JBRARY
tfySRSITY Of
IAN DiEQO
F
AX
LAND OF THE LINGERING
SNOW
CHRONICLES OF A STROLLER IN
XEW ENGLAND
FROM JANUARY TO JUNE
BY
FRANK BOLLES
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIX AND COMPANY
(Ebe Eitoersibc ^3rcj5s, CambriDfle
1892
Copyr-ght, 1891,
By frank BOLLES.
All rights reserved.
The Hiverside Press, Cnmbrida/^, Mrrss., U. S. A-
Electiotyped and Friuted by H. O. Uoughtou & Co.
CONTENTS.
Paqb
Footprints in the Snow 1
Nature in Armor 6
A Tempest 12
The Sea in a Snowstorm 18
Two Views through Winter Sunshine ... 25
Waverley Oaks and Bussey Hemlocks ... 31
The First Bluebirds 38
The Minute-Man in a Snowdrift .... 44
The Cobung of the Birds . . . . . .51
The Equinoctial on the Dunes .... 59
The Renaissance 73
The Vesper Song of the Woodcock ... 78
A Trip to Highland Light 83
The Current of Musketaquid 98
A Bit of Color 110
The Conquest of Pegan Hill 115
Wood Ducks and Bloodroot 122
A Voyage to Heard's Island 130
A Forest Anthem 149
The Bittern's Love Song 159
Warbler Sunday 1G5
Rock Meadow at Night 176
The Secrets of the Meadow 181
Wachusett 190
In the Wren Orchard 198
Chocorua 208
LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW.
Sunday, the eleventh day of the new year,
was what most people would call a good day to
stay in the house. The face of New England
winter was set. No smiling sky relieved its
grimness, no soft breeze promised a season of
relenting. The notes of the college bell were
muffled and the great quadrangle was deep with
snow, as I left Old Cambridge behind me and
sought the hills of Arlington three miles or
more to the north. Slowly climbing the
heights, after my car ride, I looked back at the
world I had left. The sky was a mass of dull
gray clouds, with a copper-colored spot where
the sun was hiding. Boston and Cambridge lay
under a pall of smoke and dun-colored vapor.
The broken ridges from Belmont to the Middle-
sex Fells were buried deep in snow, the soft
whiteness of whicli was interrupted by patches
of dark pines, dotted with stiff cedars, or shaded
2 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
by the delicate etching of birches and elms.
The air was in that condition which favors the
carriage of distant sonnds. I heard the rumble
of trains on the Fitchburg, Massachusetts Cen-
tral and Albany railways on the one hand and
of those on the Northern roads on the other.
Now and then the tooting whistle of a train
sounded like the hooting of a mammoth owl.
Entering the woods, I found written upon the
snow the records of those who had travelled
there before me. A boy with his sled had been
across to a pond in the hollow. A dog had fol-
lowed him, running first to one side, then to the
other. Further on I struck another track. The
prints were smaller than the dog's, round, and
in a single line, spaced quite evenly, like tiiose
of a fox. Somebody's cat had been hunting on
her own account. In an open space, bunches
of goldenrod and asters had been pulled to
pieces, and all around their stalks the footprints
of small birds, perhaps goldfinches or redpolls,
were thick. Not far away the snow on an open
hillside was pencilled by the rising stems of
barberry bushes. From the pine woods to these
bushes numerous tiny paths led. The most
dainty feet had printed their story there. The
journeys seemed to have been made in dark-
ness, for the paths made queer curves, loops,
false starts into the open pasture and quick re-
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW. 3
turns to the woods. The barberry bushes had
been found, however, and were thoroughly en-
snared in the tracks. The mice which formed
them had made holes in the snow near the stems
of the bushes, and these holes led through long
tunnels down to the ground and possibly into it.
Among the pitch pines, old orchards, and chest-
nut trees squirrel tracks were countless. Most
of them were those of the red squirrel, but in
deeper woods I found, records of gray squirrels
as wall. Along frozen brooks, where alders,
willows, privet, and rosebushes were thick, the
small brown rabbits had been feeding and pay-
ins; moonlio-ht visits to each other. In an or-
chard I found a place where a crow had alighted
and marched about with long strides. Most in-
terestinof of all were the hurried tracks of a
flock of birds which had been feeding on bar-
berries, juniper and privet berries. They had
been disturbed by a dog and had skurried
through the thicket, their sharp toes printing
innumerable " crow's feet " in the snow. What
were they ? I pushed on to see, and soon started
a flock of fifteen quail from a dark grove of
pines. Later I found one cuddled up in a hol-
low in the snow under a juniper, eating the ber-
ries over her head. I nearly stepped upon the
bush before she flew.
Descending into a ravine filled with ruddy
4 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
willows, privet, and rose bushes gay with their
red hips, I heard a note which made me halt
and listen. Yes, a robin. The sides of the
ravine were clothed with savins, the ridges were
crowned by tall pines. Rose hips and sumac
seeds, barberries, privet and juniper berries
furnished food, and the sun is always warm —
when it shines. A soft rain began to fall, and
it loosed the tongues of the birds. Chickadees
called from tree to hedge. Golden-crested king-
lets lisped to each other in the cedars. A dozen
crows circled over the high pines, cawing discon-
tentedly, and the robin's note sounded from
three or four quarters at once. I gained the top
of the ridge and looked Across a pasture. In a
branchinff oak were several birds. As I drew
near, others flew in from neighboring savins and
bunches of barberry bushes. They were robins.
In all, thirty-six flew into the oak and then went
off in a noisy flock as I reached the tree. Their
plumage was much lighter than in summer. The
rain fell faster and I left the pasture, homeward
bound. The last I saw of the pasture hillside it
was sprinkled with robins running back and
forth on the snow, picking up privet berries.
They were as jolly as in cherry time.
"While recrossing pasture and field, swamp
and thicket, I noticed countless black specks
upon the snow. They moved. They were
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW. 5
alive. Wherever a footprint, a sharp edge of
drift, or a stone wall broke the monotony of the
snow surface, these black specks accumulated,
and heaped themselves against the barrier. For
miles every inch of snow had from one to a
dozen of these sj)ecks upon it. What were
they? Snowfleas or spring-tails (^achoi^eutes nivi-
cola'), one of the mysteries of winter, one of the
extravagances of animal life. Fortunately they
prefer the cold face of the snow to a life of para-
sitic persecution.
As I caught a homeward-bound electric car,
I looked back at the rido;es of Arlinofton with
gratitude and admiration. They made a land-
scape of ermine, a soft blending of light and
dark. Tho falling rain, snowbound farms, savin-
dotted hillsides, bluish belts of woodland, deli-
cate tracery of elm branches ; all mingled to
form a background for reverie, a gentle good-by
to a day of rest.
NATURE IN ARMOR.
Nature does not always drop her cloak of
ermine when she buckles on her armor. She
often covers her soft snow garments with icy mail
and meets the dawn with every hillside a shield
and every branch of oak a sword. She was thus
girded and armed on Sunday, January 18, 1891,
as I sought the Arlington hills at the hour when
the air of Suffolk and Middlesex was throbbing
with the music of church bells. A gentle east
wind — for even Massachusetts east winds can
be gentle when they try — carried in slanting
lines against the hills and trees a steady fall of
cold rain. It had been falling so for over twelve
hours, till level snow, fences, walls, weeds by the
wayside, shrubs, orchards, elms in the meadows,
savins on the hillsides, and belts of woods on the
ridge-crests were all sheathed in clear ice, which
measured, on an average, a quarter of an inch
in thickness.
As I mounted through the open fields toward
the heights, I wondered what the birds were do-
ing in the cold rain, witli every twig ice-coated,
and every berry shut u}> in thick crystal. Where
NATURE IN ARMOR. 7
were the crows, the chickadees, and above all,
the adventurous robins ? " Here I am," a robin
seemed to say from the roadside, and at the
same instant I saw a bird fly from a dense tangle
of briers, bushes, cedars and tall maples, to the
highest branch of a tree, shake himself thor-
oughly, and then give the familiar robin signal of
alarm and inquiry. He was answered by a sec-
ond bird, and presently three of them flew over
my head and down the hill towards a grove of
pines. I had a clear view of them through my
opera-glass.
A few steps further on I came to a white birch-
tree, bent by the ice till its head rested in a
snowbank on the opposite side of the road from
its but. It formed an ice-screen thirty feet
long and nine feet high, directly across the road.
The tree measured nearly three feet in circum-
ference at its base. Near by a grove of white
birches had become a shapeless tangle of ice-wires
and cables. The eye could not separate any one
tree from the mass, and the tops of all were rest-
ing upon the snow. The road w^as lined with
bleached asters and goldenrod. Not only were
their stems ice-lning, but their pale, flower-like
involucres were embedded in nodding: balls of
ice, half an inch in diameter. So delicate w'ere
these mock flowers and so erect and perfect their
form within the crystal, that it seemed certain
8 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
they must have been first embraced by a freez-
ing mist as gentle and caressing as a ray of sun-
shine. The same ice-kiss had rested upon the
bunches of red barberries, the dark berries of
the privet, and the sticky, red, cone-shaped
masses of the sumac fruit. Even the dead, rus-
set leaves hanging from the oaks had a sheet of
ice clinging to them which, Avhen slipped off,
showed their form and veinings.
Entering the pine woods where I had previ-
ously seen quail, I found the trees in trouble.
The great pines were loaded down with ice, and
many a branch had broken and fallen under its
weight. The surface of the snow was strewn
with twigs and branches of every size. A strange
roar of falling ice and twigs filled the woods,
now and then emphasized by the crash of some
greater fall. I found the tracks of one quail
and of a rabbit, made doubtless Saturday
evening while the snow was still soft ; but other-
wise the face of the snow told no tales. It w^as
smooth and shining, as though no dainty feet of
mice and squirrels had ever pressed upon it.
There were squirrels at work, however. Under
one pitch-pine I found a pint of cone chips
freshly strewn. Half a mile distant I surprised
a red squirrel busy in an old chestnut-tree which
had succumbed to its awful burden of ice and
fallen manoled in the snow. He fled fi'om me
NATURE IN ARMOR. 9
and bounded up tlie trunk of an oak, but he
reckoned without the ice, and when part way up
lost his grip and fell back upon the crust below,
a very much mortified squirrel.
In dense growths of pitch-pines and savins I
came across six flocks of chickadees, in all per-
haps twenty of the merry little birds. They
seemed to keep dry, and by working on the
under and westerly sides of the branches found
food not covered by ice. In one of the flocks
were two little brown creepers who were unable
to make spirals or zigzags round the tree-trunks,
as is their frequent practice, but who seemed
happy in hitching straight up the trunks of the
pines and the oaks. The chickadees, creepers
and crows, as well as the robins, were very talk-
ative. The only other bird seen was a small
hawk, which sailed silently over the snow in a
secluded pasture.
About two o'clock I gained the crest of a high
ridge from which I could see many miles of
snow-covered country. The sky was a cold gray-
ish white ; the pines and cedars looked almost
black. Against the sky the ice-covered, leafless
trees were a darker gray than the clouds, but
against the evergreens or in masses by them-
selves they were ashes-of-roses color and wonder-
fully soft in tone. Looking across a sloping
pasture at a swamp filled with elms and willows,
10 LAND OF THE Ll.XGERlNG SNOW.
they seemed to be a mass of dark stems with
their tops shrouded in ])ale smoke through which
the faintest possible fire-glow permeated. I
suppose the color came from the reddish bai-k
of the twigs. Just then the sun found a rift
in the rushing clouds, and for a single minute
poured his glory upon the crystal world below.
Every tint changed. Every atom of ice re-
sponded, flashing to the touch of light, but the
east wind hurried forward fresh mists from the
ocean and the sunlight vanished. Below me
hundreds of small trees trailed their tops upon
the snow. It seemed as though some muezzin
of the ice-world had called them to their prayers.
Farther away were acres of scattered pitch-pines,
every bunch of whose needles was a drooping
pompon of heavy ice. As I looked at them
through the thickly falling sleet they seemed to
march in ranks across the fields of snow, their
heads bent from the wintry storm, despair in
their attitude. " The retreat from Moscow," I
said, and hoped that the day of judgment against
the weak among the trees w^ould not be followed
by a night of tempestuous wrath against the
whole ice-bound forest.
The wind, gentle as it seemed, was too strong
for some trees. Once I heard a report like a
canndn, and turned to see an old willow forty
feet high plunge into the snow. At another
NATURE IN ARMOR. 11
time a long bi^anch of an elm at which I was
looking slowly bent lower and lower, and then
broke midway witli a crack and swung toward
the ground. I raised a prostrate cedar bush,
whose height was about seven feet, and found
that its load of ice seemed to weigh thirty pounds.
If this were so, what must the burden of the great
trees have been ? Tons, perhaps. Yet the oaks
did not seem to bend an inch. Their stiff heads
wei'e raised straight toward the sky, and their
immovable arms bristled with icicles.
About an hour before sunset I pointed my
course downward, sighting for the tower of Me-
morial Hall rising black against the distant sky.
Much ice had fallen from the trees since the
forenoon, and there was a ceaseless roar of fall-
ing fragments as I passed through the strips of
woodland. The temperature had risen enough
to loosen the ice armor, and everything from
asters to elm-tops was casting it off.
A TEMPEST.
On the afternoon of Satnrclaj'', January 24,
while roamino^ over the hills between Arling'ton
and Medford, I made up my mind not to spend
the next day in the woods. Nature seemed to
have become prosaic, almost dull, I saw one
crow, — no other tenant of the woods. The snow
had been washed away and the ice which re-
mained was stained. The air was heavy with
the breath of long-forgotten cabbage-leaves.
Farmers were at work in their plowed lands,
stirring up other odors equally obnoxious. Even
the fields were unpleasant to walk over on ac-
count of their alternate patches of ice and pasty
mud. But Sunday morning before sunrise the
wind shifted to the northeast and changed a
drizzling rain into a furious snowstorm, and by
noon, when I reached the first hill -top above
Arlington, the storm was at its height. The air
was in a fury. Laden with great masses of
flakes it bore them in horizontal lines over fields
and pastures, hurling them against every obsta-
cle, and whitening even the window panes of
houses facing eastward. The blast was as unin-
A TEMPEST. 13
termittent in its pi'essure as natural forces can
be ; yet it seemed to excite vibration and rhythm
in all it touched. The tops of the pines fell and
rose, the branches moved forward and back, the
roar of the wind pulsated and the soft surface
of the snow was not even, but broken into tiny
waves. In the pine woods the wind was less
violent, but the passing snow seemed like vibrat-
ing white lines rather than flakes. As I stood
in the pines and looked northeast, every tree was
black against a distance of on-coming white
rage. As I looked southwest every tree was
white, finely outlined in black, against a i-etreat-
ing mass of colorless motion. If I looked south-
east the trees were black and white, and if north-
west they were white and black, and whichever
way I looked the air was surging on, laden with
the bewildered and bewildering snow.
Pushing on I entered a deep and rocky gorge.
Possibly Vei'estchagin's brush could indicate the
absolute whiteness overlaid upon the less abso-
lute white of that mysteriously beautiful spot.
Certainly nothing else could. Every rock, bush,
trunk, limb, branchlnt, twig and leaf-bud was
covered with the clinging snow. Beyond was an
oak wood. The inelastic ice of last Sunday failed
to bend these stubborn trees, but the wet, sticky
snow had overcome thom. Dozens of slender
young oaks, thirty feet in height, were bent to
14 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
the ground. This gave a hint of what the con-
dition of the pitch-pines and cedars woukl be,
in spots sheltered from the wind, and I hurried
on to see tliem. The walking was heav}-. Early
in the afternoon, when the storm abated, just
nine inches of snow had fallen on a level. Pass-
ing through the woods, where I had seen quail
two weeks ago, but where now no sign of them
was to be found, I came out into the old pasture,
thickly overgrown with savin, pitch-pine and
barberries. Here and there something which
resembled a tree remained, but the greater part
of the growth had been suppressed. There were
rounded masses which looked like sheep in the
snow, and there were arched stems from which
depended balls and branches of snow resembling
boxing-gloves, cauliflowers, toy rabbits and lambs
and other unpoetical objects. In most cases the
top of the pine or savin could not be distin-
guished from its base.
At the foot of the hill was a cedar swamp.
Entering, I could readily imagine myself in the
Luray Caverns. A floor of pure white sup-
ported an endless series of white columns, beyond
which were botryoidal masses of white rising to
a roof of white. Mingled with the more regular
forms were snarls and tangles of snow serpents,
and shafts and pinnacles as varied in form as the
stalagmites of the limestone caves. Later I was
A TEMPEST. 15
in one of these enchanting places when the sun
came out and the zenith was left free from clouds.
The effects were so beautiful and striking that,
although words give but a hint of them, they
are ineffaceable in memory. Through the swamp
runs a small stream. As the day was compara-
tively warm no ice encumbered the clear water.
At one point it spread out over a broad bed of
mud, from which rose a thick growth of grass,
watercress and ranunculus. All three plants
were vivid green and offered a strange contrast
to the arabesque of snow which framed the
brook.
Wild as was the storm and stimulating as
were its direct buffeting and indirect effect of
form and color, the day was as remarkable on
another account as it was for the tempest. I
saw eighty-five birds, representing nine species.
Several times I heard crows, flying through
the driving snow, calling to each other in its con-
fusion. In the pines at the summit of the first
high hill were two little brown creepers flying
from trunk to trunk and exploring busily the
bark on the sheltered side of the trees. When
they left a tree the storm whirled them away like
dry leaves, but they promptly headed toward
the wind and sped back under the lee of some
sheltering tree to its but, the point where their
explorations always begin. They kept track
16 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
of each other by frequent attenuated squeaks.
Chickadees were eveiyvvhere, and very noisy.
They worked quite as much on snow-covered
twigs as on the sheltered side of branches. In
the cedar swamp they popped in and out of snow
caverns among the branches, often tipping over
great piles of snow and dodging them with a
jolly " chick-a-dee-dee-dee." In this swamp a
single tree-sparrow appeared among the branches
of a big cedar and looked with evident amaze-
ment upon my snow-covered form. Here, too, I
saw and heard the first robins of the day %ing
and signalling among the tops of some of the
larger cedars, and near by in a bunch of pines,
just above the swamp, three golden-crested king-
lets made merry in the sunlight which succeeded
the storm. A solitary goldfinch undulated over
me in an open pasture, singing the first note or
two of his summer song, and a nuthatch passed
close by me on my homeward walk.
But the great display of birds came in the
middle of the afternoon, at the time that the
clouds were breaking and the wind was working
out of the east. I was crossing a high sloping-
pasture with a cedar swamp at its base and a
fringe of large cedars round its edge, when, strik-
ing a patch of concealed ice, my feet flew from
under me, and I found myself on my back in
the snow. Looking into the sky, I saw a flock
A TEMPEST. 17
of at least twenty robins flying overhead. They
came from the swamp and stopped in the fringe
of cedars to frolic and feed. Suddenly a flock
of smaller birds joined them, and by the aid of
my glass I discovered that they were cedar-birds.
For twenty minutes or more this company of
fully fifty birds romped in the savin tops, as
they do in cherry-trees in summer, the screams
of the robins being incessant. Many of the
robins came near enough for me to scrutinize
their plumage closely. I saw none but male
birds among them. The two flocks vanished as
suddenly as they came, and I could find no trace
of either, although I searched and waited for
them more than an hour. These birds were
seen on precisely the same spot as the large flock
of robins observed January 11.
Although I did not leave the woods and pas-
tures until sunset with its exquisite tints had
come, I saw no footprints of any kind in the
snow. I wished that I could linger until even-
ing and follow the soft tread of rabbits and
mice, the moon meanwhile pouring her light
into tlie enchantment of those groves of snow-
encumbered trees.
THE SEA IN A SNOWSTORM.
February came in under the guise of May.
The sky of Sunday, the first, was wonderfully
blue ; its air mild, often more than mild ; its
clouds were like the pictures in my old physical
geography. I could almost see the mystic words
cirrus, cumulus, stratus, written in the heavens.
Tempted by the mock spring I extended my
walk beyond its usual limits, infringed on Lex-
ington, and from the heights of Waverley sur-
veyed miles of glistening hillsides to the north
and west, and crowded cities to the south and
east. Every hollow was a pool, and every gla-
cial furrow in the hills a brook. The cabbages
were reasserting their rights to the farmlands
and the air appurtenant thereto.
The birds revelled in the warm sunshine, fly-
ing for the love of flying, and calling loudly to
each other for the sake of calling. The crows
spoke loudest and the chickadees most often. On
a sunny bank a large flock of goldfinches were
feeding among the weeds and grasses. I counted
fifty of them, and sevei^al flew away before the
census was finished. They were singing enough
THE SEA IN A SNOWSTORM. 19
of their sweet song to suggest the summer.
Once during the day I heard the " phoebe note "
of the chickadee, and twice I had the satisfaction
of hearing crows " gobble." They do not often
make this sound. It suggests somewhat the
gobbling of a turkey-cock. So warm, thawing,
and genial was this day that one had to be pes-
simistic to realize that it was only a mocking
grin on the mask of winter and not a smile on
the lips of spring.
But Sunday, February 8, showed winter in
his true colors again. The day was, as regards
snow-laden trees and drifted roads, a duplicate
of the last Sunday in January. Instead of en-
joying the snow pictures in the woods and pas-
tures of Arlington, I traversed Crab Alley,
Bread and Milk Streets, and that meandering
marvel of old Boston, Battery march Street, and
gained the harbor front at Rowe's Wharf.
Some of these snow-covered haunts of trade
were as free from footprints as the savin
swamps of Arlington. In Crab Alley I came
to tracks in the snow which made me wonder
whether some of the quail from the Parker
House toast had not escaped alive. Dainty
little steps crossed and recrossed the narrow
lane, and formed a dense network of converging
paths at the back door of a small chop-house.
As I approached, two tame doves flew noisily
20 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
from beliind the barrel which graced the door-
step, and several English sparrows swung from
a telej^hone wire overhead.
I looked up into the iron caps of the electric
light lamps to see whether the spai-rows had
built in them. They had. In Boston and sev-
eral adjoining cities the major part of these
iron witch-caps contain sparrows' nests. Even
the lamps which ai-e suspended over the streets
and drawn in daily by the linemen are not dis-
dained by the birds.
From the deck of the Janus-natured ferry-
boat, which was pausing for the time between
trips to the Revere Beach cars, I looked out
upon a chilly sky and sea. The waters were
restless, the wind fierce and cold, the snow-
flakes stinging. At anchor lay a large steamer,
black and thin. The odd gearing at her stern
showed that she was an ocean cable . steamer.
Beyond her was a four-masted schooner. I
wondered what her sailors called her fourth
mast. Suddenly my wandering eyes were fixed
in astonishment upon a jaunty form floating on
the water within less than fifty feet of the ferry-
boat. It had emerged from the cold and tossing
waters with a bounce, shaken itself, and begun
a bobbing career in the daylight and snow-
flakes. Pop ! Down went its head, up v/ent its
tail and feet and it was gone again. During
THE SEA IN A SNOWSTORM. 21
fifteen minutes it bobbed up six times in the
same spot, staying afloat each time from fifteen
to thirty seconds, and below about two minutes.
It was black above, snowy white below, and
formed in the likeness of a duck. It was a
whistler, a duck common in the harbor and
along our coast in winter. While diving, it was
probably breakfasting upon small shell-fish
found on the bottom.
On the way across to East Boston I saw
seven or eight more whistlers and over fifty
herring-gulls, many of them in the dark plum-
age peculiar to the immature birds. Twenty
minutes later I stood on the narrow strip of
sand left between the poplar walk in front of
the Point of Pines Hotel and the angry ocean.
The wind was northeast, and blowing a gale.
The tide had turned half an hour before, but it
was still unusually high. Behind me the Sau-
gus marshes were wholly submerged. A few
haystacks alone broke the monotony of gray
water, foam and scudding snow. To the north
ought to have been seen distant Lynn, but the
eye was met only by stinging snowflakes and
cold wind. My train, before it had gone an
eighth of a mile, had been swallowed up in steam
and hurrying masses of snow. Where was Na-
hant ? There was not a trace of it. The hun-
gry waves broke ten ranks deep upon the flat
22 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
sands across which they roared ; but beyond
them was no land, — only the fury of gray and
white hanging above a hissing, greenish gray
and white below. The sand was brown, not a
warm brown, but a cold, shining, grayish brown
with no kindness in it.
