 now the bees are in this tree and their entrance 
 is on the upper side near the ground not two feet 
 from the hole I peer into, and yet so quiet and secret 
 is their going and coming that I fail to discover 
 them and pass on up the hill. Failing in this direc- 
 tion I return to the oak again, and then perceive 
 the bees going out in a small crack in the tree. The 
 bees do not know they are found out and that the 
 game is in our hands, and are as oblivious of our 
 presence as if we were ants or crickets. The indi- 
 cations are that the swarm is a small one, and the 
 store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a bee- tree 
 it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the 
 fumes of burning sulphur or with tobacco smoke. 
 But this course is impracticable on the present occa- 
 sion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree 
 with an axe we have procured. At the first blow 
 the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no 
 mercy, and the side of the cavity is soon cut away 
 and the interior with its white-yellow mass of comb 
 honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in 
 defense of its all. This may seem singular, but it 
 has nearly always been my experience. When a 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 65 
 
 swarm of bees are thus rudely assaulted with an axe 
 they evidently think the end of the world has come, 
 and, like true misers as they are, each one seizes as 
 much of the treasure as it can hold ; in other words, 
 they all fall to and gorge themselves with honey, 
 and calmly await the issue. While in this condi- 
 tion they make no defense, and will not sting unless 
 taken hold of. In fact they are as harmless as 
 flies. Bees are always to be managed with boldness 
 and decision. Any half-way measures, any timid 
 poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their 
 honey, are sure to be quickly resented. The popu- 
 lar notion that bees have a special antipathy toward 
 certain persons and a liking for certain others has 
 only this fact at the bottom of it: they will sting 
 a person who is afraid of them and goes skulking 
 and dodging about, and they will not sting a person 
 who faces them boldly and has no dread of them. 
 They are like dogs. The way to disarm a vicious 
 dog is to show him you do not fear him; it is his 
 turn to be afraid then. I never had any dread of 
 bees and am seldom stung by them. I have climbed 
 up into a large chestnut that contained a swarm in 
 one of its cavities and chopped them out with an 
 axe, being obliged at times to pause and brush the 
 bewildered bees from my hands and face, and not 
 been stung once. I have chopped a swarm out of 
 an apple-tree in June, and taken out the cards of 
 honey and arranged them in a hive, and then dipped 
 out the bees with a dipper, and taken the whole 
 home with me in pretty good condition, with scarcely 
 
66 PEPACTON 
 
 any opposition on the part of the bees. In reach- 
 ing your hand into the cavity to detach and remove 
 the comb you are pretty sure to get stung, for when 
 you touch the "business end" of a bee, it will sting 
 even though its head be off. But the bee carries 
 the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy 
 for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are 
 besmeared with honey, as they are sure to be on 
 such occasions, the wound is scarcely more painful 
 than the prick of a pin. Assault your bee-tree, 
 then, boldly with your axe, and you will find that 
 when the honey is exposed every bee has surren- 
 dered and the whole swarm is cowering in helpless 
 bewilderment and terror. Our tree yields only a 
 few pounds of honey, not enough to have lasted 
 the swarm till January, but no matter: we have 
 the less burden to carry. 
 
 In the afternoon we go nearly half a mile farther 
 along the ridge to a cornfield that lies immediately 
 in front of the highest point of the mountain. The 
 view is superb; the ripe autumn landscape rolls 
 away to the east, cut through by the great placid 
 river ; in the extreme north the wall of the Catskills 
 stands out clear and strong, while in the south the 
 mountains of the Highlands bound the view. The 
 day is warm, and the bees are very busy there in 
 that neglected corner of the field, rich in asters, 
 fleabane, and goldenrod. The corn has been cut, 
 and upon a stout but a few rods from the woods, 
 which here drop quickly down from the precipitous 
 heights, we set up our bee-box, touched again with 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 67 
 
 the pungent oil. In a few moments a bee has 
 found it; she comes up to leeward, following the 
 scent. On leaving the box, she goes straight toward 
 the woods. More bees quickly come, and it is not 
 long before the line is well established. Now we 
 have recourse to the same tactics we employed 
 before, and move along the ridge to another field to 
 get our cross line. But the bees still go in almost 
 the same direction they did from the corn stout. 
 The tree is then either on the top of the mountain 
 or on the other or west side of it. We hesitate to 
 make the plunge into the woods and seek to scale 
 those precipices, for the eye can plainly see what is 
 before us. As the afternoon sun gets lower, the 
 bees are seen with wonderful distinctness. They 
 fly toward and under the sun, and are in a strong 
 light, while the near woods which form the back- 
 ground are in deep shadow. They look like large 
 luminous motes. Their swiftly vibrating, transpar- 
 ent wings surround their bodies with a shining 
 nimbus that makes them visible for a long distance. 
 They seem magnified many times. AYe see them 
 bridge the little gulf between us and the woods, 
 then rise up over the treetops with their burdens, 
 swerving neither to the right hand nor to the left. 
 It is almost pathetic to see them labor so, climbing 
 the mountain and unwittingly guiding us to their 
 treasures. When the sun gets down so that his 
 direction corresponds exactly with the course of the 
 bees, we make the plunge. It proves even harder 
 climbing than we had anticipated ; the mountain is 
 
68 PEPACTON 
 
 faced by a broken and irregular wall of rock, up 
 which we pull ourselves slowly and cautiously by 
 main strength. In half an hour, the perspiration 
 streaming from every pore, we reach the summit. 
 The trees here are all small, a second growth, and 
 we are soon convinced the bees are not here. Then 
 down we go on the other side, clambering down tht, 
 rocky stairways till we reach quite a broad plateau 
 that forms something like the shoulder of the moun- 
 tain. On the brink of this there are many large 
 hemlocks, and we scan them closely and rap upon 
 them with our axe. But not a bee is seen or heard ; 
 we do not seem as near the tree as we were in the 
 fields below ; yet, if some divinity would only whis- 
 per the fact to us, we are within a few rods of the 
 coveted prize, which is not in one of the large hem- 
 locks or oaks that absorb our attention, but in an 
 old stub or stump not six feet high, and which we 
 have seen and passed several times without giving 
 it a thought. We go farther down the mountain 
 and beat about to the right and left, and get entan- 
 gled in brush and arrested by precipices, and finally, 
 as the day is nearly spent, give up the search and 
 leave the woods quite baffled, but resolved to return 
 on the morrow. The next day we come back and 
 commence operations in an opening in the woods 
 well down on the side of the mountain where we 
 gave up the search. Our box is soon swarming 
 with the eager bees, and they go back toward the 
 summit we have passed. We follow back and es- 
 tablish a new line, where the ground will permit; 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 69 
 
 then another and still another, and yet the riddle 
 is not solved. One time we are south of them, 
 then north, then the bees get up through the trees 
 and we cannot tell where they go. But after much 
 searching, and after the mystery seems rather to 
 deepen than to clear up, we chance to pause beside 
 the old stump. A bee comes out of a small open- 
 ing like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs 
 its eyes and examines its antenna?, as bees always 
 do before leaving their hive, then takes flight. At 
 the same instant several bees come by us loaded 
 with our honey and settle home with that peculiar 
 low, complacent buzz of the well-filled insect. Here, 
 then, is our idyl, our bit of Virgil and Theocritus, 
 in a decayed stump of a hemlock tree. We could 
 tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find 
 it an easy prize, and a rich one, too, for we take 
 from it fifty pounds of excellent honey. The bees 
 have been here many years, and have of course 
 sent out swarm after swarm into the wilds. They 
 have protected themselves against the weather and 
 strengthened their shaky habitation by a copious 
 use of wax. 
 
 When a bee-tree is thus "taken up" in the mid- 
 dle of the day, of course a good many bees are away 
 from home and have not heard the news. When 
 they return and find the ground flowing with honey, 
 and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they appar- 
 ently do not recognize the place, and their first 
 instinct is to fall to and fill themselves; this done, 
 their next thought is to carry it home, so they rise 
 
70 PEPACTON 
 
 up slowly through the branches of the trees till 
 they have attained an altitude that enables them to 
 survey the scene, when they seem to say, "Why, 
 this is home," and down they come again; behold- 
 ing the wreck and ruins once more, they still think 
 there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third 
 time and then drop back pitifully as before. It is 
 the most pathetic sight of all, the surviving and 
 bewildered bees struggling to save a few drops of 
 their wasted treasures. 
 
 Presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, 
 robber bees appear. You may know them by their 
 saucy, chiding, devil-may-care hum. It is an ill 
 wind that blows nobody good, and they make the 
 most of the misfortune of their neighbors, and 
 thereby pave the way for their own ruin. The 
 hunter marks their course and the next day looks 
 them up. On this occasion the day was hot and 
 the honey very fragrant, and a line of bees was soon 
 established S. S. W. Though there was much 
 refuse honey in the old stub, and though little 
 golden rills trickled down the hill from it, and the 
 near branches and saplings were besmeared with it 
 where we wiped our murderous hands, yet not a 
 drop was wasted. It was a feast to which not only 
 honey-bees came, but bumblebees, wasps, hornets, 
 flies, ants. The bumblebees, which at this season 
 are hungry vagrants with no fixed place of abode, 
 would gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits 
 of empty comb or fragments of bark and pass the 
 night, and renew the feast next day. The bumble- 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 71 
 
 bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter sees much. 
 There are all sorts and sizes of them. They are 
 dull and clumsy compared with the honey-bee. 
 Attracted in the fields by the bee-hunter's box, 
 they will come up the wind on the scent and blun- 
 der into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion. 
 
 The honey-bees that licked up our leavings on 
 the old stub belonged to a swarm, as it proved, 
 about half a mile farther down the ridge, and a few 
 days afterward fate overtook them, and their stores 
 in turn became the prey of another swarm in the 
 vicinity, which also tempted Providence and were 
 overwhelmed. The first-mentioned swarm I had 
 lined from several points, and was following up the 
 clew over rocks and through gulleys, when I came 
 to where a large hemlock had been felled a few 
 years before, and a swarm taken from a cavity near 
 the top of it; fragments of the old comb were yet 
 to be seen. A few yards away stood another short, 
 squatty hemlock, and I said my bees ought to be 
 there. As I paused near it, I noticed where the 
 tree had been wounded with an axe a couple of feet 
 from the ground many years before. The wound 
 had partially grown over, but there was an opening 
 there that I did not see at the first glance. I was 
 about to pass on when a bee passed me making that 
 peculiar shrill, discordant hum that a bee makes 
 when besmeared with honey. I saw it alight in 
 the partially closed wound and crawl home; then 
 came others and others, little bands and squads of 
 them heavily freighted with honey from the box. 
 
72 PEPACTON 
 
 The tree was about twenty inches through and hol- 
 low at the butt, or from the axe-mark down. This 
 space the bees had completely filled with honey. 
 With an axe we cut away the outer ring of live 
 wood and exposed the treasure. Despite the utmost 
 care, we wounded the comb so that little rills of 
 the golden liquid issued from the root of the tree 
 and trickled down the hill. 
 
 The other bee-tree in the vicinity to which I 
 have referred we found one warm November day in 
 less than half an hour after entering the woods. It 
 also was a hemlock that stood in a niche in a wall 
 of hoary, moss-covered rocks thirty feet high. The 
 tree hardly reached to the top of the precipice. 
 The bees entered a small hole at the root, which 
 was seven or eight feet from the ground. The po- 
 sition was a striking one. Never did apiary have 
 a finer outlook or more rugged surroundings. A 
 black, wood-embraced lake lay at our feet; the 
 long panorama of the Catskills filled the far dis- 
 tance, and the more broken outlines of the Shawan- 
 gunk range filled the rear. On every hand were 
 precipices and a wild confusion of rocks and trees. 
 
 The cavity occupied by the bees was about three 
 feet and a half long and eight or ten inches in 
 diameter. With an axe we cut away one side of the 
 tree, and laid bare its curiously wrought heart of 
 honey. It was a most pleasing sight. W 7 hat wind- 
 ing and devious ways the bees had through their 
 palace! What great masses and blocks of snow- 
 white comb there were ! Where it was sealed up, 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 73 
 
 presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it 
 looked like some precious ore. When we carried 
 a large pailful of it out of the woods it seemed 
 still more like ore. 
 
 Your native bee-hunter predicates the distance 
 of the tree by the time the bee occupies in making 
 its first trip. But this is no certain guide. You 
 are always safe in calculating that the tree is inside 
 of a mile, and you need not as a rule look for your 
 bee's return under ten minutes. One day I picked 
 up a bee in an opening in the woods and gave it 
 honey, and it made three trips to my box with an 
 interval of about twelve minutes between them; it 
 returned alone each time; the tree, which I after- 
 ward found, was about half a mile distant. 
 
 In lining bees through the woods the tactics of 
 the hunter are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, 
 lop away the branches or cut down the trees, and 
 set the bees to work again. If they still go for- 
 ward, he goes forward also and repeats his observa- 
 tions till the tree is found, or till the bees turn and 
 come back upon the trail. Then he knows he has 
 passed the tree, and he retraces his steps to a con- 
 venient distance and tries again, and thus quickly 
 reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm 
 is traced home. On one occasion, in a wild rocky 
 wood, where the surface alternated between deep 
 gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths 
 of timber and sharp, precipitous, rocky ridges like 
 a tempest-tossed sea, I carried my bees directly 
 under their tree, and set them to work from a high, 
 
74 PEPACTON 
 
 exposed ledge of rocks not thirty feet distant. One 
 would have expected them under such circumstances 
 to have gone straight home, as there were but few 
 branches intervening, but they did not; they la- 
 bored up through the trees and attained an altitude 
 above the woods as if they had miles to travel, and 
 thus baffled me for hours. Bees will always do 
 this. They are acquainted with the woods only 
 from the top side, and from the air above; they 
 recognize home only by landmarks here, and in 
 every instance they rise aloft to take their bearings. 
 Think how familiar to them the topography of the 
 forest summits must be, — an umbrageous sea or 
 plain where every mark and point is known. 
 
 Another curious fact is that generally you will 
 get track of a bee-tree sooner when you are half a 
 mile from it than when you are only a few yards. 
 Bees, like us human insects, have little faith in the 
 near at hand; they expect to make their fortune in 
 a distant field, they are lured by the remote and 
 the difficult, and hence overlook the flower and the 
 sweet at their very door. On several occasions I 
 have unwittingly set my box within a few paces of 
 a bee-tree and waited long for bees without getting 
 them, when, on removing to a distant field or open- 
 ing in the woods, I have got a clew at once. 
 
 I have a theory that when bees leave the hive, 
 unless there is some special attraction in some other 
 direction, they generally go against the wind. 
 They would thus have the wind with them when 
 they returned home heavily laden, and with these 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BKK 75 
 
 little navigators the difference is an important one. 
 With a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hin- 
 drance, but fresh and empty-handed they can face 
 it with more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel 
 stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their 
 honey-bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I pre- 
 fer to get to windward of the woods in which the 
 swarm is supposed to have refuge. 
 
 Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. 
 They do water their honey, especially in a dry 
 time. The liquid is then of course thicker and 
 sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence old bee- 
 hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near 
 spring runs in the woods. I once found a tree a 
 long distance from any water, and the honey had 
 a peculiar bitter flavor, imparted to it, I was con- 
 vinced, by rainwater sucked from the decayed and 
 spongy hemlock-tree in which the swarm was found. 
 In cutting into the tree, the north side of it was 
 found to be. saturated with water like a spring, which 
 ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The 
 bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their 
 own house. 
 
 Bees are exposed to many hardships and many 
 dangers. Winds and storms prove as disastrous to 
 them as to other navigators. Black spiders lie in 
 wait for them as do brigands for travelers. One 
 day, as I was looking for a bee amid sonic golden- 
 rod, I spied one partly concealed under a leaf. Its 
 baskets were full of pollen, and it did not move. 
 On lifting up the leaf 1 discovered that a hairy 
 
76 PEPACTON 
 
 spider was ambushed there and had the bee by the 
 throat. The vampire was evidently afraid of the 
 bee's sting, and was holding it by the throat till 
 quite sure of its death. Virgil speaks of the painted 
 lizard, perhaps a species of salamander, as an enemy 
 of the honey-bee. We have no lizard that destroys 
 the bee; but our tree-toad, ambushed among the 
 apple and cherry blossoms, snaps them up whole- 
 sale. Quick as lightning that subtle but clammy 
 tongue darts forth, and the unsuspecting bee is 
 gone. Virgil also accuses the titmouse and the 
 woodpecker of preying upon the bees, and our king- 
 bird has been charged with the like crime, but the 
 latter devours only the drones. The workers are 
 either too small and quick for it or else it dreads 
 their sting. 
 
 Virgil, by the way, had little more than a child's 
 knowledge of the honey-bee. There is little fact 
 and much fable in his fourth Georgic. If he had 
 ever kept bees himself, or even visited an apiary, it 
 is hard to see how he could have believed that the 
 bee in its flight abroad carried a gravel stone for 
 ballast. 
 
 " And as when empty barks on billows float, 
 With sandy ballast sailors trim the boat ; 
 So bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight 
 Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight; " 
 
 or that, when two colonies made war upon each 
 other, they issued forth from their hives led by 
 their kings and fought in the air, strewing the 
 ground with the dead and dying : — 
 
 " Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain, 
 Nor shaken oaks such show'rs of acorns rain." 
 
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 77 
 
 It is quite certain he had never been bee-hunting 
 If he had we should have had a fifth Georgic. Yet 
 he seems to have known that bees sometimes escaped 
 to the woods : — 
 
 " Nor bees are lodged in hives alone, but found 
 In chambers of their own beneath the ground: 
 Their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices, 
 And in the rotten trunks of hollow trees." 
 
 Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are 
 like their brothers in the hive. The only difference 
 is, that wild honey is flavored with your adventure, 
 which makes it a little more delectable than the 
 domestic article. 
 
IV 
 
 NATURE AND THE POETS 
 
 ~T~ HAVE said on a former occasion that "the true 
 -*- poet knows more about Nature than the natu- 
 ralist, because he carries her open secrets in his 
 heart. Eckermann could instruct Goethe in orni- 
 thology, but could not Goethe instruct Eckermann 
 in the meaning and mystery of the bird ? " But 
 the poets sometimes rely too confidently upon their 
 supposed intuitive knowledge of nature, and grow 
 careless about the accuracy of the details of their 
 pictures. I am not aware that this was ever the 
 case with Goethe ; I think it was not, for as a rule 
 the greater the poet, the more correct and truthful 
 will be his specifications. It is the lesser poets 
 who trip most upon their facts. Thus a New Eng- 
 land poet speaks of "plucking the apple from the 
 pine," as if the pineapple grew upon the pine-tree. 
 A Western poet sings of the bluebird in a strain in 
 which every feature and characteristic of the bird 
 is lost; not one trait of the bird is faithfully set 
 down. When the robin and the swallow come, he 
 says, the bluebird hies him to some mossy old 
 wood, where, amid the deep seclusion, he pours out 
 his song. 
 
80 PEPACTON 
 
 In a poem by a well-known author in one of the 
 popular journals, a hummingbird's nest is shown 
 the reader, and it has blue eggs in it. A more 
 cautious poet would have turned to Audubon or 
 Wilson before venturing upon such a statement. 
 But then it was necessary to have a word to rhyme 
 with "view," and what could be easier than to 
 make a white egg "blue "? Again, one of our later 
 poets has evidently confounded the hummingbird 
 with that curious parody upon it, the hawk or 
 sphinx moth, as in his poem upon the subject he 
 has hit off exactly the habits of the moth, or, 
 rather, his creature seems a cross between the moth 
 and the bird, as it has the habits of the one and 
 the plumage of the other. The time to see the 
 hummingbird, he says, is after sunset in the summer 
 gloaming; then it steals forth and hovers over the 
 flowers, etc. Now, the hummingbird is eminently 
 a creature of the sun and of the broad open day, 
 and I have never seen it after sundown, while the 
 moth is rarely seen except at twilight. It is much 
 smaller and less brilliant than the hummingbird; 
 but its flight and motions are so nearly the same 
 that a poet, with his eye in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 might easily mistake one for the other. It is but 
 a small slip in such a poet as poor George Arnold, 
 when he makes the sweet-scented honeysuckle bloom 
 for the bee, for surely the name suggests the bee, 
 though in fact she does not work upon it; but what 
 shall we say of the Kansas poet, who, in his pub- 
 lished volume, claims both the yew and the night- 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 8] 
 
 ingale for his native State ? Or of a Massachusetts 
 poet, who finds the snowdrop and the early primrose 
 blooming along his native streams, with the orchis 
 and the yellow violet, and makes the blackbird con- 
 spicuous among New England songsters ? Our ordi- 
 nary yew is not a tree at all, but a low spreading 
 evergreen shrub that one may step over; and as for 
 the nightingale, if they have the mockingbird in 
 Kansas, they can very well do without him. We 
 have several varieties of blackbirds, it is true; but 
 when an American poet speaks in a general way of 
 the blackbird piping or singing in a tree, as he 
 would speak of a robin or a sparrow, the suggestion 
 or reminiscence awakened is always that of the 
 blackbird of English poetry. 
 
 " In days when daisies deck the ground, 
 And blackbirds whistle clear, 
 With honest joy our hearts will bound 
 To see the coining year " — 
 
 sings Burns. I suspect that the English reader of 
 even some of Emerson's and Lowell's poems would 
 infer that our blackbird was identical with the Brit- 
 ish species. I refer to these lines of Emerson : — 
 
 " Where arches green the livelong day 
 Echo the blackbirds' roundelay;" 
 
 and to these lines from Lowell's "Rosaline: n — 
 
 "A blackbird whistling overhead 
 Thrilled through my brain;" 
 
 and again these from "The Fountain of Youth: " — 
 
 " 'T is a woodland enchanted; 
 By no sadder spirit 
 Than blackbirds and thrushes 
 
82 PEPACTOX 
 
 That whistle to cheer it, 
 All clay in the bushes." 
 
 The blackbird, of the English poets is like our 
 robin in everything except color. He is familiar, 
 hardy, abundant, thievish, and his habits, manners, 
 and song recall our bird to the life. Our own native 
 blackbirds, the crow blackbird, the rusty grackle, 
 the cowbird, and the red-shouldered starling, are not 
 songsters, even in the latitude allowable to poets; 
 neither are they whistlers, unless we credit them 
 with a "split-whistle," as Thoreau does. The two 
 first named have a sort of musical cackle and gurgle 
 in spring (as at times both our crow and jay have), 
 which is very pleasing, and to which Emerson aptly 
 refers in these lines from "May-Day: " — 
 
 " The blackbirds make the maples ring 
 With social cheer and jubilee " — 
 
 but it is not a song. The note of the starling in 
 the trees and alders along the creeks and marshes is 
 better calculated to arrest the attention of the casual 
 observer; but it is far from being a song or a whis- 
 tle like that of the European blackbird, or our 
 robin. Its most familiar call is like the word 
 "bazique," "baziqite," but it has a wild musical 
 note which Emerson has embalmed in this line : — 
 " The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee." 
 
 Here Emerson discriminates; there is no mistaking 
 his blackbird this time for the European species, 
 though it is true there is nothing fluty or flute-like 
 in the redwing's voice. The flute is mellow, while 
 the "o-ka-lee" of the starling is strong and sharply 
 
NATUKE AND THE POETS 83 
 
 accented. The voice of the thrushes (and our robin 
 and the European blackbird are thrushes) is flute- 
 like. Hence the aptness of this line of Tenny- 
 son : — 
 
 " The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm," — 
 
 the blackbird being the ouzel, or ouzel-cock, as 
 
 Shakespeare calls him. 
 
 In the line which precedes this, Tennyson has 
 
 stamped the cuckoo : — 
 
 " To left and right, 
 The cuckoo told his name to all the hills." 
 
 The cuckoo is a bird that figures largely in English 
 poetry, but he always has an equivocal look in 
 American verse, unless sharply discriminated. We 
 have a cuckoo, but he is a great recluse; and I am 
 sure the poets do not know when he comes or goes, 
 while to make him sing familiarly like the British 
 species, as I have known at least one of our poets to 
 do, is to come very wide of the mark. Our bird is 
 as solitary and joyless as the most veritable ancho- 
 rite. He contributes nothing to the melody or 
 gayety of the season. He is, indeed, known in some 
 sections as the "rain-crow; " but I presume that not 
 one person in ten of those who spend their lives in 
 the country has ever seen or heard him. He is 
 like the showy orchis, or the ladies '-slipper, or the 
 shooting star among plants, — a stranger to all but 
 the few; and when an American poet says cuckoo, 
 he must say it with such specifications as to leave 
 no doubt what cuckoo he means, as Lowell does in 
 his "Nightingale in the Study: " — 
 
84 PEPACTOX 
 
 " And, hark, the cuckoo, weatherwise, 
 Still hiding farther onward, wooes you." 
 
 In like manner the primrose is an exotic in 
 American poetry, to say nothing of the snowdrop 
 and the daisy. Its prominence in English poetry 
 can be understood when we remember that the 
 plant is so abundant in England as to be almost a 
 weed, and that it comes early and is very pretty. 
 Cowslip and oxlip are familiar names of varieties of 
 the same plant, and they bear so close a resemblance 
 that it is hard to tell them apart. Hence Tenny- 
 son, in "The Talking Oak: " — 
 
 " As cowslip unto oxlip is, 
 So seems she to the boy." 
 
 Our familiar primrose is the evening primrose, — a 
 rank, tall weed that blooms with the mullein in late 
 summer. Its small, yellow, slightly fragrant blos- 
 soms open only at night, but remain open during 
 the next day. By cowslip, our poets and writers 
 generally mean the yellow marsh marigold, which 
 belongs to a different family of plants, but which, 
 as a spring token and a pretty flower, is a very good 
 substitute for the cowslip. Our real cowslip, the 
 shooting star, is very rare, and is one of the most 
 beautiful of native flowers. I believe it is not 
 found north of Pennsylvania. I have found it in 
 a single locality in the District of Columbia, and 
 the day is memorable upon which I first saw its 
 cluster of pink flowers, with their recurved petals 
 cleaving the air. I do not know that it has ever 
 been mentioned in poetry. 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 85 
 
 Another flower, which I suspect our poets see 
 largely through the medium of English literature 
 and invest with borrowed charms, is the violet. 
 The violet is a much more winsome and poetic 
 flower in England than it is in this country, for 
 the reason that it comes very early and is sweet- 
 scented; our common violet is not among the ear- 
 liest flowers, and it is odorless. It affects sunny 
 slopes, like the English flower; yet Shakespeare 
 never could have made the allusion to it which he 
 makes to his own species in these lines : — 
 
 " That strain again! it had a dying fall: 
 Oh! it came o'er ray ear like the sweet south 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 Stealing and giving odor," 
 
 or lauded it as 
 
 "Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
 Or Cytherea's breath." 
 
 Our best known sweet-scented violet is a small, 
 white, lilac-veined species (not yellow, as Bryant 
 has it in his poem), that is common in wet, out-of- 
 the-way places. Our common blue violet — the 
 only species that is found abundantly everywhere 
 in the North — blooms in May, and makes bright 
 many a grassy meadow slope and sunny nook. 
 Yet, for all that, it does not awaken the emotion in 
 one that the earlier and more delicate spring flowers 
 do, — the hepatica, say, with its shy wood habits, its 
 pure, infantile expression, and at times its delicate 
 perfume; or the houstonia, — "innocence," — fleck- 
 ing or streaking the cold spring earth with a milky 
 
86 PEPACTON 
 
 way of minute stars ; or the trailing arbutus, sweeter 
 scented than the English violet, and outvying in 
 tints Cytherea's or any other blooming goddess's 
 cheek. Yet these flowers have no classical associa- 
 tions, and are consequently far less often upon the 
 lips of our poets than the violet. 
 
 To return to birds, another dangerous one for the 
 American poet is the lark, and our singers generally 
 are very shy of him. The term has been applied 
 very loosely in this country to both the meadow- 
 lark and the bobolink, yet it is pretty generally 
 understood now that we have no genuine skylark 
 east of the Mississippi. Hence I am curious to 
 know what bird Bayard Taylor refers to when he 
 speaks in his " Spring Pastoral " of 
 
 "Larks responding aloft to the mellow flute of the bluebird." 
 Our so-called meadowlark is no lark at all, but a 
 starling, and the titlark and shore lark breed and 
 pass the summer far to the north, and are never 
 heard in song in the United States. 1 
 
 The poets are entitled to a pretty free range, but 
 they must be accurate when they particularize. 
 We expect them to see the fact through their imagi- 
 nation, but it must still remain a fact ; the medium 
 must not distort it into a lie. When they name a 
 flower or a tree or a bird, whatever halo of the ideal 
 they throw around it, it must not be made to belie 
 
 1 The shore lark has changed its habits in this respect of late 
 years. It now breeds regularly on my native hills in Delaware 
 County, New York, and may be heard in full song there from 
 April to June or later. 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 87 
 
 the botany or the natural history. I doubt if you 
 
 can catch Shakespeare transgressing the law in this 
 
 respect, except where he followed the superstition 
 
 and the imperfect knowledge of his time, as in his 
 
 treatment of the honey-bee. His allusions to nature 
 
 are always incidental to his main purpose, but they 
 
 reveal a careful and loving observer. For instance, 
 
 how are fact and poetry wedded in this passage, put 
 
 into the mouth of Banquo ! — 
 
 " This guest of summer, 
 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 
 By his loved masonry that the heaven's breath 
 Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: 
 Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, 
 The air is delicate." 
 
 Nature is of course universal, but in the same 
 sense is she local and particular, — cuts every suit 
 to fit the wearer, gives every land an earth and sky 
 of its own, and a flora and fauna to match. The 
 poets and their readers delight in local touches. 
 We have both the hare and the rabbit in America, 
 but this line from Thomson's description of a sum- 
 mer morning, — 
 "And from the bladed field the fearful hare limps awkward," — 
 
 or this from Beattie, — 
 
 "Through rustling corn the hare astonished sprang" — 
 
 would not apply with the same force in Xew Eng- 
 land, because our hare is never found in the fields, 
 but in dense, remote woods. In England both 
 hares and rabbits abound to such an extent that in 
 
88 PEPACTON 
 
 places the fields and meadows swarm with them, 
 and the ground is undermined by their burrows, till 
 they become a serious pest to the farmer, and are 
 trapped in vast numbers. The same remark applies 
 to this from Tennyson : — 
 
 "From the woods 
 Came voices of the well-contented doves." 
 
