Chapter 2

Our blind, unreasoning animal anger is excited by whatever opposes or baffles us. Of course, when we yield to the anger, we do not act as reasonable beings, but as the unreasoning animals. It is hard for one to control this feeling when the opposition comes from some living creature, as a balky horse or a kicking cow, or a pig that will not be driven through the open gate. When I was a boy, I once saw one of my uncles kick a hive of bees off the stand and halfway across the yard, because the bees stung him when he was about to "take them up." I confess to a fair share of this petulant, unreasoning animal or human trait, whichever it may be, myself. It is difficult for me to refrain from jumping upon my hat when, in my pursuit of it across the street, it has escaped me two or three times just as I was about to put my hand upon it, and as for a balky horse or a kicking cow, I never could trust myself to deal reasonably with them. Follow this feeling back a few thousand years, and we reach the time when our forbears looked upon all the forces in nature as in league against them. The anger of the gods as shown in storms and winds and pestilence and defeat is a phase of the same feeling. A wild animal caught in a steel trap vents its wrath upon the bushes and sticks and trees and rocks within its reach. Something is to blame, something baffles it and gives it pain, and its teeth and claws seek every near object. Of course it is a blind manifestation of the instinct of self-defense, just as was my uncle's act when he kicked over his beehive, or as is the angler's impatience when his line gets tangled and his hook gets fast. If the Colorado bear caught his fish with a hook and line, how many times would he lose his temper during the day!

I do not think many animals show their kinship to us by exhibiting the trait I am here discussing. Probably birds do not show it at all. I have seen a nest-building robin baffled and delayed, day after day, by the wind that swept away the straws and rubbish she carried to the top of a timber under my porch. But she did not seem to lose her temper. She did not spitefully reclaim the straws and strings that would persist in falling to the porch floors, but cheerfully went away in search of more. So I have seen a wood thrush time after time carrying the same piece of paper to a branch from which the breeze dislodged it, without any evidence of impatience. It is true that when a string or a horsehair which a bird is carrying to its nest gets caught in a branch, the bird tugs at it again and again to free it from entanglement, but I have never seen any evidence of impatience or spite against branch or string, as would be pretty sure to be the case did my string show such a spirit of perversity. Why your dog bites the stone which you roll for him when he has found it, or gnaws the stick you throw, is not quite clear, unless it be from the instinct of his primitive ancestors to bite and kill the game run down in the chase. Or is the dog trying to punish the stick or stone because it will not roll or fly for him? The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.

In reading Bostock on the "Training of Wild Animals," my attention was arrested by the remark that his performing lions and tigers are liable to suffer from "stage fright," like ordinary mortals, but that "once thoroughly accustomed to the stage, they seem to find in it a sort of intoxication well known to a species higher in the order of nature;" and furthermore, that "nearly all trainers assert that animals are affected by the attitude of an audience, that they are stimulated by the applause of an enthusiastic house, and perform indifferently before a cold audience." If all this is not mere fancy, but is really a fact capable of verification, it shows another human trait in animals that one would not expect to find there. Bears seem to show more human nature than most other animals. Bostock says that they evidently love to show off before an audience: "The conceit and good opinion of themselves, which some performing bears have, is absolutely ridiculous." A trainer once trained a young bear to climb a ladder and set free the American flag, and so proud did the bear become of his accomplishment, that whenever any one was looking on he would go through the whole performance by himself, "evidently simply for the pleasure of doing it." Of course there is room for much fancy here on the part of the spectator, but bears are in so many ways--in their play, in their boxing, in their walking--such grotesque parodies of man, that one is induced to accept the trainer's statements as containing a measure of truth.

IV

THE DOWNY WOODPECKER

I

It always gives me a little pleasurable emotion when I see in the autumn woods where the downy woodpecker has just been excavating his winter quarters in a dead limb or tree-trunk. I am walking along a trail or wood-road when I see something like coarse new sawdust scattered on the ground. I know at once what carpenter has been at work in the trees overhead, and I proceed to scrutinize the trunks and branches. Presently I am sure to detect a new round hole about an inch and a half in diameter on the under side of a dead limb, or in a small tree-trunk. This is Downy's cabin, where he expects to spend the winter nights, and a part of the stormy days, too.

When he excavates it in an upright tree-trunk, he usually chooses a spot beneath a limb; the limb forms a sort of rude hood, and prevents the rainwater from running down into it. It is a snug and pretty retreat, and a very safe one, I think. I doubt whether the driving snow ever reaches him, and no predatory owl could hook him out with its claw. Near town or in town the English sparrow would probably drive him out; but in the woods, I think, he is rarely molested, though in one instance I knew him to be dispossessed by a flying squirrel.