There was nothing in the whole world which
my eye could reach to suggest warmth or happi-
ness. True, there were the empty buildings
with padlocked doors among the snow-covered
trees, but they were more desolate and soul-chill-
ing than anything in nature. I walked among
them until wearied by the mockery of their
signs and broken paraphernalia. Hideous ki-
osks, whose blue and yellow paint was partly
covered by the white pity of the storm, told in
glaring letters of " Ice Water," " Red Hot Pop
Corn," " Sunshades and Fans," and " Clam
Chowder." The wind shrieked through their
cracks and pelted wot snow against their win-
dows. In the amphitheatre where spectacular
plays are given on summer evenings the tide
dabbled with the rusty wheels of a sheet-iron
car marked " Apache." Beyond it, canvas
mountains and caiions were swaying and creak-
ing in the storm, their ragged edges humming
in the wind. A sign offered " Seats for 50
cents, children 25." The seats were softly
cushioned by six inches of snow, but the idle
THE SEA IN A SNOWSTORM. 23
summer crowd had been blown away by tlie
winter's breath. Only a flock of a dozen crows
lent life to the arena.
A train emerged from the storm. I could see
its dark outlines ; its torn column of steam ;
the swift motion of its many wheels, — then it
was gone, engulfed in the dizzy vibration of the
snow, its voice unheard amid the greater voices
of the sky and sea. The tide was going down
as I started towards home on the hard shining
sand of Crescent Beach. I think at least two
hundred herring-gulls passed by me, flying
slowly against the gale and keeping over the
water, but parallel to the beach and about a
hundred yards from it. They were silent.
Their strong wings beat against the storm.
Now and then one plunged into the foam of a
breaking wave, or glided for a second along the
trough of the sea. They did not seem like
true birds, beings of the same race as humming-
birds, sweet -voiced thrushes, or keen-witted
chickadees. They were rather creations of the
salt waves and ocean tempests ; cold-blooded,
scaly things, incapable of those loves and fears,
songs and quaint nesting ways of the birds of
field and forest. Near Oak Island a flock of
four snow buntings, which had been feeding
among the bunches of seaweed, rose at my ap-
proach and flew toward and past me up the
24 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
beach. They are among the most beautiful of
our winter visitors, their white and brown plum-
age being a sight always welcome to the eyes of
those who love the birds. At intervals flocks of
English sparrows rose from the seaweed and
shunned me. There seems to be no form of
vegetable food-supply upon which our native
birds dejiend, that this ravenous, non-migratory
pest does not devour.
From Point of Pines to Crescent Beach sta-
tion the thunder of the breakers and the rush of
the wind and snow were ceaseless. The storm
hurried me along in its strong embrace and drove
its chill through me. The tide had left the
marshes, and the snow had claimed them. As
the waves retreated from the beach the snow
stuck to the gleaming pebbles, the snaky bits of
keljD and the purple shells. Where two hours
before, at high tide, the waves had dashed foam
fifty feet into the air, now the breakwaters and
the heaps of shingle and seaweed were covered
with white from the drippings of the great roof
of sky.
The whistlers were still in the harbor at three
o'clock, but most of the gulls had gone. Snow
clung to decks, masts, yards, furled sails and
rigging. It whitened the water-front of the
city, purified the docks, and made even Crab
Alley seem picturesque as I ploughed through it
homeward bound.
TWO VIEWS THROUGH WINTER SUN-
SHINE.
Saturday and Sunday, the middle days
of February, were filled to the brim with spar-
kling winter sunshine. The heavens were swept
clean of clouds by a rush of cold dry air from
the birthplace of the Great Glacier. The
ground was like granite, and was well covered
with the snow that crunches under foot like pul-
verized quartz.
I spent Saturday afternoon on the highest
part of the Belmont-Arlington ridge, and the
world, seen from those wind-swept heights,
seemed made of cleaner, brighter stuff than
when touched on the flats below. There are
clear days in summer, but they are not so abso-
lutely clear as the clearest days in winter. I
never saw a more perfectly transparent air than
that which raced across New England on that
Saturday. The vision was not checked by dis-
tance or by vapor ; only by the curve of Mother
Earth's cheek.
Looking eastward from the heights, the eye
passed over the Fell country of Medford and
26 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
Stoneliam and the marshes of the Saugus to the
irregular line of Massachusetts Bay. Long
Beach, running out from Lynn to Nahant, was
dazzlingiy white against the pure blue of the sea.
Little Nahant, Egg Kock, Nahant and WiuthroiJ
Head, all snow-covered, stood out in bold relief
against the even-tinted water. Between them
several schooners appeared now and then work-
ing up the coast, the sunlight striking full
against their sails. High intervening land cut
oft" a view of the wooded and rocky Beverly
shore ; but the Danvers Asylum could be
plainly seen, like a great feudal castle, crowning
one of the hiohest rido'es.
Southward a nest of cities rested on the fork
of the Charles and the Mystic. The chilled
breath of half a million people hung over them
and their crowded homes, but it did not obscure
the picture of the harbor with its forts, islands,
and moving sails, nor the more distant pano-
rama of the Neponset Valley and Hull, Hing-
ham, and the Scituate shore. This view of
Boston and its densely populated neighbors has
a strange fascination about it. There is little
beauty in its blending of roofs, chimneys, tele-
graph poles, church spires, flashing window-
panes and bits of white steam or darker smoke,
yet in spite of its distance and silence it has the
mystery of life about it. From a mountain-top
TWO VIEWS THROUGH WINTER SUNSHINE. 27
the eye may roam over granite peaks, serried
ranks of spruce forest, undulating groves of
pines and birches, green intervales and snug
farmhouses, finding in them a restful charm,
a song of sweet New England calm. In this
mass of distant houses, factories, grain ele-
vators, stores, wharves, churches, marked here
and there by historic outlines like Bunker Hill
Monument, the golden dome of the State
House, Memorial Hall and Mount Auburn
Tower, there is something which stirs and stim-
ulates rather than soothes, something which re-
calls the toil, sorrow, self-sacrifice and eternal
restlessness of society, and the ever-present duty
of the individual toward it. The mountain
view lulls one's conscience ; the sight of this
nest of cities arouses it to action.
Westward the view from the heights was
monotonous. Low ridges succeeded each other
for many miles, holding in their hollows towns,
snow-covered farming lands, broken bits of oak
or pine forest, and patches of ice on pond or
meandering river. But northward the eye found
much to rest upon. Along the limits of Middle-
sex could be seen the valley of the Merrimac.
Then came the border towns of New Hampshire,
and beyond them the peaks and rounded sum-
mits which are the pride of Jaffrey, Dublin.
Peterborough, Temple, and Lyudeborough.
28 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
From Wachusett on the left to the Uncanoo-
nucs on the rioht the horizon was roiiohenecl
by the mountains of the Monadnock group,
snow-crusted and flashing in the sunshine. They
recalled boyhood days and adventures. A race
from a bull on Monadnock, a moonlight climb
on Lyndeborough, a thunder-storm on Pinnacle,
a July picnic on Joe English hill.
On the way home I saw a flock of about
twenty cedar-birds in the same pasture where I
saw them on January 25. They were cold and
listless, allowing me to approach them closely
enough to see the scarlet wax on their wing-
feathers. Two of them were eating barberries
which they picked one by one while clinging
head-downwards on the bending stems. The
robins, I learned from a fellow-observer, had
been seen not only that day, but every day for a
month, on their favorite feeding-ground. The
flock varies in size, he said, from twenty to fifty.
As I hurried along over the snow^ in a very
windy field a mouse scampered away from one
bunch of grasses to another and plunged into
his hole. His doorway was well protected by a
large bunch of dried grass.
Sunday I took an early train for Readville,
crossed the pretty triple-arch bridge over the
Neponset, and climbed to the snowy crest of
Blue Hill. Although the hill is nearlv three
TWO VIEWS THROUGH WINTER SUNSHINE. 29
hundred feet higher than Arlington Heights,
its view seemed to me less attractive. It is
three miles farther from the cities ; fifteen miles
farther from the New Hampshire line, and in
the centre of a country less picturesque in
formation than that of the Middlesex Fells.
Moreover, a northwest wind, which is the one
most likely to accompany clear winter weather,
carries the smoke of Boston in such a direction
as to injure the Blue Hill view, while it im-
proves that from Arlington.
As I looked down ujjon the Neponset
meadows, Poukapog Pond and Great Pond, I
saw moving black specks which reminded me
of the amusing little snow-fleas. They were
skaters, enjoying the ideal weather for their
graceful exercise. Passing Governor's Island
and heading for Broad Sound was a four-
masted schooner under full sail. Not a bird
was to be seen on the hill. The top is covered
with scrub-oak, which is replaced on the slopes
by small nut-trees, oak saplings, a few pines,
birches and maples. There seemed to be no
food for any kind of winter bird. In the estates
below, near the triple-arch bridge, I saw crows,
chickadees, two tree - sparrows and a downy
woodpecker.
As I came back to and through the city by
an afternoon train I wondered which was less
30 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
wholesome for the eye of man, the clingy
monotony of dirty white houses which one
used to see in suburban streets, or the nause-
ating combinations of yellows, greens, cheap
reds and discouraged blues which are now the
fashion.
WAVERLEY OAKS AND BUSSEY HEM-
LOCKS.
A FEW rods beyond the railway station in
Waverley the tracks of the Fitchburg and Mas-
sachusetts Central roads cross a meadow through
which Beaver Brook flows on its way to the
Charles. In this meadow the towns of Belmont,
Watertown and Waltham find a common cor-
ner, and here stand the Waverley oaks. Some
of these ancient trees grow on the level land
through which the brook has cut its channel,
but most of them rise from the narrow glacial
ridges which project into or border the meadow.
There are few places near Boston which welcome
spring earlier than this moist and sunny corner.
Here early spring birds are found, and many of
the choicest flowers flourish. Saturday, Febru-
ary 21, was a misty, moisty day with gray skies,
wet snow and rain-laden air. Beaver Brook
meadow was as wet as a meadow can be without
changing its name, and the brook itself was
more than knee-deep.
The meadow, that afternoon, yielded to me
the first flower of spring. It is true I had seen
32 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
a golden crocus bud before leaving the city, but
it was under the shelter of a well-warmed, south-
facing house, and had been covered with a
straw blanket all winter. This flower of the
swamp had taken care of itself on the edge of a
cold spring filled with bright green watercress.
It had no warm wall to shelter it, no blanket
save the black mud. It was as large as a tulip,
and its spots and stripes of purple and greenish
yellow made it quite conspicuous in its meadow
bed. Pulling open the fleshy lips of its highly
scented spathe, its yellow pollen was scattered
in all directions. The name of this odoriferous
flower of early spring is symplocarpus foetidus.
Passing through the ancient oaks I heard birds
singing in a stubble field beyond. The oaks are
the finest trees I have ever seen outside of the
primeval forests of the North. One of them —
not the largest or oldest — measured twenty feet
around its trunk at a height of three feet from
the turf. There are in all nearly thirty of these
magnificent trees, whose age, if John Evelyn is
a good authority for the age of oaks, is prob-
ably to be reckoned by centuries. The glacial
kame from which these trees spring, old as it is,
bears on its face the record of change and of
the woes of nature ; but the oaks, having out-
lived generations of other trees, seem like moun-
tain-crests, stable and enduring. The birds in
WAVEBLEY OAKS AND BUSSEY HEMLOCKS. 33
the stubble field proved to be tree-sparrows.
Tliey were feeding on the seeds of weeds found
on patches of moist earth left bare by the wast-
ing snow. Each bii'd was saying something in
a joyous recitative which he maintained continu-
ously, regardless of the rippling mirth of his
companions. I crept close to them and watched
them through the embrasures of an old stone
wall. Their chestnut caps, white wing-bars and
long slender tails make them easy birds to re-
cognize. As I rose they flew, nearly thirty
strong, and vanished in the mist.
Recrossing Beaver Brook I kept along the
Belmont ridge for a mile or more, seeing crows,
chickadees, a flock of six cedar-birds, a brown
creeper, several kinglets and two grouse, seven
species all told.
As sunset drew near the mist became denser.
The few springtails which I saw along the stone
walls seemed sluggish. While watching them
I noticed a tunnel under the snow, made, I sup-
pose, by a field mouse (^arvicola2)ennsylvamcus)^
and running from the wall to a pile of brush in
the pasture. It twisted and wound in and out
in stranoe fio-iires. Here and there its maker
seemed to have poked his head through the
snow to get his bearings. From the length of
these tunnels I inferred that their little engineer
works either very fast or very long in making
84 LAND OF TEE LINGERING SNOW.
them. The snow fell Friday, the tunnels were
made before Saturday afternoon, yet one of
them was fully three hundred feet long.
At the sunset hour a strange glow permeated
the mist, but it soon vanished. I left the hills
and crossed the Belmont meadows. The twi-
light was weird. The mud of the Concord turn-
pike seemed unnaturally yellow ; the pollard
willows assumed horrid shapes ; head-lights on
distant engines made menacing gleams on the
wet rails ; the great excavations in clay beds
near the brickyards were filled with black shad-
ows from which rose vapors ; brooks once clear,
now polluted by slaughter-houses, gave out foul
clouds of mist, and as electric lamps along the
road suddenly grew into glowing yellow balls in
the fog, they showed, rising above them, cruci-
fixes of this nineteenth century on which are
stretched the electric wires whose messages of
good or evil keep the nerves of society forever
uneasy.
Sunday was a cheerful contrast to Saturday
night. With a young friend who was heart-full
of love for birds, flowers, the quiet of the woods
and the music of the brooks, I tramped from
Bussey Woods westward through the quiet lanes,
snow-covered pastures and secluded swamps
which fill the sparsely settled region in this cor-
ner of Brookline and West Roxbury. It is a
WAVERLEY OAKS AND BUSSEY HEMLOCKS. 35
charming bit of country crowded with hills, deep
valleys, groves of many kinds of trees, roaring
brooks, fern-hung ledges of pudding-stone, and
sunny orchards. Birds were numerous. We
began with a golden-winged woodpecker in the
great trees of the Arboretum ; then a robin ap-
peared and snapped his tail at us from the top
of an elm. The voice of a blue jay came from
the evergreens, and chickadees were everywhere.
From the first bare hill we gained a broad view
of Boston, the harbor and the country from Blue
Hill to Arlington Heights. A fresh west wind
and a bright blue sky made everything seem
full of readiness for spring and a new period of
blossoming growth. Passing Allandale Spring
and gaining a ridge beyond, we heard the mew-
ing of a large hawk, and presently saw a pair
of fine red-shoiddered hawks quartering over a
meadow, probably in search of mice. They rose
and perched for a moment in the top of a tall
dead tree. In Walnut Hills Cemetery we found
quail tracks under barberry bushes, and pres-
ently flushed a bird. We also saw a kinglet
in the swamp. Red squirrels, mice, rabbits, and
another quadruped evidently very abundant in
the region, had made multitudes of tracks in the
soft wet snow. Just what this other quadruped
was I cannot surely say, but if it was what I sus-
pect it to have been, I should prefer not to travel
36 LAXD OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
much by night in its company. A chipmunk,
finding the mouth of his hole free fi-om snow,
had come out from it into the driveway and
made a few scampering circles where the snow
was shallowest.
As we neared the edge of Newton, we saw a
downy woodpecker with his red cap on. In the
swamp beyond were grouse tracks, and foot-
prints of a man and dog. Both the latter had
been running, and I fancied the dog had started
a rabbit which the man had hurried to head off
at a point where a wood-road rounded the corner
of the hill. Soon after crossing the Newton line
we turned toward the southeast and walked
rapidly back to the top of Bellevue Hill. Wa-
chusett and Monadnock greeted us from the far
horizon, and a marvelous blending of bay, city,
park, suburban settlement, and untouched na-
ture surrounded us on every side. Fortunate
Boston, to be girdled by such diversified and
picturesque country ! The view from this hill is
readily gained by walking from Highland Sta-
tion, and it seemed to me more charming than
that from Blue Hill.
The last pleasure of the day was in exploring
the hemlock woods at the Arnold Arboretum.
Thanks to an arrangement with Harvard Uni-
versity, the people of Boston have the use of
this beautiful estate for all time. While its
WAVERLEY OAKS AND BUSSEY HEMLOCKS. 37
systematic collections are as yet young and in-
comjjlete, its natural beauties are many. Just
north of Bussey Street an abrupt rocky hill,
crowned with tall and singularly straight hem-
looks, rises above the surrounding fields and roll-
ing pastures. From its deeply shaded top look-
ing down its precipitous ledges upon the roaring
waters of the Bussey brook, I seemed to feel my-
self removed from the neiohborhood of a ffreat
city to one of those wild White Mountain ravines
where trout are hidden in the torrents, where
the harsh scream of the pileated woodpecker
breaks the silence of the forest, and where the
hoof-print of the deer is of tener found than the
footstep of a man.
THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS.
Some of the wildest, rougliest, and most heav-
ily timbered country within sight of Boston lies
in the western end of Winchester and along the
northern edge of Arlington. I reached it on
the afternoon of the last day of winter, by walk-
ing along the western shore of Mystic Pond until
near the Winchester line, then bearing to the
left until I gained the high wooded ledges which
command Winchester village from the west. It
was a blustering day : the air was filled alter-
nately with golden sunlight and flurries of large
snowflakes. Dry snow covered the ground.
Along the stone walls it had drifted heavily,
reaching in many places a depth of two feet.
Walking in the ploughed fields was uncertain,
the furrows being filled with snow and the ridges
blown free from it. The brooks were noisy, but
their music was muffled by decks of thin ice
which partially covered them. Great white air-
bubbles rolled along under these ice decks.
Here and there watercress, buttercup leaves
and long blades of grass could be seen pressed
upward against the transparent ice by the pulsat-
THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS. 39
ing current. In one pool in the pine woods the
floor of the little basin was studded with scarlet
partridge berries, surrounded by their rich
green leaves.
The view from the crest of the ledges was well
worth a harder climb. Mystic Pond is beautiful
in itself, but it is made more so by the Fell coun-
try, rugged and snow-laden, rising above it.
AVinchester, with its many-colored cottages
sprinkled over the snow, made a pleasing pic-
tui-e. Beyond pond, village, and the Fells,
loomed the distant heights upon which the Dan-
vers Asylum showed its gloomy walls. The
snow flurries which blurred the distance made
the nest of cities along the Charles softer and
more picturesque than usual. The ledges are
well wooded. Pitch-pines, cedars and a sprin-
kling of hardwood cover them. Among these
trees were crows, a small hawk, a blue jay, two
kinglets, two little brown creepers, and neaidy a
dozen chickadees. The creepers and two of the
chickadees were working together. Both pairs
of birds signalled each other constantly. If a
creeper flew it told its mate, who soon followed,
usually flying to the same tree. The chickadees
sometimes went to the same tree also, and seemed
to be always within forty or fifty feet of the
creepers.
From this hill, which used to be called Mt.
40 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
Pisgali, I made a bee line for Turkey or One
Pine Hill, in Arlington. Much of the interme-
diate region is filled with white pines. In one
gi'ove of many hundred large pines, the effects of
the dark green roof, pure white floor and straight
brown columns forming radiating vistas were
impressive, none the less so from the silence and
the cold. From a brier thicket on the edge of
this wood a grouse flew noisily. Near Turkey
Hill was an odd meeting of paths in the snow.
A horse and sled, a man, a large dog, two quail,
a rabbit, and a mouse had all left their prints on
a square rod of snow.
It was the last calendar day of winter. The
sun was going down in wrath. The wind blew
across the top of One Pine Hill impatiently.
One Pine, with its sixty stubs of dead and
broken branches, trembled, and told by its fee-
bleness of the approaching day when One Pine
Hill, successor of Three Pine Hill, shall become
No Pine Hill.
March came in at midnight smiling. The big
yellow moon looked down upon the soft snow
wdiich had fallen since sunset, wrapping the earth
in ermine. I chose Lincoln for my objective
point, and reached it by rail early in the fore-
noon. The air was keen, very keen, the sky
faintly blue through thin clouds, the sun only a
yellow spot in the south. Leaving the railway
THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS. 41
I wound my way back towards Stony Brook,
passing through groves of small oaks, meadows
full of treacherous pools covered with brittle ice,
belts of whispering white-pines, apple orchards
and wood-roads leading up hill and down, end-
ins: nowhere. Four miles of this wanderino-
brought me to Kendal Green station in Weston,
with a record of twenty crows, eighteen chicka-
dees, sixteen tree-sparrows and three blue jays.
Every farmhouse seemed to have its two or
three large elms, and its one, two or three noisy
chickadees. No English sparrows were to be
seen. The sleighing throughout the region
appeared to be good and the snow in the fields
was more than six inches deep on a level. The
aspect of the country was much more wintry
than it was nearer the coast, yet Lincoln is only
thirteen miles northwest of the State House.
For two weeks past the pussy willows had
been increasing in size and beauty. Some of
them had now reached their most attractive
state, for when they begin to push out their
yellow stamens they lose much of their peculiar
charm. Near Kendal Green I found a noble
family of these little Quakers. They were large,
and closely set on their stems. Within a foot
of the tip of one wand were thirty pussies, each
measuring from a half to three quarters of an
inch in length. Lincoln, judging by the tracks
42 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
in the snow, is well stocked with rabbits, field
mice and skunks. It showed me the first fox
track I have seen in Massachusetts this winter.
A fox's track resembles closely that of the dog,
but it has some marked distinctions. The fox
often clips the snow with his toes, thus jarolong-
ing his footprint slightly ; he also has a longer
stride than a dog of the same size, and sets his
feet more nearly in a single line. The footprints
of the skunk are grouped in fours, and the four
prints in each group are very nearly in line ; the
first and third being a little to one side, and the
second and fourth to the other side, of an imagi-
nary middle line.
Just above Kendal Green station the railway
builders have taken a large bite out of a gravelly
hillside. The bitten spot faces southeast and is
as warm a nook on a windy winter An,y as could
well be found. It is stocked with dried weed
stalks, sumacs with their prince's feather-like
spikes, and red cedars covered with fruit. As I
rounded the corner of the bitten bank, Spring
herself stepped out to meet me, for twelve blue-
birds rose in a flock and flew into the cedars and
apple-trees which surmounted the cutting. It
was 1.30 P. M., and as every cloud had vanished
from the sky the sunlight brought out the color-
ing of these beautiful birds with marvelous in-
tensity. It is hard to say which is loveliest, the
THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS. 43
cerulean flash from their backs, or the chestnut
warmth of their round breasts. I watched and
listened to these birds for more than an hour.
They were joyously happy. They flew, they
basked in the sunlight, they went to the orchard
and peered into a hole in an apple limb in which
many a bluebird has probably been hatched ;
they hovered all over the cedars, eating their
bluish, aromatic fruit ; they perched on the ice
at the brink of Stony Brook and drank from
the rushing water ; they pecked at the sumac
spikes, they sipped melting snow on the slate
roof of the freight house ; they swung on the tele-
graph wires, and they filled the air with their
sweet, simple notes. The station - master said
some of them had been seen the Wednesday pre-
vious. At last I left them unwillingly, and
walked down the track which follows Stony
Brook towards Waltham. In the swift current
between the ice which projected far out from
each shore a muskrat was swimming down
stream ; twice he dived and twice he surged
along with the cold flood before I passed him.
THE MINUTE-MAN IN A SNOWDRIFT.
It is not often that snow-slioes are useful in
this part of Massachusetts, but as about sixteen
inches of a recent fall remained on the hills
when I took my walk on Saturday, March 7, I
found snow-shoes not only useful but neces-
sary for cross-country travel. My shoes were
made by a neat-fingered farmer in the White
Mountains, and are more durable than many of
the fancy shoes for sale among athletic goods.
A fish-shaped frame of ash with two cross
braces is filled with a coarse mesh of rawhide.
The foot is secured to this light framework by a
leather toe-cap from which straps extend across
the top of the instep and around the ankle.
The heel is free to rise and fall in walking, while
the heel of the snow-shoe is loaded to make it
trail upon the snow, thus keeping the toe up
and away from snags.
I spent most of Saturday afternoon on the
crest of a high hill not far from the Belmont
mineral spring. The air was warm and clear,
the sunlight intensely bright, and the sky won-
derfully blue. Birds were few and far between.
THE MINUTE-MAN IN A SNOWDRIFT. 45
and it is possible that many individuals here in
the winter have decamped already. Two crows,
two chickadees, two brown creepers, six rob-
ins, four quail, constituted my list for the day.
The robins passed overhead about three o'clock,
flying iiigh, fast, and due north. They may not
have stopped short of the New Hampshire hills,
for which tliey seemed to be aiming. The quail
were feeding on barberries, and judging by their
tracks there seemed to have been eight or ten of
them at work. A quail's footprint looks like
the barb and part of the shaft of an arrow
pointing in the direction from which the bird
has come. When they hurry, their tracks are
run together, forming a continuous line of per-
petuated panic. The quail were quite noisy on
Saturday, making a harsh call unlike their " bob,
bob-white." During the coming week or fort-
night the number of kinds of birds near Boston
is likely to increase. I have long been hoping
to see crossbills, redpoll linnets, siskins, red
bellied nuthatches and others of the winter
birds, but this is an off year for them. Now
I am looking for redwing blackbirds, purple
grackles and rusty grackles, song sparrows,
swamp sparrows, fox sparrows, purple finches,
pewees and other early migrants.