 Doves and wood-pigeons are almost as abundant in 
 England as hares and rabbits, and are also a serious 
 annoyance to the farmer; while in this country the 
 dove and pigeon are much less marked and perma- 
 nent features in our rural scenery, — less perma- 
 nent, except in the case of the mourning dove, 
 which is found here and there the season through; 
 and less marked, except when the hordes of the 
 passenger pigeon once in a decade or two invade 
 the land, rarely tarrying longer than the bands of 
 a foraging army. I hardly know what Trowbridge 
 means by the "wood-pigeon" in his midsummer 
 poem, for, strictly speaking, the wood-pigeon is a 
 European bird, and a very common one in England. 
 But let me say here, however, that Trowbridge, as 
 a rule, keeps very close to the natural history of 
 his own country when he has occasion to draw mate- 
 rial from this source, and to American nature gen- 
 erally. You will find in his poems the wood 
 pewee, the bluebird, the oriole, the robin, the 
 grouse, the kingfisher, the chipmunk, the mink, 
 the bobolink, the wood thrush, etc., all in their 
 proper places. There are few bird-poems that com- 
 bine so much good poetry and good natural history 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 89 
 
 as his "Pewee." Here we have a glimpse of the 
 catbird : — 
 
 " In the alders, dank with noonday dews, 
 The restless catbird darts and mews;" 
 
 here, of the cliff swallow : — 
 
 " In the autumn, when the hollows 
 All are rilled with flying leaves 
 And the colonies of swallows 
 
 Quit the quaintly stuccoed eaves." 
 
 Only the dates are not quite right. The swallows 
 leave their nests in July, which is nearly three 
 months before the leaves fall. The poet is also a 
 little unfaithful to the lore of his boyhood when he 
 says 
 
 "The partridge beats his throbbing drum " 
 
 in midsummer. As a rule, the partridge does not 
 drum later than June, except fitfully during the 
 Indian summer, while April and May are his favor- 
 ite months. And let me say here, for the benefit 
 of the poets who do not go to the woods, that the 
 partridge does not always drum upon a log; he 
 frequently drums upon a rock or a stone wall, if a 
 suitable log be not handy, and no ear can detect 
 the difference. His drum is really his own proud 
 breast, and beneath his small hollow wings gives 
 forth the same low, mellow thunder from a rock as 
 from a log. Bryant has recognized this fact in one 
 of his poems. 
 
 Our poets are quite apt to get ahead or behind 
 the season with their flowers and birds. It is not 
 often that we catch such a poet as Emerson napping. 
 He knows nature, and he knows the New England 
 
90 PEPACTON 
 
 fields and woods as few poets do. One may study 
 our flora and fauna in his pages. He puts in the 
 moose and the "surly bear," and makes the latter 
 rhyme with " woodpecker " : — 
 
 " He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, 
 The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads. 
 
 He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, 
 With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls, — 
 One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, 
 Declares the close of its green century." 
 
 " They led me through the thicket damp, 
 Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp." 
 
 " He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; 
 He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; 
 He found the tawny thrushes' broods; 
 And the shy hawk did wait for him." 
 
 His "Titmouse" is studied in our winter woods, 
 and his "Humble-Bee" in our summer fields. He 
 has seen farther into the pine-tree than any other 
 poet; his "May-Day" is full of our spring sounds 
 and tokens; he knows the "punctual birds," and 
 the "herbs and simples of the wood: " — 
 
 " Ptue, cinque-foil, gill, vervain, and agrimony, 
 Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawk-weed, sassafras, 
 Milk-Aveeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew." 
 
 Here is a characteristic touch : — 
 
 " A woodland walk, 
 A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 
 A wild rose, a rock-loving columbine, 
 Salve my worst wounds." 
 
 That " rock-loving columbine ' ; is better than Bry- 
 ant's "columbines, in purple dressed," as our flower 
 is not purple, but yellow and scarlet. Yet Bryant 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 91 
 
 set the example to the poets that have succeeded 
 him of closely studying Nature as she appears under 
 our own skies. 
 
 I yield to none in my admiration of the sweetness 
 and simplicity of his poems of nature, and in gen- 
 eral of their correctness of observation. They are 
 tender and heartfelt, and they touch chords that no 
 other poet since Wordsworth has touched with so 
 firm a hand. Yet he was not always an infallible 
 observer; he sometimes tripped upon his facts, and 
 at other times he deliberately moulded them, adding 
 to, or cutting off, to suit the purposes of his verse. 
 I will cite here two instances in which his natural 
 history is at fault. In his poem on the bobolink 
 he makes the parent birds feed their young with 
 "seeds," whereas, in fact, the young are fed exclu- 
 sively upon insects and worms. The bobolink is 
 an insectivorous bird in the North, or until its 
 brood has flown, and a granivorous bird in the 
 South. 
 
 In his "Evening Revery " occur these lines: — 
 
 " The mother bird hath broken for her brood 
 Their prison shells, or shoved them from the nest, 
 Plumed for their earliest flight." 
 
 It is not a fact that the mother bird aids her 
 offspring in escaping from the shell. The young of 
 all birds are armed with a small temporary horn or 
 protuberance upon the upper mandible, and they 
 are so placed in the shell that this point is in imme- 
 diate contact with its inner surface; as soon as they 
 are fully developed and begin to struggle to free 
 
92 PEPACTON 
 
 themselves, the horny growth "pips" the shell. 
 Their efforts then continue till their prison walls 
 are completely sundered and the bird is free. This 
 process is rendered the more easy by the fact that 
 toward the last the shell becomes very rotten; the 
 acids that are generated by the growing chick eat it 
 and make it brittle, so that one can hardly touch 
 a fully incubated bird's egg without breaking it. 
 To help the young bird forth would insure its 
 speedy death. It is not true, either, that the par- 
 ent shoves its young from the nest when they are 
 fully fledged, except possibly in the case of some 
 of the swallows and of the eagle. The young of 
 all our more common birds leave the nest of their 
 own motion, stimulated probably by the calls of the 
 parents, and in some cases by the withholding of 
 food for a longer period than usual. 
 
 As an instance where Bryant warps the facts to 
 suit his purpose, take his poems of the "Yellow 
 Violet" and "The Fringed Gentian." Of this last 
 flower he says : — 
 
 " Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 
 When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
 And frosts and shortening days portend 
 The aged year is near his end." 
 
 The fringed gentian belongs to September, and, 
 when the severer frosts keep away, it runs over 
 into October. But it does not come alone and the 
 woods are not bare. The closed gentian comes at the 
 same time, and the blue and purple asters are in all 
 their glory. Goldenrod, turtle-head, and other fall 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 93 
 
 flowers also abound. When the woods are bare, 
 
 which does not occur in New England till in or 
 
 near November, the fringed gentian has long been 
 
 dead. It is in fact killed by the first considerable 
 
 frost. No, if one were to go botanizing, and take 
 
 Bryant's poem for a guide, he would not bring home 
 
 any fringed gentians with him. The only flower 
 
 he would find would be the witch-hazel. Yet I 
 
 never see this gentian without thinking of Bryant's 
 
 poem, and feeling that he has brought it immensely 
 
 nearer to us. 
 
 Bryant's poem of the "Yellow Violet" has all 
 
 his accustomed simplicity and pensiveness, but his 
 
 love for the flower carries him a little beyond the 
 
 facts; he makes it sweet-scented, — 
 
 " Thy faint perfume 
 Alone is in the virgin air ; " 
 
 and he makes it the first flower of spring. I have 
 never been able to detect any perfume in the yel- 
 low species (Viola rotundifolia). This honor be- 
 longs alone to our two white violets, Viola blanda 
 and Viola Canadensis. 
 
 Neither is it quite true that 
 
 " Of all her train, the hands of Spring 
 First plant thee in the watery mould." 
 
 Now it is an interesting point which really is our 
 first spring flower. Which comes second or third 
 is of less consequence, but which everywhere and 
 in all seasons comes first; and in such a case the 
 poet must not place the honor where it does not 
 belong. I have no hesitation in saying that, through- 
 
94 PEPACTON 
 
 out the Middle and New England States, the hepa- 
 
 tica is the first spring flower. 1 It is some days 
 
 ahead of all others. The yellow violet belongs 
 
 only to the more northern sections, — to high, cold, 
 
 beechen woods, where the poet rightly places it; 
 
 but in these localities, if you go to the spring woods 
 
 every day, you will gather the hepatica first. I 
 
 have also found the claytonia and the colt's-foot 
 
 first. In a poem called "The Twenty- Seventh of 
 
 March" Bryant places both the hepatica and the 
 
 arbutus before it : — 
 
 " Within the woods 
 Tufts of ground-laurel, creeping underneath 
 The leaves of the last summer, send their sweets 
 Upon the chilly air, and by the oak, 
 The squirrel cups, a graceful company, 
 Hide in their bells, a soft aerial blue " — 
 
 ground-laurel being a local name for trailing ar- 
 butus, called also mayflower, and squirrel-cups for 
 hepatica, or liver-leaf. But the yellow violet may 
 rightly dispute for the second place. 
 
 In "The Song of the Sower" our poet covers up 
 part of the truth with the grain. The point and 
 moral of the song he puts in the statement, that the 
 wheat sown in the fall lies in the ground till spring 
 before it germinates; when, in fact, it sprouts and 
 grows and covers the ground with "emerald blades' 1 
 in the fall : — 
 
 " Fling wide the generous grain ; we fling 
 O'er the dark mould the green of spring. 
 For thick the emerald blades shall grow, 
 When first the March winds melt the snow, 
 
 1 Excepting of course, the skunk-cabbage. 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 95 
 
 And to the sleeping flowers, below, 
 The early bluebirds sing. 
 
 Brethren, the sower's task is done. 
 
 The seed is in its winter bed. 
 
 Now let the dark-brown mould be spread, 
 
 To hide it from the sun, 
 And leave it to the kindly care 
 Of the still earth and brooding air, 
 As when the mother, from her breast, 
 Lays the hushed babe apart to rest, 
 And shades its eyes and waits to see 
 How sweet its waking smile will be. 
 The tempest now may smite, the sleet 
 All night on the drowned furrow beat, 
 And winds that, from the cloudy hold 
 Of winter, breathe the bitter cold, 
 Stiffen to stone the mellow mould, 
 
 Yet safe shall lie the wheat; 
 Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue, 
 
 Shall walk again the genial year, 
 To wake with warmth and nurse with dew 
 
 The germs we lay to slumber here." 
 
 Of course the poet was not writing an agricultu- 
 ral essay, yet one does not like to feel that he was 
 obliged to ignore or sacrifice any part of the truth 
 to build up his verse. One likes to see him keep 
 within the fact without being conscious of it or 
 hampered by it, as he does in "The Planting of the 
 Apple-tree," or in the "Lines to a Water-fowl." 
 
 But there are glimpses of American scenery and 
 climate in Brj^ant that are unmistakable, as in these 
 lines from "Midsummer: " — 
 
 " Look forth upon the earth — her thousand plants 
 Are smitten; even the dark, sun-loving maize 
 Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze; 
 The herd beside the shaded fountain pants : 
 For life is driven from all the landscape brown ; 
 The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, 
 
96 PEPACTON 
 
 The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men 
 Drop by the sunstroke in the populous town." 
 
 Here is a touch of our " heated term " when the 
 
 dogstar is abroad and the weather runs mad. I 
 
 regret the "trout floating dead in the hot stream," 
 
 because, if such a thing ever has occurred, it is 
 
 entirely exceptional. The trout in such weather 
 
 seek the deep water and the spring holes, and hide 
 
 beneath rocks and willow banks. The following 
 
 lines would be impossible in an English poem : — 
 
 " The snowbird twittered on the beechen bough, 
 And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent 
 Beneath its bright, cold burden, and kept dry 
 A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves, 
 The partridge found a shelter." 
 
 Both Bryant and Longfellow put their spring 
 bluebird in the elm, which is a much better place 
 for the oriole, — the elm-loving oriole. The blue- 
 bird prefers a humbler perch. Lowell puts him 
 upon a post in the fence, which is a characteristic 
 attitude : — 
 
 " The bluebird, shifting his light load of song, 
 From post to post along the cheerless fence." 
 
 Emerson calls him "April's bird," and makes him 
 
 "fly before from tree to tree," which is also good. 
 
 But the bluebird is not strictly a songster in the 
 
 sense in which the song sparrow or the indigo-bird, 
 
 or the English robin redbreast, is; nor do Bryant's 
 
 lines hit the mark : — 
 
 " The bluebird chants, from the elm's long branches, 
 A hymn to welcome the budding year." 
 
 Lowell, again, is nearer the truth when he speaks of 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 97 
 
 his " whiff of song. " All his notes are call-notes, 
 and are addressed directly to his mate. The song- 
 birds take up a position and lift up their voices and 
 sing. It is a deliberate musical performance, as 
 much so as that of Nilsson or Patti. The bluebird, 
 however, never strikes an attitude and sings for the 
 mere song's sake. But the poets are perhaps to be 
 allowed this latitude, only their pages lose rather 
 than gain by it. Nothing is so welcome in this 
 field as characteristic touches, a word or a phrase 
 that fits this case and no other. If the bluebird 
 chants a hymn, what does the wood thrush do? 
 Yet the bluebird's note is more pleasing than most 
 bird-songs; if it could be reproduced in color, it 
 would be the hue of the purest sky. 
 
 Longfellow makes the swallow sing : — 
 " The darting swallows soar and sing; " — 
 
 which would leave him no room to describe the 
 lark, if the lark had been about. Bryant comes 
 nearer the mark this time : — 
 
 " There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 
 And the gossip of swallows through all the sky ; " 
 
 so does Tennyson when he makes his swallow 
 " Cheep and twitter twenty million loves; " 
 
 also Lowell again in this line : — 
 
 " The thin-winged swallow skating on the air; " 
 
 and Virgil : — 
 
 " Swallows twitter on the chimney tops." 
 Longfellow is perhaps less close and exact in his 
 dealings with nature than any of his compeers, 
 
98 PEP ACTON 
 
 although he has written some fine naturalistic 
 poems, as his "Rain in Summer," and others. 
 When his fancy is taken, he does not always stop 
 to ask, Is this so? Is this true? as when he 
 applies the Spanish proverb, "There are no birds 
 in last year's nests," to the nests beneath the eaves; 
 for these are just the last year's nests that do con- 
 tain birds in May. The cliff swallow and the barn 
 swallow always reoccupy their old nests, when they 
 are found intact; so do some other birds. Again, 
 the hawthorn, or whitethorn, field-fares, belong to 
 English poetry more than to American. The ash 
 in autumn is not deep crimsoned, but a purplish 
 brown. "The ash her purple drops forgivingly," 
 says Lowell in his " Indian-Summer Reverie." 
 Flax is not golden, lilacs are purple or white and 
 not flame-colored, and it is against the law to go 
 trouting in November. The pelican is not a wader 
 any more than a goose or a duck is, and the golden 
 robin or oriole is not a bird of autumn. This 
 stanza from "The Skeleton in Armor" is a striking 
 one: — 
 
 " As with his wings aslant, 
 Sails the fierce cormorant, 
 Seeking some rocky haunt, 
 
 "With his prey laden, 
 So toward the open main, 
 Beating to sea again, 
 Through the wild hurricane, 
 
 Bore I the maiden." 
 
 But unfortunately the cormorant never does any- 
 thing of the kind; it is not a bird of prey: it is 
 web-fpoted, a rapid swimmer and diver, and lives 
 
NATUKE AND THE POETS 99 
 
 upon fish, which it usually swallows as it catches 
 them. Virgil is nearer to fact when he says : 
 
 " When crying cormorants forsake the sea 
 And, stretching to the covert, wing their way." 
 
 But cormorant with Longfellow may stand for any 
 of the large rapacious birds, as the eagle or the con- 
 dor. True, and yet the picture is purely a fanciful 
 one, as no bird of prey sails with his burden; on 
 the contrary he flaps heavily and laboriously, be- 
 cause he is always obliged to mount. The stress 
 of the rhyme and metre are of course in this case 
 very great, and it is they, doubtless, that drove the 
 poet into this false picture of a bird of prey laden 
 with his quarry. It is an ungracious task, how- 
 ever, to cross-question the gentle Muse of Longfel- 
 low in this manner. He is a true poet if there 
 ever was one, and the slips I point out are only 
 like an obscure feather or two in the dove carelessly 
 preened. The burnished plumage and the bright 
 hues hide them unless we look sharply. 
 
 Whittier gets closer to the bone of the New Eng- 
 land nature. He comes from the farm, and his 
 memory is stored with boyhood's wild and curious 
 lore, with 
 
 " Knowledge never learned of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
 Of the wild flower's time and place, 
 Flight of fowl and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood; 
 How the tortoise bears his shell, 
 How the woodchuck dig- his cell, 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well; 
 How the robin feeds her young; 
 How the oriole's nest is hung; 
 
100 PEP ACTON 
 
 Where the whitest lilies blow, 
 Where the freshest berries grow, 
 Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 
 Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
 Mason of his walls of clay, 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans! " 
 
 The poet is not as exact as usual when he applies 
 
 the epithet "painted" to the autumn beeches, as the 
 
 foliage of the beech is the least painty of all our 
 
 trees; nor when he speaks of 
 
 "Wind-flower and violet, amber and white," 
 
 as neither of the flowers named is amber-colored. 
 
 From "A Dream of Summer" the reader might 
 
 infer that the fox shut up house in the winter like 
 
 the muskrat : — 
 
 " The fox his hillside cell forsakes, 
 The muskrat leaves his nook, 
 The bluebird in the meadow brakes 
 Is singing with the brook." 
 
 The only one of these incidents that is characteris. 
 tic of a January thaw in the latitude of New Eng- 
 land is the appearance of the muskrat. The fox 
 is never in his cell in winter, except he is driven 
 there by the hound, or by soft or wet weather, and 
 the bluebird does not sing in the brakes at any time 
 of the year. A severe stress of weather will drive 
 the foxes off the mountains into the low, sheltered 
 woods and fields, and a thaw will send them back 
 again. In the winter the fox sleeps during the 
 day upon a rock or stone wall, or upon a snow- 
 bank, where he can command all the approaches, or 
 else prowls stealthily through the woods. 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 101 
 
 But there is seldom a false note in any of Whit- 
 tier's descriptions of rural sights and sounds. 
 What a characteristic touch is that in one of his 
 " Mountain Pictures : " — 
 
 " The pasture bars that clattered as they fell." 
 
 It is the only strictly native, original, and typical 
 sound he reports on that occasion. The bleating of 
 sheep, the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the 
 splash of the bucket in the well, "the pastoral cur- 
 few of the cowbell," etc., are sounds we have heard 
 before in poetry, but that clatter of the pasture 
 bars is American; one can almost see the waiting, 
 ruminating cows slowly stir at the signal, and start 
 for home in anticipation of the summons. Every 
 summer day, as the sun is shading the hills, the 
 clatter of those pasture bars is heard throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land. 
 
 " Snow-Bound " is the most faithful picture of 
 our Northern winter that has yet been put into 
 poetry. What an exact description is this of the 
 morning after the storm : — 
 
 " We looked upon a world unknown, 
 On nothing we could call our own. 
 Around the glistening wonder bent 
 The blue walls of the firmament, 
 No cloud above, no earth below, — 
 A universe of sky and snow! " 
 
 In his little poem on the mayflower, Mr. Sted- 
 man catches and puts in a single line a feature of 
 our landscape in spring that I have never before 
 seen alluded to in poetry. I refer to the second 
 line of this stanza : — 
 
102 PEPACTON 
 
 " Fresh blows the breeze through hemlock-trees, 
 The fields are edged with green below, 
 And naught but youth, and hope, and love 
 We know or care to know! " 
 
 It is characteristic of our Northern and New 
 England fields that they are "edged with green" in 
 spring long before the emerald tint has entirely 
 overspread them. Along the fences, especially 
 along the stone walls, the grass starts early; the 
 land is fatter there from the deeper snows and from 
 other causes, the fence absorbs the heat, and shel- 
 ters the ground from the winds, and the sward 
 quickly responds to the touch of the spring sun. 
 
 Stedman's poem is worthy of his theme, and is 
 the only one I recall by any of our well-known 
 poets upon the much-loved mayflower or arbutus. 
 There is a little poem upon this subject by an 
 unknown author that also has the right flavor. I 
 recall but one stanza : — 
 
 " Oft have I walked these woodland ways, 
 Without the blest foreknowing, 
 That underneath the withered leaves 
 The fairest flowers were blowing." 
 
 Nature's strong and striking effects are best ren- 
 dered by closest fidelity to her. Listen and look 
 intently, and catch the exact effect as nearly as 
 you can. It seems as if Lowell had done this more 
 than most of his brother poets. In reading his 
 poems, one wishes for a little more of the poetic 
 unction (I refer, of course, to his serious poems; 
 his humorous ones are just what they should be), 
 yet the student of nature will find many close-fit- 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 103 
 
 ting phrases and keen observations in his pages, 
 
 and lines that are exactly, and at the same time 
 
 poetically, descriptive. He is the only writer I 
 
 know of who has noticed the fact that the roots of 
 
 trees do not look supple and muscular like their 
 
 boughs, but have a stiffened, congealed look, as of 
 
 a liquid hardened. 
 
 " Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing, 
 Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank." 
 
 This is exactly the appearance the roots of most 
 trees, when uncovered, present; they flow out from 
 the trunk like diminishing streams of liquid metal, 
 taking the form of whatever they come in contact 
 with, parting around a stone and uniting again 
 beyond it, and pushing their way along with many 
 a pause and devious turn. One principal office of 
 the roots of a tree is to gripe, to hold fast the 
 earth: hence they feel for and lay hold of every 
 inequality of surface; they will fit themselves to 
 the top of a comparatively smooth rock, so as to 
 adhere amazingly, and flow into the seams and 
 crevices like metal into a mould. 
 
 Lowell is singularly true to the natural history 
 of his own county. In his "Indian-Summer Rev- 
 erie " we catch a glimpse of the hen-hawk, silently 
 sailing overhead 
 
 "With watchful, measuring eye," 
 
 the robin feeding on cedar berries, and the squirrel, 
 
 "On the shingly shagbark's bough." 
 
 I do not remember to have met the "shagbark" in 
 poetry before, or that gray lichen-covered stone wall 
 
104 PEPACTON 
 
 which occurs farther along in the same poem, and 
 which is so characteristic of the older farms of 
 New York and New England. I hardly know what 
 the poet means by 
 
 "The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee," 
 
 as the mowers do not wade in the grass they are 
 
 cutting, though they might appear to do so when 
 
 viewed athwart the standing grass; perhaps this is 
 
 the explanation of the line. 
 
 But this is just what the bobolink does when 
 
 the care of his young begins to weigh upon him : — 
 
 " Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
 Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 
 
 Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops." 
 
 I do not vouch for that dropping between the wind- 
 rows, as in my part of the country the bobolinks 
 flee before the hay-makers, but that sudden stop- 
 ping on the brink of rapture, as if thoughts of his 
 helpless young had extinguished his joy, is charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 Another carefully studied description of Lowell's 
 is this: — 
 
 " The robin sings as of old from the limb! 
 The catbird croons in the lilac-bush ! 
 Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, 
 Silently hops the hermit thrush." 
 
 Among trees Lowell has celebrated the oak, the 
 
 pine, the birch; and among flowers, the violet and 
 
 the dandelion. The last, I think, is the most 
 
 pleasing of these poems : — 
 
 " Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
 Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 
 First pledge of blithesome May." 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 105 
 
 The dandelion is indeed, in our latitude, the pledge 
 
 of May. It comes when the grass is short, and the 
 
 fresh turf sets off its "ring of gold" with admirable 
 
 effect; hence we know the poet is a month or more 
 
 out of the season when, in "Al Fresco," he makes 
 
 it bloom with the buttercup and the clover : — 
 
 " The dandelions and buttercups 
 Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee 
 Stumbles among the clover-tops, 
 And summer sweetens all but me." 
 
 Of course the dandelion blooms occasionally 
 throughout the whole summer, especially where the 
 grass is kept short, but its proper season, when it 
 "gilds all the lawn," is, in every part of the coun- 
 try, some weeks earlier than the tall buttercup and 
 the clover. These bloom in June in New England 
 and New York, and are contemporaries of the daisy. 
 In the meadows and lawns, the dandelion drops its 
 flower and holds aloft its sphere of down, touching 
 the green surface as with a light frost, long before 
 the clover and the buttercup have formed their 
 buds. In "Al Fresco" our poet is literally in 
 clover, he is reveling in the height of the season, 
 the full tide of summer is sweeping around him, 
 and he has riches enough without robbing May of 
 her dandelions. Let him say, — 
 
 " The daisies and the buttercups 
 Gild all the lawn." 
 
 I smile as I note that the woodpecker proves a 
 refractory bird to Lowell, as well as to Emerson : — 
 
 Emerson rhymes it with hear, 
 Lowell rhymes it with hear, 
 
106 PEPACTOX 
 
 One makes it woodpeckair, 
 The other, woodpeckear. 
 
 But its hammer is a musical one, and the poets do 
 well to note it. Our most pleasing drummer upon 
 dry limbs among the woodpeckers is the yellow- 
 bellied. His measured, deliberate tap, heard in the 
 stillness of the primitive woods, produces an effect 
 that no bird-song is capable of. 
 
 Tennyson is said to have very poor eyes, but 
 there seems to be no defect in the vision with 
 which he sees nature, while he often hits the nail 
 on the head in a way that would indicate the surest 
 sight. True, he makes the swallow hunt the bee, 
 which, for aught I know, the swallow may do in 
 England. Our purple martin has been accused of 
 catching the honey-bee, but I doubt his guilt. But 
 those of our swallows that correspond to the British 
 species, the barn swallow, the cliff swallow, and the 
 bank swallow, subsist upon very small insects. But 
 what a clear-cut picture is that in the same poem 
 ("The Poet's Song"): — 
 
 " The wild hawk stood, with the down on his beak, 
 And stared, with his foot on the prey." 
 
 It takes a sure eye, too, to see 
 
 " The landscape winking thro' the heat " — 
 
 or to gather this image : — 
 
 "He has a solid base of temperament; 
 But as the water-lily starts and slides 
 Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
 Though anchor'd to the bottom, such is he; " 
 
 or this : — 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 107 
 
 "Arms on which the standing muscle sloped, 
 As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
 Running too vehemently to break upon it," — 
 
 and many other gems that abound in his poems. 
 He does not cut and cover in a single line, so far 
 as I have observed. Great caution and exact know- 
 ledge underlie his most rapid and daring flights. 
 A lady told me that she was once walking with 
 him in the fields when they came to a spring that 
 bubbled up through shifting sands in a very pretty 
 manner, and Tennyson, in order to see exactly how 
 the spring behaved, got down on his hands and 
 knees and peered a long time into the water. The 
 incident is worth repeating as showing how intently 
 a great poet studies nature. 
 
 Walt Whitman says he has been trying for years 
 to find a word that would express or suggest that 
 evening call of the robin. How absorbingly this 
 poet must have studied the moonlight to hit upon 
 this descriptive phrase : — 
 
 "The vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue; " 
 
 how long have looked upon the carpenter at his 
 
 bench to have made this poem : — 
 
 " The tongue of his fore-plane whistles its wild ascending lisp: " 
 
 or how lovingly listened to the nocturne of the 
 mockingbird to have turned it into words in " V 
 Word out of the Sea" ! Indeed, no poet has stud- 
 ied American nature more closely than Whitman 
 has, or is more cautious in his uses of it. How easy 
 are his descriptions ! — 
 
108 PEPACTON 
 
 "Behold the daybreak! 
 
 The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows!" 
 
 " The comet that came unannounced 
 
 Out of the north, flaring in heaven." 
 
 " The fan-shaped explosion." 
 
 " The slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast 
 amid the din they chased each other across the sky." 
 
 " Where the heifers browse — where geese nip their food with 
 short jerks; 
 
 Where sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lone- 
 some prairie; 
 
 Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square 
 miles far and near; 
 
 Where the hummingbird shimmers — where the neck of the 
 long-lived swan is curving and winding; 
 
 Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore when she laughs 
 her near human laugh ; 
 
 Where band-neck' d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with 
 their heads out." 
 
 Whitman is less local than the New England poets, 
 and faces more to the West. But he makes him- 
 self at home everywhere, and puts in characteristic 
 scenes and incidents, generally compressed into a 
 single line, from all trades and doings and occupa- 
 tions, North, East, South, West, and identifies 
 himself with man in all straits and conditions on 
 the continent. Like the old poets, he does not 
 dwell upon nature, except occasionally through the 
 vistas opened up by the great sciences, as astronomy 
 and geology, but upon life and movement and per- 
 sonality, and puts in a shred of natural history here 
 and there, — the "twittering redstart," the spotted 
 hawk swooping by, the oscillating sea-gulls, the 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS L09 
 
 yellow-crowned heron, the razor- hilled auk, the 
 lone wood duck, the migrating geese, the sharp- 
 hoofed moose, the mockingbird, "the thrush, the 
 hermit," etc., — to help locate and define his posi- 
 tion. Everywhere in nature Whitman finds human 
 relations, human responsions. In entire consistence 
 with botany, geology, science, or what not, he en- 
 dues his very seas and woods with passion, more 
 than the old hamadryads or tritons. His fields, 
 his rocks, his trees, are not dead material, but liv- 
 ing companions. This is doubtless one reason why 
 Addington Symonds, the young Hellenic scholar of 
 England, finds him more thoroughly Greek than 
 any other man of modern times. 
 
 Our natural history, and indeed all phases of life 
 in this country, are rich in materials for the poet 
 that have yet hardly been touched. Many of our 
 most familiar birds, which are inseparably associ- 
 ated with one's walks and recreations in the open 
 air, and with the changes of the seasons, are yet 
 awaiting their poet, — as the high-hole, with his 
 golden-shafted quills and loud continued spring call ; 
 the meadowlark, with her crescent-marked breast 
 and long-drawn, piercing, yet tender April and May 
 summons forming, with that of the high-hole, one 
 of the three or four most characteristic field sounds 
 of our spring; the happy goldfinch, circling round 
 and round in midsummer with that peculiar undu- 
 lating flight and calling per-chick 1 -0-pce, p&r-chick 1 - 
 o^ee, at each opening and shutting of the wings, 
 or later leading her plaintive brood among the this- 
 
110 PEPACTON 
 
 tie-heads by the roadside; the little indigo- bird, 
 facing the torrid sun of August and singing through 
 all the livelong summer day; the contented musical 
 soliloquy of the vireo, like the whistle of a boy at 
 his work, heard through all our woods from May to 
 September : — 
 
 " Pretty green worm, where are you ? 
 Dusky-winged moth, how fare you, 
 When wind and rain are in the tree ? 
 Cheeryo, cheerebly, chee, 
 Shadow and sun one are to me. 
 Mosquito and gnat, beware you, 
 Saucy chipmunk, how dare you 
 Climb to my nest in the maple-tree, 
 And dig up the corn 
 At noon and at morn ? 
 Cheeryo, cheerebly, chee." 
 