On stormy days I have known Downy to return to his chamber in mid-afternoon, and to lie abed there till ten in the morning.

I have no knowledge that any other species of our woodpeckers excavate these winter quarters, but they probably do. The chickadee has too slender a beak for such work, and usually spends the winter nights in natural cavities or in the abandoned holes of Downy.

II

As I am writing here in my study these November days, a downy woodpecker is excavating a chamber in the top of a chestnut post in the vineyard a few yards below me, or rather, he is enlarging a chamber which he or one of his fellows excavated last fall; he is making it ready for his winter quarters. A few days ago I saw him enlarging the entrance and making it a more complete circle. Now he is in the chamber itself working away like a carpenter. I hear his muffled hammering as I approach cautiously on the grass. I make no sound and the hammering continues till I have stood for a moment beside the post, then it suddenly stops and Downy's head appears at the door. He glances at me suspiciously and then hurries away in much excitement.

How did he know there was some one so near? As birds have no sense of smell it must have been by some other means. I return to my study and in about fifteen minutes Downy is back at work. Again I cautiously and silently approach, but he is now more alert, and when I am the width of three grape rows from him he rushes out of his den and lets off his sharp, metallic cry as he hurries away to some trees below the hill.

He does not return to his work again that afternoon. But I feel certain that he will pass the night there and every night all winter unless he is disturbed. So when my son and I are passing along the path by his post with a lantern about eight o'clock in the evening, I pause and say, "Let's see if Downy is at home." A slight tap on the post and we hear Downy jump out of bed, as it were, and his head quickly fills the doorway. We pass hurriedly on and he does not take flight.

A few days later, just at sundown, as I am walking on the terrace above, I see Downy come sweeping swiftly down through the air on that long galloping flight of his, and alight on the big maple on the brink of the hill above his retreat. He sits perfectly still for a few moments, surveying the surroundings, and, seeing that the coast is clear, drops quickly and silently down and disappears in the interior of his chestnut lodge. He will do this all winter long, coming home, when the days are stormy, by four o'clock, and not stirring out in the morning till nine or ten o'clock. Some very cold, blustering days he will probably not leave his retreat at all.

He has no mate or fellow lodger, though there is room in his cabin for three birds at least. Where the female is I can only conjecture; maybe she is occupying a discarded last year's lodge, as I notice there are a good many new holes drilled in the trees every fall, though many of the old ones still seem intact.

During the inclement season Downy is anything but chivalrous or even generous. He will not even share with the female the marrow bone or bit of suet that I fasten on the maple in front of my window, but drives her away rudely. Sometimes the hairy woodpecker, a much larger bird, routs Downy out and wrecks his house. Sometimes the English sparrows mob him and dispossess him. In the woods the flying squirrels often turn him out of doors and furnish his chamber cavity to suit themselves.

III

I am always content if I can bring home from my walks the least bit of live natural history, as when, the other day, I saw a red-headed woodpecker having a tilt with a red squirrel on the trunk of a tree.

Doubtless the woodpecker had a nest near by, and had had some experience with this squirrel as a nest-robber. When I first saw them, the bird was chasing the squirrel around the trunk of an oak-tree, his bright colors of black and white and red making his every movement conspicuous. The squirrel avoided him by darting quickly to the other side of the tree.

Then the woodpecker took up his stand on the trunk of a tree a few yards distant, and every time the squirrel ventured timidly around where he could be seen the woodpecker would swoop down at him, making another loop of bright color. The squirrel seemed to enjoy the fun and to tempt the bird to make this ineffectual swoop. Time and again he would poke his head round the tree and draw the fire of his red-headed enemy. Occasionally the bird made it pretty hot for him, and pressed him closely, but he could escape because he had the inside ring, and was so artful a dodger. As often as he showed himself on the woodpecker's side, the bird would make a vicious pass at him; and there would follow a moment of lively skurrying around the trunk of the old oak; then all would be quiet again.

Finally the squirrel seemed to get tired of the sport, and ran swiftly to the top and off through the branches into the neighboring trees. As this was probably all the woodpecker was fighting for, he did not give chase.

V

A BARN-DOOR OUTLOOK

I have a barn-door outlook because I have a hay-barn study, and I chose a hay-barn study because I wanted a barn-door outlook--a wide, near view into fields and woods and orchards where I could be on intimate terms with the wild life about me, and with free, open-air nature.

Usually there is nothing small or stingy about a barn door, and a farmer's hay-barn puts only a very thin partition between you and the outside world. Therefore, what could be a more fit place to thresh out dry philosophical subjects than a barn floor? I have a few such subjects to thresh out, and I thresh them here, turning them over as many times as we used to turn over the oat and rye sheaves in the old days when I wielded the hickory flail with my brothers on this same barn floor.