About sunset on Saturday I was in a grove of
venerable red cedars. The lower half of the
46 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
trees was in shadow, the upper half in sun-
light. Below, all seemed cold and dreary : the
unbroken snow, the rough trunks of the trees,
their sombre foliage. Above, all seemed warm
and cheerful : the bright blue sky, the passing
bits of white cloud, the upper branches of the
cedars glowing with golden olive-green. I
sought an open ledge where I could see from
Blue Hill to Monadnock, and watched the sun
sink into a bed of clouds. The after effects of
color were pronounced. Overhead the sky was
cobalt ; low in the east it was pale Prussian
blue ; in the north it was deep orange, and in the
west silvery, with a few dark ragged clouds
shredded over it. After sunset and just before
darkness comes, colors, irrespective of the out-
lines of the objects to which they belong, stand
out more forcibly than at any other time. This
was noticeable Saturday evening. The red of a
distant steeple was aggressive ; so was the yellow
of some tufts of dead grass waving in the wind,
and so was the russet of the dried leaves on a
grove of oaks or beeches two miles distant.
The sky at that hour was a matchless back-
ground for the copper-colored stems of the
willow trees, the bewildering network of descend-
ing lines in an elm's branches and twigs ; and
the distant rows of maples marching along an
opposing hilltop with the orange light of the
THE MINUTE-MAN IN A SNOWDRIFT. 47
northern sky burning through them. Mist
effects, and glimpses of distances through driv-
ing snowflakes are fascinating, because they
leave much to the imagination. Views of clear
sunset skies, radiant with color, ranks of leafless
trees showing black against the snow, peaks
of snow growing bluer as night draws on —
these also are fascinating, because the eye
seems to gain the truth about whatever it rests
upon. Everything is clean-cut, sharply out-
lined against sky or snow, sincere, real, satis-
fying.
Sunday, the 8th, was as warm and still a
day as the month of March is capable of pro-
ducing. From early morning until late in the
afternoon there was not breeze enough to rustle
a leaf, much less to cool cheek and eye smarting
under the direct and reflected rays of the sun.
I took an early train to Bedford and began my
walk there, not because of the charms of Bed-
ford, but because the train went no further.
Bedford is a pleasant, old-fashioned village, in
the midst of a comparatively flat country.
Walking through the village I noticed its high-
shouldered and many windowed meeting-house,
its haughty elms, and its air of ancient respecta-
bility. Five miles away, said a weather-worn
guide board, is Concord town ; so I turned west-
ward, feeling sure that early spring birds must
48 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
haunt the home of Thoreau. Just outside of
Bedford streets I sat down on a stone wall to
bask in the warm sunshine. The mercur}^ stood
at 68° in the shade, yet a snow-drift close by was
four and a half feet in depth. The bell of the
old meeting-house was tolling, and distance
made its voice sweet. It sometimes seems as
though church bells attract the birds. In the
perfect stillness of the air I could hear many
bird notes. A yellowhammer was calling per-
sistently from a distant maple; a bluebird sang
in the nearest orchard, and six noisy crows were
flying to and fro in a j^loughed field examining
spots of earth left bare by the receding snow.
Presently a flock of three blue jays entered the
orchard and seemed to find satisfactory food in
the apples left on the ground last autumn.
Between Bedford and Concord I saw eleven
more blue jays, a dozen more crows, thirteen
chickadees, five tree-sparrows and the tracks
of a flock of ten quail. There were also many
crow tracks in the snow. They are larger
than those of qiiail and the print of the long
hind toe is very marked. The feature of the
day was the repeated occurrence of blue jays.
The birds w^ere noisy and restless, and most of
them were moving northward. The country
through which I passed was level and uninter-
esting. Little timber was in sight, and most of
THE MINUTE-MAN IN A SNOWDRIFT. 49
the farms had an air of bein<j mortgaged. Dirty-
cows and heifers sunned themselves in the barn-
yards, multitudes of hens roamed over bare
spots around the buildings, and mongrel curs
barked from back door-steps.
Before taking an afternoon train back from
Concord, I wandered about the town for an
hour, admiring its aged shade trees and com-
fortable homesteads. In front of one of these
homesteads a red squirrel was eating buds from
the upper branches of the elm. If the British
soldier had tried to reach the bridge over Con-
cord River he would have had hard work to
get at the "embattled farmer," for snow vary-
ing from ten inches to more than two feet
in depth blocked the lane leading to the Minute-
Man. Only the foot of a crow had trodden
the white covering of historic ground, and the
silence and loneliness but added to the charm
and suggestiveness of the scene. The Old
Manse could be seen through the leafless elms,
the snow drifted high against its walls. The
eager river hurried along under the bridge,
bearing away many a raft of ice. The alert
figure in bronze stood above the stream gazing
through the elm vista at the snow-covered dis-
tance. He is emblematic of something more
than our national vigilance against political
50 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
injustice. Our nation was not formed when his
musket was loaded. He was simply an Anglo-
Saxon standing for his rights. That is what he
is to-day, — the spirit of the race.
THE COMING OF THE BIRDS.
The week between March 8th and 14th was
one filled with early spring messages. The air
whispered them, and the stems of the willows
blushed with joy at what it said. The sun
stripped the snow from the earth and found
beneath it green grass, buttercujs and five-
finger leaves and the sage-green velvet of the
mullein. Ice moved in the streams and partially
melted on the marshes, and its going was hailed
with merry music by song-sparrows, bluebirds,
and redwing blackbirds.
Not long after sunrise on Thursday, the 12th,
I was in the tangle of rose bushes, willows and
rushes, which surrounds the West Cambridge
brickyards and clay pits. It was a still, warm
morning. Birds were singing on every side.
They were not chirping pretty fragments of
song, but pouring out in all the plenitude of
feai'less happiness their greeting to home and a
new day. Befoi-e -8.30 I saw nearly a dozen
song sparrows, a bluebird, a tree sparrow, a
flock of twenty-six cedar birds, large numbers
of crows, and an Acadian owl. My meeting
52 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
with tlie little " saw-whet " within the limits
of Cambridge, and in sight of dozens of passers
on Concord turnpike, was a piece of unusual
luck. He was perched in a large willow about
thirty feet distant from the sidewalk, and ten
feet from the ground. As I jumped the fence
and approached him he stiffened himself, drew
his feathers close to his body, more than half
closed his eyes and pretended to be a speckled
brown and white stump of a limb. As I raised
a broken branch before his face, his big yellow
eyes opened wide, his wings quickly sj^read and
he fell forward upon them and flapped noiselessly
to a distant tree.
Late on Friday afternoon, w^hile traversing
the marshes between Spy Pond in Arlington
and Fresh Pond in Cambridge, I saw a flock
of seven blackbirds. They seemed to be follow-
ing up Alewife Brook towards the marshes
between Cambridge and Belmont. They were
beating against a high wind and flying too
high for me to be sure whether they were red-
winged blackbirds or rusty grackles. Early
Saturday morning I set out to find them, and
not long after sunrise I heard the familiar
" cong-ka-ree " of the redwings coming from
a swamp north of Fresh Pond. I saw three,
the one nearest me being a male, whose scarlet
and buff epaulets fairly blazed in the simlight.
TEE COMING OF THE BIRDS. 53
Prolonging my morning walk for some distance
I saw five song sparrows, three bluebirds, two
herring gulls, four robins, a meadow lark, a
pigeon woodpecker, and a pair of sparrow
hawks. The latter showed unmistakably by
their love-making that they were paired for the
season. They were in a grove of lofty hard-
wood trees, in the hollow of one of which they
have nested for several years.
For my Saturday afternoon walk I chose the
belt of rough country north of the Lexington
Branch Railway, between Arlington village and
Great Meadow in Lexinoton. Lea vino- the
train at East Lexington, I crossed the lower end
of Great Meadow and aimed for the pine-crested
ledges to the north and east. On these low-
lands I saw two song sparrows and six tree
sparrows in company. A blustering and cold
wind was blowing, and the birds kept close to
cover. The tree sparrows allowed me to come
within six or eight feet of them, in preference
to flying. In the midst of ploughed and ditched
meadow land was a cup-shaped hollow filled
with a frozen bog. Red maples grew in it
thickly, and under them a group of alders. As
I passed this spot, the roaring wind almost led
me to ignore a sharp squeak of alarm from a bird
which was scratching in the leaves on the edge
of the hollow. Fortunately I heard it, and fol-
54 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
lowed the bird and its companion until they flew
from bush to bush into a maple. They were
bright iron-rust color on their tails, rumps, and
wings, and their white breasts were thicldy
marked with arrowheads of the same pronounced
shade. In size, tliey outranked an English
sparrow by about one fifth. They were fox
sparrows. In plumage, song, and character,
these sparrows are among the most favored of
American birds.
Leaving the lowlands, I ascended the heavily
wooded ledges, of which Turkey or One Pine
Hill is the best known. Concealed within
them is a deej) yet siuniy ravine whei'e hepatica
grows, and over which in the tops of lofty pines
crows, hawks, and gray squirrels make their
nests. I was w^eleomed to this sylvan glen by
a brown rabbit, who permitted me to come
w ithin a yard of him before displaying his cotton
tail in flight. Hepatica was not in bloom, but,
rising between its trilobate leaves of last year's
growth, nearly an inch of new sprout promised
early flowers. From the middle of the dancing
brook at the bottom of the ravine to the stems
of the great pines at its summit, the melting
snow had exposed to view old vegetation, hold-
ing new-born life in its protecting arms. In the
brook, hundreds of heads of skunk-cabbage
could be counted. From the overhanging rocks,
THE COMING OF THE BIRDS. 55
the evergreen fronds o£ four species of ferns
(including a^jjlenium ehenevm) nodded in the
breeze. Upon the sunny banks partridge ber-
ries and the clustered jewels of the false
solomon's-seal gleamed amonsf oreen leaves and
brown pine needles. Three kinds of pyrola,
rattlesnake-plantain, pipsissewa, buttercup, and
three club mosses decorated the steep slopes.
On a warm gray face of ledge above, a generous
growth of bearberry spread its lustrous green
and russet leaves to the sky, and close by the
pale corydalis grew in abundance. The recent
growth in some of these plants was marked, par-
ticularly in the buttercup (/?. hulhosus) and
bearberry. Walking back to Arlington, I saw
a downy woodpecker, a grouse, two golden-
crested kinglets, four chickadees, a dozen
crows, two flocks of blackbirds, including
fully forty birds, three more tree sparrows, a
fat spider, two black and orange caterpillars,
two snow-squalls, and a beautiful golden sunset.
Saturday night was clear and cold, more like a
winter night than one with some claims to the
name of spring.
Sunday, the middle day of March, was bright
and blustering, a sharp conti'ast to the Sunday
previous, with its heat and strange stillness. I
began my walk at Waverley, and went by way of
Quince Street and Beaver Street to the easterly
56 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
slope of Prospect Hill, in Waltham. The roads
were frozen, and the meadows stiff with ice.
Here and there i-oaring brooks passed under the
road and danced away towards the Charles.
The spaces between them were in some instances
filled by ledgy hills capped and sprinkled with
red cedars, some of which were sturdy old
trees wdth foliage full of golden-olive light.
From one of the hills came a gay troop of
robins flying in wide circles over the fields.
One of them sang in a timid way the song of
robin's love. It was the first attempt at the
complete song that I had heard this season.
From another ledge, covered with hardwood
trees, eight chickadees deployed across an or-
chard. Every one of them was saying some-
thing merry. On the edge of a meadow seven
bluebirds sat in the low branches of maple-
trees, and drojDped one by one to the ground
to pick up food seen by their quick eyes In
the srrass. I saw three more bluebirds later
in the day. Near the foot of Prospect Hill, a
flock of nearly a dozen birds, feeding in a yard
among spruces and maples, was found to include
chickadees, brown creepers, and a kinglet. I
saw four brown creepers during tlie day, one
of which in flying described curves and spirals
in the air which would have made a tumbler
pigeon green with envy. In a sheltered nook
THE COMING OF THE BIRDS. 51
by a spring, a thicket of evergreens, and a brush
fence, two fox sparrows popped into view for
a moment. Near them a grouse was found in
a pine grove.
The eastern side of Prospect Hill holds in its
curve a spot of singular beauty. Behind a
veil of pine woods lies hidden a rocky amphi-
theatre, through which flows a sparkling stream
of spring water. Dozens of its tiny cascades
were framed in moss and ferns. Its worn
boulders were partially sheathed in ice, and in
many places beds of snow still rested upon its
banks and overhung the water. The background
of this pictui'C was a steep wall of rock and earth
nearly fifty feet in height, overhung by tall
oaks, walnut and ash trees, and covered wdth
remnants of snow drifts, mossy boulders and
patches of last year's ferns nodding in the wind.
Scrambling up this cliff, I found myself at
the summit of a hill justly noted for its wide
and varied view. A vast and irregular city
seemed to reach from its southeastern foot to
the waters of Massachusetts Bay. Far away
to the southwest, two large towns could be seen
rearing their spires against the sky. They were
about in the direction of Westboro' and Milford.
The New Hampshire mountains showed to much
better advantage than from Arlington Heights,
and I could clearly identify the different sum-
58 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
mits of the Monadnock range. But this was not
all. Just to the left of the twin Uncanoonucs
was what appeared to be the southern Kearsarge,
in Andover, New Hampshire. This peak is
seventy-five miles distant, and has an elevation
of 2,943 feet. I am less confident that I could
distinguish Agamenticus in York, Maine, but a
faint blue summit broke the monotonous sky
line near the point at which this hill might be
seen were it high enough.
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON THE DUNES.
The dunes of Ipswich in Massachusetts lie in
a somewhat sec-hided and pecuHar spot. Facing
the open ocean between Plum Island and Coffin's
Beach, the Ipswich shore presents a strange
aspect to the passing world, seaward, skyward,
or landward. It is a rough bit of desert, made
into odd shapes by wind, tide, and river. From
no point of view is it commonplace.
An early morning train from Boston landed
me on March 21 at Ipswich station. Rain
fell in a determined way upon the earth,
the snowdrifts, and the rushing Ipswich River.
In a rickety buggy drawn by a lean horse I
started for the dunes. It was a five-mile drive
over a rolling glacial plain and wind-swept
marsh land. As the sea was neared, the wind
became stronger and stronger. The buggy
swayed from side to side ; the lean horse, stung
by rain in front and whip behind, staggered
feebly on against the storm ; and birds, waves,
sand, trees, marsh grass, the face of the water,
— everything, in fact, which could move, —
60 LAXD OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
either fled before the gale or writhed under its
blows. At nine o'clock I reached a lonely, storra-
battei'ed house, half concealed among the sand-
hills. The Equinoctial was at its height. It
was an hour when prudence bade one stay in the
house, but when that which makes a man happy
amid the rough revelry of Nature said, Go,
give yourself to the storm. The sea could not
be seen from the house, for the dunes stood in
the way, but the wind, the breath of the sea,
told where it lay. The wind was charged with
rain, hail, cutting bits of sand, the odor of brine,
and the roar of the billowy battle beyond the
dunes.
What are the dunes ? They are the waves of
the sea perpetuated in sand. They were changing
and growing at that moment, as they are at every
moment when the winds blow. A ridge forty feet
high, eastward of the house, was hurling yellow-
ish sand into the dooryard and against the build-
ings. From its top could be seen a hollow be-
yond and then another ridge, from the crest
of which a sand banner waved in the wind.
That ridge surmounted, a broader hollow was
seen beyond, containing lagoons of gleaming
water and thickets of richly colored shrubs and
a few stunted pines. To right, left, and ahead,
other ridges rose like mimic mountains. Some
of them had been cut straight through by
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON THE DUNES. 61
storms, and showed i^lainly wind stratification
on their cut sui-faces. Wading through the
pools, from which a few bhick ducks rose and
flew swiftly out to sea, I gained the third ridge,
which was the highest of the dunes. Beyond
was another hollow, then a fourth dune, then a
beach strewn with seaweed, shells, and wreck-
age, and finally half a mile of snowy breakers,
boiling and hissing on their rhythmic journey
shoreward. At times the eye seemed to reach
further out to sea, but at once the rain, foam,
and driving cloud-masses closed in on the waves,
and sky and ocean were combined in an attempt
to overwhelm the dunes. Walking ujjon the
beach was like wrestling with a strong man.
Looking through the stinging rain was almost
impossible. Not far up the beach was the wreck
of a small schooner. It was half buried in the
sand and just within reach of the waves. Stream-
ing with rain, my face smartiug from the flying
sand, and my breath exhausted, I gained the
wreck and sought a refuge in its interior.
The wreck's ribs rose high into the air, and a
part of her sheathing had not yet been beaten off
by gales. The waves struck this wall of plank and
sent shiver after shiver through the broken hulk.
Inside, the wind had little effect, and the water
that came in was that flowing downward from
the beach, as great waves broke upon the sand
62 LAXD OF THE LiyOERIXG SNOW.
and then swept round over the wreck's buried
side. Peering through the gaps between the tim-
bers, I looked down into and across a rasfiuof
mass of water. It was equal to a shipwreck
without the fear of death. Dozens of herrinsf
gulls, now and then a black-backed gull, and
every few minutes small flocks of black ducks,
flew past athwart the gale. Sometimes a gull
would face the wind and fly against it steadily,
vigorously, yet never advance an inch. The
ducks looked as though they were flying back-
ward, so oddly balanced were they. After
nearly an hour of watching I waded ashore, fol-
lowed my tracks back across the sand-hills, and
gained a comfortable " stove-side " in the weather-
beaten house. The noonday meal of fat pork,
boiled corned beef, cabbage, clams, soda bis-
cuit, doughnuts, mince j^ie, and coffee seemed
in some degree a i-easonable complement to the
gale.
Early in the afternoon, in company with two
friends, — a bird-watcher and a mouse-hunter, —
I faced the storm again. We walked north-
ward rather than eastward, keeping within the
hollows of the dunes and not climbing to their
windy crests. Rain fell in torrents and in larger
drops than in the morning. It whipped into
foam the pale blue and green pools between the
sand-hills. Gusts of air struck these pools from
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON THE DUNES. 63
ever-varying angles, the cliffs and passes of the
mimic mountains making all manner of currents
and eddies in the wind. Ruffled by these gusts
the pools changed color from moment to mo-
ment, sometimes being white with foam and
reflected light from the sky, then varying
through every shade of blue and sea-green to
ultramarine. The coloring in these miniature
valleys was exquisitely beautiful. In some, the
yellow sand, over which lines and ripples of pur-
ple sand were laid, curved from every side with
the most graceful lines downward from the
ridges to a single tinted mirror at the centre.
In others, where the valley was broader, lagoons
filled with tiny islands were fringed with vegeta-
tion of striking shades. The clumps of sturdy
" poverty grass " (Jmdsonia tomentosa) cov-
ered much of the ground, its coloring, while it
was wet by the rain, varying from burnt umber
to madder brown. Over it stra3'ed scalp locks
of pale yellow grasses, restless in the wind.
Next to the pools and under them grew a dense
carpet of cranberry vines, yielding shades of
dark crimson, maroon, and wine color. Lines
of floating cranberries edged these tiny lakes,
or shone like precious stones at their bottom.
Between the lagoons and on their islands dense
thickets of meadow-sweet and leafless wild-rose
bushes formed masses of intense color, the
64 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
shades running from rich reds through orange
to gleaming yellow. The rain glistening on
these warmly tinted stems made them unnatu-
rally brilliant.
On the shores of some of the lagoons, or form-
ing small conical islands in their midst, were
white heaps of broken clam-shells. The shells
when disturbed seemed to be embedded in fine
black soil, like that left by long-extinguished
fires. When these shell-heaps were first ex-
plored the}^ contained bones of many kinds of fish
and birds, including fragments of that extinct
bird, the great auk. They also yielded broken
pieces, of roughly ornamented potter}^, bits of
copper, and stone implements of the Indians
who had made the Ipswich River and its sand-
hills one of their principal camping-grounds.
This region has given to relic-hunters bushels
of arrow-heads, stone knives, and hatchets.
As we approached the largest of the lagoons,
which covered several acres, black ducks began
to appear, flying in all directions. They rose
not only from the large lagoon, but from many
smaller pools hidden among the network of
dunes. Over a hundred were in the air at
once. Crows, too, and gulls joined in the
winged stampede caused by our coming. One
flock of crows flying towards Cape Ann later in
the afternoon numbered eichtv-three birds. Our
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON THE DUNES. Qb
walk ended at Ipswich Light, a small beacon
placed on the edge of the dunes as a warning
against their treacherous sands. A bit of land
near it had been reclaimed from the desert
and gave promise of being a garden in a few
weeks. The rain was at its fiercest here, and beat
upon the lighthouse as though it would wash it
from the face of the earth. As the wind blew
the sand grass, its long blades whirled around,
cutting circles in the sand with their tough tips
and edges. These circles could be seen from a
long distance, so deeply and clearly were they
cut. Sometimes a long blade and a short one
whirled on the same root and made concentric
circles. The geometrical correctness of these
figures made them striking elements in a land-
scape so chaotic as the dunes in the Equinoctial.
Scattered about over the sand were small
star-shaped objects about the size of a silver
dollar, and brown in color. They looked at
first glance as though they might have been
stamped out of thick leather. Whether they
were fish, flesh, or plant, was a question not
readily answered by a novice. They proved to
be a kind of puff-ball, common in such regions as
the dunes, and singularly well adapted to life on
shifting sands.
Through the long night of the 21st the wind
wailed around the house, and the sound of the
66 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
waves came up from tlie sea. Long before sun-
rise I was awakened by the quacking of domes-
tic ducks in the inlet just in front of my
windows. Fog and a gentle east wind ruled the
morning, and the fog made queer work with
outlines and perspective among the sand-hills.
Not far from the house there once stood a fine
orchard, many of the trees in which had attained
a generous size considering their exposed situa^
tion. But the dunes marked them for destruc-
tion. The greedy sand piled itself around
their roots, rose higher and higher on their
trunks, caught the tips of their lower branches,
dragged theni under its cold and deadly
weight, reached up to those higher, and, as the
trees began to pine, hurled itself against their
dry leaves, twigs, and branches, then set to work
to wear away the trunks themselves. Rising
through the fog, these remains seemed like tor-
tured victims reaching out distorted arms for
pity. Only a few of the trees retained branches
having green wood and pliable twigs, and these
were half buried by recent inroads of sand.
They reminded me of the fate of men caught in
quicksands, and drawn down inch by inch to
their death.
Tracks in sand are almost as Jelling records
as tracks in snow. Skunks had wandered about
over these ridges in force. They do not find
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON TEE DUNES. 67
tlieir food among the hills, but on the shore
where the carrion of the sea is left by the tide.
The ocean edge is usually strewn with dead fish,
sea birds, and shell-fish. Around these rem-
nants are to be seen the tracks of gulls and
crows, or the birds themselves. That morning
the upper air was noisy with crows coming back
from their night roost. They soon scattered
along the beach, feeding. For some reason the
ducks had disappeared from the lagoons. A
few flew past up the coast, but the greater part
seemed to have already moved northward. It
was upon these sand-hills that the Ipswich spar-
row was first shot in December, 1868. The bird
is much like the grass finch in contour, and in
behavior when approached by man. Its coloring
is that of the Savannah sparrow, only several
shades lighter. During the March migration
the Ipswich sparrow is readily to be found
among the dunes. Startled by my coming, three
of them stopped feeding on the edge of a small,
clear lagoon and flew up the steep side of the
sand-hill above it. This sand-hill was dotted
with clumps of coarse, yellowish grass, the sand
itself was a shade paler than the grass, and the
sparrows' plumage toned in with both so per-
fectly that when, the birds alighted it was almost
impossible to see them. One dropped down
behind a bunch of grass, and ran along swiftly
68 LAND OF TEE LINGERING SNOW.
with his head pointing forward until he gained
the cover of a larger growth of grass, then
sto23ped and raised his head slowly above it, and
remained motionless, vigilant.
Crouched among the grass in a liollow I
watched him, my glass levelled at his head.
Five minutes may have passed before he gave a
sharp " chip," ran at full speed down the bank,
and flew back to his feeding-ground. Near an-
other pool a dozen or more horned larks were
feeding on the wet ground. This bird is one
of the most beautiful I know. In the pool, cad-
dis-worms were crawling about in cases made,
not of grains of gravel, but of sections of scour-
ing-rush, which they had found to answer all
practical piirposes. This is an instance of the
use of ready-made clothing to oppose to Nature's
usual demand for custom-made garments. These
caddis-worms were the first water-life which I
had seen stirring this spring. Later in the day
I saw " Tom Coddies " or " mummichogs "
swimming in a ditch, but they are active all
winter. Another sign of spring was the track
of a white-footed mouse (Jiesjyeromys leuco-
pus) found by the mouse-hunter on his morn-
ing round.
Standing on the crest of one of the dunes
next the sea, and looking through the fog across
laooons filled with islands to other dunes of
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON THE DUNES. 69
many outlines, varying from pointed peak or
bold bluff to long graceful ridge, it was impos-
sible to retain true ideas of size and distance.