 Or the phcebe-bird, with her sweet April call and 
 mossy nest under the bridge or woodshed, or under 
 the shelving rocks ; or the brown thrasher — mock- 
 ing thrush — calling half furtively, half archly from 
 the treetop back in the bushy pastures: "Croquet, 
 croquet, hit it, hit it, come to me, come to me, 
 tight it, tight it, you're out, you're out," with 
 many musical interludes; or the chewink, rustling 
 the leaves and peering under the bushes at you; 
 or the pretty little oven-bird, walking round and 
 round you in the woods, or suddenly soaring above 
 the treetops, and uttering its wild lyrical strain; 
 or, farther south, the whistling redbird, with his 
 crest and military bearing, — these and many others 
 should be full of suggestion and inspiration to our 
 poets. It is only lately that the robin's song has 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS 111 
 
 been put into poetry. Nothing could be happiei 
 than this rendering of it by a nameless singer in 
 "A Masque of Poets: " — 
 
 " When the willows gleam along the brooks, 
 And the grass grows green in sunny nooks, 
 In the sunshine and the rain 
 I hear the robin in the lane 
 Singing, 'Cheerily, 
 Cheer up, cheer up; 
 Cheerily, cheerily, 
 Cheer up.' 
 
 " But the snow is still 
 Along the walls and on the hill. 
 The days are cold, the nights forlorn, 
 For one is here and one is gone. 
 ' Tut, tut. Cheerilv, 
 Cheer up, cheer up ; 
 Cheerily, cheerily, 
 Cheer up.' 
 
 " When spring hopes seem to wane, 
 I hear the joj'ful strain — 
 A song at night, a song at morn, 
 A lesson deep to me is borne, 
 Hearing, ' Cheerily, 
 Cheer up, cheer up ; 
 Cheerily, cheerily, 
 Cheer up.' " 
 
 The poetic interpretation of nature, which has 
 come to be a convenient phrase, and about which 
 the Oxford professor of poetry has written a book, 
 is, of course, a myth, or is to be read the other 
 way. It is the soul the poet interprets, not nature. 
 There is nothing in nature but what the beholder 
 supplies. Does the sculptor interpret the marble 
 or his own ideal? Is the music in the instrument, 
 or in the soul of the performer 1 Nature is a dead 
 
112 PEPACTON 
 
 clod until you have breathed upon it with your 
 genius. You commune with your own soul, not 
 with woods or waters; they furnish the conditions, 
 and are what you make them. Did Shelley inter- 
 pret the song of the skylark, or Keats that of the 
 nightingale? They interpreted their own wild, 
 yearning hearts. The trick of the poet is always 
 to idealize nature, — to see it subjectively. You 
 cannot find what the poets find in the woods until 
 you take the poet's heart to the woods. He sees 
 nature through a colored glass, sees it truthfully, 
 but with an indescribable charm added, the aureole 
 of the spirit. A tree, a cloud, a bird, a sunset, 
 have no hidden meaning that the art of the poet is 
 to unlock for us. Every poet shall interpret them 
 differently, and interpret them rightly, because the 
 soul is infinite. Milton's nightingale is not Cole- 
 ridge's; Burns's daisy is not Wordsworth's; Emer- 
 son's humblebee is not Lowell's; nor does Turner 
 see in nature what Tintoretto does, nor Veronese 
 what Correggio does. Nature is all things to all 
 men. "We carry within us," says Sir Thomas 
 Browne, "the wonders we find without." The 
 same idea is daintily expressed in these tripping 
 verses of Bryant's: — 
 
 " Yet these sweet sounds of the early season 
 And these fair sights of its early days, 
 Are only sweet when we fondly listen, 
 And only fair when we fondly gaze. 
 
 " There is no glory in star or blossom, 
 Till looked upon by a loving eye ; 
 There is no fragrance in April breezes, 
 Till breathed with joy as they wander by; " 
 
NATURE AND THE POETS LIS 
 
 and in these lines of Lowell : — 
 
 "What we call Nature, all outside ourselves, 
 Is but our own conceit of what we see, 
 Our own reaction upon what we feel." 
 
 "I find my own complexion everywhere." 
 
 Before either, Coleridge had said : — 
 
 " We receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone doth Nature live; 
 Ours is the wedding-garment, ours the shroud;" 
 
 and Wordsworth had spoken of 
 
 " The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream." 
 
 That light that never was on sea or land is what 
 the poet gives us, and is what we mean by the 
 poetic interpretation of nature. The Oxford pro- 
 fessor struggles against this view. "It is not true," 
 he says, " that nature is a blank, or an unintelligible 
 scroll with no meaning of its own but that which 
 we put into it from the light of our own transient 
 feelings." Not a blank, certainly, to the scientist, 
 but full of definite meanings and laws, and a store- 
 house of powers and economies ; but to the poet the 
 meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it pro- 
 vokes in his own soul. To the man of science it 
 is thus and so, and not otherwise; but the poet 
 touches and goes, and uses nature as a garment 
 which he puts off and on. Hence the scientific 
 reading or interpretation of nature is the only real 
 one. Says the Soothsayer in "Antony and Cleo- 
 patra : " — 
 
 "In Nature's infinite book of secresv a little do I read." 
 
114 PEPACTON 
 
 This is science bowed and reverent, and speaking 
 through a great poet. The poet himself does not 
 so much read in nature's book — though he does 
 this, too — as write his own thoughts there ; Nature 
 reads him, she is the page and he the type, and 
 she takes the impression he gives. Of course the 
 poet uses the truths of nature also, and he estab- 
 lishes his right to them by bringing them home to 
 us with a new and peculiar force, — a quickening or 
 kindling force. What science gives is melted in 
 the fervent heat of the poet's passion, and comes 
 back to us supplemented by his quality and genius. 
 He gives more than he takes, always. 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 
 
 A NEW NOTE IN THE WOODS 
 
 r^HEPvE is always a new page to be turned in 
 natural history, if one is sufficiently on the 
 alert. I did not know that the eagle celebrated his 
 nuptials in the air till one early spring day I saw 
 a pair of them fall from the sky witli talons hooked 
 together. They dropped a hundred feet or more, 
 in a wild embrace, their great wings fanning the 
 air, then separated and mounted aloft, tracing their 
 great circles against the clouds. " Watch and wait " 
 is the naturalist's sign. For years I have been 
 trying to ascertain for a certainty the author of that 
 fine plaintive piping to be heard more or less fre- 
 quently, according to the weather, in our summer 
 and autumn woods. It is a note that much resem- 
 bles that of our small marsh frogs in spring, the 
 
 hyla; it is not quite so clear and assured, but oth- 
 erwise much the same. Of a very warm October 
 day I have heard the wood vocal with it ; it seemed 
 to proceed from every stump and tree about on.-. 
 Ordinarily it is heard only at intervals throughout 
 the woods. Approach never so cautiously the spot 
 
116 PEPACTON 
 
 from which the sound proceeds, and it instantly 
 ceases, and you may watch for an hour without 
 again hearing it. Is it a frog, I said, the small 
 tree-frog, the piper of the marshes, repeating his 
 spring note, but little changed, amid the trees? 
 Doubtless it is, yet I must see him in the very act. 
 So I watched and waited, but to no purpose, till 
 one day, while bee-hunting in the woods, I heard 
 the sound proceed from beneath the leaves at my 
 feet. Keeping entirely quiet, the little musician 
 presently emerged, and, lifting himself up on a small 
 stick, his throat palpitated and the plaintive note 
 again came forth. " The queerest frog ever I saw, " 
 said a youth who accompanied me, and whom I had 
 enlisted to help solve the mystery. ISTo; it was no 
 frog or toad at all, but the small red salamander, 
 commonly called lizard. The color is not strictly 
 red, but a dull orange, variegated with minute 
 specks or spots. This was the mysterious piper, 
 then, heard from May till November through all 
 our woods, sometimes on trees, but usually on or 
 near the ground. It makes more music in the 
 woods in autumn than any bird. It is a pretty, 
 inoffensive creature, walks as awkwardly as a baby, 
 and may often be found beneath stones and old logs 
 in the woods, where, buried in the mould, it passes 
 the winter. (I suspect there is a species of little 
 frog — Pickering's hyla 1 — that also pipes occasion- 
 ally in the woods. ) I have discovered, also, that 
 
 1 A frequent piper in the woods throughout the summer and 
 early fall. 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1 1 7 
 
 we have a musical spider. One sunny April day, 
 while seated on the borders of the woods, my atten- 
 tion was attracted by a soft, uncertain, purring sound 
 that proceeded from the dry leaves at my feet. On 
 investigating the matter, I found that it was made 
 by a busy little spider. Several of them were trav- 
 eling about over the leaves as if in quest of some 
 lost cue or secret. Every moment or two they 
 would pause, and by some invisible means make the 
 low, purring sound referred to. Dr. J. A. Allen 
 says the common turtle, or land tortoise, also has a 
 note, — a loud, shrill, piping sound. It may yet 
 be discovered that there is no silent creature in 
 nature. 
 
 THE SAND HORNET 
 
 I turned another (to me) now page in natural 
 history, when, during the past season, I made the 
 acquaintance of the sand wasp or hornet. From 
 boyhood I had known the black hornet, with his 
 large paper nest, and the spiteful yellow- jacket, 
 with his lesser domicile, and had cherished proper 
 contempt for the various indolent wasps. Bui the 
 sand hornet was a new bird, — in fact, the harpy 
 eagle among insects, — and he made an impression. 
 While walking along the road about midsummer, I 
 noticed working in the towpath, where the ground 
 was rather inclined to be dry and sandy, a large 
 yellow hornet-like insect. It made a hole the size 
 of one's little finger in the hard, gravelly path 
 beside the roadbed. When disturbed, it alighted 
 
118 PEPACTON 
 
 on the dirt and sand in the middle of the road. I 
 had noticed in my walks some small bullet-like 
 holes in the field that had piqued my curiosity, and 
 I determined to keep an eye on these insects of the 
 roadside. I explored their holes, and found them 
 quite shallow, and no mystery at the bottom of 
 them. One morning in the latter part of July, 
 walking that way, I was quickly attracted by the 
 sight of a row of little mounds of fine, freshly dug 
 earth resting upon the grass beside the road, a foot 
 or more beneath the path. "What is this?" I 
 said. "Mice, or squirrels, or snakes," said my 
 neighbor. But I connected it at once with the 
 strange insect I had seen. Neither mice nor squir- 
 rels work like that, and snakes do not dig. Above 
 each mound of earth was a hole the size of one's 
 largest finger, leading into the bank. While specu- 
 lating about the phenomenon, I saw one of the large 
 yellow hornets I had observed, quickly enter one of 
 the holes. That settled the query. While spade 
 and hoe were being brought to dig him out, another 
 hornet appeared, heavy-laden with some prey, and 
 flew humming up and down and around the place 
 where I was standing. I withdrew a little, when 
 he quickly alighted upon one of the mounds of 
 earth, and I saw him carrying into his den no less 
 an insect than the cicada or harvest-fly. Then 
 another came, and after coursing up and down a 
 few times, disturbed by my presence, alighted upon 
 a tree, with his quarry, to rest. The black hornet 
 will capture a fly, or a small butterfly, and, after 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1 19 
 
 breaking and dismembering it, will take it to his 
 nest; but here was this hornet carrying an insect 
 much larger than himself, and flying with ease and 
 swiftness. It was as if a hawk should carry a hen, 
 or an eagle a turkey. I at once proceeded to dig 
 for one of the hornets, and, after following his hole 
 about three feet under the footpath and to the edge 
 of the roadbed, succeeded in capturing him and re- 
 covering the cicada. The hornet weighed fifteen 
 grains, and the cicada nineteen; but in bulk the 
 cicada exceeded the hornet by more than half. In 
 color, the wings and thorax, or waist, of the hornet, 
 were a rich bronze; the abdomen was black, with 
 three irregular yellow bands; the legs were large 
 and powerful, especially the third or hindmost pair, 
 which were much larger than the others, and armed 
 with many spurs and hooks. In digging its hole 
 the hornet has been seen at work very early in the 
 morning. It backed out with the loosened material, 
 like any other animal under the same circumstance-. ■ 
 holding and scraping back the dirt with its legs. 
 The preliminary prospecting upon the footpath, 
 which I had observed, seems to have been the work 
 of the males, as it was certainly of the smaller hor- 
 nets, and the object was doubtless to examine the 
 ground, and ascertain if the place was suitable for 
 nesting. By digging two or three inches through 
 the hard, gravelly surface of the road, a line sandy 
 loam was discovered, which seemed to suit exactly, 
 for in a few days the main shafts were all started 
 in the greensward, evidently upon the strength of 
 
120 PEPACTON 
 
 the favorable report which the surveyors had made. 
 These were dug by the larger hornets or females. 
 There was but one inhabitant in each hole, and the 
 holes were two to three feet apart. One that we 
 examined had nine chambers or galleries at the end 
 of it, in each of which were two locusts, or eighteen 
 in all. The locusts of the locality had suffered 
 great slaughter. Some of them in the hole or den 
 had been eaten to a mere shell by the larvae of the 
 hornet. Under the wing of each insect an egg is 
 attached; the egg soon hatches, and the grub at 
 once proceeds to devour the food its thoughtful 
 parent has provided. As it grows it weaves itself 
 a sort of shell or cocoon, in which, after a time, it 
 undergoes its metamorphosis, and comes out, I think, 
 a perfect insect toward the end of summer. 
 
 I understood now the meaning of that sudden cry 
 of alarm I had so often heard proceed from the 
 locust or cicada, followed by some object falling 
 and rustling amid the leaves ; the poor insect was 
 doubtless in the clutches of this arch enemy. A 
 number of locusts usually passed the night on the 
 under side of a large limb of a mulberry-tree near 
 by : early one morning a hornet was seen to pounce 
 suddenly upon one and drag it over on the top of 
 the limb; a struggle ensued, but the locust was 
 soon quieted and carried off. It is said that the 
 hornet does not sting the insect in a vital part, — 
 for in that case it would not keep fresh for its 
 young, — but introduces its poison into certain ner- 
 vous ganglia, the injury to which has the effect of 
 

 NOTES BY THE WAY 121 
 
 paralyzing the victim and making it incapable of 
 motion, though life remains for some time. 
 
 My friend Van, who watched the hornets in my 
 absence, saw a fierce battle one day over the right 
 of possession of one of the dens. An angry, hum- 
 ming sound was heard to proceed from one of the 
 holes; gradually it approached the surface, until 
 the hornets emerged locked in each other's embrace, 
 and rolled down the little embankment, where the 
 combat was continued. Finally one released his 
 hold and took up his position in the mouth of his 
 den (of course I should say she and her, as these 
 were the queen hornets), where she seemed to chal- 
 lenge her antagonist to come on. The other one 
 manoeuvred about a while, but could not draw her 
 enemy out of her stronghold; then she clambered 
 up the bank and began to bite and tear off bits of 
 grass, and to loosen gravel-stones and earth, and roll 
 them down into the mouth of the disputed passage. 
 This caused the besieged hornet to withdraw farther 
 into her hole, when the other came down and thrust 
 in her head, but hesitated to enter. After more 
 manoeuvring, the aggressor withdrew, and began to 
 bore a hole about a foot from the one she had tried 
 to possess herself of by force. 
 
 Besides the cicada, the sand hornet captures 
 grasshoppers and other large insects. I have never 
 met with it before the present summer (1879), but 
 this year I have heard of its appearance at several 
 points along the Hudson. 
 
122 PEPACTON 
 
 THE SOLITARY BEE 
 
 If you "leave no stone unturned" in your walks 
 through the fields, you may perchance discover the 
 abode of one of our solitary bees. Indeed, I have 
 often thought what a chapter of natural history 
 might be written on " Life under a Stone, " so many 
 of our smaller creatures take refuge there, — ants, 
 crickets, spiders, wasps, bumblebees, the solitary 
 bee, mice, toads, snakes, newts, etc. What do 
 these things do in a country where there are no 
 stones ? A stone makes a good roof, a good shield ; 
 it is water-proof and fire-proof, and, until the sea- 
 son becomes too rigorous, frost- proof, too. The 
 field mouse wants no better place to nest than 
 beneath a large, flat stone, and the bumblebee is 
 entirely satisfied if she can get possession of. his old 
 or abandoned quarters. I have even heard of a 
 swarm of hive bees going under a stone that was 
 elevated a little from the ground. After that, I 
 did not marvel at Samson's bees going into the 
 carcass or skeleton of the lion. 
 
 In the woods one day (it was in November) I 
 turned over a stone that had a very strange-looking 
 creature under it, — a species of salamander I had 
 never before seen, the banded salamander. It was 
 five or six inches long, and was black and white in 
 alternate bands. It looked like a creature of the 
 night, — darkness dappled with moonlight, — and 
 so it proved. I wrapped it up in some leaves and 
 took it home in my pocket. By day it would 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 123 
 
 barely move, and could not be stimulated or fright- 
 ened into any degree of activity; but at night it 
 was alert and wide awake. Of its habits I know- 
 little, but it is a pretty and harmless creature. 
 Under another stone was still another species, the 
 violet-colored salamander, larger, of a dark plum- 
 color, with two rows of bright yellow spots down 
 its back. It evinced more activity than its fellow 
 of the moon-bespattered garb. I have also found 
 the little musical red newt under stories, and several 
 small, dark species. 
 
 But to return to the solitary bee. When you go 
 a-hunting of the honey-bee, and are in quest of a 
 specimen among the asters or goldenrod in some 
 remote field to start a line with, you shall see how 
 much this little native bee resembles her cousin of 
 the social hive. There appear to be several varie- 
 ties, but the one I have in mind is just the size of 
 the honey-bee, and of the same general form and 
 color, and its manner among the flowers is nearly 
 the same. On close inspection, its color proves to 
 be lighter, while the under side of its abdomen is 
 of a rich bronze. The body is also flatter and less 
 tapering, and the curve inclines upward, rather than 
 downward. You perceive it would be the easiesl 
 thing in the world for the bee to sting an enemy 
 perched upon its back. One variety, with a bright 
 buff abdomen, is called "sweat-bee" by the laborers 
 in the field, because it alights upon their hands and 
 bare arms when they are sweaty, — doubtless in 
 quest of salt. It builds its nest in Little cavities 
 
124 PEPACTON 
 
 in rails and posts. But the one with the bronze 
 or copper bottom builds under a stone. I discov- 
 ered its nest one day in this wise : I was lying upon 
 the ground in a field, watching a line of honey-bees 
 to the woods, when my attention was arrested by 
 one of these native bees flying about me in a curi- 
 ous, inquiring way. When it returned the third 
 time, I said, "That bee wants something of me," 
 which proved to be the case, for I was lying upon 
 the entrance to its nest. On my getting up, it 
 alighted and crawled quickly home. I turned over 
 the stone, which was less than a foot across, when 
 the nest was partially exposed. It consisted of 
 four cells, built in succession in a little tunnel that 
 had been excavated in the ground. The cells, which 
 were about three quarters of an inch long and half 
 as far through, were made of sections cut from the 
 leaf of the maple, — cut with the mandibles of the 
 bee, which work precisely like shears. I have seen 
 the bee at work cutting out these pieces. She 
 moves through the leaf like the hand of the tailor 
 through a piece of cloth. When the pattern is 
 detached she rolls it up, and, embracing it with her 
 legs, flies home with it, often appearing to have a 
 bundle disproportionately large. Each cell is made 
 up of a dozen or more pieces: the larger ones, those 
 that form its walls, like the walls of a paper bag, 
 are oblong, and are turned down at one end, so as 
 to form the bottom; not one thickness of leaf 
 merely, but three or four thicknesses, each fragment 
 of leaf lapping over another. When the cell is 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY L25 
 
 completed, it is filled about two thirds full of bee- 
 bread, — the color of that in the comb in the hive, 
 but not so dry, and having a sourish smell. Upon 
 this the egg is laid, and upon this the young feed 
 when hatched. Is the paper bag now tied up? 
 No, it is headed up; circular bits of leaves are 
 nicely fitted into it to the number of six or seven. 
 They are cut without pattern or compass, and yet 
 they are all alike, and all exactly fit. [ndeed, the 
 construction of this cell or receptacle shows great 
 ingenuity and skill. The bee was, of course, unable 
 to manage a single section of a leaf large enough, 
 when rolled up to form it, and so was obliged to 
 construct it of smaller pieces, such as she could 
 carry, lapping them one over another. 
 
 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 abso- 
 lutely 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 mys- 
 tery 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? 
 
126 PEPACTON 
 
 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 road- 
 side, 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 dis- 
 tinctly defined. After they were two feet or more 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY [27 
 
 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 ab- 
 sorbed 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 unprece- 
 dented height. The sluggish pond became a seething, 
 turbulent watercourse ; 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 down- 
 stream, as had many other dwellings of a Less tem- 
 porary character. The rats had built wisely, and 
 would have been perfectly secure against any ordi- 
 nary high water, but who can foresee a flood? The 
 oldest traditions of their race did not rim back to 
 the time of such a visitation. 
 
128 PEPACTON 
 
 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 begin- 
 ning 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 Novem- 
 ber 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- 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 129 
 
 board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," 
 
 to give it a finished look. But this it never gut. 
 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 ap- 
 proached 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. Whal 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 singu- 
 lar, 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. 
 
130 PEPACTON 
 
 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 excur- 
 sions 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 pres- 
 ently 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 exam- 
 ination 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 acci- 
 dent, then, but design. Whose design ? The squir- 
 rels'. 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 chest- 
 nuts, and I want them ; if I wait till the burrs open 
 on the tree, the crows and jays will be sure to carry 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 13] 
 
 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 fore- 
 stall events a little : I will cut off the burrs when 
 they have matured, and a few days of this dry Octo- 
 ber 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 pro- 
 duct, 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 live 
 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 
 
132 PEPACTON 
 
 early May, when, through the maze of bird- voices, 
 
 — laughter of robins, call of nieadowlarks, song of 
 bobolinks, ditty of sparrows, whistle of orioles, twit- 
 ter of swallows, etc., 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. Pres- 
 ently 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 Eng- 
 land, 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 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY l;;.; 
 
 long, sharp wings, and something in his manner of 
 flight that 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 stub- 
 ble, 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 distin- 
 guished 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 skulkinc 
 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 son u r . In 
 
134 PEP ACTON 
 
 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 
 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 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1.;., 
 
 began to sing. It drew his attention, and as the 
 bird went skyward, pouring out his rapid and jubi- 
 lant notes, like bees from a hive in swarming-time 
 the truth suddenly flashed upon the observer. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he exclaimed, " that is a sky- 
 lark; there is no mistaking that bird." 
 
 It is this unique and unmistakable character of 
 the lark's song, and its fountain-like sparkle an. I 
 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 musi- 
 cians 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," "Katy- 
 did," or "Katy-did n't." Toward the last of Sep- 
 tember 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," ami 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 La fullest, the 
 warm autumn night fairly throbs with the Bofl lull- 
 ing undertone. I notice that the son ml is in waves 
 
136 PEPACTON 
 
 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 regu- 
 lar pulse-beat of sound. One by one the musicians 
 cease, till, perhaps on some mild night late in Octo- 
 ber, 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 know- 
 ledge 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; appar- 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY i;;7 
 
 ently no courting is done in the South, and no 
 matches are prearranged. The males leave irregu- 
 larly without any hint, I suspect, to the females 
 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 migrat- 
 ing 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 gen- 
 tle and fond approaches; but certain of the spar- 
 rows, notably the little social sparrow or "chippie," 
 appear to carry the case by storm. The same pro- 
 ceeding may be observed among the English spar- 
 rows, 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 obstreper- 
 ous, 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 ].]..ws as they mount. 
 I have seen two male chewinks facing each other 
 and wrathfully impelled upward in the same man- 
 
138 PEPACTON 
 
 ner, while the female that was the bone of conten- 
 tion 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 scur- 
 ries 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 "Conque- 
 dle " 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; every- 
 body is in a happy frame of mind; there is no jeal- 
 ousy, 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 phoebe-birds have built their nest 
 on an elbow in the spouting beneath the eaves of 
 my house. The past spring a belated male made 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY j;; ; , 
 
 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 challeng- 
 ing 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, thru the 
 other, each one standing erect in true military Btyle 
 while his fellow passes him and descril.cs the s< 
 ment of an ellipse about him, both uttering the 
 while a fine complacent warble in a high but sup- 
 pressed 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 fol- 
 
140 PEPACTON 
 
 low each other with dignified composure about the 
 fields or lawn, into trees and upon the ground, with 
 plumage slightly spread, breasts glowing, their lisp- 
 ing, shrill war- song just audible. It forms on the 
 whole the most civil and high-bred tilt to be wit- 
 nessed 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 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 141 
 
 to the left, the hound overshot a few yards, thru 
 wheeled, and, feeling the air a moment with hei D 
 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 him- 
 self 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 hut 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 re- 
 mains 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 fos cannol trip 
 along the top of a stone wall so lightly but that lie 
 will leave enough of himself to betray his course to 
 
142 PEPACTON 
 
 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. 
 
 Judged by the eye alone, the fox is the lightest 
 and most buoyant creature that runs. His soft 
 wrapping of fur conceals the muscular play and 
 effort that is so obvious in the hound that pur- 
 sues him, and he comes bounding along precisely 
 as if blown by a gentle wind. His massive tail is 
 carried as if it floated upon the air by its own light- 
 ness. 
 
 The hound is not remarkable for his fleetness, 
 but how he will hang ! — often running late into 
 the night, and sometimes till morning, from ridge 
 to ridge, from peak to peak; now on the mountain, 
 now crossing the valley, now playing about a large 
 slope of uplying pasture fields. At times the fox 
 has a pretty well defined orbit, and the hunter 
 knows where to intercept him. Again, he leads off 
 like a comet,, quite beyond the system of hills and 
 ridges upon which he was started, and his return 
 is entirely a matter of conjecture; but if the day be 
 not more than half spent, the chances are that the 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY II.; 
 
 fox will be back before night, though the spo] 
 
 man's patience seldom holds out that long. 
 
 The hound is a most interesting dog. How sol- 
 emn and long-visaged he is, — how peaceful and 
 well-disposed ! He is the Quaker among dogs. All 
 the viciousness and currishness seem to have been 
 weeded out of him; he seldom quarrels, or fights, 
 or plays, like other dogs. Two strange hounds, 
 meeting for the first time, behave as civilly toward 
 each other as two men. I know a hound that lias 
 an ancient, wrinkled, human, far-away look that 
 reminds one of the bust of Homer among the Elgin 
 marbles. He looks like the mountains toward which 
 his heart vearns so much. 
 
 The hound is a great puzzle to the farm dog ; the 
 latter, attracted by his baying, comes barking and 
 snarling up through the fields bent on picking a 
 quarrel; he intercepts the hound, snubs and insults 
 and annoys him in every way possible, but the 
 hound heeds him not: if the dog attacks him he 
 gets away as best he can, and goes on with the trail : 
 the cur bristles and barks and struts about for a 
 while, then goes back to the house, evidently think- 
 ing the hound a lunatic, which he is for the time 
 being, — a monomaniac, the slave and victim of one 
 idea. I saw the master of a hound one day arresl 
 him in full course, to give one of the hunters time 
 to get to a certain runway; the dog cried and 
 struggled to free himself, and would Listen neither 
 to threats nor caresses. Knowing he must be hun- 
 gry, I offered him my lunch, but he would nol 
 
1 44 PEPACTON 
 
 touch it. I put it in his mouth, but he threw it 
 contemptuously from him. We coaxed and petted 
 and reassured him, but he was under a spell; he 
 was bereft of all thought or desire but the one pas- 
 sion to pursue that trail. 
 
 THE TREE-TOAD 
 
 We can boast a greater assortment of toads and 
 frogs in this country than can any other land. 
 What a chorus goes up from our ponds and marshes 
 in spring ! The like of it cannot be heard anywhere 
 else under the sun. In Europe it would certainly 
 have made an impression upon the literature. An 
 attentive ear will detect first one variety, then 
 another, each occupying the stage from three or 
 four days to a week. The latter part of April, 
 when the little peeping frogs are in full chorus, one 
 comes upon places, in his drives or walks late in the 
 day, where the air fairly palpitates with sound; 
 from every little marshy hollow and spring run 
 there rises an impenetrable maze or cloud of shrill 
 musical voices. After the peepers, the next frog 
 to appear is the clucking frog, a rather small, dark- 
 brown frog, with a harsh, clucking note, which 
 later in the season becomes the well-known brown 
 wood-frog. Their chorus is heard for a few days 
 only, while their spawn is being deposited. In 
 less than a week it ceases, and I never hear them 
 again till the next April. As the weather gets 
 warmer, the toads take to the water, and set up 
 that long-drawn musical tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-ing note. The 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1 15 
 
 voice of the bull - frog, who calls, according to 
 
 the boys, "jug o' rum," "jug o' nun," "pull tin- 
 plug," "pull the plug," is not heard much be- 
 fore June. The peepers, the clucking frog, and 
 the bullfrog are the only ones that call in chorus. 
 The most interesting and the most shy and with- 
 drawn of all our frogs and toads is the tree-toad, — 
 the creature that, from the old apple or cherry tree, 
 or red cedar, announces the approach of rain, and 
 battles your every effort to see or discover him. It 
 has not (as some people imagine) exactly the power 
 of the chameleon to render itself invisible by assum- 
 ing the color of the object it perches upon, but it 
 sits very close and still, and its mottled back, of dif- 
 ferent shades of ashen gray, blends it perfectly with 
 the bark of nearly every tree. The only change 
 in its color I have ever noticed is that it is lighter 
 on a light-colored tree, like the beech or soft maple, 
 and darker on the apple, or cedar, or pine. Then 
 it is usually hidden in some cavity or hollow of the 
 tree, when its voice appears to come from the out- 
 side. 
 
 Most of my observations upon the habits of this 
 creature run counter to the authorities 1 have been 
 able to consult on the subject. 
 
 In the first place, the tree-toad is nocturnal in 
 its habits, like the common toad. By day it re- 
 mains motionless and concealed; by night it is as 
 alert and active as an owl, feeding and moving 
 about from tree to tree. I have never known < 'in- 
 to change its position by day, and never knew one 
 
146 PEPACTON 
 
 to fail to do so by night. Last summer one was 
 discovered sitting against a window upon a climbing 
 rosebush. The house had not been occupied for 
 some days, and when the curtain was drawn the 
 toad was discovered and closely observed. His 
 light gray color harmonized perfectly with the un- 
 painted woodwork of the house. During the day 
 he never moved a muscle, but next morning he was 
 gone. A friend of mine caught one, and placed it 
 under a tumbler on his table at night, leaving the 
 edge of the glass raised about the eighth of an inch 
 to admit the air. During the night he was awak- 
 ened by a strange sound in his room. Pat, pat, 
 pat went some object, now here, now there, among 
 the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. On 
 investigating the matter, he found that by some 
 means his tree-toad had escaped from under the 
 glass, and was leaping in a very lively manner about 
 the room, producing the sound he had heard when 
 it alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpen- 
 dicular surface. 
 