What a pleasure it is to look back to those autumn days, generally in September or early October, when we used to thresh out a few bushels of the new crop of rye to be taken to the grist-mill for a fresh supply of flour! How often we paused in our work to munch apples that had been mellowing in the haymow by our side, and look out through the big doorway upon the sunlit meadows and hill-slopes! The sound of the flail is heard in the old barn no more, but in its stead the scratching of a pen and the uneasy stirring of a man seated there behind a big box, threshing out a harvest for a loaf of much less general value.

As I sit here day after day, bending over my work, I get many glimpses of the little rills of wild life that circulate about me. The feature of it that impresses me most is the life of fear that most of the wild creatures lead. They are as alert and cautious as are the picket-lines of opposing armies. Just over the line of stone wall in the orchard a woodchuck comes hesitatingly out of his hole and goes nibbling in the grass not fifty feet away. How alert and watchful he is! Every few moments he sits upright and takes an observation, then resumes his feeding. When I make a slight noise he rushes to the cover of the stone wall. Then, as no danger appears, he climbs to the top of it and looks in my direction. As I move as if to get up, he drops back quietly to his hole.

A chipmunk comes along on the stone wall, hurrying somewhere on an important errand, but changing his course every moment. He runs on the top of the wall, then along its side, then into it and through it and out on the other side, pausing every few seconds and looking and listening, careful not to expose himself long in any one position, really skulking and hiding all along his journey. His enemies are keen and watchful and likely to appear at any moment, and he knows it, not so much by experience as by instinct. His young are timid and watchful the first time they emerge from the den into the light of day.

Then a red squirrel comes spinning along. By jerks and nervous, spasmodic spurts he rushes along from cover to cover like a soldier dodging the enemy's bullets. When he discovers me, he pauses, and with one paw on his heart appears to press a button, that lets off a flood of snickering, explosive sounds that seem like ridicule of me and my work. Failing to get any response from me, he presently turns, and, springing from the wall to the bending branch of a near apple-tree, he rushes up and disappears amid the foliage. Presently I see him on the end of a branch, where he seizes a green apple not yet a third grown, and, darting down to a large horizontal branch, sits up with the apple in his paws and proceeds to chip it up for the pale, unripe seeds at its core, all the time keenly alive to possible dangers that may surround him. What a nervous, hustling, highstrung creature he is--a live wire at all times and places! That pert curl of the end of his tail, as he sits chipping the apple or cutting through the shell of a nut, is expressive of his character. What a contrast his nervous and explosive activity presents to the more sedate and dignified life of the gray squirrel! One of these passed us only a few yards away on our walk in the woods the other day--a long, undulating line of soft gray, silent as a spirit and graceful as a wave on the beach.

A little later, in the fine, slow-falling rain, a rabbit suddenly emerges into my field of vision fifty feet away. How timid and scared she looks! She pauses a moment amid the weeds, then hops a yard or two and pauses again, then passes under the bars and hesitates on the edge of a more open and exposed place immediately in front of me. Here she works her nose, feeling of every current of air, analyzing every scent to see if danger is near. Apparently detecting something suspicious in the currents that drift from my direction, she turns back, pauses again, works her nose as before, then hurries out of my sight.

Yesterday I saw a rat stealing green peas from my garden in the open day. He darted out of the stone wall six or eight feet away to the row of peas, rushed about nervously among the vines; then, before I could seize my rifle, darted back to the cover of the wall. Once I cautiously approached his hiding-place in the wall and waited. Presently his head emerged from the line of weeds by the fence, his nose began working anxiously, he sifted and resifted the air with it, and then quickly withdrew; his nose had detected me, but his eye had not. The touchstone of most animals is the nose, and not the eye. The eye quickly detects objects in motion, but not those at rest; this is the function of the nose.

A highhole alights on the ground in full view in the orchard twenty yards away, and, spying my motionless figure, pauses and regards me long and intently. His eye serves him, and not his nose. Finally concluding that I am not dangerous, he stoops to the turf for his beloved ants and other insects, but lifts his head every few seconds to see that no danger is imminent. Not one moment is he off his guard. A hawk may suddenly swoop from the air above, or a four-footed foe approach from any side. I have seen a sharp-shinned hawk pick up a highhole from the turf in a twinkling under just such conditions. What a contrast between the anxious behavior of these wild creatures and the ease and indifference of the grazing cattle!