The proportions of pools, islets, bushes, and
cliffs corresponded so closely to those which
would have marked lakes, islands, groves, and
mountain peaks that, for all the eye could tell,
Winnepesaukee and the Franconia Mountains
were there in all their beauty. During the
forenoon the fog crept back to the sea, the sun
came out, and the landscape appeared in new
colors and proportions. Lakes shrank to pools,
mountains dwindled to sand ridges. The sand
itself grew pale, and many of its most brightly
colored plants lost their brilliancy as they dried.
This was strikingly noticeable in the hudsonia
tomentosa, which changed from rich brown
tones to sage green and gray. Ducks were re-
placed by numbers of redwing blackbirds, and
all day long the " flick, flick, flick, flick, flick "
of a pigeon woodpecker rang from a tree on Hog
Island.
In the afternoon we rowed across the shallow
inlet to the island, which is what geologists call a
drundin, and sailors or farmers a " hog back."
It is a gently sloping hill of gravel, whose longer
axis is supposed to indicate the direction of the
glacier's advance at that point. The length of
the island from northwest to southeast is a little
70 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
over half a mile, and its height along its backbone
is one hundred and forty feet. A sunny old
farm-house on the low land at the end of the
island nearest Coffin's Beach was pointed out
as the birthplace of Rufus Choate. Beyond it
was a fair view of Essex River, with its gleaming
flats dotted with clam-diggers. Coffin's Beach,
Annisquam Harbor, and the shores of Cape
Ann, made dim and mysterious by the east wind's
veil of haze, a pledge of returning storm. The
view northward across Castle Neck and the
mouths of Ijjswich and Rowley rivers to Plum
Island was not only beautiful, but interesting by
reason of the distinctness with which it mapped
the dunes. As line upon line of white-edged
breakers rolled in upon the shore, they seemed to
turn to sand and continue their undulations
across Castle Neck to our inlet. Bits of blue
shone between these sand waves. They were
the mimic lakes of the caddis-worms and the
Ipswich sparrows. Bits of white were on the
sands of the beach and the flats along the
inlet. They were flocks of gulls feeding. So
still was the air that now and then the uncanny
whining of one of these birds came up to us.
Inland the sun made the haze golden instead
of gray, and we could not see many miles.
In Ipswich, Hamilton, and Essex many drum-
lins could be seen, one of which, Heartbreak
THE EQUINOCTIAL ON TEE DUNES. 71
Hill, was especially consj)icuous. The outlines
of these hills seemed restful and placid. The
marshes between them were straw-colored, and
cut into arabesques by meandering tide rivers
of blue.
The stone walls on Hog Island were apparently
being sw' allowed up b}^ the earth. The boul-
ders also seemed to be sinking below the surface.
One stone wall had sunk so that its top was
almost level with the ground. In the fields at
the base of the hill, tunnels of the common field-
mice (^arvicola pennsylvanicus^ ran in every
direction. The mouse-hunter, in order to prove
beyond a doubt that these sturdy mice, and
not moles, were responsible for the tunnels, dug
one of them out of his cave and produced him,
struggling.
At sunset, after our row back to the sand-
hills, I climbed the highest dune and took a
last look at the singular panorama of blue
lagoons, pale yellow ridges, wind-cut bluffs, bur-
ied trees, and foaming breakers. It certainly
was a unique landscape, and one fascinating for
many reasons, but it had something sinister in
it. The ocean was covered by a thin fog, the
east wind coming from the waves was chilling,
and it brought confused sounds of roaring water
and shrill-voiced gulls. The sands, forever shift-
ing, seemed treacherous, the sea restless, and the
72 LAND OF TEE LINGERIKG SNOW.
wind whicli stirred them full of discontent.
There are many who might find rest in the rest-
lessness of the sea, the dunes, and the winds.
Perhaps my lack of sympathy is hereditary.
Rather more than two hundred and fifty years
ago a father and son were fishermen uj^on these
treacherous coasts. In the great storm of De-
cember 15, 1636, the father was claimed by the
ocean as its own. The son gave up the sea and
grew corn by the ponds of Chebacco. Before
he died he moved out of sight and hearing of
the ocean, and for many generations none of
his descendants lived within tide-water limits.
THE RENAISSANCE.
The twenty-fifth of March was the first
day of the year which could, without any
mental reservation, be called a spring day.
I was awakened early by the clamor of
English sj)arrows, the shrill calling of robins,
the " creaking " of purple grackles, and the
cawing of crows. By eight o'clock, with one
who, like myself, had arranged to gauge the
season on this bright and beautiful morning, I
was on my way behind a willing horse, speeding
by Mount Auburn, through the walled fields of
Belmont, past Waverley Oaks, and on towards
Concord, with Rock Meadow and Beaver Brook
on the left, and Arlington Heights and their
cedar-crowned ridges on the right. Every
breath of fresh, sweet, sparkling air seemed full
of new, tingling life. Near Paysou Park Lodge
a song sparrow was singing. We stopped and
listened to it. Every note was well and fully
rendered. The bird was, like the day, one of
Nature's successes. Just beyond the Oaks, near
Beaver Brook Cascade, a flock of a dozen quail
flew over us, and on, northward, at a rate of
74 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
speed which was marvellous. They were flying
high enough to clear the tops of the trees. The
rush of their wings was like a squall passing
through a pine grove.
As we drove slowly between the even rows of
M'illows which make Rock Meadow on the Con-
cord turnpike one of the most charming spots
near Cambridge, song sparrows by threes and
fours were seen and heard at every lull in the
west wind's blowing. Two rusty grackles flew
over, alighted in an elm, sounded their quaint
notes, and then dropped down into the meadow.
A redwing blackbird " ka-reed " from a treetop,
and more than a dozen crows revelled in loud
cawing, sturdy flying, or rapid walking over the
lowlands. Over the hills and far away we drove
in the bright sunshine, until, reaching at last the
secluded spot we had chosen for our goal, we
3et out through a narrow, walled lane for the
woods.
A muskrat, sunning himself on a stone, see-
ing us, hurled himself across the lane into and
through a puddle, showering spray in every
direction, and out of sight under a stone wall
beyond. A single junco, the first I had seen
this year, rose from a ploughed field, flashed his
white tail feathers, and turned his cowled head
to watch us. High over a pine-crowned hill a
red-shouldered hawk was sailing in small circles,
THE RENAISSANCE. lb
and with rather nervous flight. Now and then
its discordant mewino- came to our ears on the
wings of the wind.
In the orchards bhiebirds were singing. We
heard at least ten. They seemed to say, '"''Cher-
u-it, cher-u-it,'' and to mean by it something
very pure and endearing. The lane led into
a wooded meadow, crossed by several brooks,
which we examined with interest for signs of
water life. Within half a mile we found one
-painted turtle (chrysemys picta} and eighteen
speckled tortoises (jianemys guttaMs). Some
seemed rather feeble, though full of enjoyment
of the warm sunshiue. One of the number
had come to an early, sad, and to us mysterious
end. We found his empty shell picked clean
of all soft portions except the tail and a bit of
skin which adhered to it. The shell was un-
scarred. Neither of us could imagine what
beast or bird could have slain him. The
crime had been committed only a few hours
before, for the shell was still moist. In the
mud on the side of the brook we found an
unfamiliar track. Two live-clawed feet, makiug
a track as broad as the length of the first joint
of a man's thumb, had been planted side by
side, while several inches in front of them two
smaller feet had made two prints, one of which
was exactly in front of the other. My friend
76 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
thought the prints might be those of a young
otter. We also found where a muskrat had
stepped upon the mud, phicing his hind feet
so closely together as to make one broad print,
dragging meanwhile his tail in such a way as
to leave an odd groove in the mud. Flying
about in this meadow and the higher woods
adjoining it were two kinds of butterflies and
a beautiful moth. I also found a partially de-
veloped locust.
While watching and admiring these gay sur-
vivors of the winter, we heard a brown creeper
sing. It was a rare treat. The song is singu-
larly strong, full of meaning and charm, esj)e-
cially when the size of its tiny performer is
remembered. A grouse, two tree sparrows, and a
downy woodpecker were added to our list towards
the middle of the day, and early in the after-
noon two chickadees, seemingly mated, were
greatly exercised over my friend's excellent
mimicry of the " phoebe note " of the male chick-
adee. The male answered with much vigor, and
within less than three feet of the mimic's face.
In making this sweet ventriloqual note, the bird
throws its head back and opens its beak, quite in
the manner of a Christmas-card bird. The only
other bird sono; which we heard was that of the
flicker calling energetically to his mate.
The event of the day was the sight of a barred
THE RENAISSANCE. 77
owl, which we startled into flight in the depths
of a pine grove where snowdrifts still lingered.
Although close watch was kept for frogs or pip-
ing hylas, none were seen or heard. Our sur-
prise was great, however, to see a large wood-
chuck run clumsily through an oak grove, and
turn to v,'atch us from the mouth of his hole.
He was very thin, and probably correspondingly
hungry after his long winter nap. We saw two
gTay squirrels, but no red squirrels or chipmunks.
At the base of a boulder, in a moist wood, lay
a garter snake. I caught him, and found his
forked tongue, bright, defiant eyes, and tightly
entwining folds all in the best possible working
order. Near the end of our walk we found a
grass-grown ants' nest, formed of light soil piled
into a conical heap a foot and a half high. Not
thinking it possible that the hill was tenanted, I
knocked away part of its top. Instantly, en-
raged red ants came from the hidden chambers
of their fortress, and in a sluggish way sought
the intruder. I replaced the earth and mentally
begged the ants' pardon.
It was evening when we reentered Cambridge
streets, well pleased with having seen eighteen
kinds of birds, three kinds of mammals, two
species of turtles, one snake, three species of
butterflies or moths, and at least five other kinds
of insects.
THE VESPER SONG OF THE WOODCOCK.
Easter Sunday fell this year on March 29th,
and the joyous voices of white-robed choir boys
made for the cities almost as sweet and praiseful
music as the children of the woods were making
in Nature's own sanctuaries. On the afternoon
of the day before Easter, I went to the ravine
between Arlington and Lexington where hepa-
tica grows. Walking from Arlington over the
ridges near One Pine Hill, I heard frogs for the
first time this year. Two kinds were singing,
the shrill-voiced piping hylas (Jiyla Picher-
ingii) and the wood frogs Qrana sylvatica).
The latter at this season make a sound which
recalls the thrumming of loosely strung banjo
strings. The combined notes formed an effect-
ive background of sound to the roUicsome sing-
ing of song sparrows, tree sparrows, and red-
winged blackbirds, and the love-music of the
mated bluebirds.
Wishing to capture a wood frog and make
sure of his identit3% I remained for many min-
utes motionless on a stone in the middle of a
shallow pool in the swamp. On my approach
THE VESPER SONG OF THE WOODCOCK. 79
every frog had gone to the bottom and hidden
in the leaves and mud. The pool was lined
with many layers of brown leaves, most of which
preserved their outlines and told their names.
Across them twigs and branches had fallen, and
bits of lichen and moss had sunk there, too.
Many specks were floating in the water. They
seemed to move, some one way, some another.
They were alive. Bending closer over the
water, I watched them attentively. Some moved
quite evenly, others hitched across the pool by a
series of jerky advances. There were lively red
ones among them, contrasting with the darker,
duller ones. Some were so minute that they
could be seen only as a ray of light pierced the
pool. As minutes passed and no frog moved, I
grew weary and rose. Instantly a frog kicked
among the leaves and mud, betraying by motion
what his color had protected. A second later I
had him, feebly squirming in my pocket.
North of One Pine Hill a flock of thirty or
more birds were feeding in a stubble field.
They were juneos and tree sparrows, in about
equal numbers. The juneos did not say where
they had been all winter. Only just out of my
sight, perhaps, all the time. At five o'clock the
ravine was reached. It was full of shadows,
and the raw east wind had piled masses of cloud
across the sky, making the sun's light pale and
80 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
uncertain. At the masthead of a leafless red
maple sat a gray squirrel, " budding." Foolish
thing, he sat still, thinking himself safe, while
he was really the most conspicuous object in the
ravine. Pounding upon the tree had no effect
on hitn. Search for hepaticas revealed no
flowers, and I did not find any until a trip to
the Middlesex Fells on April 5th. The skunk-
cabbage flowers were losing their beauty, yet the
snow was still abundant in dark corners in the
woods. Ten minutes in the chilly ravine was
enough. A grouse startled me with her noisy
flight as I left the gloom. From every hilltop
crows were calling lustily. They were restless,
and seemed moved by a common impulse.
Reaching a high ledge, I watched them. About
thirty were in sight in the tops of tall pines.
Gradually they drew together on the next ridge
to the north, about half a mile from me. One
by one they dropped down into the woods out
of sight. At last but two remained, still cawing.
Then they became silent, and finally they also
sank beneath the surface of the woods, and
nothing more was heard of them. They were
like sparks in the ashes, going out one by one.
At this moment the sun, which had been sinking
behind stormy-looking rags of clouds, disap-
peared behind the rounded shoulder of Wachu-
sett. Then the sky dressed itself in gay colors,
THE VESPER SOXG OF THE WOODCOCK. 81
and the farewell to the day was full of splendor.
Wachusett, distant and pale blue, was flanked
by two of the Lexington ridges heavily grown
with pines. The mountain and its two dark
guardians stood out sharply against a background
of the richest orange, deepening at the horizon
to red. Above the mountain the sky was clear
yellow until it reached a bank of slaty -blue
cloud. The sunlight piercing this cloud bank
flecked it with rose color, while drifting bits of
cloud falling against the orange became bright
like gold. Thanks to this gorgeous sunset, I
lingered on the hill until darkness pervaded the
woods. Then I ran down through a grove of
oaks and came out in a damp meadow com-
pletely surrounded by tall trees. The last song
sparrow was singing good night. Across the
west only a single band of orange light remained.
In the zenith stars were beginning to shine. A
stranoe crv came from the meadow grass. It
recalled the night hawk's squawk, softened by
distance. Again and again it came : " N'yah,"
then a pause, then " n'yah " again, and so on,
until this had been uttered a dozen times. I
drew nearer the spot from which this odd call
came. Perhaps it was a fi'og of some kind; per-
haps a bird of the swamp. The sound ceased,
but the next moment there seemed to be a musi-
cal ringing in my ears which rapidly grew more
82 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
distinct, and then came clearly from the iipjDcr
air, but from a point swiftly changing, appar-
ently revolving. I fixed my mind intently
upon the sound. It was a series of single musi-
cal notes uttered rapidly by some creature fly-
ing swiftly in an immense circle high over the
meadow. It seemed as though the sky were a
vast vaulted whispering gallery under whose
dark blue dome a singing reed was being whirled
round and round, dropping sweet bits of sound
as it sped through the air. As I listened breath-
lessly, this sound was smoothlj^ changed into
another. The creature w^as descending : its
notes fell more slowly but more distinctly ; they
were sweeter, rounder, more liquid. They came
down, down, and then ceased, quenched in the
damp grass. Almost at once, however, the
" n'yah " began again at the same point in the
meadow whei-e it had been made before. This
entire performance was repeated several times.
The last time the nasal call was given twenty-
four times and the aerial part was omitted.
The performer was satisfied for the night. As
he closed, the bells in Arlington struck seven.
Those who know the plump and meditative
woodcock, gazing by the hour together down the
line of his bill into black mud, will wonder with
me that his courtship can arouse him to such
airy fairy efforts, and at so romantic an hour.
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT.
The morning of the first of April dawned
like an Easter Sunday. The sky was clear, the
sun warm, the air soft and full of the smell
of spring. Taking the nine o'clock train from
the Old Colony Station we rolled swiftly over
the Quincy-Braintree levels with their wander-
ing brooks and flooded swamps, down towards
the sandy Cape country. At Bridgewater the
train turned toward the east, and by eleven we
passed the head of Buzzard's Bay, where the
Cape Cod Canal is some day to be cut through,
and entered upon the territory of the real Cape.
The railway follows the inner curve of the
Cape, the rounded cheek of Cape Cod Bay. At
Sandwich, where we saw the melancholy and
deserted buildings of the once prosperous glass
works, we began to gain glimpses of dark blue
water, with pale sand hills lining its shores.
As we passed Barnstable and Yarmouth these
momentary off-looks to the bay became more
frequent. Between them, as we hurried through
patches of low woods, we surprised anglers mak-
ing the first cast of the newly opened season in
84 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
the sluggish brooks or small ponds which make
this region famous for its trout. Brewster,
Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet were traversed
one by one, the train hitching to the left mile by
mile until from pointing southeast it pointed east,
then northeast, and finally north. We passed
cranberry bogs by dozens ; stunted pine forests
scorched by the railway fires ; windmills —
some old and full of Dutch dignity, many new
and bristling with Yankee ingenuity ; flocks of
blackbirds on the flat hay-fields ; clouds of dry
sand rising from the track ; views across the
blue bay of blue skies and bluer shores reaching
up to the mainland westward and northward.
By a little after midday our eyes had spanned
the placid inner waters of the bay and seen the
long curving shore of Truro and Provincetown,
its white hills and low cliffs flashing almost like
chalk in the strong sunlight. Passing Well-
fleet, — a large and busy-looking village, — we
soon gained a narrower part of the Cape and
began to point northwest instead of north,
seeing sand-hills first on one side, then on
the other. Truro is a long township, a block
set on end in this pile of Cape republics.
First came South Truro, then Truro, then a
mile or two of bluffs along the bay shore with
swift visions of feeding herring gulls on the flats,
and forests of poles rising from the blue water,
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 85
marking the fish traps of the deluded fishermen
whose mackerel fleet has been swept from the
sea by this sunken fleet of seine poles. Finally,
North Truro was gained, four houi'S from Boston,
and 114 miles by schedule. The bay was at our
feet, with Barnstable, Plymouth, and Norfolk
shores for its setting. There was the train run-
ning away to Provincetown between white sand
walls, pointing toward Boston, yet increasing its
sand trail from it. Eastward there was a straight
white road leading over low sand ridges and broad
sand levels up to a tall white lighthouse a mile
and a half away. It was Highland Light, hold-
ing its great lenses high above the Atlantic,
and casting its message of warning or welcome
over many a wide league of restless water. The
process of hauling a well-loaded carryall through
even a short mile and a half of deep sand is
painful for horse and ti'ying to half-starved
traveller. Both rejoice when such a ride is over.
At three o'clock we were standing at the foot
of Highland Light, gazing on the novel land-
scape which surrounds it. Toward the east the
limitless ocean filled the eye. Half a dozen
sails were in sight, but no covey of mackerel-
men dotted the sea as in the days of Thoreau.
The spot where we were standing was the storm-
eaten margin of a cliff about 150 feet in height.
The cliff is not rock, but sand and clay sur-
86 LAND OF TEE LINGERING SNOW.
mounted by a tough layer of sod. As years
roll by the cliff is eroded, a little by the sea,
more by the ceaseless winds and frequent falling
rains. The ruins of the cliffs lie at their feet.
First masses of clay formed into mimic mountain
spurs and buttress ridges, then heaps of white
sand covered with coarse grass, finally, next the
sea, the broad steep beach which looks as hard
as marble, but when tested offers only soft and
uncertain support to the foot. The clay debris
is full of odd effects of color. White, gray, yel-
low, orange, lead color, and black, burning in
sunlight or crossed by heavy shadows, blend into
combinations worthy of the Yellowstone region.
On the upper edge of the cliffs close to the light-
house a colony of bank swallows have lived
through many generations of both men and birds.
Their burrows aid the work of erosion. Look-
ing either up or down the Atlantic shore the
cliffs could be seen extending in uneven array
above the beach. Southward they were broken
in places where narrow valleys ran inland,
reaching sometimes nearly across the Cape.
Almost the whole of Truro south of the light-
house is composed of sandhills well sodded or
grown with stunted pitch-pines or oaks. Tlie
intervening valleys or interrupted hollows some-
times contain tide rivers, but are more fre-
quently dry. The hills are low, but as their
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 87
pigmy forests have tlie general effect of large
trees, the observer is constantly deceived as to
f proportions and distances. Many times during
my stay I was startled to see an apparently
gigantic man or colossal quadruped come into
view upon the brow of a hill which my eyes had
told me was a mile or two distant. In driving
or walking, spaces were covered so much more
quickly than sight alone led me to expect, that I
felt as though my legs must be the owners of
the seven-league boots of old. Looking west-
ward from the lighthouse, the charm of the
view was not in the foreground of undulating
pasture thickh^ grown with reindeer moss and
tussocks of brown hudsonia, but in the dis-
tance. Cape Cod Bay has that lovely con-
tour, that great curve of sand enclosing a mass
of placid blue water, which makes a small bay
a singularly attractive part of a sea picture.
From Highland Light that day the bay seemed
full of repose, ignorant of storm.
Northward the shores of ocean and bay curved
away from the east as though the storm winds had
bent the end of the Cape round into the bay.
Inside of this bent end lay Provincetown, its
many windows flashing back the sunlight, and
its several spires standing out clearly against the
blue background. Between ProvincetowTi and
the ocean are dunes, not grass and lichen-grown
88 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
hills, but dunes like those at Ipswich beach,
shifting, treacherous, menacing. The sunlight
lay upon them as upon snow banks.
Taking a sturdy Cape horse, unterrified by
sandy i-oads or cross-country jaunts, we set out
by a trail back of the cliffs for the picturesque
country between Highland Light and Province-
town, In a hollow behind the cliffs lay a life-
saving station with its chain of telephone poles
running from it both up and down the coast, and
its sentry box perched upon the crest of the
sandhill. From a dry field near it an Ipswich
sparrow rose, flew a couple of rods, dropped
beside a bunch of hudsonia, and then ran
swdftly away behind its cover. Presently its
whitish head appeared amid the grass at a dis-
tance and remained motionless but watchful.
Our trail ascended a slope and led into a forest
of pigmy pitch-pines. They were about six
feet high on an average, yet were said to be
twenty years old. A flock of forty or fift}" gold-
finches sang and fed among them. Descending
into a broad, level meadow lying just inside the
cliffs, which, by this time, were becoming more
dunes than cliffs, we found that a fire started
intentionally among the coarse grass of the
meadow had spread to the low pines and bushes
on the sides of the hills. As the wind was
east the smoke blew into and across the meadow,
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 89
obscuring the view of the dunes in front of us. No
effort of mind or ej^esight could make those dunes
appear like anything smaller than mountains two
thousand feet or more in height, and seven or eight
miles distant. Even when some men appeared
upon the nearer ridges and fought the fire, it
was easier to imagine them giants than to reduce
the dunes to their proper proportions.
This meadow was alive with birds. Meadow
larks, which are not larks but starlings, sang
their sweet lament from every acre. With them
were handsome redwing blackbirds, more noisy
but less shy. The starlings rose at long dis-
tances and, spreading their tails into white-edged
fans, let their wings quiver and then sailed
away, often over a ridge and out of sight. In
giving his plaintive song the starling stops feed-
ing, raises his head above the gi'ass and shows
to perfection his yellow breast and its bold
black crescent. Song sparrows were on every
side, and crows and gulls rose and fell behind
the sandhills, where they were probably in sole
possession of the ocean's edge with its wealth of
seaweed and sea offal.
After winding through more than a mile of
meadow the road bent sharply to the left and
passed through a crooked gap in the hills into
a sandy amphitheatre several acres in extent.
Here, surrounded by liigh grass-clad slopes, was
90 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
a picture of rural security and comfort. An old-
fashioned farmhouse, in the midst of drooping
willows, barns, sheds, cattle-yards, and fruit trees,
stood near the sunny end of the hollow. At the
eastern end was a large pool, thickly grown with
stiff, interlacing bushes which rose from the water
in the manner of the button-ball bushes. Around
the farm buildings were cows, a bull with a large
ring in his nose, hens, ducks, and turkeys.
Around the pool were song sparrows, tree spar-
rows, yellow-rumped warblers, crow blackbirds,
and redwings. The air was full of their music
and the clamor of the barnj^ard. The spot
gave one the feeling that it must have a history.
Indians, smugglers, pirates, patriot conspirators,
exiled regicides, might one or all have made this
nook a place of refuge. The oasis in the desert
is seen from afar ; this spot of life was hidden
in the bosom of the sandhills.
While I was thinking thus the heavens sud-
denly gave out an unearthly sound ; a drove of
celestial jackasses, all braying at once, seemed
coming afar from the sun's pastures. Shading
my eyes, I discovered a multitude of dark specks
connected like a chain, and advancing across the
sky with a swaying, undulatory motion. They
were wild geese flying a little north of east, and
within three hundred feet of the ground. The
farmer's dog barked vehemently at them. A
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 91
shot rang out from behind the sandhills. The
line of honking migrants wavered, but none
fell. Just as they disappeared a second flock
came within view and hearing in the west, and
passed over us in the invisible wake left by the
first. They seemed to be searching for a place
to rest. The two flocks contained at least
ninety-five birds. Walking round the little
bush-grown pond we listened entranced to the
medley music of the tree sparrows and their
comj)anions. The yellow-rumped warblers were
probably birds which had wintered on the Cape,
just as some others have spent this winter in
Arlington, not far from Mystic Ponds.