 The home of the tree-toad, I am convinced, is 
 usually a hollow limb or other cavity in the tree; 
 here he makes his headquarters, and passes most of 
 the day. For two years a pair of them frequented 
 an old apple-tree near my house, occasionally sitting 
 at the mouth of a cavity that led into a large branch, 
 but usually their voices were heard from within the 
 cavity itself. On one occasion, while walking in 
 the woods in early May, I heard the voice of a tree- 
 toad but a few yards from me. Cautiously follow- 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 117 
 
 ing up the sound, I decided, after some delay, that 
 
 it proceeded from the trunk of a small soft maple; 
 the tree was hollow, the entrance to the interior 
 being a few feet from the ground. I could not dis- 
 cover the toad, but was so convinced that it was 
 concealed in the tree, that I stopped up the hole, 
 determined to return with an axe, when I had time, 
 and cut the trunk open. A week elapsed before I 
 again went to the woods, when, on cutting into the 
 cavity of the tree, I found a pair of tree-toads, male 
 and female, and a large, shelless snail. Whether 
 the presence of the snail was accidental, or whether 
 these creatures associated together for some purpo 
 I do not know. The male toad was easily distin- 
 guished from the female by its large head, and more 
 thin, slender, and angular body. The female was 
 much the more beautiful, both in form and color. 
 The cavity, which was long and irregular, was evi- 
 dently their home; it had been nicely cleaned out, 
 and was a snug, safe apartment. 
 
 The finding of the two sexes together, under such 
 circumstances and at that time of the year, suggests 
 the inquiry whether they do not breed away from 
 the water, as others of our toads are known at times 
 to do, and thus skip the tadpole state I have sev- 
 eral times seen the ground, after a June shown-, 
 swarming with minute toads, out to wel their .jack- 
 ets. Some of them were no larger than crick' 
 They were a long distance from the water, and had 
 evidently been hatched on the land, and had never 
 been polliwigs. Whether the tree-toad breeds in 
 
148 PEPACTON 
 
 trees or on the land, yet remains to be deter- 
 mined. 1 
 
 Another fact in the natural history of this crea- 
 ture, not set down in the books, is that they pass 
 the winter in a torpid state in the ground, or in 
 stumps and hollow trees, instead of in the mud of 
 ponds and marshes, like true frogs, as we have 
 been taught. The pair in the old apple-tree above 
 referred to, I heard on a warm, moist day late in 
 November, and again early in April. On the latter 
 occasion, I reached my hand down into the cavity 
 of the tree and took out one of the toads. It was 
 the first I had heard, and I am convinced it had 
 passed the winter in the moist, mud-like mass of 
 rotten wood that partially filled the cavity. It had 
 a fresh, delicate tint, as if it had not before seen 
 the light that spring. The president of a Western 
 college writes in " Science News " that two of his 
 students found one in the winter in an old stump 
 which they demolished; and a person whose vera- 
 city I have no reason to doubt sends me a specimen 
 that he dug out of the ground in December while 
 hunting for Indian relics. The place was on the 
 top of a hill, under a pine-tree. The ground was 
 frozen on the surface, and the toad was, of course, 
 torpid. 
 
 1 It now (1895) seems well established that both common toads 
 and tree-toads pass the first period of their lives in water as tad- 
 poles and that both undergo their metamorphosis when very 
 small. As soon as the change is effected, the little toads leave 
 the water and scatter themselves over the country with remark- 
 able rapidity, traveling chiefly by night, but showing themselves 
 in the daytime after showers. 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 1 t'.t 
 
 During the present season, I obtained additional 
 proof of the fact that the tree-toad hibernates on 
 dry land. The 12th of November was a warm, 
 spring-like day; wind southwest, with slighl rain 
 in the afternoon, — just the day to bring things out 
 of their winter retreats. As I was about to enter 
 my door at dusk, my eye fell upon what proved to 
 be the large tree- toad in question, sitting on some 
 low stone-work at the foot of a terrace a few feet 
 from the house. I paused to observe his move- 
 ments. Presently he started on his travels across 
 the yard toward the lawn in front. He leaped 
 about three feet at a time, with long pauses between 
 each leap. For fear of losing him as it grew darker, 
 I captured him, and kept him under the coal sieve 
 till morning. He was very active at night trying to 
 escape. In the morning, I amused myself with him 
 for some time in the kitchen. I found he could 
 adhere to a window-pane, but could not ascend it; 
 gradually his hold yielded, till he sprang off on the 
 casing. I observed that, in sitting upon the floor or 
 upon the ground, he avoided bringing his toes in 
 contact with the surface, as if they were too tender 
 or delicate for such coarse uses, but sat upon the 
 hind part of his feet. Said toes had a very bung- 
 ling, awkward appearance at such times; they looked 
 like hands encased in gray woolen gloves much too 
 large for them. Their round, llattcned ends, espe- 
 cially when not in use, have a comically helpli 
 look. 
 
 After a while I let my prisoner escape into the 
 
150 PEP ACTON 
 
 open air. The weather had grown much colder, 
 and there was a hint of coming frost. The toad 
 took the hint at once, and, after hopping a few yards 
 from the door to the edge of a grassy bank, began 
 to prepare for winter. It was a curious proceeding. 
 He went into the ground backward, elbowing him- 
 self through the turf with the sharp joints of his 
 hind legs, and going down in a spiral manner. His 
 progress was very slow: at night I could still see 
 him by lifting the grass ; and as the weather changed 
 again to warm, with southerly winds before morn- 
 ing, he stopped digging entirely. The next day I 
 took him out, and put him into a bottomless tub 
 sunk into the ground and filled with soft earth, 
 leaves, and leaf mould, where he passed the win- 
 ter safely, and came out fresh and bright in the 
 spring. 
 
 The little peeping frogs lead a sort of arboreal 
 life, too, a part of the season, but they are quite 
 different from the true tree-toads above described. 
 They appear to leave the marshes in May, and to 
 take to the woods or bushes. I have never seen 
 them on trees, but upon low shrubs. They do not 
 seem to be climbers, but perchers. I caught one 
 in May, in some low bushes a few rods from the 
 swamp. It perched upon the small twigs like a 
 bird, and would leap about among them, sure of its 
 hold every time. I was first attracted by its pip- 
 ing. I brought it home, and it piped for one twi- 
 light in a bush in my yard and then was gone. I 
 do not think they pipe much after leaving the 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 15] 
 
 water. I have found them early in April upon the 
 ground in the woods, and again late in the fall. 
 
 In November, 1879, the warm, moist weather 
 brought them out in numbers. They were hopping 
 about everywhere upon the fallen leavi Within 
 a small space I captured six. Some of them were 
 the hue of the tan-colored leaves, probably Picker- 
 ing's hyla, and some were darker, according to the 
 locality. Of course they do not go to the marshes 
 to winter, else they would not wait so late in the 
 season. I examined the ponds and marshes, and 
 found bullfrogs buried in the mud, but no peepers. 
 
 THE SPRING BIRDS 
 
 We never know the precise time the birds leave 
 us in the fall: they do not go suddenly; their 
 departure is like that of an army of occupation in 
 no hurry to be off; they keep going and going, and 
 we hardly know when the last straggler is gone. 
 Not so their return in the spring: then it is like 
 an army of invasion, and we know the very day 
 when the first scouts appear. It is a memorable 
 event. Indeed, it is always a surprise to me, and 
 one of the compensations of our abrupt and chan 
 able climate, this suddenness with which the birds 
 come in spring, — in fact, with which spring itself 
 comes, alighting, maybe, to tarry only a day or two, 
 but real and genuine, for all that. Win n .March 
 arrives, we do not know what a day may bring forth. 
 It is like turning over a leaf, a new chapter of start- 
 ling incidents lying just on the other side. 
 
152 PEPACTON 
 
 A few days ago, Winter had not perceptibly 
 relaxed his hold; then suddenly he began to soften 
 a little, and a warm haze to creep up from the 
 south, but not a solitary bird, save the winter resi- 
 dents, was to be seen or heard. Next day the sun 
 seemed to have drawn immensely nearer; his beams 
 were full of power; and we said, "Behold the first 
 spring morning! And, as if to make the prophecy 
 complete, there is the note of a bluebird, and it is 
 not yet nine o'clock." Then others, and still oth- 
 ers, were heard. How did they know it was going 
 to be a suitable day for them to put in an appear- 
 ance? It seemed as if they must have been waiting 
 somewhere close by for the first warm day, like 
 actors behind the scenes, — the moment the curtain 
 was lifted, they were ready and rushed upon the 
 stage. The third warm day, and, behold, all the 
 principal performers come rushing in, — song spar- 
 rows, cow blackbirds, grackles, the meadowlark, 
 cedar- birds, the phcebe-bird, and, hark! what bird 
 laughter was that? the robins, hurrah! the robins! 
 Not two or three, but a score or two of them; they 
 are following the river valley north, and they stop 
 in the trees from time to time, and give vent to 
 their gladness. It is like a summer picnic of school 
 children suddenly let loose in a wood; they sing, 
 shout, whistle, squeal, call, etc., in the most blithe- 
 some strains. The warm wave has brought the 
 birds upon its crest; or some barrier has given way, 
 the levee of winter has broken, and spring comes 
 like an inundation. No doubt, the snow and the 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1.,:; 
 
 frost will stop the crevasse again, but only for a 
 brief season. 
 
 Between the 10th and the 15th of March, in the 
 Middle and Eastern States, we are pretty sure to 
 have one or more of these spring days. Brighl 
 days, clear days, may have been plenty all winter; 
 but the air was a desert, the sky transparent ice: 
 now the sky is full of radiant warmth, and the air 
 of a half- articulate murmur and awakening. How- 
 still the morning is ! It is at such times that we 
 discover what music there is in the souls of the 
 little slate-colored snowbirds. How they squeal, 
 and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scatter* ,1 
 troops of fifty or a hundred, rilling the air with a 
 fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike 
 "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. 
 Through this medley of finer songs and calls, there 
 is shot, from time to time, the clear, strong note of 
 the meadowlark. It comes from some field or tree 
 farther away, and cleaves the air like an arrow. 
 The reason why the birds always appear first in the 
 morning, and not in the afternoon, is that in migra- 
 ting they travel by night, and stop and feed and 
 disport themselves by day. They come by the owl 
 train, and are here before we are up in the morning. 
 
 A LOXE QIEEX 
 
 Once, while walking in the woods, I saw <juite 
 a large nest in the top of a pine-tree. On climbing 
 up to it, I found that it had originally been a crow's 
 nest. Then a red squirrel had appropriated it ; he 
 
154 PErACTON 
 
 had filled up the cavity with the fine inner bark of 
 the red cedar, and made himself a dome-shaped nest 
 upon the crow's foundation of coarse twigs. It is 
 probable that the flying squirrel, or the white-footed 
 mouse, had been the next tenants, for the finish of 
 the interior suggested their dainty taste. But when 
 I found it, its sole occupant was a bumblebee, — 
 the mother or queen bee, just planting her colony. 
 She buzzed very loud and complainingly, and stuck 
 .up her legs in protest against my rude inquisitive- 
 ness, but refused to vacate the premises. She had 
 only one sack or cell constructed, in which she had 
 deposited her first egg, and, beside that, a large loaf 
 of bread, probably to feed the young brood with, as 
 they should be hatched. It looked like Boston 
 brown bread, but I examined it and found it to be 
 a mass of dark brown pollen, quite soft and pasty. 
 In fact it was unleavened bread, and had not been 
 got at the baker's. A few weeks later, if no acci- 
 dent befell her, she had a good working colony of 
 a dozen or more bees. 
 
 This was not an unusual incident. Our bumble- 
 bee, so far as I have observed, invariably appropri- 
 ates a mouse-nest for the site of its colony, never 
 excavating a place in the ground, nor conveying 
 materials for a nest, to be lined with wax, like the 
 European species. Many other of our wild crea- 
 tures take up with the leavings of their betters or 
 strongers. Neither the skunk nor the rabbit digs 
 his own hole, but takes up with that of a wood- 
 chuck, or else hunts out a natural den among the 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY L55 
 
 rocks. In England the rabbit burrows in the 
 ground to such an extent that in places the earth La 
 honeycombed by them, 'and the walker steps through 
 the surface into their galleries. Our white-footed 
 mouse has been known to take up his abode in a 
 hornet's nest, furnishing the interior to suit his 
 taste. A few of our birds also avail themselves of 
 the work of others, as the titmouse, the brown 
 creeper, the bluebird, and the house wren. But 
 in every case they refurnish the tenement: the 
 wren carries feathers into the cavity excavated by 
 the woodpeckers, the bluebird carries in fine straws, 
 and the chickadee lays down a fine wool mat upon 
 the floors. When the high-hole occupies the same 
 cavity another year, he deepens and enlarges it: 
 the phoebe-bird, in taking up her old nest, puts in 
 a new lining; so does the robin; but cases of reoc- 
 cupancy of an old nest by the last-named birds are 
 rare. 
 
 A BOLD LEAPER 
 
 One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold 
 and reckless in leaping through the trees is, that, if 
 they miss their hold and fall, they sustain no injury. 
 Every species of tree-squirrel seems to be capable 
 of a sort of rudimentary flying, — at least of making 
 itself into a parachute, so as to ease or break a fall 
 or a leap from a great height. The so-called Hying 
 squirrel does this the most perfectly. It opens its 
 furry vestments, leaps into the air, and sails down 
 the steep incline from the top of one tree to the 
 foot of the next as lightly as a bird. Bui othei 
 
156 PEPACTON 
 
 squirrels know the same trick, only their coat-skirts 
 are not so broad. One day my dog treed a red 
 squirrel in a tall hickory that stood in a meadow 
 on the side of a steep hill. To see what the squir- 
 rel would do when closely pressed, I climbed the 
 tree. As I drew near he took refuge in the top- 
 most branch, and then, as I came on, he boldly 
 leaped into the air, spread himself out upon it, and, 
 with a quick, tremulous motion of his tail and legs, 
 descended quite slowly and landed upon the ground 
 thirty feet below me, apparently none the worse for 
 the leap, for he ran with great speed and escaped 
 the dog in another tree. 
 
 A recent American traveler in Mexico gives a still 
 more striking instance of this power of squirrels par- 
 tially to neutralize the force of gravity when leaping 
 or falling through the air. Some boys had caught a 
 Mexican black squirrel, nearly as large as a cat. It 
 had escaped from them once, and, when pursued, had 
 taken a leap of sixty feet, from the top of a pine-tree 
 down upon the roof of a house, without injury. This 
 feat had led the grandmother of one of the boys to 
 declare that the squirrel was bewitched, and the boys 
 proposed to put the matter to further test by throw- 
 ing the squirrel down a precipice six hundred feet 
 high. Our traveler interfered, to see that the squir- 
 rel had fair play. The prisoner was conveyed in a 
 pillow-slip to the edge of the cliff, and the slip 
 opened, so that he might have his choice, whether to 
 remain a captive or to take the leap. He looked 
 down the awful abyss, and then back and sidewise, 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV L57 
 
 — his eyes glistening, his form crouchin Seeing 
 no escape in any other direction, "he took a flying 
 leap into space, and fluttered rather than fell into 
 the abyss below. His legs began to work like 
 those of a swimming poodle-dog, but quicker and 
 quicker, while his tail, slightly elevated, spread out 
 like a feather fan. A rabbit of the sain.- weighl 
 would have made the trip in about twelve second.-, 
 the squirrel protracted it for more than half a 
 minute," and "landed on a ledge of limestone, 
 where we could see him plainly squat on his hind 
 legs and smooth his ruffled fur, after which he 
 made for the creek with a flourish of his tail, took 
 a good drink, and scampered away into the willow 
 thicket." 
 
 The story at first blush seems incredible, but I 
 have no doubt our red squirrel would have made 
 the leap safely; then why not the great black squir- 
 rel, since its parachute would be proportionate lv 
 large 1 
 
 The tails of the squirrels are broad and long and 
 flat, not short and small like those of gophers, chip- 
 munks, woodchucks, and other ground rodents, and 
 when they leap or fall through the air the tail is 
 arched and rapidly vibrates. A squirrel's tail, there- 
 fore, is something more than ornament, something 
 more than a flag; it not only aids him in flying, 
 but it serves as a cloak, which Ik- wraps about him 
 when he sleeps. Thus, some animals put their tails 
 to various uses, while others seem to have no use 
 for them whatever. AVhat use for a tail has a wood- 
 
158 PEPACTON 
 
 chuck, or a weasel, or a mouse? Has not the mouse 
 yet learned that it could get in its hole sooner if 
 it had no tail 1 The mole and the meadow mouse 
 have very short tails. Rats, no doubt, put their 
 tails to various uses. The rabbit has no use for a 
 tail, — it would be in its way; while its manner of 
 sleeping is such that it does not need a tail to tuck 
 itself up with, as do the coon and the fox. The 
 dog talks with his tail; the tail of the possum is 
 prehensile; the porcupine uses his tail in climbing 
 and for defense; the beaver as a tool or trowel; 
 while the tail of the skunk serves as a screen behind 
 which it masks its terrible battery. 
 
 THE WOODCHUCK 
 
 Writers upon rural England and her familiar 
 natural history make no mention of the marmot or 
 woodchuck. In Europe this animal seems to be 
 confined to the high mountainous districts, as on 
 our Pacific slope, burrowing near the snow line. It 
 is more social or gregarious than the American spe- 
 cies, living in large families like our prairie dog. 
 In the Middle and Eastern States our woodchuck 
 takes the place, in some respects, of the English 
 rabbit, burrowing in ever} 7 hillside and under every 
 stone wall and jutting ledge and large bowlder, from 
 whence it makes raids upon the grass and clover 
 and sometimes upon the garden vegetables. It is 
 quite solitary in its habits, seldom more than one 
 inhabiting the same den, unless it be a mother and 
 her young. It is not now so much a ivoodchuck 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV L59 
 
 as a jiehlclmck. Occasionally, however, one seems 
 to prefer the woods, and is not seduced by the 
 sunny slopes and the succulent grass, hut feeds, as 
 did his fathers before him, upon roots and twi 
 the bark of young trees, and upon various wood 
 plants. 
 
 One summer day, as I was swimming across a 
 broad, deep pool in the creek in a secluded place in 
 the woods, I saw one of these sylvan chucks amid 
 the rocks but a few feet from the edge of the water 
 where I proposed to touch. He saw my approach, 
 but doubtless took me for some water-fowl, or for 
 some cousin of his of the muskrat tribe; foi he 
 went on with his feeding, and regarded me not till 
 I paused within ten feet of him and lifted myself 
 up. Then he did not know me, having, perhaps, 
 never seen Adam in his simplicity, but he twisted 
 his nose around to catch my scent; and the momenl 
 he had done so he sprang like a jumping-jack and 
 rushed into his den with the utmost precipitation. 
 
 The woodchuck is the true serf among our ani- 
 mals; he belongs to the soil, and savors of it. He 
 is of the earth, earthy. There is generally a de- 
 cided odor about his dens and lurking places, but 
 it is not at all disagreeable in the clover-scented air; 
 and his shrill whistle, as he takes to his hole or 
 defies the farm dog from the interior of the stone 
 wall, is a pleasant summer sound. In form and 
 movement the woodchuck is not captivating. Ki« 
 body is heavy and flabby. Indeed, such a flaccid, 
 fluid, pouchy carcass I have never before seen. 1 
 
160 PEPACTON 
 
 has absolutely no muscular tension or rigidity, but 
 is as baggy and shaky as a skin filled with water. 
 Let the rifleman shoot one while it lies basking on 
 a sideling rock, and its body slumps off, and rolls 
 and spills down the hill, as if it were a mass of 
 bowels only. The legs of the woodchuck are short 
 and stout, and made for digging rather than run- 
 ning. The latter operation he performs by short 
 leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. For 
 a short distance he can make very good time, but 
 he seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and, 
 when surprised in that predicament, makes little 
 effort to escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the 
 danger squarely in the face. 
 
 I knew a farmer in New York w r ho had a very 
 large bob-tailed churn-dog by the name of Cuff. 
 The farmer kept a large dairy and made a great 
 deal of butter, and it was the business of Cuff to 
 spend nearly the half of each summer day treading 
 the endless round of the churning- machine. Dur- 
 ing the remainder of the day he had plenty of time 
 to sleep and rest, and sit on his hips and survey 
 the landscape. One day, sitting thus, he discovered 
 a woodchuck about forty rods from the house, on a 
 steep sidehill, feeding about near his hole, which 
 was beneath a large rock. The old dog, forgetting 
 his stiffness, and remembering the fun he had had 
 with woodchucks in his earlier days, started off at 
 his highest speed, vainly hoping to catch this one 
 before he could get to his hole. But the wood- 
 chuck seeing the dog come laboring up the hill, 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 1C1 
 
 sprang to the mouth of his den, ami, when hia pur- 
 suer was only a few rods off, whistled tauntingly 
 and went in. This occurred several times, the old 
 dog marching up the hill, and then marching down 
 again, having had his labor for his pains. I sus- 
 pect that he revolved the subject in his mind while 
 he revolved the great wheel of the churning-ma- 
 chine, and that some turn or other brought him a 
 happy thought, for next time he showed himself 
 a strategist. Instead of giving chase to the wood- 
 chuck, when first discovered, he crouched down to 
 the ground, and, resting his head on his paws, 
 watched him. The woodchuck kept working away 
 from his hole, lured by the tender clover, but, not 
 unmindful of his safety, lifted himself up on his 
 haunches every few moments and surveyed the 
 approaches. Presently, after the woodchuck had 
 let himself down from one of these attitudes of 
 observation and resumed his feeding, Cull' started 
 swiftly but stealthily up the hill, precisely in the 
 attitude of a cat when she is stalking a bird. When 
 the woodchuck rose up again, Cull' was perfectly 
 motionless and half hid by the grass. When he 
 again resumed his clover, Cuff sped up the hill 
 before, this time crossing a fence, but in a low- 
 place, and so nimbly that he was not discovered. 
 Again the woodchuck was on the outlook, again 
 Cuff was motionless and hugging the ground. \- 
 the dog neared his victim he was partially hidden by 
 a swell in the earth, but still the woodchuck from 
 his outlook reported "All right," when Cull*, having 
 
162 PEPACTON 
 
 not twice as far to run as the chuck, threw all 
 stealthiness aside and rushed directly for the hole. 
 At that moment the woodchuck discovered his dan- 
 ger, and, seeing that it was a race for life, leaped as 
 I never saw marmot leap before. But he was two 
 seconds too late, his retreat was cut off, and the pow- 
 erful jaws of the old dog closed upon him. 
 
 The next season Cuff tried the same tactics again 
 with like success, but when the third woodchuck 
 had taken up his abode at the fatal hole, the old 
 churner's wits and strength had begun to fail him, 
 and he was baffled in each attempt to capture the 
 animal. 
 
 The woodchuck always burrows on a sidehill. 
 This enables him to guard against being drowned 
 out, by making the termination of the hole higher 
 than the entrance. He digs in slantingly for about 
 two or three feet, then makes a sharp upward turn 
 and keeps nearly parallel with the surface of the 
 ground for a distance of eight or ten feet farther, 
 according to the grade. Here he makes his nest 
 and passes the winter, holing up in October or No- 
 vember and coming out again in April. This is 
 a long sleep, and is rendered possible only by the 
 amount of fat with which the system has become 
 stored during the summer. The fire of life still 
 burns, but very faintly and slowly, as with the 
 draughts all closed and the ashes heaped up. Ees- 
 piration is continued, but at longer intervals, and 
 all the vital processes are nearly at a standstill. 
 Dig one out during hibernation (Audubon did so), 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 168 
 
 and you find it a mere inanimate ball, that sufl 
 itself to be moved and rolled about without showing 
 signs of awakening. But bring it in by the fire, 
 and it presently unrolls and opens its eyes, and 
 crawls feebly about, and if left to itself will seek 
 some dark hole or corner, roll itself up again, and 
 resume its former condition. 
 
 A GOOD SEASON FOR THE BIBDS 
 
 The season of 1880 seems to have been excep- 
 tionally favorable to the birds. The warm, early 
 spring, the absence of April snows and of long, 
 cold rains in May and June, — indeed, the excep- 
 tional heat and dryness of these months, and tin- 
 freedom from violent storms and tempests through- 
 out the summer, — all worked together for the good 
 of the birds. Their nests were not broken up or 
 torn from the trees, nor their young chilled and 
 destroyed by the wet and the cold. The drenching, 
 protracted rains that make the farmer's seed rot or 
 lie dormant in the ground in May or June, and the 
 summer tempests that uproot the trees or cause 
 them to lash and bruise their foliage, always bring 
 disaster to the birds. As a result of our immunity 
 from these things the past season, the small bird- in 
 the fall were perhaps never more abundant. In- 
 deed, I never remember to have seen so many ol 
 certain kinds, notably the social and the bush spar- 
 rows. The latter literally swarmed in the fields 
 and vineyards; and as it happened that for the first 
 time a large number of grapes were destroyed by 
 
164 PEPACTON 
 
 birds, the little sparrow, in some localities, was 
 accused of being the depredator. But he is inno- 
 cent. He never touches fruit of any kind, but 
 lives upon seeds and insects. What attracted this 
 sparrow to the vineyards in such numbers was 
 mainly the covert they afforded from small hawks, 
 and probably also the seeds of various weeds that 
 had been allowed to ripen there. The grape-de- 
 stroyer was a bird of another color, namely, the 
 Baltimore oriole. One fruit-grower on the Hudson 
 told me he lost at least a ton of grapes by the birds, 
 and in the western part of New York and in Ohio 
 and in Canada, I hear the vineyards suffered severely 
 from the depredations of the oriole. The oriole 
 has a sharp, dagger-like bill, and he seems to be 
 learning rapidly how easily he can puncture fruit 
 with it. He has come to be about the worst cherry 
 bird we have. He takes the worm first, and then 
 he takes the cherry the worm was after, or rather 
 he bleeds it; as with the grapes, he carries none 
 away with him, but wounds them all. He is wel- 
 come to all the fruit he can eat, but why should he 
 murder every cherry on the tree, or every grape in 
 the cluster? He is as wanton as a sheep-killing 
 dog, that will not stop with enough, but slaughters 
 every ewe in the flock. The oriole is peculiarly 
 exempt from the dangers that beset most of our 
 birds: its nest is all but impervious to the rain, and 
 the squirrel, or the jay, or the crow cannot rob it 
 without great difficulty. It is a pocket which it 
 would not be prudent for either jay or squirrel to 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 165 
 
 attempt to explore when the owner, with his dag- 
 ger-like beak, was about; and the crow cannot alighl 
 upon the slender, swaying branch from which it 
 usually pendent. Hence the orioles are doubtless 
 greatly on the increase. 
 
 There has been an unusual number of shrikes the 
 past fall and winter; like the hawks, they follow 
 in the wake of the little birds and prey upon them. 
 Some seasons pass and I never see a shrike. This 
 year I have seen at least a dozen while passing along 
 the road. One day I saw one carrying its prey in 
 its feet, — a performance which I supposed it incapa- 
 ble of, as it is not equipped for this business like 
 a rapacious bird, but has feet like a robin. One 
 wintry evening, near sunset, I saw one alight on 
 the top of a tree by the roadside, with some small 
 object in its beak. I paused to observe it. Pres- 
 ently it flew clown into a scrubby old apple-tree, 
 and attempted to impale the object upon a thorn or 
 twig. It was occupied in this way some moments, 
 no twig or knob proving quite satisfactory. A little 
 screech owl was evidently watching the proceedings 
 from his doorway in the trunk of a decayed apple- 
 tree ten or a dozen rods distant. Twilight was just 
 falling, and the owl had come up from his sung 
 retreat in the hollow trunk, and was waiting for the 
 darkness to deepen before venturing forth. I was 
 first advised of his presence by seeing him approach- 
 ing swiftly on silent, level wing. The Bhrike did 
 not see him till the owl was almost within the 
 branches. He then dropped his game, which proved 
 
166 PEPACTON 
 
 to be a part of a shrew-mouse, and darted back into 
 the thick cover, uttering a loud, discordant squawk, 
 as one would say, " Scat ! scat ! scat ! " The owl 
 alighted, and was, perhaps, looking about him for 
 the shrike's impaled game, when I drew near. On 
 seeing me he reversed his movement precipitately, 
 flew straight back to the old tree, and alighted in 
 the entrance to the cavity. As I approached, he 
 did not so much seem to move as to diminish in 
 size, like an object dwindling in the distance; he 
 depressed his plumage, and, with his eye fixed upon 
 me, began slowly to back and sidle into his retreat 
 till he faded from my sight. The shrike wiped his 
 beak upon the branches, cast an eye down at me 
 and at his lost mouse, and then flew away. He 
 was a remarkably fine specimen, — his breast and 
 under parts as white as snow, and his coat of black 
 and ashen gray appearing very bright and fresh. 
 A few nights afterward, as I passed that way, I 
 saw the little owl again sitting in his doorway, 
 waiting for the twilight to deepen, and undisturbed 
 by the passers-by; but when I paused to observe 
 him, he saw that he was discovered, and he slunk 
 back into his den as on the former occasion. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 It is surprising that so profuse and prodigal a 
 poet as Shakespeare, and one so bold in his dealings 
 with human nature, should seldom or never make 
 a mistake in his dealings with physical nature, or 
 take an unwarranted liberty with her. True it is 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 167 
 
 that his allusions to nature arc always incidental, 
 
 never his main purpose or theme, as with many 
 later poets; yet his accuracy and closeness to fact, 
 and his wide and various knowledge of unbookish 
 things, are seen in his light "touch and go " phra 
 and comparisons as clearly as in his mure deliberate 
 and central work. 
 
 In "Much Ado about Nothing," Benedick says 
 to Margaret : — 
 
 "Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth — it catches." 
 One marked difference between the greyhound and 
 all other hounds and dogs is, that it can pick up its 
 game while running at full speed, a feat that no 
 other dog can do. The foxhound, or farm dog, will 
 run over a fox or a rabbit many times without being 
 able to seize it. 
 
 In "Twelfth Night" the clown tells Viola that 
 
 "Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings — the 
 husband 's the bigger." 
 
 The pilchard closely resembles the herring, but is 
 thicker and heavier, with larger scales. 
 
 In the same play, Maria, seeing Malvolio com- 
 ing, says: — 
 
 "Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling." 
 
 Shakespeare, then, knew that fact so well known t«» 
 poachers, and known also to many an American 
 schoolboy, namely, that a trout likes to be tickled, 
 or behaves as if he did, and that by gently tickling 
 his sides and belly you can so mesmerize him, as it 
 were, that he will allow you to get your hands in 
 
168 PEPACTON 
 
 position to clasp him firmly. The British poacher 
 takes the jack by the same tactics: he tickles the 
 jack on the belly ; the fish slowly rises in the water 
 till it comes near the surface, when, the poacher 
 having insinuated both hands under him, he is sud- 
 denly scooped out and thrown upon the land. 
 