All the wild creatures evidently regard me with mingled feelings of curiosity and distrust. A song sparrow hops and flirts and attitudinizes and peers at me from the door-sill, wondering if there is any harm in me. A ph[oe]be-bird comes in and flits about, disturbed by my presence. For the third or fourth time this season, I think, she is planning a nest. In June she began one over a window on the porch where I sleep in the open air. She had the foundation laid when I appeared, and was not a little disturbed by my presence, especially in the early morning, when I wanted to sleep and she wanted to work. She let fall some of her mortar upon me, but at least I had no fear of a falling brick. She gradually got used to me, and her work was progressing into the moss stage when two women appeared and made their beds upon the porch, and in the morning went to and fro with brooms, of course. Then Ph[oe]be seemed to say to herself, "This is too much," and she left her unfinished nest and resorted to the empty hay-barn. Here she built a nest on one of the bark-covered end timbers halfway up the big mow, not being quite as used to barns and the exigencies of haying-times as swallows are, who build their mud nests against the rafters in the peak. She had deposited her eggs, when the haymakers began pitching hay into the space beneath her; sweating, hurrying haymakers do not see or regard the rights or wants of little birds. Like a rising tide the fragrant hay rose and covered the timber and the nest, and crept on up toward the swallow's unfledged family in the peak, but did not quite reach it.

Ph[oe]be and her mate hung about the barn disconsolate for days, and now, ten days later, she is hovering about my open door on the floor below, evidently prospecting for another building-site. I hope she will find me so quiet and my air so friendly that she will choose a niche on the hewn timber over my head. Just this moment I saw her snap up a flying "miller" in the orchard a few rods away. She was compelled to swoop four times before she intercepted that little moth in its unsteady, zigzagging flight. She is an expert at this sort of thing; it is her business to take her game on the wing; but the moths are experts in zigzag flying, and Ph[oe]be missed her mark three times. I heard the snap of her beak at each swoop. It is almost impossible for any insectivorous bird except a flycatcher to take a moth or a butterfly on the wing.

Last year in August the junco, or common snowbird, came into the big barn and built her nest in the side of the haymow, only a few feet from me. The clean, fragrant hay attracted her as it had attracted me. One would have thought that in a haymow she had nesting material near at hand. But no; her nest-building instincts had to take the old rut; she must bring her own material from without; the haymow was only the mossy bank or the wood-side turf where her species had hidden their nests for untold generations. She did not weave one spear of the farmer's hay into her nest, but brought in the usual bits of dry grass and weeds and horsehair and shaped the fabric after the old pattern, tucking it well in under the drooping locks of hay. As I sat morning after morning weaving my thoughts together and looking out of the great barn doorway into sunlit fields, the junco wove her straws and horsehairs, and deposited there on three successive days her three exquisite eggs.

Why the bird departed so widely from the usual habits of nest-building of her species, who can tell? I had never before seen a junco's nest except on the ground in remote fields, or in mossy banks by the side of mountain roads. This nest is the finest to be found upon the ground, its usual lining of horsehair makes its interior especially smooth and shapely, and the nest in the haymow showed only a little falling-off, as is usually the case in the second nest of the season. The songs of the birds, the construction of their nests, and the number of their eggs taper off as the season wanes.

The junco impresses me as a fidgety, emphatic, feather-edged sort of bird; the two white quills in its tail which flash out so suddenly on every movement seem to stamp in this impression. My junco was a little nervous at first and showed her white quills, but she soon grew used to my presence, and would alight upon the chair which I kept for callers, and upon my hammock-ropes.

When an artist came to paint my portrait amid such rustic surroundings, the bird only eyed her a little suspiciously at first, and then went forward with her own affairs. One night the wind blew the easel with its canvas over against the haymow where the nest was placed, but the bird was there on her eggs in the morning. Her wild instincts did not desert her in one respect, at least: when I would flush her from the nest she would drop down to the floor and with spread plumage and fluttering movements seek for a moment to decoy me away from the nest, after the habit of most ground-builders. The male came about the barn frequently with three or four other juncos, which I suspect were the first or June brood of the pair, now able to take care of themselves, but still held together by the family instinct, as often happens in the case of some other birds, such as bluebirds and chickadees.

My little mascot hatched all her eggs, and all went well with mother and young until, during my absence of three or four days, some night-prowler, probably a rat, plundered the nest, and the little summer idyl in the heart of the old barn abruptly ended. I saw the juncos no more.

While I was so closely associated with the junco in the old barn I had a good chance to observe her incubating habits. I was surprised at the frequent and long recesses that she took during school-hours. Every hour during the warmest days she was off from ten to twelve minutes, either to take the air or to take a bite, or to let up on the temperature of her eggs, or to have a word with her other family; I am at a loss to know which. Toward the end of her term, which was twelve days, and as the days grew cooler, she was not gadding out and in so often, but kept her place three or four hours at a time.