The farmer asked us to enter his cottage and
see his collection of Indian stone relics picked
up by him on the slopes and fields above the
pool. We did so and found that he had gathered
several hundred arrow and spear heads, cutting
tools, hammers, bits of wampum and what he
called fish-net sinkers. He took us to the field
west of the pond and home acre, and bade us
search with him for more relics. At the end
of twenty minutes he had aided us in finding
two or three arrowheads, several fragments show-
ing clear indications of having been chipped,
and one sinker. In this field a flock of thirty or
forty horned larks were feeding ; they rose and
flew, circled and came down again within fifty
92 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
yards of us. I, having failed to find even a
broken arrowhead, felt inclined to suspect the
larks of hiding them from me, as they tripped
about over the ploughed land.
Resuming our places in the carryall, we drove
to the edge of a sand slope overlooking the broad
meadow between us and Provincetown Harbor.
The sunset hour was near and the bay flashed
fire from a million waves. Provincetown, only
a few miles away, looked warm and cosy on its
neutral ground between pale dunes and blue
waters. It would seem less snug in an easterly
gale in mid-winter. A broad placid sheet of
fresh water lay between the sandhills and the
bay shore. It is called the Eel-pond. It made a
fair mirror for sunset lights.
We drove home over the moors, as I felt like
calling the wastes of undulating lichen-groMai sand
which formed the middle of the Cape at this point.
The horse sped along regardless of roads, but
keeping a sharp watch for the numerous holes
dug in the sand by recent generations of hunters,
who half bury themselves on this plateau at
the fortunate times when the golden plover are
passing on their hemispherical migration. The
horse's feet crunched the reindeer moss, and
knocked dust from the Inidsonia or poverty
gi*ass, and pollen from the flowers of the corema.
Presently we found in the tableland two deep
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 93
bowl-shaped hollows where twin icebergs had
grounded side by side in the great ice age and
met their melting death. Upon the narrow ridge
between these " sink-holes " was a grave. Years
ago a fisherman died of smallpox, and his body-
was placed there. A stranger burial spot one
seldom sees. A mile further on we passed a
lonely poplar tree which marks — not a man's
grave, but the grave of a home. All trace of
the house has gone, but mossgrown roads, a few
broken bricks and the sentinel tree bear passing
witness to a forgotten fireside ; a spot from which
a fisherman went out day by day, and where an
anxious heart beat for him in storms and per-
haps mourned for him at last when his boat went
down in the black waters ojffi Race Point. Not
far from this forsaken acre is a sink-hole of un-
usual depth. The local name for it is full of
color, — it is " Hell's Bottom." In spite of this
name the pines which line the slopes of the hol-
low flourish and are tall, and the pool of sweet
water at its centre is a favorite resort for birds,
the holy crossbill included. Passing it, we saw
above pygmy pines the pallid gleam of the High-
land Light struggling with the glow of sunset.
A wide valley seemed to separate us from the
light, and the white tower seemed three hun-
dred feet or more in height, but our Pegasus
drew us over the valley in five minutes, and the
light shrank to its proper size as we drew near.
94 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
About eight o'clock I was seated on the iron
steps at the foot of the great kerosene torch
which stands inside the crumpled lenses of the
Highland light. The lamp roared in its giant
chimney. Prismatic colors swam through the
lenses. The keepers told strange stories of
storms, freaks of lightning, the trembling of their
white tower in the gales, and the fate of birds
which hurled themselves against the heavy glass
of the outer windows of the tower. The base of
the lantern and many parts of the interior and
exterior of the lighthouse are scarred by light-
ning. Once three ducks struck and shivered
into splinters one of the thick panes of glass in
the tower and fell dead and mangled at the foot
of the lantern. The keeper said the sound of
their striking was like the report of a gun. Out-
side those windows, flashing with light, all seemed
intense darkness, — a gloom filled perhaps with
fluttering birds or the mingled thoughts of those
upon the ocean who w^atched from afar the great
white light of the Truro sands.
At sunrise on the morning of the second of
April, I stood shivering in the chilly air, under
the lee of a wrecked windmill not far from the
lighthouse. The windmill has lost its wings,
and storms have beaten holes in its sides. Half
buried in the sand and sod lies one of its grooved
mill-stones. Half of the other forms the front
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 95
doorstep of a house near by. The mill was a
kind giant in its time, but being too big to be
set up in a bric-a-brac shop in town like its fussy,
fairy neighbor the farmer's flax wheel, it is
doomed to minole with the shiftino- sand and be
whirled away by the ^inds it once made labor.
The sun had come up clear from the ocean.
The east wind had an edge both keen and cold.
Provincetown lay white and sparkling in the
barb of the Cape. Song sparrows, robins, and
meadow larks sang joyously. A wicked shrike
sat on a stone on the hillside and poured out a
jangling mixture of bluebird and brown thrush
notes while it watched for victims from among
the song sparrows. He never will sing his siren
song to another sunrise. Through the pine woods,
where skunk tracks dotted the sand patches,
and down through a hollow to the beach we
strolled before breakfast. Although the hollow
was a deep one, we had to slide down fifty feet
of soft cliff face before reaching the grassy
upper beach, which in turn was several feet
above the tide-washed sands. The beach is very
soft, and walking upon it is laborious. The
cliffs are not as picturesque from below as fropi
above, and they reflect the sunlight disagreeably
in early morning. A dead skate, the half featl i
ered skeleton of a kittiwake gull, and a ripe ba-
nana constituted nearly the whole of the objects
96 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
of interest on the shore. The banana had a re-
markably rich flavor, thanks perhaps to its sea
bath. Twenty crows retreated down the beach
ahead of us. They live well and grow fat on the
harvest of death cast np by the waves. We left
the shore at the life-saving- station where mortar
drill had just been performed. A man on a
mast set in the sand has the life line fired to
him, he hauls out the breeches-buoy, and an im-
aginary shipwrecked crew is sent ashore across
imaginary breakers. The station was as neat,
clean and shining as a flagship, and more com-
fortable by far than most New England farm-
houses.
Later in the forenoon we drove for three
hours through Truro and South Truro, seeing
many quaint cottages ; dwarf apple orchards re-
minding me of Thoreau's description of them ;
a tide river in which a man was prodding at
random for eels and occasionally bringing one
out squirming on his trident ; thousands of pitch-
pine trees planted by hand in rows ; a sunny
hillside covered with oaks, checkerberry plants
and arbutus, the latter bearing the first flowers
of the year; and a black snake dozing in the
sand by the wayside. He, being heavy with
winter slumber, was caught, measured, and found
to lie four feet four inches without stretching.
His teeth were long and sharp. Being given
A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 97
his freedom unhurt he rewarded us by some
brilliant tree climbing, during- which he glided
up a trunk, in and out among branches, and
along limbs from tree to tree. I hope he will
do no harm during the new term of life which
we gave him.
A little after two o' clock we said adieu to
North Truro, the fair lighthouse, the cliffs, the
heaving Atlantic, and the plaintive starlings.
As we rolled homeward along the bay shore
hundreds of wild ducks flew, swam, or sat
motionless upon the quiet water. Gulls by scores
fed on the bars or frolicked in the sky. Clouds
gathered, the air grew colder, and by midnight
Massachusetts was in the midst of one of the
fiercest storms of the year*.
THE CURRENT OF MUSKETAQUID.
Monday, the 6th of April, found me, with a
friend who lives close to nature's heart, floating
down the current of Musketaquid. We launched
a light Rushton boat at the feet of the Minute-
Man, and were swept past him, by the battle-
ground, in the tide and through the eddies which
Thoreau knew so well and has made immortal.
On that morning bright with sunshine yet cold
with the breath of snowbanks on Wachusett, it
was Thoreau's spirit more than that of the fight-
ing farmers or fanciful Hawthorne which seemed
to rule the Old Manse ground, the ancient trees
along the water's edge, the swirling river, the
singing blackbirds, and the landscape of willows,
hills, and distant woods. As we were taking
out the boat from its house, a downy woodj)ecker
drummed for his mate's enjoyment on the sound-
ing branches and trunk of a dead tree at the
water's edge. He made three different tones on
his drum. A white-bellied nuthatch was going
from tree to tree calling loudly. His home of
last year had been cut down, and he seemed to
THE CURRENT OF MUSKETAQUID. 99
be searching for it. A pair of chickadees passed
by and exchanged greetings with the nuthatch.
Song sparrows in all directions were singing.
Now and then the wild note of a cowbird and
the more distant and plaintive call of a meadow
starling: came to our ears. Robins were abun-
dant and noisy.
As our boat floated down the river and turned
a bend towards the arched stone bridge I glanced
back and saw a man with a gun standing on a
ledge above us. I opened my lips to call my
friend's attention to him, when a second glance
showed me that it was the Minute-Man, secure
on his pedestal and not climbing over the nearer
rocks, as he seemed to be. The current under
the bridge was very strong, and for the gentle
Musketaquid, veiy swift. It required dexterous
paddling to keep a straight course through the
central arch. Beyond the bridge the river lost
itself in flooded meadows. To one familiar with
its rightful banks, a buneli of willows, an elm
and a maple or two told the secret of its course.
But to me it seemed that we were entering a
beautiful lake, which promised to grow wider
and fairer the longer we sailed upon it. Com-
fortable farmhouses stood upon the higher
ground and looked down at the unruly stream.
Perhaps they recalled the days before the Lowell
dams, when the river was a friend and not a
100 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
tyrant to their fair intervales. Along the shel-
tered furrows in the ploughed fields and against
the cold side of stone walls ribbons of white
snow lay in hiding from the sun. Even in the
streets of Concord we had seen good-sized drifts,
and piles under roof angles. The storm of the
Friday previous, which along the coast brought
rain, had turned to snow here, while further in-
land many inches of snow had fallen, blocking
roads and breaking wires. The west wind blow-
ing across this wintry stretch of country came
to us well whetted.
From one sloping field it brought us the med-
ley music of a flock of over sixty redwings. As
we listened to the distant choir a rich undercur-
rent of sound came to us. " Wild geese," I ex-
claimed. My friend shook his head doubtfully,
but paddled ashore to see whether blackbirds
really composed the whole orchestra. We found
them on a patch of high meadow, some in the
trees singing, others on the ground feeding. All
rose and whirled like a puff of burnt paper in
the breeze. Then they settled again, and the
deeper notes in their medley came to us once
more like the far-off honking of geese. Then we
floated on by meadow and brier patch ; thickets
of birch in which the faint spring tints were be-
ginning to grow clearer and stronger ; ploughed
fields over which juncos flashed their white V's ;
THE CURRENT OF MUSKETAQUID. 101
bunches of pitch-pines almost as rich as savins
in their olive-green coloring ; ancient orchards
in which respectable families of bluebirds still i-e-
side untroubled by the emigrant sparrow ; single
graceful elms on whose finger tips dangled the
gray purses of last year's orioles ; fringes of wil-
lows bearing their pussies, a few of which showed
their yellow stamens just projecting ; and maples
on whose highest twigs balanced the resident red-
wings, running over with rippling laughter. My
friend spoke of a theory that all bird music is
imitative of the sounds best known to the spe-
cies, and said that the notes of the redwings
seemed to bear out this pretty hypothesis, hav-
ing the sound of water running through their
sweet measures.
Gliding across a placid bay in the meadow we
came to a wooded shore where a noble oak had
just been slain. We landed, and kneeling by its
stump counted the year rings. At first it had
grown slowly, its young life trembling in the
balance ; then it gained strength, and the rings
were broader and more firmly marked ; some-
times narrower ones suggested years of drought ;
then as our count rose to a hundred, the rings
grew closer and closer, as though life passed by
very fast in those years. In all, the oak must
have lived one hundred and twenty -five years, and
have heard the echo of those musket shots which
102 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
marked the dawn of Independence, the sunrise
guns of Arberican Freedom. My friend looked
very grave when he saw that this tree was gone.
It had been a landmark, not only on the shore
of Musketaquid, but on the shore of his life, of
which a precious part had been spent on this
river of flooded meadows. Above the oak rose
a bold headland crowned with plumelike pines.
It was Ball's Hill, which Thoreau called " the
St. Ann's of Concord." We sought the top and
looked down upon the fair picture below us.
Great Meadows, the " broad moccasin print,"
was one rippling lake, dotted with islands or
single trees. The river, from the stone arch
bridge, just passed, down to Carlisle bridge with
its wooden piers, had merged its life in this
blue archipelago. The distant tower of Bedford
church recalled my melting walk of a month ago,
when over the snowdrifts the sun of March had
nearly burned my eyes out and quite scorched
the skin from my lips and cheeks. Early spring
in Massachusetts is a crab-like thing, but it has
its charms. In a ploughed field behind the bluff,
we found fox tracks, and under a lofty pine,
pellets of mouse hair, which some owl (or crow
perhaps) had cast from its mouth undigested.
Takino; boat once more we wound in and out
along the northern shore. Here, fox sparrows
scratched in the bushes and paused surprised at
THE CURRENT OF MUSKET AQUID. 103
the silent monster slipping past them on the
lake. There, a shy grouse with ruff wide spread
watched us a moment from beneath a proud
oak's shade, and then tiptoed away cackling her
alarm until the shelter of the great boll gave
her a chance to fly. Above, a red-shouldered
hawk mewed, and glass in hand we saw him and
his mate rise hundreds of feet into the sky, until
one was lost in spinning motes of light, and the
other, setting her wings, sped down the chute of
sky miles away in the northeast. At last, best
of all, on the eastern edge of the meadows sev-
eral snow-white specks wei-e seen upon the water.
" Sheldrakes," whispered my companion. They
were a quarter of a mile away, but seemed to
have seen or heard us, for they were restless.
Several times one of the males rose in the water
and flapped his wings. Then all took wing and
made four or five spirals in the air, ending by
disappearing behind a distant growth of birches.
" There is a pond in there," said my friend,
" with flooded meadows which lead to it." Keep-
ing perfect silence we paddled swiftly across the
dancing water to the opposite shore. There the
groves opened for us, and a narrow belt of shal-
lows led into an inner meadow. The ducks were
not in it. Crossing it, another opening was found
leading to a third lake. As we entered this
strait I caught an alder bough, and held the
104 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
boat fast, for not more than two hundred yards
from us were the five ducks floating tranquilly
in the sheltered lagoon. So silent had been our
approach, that although the wind was behind us,
the ducks did not suspect our coming. Our
glasses made the beautiful creatures seem only
a few rods distant, and we watched them closely.
One of them was a black or dusky duck, the
most abundant species at this season. The other
four were mergansers, called also goosanders,
fish ducks, or sheldrakes. Two were males, two
females ; the drakes had lustrous bottle-green
heads, and bodies which appeared snowy white.
They were enjoying the sunlight, and drifting
along slightly with the wind. The black duck
kept with them, yet a little apart, — a duck, yet
not one of the family. They preened themselves,
and soft white feathers floated lightly away upon
the ripples. When we had watched long enough,
a blow upon the gunwale alarmed the flock.
They swam a few feet, first one way, then an-
other. Every motion showed alertness. A sec-
ond sound booming across the water started
them. Their wings dashed the waves into foam-
ing furrows several feet long ; then with steady
flight they rose in a long diagonal and passed
out of sight behind the birches. But only four
flew. Sweeping the water with our glasses we
discovered the black duck still floating upon its
THE CURRENT OF MUSKETAQUID. 105
surface. We pushed the boat forward into the
lagoon, and the moment he h)eated the danger
he rose without a sjilash and was gone.
Rowing back to the Carlisle side w'e found a
snug corner by a jolly little brook which danced
across a pasture down to a meadow, between the
rubble walls of an ancient sluice, through the
pine woods and into Great Meadows. Over the
brook stood an oak ; in the oak sat a bluebird ;
from the bluebird's inmost soul poured the
sweetest of bird music, and, wonderful to relate,
this music as it fell upon the air turned into
goldfinches which undulated over the pasture,
finally rested upon the oak and added their songs
to the general joy of the occasion. It may be
said by harsh commentators that goldfinches
never could have been made out of bluebii-ds'
music. Then the burden is on them to prove
where the goldfinches come from, for to our
eyes they came from the air, which had notliing
in it except the song of the bluebird. After
lunch and a wonderful concert in which the blue-
bird sang the solo and the goldfinches did every-
thing else to make it perfect, we examined the
ancient sluice. The stone work was rough and
without cement. The dam was of earth and
from it grew several oaks, one of which may
have taken root fifty years ago. As we mused
about the dam and its history, a broad-winged,
106 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
bluish-gray bird nearly as large as an eagle
sailed swiftly over the meadow. Its course was
low, only a foot or two above the grass, and as
waving from side to side as the letter S. It was
a marsh hawk sweeping the low lands for mice
and frogs. As we w^alked across the grass he
had been inspecting, we found it dotted with
small piles of fresh earth apparently thrown up
by some burrowing animal working from beneath
the sod. There were also scores of runways or
grooved passages under the matted grass. In
places our feet sank into subterranean chambers,
and in fact the whole field seemed to have been
honeycombed by moles, or meadow mice (ar-
vicola pennsi/lvcniicus^. The harrier was not
the only bird interested in this field of mice.
Under almost every one of nearly a dozen old
apple trees growing near by we found " owl pel-
lets," the egg-shaped masses of undigested fur,
feathers, teeth and bones which owls habitually
eject from their mouths when w'ell fed.
A quarter of a mile farther on we came to a
stubble field near the banks of Great Meadows.
A stubble fi.eld, with a stone wall and a fringe
of bushes round it, is a fine place for migrating
sparrows. Fully a hundred birds were feeding
in this field or singing in the trees which bor-
dered it. They were fox sparrows and juncos,
and it would be impossible to say which were in
THE CURRENT OF MUSKETAQUID. 107
the majority. We crept up to them gradually
until all had retreated to the trees at one corner
of the field. Then we merged ourselves in the
stone wall and its brambles and bushes, and re-
mained motionless. One by one the birds drew
nearer. I imitated the shrill singing of a canary.
They began to sing, and the more distant birds
flew boldly over us and into the weeds in the
field. Soon the air was full of them, passing
close to our heads. When they were settled, we
crossed the wall and crawled along behind it
until we were within ten feet of some of the fox
sparrows. These we watched through the cracks
in the wall, and saw them scratch with both feet
in the earth and dry leaves. A hen scratches
with one foot at a time. These birds hitch back-
wards on both feet, twitching their wings at the
same moment and moving both feet together,
although not often exactly side by side. A few
of them sang their full song close by us. It is a
wonderful performance, full of strength, variety
and brilliancy. When the hermit thrush sings
I feel as thougli the pine forest had been trans-
formed into a cathedral, in which the power of an
organ or the rich voice of a contralto singer was
bringing out the essence of the mass. When
the fox sparrow sings, the effect is entirely dif-
ferent. The quality of the music seems joyous,
not pathetic : that of the grand piano rather than
108 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
of the organ ; that of the dance and sunlight
rather than that of vespers. As a maker of
brilliant, vivacious music the fox sparrow stands
among the first. It deserves a place in the list
of the ten finest New England bird singers. In
voice, costume and manners the bird betrays
noble birth. It is a pity that it does not nest
within the limits of our country.
Tearing ourselves away from the sparrows, we
returned to our boat. On the bits of driftwood
lining the shore I found multitudes of little
creatures which I could not distinguish from snow
fleas. If they are not the same they must be
next of kin to the jolly little winter bristletails.
The voyage back toward the sunset was not
eventful. A flock of black ducks passed up-
stream, flying high and at wonderful sjjeed.
They are far from graceful, but they give one
the impression of immense power of wing. Had
this flock been well harnessed I think they could
have drawn me with them out of sight in golden
haze much faster than would have been comfort-
able. Redwings sang in every tree top. Crows
took long flights, cawing as they flew. Chicka-
dees in pairs responded to the phoebe note so well
mimicked by my companion. Muskrats swam in
the eddies of the stream. "We saw two swim-
ming fast round and round a bunch of maples
standing alone in the water. They paid little
THE CURRENT OF MUSKET AQ.U ID. 109
attention to us as we passed. As we reached
the Minute-Man the ehill of the western snows
came upon us more keenly. The coloring ,of
sky, woods and river was exquisite. The mass
of the heavens was deep blue. Upon it flakes of
cloud rested, taking from the sun the glory of
gold and of crimson. Low down in the east a
bank of very dark blue clouds made a rich back-
ground for the stems of the gleaming birches and
the burnished twigs of the willows. Just where
the sun sank, gold and orange and crimson min-
gled to form a gateway through which the day
was slowly withdrawing. As we stood under
the great elms by the Manse the river repeated
the story of the sky. Had Lohengrin floated
westward over the gilded water towards that
gateway I should have bent my head without
surprise to catch those few soul-moving notes by
which he says " Farewell."
A BIT OF COLOR.
Thursday, April 16, at five o' clock in the
afternoon, I reached the shores of Fresh Pond
at the point where a branch of the Fitchburg
railway crosses the Concord turnpike. This part
of Cambridge is soon to be changed in many
ways, and is worth a particular description.
From the Cambridge Common to the northeast
corner of Fresh Pond, Concord Avenue runs
almost directly northwest. Beyond this point
it bends twenty-five degrees towards the west
and continues in that line until it reaches Bel-
mont. In the hollow of this bend, resting on
Fresh Pond, lies one of the most picturesque bits
of ground in Cambridge. It was formerly the
est:te of Frederick Tudor, the ice king. A
beautiful lawn many acres in extent is fringed
with lofty hard - wood trees, many of which
are dying, but all of which are beautiful and
worthy of careful preservation and exemp-
tion from all but the most necessary trim-
ming. On the water front at the northeastern
corner of the pond are two immense ice-houses,
now condemned and doomed to early destruc-
A BIT OF COLOR. Ill
tion. Perhaps when they are gone it will be
remembered that they were picturesque. One,
with its buttressed brick walls coated with green
lichens and overhung by a projecting upper story
of gray wood, always reminds me of a gloomy
picture I have seen of an Algerian walled town.
The other, overhanging the pond, raises a tall
gray tower against the sky, and looks down upon
deep water through which broken piles emerge
to cast black shadows in the mist. When these
ice-houses are empty they are sepulchral and
forbidding places to enter. The least sound
awakes echoes in the darkness of the roof. Eng-
lish sparrows flit about and scream, and the air
is heavy with dampness and as cold as a tomb.
On Thursday afternoon I turned in from Con-
cord Avenue toward these ice-houses, following
the freight track, which runs directly towards
them, forming a bai'rier between Fresh Pond and
a foul swamp which fills, with the Tudor place,
the bend in the avenue. The swamp is a thicket
of willows, button - ball bushes, and birches.
The early willows were in full bloom, their
bright yellow staminate and green pistillate
flowers swaying in the wind. Late willows
were beautiful with their small pink-white
pussies and unfolding leaves crowded on slender
stems. Here and there a tall red maple raised
its branches over the swamp and displayed its
112 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
gorgeous flowers in the pale sunliglit. The grass,
only a few days ago burned over by the frugal
but short-sighted city workmen, was brilliantly
green, and in places four or five inches long.
When July suns beat down upon its roots it
may miss its mat of protecting fibres destroyed
by fire. A fox sparrow^ was scratching among
the grass roots energetically. Several redwings,
song sparrows, and a large flock of English spar-
rows were at work on the ground near by. From
the swamp the music of song sparrows and red-
wings was incessant.
Passing between the ice-houses and the shan-
ties and hen houses which stand on the opposite
side of the track I gained the fringe of lofty
trees on the Tudor place. A flicker was guard-
ing her house in a hollow maple. Now, she
poked her head out and " flickered " for her
mate. Then, he answering not, she came out
and drummed furiously on the dead resonant
wood by her door post. At last his answer
came from a distant tree and she flew away to
find liim. A female sparrow liawk darted from
her nest in the deep hollow of an inaccessible
limb, and flew with marvellous grace into the
oj^en, wheeled, and dropped upon the out-
stretched finger of one of the tallest trees of this
tall grove. Her mate joined her and perched
for a second beside her, while a queer whining
A BIT OF COLOR. 113
chatter came from them. Their coloring is as
beautiful as that of the fox sparrow, and if they
cannot revive the fainting heart by song, they
can give the eye joy by their speed, their perfect
grace of flight, and the beauty of their outlines.
On the further side of the neglected lawn
nearly a hundred purple grackles were feeding
in the grass. They rose, blurring the sky in the
north, and darkened the tops of a dozen trees
where the}' perched and " creaked " in disgust at
my coming.