 Indeed, Shakespeare seems to have known inti- 
 mately the ways and habits of most of the wild 
 creatures of Britain. He had the kind of know- 
 ledge of them that only the countryman has. In 
 " As You Like It, " Jaques tells Amiens : — 
 "I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs." 
 
 Every gamekeeper, and every farmer for that 
 matter, knows how destructive the weasel and its 
 kind are to birds' eggs, and to the eggs of game- 
 birds and of domestic fowls. 
 
 In "Love's Labor's Lost," Biron says of 
 Boyet : — 
 
 " This fellow picks up wit as pigeons peas." 
 
 Pigeons do not pick up peas in this country, but 
 they do in England, and are often very damaging 
 to the farmer on that account. Shakespeare knew 
 also the peculiar manner in which they fed their 
 young, — a manner that has perhaps given rise to 
 the expression "sucking dove." In "As You Like 
 It " is this passage : — 
 
 " Celia. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. 
 
 "Rosalind. With his mouth full of news. 
 
 " Celia. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young. 
 
 "Rosalind. Then shall we be news-crammed." 
 
 When the mother pigeon feeds her young she brings 
 
NOTES BY THE WAV 169 
 
 the food, not in her beak like other birds, but in 
 her crop; she places her beak between the open 
 mandibles of her young, and fairly crams the food, 
 which is delivered by a peculiar pumping move- 
 ment, down its throat. She furnishes a capital il- 
 lustration of the eager, persistent newsmonger. 
 
 "Out of their burrows like rabbits after rain" is 
 a comparison that occurs in " Coriolanus. " In our 
 Northern or New England States we should have to 
 substitute woodchucks for rabbits, as our rabbits <!<> 
 not burrow, but sit all day in their forms under a 
 bush or amid the weeds, and as they are not seen 
 moving about after a rain, or at all by day; but in 
 England Shakespeare's line is exactly descriptive. 
 
 Says Bottom to the fairy Cobweb in "Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream: " — 
 
 "Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapon-, 
 in your hand, and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a 
 thistle, and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag." 
 
 This command might be executed in this country, 
 for we have the "red-hipp'd humble-bee ; r> and we 
 have the thistle, and there is no more likely place 
 to look for the humblebee in midsummer than on 
 a thistle-blossom. 
 
 But the following picture of a "wet spell* is 
 more English than American : — 
 
 "The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain. 
 The plowman lust his sweat; ami the preen com 
 Hath rotted ere his youth attainM a beard; 
 The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 
 And crows are fatted with the murrain Bock." 
 
 Shakespeare knew the birds and wild fowl, ami 
 
170 PEPACTON 
 
 knew them perhaps as a hunter, as well as a poet. 
 At least this passage would indicate as much : — 
 
 " As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, 
 Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, 
 Rising and cawing at the gun's report, 
 Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky." 
 
 In calling the choughs "russet-pated" he makes 
 the bill tinge the whole head, or perhaps gives the 
 effect of the birds' markings when seen at a dis- 
 tance; the bill is red, the head is black. The 
 chough is a species of crow. 
 
 A poet must know the birds well to make one of 
 his characters say, when he had underestimated a 
 man, "I took this lark for a bunting," as Lafeu 
 says of Parolles in "All 's Well that Ends Well." 
 The English bunting is a field-bird like the lark, 
 and much resembles the latter in form and color, 
 but is far inferior as a songster. Indeed, Shake- 
 speare shows his familiarity with nearly all the 
 British birds. 
 
 " The ousel-cock, so black of hue, 
 With orange-tawny bill, 
 The throstle with his note so true, 
 The wren with little quill. 
 
 " The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, 
 The plain-song cuckoo gray, 
 Whose note full many a man doth mark, 
 And dares not answer nay." 
 
 In " Much Ado about Nothing " we get a glimpse 
 of the lapwing : — 
 
 ' For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs 
 Close by the ground, to hear our conference." 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 171 
 
 The lapwing is a kind of plover, and is very Bwift 
 of foot. "When trying to avoid being seen they 
 run rapidly with depressed heads, or "close l>y tin- 
 ground," as the poet puts it. In the same scene, 
 Hero says of Ursula : — 
 
 " I know her spirits are as coy and wild 
 As haggards of the rock." 
 
 The haggard falcon is a species of hawk found in 
 North Wales and in Scotland. It breeds on high 
 shelving cliffs and precipitous rocks. Had Shake- 
 speare been an "amateur poacher" in his youth? 
 He had a poacher's knowledge of the wild creatures. 
 He knew how fresh the snake appeared after it had 
 cast its skin; how the hedgehog makes himself up 
 into a ball and leaves his "prickles" in whatever 
 touches him; how the butterfly came from the grub: 
 how the fox carries the goose; where the squirrel 
 hides his store; where the martlet builds its nest, 
 
 etc. 
 
 " Now is the woodcock near the gin," 
 
 says Fabian, in "Twelfth Night," and 
 
 "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits," 
 
 says Claudio to Leonato, in "Much Ado." 
 
 " Instruct thee how 
 To snare the nimble marmozet," 
 
 says Caliban, in "The Tempest." Sings the fool 
 in "Lear: " — 
 
 "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so lon^ 
 That it 's had it head bit off by it yono 
 
 The hedge-sparrow is one of the favorite birds upon 
 
172 PEPACTON 
 
 which the European cuckoo imposes the rearing of 
 
 its young. If Shakespeare had made the house 
 
 sparrow, or the blackbird, or the bunting, or any of 
 
 the granivorous, hard-billed birds, the foster- parent 
 
 of the cuckoo, his natural history would have been 
 
 at fault. 
 
 Shakespeare knew the flowers, too, and knew 
 
 their times and seasons : — 
 
 " When daisies pied, and violets blue, 
 And lady smocks all silver-white, 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 
 
 Do paint the meadows with delight." 
 
 They have, in England, the cuckoo-flower, which 
 comes in April and is lilac in color, and the cuckoo- 
 pint, which is much like our "Jack in the pulpit ; ,; 
 but the poet does not refer to either of these (if he 
 did we would catch him tripping), but to butter- 
 cups, which are called by rural folk in Britain 
 " cuckoo-buds. " 
 
 In England the daffodil blooms in February and 
 March; the swallow comes in April usually; hence 
 the truth of Shakespeare's lines: — 
 
 " Daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty." 
 
 The only flaw I notice in Shakespeare's natural 
 history is in his treatment of the honey-bee, but 
 this was a flaw in the knowledge of the times as 
 well. The history of this insect was not rightly 
 read till long after Shakespeare wrote. He pictures 
 a colony of bees as a kingdom, with 
 
 "A king and officers of sorts," 
 
NOTES BY THE WAY 17:; 
 
 (see "Henry V."), whereas a colony of bees is an 
 absolute democracy; the rulers and governors and 
 " officers of sorts " are the workers, the masses, the 
 common people. A strict regard to fact also would 
 spoil those fairy tapers in "Midsummer Night's 
 Dream, " — 
 
 " The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, 
 And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, 
 And light them at the fiery glow-worm's <vis," — 
 
 since it is not wax that bees bear upon their thighs, 
 but pollen, the dust of the flowers, with which bees 
 make their bread. Wax is made from honey. 
 
 The science or the meaning is also a little obscure 
 in this phrase, which occurs in one of the plays : — 
 
 " One heat another heat expels " — 
 as one nail drives out another, or as one love cures 
 another. 
 
 In a passage in "The Tempest" he speaks of the 
 ivy as if it were parasitical, like the mistletoe : — 
 
 " Now, he was 
 The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 
 And sucked my verdure out on't." 
 
 I believe it is not a fact that the ivy sucks the juice 
 out of the trees it climbs upon, though it may much 
 interfere with their growth. Its aerial rootlets are 
 for support alone, as in the case with all climb 
 that are not twiners. But this may perhapa be 
 regarded as only a poetic license on the part of 
 Shakespeare; the human ivy he was picturing no 
 doubt fed upon the tree that supported it, whether 
 the real ivy does or not. 
 
174 PEPACTON 
 
 It is also probably untrue that 
 
 " The poor beetle that we tread upon, 
 In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
 As when a giant dies," 
 
 though it has suited the purpose of other poets be- 
 sides Shakespeare to say so. The higher and more 
 complex the organization the more acute the pleas- 
 ure and the pain. A toad has been known to live 
 for days with the upper part of its head cut away 
 by a scythe, and a beetle will survive for hours 
 upon the fisherman's hook. It perhaps causes a 
 grasshopper less pain to detach one of its legs than 
 it does a man to remove a single hair from his 
 beard. Nerves alone feel pain, and the nervous 
 system of a beetle is a very rudimentary affair. 
 
 In " Coriolanus " there is a comparison which 
 implies that a man can tread upon his own shadow, 
 — a difficult feat in northern countries at all times 
 except midday; Shakespeare is particular to men- 
 tion the time of day : — 
 
 " Such a nature, 
 Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow 
 Which he treads on at noon." 
 
VI 
 
 FOOTPATHS • 
 
 A N intelligent English woman, spending a few 
 * » years in this country with her family, says 
 that one of her serious disappointments is that she 
 finds it utterly impossible to enjoy nature here as 
 she can at home — so much nature as we have and 
 yet no way of getting at it; no paths, or byways, 
 or stiles, or foot-bridges, no provision for the pedes- 
 trian outside of the public road. One would think 
 the people had no feet and legs in this country, or 
 else did not know how to use them. Last Bummei 
 she spent the season near a small rural village in 
 the valley of the Connecticut, but it seemed as if 
 she had not been in the country: she could not 
 come at the landscape; she could not reach a wood 
 or a hill or a pretty nook anywhere withoul being 
 a trespasser, or getting entangled in swamps oi in 
 fields of grass and grain, or having hei com 
 blocked by a high and difficult fence; no private 
 ways, no grassy lanes; nobody walking in the fields 
 or woods, nobody walking anywhere for pleasure, 
 but everybody in carriages or wagons. 
 
 She was stopping a mile from the village, and 
 
 every day used to walk down to the post-office for 
 
176 PEPACTON 
 
 her mail; but instead of a short and pleasant cut 
 across the fields, as there would have been in Eng- 
 land, she was obliged to take the highway and face 
 the dust and the mud and the staring people in 
 their carriages. 
 
 She complained, also, of the absence of bird voices, 
 — so silent the fields and groves and orchards were, 
 compared with what she had been used to at home. 
 The most noticeable midsummer sound everywhere 
 was the shrill, brassy crescendo of the locust. 
 
 All this is unquestionably true. There is far 
 less bird music here than in England, except possi- 
 bly in May and June, though, if the first impres- 
 sions of the Duke of Argyle are to be trusted, there 
 is much less even then. The duke says: "Although 
 I was in the woods and fields of Canada and of the 
 States in the richest moments of the spring, I heard 
 little of that burst of song which in England comes 
 from the blackcap, and the garden warbler, and the 
 whitethroat, and the reed warbler, and the common 
 wren, and (locally) from the nightingale." Our 
 birds are more withdrawn than the English, and 
 their notes more plaintive and intermittent. Yet 
 there are a few days here early in May, when the 
 house wren, the oriole, the orchard starling, the 
 kingbird, the bobolink, and the wood thrush first 
 arrive, that are so full of music, especially in the 
 morning, that one is loath to believe there is any- 
 thing fuller or finer even in England. As walkers, 
 and lovers of rural scenes and pastimes, we do not 
 approach our British cousins. It is a seven days' 
 
FOOTPATHS 177 
 
 wonder to see anybody walking in tin- country 
 except on a wager or in a public hall or skating- 
 rink, as an exhibition and trial of endurance. 
 
 Countrymen do not walk except from necessity, 
 and country women walk far less than their city 
 sisters. When city people come to the country 
 they do not walk, because that would be conceding 
 too much to the country; beside, they would soil 
 their shoes and would lose the awe and respect 
 which their imposing turn-outs inspire. Then they 
 find the country dull; it is like water or milk after 
 champagne; they miss the accustomed stimulus, 
 both mind and body relax, and walking is too great 
 an effort. 
 
 There are several obvious reasons why the Eng- 
 lish should be better or more habitual walkers than 
 we are. Taken the year round, their climate is 
 much more favorable to exercise in the open air. 
 Their roads are better, harder, and smoother, and 
 there is a place for the man and a place for the 
 horse. Their country houses and churches and 
 villages are not strung upon the highway as ours 
 are, but are nestled here and there with reference 
 to other things than convenience in "getting out." 
 Hence the grassy lanes and paths through the 
 
 fields. 
 
 Distances are not so great in that country; the 
 population occupies less space. A-gain, the laud 
 has been longer occupied and is more thoroughly 
 subdued; it is easier to get about the fields; lif<' 
 has flowed in the same channels for centui . The 
 
178 PEPACTON 
 
 English landscape is like a park, and is so thor- 
 oughly rural and mellow and bosky that the tempta- 
 tion to walk amid its scenes is ever present to one. 
 In comparison, nature here is rude, raw, and forbid- 
 ding; has not that maternal and beneficent look, is 
 less mindful of man, runs to briers and weeds or to 
 naked sterility. 
 
 Then as a people the English are a private, 
 domestic, homely folk: they dislike publicity, dis- 
 like the highway, dislike noise, and love to feel the 
 grass under their feet. They have a genius for 
 lanes and footpaths; one might almost say they 
 invented them. The charm of them is in their 
 books; their rural poetry is modeled upon them. 
 How much of Wordsworth's poetry is the poetry of 
 pedestrianism ! A footpath is sacred in England; 
 the king himself cannot close one ; the courts recog- 
 nize them as something quite as important and 
 inviolable as the highway. 
 
 A footpath is of slow growth, and it is a wild, 
 shy thing that is easily scared away. The plow 
 must respect it, and the fence or hedge make way 
 for it. It requires a settled state of things, un- 
 changing habits among the people, and long tenure 
 of the land; the rill of life that finds its way there 
 must have a perennial source, and flow there to- 
 morrow and the next day and the next century. 
 
 When I was a youth and went to school with my 
 brothers we had a footpath a mile long. On going 
 from home after leaving the highway there was a 
 descent through a meadow, then through a large 
 
FOOTPATHS 179 
 
 maple and beech wood, then through a long stretch 
 of rather barren pasture land which brought lie to 
 the creek in the valley, which we crossed on a Blah 
 or a couple of rails from the near fence; then more 
 meadow land with a neglected orchard, and then 
 the little gray schoolhouse itself toeing the high- 
 way. In winter our course was a hard, beaten path 
 in the snow visible from afar, and in summer a 
 well-defined trail. In the woods it wore the roots 
 of the trees. It steered for the gaps or low places 
 in the fences, and avoided the bogs and swamps in 
 the meadow. I can recall yet the very look, tin- 
 very physiognomy of a large birch-tree that stood 
 beside it in the midst of the woods; it sometimes 
 tripped me up with a large root it sent ont like a 
 foot. Neither do I forget the little spring run near 
 by where we frequently paused to drink, and gath- 
 ered "crinkle" root (Dentaria) in the early sum- 
 mer; nor the dilapidated log fence that was the 
 highway of the squirrels; nor the ledges to one 
 side, whence in early spring the skunk and coon 
 sallied forth and crossed our path; nor the gray, 
 scabby rocks in the pasture; nor the solitary tn 
 nor the old weather-worn stump; no, nor the creek 
 in which I plunged one winter morning in attempt- 
 ing to leap its swollen current. But the path 
 served only one generation of school children; it 
 faded out more than thirty years ago, and the feet 
 that made it are widely scattered, while some of 
 them have found the path that leads through the 
 Valley of the Shadow. Almost the last words of 
 
180 PEPACTON 
 
 one of these schoolboys, then a man grown, seemed 
 as if he might have had this very path in mind, and 
 thought himself again returning to his father's 
 house: "I must hurry," he said; "I have a long 
 way to go up a hill and through a dark wood, and 
 it will soon be night." 
 
 We are a famous people to go "'cross lots," but 
 we do not make a path, or, if we do, it does not 
 last; the scene changes, the currents set in other 
 directions, or cease entirely, and the path vanishes. 
 In the South one would find plenty of bridle-paths, 
 for there everybody goes horseback, and there are 
 few passable roads; and the hunters and lumbermen 
 of the North have their trails through the forest 
 following a line of blazed trees; but in all my 
 acquaintance with the country, — the rural and 
 agricultural sections, — I do not know a pleasant, 
 inviting path leading from house to house, or from 
 settlement to settlement, by which the pedestrian 
 could shorten or enliven a journey, or add the charm 
 of the seclusion of the fields to his walk. 
 
 What a contrast England presents in this respect, 
 according to Mr. Jennings's pleasant book, "Field 
 Paths and Green Lanes " ! The pedestrian may go 
 about quite independent of the highway. Here is 
 a glimpse from his pages: "A path across the field, 
 seen from the station, leads into a road close by the 
 lodge gate of Mr. Cubett's house. A little beyond 
 this gate is another and smaller one, from which a 
 narrow path ascends straight to the top of the hill 
 and comes out just opposite the post-office on Ran- 
 
FOOTPATHS ]-l 
 
 more Common. The Common at another point may 
 be reached by a shorter cut. After entering a path 
 close by the lodge, open the first gate you come to 
 on the right hand. Cross the road, go through the 
 gate opposite, and either follow the road right out 
 upon Kanmore Common, past the beautiful deep 
 dell or ravine, or take a path which you will see on 
 your left, a few yards from the gate. This winds 
 through a very pretty wood, witli glimpses of the 
 valley here and there on the way, and eventually 
 brings you out upon the carriage-drive to the hoi, 
 Turn to the right and you will soon find yourself 
 upon the Common. A road or path opens out in 
 front of the upper lodge gate. Follow that and it 
 will take you to a small piece of water from whence 
 a green path strikes off to the right, and this will 
 lead you all across the Common in a northerly direc- 
 tion," etc. Thus we may see how the country is 
 threaded with paths. A later writer, the author 
 of "The Gamekeeper at Home" and other books, 
 says: "Those only know a country who are ac- 
 quainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, 
 the outside may be seen; but the footpaths go 
 through the heart of the land. There are routes 
 by which mile after mile may be traveled without 
 leaving the sward. So you may pass from vil! 
 to village; now crossing green meadows, now corn- 
 fields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyard 
 and rick ' barken. ' " 
 
 The conditions of life in this country have not 
 been favorable to the development of byways, \Y. 
 
182 PEPACTON 
 
 do not take to lanes and to the seclusion of the 
 fields. We love to be upon the road, and to plant 
 our houses there, and to appear there mounted upon 
 a horse or seated in a wagon. It is to be distinctly- 
 stated, however, that our public highways, with 
 their breadth and amplitude, their wide grassy 
 margins, their picturesque stone or rail fences, their 
 outlooks, and their general free and easy character, 
 are far more inviting to the pedestrian than the 
 narrow lanes and trenches that English highways 
 for the most part are. The road in England is 
 always well kept, the roadbed is often like a rock, 
 but the traveler's view is shut in by high hedges, 
 and very frequently he seems to be passing along 
 a deep, nicely-graded ditch. The open, broad land- 
 scape character of our highways is quite unknown 
 in that country. 
 
 The absence of the paths and lanes is not so 
 great a matter, but the decay of the simplicity of 
 manners, and of the habits of pedestrianism which 
 this absence implies, is what I lament. The devil 
 is in the horse to make men proud and fast and 
 ill-mannered; only when you go afoot do you grow 
 in the grace of gentleness and humility. But no 
 good can come out of this walking mania that is 
 now sweeping over the country, simply because it 
 is a mania and not a natural and wholesome impulse. 
 It is a prostitution of the noble pastime. 
 
 It is not the walking merely, it is keeping your- 
 self in tune for a walk, in the spiritual and bodily 
 condition in which you can find entertainment and 
 
FOOTPATHS 183 
 
 exhilaration in so simple and natural a pastime. 
 You are eligible to any good fortune when you are 
 in the condition to enjoy a walk. When the air 
 and water tastes sweet to you, how much else will 
 taste sweet! When the exercise of your- limbs 
 affords you pleasure, and the play of your sen 
 upon the various objects and shows of nature, quick- 
 ens and stimulates your spirit, your relation to the 
 world and to yourself is what it should be, — simple 
 and direct and wholesome. The mood in which 
 you set out on a spring or autumn ramble or a 
 sturdy winter walk, and your greedy feel have to 
 be restrained from devouring the distances too f, 
 is the mood in which your best thoughts and im- 
 pulses come to you, or in which you might embark 
 upon any noble and heroic enterprise. Life is 
 sweet in such moods, the universe is complete, and 
 there is no failure or imperfection anywhere. 
 
VII 
 
 A BUNCH OF HERBS 
 
 FRAGRANT WILD FLOWERS 
 
 rpHE charge that was long ago made against our 
 -*- wild flowers by English travelers in this coun- 
 try, namely, that they were odorless, doubtless had 
 its origin in the fact that, whereas in England tin- 
 sweet-scented flowers are among the most common 
 and conspicuous, in this country they are rather >hv 
 and withdrawn, and consequently not such as trav- 
 elers would be likely to encounter. Moreover, tin- 
 British traveler, remembering the deliciously fra- 
 grant blue violets he left at home, covering every 
 grassy slope and meadow bank in spring, and the 
 wild clematis, or traveler's joy, overrunning hedj 
 and old walls with its white, sweet-scented 1.; 
 soms, and finding the corresponding species hi 
 equally abundant but entirely scentless, very natu- 
 rally inferred that our wild Bowers were all deficient 
 in this respect. He would be confirmed in this 
 opinion when, on turning to some of our mosl beau- 
 tiful and striking native flowers, like the laurel, the 
 rhododendron, the columbine, the inimitable frinj 
 gentian, the burning cardinal-flower, or our asters 
 and goldenrod, dashing the roadside) with tints of 
 
186 PEPACTON 
 
 purple and gold, he found them scentless also. 
 "Where are your fragrant flowers?" he might well 
 say; "I can find none." Let him look closer and 
 penetrate our forests, and visit our ponds and lakes. 
 Let him compare our matchless, rosy-lipped, honey- 
 hearted trailing arbutus with his own ugly ground- 
 ivy ; let him compare our sumptuous, fragrant pond- 
 lily with his own odorless Nymphcea alba. In our 
 Northern woods he shall find the floors carpeted 
 with the delicate linnsea, its twin rose-colored, nod- 
 ding flowers filling the air with fragrance. (I am 
 aware that the lmnasa is found in some parts of 
 Northern Europe.) The fact is, we perhaps have 
 as many sweet-scented wild flowers as Europe has, 
 only they are not quite so prominent in our flora, 
 nor so well known to our people or to our poets. 
 Think of Wordsworth's "Golden Daffodils: " — 
 
 " I wandered lonely as a cloud 
 
 That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
 When, all at once, I saw a crowd, 
 
 A host of golden daffodils, 
 Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
 Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 
 
 " Continuous as the stars that shine 
 
 And twinkle on the milky way, 
 They stretched in never-ending line 
 
 Along the margin of a bay. 
 Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
 Tossing their heads in sprightly dance." 
 
 No such sight could greet the poet's eye here. 
 He might see ten thousand marsh marigolds, or ten 
 times ten thousand houstonias, but they would not 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 1 -7 
 
 toss in the breeze, and they would not be Bweet- 
 scented like the daffodils. 
 
 It is to be remembered, too, that in the moi 
 atmosphere of England the same amount of fragrance 
 would be much more noticeable than with us. 
 Think how our sweet bay, or our pink azalea, or 
 our white alder, to which they have nothing thai 
 corresponds, would perfume that heavy, vapor-laden 
 air! 
 
 In the woods and groves in England, the wild 
 hyacinth grows very abundantly in spring, and in 
 places the air is loaded with its fragrance. In 
 woods a species of dicentra, commonly called squir- 
 rel corn, has nearly the same perfume, and its 
 racemes of nodding whitish flowers, tinged with 
 red, are quite as pleasing to the eye, but it i- 
 shyer, less abundant plant. When our children 
 to the fields in April and May, they can bring home 
 no wild flowers as pleasing as the sweel English 
 violet, and cowslip, and yellow daffodil, and wall- 
 flower; and, when British children go t.> the woods 
 at the same season, they can load their hands and 
 baskets with nothing that compares with our trail- 
 ing arbutus, or, later in the season, with our azale 
 and, when their boys go fishing or boating in sum- 
 mer, they can wreathe themselves with nothing 
 that approaches our pond-lily. 
 
 There are upward of thirty species of fragrant 
 native wild flowers and flowering shrubs and tn 
 in New England and New Fork, and, no doubt, 
 many more in the South and West, My list is 
 follows: — 
 
188 PEPACTON 
 
 White violet {Viola blanda). 
 
 Canada violet ( Viola Canadensis). 
 
 Hepatica (occasionally fragrant). 
 
 Trailing arbutus (Ejngmt repens). 
 
 Mandrake (Podophyllum peltatum). 
 
 Yellow lady's-slipper (Cypripedium parvifiorum). 
 
 Purple lady's-slipper (Cypripedium acaule). 
 
 Squirrel corn (Dicentra Canadensis). 
 
 Showy orchis (Orchis spectabilis). 
 
 Purple fringed-orchis (Habenaria psy codes). 
 
 Arethusa (Arethusa bulbosa). 
 
 Calopogon ( Calopogon pulchellus). 
 
 Lady's-tresses (Spiranthes cernua). 
 
 Pond-lily (Nymph(ea odorata). 
 
 Wild rose (Rosa nitida). 
 
 Twin-flower (Linncea boreah's). 
 
 Sugar maple (Acer saccharinum). 
 
 Linden {Tilia Americana). 
 
 Locust-tree (Robinia pseudacacia). 
 
 White alder (Clethra alnifolia). 
 
 Smooth azalea (Rhododendron arborescens). 
 
 White azalea (Rhododendron viscosum). 
 
 Pinxter-flower (Rhododendron nudiflorum). 
 
 Yellow azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum). 
 
 Sweet bay (Magnolia glauca). 
 
 Mitchella vine (Mitchella repens). 
 
 Sweet coltsfoot (Petasites palmata). 
 
 Pasture thistle (Cnicus pumilus). 
 
 False wintergreen {Pyrola rotundifolia). 
 
 Spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata). 
 
 Prince's pine (Chimaphila umbellata). 
 
 Evening primrose ( Oenothera biennis). 
 
 Hairy loosestrife (Steironema ciliatum). 
 
 Dogbane (Apocynum). 
 
 Ground-nut (Apios tuberosa). 
 
 Adder' s-tongue pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides). 
 
 Wild grape | Vitis cordofolia). 
 
 Horned bladderwort (Utricularia cornuta). 
 
 The last-named, horned bladderwort, is perhaps 
 the most fragrant flower we have. In a warm, 
 moist atmosphere, its odor is almost too strong. It 
 is a plant with a slender, leafless stalk or scape less 
 
A BUNCH OF HERB 189 
 
 than a foot high, with two or more large yellow 
 hood or helmet shaped flowers. Ii is doI common, 
 and belongs pretty well north, growing in sandy 
 swamps and along the marshy margins of Lakes and 
 ponds. Its perfume is sweet and spicy in an emi- 
 nent degree. I have placed in the above lisl sev- 
 eral flowers that are intermittently fragrant, like 
 the hepatica, or liver-leaf. This flower is the ear- 
 liest, as it is certainly one of the mosl beautiful, 
 to be found in our woods, and occasionally it is 
 fragrant. Group after group may he inspected, 
 ranging through all shades of purple and blue, with 
 some perfectly white, and no odor be detected, 
 when presently you will happen upon a little brood 
 of them that have a most delicate and delicious fra- 
 grance. The same is true of a species of loosestrife 
 growing along streams and on other wet pla< 
 with tall bushy stalks, dark green leaves, and pale 
 axillary yellow flowers (probably European). \ 
 handful of these flowers will sometimes exhale a 
 sweet fragrance; at other times, or from another 
 locality, they are scentless. Our evening prim] 
 is thought to be uniformly sweet-scented, but the 
 past season I examined many specimens, and failed 
 to find one that was so. Some seasons the 
 maple yields much sweeter sap than at others; and 
 even individual trees, owing to the roil, moistui 
 etc., where they stand, show a great difference in 
 this respect. The Bame is doubtless true of the 
 sweet-scented flowers. I had always supposed that 
 our Canada violet — the tall, leafy-stemmed white 
 
190 PEPACTON 
 
 violet of our Northern woods — was odorless, till 
 a correspondent called my attention to the contrary 
 fact. On examination I found that, while the first 
 ones that bloomed about May 25 had very sweet- 
 scented foliage, especially when crushed in the 
 hand, the flowers were practically without fragrance. 
 But as the season advanced the fragrance developed, 
 till a single flower had a well-marked perfume, and 
 a handful of them was sweet indeed. A single 
 specimen, plucked about August 1, was quite as fra- 
 grant as the English violet, though the perfume is 
 not what is known as violet, but, like that of the 
 hepatica, comes nearer to the odor of certain fruit- 
 trees. 
 
 It is only for a brief period that the blossoms of 
 our sugar maple are sweet-scented; the perfume 
 seems to become stale after a few days: but pass 
 under this tree just at the right moment, say at 
 nightfall on the first or second day of its perfect 
 inflorescence, and the air is loaded with its sweet- 
 ness ; its perfumed breath falls upon you as its cool 
 shadow does a few weeks later. 
 
 After the linnsea and the arbutus, the prettiest 
 sweet-scented flowering vine our woods hold is the 
 common mitchella vine, called squaw-berry and par- 
 tridge-berry. It blooms in June, and its twin flow- 
 ers, light cream-color, velvety, tubular, exhale a 
 most agreeable fragrance. 
 
 Our flora is much more rich in orchids than the 
 European, and many of ours are fragrant. The 
 first to bloom in the spring is the showy orchis, 
 
A BUNCH OF HERB 19] 
 
 though it is far less showy than Beveral othei I 
 find it in May, not on hills, where Graj it 
 
 grows, but in low, damp places in the woods. It 
 has two oblong shining leaves, with a scape four or 
 five inches high strung with sweet-scented, pink- 
 purple flowers. I usually find it and the frin. 
 polygala in bloom at the same time; the iady's-alip- 
 per is a little later. The purple fringed-orchis, one 
 of the most showy and striking of all our orchids, 
 blooms in midsummer in swampy meadows and in 
 marshy, grassy openings in the woods, shooting up 
 a tapering column or cylinder of pink-purple fringed 
 flowers, that one may see at quite a distance, and 
 the perfume of which is too rank for a close room. 
 This flower is, perhaps, like the English fragrant 
 orchis, found in pastures. 
 