Looking across the pond the further shores
showed but dimly. A strong east wind had
been blowing all day, and the air was heavy with
the grayness of the sea. The water was metallic
in its lights and shadows, its points of reflected
fire and stripes of darkness. Distant banks of
birches and willows showed faint tones of green,
red, and yellow through the silver veil of the
chilly air. Mount Saint Joseph stood up dark
and strong in the middle of the opposing shore,
its hemlocks and pines jielding black reflec-
tions in the' sullen water. A train rolled along
across Concord Avenue, and stopped at the Fresh
Pond station. Its outlines were vague and its
smoke seemed part of the gray air, until an open
furnace door sent a flood of orange light up
through it, and revealed its writhings and alter-
nations of whiteness and blackness as the train
puifed on towards the setting sun.
114 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
I left the Tudor place and kept on round the
pond. First I came to an ugly wound in the
high bank, where gravel is being cut away to fill
" Black's Nook." Then I passed in order the
half-filled Nook, the white ice-houses of tlie Fresh
Pond Ice Company, the great gravel banks on
the western side of the pond, the swamp full of
blazing red maples, almost as gay in their blos-
soms as in their ripened foliage last autumn ;
the " geyser " where Stony Brook water, after
its long journey underground from the laud of
Norumbega, bursts out in clustered jets and falls
foaming into Fresh Pond, and finally Mount
Saint Joseph itself, none the less picturesque
because the white caps of the Sisters are occa-
sionally to be seen flitting back and forth amid
its shrubbery. The white caps and their school
building are doomed to banishment under the
law of eminent domain, and in a few months
they, like the ice-palaces of the Tudors, will
have been made over to the past.
THE CONQUEST OF PEGAN HILL.
Looking southward from the heights above
Arlington, Belmont and Waltham, the distant
horizon is bounded at one point by a wooded
ridge having a bold outline and, to the explorer,
a most challengeful air. Contour map and com-
pass declared this ridge to be Pegan Hill, the
dominant height of the Needham - Natick re-
gion. Taking the 8 o'clock train on the " Woon-
socket division," which in my mind had previ-
ously been classed with the " Saugus branch "
as a railway snare to be avoided, I sought on
April 18 the unknown town of Dover. My
companion was a determined man who years ago
had registered a vow to climb Pegan Hill or
perish among its cliffs and forests.
The early morning of April 18 was gray and
somewhat chilly. My friend brought an um-
brella and overcoat, I wore rubber boots and an
overcoat. By noon the mercury had passed 80°
and was still vigorous.
As we left the train, maps in hand, Pegan
Hill was reported to bear due west. We raised
our eyes to meet the challengeful foe. A broad
116 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
meadow clad in the tender green of freshly-
sprouting grass was encircled by comfortable
farms whose ploughed fields, orchards, elms and
scattered buildings framed it pleasantly. A pair
of brooks wandered across it, met, pledged eter-
nal friendship and passed on united, singing,
looking up blue-eyed towards heaven. High in
the air white-bellied swallows revelled in the
sunlight. The sweet-breathed west wind bore
to us the kindred songs of the purple finch and
the vesper spai-row, the plaint of the meadow
lark, the drumming of the downy woodpecker
and the cawing of the crow. In a pine grove
near by, the pine-creeping warbler and the chip-
ping sparrow contrasted their monotonous repe-
titions of a single note, the one giving a smooth,
well-rounded trill, the other a sharper, more
pointed one. Beyond the meadow and the farms
lay a sunny pasture hillside, crossed horizontally
by a stone wall, and sparsely marked by pitch-
pines and small savins. The sky-line of this
gentle slope was curved, drumliu-like. West-
ward there was nothing more to see save blue
sky and four cowbuntings flying swiftly across
it. Where was the tree-crowned rocky summit
we had come to conquer ? The redwings an-
swered, " Cong-ka-ree, go and see ! " So we
strolled onward across the meadow, through the
farms and up the slope of the pasture hill.
THE CONQUEST OF PEG AN HILL. 117
The air was filled with a silvery haze which
made distance mysterious, and the nearer land-
scape dreamy and full of suggestions of Indian
summer. The songs of field sparrows rippled
continuously across the hillside. A pigeon
woodpecker " flickered " persistently in a grove
of maples and chestnuts. While standing be-
hind a stone wall and half concealed by its reti-
nue of bushes we heard a rippling- warbler-song
and caught a flash of gold and green in a bar-
berry bush close at hand. A slender bird about
five inches long, golden olive-brown above and
rich yellow beneath, paused in the bai'berry for
us to watch him. As he moved his dainty head
we saw that his crown was reddish chestnut, and
as he threw up his head to sing we saw that his
breast and sides were lightly pencilled with a
similar shade. Although I had heard the pine
warbler sing, this, a yellow red-poll warbler, was
the first of the great migrating family of Sylvi-
colidce which I had met this spring. As my
heart grew warm towards him a crow and a
dashing little falcon rose from behind the hill
and whirled together in the air. We promptly
forgot the tin}'- warbler, dropped behind the
wall, and fixed our glasses on the falcon, which
had alighted on the highest plume of a low pitch-
pine. Suddenly it swooped to the ground,
caught an insect from the grass, and came to a
118 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
treetop nearer us. As it alternately caught
grasshoppers and perched to eat them and watch
for more, we crept from bush to bush nearer
to the circle of its hunting-ground. Several
times it came within gunshot, and as we saw it
from all points of view, its rich coloring was
clearly revealed. The top of its head and its
tail were brilliant chestnut. Its back was cinna-
mon, its breast light and finely barred on the
sides. Around its throat it seemed to wear a
collar formed of alternate bars of black and
white. Its head was small, its whole bearing
alert, graceful, supple. After w^atching it for
some time we perceived that its mate was hunt-
ing in much the same manner part way down
the slope of the hill. The birds were sparrow
hawks in the perfection of spring plumage.
One of their perches was a rude tripod made
of joist. This marked the summit of the hiU
which we had reached almost without knowing
it. Seated at its foot we looked north, east,
south and west over the fair meadows, fields and
groves of the Charles River valley. The me-
andering river itself was in sight in every quar-
ter but the southeast, and there its tributaries
formed an interlacing barrier. But where w^as
Pegan Hill ? We consulted the map.
Due north of us were Lake Waban, Wellesley,
and Wellesley College. Aci'oss the north and
THE CONQUEST OF PEG AN HILL. 119
part of the east the river, its vivid green
meadows, and its ruddy maples led the eye
along. Natick and Sherborn, the one a grow-
ing town, the other a tract of farms and pleasant
glimpses of blue water, filled the west. To the
south the view was limited, being cut short
by several rocky ridges of unattractive outlines
and vegetation, which our map said were Clark
Hill and Pine Rock Hill. The centre of all
this country which our eyes delighted to rest
upon, so full was it of beautiful tints, was
marked plainly Pegan Hill. A bloodless vic-
tory ! We had sought the enemy with mighty
preparations, and behold he had kissed our feet,
and made himself our footstool. The ridge
which had attracted our eyes from Prospect Hill
we felt sure was Pine Rock Hill, equal in height
with Pegan, but covered with a sparse growth
of small deciduous trees promising neither birds,
flowers, nor other inducements for a climb.
At the foot of the hill on the northern side we
found some charming spots on the borders of the
Charles. One was on the Needham side of the
river, where an extensive grove of stately old-
growth white pines overhung a sharp bend in the
stream, making its deep and swift current very
dark in contrast to a flat bit of meadow opposite,
which was radiant with tender green of newly
sprouted grass. A grouse rose from a cool brook
120 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
hollow near this bend. A pewee called to us as she
hurried through the grove. A flock of five white-
bellied swallows cut swift circles against the
kindly sky. The voice of the west wind in the
ancient pines sang a song full of rest and con-
tentment, and for us, as for the river, it was
pleasant and purifying to linger there before
going on to the friction and the pollution of the
city. In all that days wandering I saw no sign
of terror in any living thing that was not caused
by man. Nature by herself is not all peace, by
any means, but she is far nearer to it than when
man is present.
On the edge of these beautiful pines, as at
several other points in our walk, my friend and
I were angered to find the largest and finest
trees selected as posting places for advertise-
ments : cloth, papei\ wood, and metal signs telling
of the supj)Osed merits of certain Boston firms
and daily newspapers, having been nailed to the
trees. It is hard to say which fact is most dis-
agreeable to contemijlate, the boldness of the
advertisers in disfiguring private property, or
the indifference of the public to the damage
done.
Following up the Charles through the pines
we reached the Sudbury River aqueduct, and
from the top of its sodded embankment gained
a near view of WeUesley and its castles of
THE CONQUEST OF PEGAN HILL. 121
learning. Looking across the meadows of
Dewing Brook, never greener than at that
moment, we were charmed by the distant pic-
ture of feeding cattle, boys fishing in the brook,
snug and well-fashioned farm buiklings, lofty
shade trees in full bloom, and behind them the
clustered buildings of the college and the town.
It mio^ht have been a mellow fras^ment of old
England but for the bunch of very new, dirty,
and disorderly shanties which appeared in one
corner of the picture to remind us that New
Ensrland is also New Ireland. Entering the
town, we made our way to the railway station
with speed and directness. As it was Saturday
afternoon a fair share of the eight hundred
students (or a share of the eight hundred fair
students) were in the streets, walking, driving,
bicycling, catching trains for town, exercising
dogs, and otherwise disporting themselves. My
companion being a bachelor, still in moderate
years, I sighed with relief when our train started
and I had him safely penned in a front seat
next the window.
WOOD DUCKS AND BLOODROOT.
The maple swamps of Alewife Brook are
places rich in birds, but they are even richer in
foul odors. They are not pleasant at any hour,
least of all at sunrise. In order to go from
Cambridge in the early morning into any other
woods than these, it is necessary to walk quite a
long distance, or else to take the first train
which goes out from Boston over the Fitchburg
tracks. On April 20 I caught this train at
Hill's Crossing at 6.41 a. m., having walked out
Concord Avenue to the Tudor place, round the
northern edge of Fresh Pond, past the slaughter-
house opposite Black's Nook and over the mead-
ows to the little station. The walk was charm-
ing, for at that early hour there were more birds
than men in Cambridge streets, and the men
were laborers, with earnest faces, strong arms,
and bro\\ai hands, who seemed close to the soil
and its secrets. In the Harvard Observatory
grounds a ruby-crowned kinglet was singing.
Less than an inch longer than a humming bird,
this little creature has one of the most delightful
WOOD DUCKS AND BLOOD ROOT. 123
songs known to New England woods. It is
very kind of it to sing here when its breeding
ground may be two or three hundred miles
north of us.
The Fresh Pond trees and fields were alive
with birds. Two pairs of flickers were " flick-
ering ; " robins ran on the ground, shouted in
the apple-trees, chased each other through the
air ; meadow starlings, redwings, and purple
grackles could be heard and seen in all
parts of the Tudor place. White - bellied
swallows danced across the sky, and the harsh
rattle of the kingfisher marked the flight of that
vigorous bird over the waters of the pond. The
dry note of the chipping sparrow was incessant
and wearisome, but when the sparrow hawks left
their favorite corner and flew with their match-
less grace through the grove and across the field,
chipping sparrows were forgotten.
I reached Waverley Oaks as the village clock
struck seven. In the meadow between Beaver
Brook and the railway embankment quantities of
watercress were growing, horsetails stood four
inches high, and a jolly dandelion turned its
round face to the sun. Ilorsechestnut leaves
were open on the 10th, and here in the meadow
the ferns were setting free their coils, and leaves
on many of the early shrubs were open. Was the
bloodi'oot in bloom? that was the question of
124 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
the morning. Along the wall between Beaver
Brook and the Oaks white buds were pointing
heavenward by hundreds. In a spot where the
sunlight fell the flowers were opening, and as
the warmth of the rays grew stronger, half
the glorioias company opened their bright eyes
to the lovely spring morning. There are few
flowers with more pui'ity in their faces than
bloodroot. They are made to admire and love
growing, not picked. If torn from their roots
their dark blood stains the picker's hand, and
soils the fair petals of the flowers themselves ;
even if tenderly borne to a vase they quickly
drop their petals, as though mourning their
home under the shadow of the barberry bushes.
Seated among these delicate children of the
soil, my back against an elm trunk and my
figure obscured by the drooping branches of a
bush, I watched the birds among the oaks, and
near the small pond at the foot of the kame on
which some of the oaks grow. The voices of
robins, song and chipping sparrows, cow birds,
redwings, flickers, and bluebirds filled the air.
At first it seemed as though from this chorus
single notes could not be detached, but soon the
rattle of a kingfisher sounded from on high.
Looking up I saw three of these birds flying
over towards Waltham and the Charles. They
were at a great height for them, and I could not
WOOD DUCKS AND BLOOD ROOT. 125
recall ever before having seen more than two
flying together. Before they were out o'f sight a
sparrow hawk glided over, and presently a flock
of ten or fifteen cedar birds shot past through the
trees as though bound for the Mississippi. The
oaks seemed to be a good point of observation
even if the interesting strangers did not alight.
A rushing and rustling of wings, and a queer
quacking call marked the swift passage of a
duck. Instead of going by, this visitor dropped
into the reedy pool in front of me. I could see
a part of the pond, the rest was screened by
button -ball bushes. Long minutes passed.
Should I move, creep up to the pond, or around
the kame to its further slope ? Something moved
on the water beyond the bushes. A dark form
— two dark forms — were winding in and out
among the stems and coming towards me.
I raised my glass to my eyes and kept it there
without a motion during what followed. Two
ducks, one following the other, were coming
slowly through the bushes which grew in the
water at the end of the pond. From the
bushes a thread of water wound in and out
among the grass tussocks and passed under the
wall within twenty short paces of me. The ducks
entered this little brook ; the sunlight fell directly
upon them. They were wood ducks, the most
gorgeous of our waterfowl. Every feather shone
126 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
in the strong light. As they came on down
the stream towards me they saw me ; their bright
eyes were fixed upon me. If I moved ever so
little they would be off. I felt frozen, hypno-
tized, by their steady stare. The female was
handsome enough, but the drake was equal to a
Hindu maharajah in his splendor. His breast
was chestnut, his head lustrous green and violet,
his throat white, his back coppery black and
brown with purple and green lights playing over
it, his glittering eye was red. All these colors,
gleaming in the sunlight at once, without so much
as a spear of grass to hide them, were dazzling.
The birds did not seem real. I longed to call
some one to see them, to enjoy them with me.
They slid noiselessly through their narrow chan-
nel to the wall, and there the bushes hid them.
Two or three minutes passed ; there was no sign,
no sound. I rose and scanned the meadow for
them, but they had vanished ; and during the
remainder of my hour they did not reappear.
Twice afterwards on other days I saw them, but
under no such favoring circumstances.
From the Oaks I walked most of the way back
to Cambridge, seeing and hearing great numbers
of birds. Bluebirds were conspicuously com-
mon ; several more kingfishers flew over ; flickers
were so numerous that I felt sure they must be
migrating in force. Near Payson Park another
WOOD DUCKS AND BLOODROOT. 127
sparrow hawk sailed by me. There are known to
be four pairs of these beautiful birds breeding
within a few miles of Cambridge this spring.
If the men hired by the Boston taxidermists to
slaughter birds to keep them supplied with at-
tractive material for " the trade " do not kill
these exquisite little falcons, the species may
soon become comparatively common in eastern
Massachusetts. It is one of the most useful
and friendly to man of our songless birds.
Not far from Payson Pai'k in Belmont, and to
the northwest of Fresh Pond, is what is sometimes
called Summer House Hill. I reached this little
eminence, which is one hundred and twenty feet
above tide water, at about nine o'clock, and gained
from it one of those pleasing half far-away, half
near-by views which only small hills can give.
The near-by was a mingling of orchards alive
with birds and carpeted with new grass al-
ready several inches long ; the Concord turn-
pike and the brickyards and marshes beyond it ;
Fresh Pond with its graceful curving shore,
drives, groves, and odd old ice-houses ; Mt.
Auburn, the sky-roofed Westminster of New
England ; Payson Park with its grand old trees
and broad lawns ; and Belmont, the picturesque
town of terraces and hillside villas. The far-away
was Arlington and its wooded heights ; Winches-
ter with its church spires ; Medford and the Fells
128 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
flanking tlie great Boston basin on its north ;
and the basin itself crowded with the tangled
streets and bristling chimneys of half a dozen
sister cities. The view on that morning was
interesting for a special reason ; it presented a
sudden change in the coloring of the whole face
of the land. A few days earlier, grays, browns,
and delicate yellows had prevailed. These were
forgotten, swept away by a flood of green and
crimson. The green of the meadows, roadsides,
and upland hayfields was so vivid that all under-
lying tints were obliterated. The willows,
which for weeks had been the most conspicuous
color-spots in every view, had developed leaves
strong enough in color to cancel the golden and
coppei-y tones of their stems and merge them
in the greens of grassland and meadow. The
maples from gray and mist-like softness had with
their red blossoms come forward as the most pro-
nounced color-masses in the landscape. Around
Fresh Pond and in the maple swamps of the
Alewife Brook marshes this gorgeous crimson
coloring made the maples as conspicuous as in
autumn. The first few days in April the greater
part of Massachusetts was white with snow.
Such coloring as this, coming as a quick contrast
to winter tints, appeals most earnestly to the eye,
and leaves a deep impression on the memory.
It is one of the potent elements of spring, and
WOOD BUCKS AND BLOODKOOT. 129
serves to attract and impress minds which might,
without it, being blind to the subtler beauties
and wonders of the transformation, miss alto-
gether the glory of Nature's maidenhood.
A VOYAGE TO HEARDS ISLAND.
The Old Manse was sound asleep. The ring-
ing of bells in Concord town, the rippling laugh-
ter of a purple finch in the apple-tree, the sharp
" chebec " of a least flycatcher by the barn, even
the noise we made in taking our canoes and
small traps off the express wagon, and carrying
them down through the orchard to the river,
failed to wake the old house from its slumbers.
Song sparrows sang in the vista of lilacs at the
western door, robins ran back and forth on the
lawn like mechanical toys on a nursery floor,
and redwing blackbirds and their naughty, im-
provident cousins the cow buntings creaked,
squeaked, and whistled on the willows by the
Minute-Man. He, at least, was awake. His eager,
resolute face was watching down that eastern path-
way for the coming of new perils or new bless-
ings to the children of Freedom. We left the
Manse to its slumbers and the statue to its eter-
nal vigil, and pushed our frail canoes out upon the
glittering surface of the sbream. It was five
o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, April 24th.
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 131
A gentle west wind swung the catkins on the
poplars, rippled the soft, short grass on the lawn,
caressed the new leaves of the horse-chestnuts,
maples, and willows, which were timidly unfold-
ing under the unusually encouraging season. The
Musketaquid had fallen more than a foot since
our last cruise, and it was still falling fast. A
greater change had, however, crept over the land
and the air. The land was now a garden full
of beauty. There was the beauty of miles of
velvety grass and sprouting grain ; there was the
beauty of shrubs thickly clad in half-unfolded
leaves ; and there was the beauty of tall trees,
whose foliage seemed to be growing as the
eye rested upon it, and whose outlines of
limb and trunk were being disguised by gauzy
draperies of green, sure to become denser and
fuller day by day as the eager sun looked more
ardently upon the earth. There was also the
beauty of spring blossoms, the red of the maples,
the white of the willows ; the yellow of dande-
lions, early buttercups, and potentilla ; the white
of saxifrage, everlasting, houstonia, and anemone.
The change in the air was twofold. On our
other voyage it had brought the chill of snow
from the central parts of the state ; now it
brought the comforting warmth of a summer-
like day. Before, the song of a bird or of a flock
of birds had been an item by itself ; now, the air
132 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
was as full of musical undulations as it was of
heat waves and light waves. An effort was re-
quired, not so much to hear a particular song, as
to separate it from the sound ripples which broke
unceasingly upon the ear. In the midst of the
splendor of the sunset colors, gold and red upon
the sky, gold and red upon the river, we urged
our dainty craft against the current, bound for
Fairhaven Bay.
My canoe was a Rob Roy, my friend's a
longer, more slender one, without a deck. As
we paddled, we faced forward, and each regu-
lated his course by a lever, which he pressed
with his feet, and which was connected with the
rudder by chains running under the gunwales of
the canoe. Thanks to this device, which is my
friend's, we were enabled to use light, single-
bladed paddles and to give little thought to the
method of our strokes.
It is pleasant to look forward rather than
backward as one travels on a river. There is
more of hope in it, and consequently more of
joy. In rowing, one sees only departing, waning
beauty ; in paddling, the whole world is before,
with its good and evil inviting choice, its prom-
ises of wonders beyond distant shores, its ever
enlarging beauties, its swiftly realized dreams.
As our paddles rose and fell, scattering bright
globules of water on the river, which at fii'st
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 133
refused to receive them back into itself, we left
Concord behind us on the one side, and on the
other mraiy a meadow and sloping hillside,
crowned with farmhouse or summer cottasre.
The town did not let us abandon it suddenly.
More than once, when I thought it left far away
across a meadow, the river would sweep back
to it, and show us more green lawns and terraces,
gay boats lying on the grass, elms fruited with
purple grackles and cowbirds, children at their
games, purple martins soaring near their bird
boxes, and wagons rolling up dust in the roads.
Before we were free from the town our river
changed its name ; for at a place where a ledge
crowned with gi*eat trees is washed by the cur-
rent, the north branch blends its waters with
the Sudbury to form the Concord. The Sud-
bury was our stream, and but for one brief
glance up the dark Assabet I should not have
known that Musketaquid had lost a part of
its strength.
About seven o'clock our cockleshells came to
a long reach of river looking a little east of
south. Meadow-grasses rustled over many acres
on each side of us, and the breeze favored us at
last. So we raised our tiny masts and spread
our white sails. That which followed was to
physical action what falling asleep is to mental
effort. It was not rude motion gained by
134 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
thumping oars against resisting water. It was
more like becoming a part of the air and glid-
ing on in its embrace, silently, swiftly, without
friction. Side by side our boats slipped on past
whispering grasses, over the black water, under
the violet sky in which the high stars were now
appearing. Behind us the dark water was
broken into ripples. They held quivering,
bending bits of color, deep red, orange, yellow,
and silver, scattered over the inky blackness of
the stream. In front of us was a hill. It
seemed very high in the gathering gloom.
Nearer and on our right was a grove of lofty
white pines. There are few such trees in this
part of New England ; they are a fragment of
the primeval woods, full of wind voices and
memories of a lost race of men, and a vanishing
race of birds and mammals. As we neared this
grove a mysterious greeting came to us from its
depths. A voice at once sad, deep, soft, and
full of suppressed power seemed to question us.
My friend responded in the stranger's language,
and a few moments after a dark form floated
over us, its great wings making no sound as
they beat against the night air. Then from the
foot of Fairhaven Hill the voice called to us
again ; and soon the form passed back over the
river to the tops of the pines. Behind Fairhaven
Hill the eastern clouds reflected a slowly increas-
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 135
ing flood of yellow light. Over the rest of the
sky night had settled. Bird voices were hushed,
but from the river banks, as far as the ear could
hear, the sons' of froo's rose and fell in irres^ular
rhythm. The air was chilly, and a thin layer of
white mist hurried over the surface of the water.
Southward, up the river between Fairhaven Hill
and the pine woods, the water gleamed with
silvery whiteness, reflecting the sky. Its sur-
face narrowed in the distance between looming,
wooded headlands, and was finally swallowed up
in the shadow of great trees whose tops made a
serrated border to the brightening sky. At last
the moon's rim showed through the trees on
Fairhaven Hill, and the high pines close by us
on the western shore were bathed in uncertain
light. From their tops the mysterious voice
still questioned us at intervals.
This pine grove was our chosen camping
ground, and the light of the moon enabled us to
select a landing place and to draw our canoes
ashore. Soon the two boats were resting upon
hollows in the pine needles, ready to serve as
our cocoons when we felt the need of sleep ; a
briijht fire was blazing' near the ed^e of the
water at a point where it offered no menace to
the safety of the grove, and we were resting our
weary muscles and busying our several senses
with the moon, cold chicken and marmalade,
136 LAND OF Till-: LINGERING SNOW.
the warmth of the fire, the aroma of the pines,
and the low, shivery remarks of the ghostly owner
of the grove. Instead of being alarmed by our
landing, the light of our fire, and the sound of
our voices, the dark phantom of the pines seemed
to be attracted by these unusual interruptions.
The voice grew louder and more distinct. Its
winged source came nearer from tree top to tree
top, until it settled in the tallest, darkest pine
in the grove, almost immediately over our
heads. It was unlike any other voice I had ever
heard. It possessed a contralto quality ; it was
laden with intense emotion, yet it was calm and
singularly regular both in its sounds and in its
silences. In spite of its softness and the slight
trembling in its tones, it suggested power, — a
power sufficient to raise a trumpet note audible
a mile away.
Ten o'clock came and went, and we sought our
cocoons. Over the opening in my Rob Roy a
rubber blanket was arranged to button tightly,
leaving space only for my face. Over the entire
canoe, supported by a cord run from a short mast
aft to the short mast near the bows, was drawn
a waterproof tent having two little netting-
covered windows in its gable ends. Wrapped in
my wool blanket, tightly buttoned under the
rubber blanket, I sighed, thought how sleepy I
was, how well the canoe sustained my weary
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 137
limbs, how comfortable I was to be, and — in fact,
I was on the eve of sweet slumber when, " Wlioo,
hoo-hoo-hoo, whooo, whooo ! " came from the tree
just over me. The voice restored me to con-
sciousness. I seemed to see through ray tent
and the darkness of the pine foliage to the
top of the tree, where in the moonlight sat a
great bird with staring yellow eyes and feathery
horns, looking now at the moon on her voyage
from Fairhaven westward, and then at our smoul-
dering fire, or at me, supine in my mummy case.
" Whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, whooo, whooo ! " came
again, and its melancholy vibrations set my nerves
to its rhythm, so that after it ceased it seemed
to continue to echo in my mind's ear. Wide
awake, I found myself measuring the time until
it should come again. " Whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo,
whooo, whooo ! " The thrill which the last two
prolonged sighing notes sent through me was
wonderful. They seemed to penetrate every
fibre of my brain and quiver there as heated air
quivers before the eye at midsummer midday.
I thought of the theory that birds' notes are but
imitations of sounds which they hear most fre-
quently, and this song of the great horned owl
above me seemed akin to the moanino- of nig-ht
winds in the hollows of dead trees.
After a sleepless hour or more had passed, I
sat up and peered out of the little window at the
138 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
head of my coffin. There were the great pine
trunks rising- like roughly carved columns to
support the dark roof above. The moon's rays
came between them and fell full in my face. I
could see up the river, whose ripj)les were full of
bits of moonlight and black shadows, over which
hurried shreds of mist. Quiet as was the night,
nothing seemed asleep. Nature, shamming re-
pose, was moving silently about on mysterious
errands of which slumbering man was not to
know. The moon sailed on with her convoy of
stars westward, the clouds sailed eastward. The
river flowed northward, the mists were moving
southward. Thousands of frogs mingled their
songs on the river banks. The woods were full
of slight rustlings of leaves, creakings or snap-
pings of twigs, squeaks which seemed vocal, and
an undercurrent of sound which was like the
hushed breathing of the earth. Then, as though
guiding all, came the weird voice of the owl in
its strange rhythm and its stranger intonation.
Midnight passed and went on its long way,
but still I did not sleep. Each time the owl
spoke I was listening for it. Then a drumming
partridge and the frogs gained a share of my
hearing and thinking. The latter were leopard
frogs, and their chorus was pitched on a low
key. One of my friends compares their music
to an army snoring in unison ; another to a
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 139
giant gritting his teeth. I could make my ears
assent to either comparison. Suddenly my vi-
brating nerves told me that the song of the
owl had changed. I listened, excited. " Whoo,
hoo-hoo-hoo, whooo, whoo5 ! " No, it was the
same. But hark ! from another tree comes back
a response, " Whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo,
whooo ! " The male had returned from a hunt-
ing trip, and the pair were talking it over.
Whether it was the change and alternation in
the owl's metre, or simple exhaustion on my part,
which at last gave me sleep I cannot say, but
after hearing a distant deep-toned bell strike
twice I lost myself in needed slumber.
My awakening was sudden. I found myself
leaning on my elbow listening to one of the most
joyous songs which New England birds produce.
" Cherokee, cherokee, bo-peep, bo-peep, chrit,
chrit, chrit, perucru, perucru, cru, cru, cru, cru ! "
Pushing aside tent and mummy cloths I un-
snarled myself and gained my feet. The moon
was nearing her western harbor, but upon the
rim of Fairhaven Hill rested the morning star.
There are few moments in life so full of happi-
ness and exultation as those in which man,
brushing sleep from his eyes, rises with the first
bird song and welcomes into his soul the beauty
of the dawn. Some minutes in a life seem
doubly charged with the essence both of self-
140 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
consciousness and of perception. That moment
of awakening was one of them to me. In this
world or the next I shall ever be able to recall
the clarion of that brown thrush, the pure
beauty of that star, and the contour of hill and
forest, river and tented boats. I aroused my
friend, and we sought a high, open pasture be-
hind the i^ines, where we noted the order in
which bird songs or calls reached us. The song
sparrow, the whip-poor-will, the robin, the crow,
the chickadee, the ruby-crowned kinglet, the field
sparrow, came in quick succession, the last reach-
ing us at twenty mi nutes past four. The partridge
had drummed all night. If the owls had been
silent at all it was for little more than an hour.
Not lono- after the sun swung clear of Fair-
haven Hill onr voyage upstream was resumed.
The wind came from a bank of cold gray clouds,
which rose rapidly from the north and soon ob-
scured sun, moon, and pale blue sky. A spring
flowing from a rugged ledge filled our jug with
ice-cold water. On the ledge, columbine was in
full bloom, a fact not often recorded for the 25th
of April. Beyond, lay Fairhaven Bay, a beauti-
ful widening of the riv^er framed in wooded hills.
Upon the crest of one of these hills stood three
pines, aiid into the middle one a hawk descended
upon its nest. Beyond the bay came a belt of
meadow shore where the wind had a wide sweep.
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 141
Here we came upon a wounded sheldrake, whose
quick and clever diving and desperate beatings
along the tops of the waves enabled him to es-
cape us. In the river's wandering across this
meadow it led us close to a charming home spot.
A high hill, broken on the river side into many
gray ledges, overhung a narrow, bright green
field. This was the home acre. A house sur-
rounded by shrubbery, a barn blessed with
calves, hens, broods of young chickens, a kitchen
garden newly planted, an orchard with swelling
flower buds, a bridge with many piers and a
bright red boat moored near it, — all these things
lay cosily under the ledges. Swallows flew
merrily back and forth between meadow and
barnyard, and a bluebird sang sweet music in an
apple-tree. We paused under the bridge and
took account of the weather. The wind was
rough and came in gusts ; the sky was now com-
pletely overcast, and in the north ugly clouds
seemed pressing forward up the river. Oilskin
coats and rubber covers for the tops of the ca-
noes were brought into play, and then away we
sped under reefed sails across the next mile of
river. Rain, hail, and snow all pelted us, and
helped the wind lash the river into foam.
An hour before noon we landed at a hillside
covered with pines and cedars, and sought shel-
ter in the woods for dinner and a fire. The hill
142 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
sloped towards the soutli and commanded a view
of a wide bend in the river, and beyond it the
beginning of the great Sudbury meadows, now
under water and more like a shallow lake than a
stream. Kept dry by the pines and in a glow by
a fire of dry twigs and pine needles, we watched
the strange mingling of seasons before us. An
angry sky blotched with luminous white and
leaden gray ; a river flowing against the storm,
covered with white caps, foam, and the paths of
sudden " flaws ; " beyond, flat grass land and a
birch wood forming a background for the sway-
ing columns of snowflakes, which were whirled up
the stream, across the drenched fields and out of
sight over the meadows, — such was the wintry
side of the picture. Nearer, was a grassy slope
of the tenderest green flecked with everlasting,
saxifrage, anemones, small purple violets of at
least two kinds, white violets, innocents, as I love
to call houstonia, early buttercups, potentilla, and
dandelions. In the pines or within earshot were
robins, hermit thrushes, pine warblers, a parula
warbler, chipping sparrows, song sparrows, and
field sparrows. Such was the spring-like side of
the picture. Squall after squall passed, but the
warblers sang on, and the swallows skimmed the
river and seemed as gay among snowflakes as
among sunbeams.
As the water on the Sudbury meadows was so
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 143
shallow that more was to be feared from ground-
ing than from tipping over, we hoisted sail and
let the storm winds do their wildest with us.
The canoes careened, the sheets tugged until our
hands ached holding them, and off we flew like
parts of the driving scud, up the long miles of
meadow. Here and there bushes, or tussocks
of swam J) grass, reared their heads above the
water and warned us from the shallows, but in
the main the course was clear, and we passed
over it as swiftly as the storm itself.
About three o'clock the sun came out, and we
found ourselves near Wayland village. Shel-
tered from the wind by a railway embank-
ment, we clung to the edge of a half-submerge:!
meadow, to watch the flight of swallows after
the storm. Perhaps we saw a thousand swal-
lows that day, or perhaps my friend's usually
conservative mind was too excited to estimate
fairly. There were enough at all events to
cover every rod of meadow with the poetry of
geometry, drawn again and again in living lines
of lustrous blue and black, warm chestnut, and
gleaming white. The white-bellied swallows out-
numbered all others ten to one, but in the maze
could be seen barn swallows, bank swallows,
eaves swallows, and now and then a purple mar-
tin or a chimney swift. Away to the west was
Nobscot Hill. Eastward, not more than a mile
144 LAND OF THE LTNGERING SNOW.
distant, was Waylancl village, and just ahead
was the sunny slope of Heard's Island, our ulti-
ma TTiule. Nothing short of another snow-squall
could have made us leave the dancing swallows,
but the squall came, and we sought Heard's Is-
land and friendly firesides.
After resting a bit we put on all the warm
clothes we could muster, and took a brisk walk
to Heard's pond, which bounds the island on the
southwest, and to the Wayland elm, the noblest
tree in Massachusetts. The cold appealed to us
as strongly as though Februai-y had come again,
and we feared that the birds, buds, and flowers
would suffer during the night. Heard's pond
is a charming sheet of water, soon doubtless to
become the centre of a circle of cheery summer
cottages. As for the Wayland elm, it is a won-
derful triumph of nature. As we paced under
it from north to south, its ancient branches
seemed to extend over one hundred and twenty-
five feet from one side of its lawn to the other.
Two very large elms which stand near it are
dwarfed by its royal size. Its symmetry, the per-
fect condition of its many branches and myriad
twigs, the healthy state of its unscarred bark,
and the simple dignity of its jDosition, all make it
an ideal tree, — one which a savage might adore
as the abiding place of a spirit. That night the
canoes slept alone on the edge of the cold mead-
A VOYAGE TO HE ABB'S ISLAND. 145
ow, and my slumbers were presided over, not by
great horned owls, but by time-honored pictures
of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Louis Agassiz, and
Benjamin Peiree, and of Rome, Tivoii, Venice,
Florence, and fair Harvard.
Sunday dawned cool, clear and windy. There
had been no frost. Nature had been true to
herself, as she generally is. From nine till six
we fought our way homewards against impetuous
winds. No sail could aid us, no current do more
than mitigate the force of the air. The battle
against the waves developed a marked difference
in our canoes. The moment we rounded a curve
into a stretch of wind-swept water my canoe
shot ahead of the other without extra effort on
my part. In still water, and especially towards
evening, when the wind died out, my friend was
the one who played with his paddle, and I the
one who toiled. At two o'clock we landed at
the foot of a bold ledge rising abruptly sixty or
seventy feet from the stream. We climbed part
way to the summit and lunched, surrounded by
columbine, violets, saxifrage and dozens of birds.
A pewee complained of us, and turning we saw
her nest on the face of the ledge, hidden under a
projecting shoulder of rock. It was just com-
pleted, and its delicate moss trimming made it
seem part of the lichen-grown ledge itself. From
the pines came the thin voice of a black-throated
146 LAND OF THE LIXGERING SNOW.
green warbler saying, " one, two, three-a, four,"
and not far away the strong, brave phrases of
the solitary vireo were anclible. A real treat
was the song of the ruby-crowned kinglet. It
reminds me of a favorite mountain cascade of
mine deep in hemlock woods, which has spar-
kling jets, quick twists in its descending current,
unbroken rushes over polished rock, and then
three or four plunges, ending in a dark pool
where trout linger under the foam. As we
looked over the water a pair of wood ducks flew
by, and at another time a small flock of black
ducks. A kingfisher passed and repassed, sound-
ing his harsh rattle, and a great blue-gray and
wliite marsh hawk sailed down stream along the
me dovv.
We camped that night eighteen miles from
Heard's Island and three miles below the Min-
ute-jMan. Ball's Hill rose above us, and Great
Meadow, now half above water, extended before
us like a wide lagoon. The curving shore was
thickly strewn with pieces of di-y wood of curi-
ous shapes. When my friend stated that there
was a wooden pail factory on the Assabet I un-
derstood the origin of our fuel supply. During
the last mile of the v^oj-age, and while we were eat-
ing our supper, we heard a bittern " pumping "
on the meadow. At sunrise next morning two
could be heard from the top of the hill, one
A VOYAGE TO HEARD'S ISLAND. 147
up stream and another down towards Carlisle
bridge. The syllables " pung-ehuck " repeated
three or four times give an idea of this sound
when it is made at a distance. After dark, as
we lingered by our fire, we heard the " quauk "
of a night heron flying down stream. I slept as
well that night in my narrow mummy case as I
should have on my broad spring bed at home.
To see a sunrise from the top of Ball's Hill on
a warm still day in April is worth an eighteen-
mile paddle. There were bitterns pumping,
crows cawing, mourning doves cooing, grouse
and woodpeckers drumming, blackbirds creaking,
kingfishers rattling, and a throng of thrushes,
warblers, and finches singing in that early mass
at St. Ann's. The sun came up behind Bedford
towers, cast golden rays upon Great Meadow
and passed into gray clouds. Although we ex-
pected rain we spent half the forenoon coasting
along Carlisle shore and wandering through the
pine woods. I found a snug little screech owl
in a hole in an apple-tree and tried to induce
him to come out. No pounding on the tree nor
gentle poking of him produced any effect. He
was as placid as though made of the dead leaves
and decayed wood which his coloring most sug-
gested. A towhee bunting and his mate were
scratching in the dry leaves by the river side.
They, like the fox sparrows, seem to work both
feet at once in scratching. It was a proud sight
148 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
when a high-flying osprey phmged downward
through many a foot of air to the river, and scat-
tered myriad drops as he struck the water in a
vain efifort to grasp a wary fish. A pair of red-
shouldered hawks screamed angrily at us as we
paddled past their chosen grove. A bittern flew
up stream and settled in a snarl of rushes. We
marked the spot and my friend paddled to it.
The bird allowed the bow of the canoe to come
within six or seven feet of him before his confi-
dence in his protective coloring failed sufficiently
to make him fly. A spotted sandpiper flew from
shore to shore ahead of us, giving his character-
istic whistle as he sped low over the water.
When he remained for a moment on the shore
his " teetering " seemed to make his outlines
blend in the river ripples. The water thrush,
a warbler next of kin to the ovenbird, has the
teetering habit to a less marked degree, and is
also a bird whose life is passed near the edge of
waves.
Not long after midday we sighted the Minute-
Man, passed under his wooden bridge and
grounded our boats on the Old Manse shore. A
happy voyage was over. We had met fifty-seven
kinds of birds and seen eighteen or more kinds
of flowers in bloom. We had killed nothing,
not even time, for those sixty-seven hours will
live as long as our memory of pleasant things
serves us.
A FOREST ANTHEM.
The 30th of April was a hot day. I left
Boston at 12.30 p. m., in a car marked for the
White Mountains via Conway Junction. The
country was beautifully green, and some early
fruit trees were white with flowers. In the brook
meadows the marsh marigolds were gleaming
like gold coin, and now and then we passed a
pasture whitened by houstonia. As we rolled
over the Ipswich and Rowley marshes the dunes
showed their ragged ranges against the eastern
sky, and the sunlight brought out the beauty
of their coloring. I was struck by the indiffer-
ence to the cars of many of the wild creatures
we passed. A woodchuck trundled his fat body
slowly over a sandy field and scarcely looked at
the train. Crows often walked up and down a
stubble field within fifty feet of the track and
merely kept one eye on the rushing, dust-raising
cars. Near Kittery an eagle drew nearer and
nearer to the train as though interested by it.
On the other hand, sheep and dozens of awk-
ward spring lambs fled from us, and horses kicked
up their heels and galloped away in their pas-
150 LAND OF THE LIXGERING SNOW.
tures, or shied in harness, to the terror of nervous
women. After passing- Wolfborough Junction
I watched for traces of winter, but Wakefield
and Ossipee were as green as Concord and Cam-
bridge. Maiugolds shone by the brooks, arbu-
tus smiled from the shady banks along the cut-
tings, maples glowed red in the descending rays
of the sun. The leaves on birches and poplars
were well out and brilliant in color. Swallows
were skimming over Bearcamp water, and smoke
hung over the mountains so that even Cho-
corua's peak was not in view until I reached
West Ossipee and left the train.
Half of the country between the Ossipee Moun-
tains and Chocorua is a sandy level covered
with pitch-pines and scrub-oaks. It is a fine
place for blueberries, fires, and pine warblers in
summer, for crows, golden rod, and asters in
autumn, and for snowdrifts in winter. Now
and then one gets a glimpse of a deer among
the scrub, and in winter fox tracks are always
thick upon the snow which lies heavy upon
these plains. As the sun sank low in the west
the air became chilly and the snow wrinkles on
Chocorua's brow seemed more real. Towards
the east a tower of smoke rose into the sky, and
at one point I caught a glimpse of the flames
not more than a mile away. By seven 1 was
supping at a cosy fireside in Tamworth Iron
A FOREST ANTHEM. 151
Works village, listening to tales of winter hard-
ships and spring sickness, for the grip had been
making hearts weary even in these fastnesses of
the north. Then under the light of the stars I
walked on up the Chocorua River valley towards
the lakes and the mountain, at whose feet my
haven nestled. Lights gleamed and were lost
in the valley behind me. Dull masses of fire-
light shone upon the smoky sky in three places
on the horizon. A torch flashed, went down,
and flashed again, marking a spot where a fish-
erman was watching, spear in hand, for suckers
in a meadow brook. Then, as I reached the
crest of the hill, I saw below me the white water
ot" the lakes, and beyond, above, dimly present
in the smoky heaven as conscience is present in
the mind of man — Chocorua.
The stars burned near it like altar candles.
The smoke of fires rose around it like incense,
the song of myriad frogs floated softly from the
lakes below like the distant chanting of a choir,
and the whispering of the wind in the pines
was like the moving of many lips in prayer.
Early the next morning I was out under the
cloudless sky listening to the voices of May day.
Sparrows were in the majority. Song, field,
chipping, vesper, white-throats, and juncos were
all there, the white-throats being the most
numerous. White-bellied and barn swallows
152 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
circled around the cottage, and chimney-swifts
dotted the sky with their short, sharp notes.
Loons were making wikl clamor on the lake, the
phoebe note of the chickadee came like a cool
breeze from the orchard, and up in the sugar-
maple grove a pigeon woodpecker w'as calling
"flick-flick-flick-flick-flick-flick" a great many
times in succession. The air was superlatively
pure, sparkling, full of that which makes deep
breathing a pleasure. The gi^eat moiuitain
peak stood out sharply against the northern sky,
and the morning sunbeams came back dancing
from its snowdrifts. Peace pervaded every-
thing, 5'et a thrill of life was trembling in earth
and air and water. Spring, real spring was
present in that hind, with no threat of east wind
to chill it. In the woods, beside the roads,
the arbutus grew in masses. Its leaves were
flattened to earth, just as the snow had left
them. To find the blossoms one had to run a
finger down the stems and lift up the shy
flowers to the light of day. Their perfume made
the air precious. The straw-colored bells of the
uvularla swung in the breeze. In the woods
by the brookside the painted and the dark red
trilliums hid their beauty, but in every grove,
upon the sides of the mountains, and along the
shores of the lakes, the blossoms of the maples
glowed red in the sunlight.
A FOREST ANTHEM. 153
All through the clay the white-throated spar-
rows scratched in the leaves which the ineltiua:
snows had left pressed to the surface of the
ground. I estimated that I saw over a hundred
of these busy birds. A few were singing, and
their " pe-pe-pe-pe-peabody, peabody, peabody "
went straight to the heart — just as it always
does, whether in spring, summer or autumn. I
caught one beautiful male who had flown through
an open doorway and was beating himself
against the window pane. Holding him gently
but firmly in my closed hand, so that his won-
derfully marked head alone was free to move,
I stroked his black, white, and yellow feathers
with the tip of my right forefinger. After
repeated pressure of the gentlest kind on the
back of his beautiful head and the nape of his
neck, I slowly opened my hand and left him
perched on my middle finger. He looked around
him but did not offer to fly. Again and
again I brought my hand up slowly to his head
and caressed him. His clear, bright eyes
watched me fearlessly. I moved him gently,
but the little feet only clung the more closely to
my finger. For nearly five minutes he perched
there contentedly, and then, recovering some
suppressed faculty, he rejoined his friends
among tlie dry leaves.
About noon I visited a red maple which I
154 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
knew had been a favorite sap-drinking resort of
the yellow-bellied woodpeckers and their attend-
ant friends, the humming birds. The woodj^eok-
ers were at the tree, but unaccompanied as yet
by hummers. There was evidence in the large
number of new holes already cut in the bark of
the tree that the woodpeckers had been back
from the south since about April 20. They
were busy excavating a new house in a sound
poplar tree near their maple fountain, and that
also showed a week or more of thought and labor
expended. Black and white creeping warblers
and Nashville warblers were abundant in the
woods near by, and I suspected a downy wood-
pecker of having selected a house-lot near the
sapsuckers, from the close watch which he kept
on me while I was in the neighborhood. Dur-
ing the half hour which I spent watching the
yellow-bellied woodpeckers drinking the flowing
sap on the maple and digging diligently at their
hole in the poplar, I heard an unbroken cawing
of crows at a distance. At last the uproar was
so great that I went to seek an explanation of it.
AVell hidden on the crest of a kame, I looked
across a narrow ravine into the edije of a hanof-
ing wood of old beeches and yellow birches.
Sixteen crows were in these trees, gathered with-
in a few yards of each other. They were all caw-
ing at once, and shaking their heads, flapping
A FOREST ANTHEM. 155
their wings and hopping back and forth from
branch to branch. The centre of attraction
seemed to be an idea, not carrion or an owl. I
tested this by hooting like a barred owl. In-
stantly sixteen pairs of wings brought sixteen
excited birds across the ravine in search of hated
Strix, but I lay low under a hemlock and the
crows returned to their rendezvous and their
clamorous debate. Several times during the
afternoon faint echoes of their oratory reached
me at my house half a mile away.
At sunset I walked to the rustic bridge be-
tween the lakes and let the wonderful beauty of
the scene flow in and fill every corner of my be-
ing. Against the northern sky rose Chocorua,
Paugus, Passaconaway and Whiteface, four con-
nected mountains, each beautiful, but all differ-
ing one from another. Chocorua on the east,
and due north of the lakes, sustains a horn of
naked rock upon shoulders of converging wooded
ridges. Paugus, heavily wooded, yet with many
ledge faces and scars showing; light among its
hemlocks, is a mountain of curves and wrinkles,
having no one definite summit, but many fire
and wind swept domes. Passaconaway is an im-
mense sj^ruce-covered pyramid, pathless and for-
bidding. Whiteface, at the west, is a shoulder
of rock 4,000 feet high, draped in forest except
where an avalanche has rent its covering and
156 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
left bare its substance. All of these peaks
rested upon a sky of gold flecked with crimson.
All of them were repeated in the placid lake,
which also copied the glory of the sky and of
the descending sun. To the east of the lake a
forest of ancient pines extends from the shore
part way up a ridge. Above the pines the
ridge is covered with young birches, poplars
and maples. The tender foliage of these trees,
bathed in the last rays of the sun, formed a
glowing veil of color. The most delicate greens
showed where young leaves were unrolling on
poplars and birches, soft reds covered the maples,
and the silvery white perpendicular lines of the
birch stems formed a thousand graceful columns
for the support of the light masses of color which
clung to them. That the sky behind this gay
fresco of the spring was pure pale blue only
added to its loveliness. Lake, mountains, woods,
sky gave joy to the eye and peace to the heart.
Watching them I said : " Had they but a voice,
how eloquent it would be of praise, how full of
courage and hope. The lake is pure and deep,
the mountains strong and high, the woods hope-
ful and kind, the sky infinite and full of mys-
tery." Then there came from the midst of the
dark pines nearest the shore a voice, and it
seemed to me that no other voice in all that wild
New Hampshire valley could have come so near
A FOREST ANTHEM. 157
expressing the praise, hope, and beauty of that
sjjot as the song- which floated softly out from
the shadows. Those who from childhood have
known the song of the hermit thrush, and had it
woven into the very fibres of their hearts, will
know how I was thrilled by the voice of that
hermit thrush, singing on May-day evening at
the foot of Choeorua, while snow still gleamed
on the mountain summits.
Strolling up the road south of the lakes I sud-
denly heard the nasal call of a woodcock coming
from a dry and sloping field facing the sunset.