 Few fragrant flowers in the shape of weeds have 
 come to us from the Old World, and this leads un- 
 to remark that plants with sweet-scented flowi 
 are, for the most part, more intensely local, more 
 fastidious and idiosyncratic, than those without per- 
 fume. Our native thistle — the pasture thistle — 
 has a marked fragrance, and it is much more shy 
 and limited in its range than the common I >M World 
 thistle that grows every where. Our little, sunt 
 white violet grows only in wet places, and the 
 Canada violet only in high, cool woods, while the 
 common blue violet is much more general in itfl 
 distribution. I low fastidious and exclusive is the 
 cypripedium! You will find it in one Locality in 
 the woods, usually on high, dry ground, and will 
 
192 PEPACTON 
 
 look in vain for it elsewhere. It does not go in 
 herds like the commoner plants, but affects privacy 
 and solitude. When I come upon it in my walks, 
 I seem to be intruding upon some very private and 
 exclusive company. The large yellow cypripedium 
 has a peculiar, heavy, oily odor. 
 
 In like manner one learns where to look for arbu- 
 tus, for pipsissewa, for the early orchis; they have 
 their particular haunts, and their surroundings are 
 nearly always the same. The yellow pond-lily is 
 found in every sluggish stream and pond, but 
 Nymphcea odorata requires a nicer adjustment of 
 conditions, and consequently is more restricted in 
 its range. If the mullein were fragrant, or toad- 
 flax, or the daisy, or blue-weed, or goldenrod, they 
 would doubtless be far less troublesome to the agri- 
 culturist. There are, of course, exceptions to the 
 rule I have here indicated, but it holds in most 
 cases. Genius is a specialty: it does not grow in 
 every soil; it skips the many and touches the few; 
 and the gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace 
 like genius or like beauty, and never becomes com- 
 mon or cheap. 
 
 "Do honey and fragrance always go together in 
 the flowers 1 " Not uniformly. Of the list of fra- 
 grant wild flowers I have given, the only ones that 
 the bees procure nectar from, so far as I have ob- 
 served, are arbutus, dicentra, sugar maple, locust, 
 and linden. Non-fragrant flowers that yield honey 
 are those of the raspberry, clematis, sumac, white 
 oak, bugloss, ailanthus, goldenrod, aster, fleabane. 
 
A BUNCB OF SERBS 
 
 A large number of odorless plants yield pollen to 
 
 the bee. There is nectar in the columbine, and the 
 bumblebee sometimes gets it by piercing the Bpur 
 from the outside as she does with dicentra. Thi 
 ought to be honey in the honeysuckle, but I li 
 never seen the hive-bee make any attempt to get it. 
 
 WEEDS 
 
 One is tempted to say that the most human 
 plants, after all, are the weeds. How they clii 
 to man and follow him around the world, and 
 spring up wherever he sets his foot! How they 
 crowd around his barns and dwellings, and throng 
 his garden and jostle and override each other in 
 their strife to be near him! Some of them are 
 domestic and familiar, and so harmless withal, that 
 one comes to regard them with positive affection. 
 Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild mustard, — 
 what a homely human look they have! they are an 
 integral part of every old homestead. Tour smart 
 new place will wait long before they draw near it. 
 Or knot-grass, that carpets every old dooryard, and 
 fringes every walk, and softens every path that 
 knows the feet of children, or that leads to the 
 spring, or to the garden, or to the barn, bow kindly 
 one comes to look upon it! Examine it with a 
 pocket glass and see how wonderfully beautiful and 
 exquisite are its tiny blossoms. It loves the human 
 foot, and when the path or the place is long disu 
 other plants usurp the ground. 
 
 The gardener and the farmer are ostensibly the 
 
194 PEPACTON 
 
 greatest enemies of the weeds, but they are in reality 
 their best friends. Weeds, like rats and mice, in- 
 crease and spread enormously in a cultivated coun- 
 try. They have better food, more sunshine, and 
 more aids in getting themselves disseminated. They 
 are sent from one end of the land to the other in 
 seed grain of various kinds, and they take their 
 share, and more too, if they can get it, of the 
 phosphates and stable manures. How sure, also, 
 they are to survive any war of extermination that 
 is waged against them! In yonder field are ten 
 thousand and one Canada thistles. The farmer 
 goes resolutely to work and destroys ten thousand 
 and thinks the work is finished, but he has done 
 nothing till he has destroyed the ten thousand and 
 one. This one will keep up the stock and again 
 cover his fields with thistles. 
 
 Weeds are Nature's makeshift. She rejoices in 
 the grass and the grain, but when these fail to cover 
 her nakedness she resorts to weeds. It is in her 
 plan or a part of her economy to keep the ground 
 constantly covered with vegetation of some sort, 
 and she has layer upon layer of seeds in the soil 
 for this purpose, and the wonder is that each kind 
 lies dormant until it is wanted. If I uncover the 
 earth in any of my fields, ragweed and pigweed 
 spring up; if these are destroyed, harvest grass, or 
 quack grass, or purslane, appears. The spade or 
 plow that turns these under is sure to turn up some 
 other variety, as chickweed, sheep-sorrel, or goose- 
 foot. The soil is a storehouse of seeds. 
 
A BUNCH OF HERB 195 
 
 The old fanners say thai wood-ashea will bring 
 in the white clover, and i! will; the germs are in 
 the soil wrapped in a profound slumber, bul this 
 stimulus tickles them until they awake. Stramo- 
 nium has been known to start up on ili«- Bite of .in 
 old farm building, when it had nol been seen in 
 that locality for thirty years. 1 have been told 
 that a farmer, somewhere in New England, in d 
 ging a well came at a great depth upon sand like 
 that of the seashore; it was thrown out, and in due 
 time there sprang from it a marine plant. I have 
 never seen earth taken from so great a depth that 
 it would not before the end of the season 1"' clothed 
 with a crop of weeds. Weeds are so full of expe- 
 dients, and the one engrossing purpose with them 
 is to multiply. The wild onion multiplies at both 
 ends, — at the top by seed, and at the bottom by 
 offshoots. Toad-flax travels under ground and ah 
 ground. Never allow a seed to ripen and yel it 
 will cover your field. Cut off the head of the wild 
 carrot, and in a week or two there are five heads in 
 room of this one; cut oil' these and by fall then- are 
 ten looking defiance at you from the Bame root. 
 Plant corn in August, and it will go forward with 
 its preparations asif it had the whole season bef< 
 it. Not so with the weeds; thev have learned 
 better. If amaranth, or abutilon, or burdock 
 a late start, it makes greal haste to develop its seed; 
 it foregoes its tall stalk and wide flaunting growth, 
 and turns all its energies into keeping up the suc- 
 cession of the speci I rtain fields under the 
 
196 PEPACTON 
 
 plow are always infested with "blind nettles,'*' oth- 
 ers with wild buckwheat, black bindweed, or cockle. 
 The seed lies dormant under the sward, the warmth 
 and the moisture affect it not until other conditions 
 are fulfilled. 
 
 The way in which one plant thus keeps another 
 down is a great mystery. Germs lie there in the 
 soil and resist the stimulating effect of the sun and 
 the rains for years, and show no sign. Presently 
 something whispers to them, "Arise, your chance 
 has come ; the coast is clear ; " and they are up and 
 doing in a twinkling. 
 
 Weeds are great travelers; they are, indeed, the 
 tramps of the vegetable world. They are going 
 east, west, north, south; they walk; they fly; they 
 swim; they steal a ride; they travel by rail, by 
 flood, by wind; they go under ground, and they 
 go above, across lots, and by the highway. But, 
 like other tramps, they find it safest by the high- 
 way: in the fields they are intercepted and cut off; 
 but on the public road, every boy, every passing 
 herd of sheep or cows, gives them a lift. Hence 
 the incursion of a new weed is generally first 
 noticed along the highway or the railroad. In 
 Orange County I saw from the car window a field 
 overrun with what I took to be the branching white 
 mullein. Gray says it is found in Pennsylvania 
 and at the head of Oneida Lake. Doubtless it had 
 come by rail from one place or the other. Our 
 botanist says of the bladder campion, a species of 
 pink, that it has been naturalized around Boston; 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 197 
 
 but it is now much farther west, and I know fields 
 along the Hudson overrun with it. Streams and 
 watercourses are the natural highway of the weeds. 
 Some years ago, and by some means or other, the 
 viper's bugloss, or blue-weed, which [s said to be a 
 troublesome weed in Virginia, effected a Judgment 
 near the head of the Esopus Creek, a tributary of 
 the Hudson. From this point it lias made its way 
 down the stream, overrunning its hanks and invading 
 meadows and cultivated fields, and proving a serious 
 obstacle to the farmer. All the gravelly, Bandy 
 margins and islands of the Esopus, sometimes aci 
 in extent, are in June and duly blue with it, and 
 rye and oats and grass in the near fields find it a 
 serious competitor for possession of tin' soil. It 
 has gone down the Hudson, and is appearing in the 
 fields along its shores. The tides carry it up the 
 mouths of the streams where it takes root; the 
 winds, or the birds, or other agencies, in time give 
 it another lift, so that it is slowly hut surely mak- 
 ing its way inland. The bugloss belongs to wh.it 
 may be called beautiful weeds, despite its rough and 
 bristly stalk. Its flowers are deep violet-blue, the 
 stamens exserted, as the botanists say, that La, pro- 
 jected beyond the mouth of the corolla, with showy 
 red anthers. This hit of red, mingling with the 
 blue of the corolla, gives a very rich, warm purple 
 hue to the flower, that is especially pleasing at 
 little distance. The best thing 1 know aboul this 
 weed besides its good looks is that it yields honey 
 or pollen to the bee. 
 
198 PEPACTOX 
 
 Another foreign plant that the Esopus Creek has 
 distributed along its shores and carried to the Hud- 
 son is saponaria, known as "Bouncing Bet." It is 
 a common and in places a troublesome weed in 
 this valley. Bouncing Bet is, perhaps, its English 
 name, as the pink-white complexion of its flowers 
 with their perfume and the coarse, robust character 
 of the plant really give it a kind of English femi- 
 nine comeliness and bounce. It looks like a York- 
 shire housemaid. Still another plant in my section, 
 which I notice has been widely distributed by the 
 agency of water, is the spiked loosestrife. It first 
 appeared many years ago along the Wallkill; now 
 
 V 
 
 it may be seen upon many of its tributaries and all 
 along its banks; and in many of the marshy bays 
 and coves along the Hudson, its great masses of 
 purple-red bloom in middle and late summer afford- 
 ing a welcome relief to the traveler's eye. It also 
 belongs to the class of beautiful weeds. It grows 
 rank and tall, in dense communities, and always 
 presents to the eye a generous mass of color. In 
 places, the marshes and creek banks are all aglow 
 with it, its wand-like spikes of flowers shooting up 
 and uniting in volumes or pyramids of still flame. 
 Its petals, when examined closely, present a curious 
 wrinkled or crumpled appearance, like newly-washed 
 linen; but when massed the effect is eminently 
 pleasing. It also came from abroad, probably first 
 brought to this country as a garden or ornamental 
 plant. 
 
 As a curious illustration of how weeds are carried 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 199 
 
 from one end of the earth to the other, Sir Joseph 
 Hooker relates this circumstance: "On one oo 
 sion," he says, "landing on a small uninhabited 
 island nearly at the Antipodes, the first evidence 
 I met with of its having been previously visited by 
 man was the English chick weed ; and this I traced 
 to a mound that marked the grave of a British 
 sailor, and that was covered with the plant, doubt- 
 less the offspring of seed that had adhered to the 
 spade or mattock with which the grave had been 
 dug. " 
 
 Ours is a weedy country because it is a roomy 
 country. Weeds love a wide margin, and they find 
 it here. You shall see more weeds in one day's 
 travel in this country than in a week's journey in 
 Europe. Our culture of the soil is not so close and 
 thorough, our occupancy not so entire and exclu- 
 sive. The weeds take up with the farmers' leav- 
 ings, and find good fare. One may see a Large alice 
 taken from a field by elecampane, or by teasle or 
 milkweed; whole acres given up to whiteweed, 
 goldenrod, wild carrots, or the ox-eye daisy; 
 meadows overrun with bear-weed, and sheep p 
 tures nearly ruined by St. John's-worl or the Can- 
 ada thistle. Our farms are so large and our hus- 
 bandry so loose that we do not mind these thin 
 By and by we shall clean them ..nt. When Sir 
 Joseph Hooker landed in New England a few 
 ago, he was surprised to find how the European 
 plants flourished there, lie found tin- wild chicory 
 growing far more luxuriantly than he had ev< I Been 
 
200 PEPACTON 
 
 it elsewhere, "forming a tangled mass of stems and 
 branches, studded with torquoise-blue blossoms, and 
 covering acres of ground." This is one of the 
 many weeds that Emerson binds into a bouquet in 
 his "Humble-Bee:" — 
 
 " Succory to match the sky, 
 Columbine with horn of honey, 
 Scented fern and agrimony, 
 Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue, 
 And brier-roses, dwelt among." 
 
 A less accurate poet than Emerson would probably 
 have let his reader infer that the bumblebee gath- 
 ered honey from all these plants, but Emerson is 
 careful to sav onlv that she dwelt among them. 
 Succory is one of Virgil's weeds also, — 
 
 "And spreading succ'ry chokes the rising field." 
 
 Is there not something in our soil and climate 
 exceptionally favorable to weeds, — something harsh, 
 ungenial, sharp - toothed, that is akin to them % 
 How woody and rank and fibrous many varieties 
 become, lasting the whole season, and standing up 
 stark and stiff through the deep winter snows, — 
 desiccated, preserved by our dry air! Do nettles 
 and thistles bite so sharply in any other country 1 
 Let the farmer tell you how they bite of a dry mid- 
 summer day when he encounters them in his wheat 
 or oat harvest. 
 
 Yet it is a fact that all our more pernicious 
 weeds, like our vermin, are of Old World origin. 
 They hold up their heads and assert themselves 
 here, and take their fill of riot and license; they 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 201 
 
 are avenged for their long years of repression by 
 the stern hand of European agriculture We have 
 hardly a weed we can call our own. I recall but 
 three that are at all noxious or troublesome, oamely, 
 milkweed, ragweed, and goldenrod; but who would 
 miss the last from our fields and highway 
 
 "Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
 That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
 Heavy with sunshine droops the goldeiinul," 
 
 sings "Whittier. In Europe our goldenrod is culti- 
 vated in the flower gardens, as well it may be. 
 The native species is found mainly in woods, and is 
 much less showy than ours. 
 
 Our milkweed is tenacious of life; its roots lie 
 deep, as if to get away from the plow, but it seldom 
 infests cultivated crops. Then its stalk is so full 
 of milk and its pod so full of silk that one cannot 
 but ascribe good intentions to it, if it does some- 
 times overrun the meadow. 
 
 " In dusty pods the milkweed 
 Its hidden silk has spun," 
 
 sings "H. H." in her "September." 
 
 Of our ragweed not much can be set down that 
 is complimentary, except that its name in the bot- 
 any is Ambrosia, food of the gods. It must be 
 the food of the gods if anything, for, bo far as 1 
 have observed, nothing terrestrial cats it, not even 
 billy-goats. (Yet a correspondent writes me that 
 in Kentucky the cattle eat it when hard-pressed, 
 and that a certain old farmer there, one season when 
 the hay crop failed, cut and harvested torn of it for 
 
202 
 
 PEPACTON 
 
 his stock in winter. It is said that the milk and 
 butter made from such hay is not at all suggestive 
 of the traditional Ambrosia!) It is the bane of 
 asthmatic patients, but the gardener makes short 
 work of it. It is about the only one of our weeds 
 that follows the plow and the harrow, and, except 
 that it is easily destroyed, I should suspect it to be 
 an immigrant from the Old World. Our fleabane 
 is a troublesome weed at times, but good husbandry 
 has little to dread from it. 
 
 But all the other outlaws of the farm and garden 
 come to us from over seas; and what a long list it 
 is: — 
 
 Common thistle, 
 
 Canada thistle, 
 
 Burdock, 
 
 Yellow dock, 
 
 Wild carrot, 
 
 Ox-eye daisy, 
 
 Chamomile, 
 
 Mullein, 
 
 Dead-nettle (Lamium), 
 
 Hemp nettle (Galeopsis), 
 
 Elecampane, 
 
 Plantain, 
 
 Motherwort, 
 
 Stramonium, 
 
 Catnip, 
 
 Blue-weed, 
 
 Stick-seed, 
 
 Hound' s-tongue, 
 
 Henbane, 
 
 Pigweed, 
 
 Quitch grass, 
 
 Gill, 
 
 Nightshade, 
 
 Buttercup, 
 
 Dandelion, 
 
 Wild mustard, 
 
 Shepherd's purse, 
 
 St. Jobn's-wort, 
 
 Chickweed, 
 
 Purslane, 
 
 Mallow, 
 
 Darnel, 
 
 Poison hemlock, 
 
 Hop-clover, 
 
 Yarrow, 
 
 Wild radish, 
 
 Wild parsnip, 
 
 Chicory, 
 
 Live-forever, 
 
 Toad-flax, 
 
 Sheep-sorrel, 
 
 Mayweed, 
 
 and others less noxious. To offset this list we have 
 given Europe the vilest of all weeds, a parasite that 
 
A BUNCH OF HERB 208 
 
 sucks up human blood, tobacco. Now if they catch 
 the Colorado beetle of us, it will go far toward pay- 
 ing them off for the rats and the mice, and for other 
 
 pests in our houses. 
 
 The more attractive and pretty of the British 
 weeds — as the common daisy, of which the poeta b 
 made so much, the larkspur, which is a pretty corn- 
 field weed, and the scarlet field-poppy, which Il«>v. 
 all summer, and is so taking amid the ripening 
 grain — have not immigrated to our shores. Like a 
 certain sweet rusticity and charm of European rural 
 life, they do not thrive readily under our Bki 
 Our fleabane has become a common roadside weed 
 in England, and a few other of our native I 
 known plants have gained a foothold in the Old 
 World. Our beautiful jewel-weed lias recently ap- 
 peared along certain of the English rivers. 
 
 Pokeweed is a native American, and what a lusty, 
 royal plant it is! It never invades cultivated fields, 
 but hovers about the borders and looks over the 
 fences like a painted Indian sachem. Thoreau cov- 
 eted its strong purple stalk for a cane, and the 
 robins eat its dark crimson-juiced berrii 
 
 It is commonly believed that the mullein is in- 
 digenous to this country, for have we not heard 
 that it is cultivated in European gardens, and chris- 
 tened the American velvet plant? Yet it, to 
 seems to have come over witli the Pilgrims, and is 
 most abundant in the older parts <»f the country. 
 It abounds throughout Europe and Asia, and had 
 its economic uses with the ancients. The Greeks 
 
204 PEPACTON 
 
 made lamp-wicks of its dried leaves, and the Ro- 
 mans dipped its dried stalk in tallow for funeral 
 torches. It affects dry uplands in this country, 
 and, as it takes two years to mature, it is not a 
 troublesome weed in cultivated crops. The first 
 year it sits low upon the ground in its coarse flan- 
 nel leaves, and makes ready; if the plow comes 
 along now, its career is ended. The second season 
 it starts upward its tall stalk, which in late summer 
 is thickly set with small yellow flowers, and in fall 
 is charged with myriads of fine black seeds. "As 
 full as a dry mullein stalk of seeds " is almost 
 equivalent to saying, "as numerous as the sands 
 upon the seashore." 
 
 Perhaps the most notable thing about the weeds 
 that have come to us from the Old World, when 
 compared with our native species, is their persist- 
 ence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; 
 they plant colonies here and there and will not be 
 rooted out. Our native weeds are for the most 
 part shy and harmless, and retreat before cultiva- 
 tion, but the European outlaws follow man like 
 vermin; they hang to his coat-skirts, his sheep 
 transport them in their wool, his cow and horse in 
 tail and mane. As I have before said, it is as with 
 the rats and mice. The American rat is in the 
 woods and is 'rarely seen even by woodmen, and the 
 native mouse barely hovers upon the outskirts of 
 civilization; while the Old World species defy our 
 traps and our poison, and have usurped the land. 
 So with the weeds. Take the thistle for instance: 
 
A BUNCH OF HEBBS 205 
 
 the common and abundant one everywhere, in Belda 
 and along highways, is the European species; while 
 the native thistles, swamp thistle, pasture thistle, 
 etc., are much more shy, and are not at all trouble- 
 some. The Canada thistle, too, which came to us 
 by way of Canada, — what a pest, what a usurper, 
 what a defier of the plow and the harrow! I know 
 of hut one effectual way to treat it, — put on a pair 
 of buckskin gloves, and pull up every plant that 
 shows itself; this will effect a radical cure in two 
 summers. Of course the plow or the scythe, if not 
 allowed to rest more than a month at a time, will 
 finally conquer it. 
 
 Or take the common St. John's-wort, —how has 
 it established itself in our fields and become a most 
 pernicious weed, very difficult to extirpate; while 
 the native species are quite rare, and seldom or 
 never invade cultivated fields, being found mostly 
 in wet and rocky waste places. Of Old World 
 origin, too, is the curled-leaf dock that is so annoy- 
 ing about one's garden and home meadows, its long 
 tapering root clinging to the soil with such tenacity 
 that I have pulled upon it till I could see stai 
 without budging it; it has more lives than a cat, 
 making a shift to live when pulled up and laid on 
 top of the ground in the burning summer sun. ( )ur 
 native docks are mostly found in swamps, or near 
 them, and are harmless. 
 
 Purslane — commonly called "pusley," and which 
 has given rise to the saying, "as meaD as pusley" 
 — of course is not American. A good sample of 
 
206 PEPACTON 
 
 our native purslane is the claytonia, or spring 
 beauty, a shy, delicate plant that opens its rose- 
 colored flowers in the moist, sunny places in the 
 woods or along their borders so early in the season. 
 
 There are few more obnoxious weeds in cultivated 
 ground than sheep-sorrel, also an Old World plant; 
 while our native wood-sorrel, with its white, deli- 
 cately veined flowers, or the variety with yellow 
 flowers, is quite harmless. The same is true of the 
 mallow, the vetch, or tare, and other plants. We 
 have no native plant so indestructible as garden or- 
 pine, or live-forever, which our grandmothers nursed 
 and for which they are cursed by many a farmer. 
 The fat, tender, succulent dooryard stripling turned 
 out to be a monster that would devour the earth. 
 I have seen acres of meadow land destroyed by it. 
 The way to drown an amphibious animal is to never 
 allow it to come to the surface to breathe, and this 
 is the way to kill live-forever. It lives by its stalk 
 and leaf, more than by its root, and, if cropped or 
 bruised as soon as it comes to the surface, it will in 
 time perish. It laughs the plow, the hoe, the cul- 
 tivator to scorn, but grazing herds will eventually 
 scotch it. Our two species of native orpine, Sedum 
 ternatum and S. telepliioides, are never troublesome 
 
 as weeds. 
 
 The European weeds are sophisticated, domesti- 
 cated, civilized; they have been to school to man 
 for many hundred years, and they have learned to 
 thrive upon him: their struggle for existence has 
 been sharp and protracted; it has made them hardy 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 207 
 
 and prolific; tliey will thrive in a lean soil, or they 
 will wax strong in a rich one ; in all cases they fol- 
 low man and profit by him. Our native weeds, on 
 the other hand, are furtive and retiring; they flee 
 before the plow and the scythe, and hide in corners 
 and remote waste places. Will they, too, in time, 
 change their habits in this respect? 
 
 " Idle weeds are fast in growth," says Shakespeare, 
 but that depends upon whether the competition is 
 sharp and close. If the weed finds itself distanced, 
 or pitted against great odds, it grows more slowly 
 and is of diminished stature, but let it once get the 
 upper hand and what strides it makes! Red-root 
 will grow four or five feet high if it has a chance, 
 or it will content itself with a few inches and 
 mature its seed almost upon the ground. 
 
 Many of our worst weeds are plants that have 
 escaped from cultivation, as the wild radish, which 
 is troublesome in parts of New England ; the wild 
 carrot, which infests the fields in eastern New York ; 
 and live-forever, which thrives and multiplies under 
 the plow and harrow. In my section an annoying 
 weed is abutilon, or velvet-leaf, also called "old 
 maid," which has fallen from the grace of the gar- 
 den and followed the plow afield. It will manage 
 to mature its seeds if not allowed to start till mid- 
 summer. 
 
 Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be 
 made without including any of the so-called wild 
 flowers. A favorite of mine is the little moth mul- 
 lein that blooms along the highway, and about the 
 
208 PEPACTOX 
 
 fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn, from 
 midsummer till frost comes. In winter its slender 
 stalk rises above the snow, bearing its round seed- 
 pods on its pin-like stems, and is pleasing even 
 then. Its flowers are yellow or white, large, wheel- 
 shaped, and are borne vertically with filaments loaded 
 with little tufts of violet wool. The plant has 
 none of the coarse, hairy character of the common 
 mullein. Our cone-flower, which one of our poets 
 has called the "brown-eyed daisy," has a pleasing 
 effect when in vast numbers they invade a meadow 
 (if it is not your meadow), their dark brown centres 
 or disks and their golden rays showing conspicu- 
 ously. 
 
 Bidens, two-teeth, or "pitchforks," as the boys 
 call them, are welcomed by the eye when in late 
 summer they make the swamps and wet, waste 
 places yellow with their blossoms. 
 
 Vervain is a beautiful weed, especially the blue 
 or purple variety. Its drooping knotted threads 
 also make a pretty etching upon the winter snow. 
 
 Iron-weed, which looks like an overgrown aster, 
 has the same intense purple-blue color, and a royal 
 profusion of flowers. There are giants among the 
 weeds, as well as dwarfs and pigmies. One of the 
 giants is purple eupatorium, which sometimes car- 
 ries its corymbs of flesh-colored flowers ten and 
 twelve feet high. A pretty and curious little weed, 
 sometimes found growing in the edge of the garden, 
 is the clasping specularia, a relative of the harebell 
 and of the European Venus' s looking-glass. Its 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 209 
 
 leaves are shell-shaped, and clasp the stalk so as to 
 form little shallow cups. In the bottom of cadi 
 cup three buds appear that never expand into flow- 
 ers; but when the top of the stalk is reached, one 
 and sometimes two buds open a large, delicate pur- 
 ple-blue corolla. All the first-born of this plant 
 are still-born, as it were; only the latest, which 
 spring from its summit, attain to perfect bloom. 
 A weed which one ruthlessly demolishes when he 
 finds it hiding from the plow amid the strawberries, 
 or under the currant-bushes and grapevines, is the 
 dandelion; yet who would banish it from the mead- 
 ows or the lawns, where it copies in gold upon the 
 green expanse the stars of the midnight sky 3 After 
 its first blooming comes its second and finer and 
 more spiritual inflorescence, when its stalk, drop- 
 ping its more earthly and carnal flower, shoots 
 upward, and is presently crowned by a globe of the 
 most delicate and aerial texture. It is like the 
 poet's dream, which succeeds his rank and golden 
 youth. This globe is a fleet of a hundred fairy 
 balloons, each one of which bears a seed which it 
 is destined to drop far from the parent source. 
 
 Most weeds have their uses ; they are not wholly 
 malevolent. Emerson says a weed is a plant whose 
 virtues we have not yet discovered; but the wild 
 creatures discover their virtues if we do not. The 
 bumblebee has discovered that the hateful toad- 
 flax, which nothing will eat, and which in some 
 soils will run out the grass, has honey at its heart. 
 Narrow-leaved plantain is readily eaten by cattle, 
 
210 PEPACTON 
 
 and the honey-bee gathers much pollen from it. 
 The ox-eye daisy makes a fair quality of hay if 
 cut before it gets ripe. The cows will eat the 
 leaves of the burdock and the stinging nettles of 
 the woods. But what cannot a cow's tongue stand? 
 She will crop the poison ivy with impunity, and I 
 think would eat thistles if she found them growing 
 in the garden. Leeks and garlics are readily eaten 
 by cattle in the spring, and are said to be medicinal 
 to them. Weeds that yield neither pasturage for 
 bee nor herd, yet afford seeds to the fall and winter 
 birds. This is true of most of the obnoxious weeds 
 of the garden and of thistles. The wild lettuce 
 yields down for the hummingbird's nest, and the 
 flowers of whiteweed are used by the kingbird and 
 cedar-bird. 
 
 Yet it is pleasant to remember that, in our cli- 
 mate, there are no weeds so persistent and lasting 
 and universal as grass. Grass is the natural cover- 
 ing of the fields. There are but four weeds that I 
 know of — milkweed, live-forever, Canada thistle, 
 and toad-flax — that it will not run out in a good 
 soil. We crop it and mow it year after year ; and 
 yet, if the season favors, it is sure to come again. 
 Fields that have never known the plow, and never 
 been seeded by man, are yet covered with grass. 
 And in human nature, too, weeds are by no means 
 in the ascendant, troublesome as they are. The 
 good green grass of love and truthfulness and com- 
 mon sense is more universal, and crowds the idle 
 weeds to the wall. 
 
A BUNCH OF HERBS 211 
 
 But weeds have this virtue: they are not easily 
 discouraged; they never lose heart entirely; they 
 die game. If they cannot have the best, they will 
 take up with the poorest; if fortune is unkind to 
 them to-day, they hope for better luck to-morrow; 
 if they cannot lord it over a corn-hill, they will sit 
 humbly at its foot and accept what comes; in all 
 cases they make the most of their opportunities. 
 
vni 
 
 WINTER PICTURES 
 
 A WHITE DAY AND A RED FOX 
 
 rp HE day was indeed white, as white as three 
 -*- feet of snow and a cloudless St. Valentine's sun 
 could make it. The eye could not look forth without 
 blinking, or veiling itself with tears. The patch 
 of plowed ground on the top of the hill, where the 
 wind had blown the snow away, was as welcome to 
 it as water to a parched tongue. It was the one 
 refreshing oasis in this desert of dazzling light. I 
 sat down upon it to let the eye bathe and revel in 
 it. It took away the smart like a poultice. For 
 so gentle and on the whole so beneficent an ele- 
 ment, the snow asserts itself very loudly. It takes 
 the world quickly and entirely to itself. It makes 
 no concessions or compromises, but rules despoti- 
 cally. It baffles and bewilders the eye, and it 
 returns the sun glare for glare. Its coming in our 
 winter climate is the hand of mercy to the earth 
 and to everything in its bosom, but it is a barrier 
 and an embargo to everything that moves above. 
 
 We toiled up the long steep hill, where only an 
 occasional mullein-stalk or other tall weed stood 
 above the snow. Near the top the hill was girded 
 
214 PEPACTON 
 
 with a bank of snow that blotted out the stone wall 
 and every vestige of the earth beneath. These 
 hills wear this belt till May, and sometimes the 
 plow pauses beside them. From the top of the 
 ridge an immense landscape in immaculate white 
 stretches before us. Miles upon miles of farms, 
 smoothed and padded by the stainless element, hang 
 upon the sides of the mountains, or repose across 
 the long sloping hills. The fences or stone walls 
 show like half-obliterated black lines. I turn my 
 back to the sun, or shade my eyes with my hand. 
 Every object or movement in the landscape is 
 sharply revealed ; one could see a fox half a league. 
 The farmer foddering his cattle, or drawing manure 
 afield, or leading his horse to water; the pedestrian 
 crossing the hill below; the children wending their 
 way toward the distant schoolhouse, — the eye 
 cannot help but note them: they are black specks 
 upon square miles of luminous white. What a 
 multitude of sins this unstinted charity of the snow 
 covers! How it flatters the ground! Yonder ster- 
 ile field might be a garden, and you would never 
 suspect that that gentle slope with its pretty dim- 
 ples and curves was not the smoothest of meadows, 
 yet it is paved with rocks and stone. 
 
 But what is that black speck creeping across that 
 cleared field near the top of the mountain at the 
 head of the valley, three quarters of a mile away 1 
 It is like a fly moving across an illuminated surface. 
 A distant mellow bay floats to us and we know it 
 is the hound. He picked up the trail of the fox 
 
WINTER PICTURES 215 
 
 half an hour since, where he had crossed the ridge 
 early in the morning, and now he has routed him 
 and Reynard is steering for the Big Mountain. 
 We press on, attain the shoulder of the range, 
 where we strike a trail two or three days old of 
 some former hunters, which leads us into the woods 
 along the side of the mountain. We are on the 
 first plateau before the summit; the snow partly 
 supports us, but when it gives way and we sound 
 it with our legs we find it up to our hips. Here 
 we enter a white world indeed. It is like some 
 conjurer's trick. The very trees have turned to 
 snow. The smallest branch is like a cluster of 
 great white antlers. The eye is bewildered by the 
 soft fleecy labyrinth before it. On the lower ranges 
 the forests were entirely bare, but now we perceive 
 the summit of every mountain about us runs up 
 into a kind of arctic region where the trees are 
 loaded with snow. The beginning of this colder 
 zone is sharply marked all around the horizon; the 
 line runs as level as the shore line of a lake or sea; 
 indeed, a warmer aerial sea fills all the valleys, sub- 
 merging the lower peaks, and making white islands 
 of all the higher ones. The branches bend with 
 the rime. The winds have not shaken it down. 
 It adheres to them like a growth. On examination 
 I find the brandies coated with ice from which 
 shoot slender spikes and needles that penetrate and 
 hold the cord of snow. It is a new kind of foliage 
 wrought by the frost and the clouds, and it obscures 
 the sky, and fills the vistas of the woods nearly as 
 
216 PEPACTON 
 
 much as the myriad leaves of summer. The sun 
 blazes, the sky is without a cloud or a film, yet we 
 walk in a soft white shade. A gentle breeze was 
 blowing on the open crest of the mountain, but one 
 could carry a lighted candle through these snow- 
 curtained and snow-canopied chambers. How shall 
 we see the fox if the hound drives him through this 
 white obscurity? But we listen in vain for the 
 voice of the dog and press on. Hares' tracks were 
 numerous. Their great soft pads had left their 
 imprint everywhere, sometimes showing a clear leap 
 of ten feet. They had regular circuits which we 
 crossed at intervals. The woods were well suited 
 to them, low and dense, and, as we saw, liable at 
 times to wear a livery whiter than their own. 
 
 The mice, too, how thick their tracks were, that 
 of the white-footed mouse being most abundant; 
 but occasionally there was a much finer track, with 
 strides or leaps scarcely more than an inch apart. 
 This is perhaps the little shrew-mouse of the woods, 
 the body not more than an inch and a half long, 
 the smallest mole or mouse kind known to me. 
 Once, while encamping in the woods, one of these 
 tiny shrews got into an empty pail standing in 
 camp, and died before morning, either from the 
 cold, or in despair of ever getting out the pail. 
 
 At one point, around a small sugar maple, the 
 mice-tracks are unusually thick. It is doubtless 
 their granary; they have beech -nuts stored there, 
 I '11 warrant. There are two entrances to the cav- 
 ity of the tree, — one at the base, and one seven 
 
WINTER PICTURES 217 
 
 or eight feet up. At the upper one, which is only 
 just the size of a mouse, a squirrel has been trying 
 to break in. He has cut and chiseled the solid 
 wood to the depth of nearly an inch, and his chips 
 strew the snow all about. He knows what is in 
 there, and the mice know that he knows; hence 
 their apparent consternation. They have rushed 
 wildly about over the snow, and, I doubt not, have 
 given the piratical red squirrel a piece of their 
 minds. A few yards away the mice have a hole 
 down into the snow, which perhaps leads to some 
 snug den under the ground. Hither they may have 
 been slyly removing their stores while the squirrel 
 was at work with his back turned. One more 
 night and he will effect an entrance : what a good 
 joke upon him if he finds the cavity empty ! These 
 native mice are very provident, and, I imagine, 
 have to take many precautions to prevent their 
 winter stores being plundered by the squirrels, who 
 live, as it were, from hand to mouth. 
 
 We see several fresh fox-tracks, and wish for the 
 hound, but 'there are no tidings of him. After 
 half an hour's floundering and cautiously picking 
 our way through the woods, we emerge into a 
 cleared field that stretches up from the valley below, 
 and just laps over the back of the mountain. It is 
 a broad belt of white that drops down and down 
 till it joins other fields that sweep along the base of 
 the mountain, a mile away. To the east, through 
 a deep defile in the mountains, a landscape in an 
 adjoining county lifts itself up, like a bank of white 
 and gray clouds. 
 
218 PEP ACTON 
 
 When the experienced fox-hunter comes out upon 
 such an eminence as this, he always scrutinizes the 
 fields closely that lie beneath him, and it many 
 times happens that his sharp eye detects Reynard 
 asleep upon a rock or a stone wall, in which case, 
 if he be armed with a rifle and his dog be not 
 near, the poor creature never wakens from his slum- 
 ber. The fox nearly always takes his nap in the 
 open fields, along the sides of the ridges, or under 
 the mountain, where he can look down upon the 
 busy farms beneath and hear their many sounds, the 
 barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling 
 of hens, the voices of men and boys, or the sound 
 of travel upon the highway. It is on that side, 
 too, that he keeps the sharpest lookout, and the 
 appearance of the hunter above and behind him is 
 always a surprise. 
 
 We pause here, and, with alert ears turned toward 
 the Big Mountain in front of us, listen for the dog. 
 But not a sound is heard. A flock of snow bunt- 
 ings pass high above us, uttering their contented 
 twitter, and their white forms seen against the 
 intense blue give the impression of large snowflakes 
 drifting across the sky. I hear a purple finch, too, 
 and the feeble lisp of the redpoll. A shrike (the 
 first I have seen this season) finds occasion to come 
 this way also. He alights on the tip of a dry limb, 
 and from his perch can see into the valley on both 
 sides of the mountain. He is prowling about for 
 chickadees, no doubt, a troop of which I saw com- 
 ing through the wood. When pursued by the 
 
WINTER PICTURES 219 
 
 shrike, the chickadee has been seen to take refuge 
 in a squirrel-hole in a tree. Hark! Is that the 
 hound, or doth expectation mock the eager ear? 
 "With open mouths and hated breaths we listen. 
 Yes, it is old "Singer;" he is bringing the fox 
 over the top of the range toward Butt End, the 
 Ultima Thule of the hunters' tramps in this sec- 
 tion. In a moment or two the dog is lost to hear- 
 ing again. ^Ye wait for his second turn; then for 
 his third. 
 
 "He is playing about the summit," says my 
 companion. 
 
 "Let us go there," say I, and we are off. 
 
 More dense snow-hung woods beyond the clear- 
 ing where we begin our ascent of the Big Mountain, 
 — a chief that carries the range up several hundred 
 feet higher than the part we have thus far traversed. 
 We are occasionally to our hips in the snow, but 
 for the most part the older stratum, a foot or so 
 down, bears us; up and up we go into the dim, 
 muffled solitudes, our hats and coats powdered like 
 millers. A half hour's heavy tramping brings us 
 to the broad, level summit, and to where the fox 
 and hound have crossed and recrossed many times. 
 As we are walking along discussing the matter, we 
 suddenly hear the dog coining straight on to us. 
 The woods are so choked with snow that we do not 
 hear him till he breaks up from under the mountain 
 within a hundred yards of us. 
 
 " We have turned the fox ! " we both exclaim, 
 much put out. 
 
220 PEPACTON 
 
 Sure enough, we have. The dog appears in 
 sight, is puzzled a moment, then turns sharply to 
 the left, and is lost to eye and to ear as quickly as 
 if he had plunged into a cave. The woods are, 
 indeed, a kind of cave, — a cave of alabaster, with 
 the sun shining upon it. We take up positions 
 and wait. These old hunters know exactly where 
 to stand. 
 
 "If the fox comes back," said my companion, 
 "he will cross up there or down here," indicating 
 two points not twenty rods asunder. 
 
 We stood so that each commanded one of the 
 runways indicated. How light it was, though the 
 sun was hidden ! Every branch and twig beamed 
 in the sun like a lamp. A downy woodpecker 
 below me kept up a great fuss and clatter, — all for 
 my benefit, I suspected. All about me were great, 
 soft mounds, where the rocks lay buried. It was 
 a cemetery of drift bowlders. There! that is the 
 hound. Does his voice come across the valley from 
 the spur off against us, or is it on our side down 
 under the mountain 1 After an interval, just as I 
 am thinking the dog is going away from us along 
 the opposite range, his voice comes up astonishingly 
 near. A mass of snow falls from a branch, and 
 makes one start; but it is not the fox. Then 
 through the white vista below me I catch a glimpse 
 of something red or yellow, yellowish red or red- 
 dish yellow ; it emerges from the lower ground, and, 
 with an easy, jaunty air, draws near. I am ready 
 and just in the mood to make a good shot. The 
 
WINTER PICTURES 221 
 
 fox stops just out of range and listens for the 
 hound. He looks as bright as an autumn leaf upon 
 the spotless surface. Then he starts on, but he is 
 not coming to me, he is going to the other man. 
 Oh, foolish fox, you are going straight into the 
 jaws of death! My comrade stands just there 
 beside that tree. I would gladly have given Rey- 
 nard the wink, or signaled to him if I could. It 
 did seem a pity to shoot him, now he was out 
 of my reach. I cringe for him, when crack goes 
 the gun! The fox squalls, picks himself up, and 
 plunges over the brink of the mountain. The 
 hunter has not missed his aim, but the oil in his 
 gun, he says, has weakened the strength of his 
 powder. The hound, hearing the report, came like 
 a whirlwind and was off in hot pursuit. Both 
 fox and dog now bleed, — the dog at his heels, 
 the fox from his wounds. 
 
 In a few minutes there came up from under the 
 mountain that long, peculiar bark which the hound 
 always makes when he has run the fox in, or when 
 something new and extraordinary has happened. 
 In this instance he said plainly enough, "The race 
 is up, the coward has taken to his hole, ho-o-o-le." 
 Plunging down in the direction of the sound, the 
 snow literally to our waists, we were soon at the 
 jspot, a great ledge thatched over with three or four 
 feet of snow. The dog was alternately licking his 
 heels and whining and berating the fox. The 
 opening into which the latter had fled was partially 
 closed, and, as I scraped out and cleared away the 
 
222 PEPACTON 
 
 snow, I thought of the familiar saying, that so far 
 as the sun shines in, the snow will blow in. The 
 fox, I suspect, has always his house of refuge, or 
 knows at once where to flee to if hard pressed. 
 This place proved to be a large vertical seam in the 
 rock, into which the dog, on a little encouragement 
 from his master, made his way. I thrust my head 
 into the ledge's mouth, and in the dim light watched 
 the dog. He progressed slowly and cautiously till 
 only his bleeding heels were visible. Here some 
 obstacle impeded him a few moments, when he 
 entirely disappeared and was presently face to face 
 with the fox and engaged in mortal combat with 
 him. It was a fierce encounter there beneath the 
 rocks, the fox silent, the dog very vociferous. But 
 after a time the superior weight and strength of the 
 latter prevails and the fox is brought to light nearly 
 dead. Reynard winks and eyes me suspiciously, 
 as I stroke his head and praise his heroic defense; 
 but the hunter quickly and mercifully puts an end 
 to his fast-ebbing life. His canine teeth seem un- 
 usually large and formidable, and the dog bears 
 the marks of them in many deep gashes upon his 
 face and nose. His pelt was quickly stripped off, 
 revealing his lean, sinewy form. 
 
 The fox was not as poor in flesh as I expected to 
 see him, though I '11 warrant he had tasted very 
 little food for days, perhaps for weeks. How his 
 great activity and endurance can be kept up, on the 
 spare diet he must of necessity be confined to, is a 
 mystery. Snow, snow everywhere, for weeks and 
 
WINTER PICTURES 223 
 
 for months, and intense cold, and no henroost 
 accessible, and no carcass of sheep or pig in the 
 neighborhood! The hunter, tramping miles and 
 leagues through his haunts, rarely sees any sign of 
 his having caught anything. Rarely, though, in 
 the course of many winters, he may have seen evi- 
 dence of his having surprised a rabbit or a par- 
 tridge in the woods. He no doubt at this season 
 lives largely upon the memory (or the fat) of the 
 many good dinners he had in the plentiful summer 
 and fall. 
 
 As we crossed the mountain on our return, we 
 saw at one point blood-stains upon the snow, and, 
 as the fox-tracks were very thick on and about it, 
 we concluded that a couple of males had had an 
 encounter there, and a pretty sharp one. Reynard 
 goes a-wooing in February, and it is to be presumed 
 that, like other dogs, he is a jealous lover. A crow 
 had alighted and examined the blood-stains, and 
 now, if he will look a little farther along, upon a 
 flat rock he will find the flesh he was looking for. 
 Our hound's nose was so blunted now, speaking 
 without metaphor, that he would not look at another 
 trail, but hurried home to rest upon his laurels. 
 
 A POTOMAC SKETCH 
 
 While on a visit to Washington in January, 
 1878, I went on an expedition down the Potomac 
 with a couple of friends to shoot ducks. We left 
 on the morning boat that makes daily trips to and 
 from Mount Vernon. The weather was chilly and 
 
224 PEPACTON 
 
 the sky threatening. The clouds had a singulai 
 appearance; they were boat-shaped, with well-de- 
 fined keels. I have seldom known such clouds to 
 bring rain; they are simply the fleet of iEolus, and 
 so it proved on this occasion, for they gradually 
 dispersed or faded out, and before noon the sun was 
 shining. 
 
 We saw numerous flocks of ducks on the passage 
 down, and saw a gun (the man was concealed) 
 shoot some from a " blind " near Fort Washington. 
 Opposite Mount Vernon, on the flats, there was a 
 large "bed" of ducks. I thought the word a good 
 one to describe a long strip of water thickly planted 
 with them. One of my friends was a member of 
 the Washington and Mount Vernon Ducking Club, 
 which has its camp and fixtures just below the 
 Mount Vernon landing; he was an old ducker. 
 For my part I had never killed a duck, — except 
 with an axe, — nor have I yet. 
 
 We made our way along the beach from the land- 
 ing, over piles of driftwood, and soon reached the 
 quarters, a substantial building, fitted up with a 
 stove, bunks, chairs, a table, culinary utensils, 
 crockery, etc., with one corner piled full of decoys. 
 There were boats to row in and boxes to shoot 
 from, and I felt sure we should have a pleasant 
 time, whether we got any ducks or not. The 
 weather improved hourly, till in the afternoon a 
 well-defined installment of the Indian summer, that 
 had been delayed somewhere, settled down upon the 
 scene; this lasted during our stay of two days. 
 
WINTER PICTURES 225 
 
 The river was placid, even glassy, the air richly 
 and deeply toned with haze, and the sun that of 
 the mellowest October. "The fairer the weather, 
 the fewer the ducks," said one of my companions. 
 "But this is better than ducks," I thought, and 
 prayed that it might last. 
 
 Then there was something pleasing to the fancy 
 in being so near to Mount Vernon. It formed a 
 sort of rich, historic background to our flitting and 
 trivial experiences. Just where the eye of the 
 great Captain would perhaps first strike the water 
 as he came out in the morning to take a turn up and 
 down his long piazza, the Club had formerly had a 
 "blind," but the ice of a few weeks before our visit 
 had carried it away. A little lower down, and in 
 full view from his bedroom window, was the place 
 where the shooting from the boxes was usually 
 done. 
 
 The duck is an early bird, and not much given 
 to wandering about in the afternoon; hence it was 
 thought not worth while to put out the decoys till 
 the next morning. We would spend the afternoon 
 roaming inland in quest of quail, or rabbits, or 
 turkeys (for a brood of the last were known to lurk 
 about the woods back there). It was a delightful 
 afternoon's tramp through oak woods, pine barrens, 
 and half-wild fields. We flushed several quail that 
 the dog should have pointed, and put a rabbit to 
 rout by a well-directed broadside, but brought no 
 game to camp. We kicked about an old bushy 
 clearing, where my friends had shot a wild turkey 
 
226 PEPACTON 
 
 Thanksgiving Day, but the turkey could not be 
 started again. One shooting had sufficed for it. 
 We crossed or penetrated extensive pine woods that 
 had once (perhaps in Washington's time) been cul- 
 tivated fields ; the mark of the plow was still clearly 
 visible. The land had been thrown into ridges, 
 after the manner of English fields, eight or ten feet 
 wide, with a deep dead furrow between them for 
 purposes of drainage. The pines were scrubby, — 
 what are known as the loblolly pines, — and from 
 ten to twelve inches through at the butt. In a low 
 bottom, among some red cedars, I saw robins and 
 several hermit thrushes, besides the yellow-rumped 
 warbler. 
 
 That night, as the sun went down on the one 
 hand, the full moon rose up on the other, like the 
 opposite side of an enormous scale. The river, too, 
 was presently brimming with the flood tide. It 
 was so still one could have carried a lighted candle 
 from shore to shore. In a little skiff, we floated 
 and paddled up under the shadow of Mount Vernon 
 and into the mouth of a large creek that flanks it 
 on the left. In the profound hush of things, every 
 sound on either shore was distinctly heard. A 
 large bed of ducks were feeding over on the Mary- 
 land side, a mile or more away, and the multitu- 
 dinous sputtering and shuffling of their bills in 
 the water sounded deceptively near. Silently we 
 paddled in that direction. When about half a mile 
 from them, all sound of feeding suddenly ceased; 
 then, after a time, as we kept on, there was a great 
 
WINTER PICTURES 227 
 
 clamor of wings, and the whole bed appeared to 
 take flight. We paused and listened, and presently- 
 heard them take to the water again, far below and 
 beyond us. 
 
 We loaded a boat with the decoys that night, 
 and in the morning, on the first sign of day, towed 
 a box out in position, and anchored it, and disposed 
 the decoys about it. Two hundred painted wooden 
 ducks, each anchored by a small weight that was 
 attached by a cord to the breast, bowed and sidled 
 and rode the water, and did everything but feed, 
 in a bed many yards long. The shooting-box is a 
 kind of coffin, in which the gunner is interred amid 
 the decoys, — buried below the surface of the water, 
 and invisible, except from a point above him. The 
 box has broad canvas wings, that unfold and spread 
 out upon the surface of the water, four or five feet 
 each way. These steady it, and keep the ripples 
 from running in when there is a breeze. Iron 
 decoys sit upon these wings and upon the edge of 
 the box, and sink it to the required level, so that, 
 when everything is completed and the gunner is in 
 position, from a distance or from the shore one sees 
 only a large bed of ducks, with the line a little 
 more pronounced in the centre, where the sports- 
 man lies entombed, to be quickly resurrected when 
 the game appears. He lies there stark and stiff 
 upon his back, like a marble effigy upon a tomb, 
 his gun by his side, with barely room to straighten 
 himself in, and nothing to look at but the sky above 
 him. His companions on shore keep a lookout, 
 
228 PEPACTON 
 
 and, when ducks are seen on the wing, cry out, 
 "Mark, coming up," or "Mark, coming down," or, 
 "Mark, coming in," as the case may be. If they 
 decoy, the gunner presently hears the whistle of 
 their wings, or maybe he catches a glimpse of them 
 over the rim of the box as they circle about. Just 
 as they let down their feet to alight, he is expected 
 to spring up and pour his broadside into them. 
 A boat from shore comes and picks up the game, if 
 there is any to pick up. 
 
 The club-man, by common consent, was the first 
 in the box that morning; but only a few ducks 
 were moving, and he had lain there an hour before 
 we marked a solitary bird approaching, and, after 
 circling over the decoys, alighting a little beyond 
 them. The sportsman sprang up as from the bed 
 of the river, and the duck sprang up at the same 
 time, and got away under fire. After a while my 
 other companion went out; but the ducks passed by 
 on the other side, and he had no shots. In the 
 afternoon, remembering the robins, and that robins 
 are game when one's larder is low, I set out alone 
 for the pine bottoms, a mile or more distant. 
 When one is loaded for robins, he may expect to 
 see turkeys, and vice versa. As I was walking 
 carelessly on the borders of an old brambly field 
 that stretched a long distance beside the pine woods, 
 I heard a noise in front of me, and, on looking in 
 that direction, saw a veritable turkey, with a spread 
 tail, leaping along at a rapid rate. She was so 
 completely the image of the barnyard fowl that I 
 
WINTER PICTURES 229 
 
 was slow to realize that here was the most notable 
 game of that part of Virginia, for the sight of which 
 sportsmen's eyes do water. As she was fairly on 
 the wing, I sent my robin-shot after her; but they 
 made no impression, and I stood and watched with 
 great interest her long, level flight. As she neared 
 the end of the clearing, she set her wings and sailed 
 straight into the corner of the woods. I found no 
 robins, but went back satisfied with having seen 
 the turkey, and having had an experience that I 
 knew would stir up the envy and the disgust of my 
 companions. They listened with ill-concealed im- 
 patience, stamped the ground a few times, uttered 
 a vehement protest against the caprice of fortune 
 that always puts the game in the wrong place or 
 the gun in the wrong hands, and rushed off in 
 quest of that turkey. She was not where they 
 looked, of course; and, on their return about sun- 
 down, when they had ceased to think about their 
 game, she flew out of the top of a pine-tree not 
 thirty rods from camp, and in full view of them, 
 but too far off for a shot. 
 
 In my wanderings that afternoon, I came upon 
 two negro shanties in a small triangular clearing in 
 the woods; no road but only a footpath led to them. 
 Three or four children, the eldest a girl of twelve, 
 were about the door of one of them. I approached 
 and asked for a drink of water. The girl got a 
 glass and showed me to the spring near by. 
 
 "We 's grandmover's daughter's chilern,'' she 
 said, in reply to my inquiry. Their mother worked 
 
230 PEPACTON 
 
 in Washington for "eighteen cents a month," and 
 their grandmother took care of them. 
 
 Then I thought I would pump her about the 
 natural history of the place. 
 
 "What was there in these woods, — what kind 
 of animals, — any ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, sah, when we first come here to live in 
 dese bottoms de possums and foxes and things were 
 so thick you could hardly go out-o'-doors." A fox 
 had come along one day right where her mother 
 was washing, and they used to catch the chickens 
 "dreadful." 
 
 " Were there any snakes ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah; black snakes, moccasins, and doctors." 
 
 The doctor, she said, was a powerful ugly cus- 
 tomer; it would get right hold of your leg as you 
 were passing along, and whip and sting you to 
 death. I hoped I should not meet any "doctors." 
 
 I asked her if they caught any rabbits. 
 
 "Oh yes, we catches dem in ' gums.' " 
 
 "What are gums'? " I asked. 
 
 " See dat clown dare 1 Dat 'sa' gum. ' " 
 
 I saw a rude box-trap made of rough boards. It 
 seems these traps, and many other things, such as 
 beehives, and tubs, etc., are frequently made in 
 the South from a hollow gum-tree; hence the name 
 gum has come to have a wide application. 
 
 The ducks flew quite briskly that night; I could 
 hear the whistle of their wings as I stood upon the 
 shore indulging myself in listening. The ear loves 
 a good field as well as the eye, and the night is the 
 
WINTER PICTURES 23] 
 
 best time to listen, to put your ear to nature's key- 
 hole and see what the whisperings and the prepara- 
 tions mean. 
 
 "Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, 
 The ear more quick of apprehension makes," 
 
 says Shakespeare. I overheard some muskrats en- 
 gaged in a very gentle and affectionate jabber be- 
 neath a rude pier of brush and earth upon which 
 I was standing. The old, old story was evidently 
 being rehearsed under there, but the occasional 
 splashing of the ice-cold water made it seem like 
 very chilling business; still we all know it is not. 
 Our decoys had not been brought in, and I dis- 
 tinctly heard some ducks splash in among them. 
 The sound of oar-locks in the distance next caught 
 my ears. They were so far away that it took some 
 time to decide whether or not they were approach- 
 ing. But they finally grew more distinct, — the 
 steady, measured beat of an oar in a wooden lock, 
 a very pleasing sound coming over still, moonlit 
 waters. It was an hour before the boat ememed 
 into view and passed my post. A white, misty 
 obscurity began to gather over the waters, and in 
 the morning this had grown to be a dense fog. By 
 early dawn one of my friends was again in the box, 
 and presently his gun went bang! bang! then bang! 
 came again from the second gun he had taken with 
 him, and we imagined the water strewn with ducks. 
 But he reported only one. It floated to him and 
 was picked up, so we need not go out. In the 
 dimness and silence we rowed up and down the 
 
232 PEPACTON 
 
 shore in hopes of starting up a stray cluck that 
 might possibly decoy. We saw many objects that 
 simulated ducks pretty well through the obscurity, 
 but they failed to take wing on our approach. The 
 most pleasing thing we saw was a large, rude boat, 
 propelled by four colored oarsmen. It looked as 
 if it might have come out of some old picture. Two 
 oarsmen were seated in the bows, pulling, and two 
 stood up in the stern, facing their companions, each 
 working a long oar, bending and recovering and 
 uttering a low, wild chant. The spectacle emerged 
 from the fog on the one hand and plunged into it 
 on the other. 
 
 Later in the morning, we were attracted by an- 
 other craft. We heard it coming down upon us 
 long before it emerged into view. It made a sound 
 as of some unwieldy creature slowly pawing the 
 water, and when it became visible through the fog 
 the sight did not belie the ear. We beheld an 
 awkward black hulk that looked as if it might have 
 been made out of the bones of the first steamboat, 
 or was it some Virginia colored man's study of that 
 craft? Its wheels consisted each of two timbers 
 crossing each other at right angles. As the shaft 
 slowly turned, these timbers pawed and pawed the 
 water. It hove to on the flats near our quarters, 
 and a colored man came off in a boat. To our 
 inquiry, he said with a grin that his craft was a 
 "floating saw-mill." 
 
 After a while I took my turn in the box, and, 
 with a life-preserver for a pillow, lay there on my 
 
WINTER PICTURES 233 
 
 back, pressed down between the narrow sides, the 
 muzzle of my gun resting upon my toe and its stock 
 upon my stomach, waiting for the silly ducks to 
 come. I was rather in hopes they would not come, 
 for I felt pretty certain that I could not get up 
 promptly in such narrow quarters and deliver my 
 shot with any precision. As nothing could be seen, 
 and as it was very still, it was a good time to listen 
 again. I was virtually under water, and in a good 
 medium for the transmission of sounds. The bark- 
 ing of dogs on the Maryland shore was quite audi- 
 ble, and I heard with great distinctness a Maryland 
 lass call some one to breakfast. They were astir 
 up at Mount Vernon, too, though the fog hid them 
 from view. I heard the mocking or Carolina wren 
 alongshore calling quite plainly the words a George- 
 town poet has put in his mouth, — " Sweetheart, 
 sweetheart, sweet ! " Presently I heard the whistle 
 of approaching wings, and a solitary duck alighted 
 back of me over my right shoulder, — just the most 
 awkward position for me she could have assumed. 
 I raised my head a little, and skimmed the water 
 with my eye. The duck was swimming about just 
 beyond the decoys, apparently apprehensive that 
 she was intruding upon the society of her betters. 
 She would approach a little, and then, as the still', 
 aristocratic decoys made no sign of welcome or rec- 
 ognition, she would sidle off again. "Who are 
 they, that they should hold themselves so loftily 
 and never condescend to notice a forlorn duck 1 ' 1 
 imagined her saying. Should I spring up and show 
 
234 PEPACTON 
 
 my hand and demand her surrender 1 It was clearly 
 my duty to do so. I wondered if the boys were 
 looking from shore, for the fog had lifted a little. 
 But I must act, or the duck would be off. I began 
 to turn slowly in my sepulchre and to gather up 
 my benumbed limbs; I then made a rush and got 
 up, and had a fairly good shot as the duck flew 
 across my bows, but I failed to stop her. A man in 
 the woods in the line of my shot cried out angrily, 
 " Stop shooting this way ! " 
 
 I lay down again and faced the sun, that had 
 now burned its way through the fog, till I was 
 nearly blind, but no more ducks decoyed, and I 
 called out to be relieved. 
 
 With our one duck, but with many pleasant 
 remembrances, we returned to Washington that 
 afternoon. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abutilon, or velvet-leaf, 195, 207. 
 
 Ailanthus, 192. 
 
 Alder, white, 187, 188. 
 
 Amaranth, 195. 
 
 Arbutus, trailing, or mayflower, 86, 
 
 94, 101, 102, 18G, 188, 190, 192. 
 Arethusa, 188. 
 Arkville, 3. 
 Arnold, George, 80. 
 Ash, 98. 
 
 Asters, 185, 192. 
 Azalea, pink, or pinxter-flower, 187, 
 
 188. 
 Azalea, smooth, 188. 
 Azalea, white, 188. 
 Azalea, yellow, 188. 
 
 Ball, an inexpensive, 29, 30. 
 
 Bark-a-boom, 12. 
 
 Baxter's Brook, 26. 
 
 Bay, sweet, 187, 188. 
 
 Bear, black {Ursus americanus), 
 attacked with a club, 27, 28. 
 
 Bear-weed, 199. 
 
 Beattie, James, quotation from, 87. 
 
 Beaver (Castor fiber), 158. 
 
 Bee. See Bumblebee, Honey-bee, 
 and Sweat-bee. 
 
 Bee, solitary, 122-125. 
 
 Beach, 100. 
 
 Berries, 9. 
 
 Bidens, or two-teeth, or pitchforks, 
 208. 
 
 Big Beaver Kill, 30. 
 
 Big Mountain, 215, 218, 219. 
 
 Bindweed, black, 196. 
 
 Birch, yellow, 25. 
 
 Birds, singing at night, 15, 16 ; 
 morning awakening of, 16; indi- 
 viduality in the songs of, 111, 17 ; 
 in poetry, 79-83, 86-92, 96-99, 103- 
 112, 168-172 ; process of hatching, 
 91, 92 ; leaving the nest, 92 ; ar- 
 rival in spring, 136, 137 ; 151-153 ; 
 love-making among, 137-140 ; war 
 among, 137-140 ; their departure 
 in the fall, 151 ; a good season for, 
 
 163-166; songs of, in America 
 
 and in England, 17(1. 
 Birds of prey, their flight when 
 
 laden, 99, 136. 
 Blackbird, cow, or cowbird (Molo- 
 
 thrus (iter), 57, 152. 
 Blackbird, crow, or purple grackle 
 
 (Quiscalus quiscula), notes of, 
 
 82. 
 Blackbird, European, in poetry, 81, 
 
 83 ; his resemblance to the Amer- 
 ican robin, 82 ; notes of, 82, 83. 
 Blackbird, red-winged. See Star- 
 ling, red-shouldered. 
 Blackbird, rusty. See Grackle, 
 
 rusty. 
 Bladderwort, horned, 188, 189. 
 Bluebird (Sialia sialis), in poetry, 
 
 79, 86, 96, 100 ; 137, 152 ; notes of, 
 
 96, 97 ; nest of, 155. 
 Blue-weed, or viper's bugloss, 192 ; 
 
 travels of, 197 ; description of, 
 
 197, 202. 
 Boat, a picturesque, 232. 
 Bobolink (Dolichonyx or;/:ivonts), 
 
 91, 104; as a wooer, 138; notes 
 
 of, 17, 22. 
 Bob-white. See Quail. 
 Bouncing Bet, or saponaria, 198. 
 Boys, 2, 9-13, 18-20, 28, 29. 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 85, 89 ; as 
 
 a poet of nature, 90-97, quotations 
 
 from, 91, 97, 112. 
 Buckwheat, wild, 196. 
 Bugloss, 192. 
 
 Bugloss, viper's. See Blue-weed. 
 Bullfrog, 145, 151. 
 Bumblebee, 53, 59, 60, 70, 71, 122, 
 
 169, 209; nest of , 154. 
 Banting, English, 170. 
 Bunting, indigo. See Indigo-bird. 
 Buntinir, snow, or sunwtluke {Pleo- 
 
 trqphenax nivalis), 218. 
 Burdock, 196,202, 210. 
 Burns, Robert, quotation from, 81. 
 Butt End, 219. 
 Buttercup, 105, 202. 
 
236 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Caledonia springs, 42. 
 
 Calopogon, 188. 
 
 Camping, 5, 6 ; in the rain, 23-26 ; 
 
 32. 
 Campion, bladder, 196. 
 Cardinal {Cardinal™ cardinalis), 
 
 110 ; notes of, 16. 
 Cardinal flower. See Lobelia, scar- 
 let. 
 Carrot, wild, 195, 199, 202, 207. 
 Catbird {Galeoscoptes carolinensis), 
 
 in poetry, 89, 104 ; notes of, 16, 
 
 17, 24. 
 Catnip, 193, 202. 
 Catskill Mountains, 66, 72. 
 Cattle, crossing a river, 32, 33 ; as 
 
 eaters of weeds, 210. 
 Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing {Am- 
 
 pelis cedroriwi), 57, 152, 210. 
 Chamomile, 202. 
 Chewink, or towhee {Pipilo ery- 
 
 throphthalmus), 110, 137. 
 Chickadee {Parus atricapillus), 218, 
 
 219 ; nest of, 155. 
 duckweed, 194 ; at the antipodes, 
 
 199, 202. 
 Chicory, or succory, 199 ; in poetry, 
 
 200 ; 202. 
 Chipmunk {Tamias striatus), 131. 
 Chippie. See Sparrow, social. 
 Chough, 170. 
 
 Cicada, or harvest-fly, 118-120. 
 Claytonia, or spring beauty, 94, 206. 
 Clematis, wild, 185, 192. 
 Clouds, boat-shaped, 224. 
 Clover, 105. 
 Clover, white, 195. 
 Cochecton Falls, 27. 
 Cockle, 196. 
 Colchester, 18. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, quotation 
 
 from, 113. 
 Coltsfoot, 94. 
 Coltsfoot, sweet, 188. 
 Columbine, 185, 193. 
 Companions, outdoor, 2, 3. . 
 Cone-flower, 208. 
 Coon. See Raccoon. 
 Cormorant, 98, 99. 
 Corn, Indian, 195. 
 Cowbird. See Blackbird, cow. 
 Cows. See Cattle. 
 Cowslip. See Marigold, marsh. 
 Cowslip, English, 84. 
 Creeper, brown {Certhia famili- 
 
 aris americana), nest of, 155. 
 Crickets. See Tree-crickets. 
 Crow, American {Corrus ameri- 
 
 canus), gait of, 57, 58 ; 130 ; notes 
 
 of, 82. 
 
 Cuckoo {Coccyzus sp.), heard at 
 night, 15, 16 ; habits of, 83 ; in 
 poetry, 83, 84 ; notes of, 15, 16. 
 
 Cuckoo, European, 171, 172. 
 
 Cuckoo-buds, 172. 
 
 Cuckoo-flower, 172. 
 
 Cuckoo-pint, 172. 
 
 Cypripedium, 191, 192. (See Lady's- 
 slipper. 
 
 Daffodil, 172, 186. 
 
 Daisy, English, 203. 
 
 Daisy, ox-eye, 192, 199, 210. 
 
 Dandelion, 104, 105, 202, 209. 
 
 Darnel, 202. 
 
 Day, a white, 213, 214. 
 
 Dead-nettle, 202. 
 
 Delaware River, Pepacton branch 
 
 of. See Pepacton River. 
 Dentaria, 179. 
 Deposit, 33. 
 Dicentra, or squirrel corn, 187, 188, 
 
 192, 193. 
 Dock, curled-leaf, 205. 
 Dock, yellow, 202. 
 Doctor, the (a snake), 230. 
 Dog, Cuff and the woodchucks, 160, 
 
 162. See Greyhound and Hound. 
 Dog, farm, hound and, 143 ; 167. 
 Dogbane, 188. 
 Dove, mourning {Zenaidura ma- 
 
 croura), 88. 
 Doves, 88. 
 Downsville, 18. 
 Dry Brook, 3. 
 Ducks, feeding, 226 ; 227, 228, 230, 
 
 231, 233, 234. 
 Duck-shooting on the Potomac, 223- 
 
 234. 
 
 Eagle, chased by a kingbird, 8 ; 32 ; 
 flight of an, 58, 59 ; 115. 
 
 East Branch, 29, 30. 
 
 Elecampane, 199, 202. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quotations 
 from, 44, 81, 82, 90, 96, 200, 209 ; 
 his knowledge of nature, 89, 90. 
 
 England, bird-songs in, 176 ; pedes- 
 trianism in, 176-178 ; the foot- 
 paths of, 178, 180, 181 ; the high- 
 ways of, 182. 
 
 Esopus, 131. 
 
 Eupatorium, purple, 208. 
 
 Falcon, haggard, 171. 
 
 Finch, purple {Carpodacus purpu- 
 reas), 218 ; notes of, 22. 
 
 Fisherman, an ancient, 7. 
 
 Fishes, spring movements of, 136, 
 142. 
 
INDEX 
 
 237 
 
 Fleabane, or whiteweed, 192, 199, ! 
 203. 
 
 Flicker. See High-hole. 
 
 Flowers, wild, in poetry, 84-86, 90, 
 92-94, 101, 102, 172, 186 ; fragrant, 
 185-193. 
 
 Footpaths, lack of, in America, 175- 
 178, ISO ; English, 178, 180, 181 ; 
 a schoolboy's footpath, 178, 179. 
 
 Forenoon, as distinguished from 
 morning, 32. 
 
 Fort Washington, 224. 
 
 Fox, red ( Vulpes vulpes var. fulvus), 
 100 ; and hound, 140-144 ; 158 ; 
 hunting a, 214-222 ; favorite sleep- 
 ing places of, 218 ; hard fare in 
 winter, 222, 223 ; an encounter be- 
 tween rivals, 223 ; 230. 
 
 Fringed-orchis, purple, 188, 191. 
 
 Frog. See Bullfrog. 
 
 Frog, clucking. See Wood-frog. 
 
 Frog, peeping. See Hyla, Picker- 
 ing's. 
 
 Garlic, 210. 
 
 Gentian, closed, 59, 60, 92. 
 
 Gentian, fringed, 59 ; Bryant's poem 
 
 on, 92, 93 ; 185. 
 Gill, 202. 
 Girls, 30. 
 Goethe, 79. 
 
 Goldenrod, 92; 185, 192. 199, 201. 
 Goldfinch, American (Spinus tris- 
 
 lis), 109 ; pairing habits of, 138 ; 
 
 notes of, 109, 138. 
 Goose-foot, 194. 
 Grackle, purple. See Blackbird, 
 
 crow. 
 Grackle, rusty, or rusty blackbird 
 
 (Scolecophagus carolinus), notes 
 
 of, 82. 
 Grass, the natural covering of the 
 
 fields, 210. 
 Grass, harvest, 194. 
 Grass, quack, 194. 
 Grass, quitch, 202. 
 Green Cove Spring, 41. 
 Greyhound, 167. 
 Ground-nut, 1S8. 
 Grouse, ruffed, or partridge (Bonasa 
 
 umbellus), in poetry, 96 ; 131 ; 
 
 drumming of, 89. 
 "Gums," 230. 
 Gum-tree, 230. 
 
 Harrisonburg, Va., 42. 
 Harvard, 26. 
 
 Harvest-fly. See Cicada. 
 
 Hawk, in poetry, lot). See Hen- 
 hawk. 
 
 Hawkfish. See Osprey, American. 
 
 Hawk's Point, 32. 
 
 Hedgehog, 171. 
 
 Hedge-sparrow, 171. 
 
 Hemlock, poison, 202 
 
 Henbane, 202. 
 
 Hen-hawk, 108. 
 
 Hepatica, or liver-leaf, 85 ; the first 
 spring flower, 94 ; 188 ; an inter- 
 mittently fragrant flower, 1 
 
 Hercules, 50. 
 
 Heron, 4, 5, 8. 
 
 Heron, great blue (Ardea fierodias), 
 20 ; notes of, 20, 24. 
 
 High-hole, or golden-winged wood- 
 pecker, or flicker {Colaptes aura- 
 ius), 57, 109 ; notes of, 109 ; nest 
 of, 155. 
 
 Highlands of the Hudson, the, 66. 
 
 Holywell, 42. 
 
 Honey, flowers which yield, 192, 
 193. 
 
 Honey-bee, a product of civilization, 
 53, 54 ; wandering habits of, 54, 
 55 ; hunting wild bees, 55-75 ; 
 method of handling, 05, 06 ; as 
 robbers, 70 ; enemies of, 75, 76 ; 
 Virgil on, 75-77; 122, 172, 173, 
 192, 193, 210. 
 
 Honeysuckle, 188, 193. 
 
 Hooker, Sir Joseph, 199 
 
 Hop-clover, 202. 
 
 Hornet, black, 117, 118. 
 
 Hornet, sand, 117-121. 
 
 Hound, fox and, 140-144, 107, 214, 
 219-223. 
 
 Hound's-tongue, 202. 
 
 Housatonic River, 44. 
 
 Houstonia, or innocence, 85, 186. 
 
 Humble-bee. Se>' Bumblebee. 
 
 Hummingbird, ruby-throated (Tro- 
 ehilus colubris), in poetry, 80 
 nest of, 210. 
 
 Hunt, Helen, quotation from, 201. 
 
 Hyacinth, wild, 1st. 
 
 Hyla, Pickering's, or peepimr frog 
 116, 144, 145; arboreal life of 
 150, 151. 
 
 Hylas, the story of, 50. 
 
 Indigo-bird, or indigo bunting {Pas 
 serina cyaw'a), 110; notes of, 22 
 
 Haggard, 171. 
 Hancock, 29, 30, 33. 
 
 Hare, northern (Lepus americanus ( Innocence. S" Houstonia 
 var. virginianus), 216. Insects, nocturnal, 135, 136 
 
 Hares, 87, 88. Iron-weed, 208. 
 
238 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ivy, 173. 
 
 Ivy, poison, 210. 
 
 Jack, catching, 168. 
 
 Jay, blue {Cyanocitta cristata), 
 130 ; notes of, 82. 
 
 Jewel-weed, 203. 
 
 Junco, slate-colored. See Snow- 
 bird. 
 
 Katydids, 135, 136. 
 
 Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), 
 chasing an eagle, 8 ; as a bee- 
 eater, 76 ; 210 ; notes of, 15. 
 
 Kingfisher, belted (Cerylealcyon), 8. 
 
 Knapp, Hon. Charles, 27, 28. 
 
 Knot-grass, 193. 
 
 Lady's-slipper, large yellow (Cypri- 
 
 pedium pubescens), 192. 
 Lady's-slipper, purple (Cypripe- 
 
 dium acaule), 188. 
 Lady's-slipper, small yellow Cypri- 
 
 pedium parviflorum), 188. 
 Lady's tresses, 188. 
 Lake Oquaga, 33. 
 Lamprey, 11, 12. 
 Lapwing, 170, 171. 
 Lark. See Skylark. 
 Lark, shore or horned {Otocoris 
 
 alpestris and O. a. praticola), 
 
 86 and note. 
 Larkspur, 203. 
 Laurel, mountain, 185. 
 Leeks, 210. 
 Lettuce, wild, 210. 
 Linden, 188, 192. 
 Linnsea, 90, 186, 188, 190. 
 Live-forever, 202, 206, 207, 210. 
 Liver-leaf. See Hepatica. 
 Lobelia, great blue, 59. 
 Lobelia, scarlet, or cardinal flower, 
 
 59, 185. 
 Locust-tree, 188, 192. 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, his 
 
 inaccuracy in dealing with nature, 
 
 96-99 ; quotations from, 97, 98. 
 Loosestrife, 189. 
 Loosestrife, hairy, 188. 
 Loosestrife, spiked, travels of, 198 ; 
 
 description of, 198. 
 Lowell, James Russell, quotations 
 
 from, 81, 83, 84, 96, 97, 103- 
 
 105, 113; his fidelity to nature, 
 
 102-105. 
 
 Mallow, 202, 206. 
 Mandrake, 188. 
 
 Maple, sugar, 188, 189 ; fragrance 
 of its blossoms, 190, 192. 
 
 Marigold, marsh, 84, 186. 
 
 Martin, purple (Progne subis), 106. 
 
 Masque of the Poets, A, quotation 
 
 from, 111. 
 Mayflower. See Arbutus, trailing. 
 Mayweed, 202. 
 Meadowlark (Sturnella magna), 
 
 86, 109, 152 ; notes of, 109, 153. 
 Merganser, hooded (Lophodytes cu- 
 
 cullatus), with a brood of young, 
 
 31 32. 
 Mice, 131, 216, 217. 
 Milkweed, 199, 201, 210. 
 Mink (Putorius vison), 8, 130. 
 Mitchella vine, or squaw-berry, or 
 
 partridge-berry, 188, 190. 
 Moccasin, 230. 
 Mockingbird (3fimus polygJottos), 
 
 in poetry, 107. 
 Morning and forenoon, distinction 
 
 between, 32. 
 Motherwort, 193, 202. 
 Mount Vernon, 224-226. 
 Mouse, field, 122. 
 Mouse, white-footed (Calomys amer~ 
 
 icanus), 155 ; tracks of, 216. 
 Mullein, 192, 202 ; habits of, 203, 
 
 204. 
 Mullein, moth, 207, 208. 
 Mullein, white, 196. 
 Musconetcong Creek, 43. 
 Muskrat {Fiber zibethicus), 8, 100 ; 
 
 a weatherwise animal, 126-129 ; 
 
 active in winter, 130 ; 231 ; nests 
 
 of, 126-129. 
 Mustard, wild, 193, 202. 
 
 Nature, the poets' intuitive know- 
 ledge of, 79 ; Emerson's know- 
 ledge of, 89, 90 ; Bryant's know- 
 ledge of, 90, 91 ; Longfellow's in- 
 accuracy in dealing with, 97 
 Whittier's treatment of, 99-101 
 LoweU's fidelity to, 102-105 . 
 Tennyson's accurate observations 
 of, 106, 107; Walt Whitman a 
 close student of, 107-109 ; the po- 
 etic interpretation of, 111-114 ; the 
 scientific interpretation of, 113. 
 
 Negro girl, a conversation with a, 
 229, 230. 
 
 Nettle, 210. 
 
 Nettle, blind, 196. 
 
 Nettle, hemp, 202. 
 
 Nighthawk (Chordeiles virgin- 
 ianus), 13. 
 
 Nightshade, 202. 
 
 Note in the woods, a new, 1 15, 116. 
 
 Oak, white, 192. 
 
INDEX 
 
 2'S'J 
 
 Onion, wild, 195. 
 
 Opossum {Didelphis virginia/in), 
 
 158, 230. 
 Orchids, American flora rich in, 
 
 190, 191. 
 Orchis, fringed. See Fringed- 
 
 orchis. 
 Orchis, showy, 18S, 190, 191. 
 Oriole, Baltimore {Icterus galbula), 
 
 98 ; as a fruit-destroyer, 1G4 ; 
 
 notes of, 16, 17 ; nest of, 104, 165. 
 Orpine, garden. See Live-forever. 
 Orpines, native, 206. 
 Osprey, American, or fish hawk 
 
 {Pandion halaetus carolinensis), 
 
 feeding on the wing, 31. 
 Otter, 142. 
 Oven-bird {Seiurus ouroeapillus), 
 
 110; song of, 110. 
 Owl, screech {Megascops asio), and 
 
 shrike, 165, 166. 
 Oxlip, 84. 
 
 Pain, in relation to the nervous sys- 
 tem, 174. 
 
 Parsnip, wild, 202. 
 
 Partridge. See Grouse, ruffed. 
 
 Partridge - berry. See Mitchella 
 vine. 
 
 Partridge Island, 32. 
 
 Pepacton River, v, vi ; a voyage 
 down, 1-33. 
 
 Pewee, wood (Conlopus virens), 
 Trowbridge's poem on, 88, 89. 
 
 Phoebe-bird (Sayornis phcebe), 138, 
 139, 152 ; notes of, 110 ; nest of, 
 22, 110, 13S, 139, 155. 
 
 Pigeon, passenger {Ectopistes mi- 
 gratorius), 88. 
 
 Pigeons, 168, 169. 
 
 Pigweed, 194, 202. 
 
 Pine, loblolly, 226. 
 
 Pinxter-flower. See Azalea, pink. 
 
 Pipit, American. See Titlark. 
 
 Pitchforks. See Bidens. 
 
 Plantain, 193, 202. 
 
 Plantain, narrow-leaved, 209. 
 
 Pliny, his account of an intermit- 
 tent spring, 48, 49. 
 
 Poets, their intuitive knowledge of 
 nature, 79 ; inaccuracies and feli- 
 cities in matters of natural his- 
 tory, 79-109 ; their interpretation 
 of nature, 111-114. 
 
 Pogonia, adder's-tongue, 1S8. 
 
 Pokeweed, 203. 
 
 Polygala, fringed, 191. 
 
 Pond-lily, or sweet-scented water 
 lily (Xymphcea odorata), 186, 188, 
 192. 
 
 Pond- lily, yellow. 192. 
 Poppy, scarlet field, 203. 
 Porcupine, Canadian (/•Jret/n 
 
 dorsatus), 158. 
 Potomac River, duck-shooting on, 
 
 223-234. 
 Primrose, in poetry, 84. 
 Primrose, evening, 84, 188, 189. 
 Prince's pine, 188. 
 Purslane, 194, 202, 205. 
 Pyrola. See Wiutergreen, false. 
 
 Quail, or bob- white (Colinus 
 ginianus), 225. 
 
 7 ir- 
 
 Rabbit, gray (Lepus sylvaticus), 
 154, 158, 169, 225. 
 
 Rabbits, 87, 88. 
 
 Raccoon, or coon (Procyon lotor) 57, 
 131, 158, 179. 
 
 Radish, wild, 202, 207. 
 
 Rafting on the Delaware, 26, 27. 
 
 Ragweed, 194 ; a troublesome weed, 
 201, 202. 
 
 Rain, arboreal, 14, 15 ; summer, 21- 
 26. 
 
 Raspberry, 192. 
 
 Rat, wood (Xeotoma floridana), 
 204. 
 
 Redbird. See Cardinal. 
 
 Redpoll (Acanthis linaria), notes 
 of, 218. 
 
 Red-root, 207. 
 
 Rhododendron, 185. 
 
 River, a voyage down a, 1-33 ; lone- 
 liness of the, 4, 5. 
 
 Roads, in England and America, 
 182. 
 
 Robin, American (Merula migrato- 
 ria), 57, 103, 104 ; in poetry, 110, 
 111, 137 ; in love and war, 139, 
 140 ; 152, 203, 226, 228 ; notes of, 
 16, 17, 22, 110, 111, 140; nest of, 
 155. 
 
 Rondout Creek, 18. 
 
 Roots, like molten metal, 103. 
 
 St. John's-wort, 199, 202, 205. 
 
 Salamander, banded (Amblystoma 
 opacum), 122, 12& 
 
 Salamander, red, 116, 123. 
 
 Salamander, violet-colored or spot- 
 ted {Ambly stoma punctatum), 123. 
 
 San Antonio, Texas, 42. 
 
 Saponaria. See Bouncing Bat. 
 
 Sapsucker, yellow - bellied. See 
 Woodpecker, yellow-bellied. 
 
 Sawmill, a floating, 232. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter 
 
 Stdum telephioidtv, 200. 
 
240 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sedum ternutum, 206. 
 
 Shagbark, 103. 
 
 Shairp, John Campbell, his Poetic 
 Interpretation of Nature, 111, 113. 
 
 Shakespeare, quotations from, 85, 
 87, 113, 167-174, 207, 231 ; his ac- 
 curacy in observation, 87, 166- 
 174. 
 
 Shavertown, 13. 
 
 Shawangunk Mountains, 72. 
 
 Shepherd's purse, 202. 
 
 Shrew, 216. 
 
 Shrike, 165, 166, 218. 
 
 Skunk (Mephitis mephitica), 154, 
 158, 179. 
 
 Skunk-cabbage, 94 n. 
 
 Skylark, 86 ; on the Hudson, 131- 
 134 ; song of, 132-135. 
 
 Snail, 147. 
 
 Snake, 171. 
 
 Snake, black, 230. 
 
 Snow, a landscape of, 213, 214, 217 ; 
 in the woods, 215, 216, 219-221. 
 
 Snowbird, slate-colored, or slate- 
 colored junco (Junco hyemalis), 
 in poetry, 96 ; notes of, 153. 
 
 Snowflake. See Bunting, snow. 
 
 Sodom, 20. 
 
 Sorrel, sheep, 194, 202, 206. 
 
 Sparrow, bush or field tSpizella pu- 
 silla), 163, 164. 
 
 Sparrow, English (Passer domesti- 
 cus), manner of courtship, 137. 
 
 Sparrow, social or chipping, or 
 " chippie " (Spizella socialis), 137, 
 163. 
 
 Sparrow, song (Melospiza fasciata), 
 152 ; notes of, 15-17, 22. 
 
 Sparrow, vesper (Po'6co3tes grami- 
 neus), rejecting the attentions of 
 a skylark, 133, 134. 
 
 Specularia, clasping, 208, 209. 
 
 Spider, killing a bee, 75, 76 ; a musi- 
 cal, 117. 
 
 Spring, sudden coming of, 151-153. 
 
 Spring beauty. See Claytonia. 
 
 Springs, paths leading to, 35, 36; 
 their universal attractiveness, 36, 
 37 ; centres of greenness, 37 ; 
 symbolism of, 38 ; locations of, 
 38, 39 ; fondness of trout for, 38, 
 39 ; physiology of, 39, 40 ; their 
 mineral elements, 40 ; large, 40- 
 43 ; as refrigerators, 44, 45 ; coun- 
 tries poor in, 45, 46 ; on moun- 
 tains, 46 ; places of worship, 46, 
 47 ; various kinds of, 47, 48 ; mar- 
 velous, 48 ; intermittent, 49 ; in 
 the Idyls of Theocritus, 50, 51, 
 Squaw-berry. See Mitchella vine. 
 
 Squirrel, flying (Sciuropterus vo- 
 
 lans), 155. 
 Squirrel, gray (Sciurus carolinen- 
 
 sis var. leucolis), 130, 131. 
 Squirrel, Mexican black, 156, 157. 
 Squirrel, red (Sciurus hudsonicus), 
 
 131, 154, 156, 157, 217. 
 I Squirrel corn. See Dicentra. 
 Squirrels, as parachutes, 155-157. 
 Star, shooting, 84. 
 Starling, red-shouldered, or red- 
 winged blackbird, notes of, 82. 
 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, his 
 
 Seeking the Mayflower, 101, 102. 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, his 
 
 Travels with a Donkey, 14. 
 Stick-seed, 202. 
 Stones, life under, 122. 
 Stramonium, 195, 202. 
 Strawberries, wild, 9, 23, 24. 
 Succory. See Chicory. 
 Sumac, 192. 
 Swallow, bank (Clivicola riparia), 
 
 106. 
 Swallow, barn (Chelidon erythro- 
 
 gaster), 106 ; nest of, 98. 
 Swallow, chimney, or chimney 
 
 swift (Chcetura pelagica), nest of, 
 
 18. 
 Swallow, cliff (Petrochelidon luni- 
 frons), in poetry, 89, 106 ; nest of, 
 
 17, 98. 
 Swallow, European, 172. 
 Swallows, in poetry, 97, 106, 172. 
 Sweat-bee, 123. 
 
 Tales, uses of, 157, 158. 
 
 Tansy, 193. 
 
 Tare. See Vetch. 
 
 Teasle, 199. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, quotations from, 
 
 83, 84, 88, 97, 106, 107; a good 
 
 observer, 106, 107. 
 Theocritus, quotation from, 50. 
 Thistle, Canada, 194, 199, 202, 205, 
 
 210. 
 Thistle, common, 202, 204, 205. 
 Thistle, pasture, 188, 191. 
 Thistle, swamp, 205. 
 Thomson, James, quotation from, 
 
 87. 
 Thrasher, brown (Harpo?'hynchus 
 
 rufus), song of, 110. 
 Thrush, hermit (Turdus aonalasch- 
 
 kce paUasii), in poetry, 104, 226 ; 
 
 notes of 17. 
 Thrush, wood ( Turdus mustelinus), 
 
 notes of, 16. 
 Titlark, or American pipit (Anihus 
 
 pensilvanieus), 86. 
 
INDEX 
 
 211 
 
 Toad, 144, 147, 148 n., 174. SeeTree- 
 
 toad. 
 Toad-flax, 192, 195, 202, 209, 210. 
 Tobacco, 203. 
 Tortoise, 117. 
 Towhee. Sre Chewink. 
 Tree-crickets, 135, 136. 
 Tree-toad, 70, 145-150. 
 Trout, brook, their fondness for 
 
 springs, 38, 39, 42, 44, 96 ; caught 
 
 with tickliiiL', KIT. 
 Trout-fishing, 23, 29. 
 Trowbridge, John T., his natural 
 
 history, 88, 89 ; quotations from, 
 
 89. 
 Turkey, wild (.V' leagris gallopavo), 
 
 225, 22< I, 228, 229. 
 Turtle, 117. 
 Turtle-head, 92. 
 Twin-flower. See Linnasa. 
 Two-teeth. See Bideus. 
 
 Velvet-leaf. See Abutilon. 
 
 Venus's looking-glass, 208. 
 
 Vervain, 208. 
 
 Vetch, or tare, 20(5. 
 
 Violet, in poetry, 85. 
 
 Violet, Canada, 93, 188 ; its fra- 
 grance, 189, 190; 191. 
 
 Violet, common blue. 85, 185, 191. 
 
 Violet, English, 85. 185. 
 
 Violet, white, 85, 93, 188, 191. 
 
 Violet, yellow, 92-94. 
 
 Vireo, in poetry, 110. 
 
 Virgil, on honey-bees, (50, 75-77 ; 
 quotations from, 97, 99, 200. 
 
 Walking, in England, 17G-178 ; a 
 
 simple and natural pastime, 182, 
 
 183. 
 Warbler, yellow-rumped, or myrtle 
 
 (Dendroica coronata), 226. 
 Wasp, sand. iSV Hornet, sand. 
 Water-lily. See Pond-lily. 
 Waxwing, cedar. S<>e Cedar-bird. 
 Weasel, 168. 
 Weebutook River, 44. 
 Weeds, 191 ; their devotion to 
 
 man, 193 ; the gardener and the 
 
 farmer the best friei <!- of, 
 194 ; Nature's makeshift, 194 
 196 ; neat travelers, 196 199; 
 their abundance in America, L99, 
 200 : oative and foreign, - 
 the growth of, 207 ; escaped from 
 cultivation, 207 ; beautiful, 
 209 ; uses of various, 209, _'l" 
 persist, lit and universal than 
 grass, 210 ; virtues ( t, 210. 
 Well of St. Winifred, 12. 
 Wheat, winter, 94, 95. 
 Whip-poor-will (Antrostomtli voci- 
 
 ferus), soul: of. 1.",. 
 Whiteweed. See Fleabane. 
 Whitman, Walt, a close student of 
 American nature, 107-109; quo- 
 tations from, in;. 108. 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, as a poet 
 of nature, 99-101 ; quotations 
 lrom, 99-101, 201. 
 Winchester, Va., 41. 
 Wintergreen, false, <>r pyrola, 188. 
 Wintergreeu, spotted, 188. 
 Witch-hazel, 93. 
 Woodchuck {Arctomi/s monax). 
 
 158-103. 
 Wood-frog, 144. 
 
 Woodpecker, in poetr\. 105, 106. 
 Woodpecker, downv [Dryobates pu- 
 bescent), 220. 
 Woodpecker, golden-winged. > 
 
 High-hole. 
 Woodpecker, yellow-bellied, or yel- 
 low-bellied sapsucker [Sphyrapi- 
 cus varius), drumming of, 106. 
 Wood-pigeons, 88. 
 Wood-sorrel, common, 206. 
 Wood-sorrel, yellow, 206 
 Wordsworth, William, quotations 
 
 from, 113, 186, 
 Wren, Carolina [Thryothonu /> <lo- 
 
 vicianus), notes of , 233. 
 Wren, house (Troglo</;/t' s ai.'<Io>i), 
 notes of, 16 ; nest of," 155. 
 
 Yarrow, 202. 
 Yellow- jacket, 117. 
 Yew, American, 81 
 
 * 
 
 # 
 
 f