Soon he rose, and the sound, like that of a sing-
ing reed, came through the air. I looked up and
presently saw the bird circling irregularly in
the upper air, his wings beating rapidly. Jump-
ing the wall I hurried to the spot from which he
had risen. No sooner had I crouched among
the bushes than the water-whistle notes came
nearer and nearer, and then there was a great
rushing of swift wings and the bird alit within
a few paces of me. He immediately began mak-
ing a soft and odd note as a substitute for his
" 'n-yah ! " I had heard it described by the syl-
lables "puttie," but as it reached me, it lacked
the definiteness and disjunctive quality of those
sounds. That the bird saw me I did not doubt
for a moment. He faced me, and in the dim
light I seemed to feel his close set eyes fixed
158'' LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
upon me. I could not see that he moved head
or wings in making his inquiring note. After
a shorter rest than usual he rose westward in a
long diagonal over the bushes and began his cir-
cling. The next time he came down he was a
hundred feet distant, and began at once the
nasal call. In all he made ten or eleven as-
cents, and in coming down avoided me, although
I changed my ground each time he rose and
tried hard to get near him again. He finally
moved to another field, where he was circling at
half past seven, when I left the hill.
Early next morning when I returned to the
city my eyes were full of \'isions of beautiful
mountain scenery, and my ears rang with the
mocking laughter of loons and the sweet song
of the hermit thrush.
THE BITTERN'S LOVE SONG.
On Saturday, May 9, spring had the sulks.
In the afternoon a bitterly cold east wind de-
pressed birds, discouraged flowers, turned the
sky gray, and left the sun looking like a red
wafer. So dim was it that at four o'clock I
turned my opera glass on it and scanned it as
though it were only the moon. If a May east
wind has this chilling effect upon the sun, what
wonder that its blast makes poor mortals miser-
able !
The sun had a black spot on his face. It
looked large enough to be Mercury or Venus
taking a transit on the sly.
I went by an afternoon train to Waverley and
walked thence to Rock Meadow on Beaver Brook.
Maps of recent date call this brook " Clematis
Brook," a pretty name, no doubt, but one never
approved by the General Court. It was at the
foot of Rock Meadow that the beavers made their
dam, lived, died, and passed into histor}^. Surely
the branch of the brook where the beavers lived
should be called Beaver Brook, rather than the
branch where beavers never lived and never could
160 LAND OF THE LINGERIXG HNOW.
have lived, owing to the lack of a good place for
their dam. Moreover, the " Clematis Brook " of
the railway guide and the real estate office is the
Beaver Brook sung of by a writer whose know-
ledge of Cambridge and its surroundings has
never been challenged. Here is his description
of the old mill which once stood at the cascade
just above the Waverley oaks : —
Climbing- the loose-piled wall that hems
The road along the mill pond's brink,
From 'neath the arching barberry stems,
My footstep scares the shy chewink.
Beneath the bony buttonwood
The mill's red door lets forth the din ;
The whitened miller, dust-imbued,
n.its past the square of dark within.
No mountain torrent's strength is here ;
Sweet Beaver, child of forest still.
Heaps its small pitcher to the ear
And gently waits the miller's will.
In a note written June 16, 1891, Mr. Lowell
says : " You are right. The brook which was
down by the great oaks was certainly called
' Beaver ' when I first knew it more than fifty
years ago. The scene of my poem was the little
millpond, somewhat higher up towards the north,
below which was a waterfall in whose company
I often passed the day."
The old mill and its miller have Ions: since
THE BITTERN'S LOVE SONG. IGl
been swept away by the currents of Beaver
Brook and of that greater stream called Life.
The millstone lies below the dam, with moss, not
flour, on its cheek. Clematis twines itself over
the ruin and seeks even to twine its name over
the name hallowed by time and song.
The willows along Concord turnjjike where
that venerable causeway crosses Rock Meadow
are wonderful places for birds. Even on this
bleak, discouraged afternoon I saw over thirty
species, including eight kinds of warblers. Oue
of them was the black-throated blue warbler,
dark, dignified and exclusive. Above he is
slaty-blue ; below, white. His throat, chin and
face are jet black. On each wing he carries a
triangular white spot, which marks him as far
as the eye can distinguish his dainty form. His
wife dresses in green and is one of the " wonder
birds" to young collectors, but she may be iden-
tified by the white spot on her wing. Another
warbler met for the first time this season was
the chestnut-sided. His head is yellow on top,
his back is dark, his under parts white. His eye
is in a black patch, and running from it down
his side is a chestnut streak, or series of streaks,
often very distin^'t. I once found a nest of a
chestnut-sided warbler, in which young birds
were nearly ready to fly, placed in the crotch of
a brake, and having no other support. The
162 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
brakes grew thickly over more than an acre of
sparse woodland, and this nest bore the same
relation to the miniature forest that an osprey's
ponderous structure does to stunted woods by
the seashore.
Another bird which I was pleased to see was
the kingbird. Three chilly individuals of this
pugnacious species sat close together on a willow
limb, now and then one of them flying up with
a harsh chatter to catch an insect on the wing.
While watchingf these kingbirds I fancied that
I heard the sound of a bittern " pumping." It
was just six o'clock, and the sound seemed far
away, but I scanned the meadow carefully
through a gap in the willows. About a hun-
dred yards from the road was a pile of weathered
meadow hay, containing perhaps two or three
pitchforks-full. On this stood a bittern. His
colorins: harmonized with it so well that at first
I mistook him for a bundle of it poked up
against a stake. I watched liim for nearly ten
minutes, part of the time from the road, later
from behind a bunch of bushes fifty feet nearer
to him. Four times during this period he made
his singular call. His body seemed to be carried
about at the angle of a turkey's. His neck was
much curved. Suddenly the lower jjart of the
curve was agitated in a way to suggest retch-
ing, and a hint of the sound to come later be-
THE BITTERN'S LOVE SONG. 163
came faintly audible. Then the agitation, which
became much more violent, affected the upper
throat, neck and head, the head being* thrown
violently upward and the white upon the throat
showing like a flash of light every time the spas-
modic fling of the neck was repeated. The
sound at that short interval was different in
quality from the bittern's note carried to a dis-
tance. I fancied that it suggested the choking
and gurgling of a bottle from which liquid is be-
ing poured, the bottle during the process being
held inside an empty hogshead. In trying to
approach the bird more closely I alarmed him,
and he slunk off into the high meadow grass
beyond the haycock. At a distance the sound
seemed like two words, " pung chuck," but near
by there seemed to be a third syllable ; and sev-
eral minor sounds, inaudible at a distance, were
made while the bird was getting up steam. It
seemed to me at the time, knowing nothing of
the nature of the process, that the bird produced
the sound by a mechanical use of a column of
air extending from its open mouth to its stom-
ach. Perhaps whooping cough is perennial in
the bittern family.
In this meadow the marsh marigolds were
abundant, but on seeking to gather a bunch I
felt the first sorrow of the year. The flowers
were faded, their golden petals were stained and
164 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
partly fallen, their beauty had departed. So
soon! Spring, scarcel}^ sure of its standing
as a season, is marked with the first scars of
death. Not far away I saw a dandelion gone to
seed. Truly if the winter is tempered by many
a suggestion of the renewal of life, the spring is
branded with many a reminder of the coming of
death. Life and death ; what are they but the
swinging of a pendulum, — the one as sure to
succeed the other as the other is certain to give
place to the one. Each, while it lasts, contains
an ever increasing germ of the other. Neither
can be final so long as law exists.
WAEBLER SUNDAY.
I FULLY intended to climb Nobseot Hill on
Sunday, May 10th, but when I reached the
Massachusetts Central Railway Station iu North
Cambridge, I found that there were no Sunday
trains, my apparently straightforward time-table
to the contrary notwithstanding. Blessing that
railway, as I had frequently blessed it before, I
hurried back to Porter's Station and took a
train on the Fitchburg. Just where I was to
leave that train I was uncertain. It w^as my hope
that the conductor, or the brakeman, could tell
me which station was nearest to Nobseot Hill.
So I went to Soutli Acton and changed to a
train for Marlborough. Neither conductor nor
brakeman had ever heard of Nobseot Hill, and
said there were so many hills I could get ovit
almost anywhere and find what I wanted. As
no impressive hill could be seen from the ear
windows, I finally left the train at a place called
Rockbottom. A merciless red sun beat down
upon the little village. Scarcely a breath of air
was stirring. The loiterers around the station
were Irish mill operatives who knew nothing
166 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
and seemed to care nothing about the natural
surroundings of their home. The only one who
showed even kindly curiosity felt sure that
Honeypot Hill was what I meant, and pointed
out a shadeless gravel bubble just across the
Assabet. Finding an old resident I learned
that Nobscot Hill was six or seven miles away
in Sudbury. Could I hire a horse ? No, it
would be impossible to secure one.
Left to the treeless fields of Rockbottom, the
meadows of the listless Assabet and the allure-
ments of Honeypot Hill, I felt something akin
to despair gnawing at my temper. I could not
even go home, for the next train did not start
for the city until six p. M. The heat was worthy
of July, but in spite of it I chose the railway
embankment as a short cut across the Assabet
and its meadows to the only piece of woods in
sight. Dressed as warmly as on my January
walks, for the wind had been east and the sky
cold when I left Cambridge, I strolled down the
half-mile of track, enjoying Nature as an Esqui-
maux might enjoy the Sahara. The sun's light
caught in the ripples of the Assabet, and each
reflection seemed a flame. An oriole sang from
the midst of a snowy pinnacle of pear blossom?,
and his plumage seemed to burn in its midst.
Two tiny redstarts chased each other in irregu-
lar circles above the bushes, and as I glanced at
WARBLER SUNDAY. 167
them fire seemed devouring their expanded tails
and wings. Down in the alders by the river-
side a blackbird called out, " Cong-ka-ree —
for I see thee," and then he hovered over the
marsh grass till red - hot spots appeared on
his shoulders. Fortunately for eyes and brain
the pine woods were gained at last, and I
squirmed under a barbed wire fence and took
refuge in their soothing shade.
Lying there I reflected, and my conclusion
was that it was a better day to keep quiet under
the pines by Assabet water than to climb the
slopes of Nobscot Hill. The hot air trembled
with the songs of birds, and wandering songsters
passed under or over the pines, sometimes paus-
ing in their branches. The noisy calls and only
half-musical notes of the robin rang out again
and again. A veery or Wilson's thrush com-
plained of my intrusion. He reminded me that
his cousins, the hermits, had gone north before
this, and were even then singing their hymns
in the cloisters of the hemlock forests. Over the
river a brown thrush was pouring out his rol-
licking song, and in a ditch by the railway track
a catbird sat among briers and flung out alter-
nating bits of music and spiteful complaint.
One bluebird sat on the telegraph wire, and
another on an apple-tree at the foot of Honeypot
Hill. First one and then the other murmured
168 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
a comment or a word of love. If it was a com-
ment it was full of liapp}^ content ; if a word of
love it must have sounded very sweet to its mate.
Back and forth over the Assabet and its mead^
ows passed the white-bellied swallows. The
sunlight found favor in the blue lustre of their
backs, and as they rose and fell, turned left or
turned right, the immaculate whiteness of their
under plumage also responded, flashing to the
touch of light. They are my favorites among
the swallows. The martins are dark and
strong, the bank swallows small and lacking in
individuality ; the eaves swallows irregularly
distributed and petulant, the barn swallows less
graceful in flight and less perfect in form. As
for the swifts they are not swallows, and if they
were, they seem to be only animated forms of
soot possessed of the power of flying through
space with incredible speed, and of steering them-
selves without tails.
The bushes and grasses in and upon the
banks of the Assabet were alive with red-
wing blackbirds. The males, gay in plumage,
noisy and restless, seemed to pervade the
meadows. The females, smaller, sober in
dress and more chary of speech, flitted back
and forth in everlasting bustle. I saw no bobo-
links. Occasionally the plaintive call of a
meadow starling blended with the blackbird
WARBLER SUNDAY. 169
clamor, and at brief intervals the cheerful dis-
cord of the Baltimore oriole joined the din.
Within the grove there was ff lesser circle of
motion and noise. The harsh voice or the
l^assing- shadow of a crow made the warblers in
that inner circle seem more like fractions of
bird life than separate, animated beings. In all,
I count upon seeing nineteen species of warblers
during the migration. It is possible to see
sever;)! more kinds, but I refer to my regular
friends. The outrunners of the migrating
horde are the pine warblers, yellow - rumps,
yellow red-polls, black-and-white creepers, sum-
mer yellow - birds, and black - throated green
warblers. These are followed by the redstarts,
black - throated blues, parulas, chestnut - sided
warblers, blackburnians, bay - breasteds, Nash-
villes, ovenbirds and accentors, and at varying
times by the Maryland yellow-throats, Wilson's
black-caps, Canadian flycatchers and black-polls,
the last-named sounding the knell of the migra-
tion with their irritating z-z-z-ing. This hot day
by the Assabet was evidently just to the liking
of the warblers. Their thin voices sounded in
every direction. A female redstart pursued her
mate round and round and round the grove,
only stopping for a second's rest, in which her
sliarp little voice filled the chinks in her circle
of perpetual motion. A succession of yellow-
170 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
rumpecl warblers passed through the trees catch-
ing insects on the wing. They wore a gold spot
on each breast,* on their rinnps, and on their
crowns. Their white throats reminded me of
the contour of a swallow's throat. The redstarts
were thinking of housekeeping. The yellow-
rumps were rangers, foraging on their line of
mai"ch. In a few days the redstarts will have
built the softest little cup in the crotch of a
maple in that very grove ; the yellow-rumps will
perhaps be north of the Basin of Minas.
Along the edges of the meadow, in alders and
other low thick growth, bits of pure gold
shot hither and thither in the sunlight. They
were summer yellow-birds. " Sweety, sweety,
sweet, sweet, sweet," is a free translation of their
song. They, too, were love-making, and will
soon be treasuring little spotted eggs in dainty
fleece-lined, cup-shaped nests, built in those iden-
tical bushes. The Assabet will see their nests
begun, but the leaves will grow large and keep
the secret. Pine-creeping warblers and black-
and-white creeping warblers are appropriately
named. Both were abundant by the Assabet,
and willing to be watched. They are inspectors
of leaves and twigs, as the downy woodpeck-
ers and little brown creepers are inspectors of
trunks and limbs. All day long the trilling of
the pine warblers sounded in the hot air. Seeing
WARBLER SUNDAY. Ill
a handsome golden-olive male motionless on tlie
lower limb of a pine, I crept close to him and lay
on the fragrant needles watching him. For ten
minutes neither he nor a chickadee in the next
tree moved a feather. Then I whistled a gentle
trill. The pine warbler stirred. and listened.
Then he tipped back his head, slightly opened
his tiny beak and his throat trembled as the
notes rolled evenly out. His notes roll : those
of a chipping sparrow, which to the un practiced
ear are indistinguishable, are better indicated by
a line of zigzags.
About one o'clock I crossed the Assabet and
climbed a hill overlooking it and Boon Pond
which empties into it. A strong breeze came like
a benediction to make my lunch refreshing.
Beyond the pond and the nearer hills I saw
Nobscot Hill as many miles to the southeast of
me in Stow, as it had been west of me in Way-
land. Southward on a ridge was Marlborough.
Northward in a hollow was Maynard, with its
factory chimneys. There seemed to be some
comfortable farming land in Stow, and that
nearest us, and adjoining Honeypot Hill, —
which, by the way, looked very insignificant
from my nameless hill, which I liked because no
one had advised me to climb it — was well
ploughed, harrowed, and sown, and flanked by
orchards and nurseries. On this cool hill-top
172 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
white - throated sparrows were scratching in
the leaves. There has been a great migration
of these birds this year, or else the usual migTa-
tion has seemed greater, because the birds have
tarried during a week of cool, dry weather
when they might have travelled quickly under
different circumstances. Several of the apple-
trees on the south side of this hill were in bloom,
and the hum of bees came from them. It
IS a soothing sound, akin to the singing of a
tea-kettle in some snug farmhouse kitchen. The
orioles were in the orchard, but I watched in vain
for humming birds. There were orioles in Cam-
bridge on Saturday, but they were quiet ; this
day is their first of demonstration in numbers.
It is also the first day of open lilac blossoms.
On the north shore of Boon Pond I found a
large and beautiful grove of pines. A majority
of the trees were pitch-pines, favorite resorts of
birds at any season and in any weather. Lying
on a bank deeply cushioned with pine needles I
spent most of the afternoon fanned by a breeze
which swept across the pond, listening to the
music of the ripples, the warblers, and the field
sparrows in the pasture beyond the grove, and
gazing at the blue water, and the deep green of
the foliage above me. In winter white-pines
are very dark in color, while pitch-pines are
golden-green. At this season, by mutual con-
WARBLER SUNDAY. 173
cessions, their coloring conies so nearly together
that the eye finds difficulty in tracing their
outlines. The pines were alive with warblers.
Black - and - white creepers and pine warblers
were most numerous, but black-throated greens,
yellow-rumps, and yellow red-polls were almost
always within sight or hearing. The trick of
the yellow red-poll of wiggling his tail reminds
me of the water thrush and the spotted sand-
piper, but this bird certainly does not do it
because he frequents the edges of waves or
brooks. Between Boon Pond and the Assabet
are some damp woods, a meadow and a line of
willows. In the damp woods I found redstarts,
black- throated blue warblers and an ovenbird.
In the meadow a chewink was scratching among
the grass and innocents, and in the willows sum-
mer yellow-birds, yellow-rumps, chestnut-sided
warblers and black-throated greens caught flies
on the wing and frolicked with each other
among the falling blossoms. The blossoms as
they fell upon the pond looked like yellow cater-
pillars in danger of drowning, but as the wind
caught them they sailed away merrily to distant
shores. They made a brave fleet standing east-
ward with all sails set. The ovenbird differs
greatly from most of the other warblers. In
fact, his character and dress both proclaim him
a thrush. His back is olive-green, but it is not
174 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
far removed from the upper coloring of the
olive-backed thrush. Below he is white with
dusky spots on his breast and sides ; and so is
the olive-backed thrush. His eyes are large and
earnest like a thrush's, and his nest is placed
upon the ground like that of the hermit thrush.
His dark orange crown set in black is his one
family emblem which a thrush would repudiate.
The ovenbird by the Assabet dropped to the
ground when he saw me and stole away as
slowly and silently as though he had been a
bittern, expert in the art of gliding.
At six o'clock, I stood on a low bridge over
the Assabet at Whitman's Crossing. The air
was full of swallows, the bushes and weeds were
rich in blackbirds, snowy and rose-tinted blossoms
decked the orchards, a fair pale sunset presided
over the sky and looked at itself in the river.
A snake with his head reared above the ripples
swam swiftly across from one weedy shore to the
other. The w^histle of the train echoed a mile
away, and its growing thunder was in my ears.
Looking down the stream I could see a distant
hill ; nearer were two wooded points, one on the
east, one on the west ; nearer still a meadow full of
rank grass, and at my feet a mirror of blue
water. The coloring of that farewell glimpse of
Assabet was exquisite. The hill, covered prob-
ably with scrub oak, was rosy purple ; of the
WARBLER SUNDAY. 175
two wooded points, one was a mingling of the
dark green of pines in shadow, the pale tender
green of young beeches and birches, and the
delicate reds of maples bearing their keys ; the
other, densely grown with alders, was rich with
olive-browns and greens. The meadow grass was
bluish green in shadow, and golden green in
the sunlight. The intensity of the coloring
seemed to be increased by looking at it with my
head on one side. The effect of looking at any
landscape in this way is to make it much like
the image in a Claude Lorraine glass.
ROCK MEADOW AT NIGHT,
At a quarter past six on Monday, May 11, I
caught a train at Porter's Station and went to
Belmont. A brisk walk along the Concord
turnpike, past blooming horse-chestnuts, and
through air heavy with the perfume of lilacs, over
Wellington Hill and down into Rock Meadow,
brought me just at sunset to the willows and the
home of the bittern. Turning into the marsh, I
crossed it on an old cart track to a wooded island
in its midst. I concealed myself among the
small trees on the edge of the island and swept
the meadow with my glass. Hundreds of frogs,
piping hylas, redwing blackbirds, crows, cat-
birds, and small birds mingled their voices in an
indescribable vesper chorus. Nature was alone.
Man's presence was unsuspected. I felt like an
intruder, but remembered that I had no evil in-
tent against anything in that great meadow.
While still searching with my glass for the bit-
tern I heard his call, and at once discovered him.
He was a hiindred yards from me in the grass.
He was facing northwest, and I was nearly
ROCK MEADOW AT NIGHT. 177
due north of him. His head, neck and shoul-
ders were plainly visible. I settled myself into
a comfortable position and watched him closely
through my glass. Except when pumping or
preparing to pump he was perfectly motionless,
his beak pointing well upward. I knew when
he was about to begin his music by the slow
lowering of his beak. This was followed by the
agitation of his breast and the first sounds from
his throat. Then came his spasm, his neck and
head being thrown up and snapped forward so
violently that it seemed that the head must suf-
fer dislocation. With these contortions came
the noises which are so difficult to explain or
describe. In this instance it seemed as though
water was being shaken violently in a skin bot-
tle. Listening intently, the sounds seemed best
expressed by the syllables " kung-ka-unk," re-
peated three, four or five times. To the demor-
alization of my throat I repeated these syllables
loudly, making them as nearly as possible as the
bird did. He replied promptly and betrayed
interest by more rapid and longer performances.
This continued until it was so dark that I could
only just discern him with my glass, when sud-
denly my attention was distracted by the sonnd
of snipe flying overhead. Their performance
is similar to that of the woodcoek, but less elab-
orate. Risino; to a considerable height above
178 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
the meadow, they fly with rapid wing-beats round
and round over it, making from time to time a
series of short notes, similar to those produced
by a person blowing in a rapidly intermittent
way across the mouth of a small shallow bottle.
Whether this noise is vocal or mechanical in
character, the bird controls it, and stops it with-
out stopping its flight. This evening the bird
as a rule seemed satisfied with twenty-five or
thirty successive notes in a series.
My interest in the bittern was revived by
hearing him once more at a distance. Nothing
broke the level of the grass where his head had
been in sight so long. He seemed to have
moved quite rapidly over a space of a hundred
yards or more, and to be retreating westward
toward the woods and the brook. It was now
quite dark, save for the stars and a feeble young
moon in the western ^'kj. The snipe were still
flying as I left the meadow and picked my way
carefully back to the turnpike. Their voices
and those of frogs and J^ijnng liylas alone dis-
turbed the restful stillness of the night. I
looked up the road and down. It seemed like a
gi'cat conduit with li"ht sleamins: from both ends
along its white and level floor. Should I walk
to Belmont and wait for a ten o'clock train, or
traverse pastures and an unknown swamp in
order to reach Arlington Heights and later the
ROCK MEADOW AT NIGHT. 179
electi'ic cars ? There was novelty in the latter
alternative, and I chose it.
Leaving Rock Meadow I crossed a field, then
the road leading to the Belmont mineral spring,
and entered a pasture. A number of cows were
feeding by.the light of the puny moon. They
watched me suspiciously until the cedars con-
cealed my hurrying form. Then I struck Marsh
Street, and followed it uphill, until afar the tall
electric light on the Heights flashed a message
over intervening gloom. It was a mile distant.
The first half of that mile was over land, or
water, unknown to me. The second half was
across the cedar-dotted pastures so often visited
by me last winter. I left the road and struck
into the unknown pasture, keeping the moon on
my left and somewhat behind me. Cedars,
pines, birches, well-armed barberry and black-
berry bushes opposed my passage. Soon the
land began to decline, the Arlington beacon was
hidden, the air grew chilly, and the soil moist
and soft. Then jjatches of water gleamed on
my left, and the voices of frogs greeted me. A
shaky stone wall was crossed, and the dry laud
turned to mud and tussocks of grass. Then
came a ditch. This proved the crisis in the
walk, for beyond it the land rose and soon I
reached familiar ground. I recognized cedars
which had suffered in the ice and snow storms
180 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
of January. Their backs were still bent. On
my right were the dark woods in which I had
found the most beautiful snow caverns, and near
by was the ground frequented during long cold
weeks by the flock of winter robins. The soft
May night, with its frog music, was unlike those
days of hyperborean delights. It was more com-
fortable and more commonplace. The next
stone wall was the one where snow fleas had
swarmed by millions. I recalled in one of its
angles the white snow bearing the footprints of
quail and field mice. So I went on, picking
my way cautiously over the dark ground until
I came out into Park Avenue, close by the
Heights.
The view from the Heights at night is be-
witching. Myriads of stars people the blue
heavens, and myriads of baser stars peojjle those
depths below. The stars above differ one from
another in glory ; the stars below differ one from
another in evil. Those above tell of eternity
and rest. Those below tell of toil, vanity, self-
indulgence, crime, sickness, — the unrest of hu-
man life. Still, being a man, I looked down
into that sea of light, and seemed to find one star
gleaming in the distance which was a part of the
glory above, and related only by propinquity to
the evil of the city. Towards that light I took
my way, and finding it, put it out and went to
bed.
THE SECRETS OF THE MEADOW.
There are days in May when the northwest
wind sweeps through the trees with the bkister-
ing rush of September air. It seems to be test-
ing the young foliage and warning the soft,
glossy, newly unfolded leaves of the fate which
attends them only a few weeks later in the year.
It is rough with the apple blossoms piled high
upon the orchard's open arms, and it waves to
and fro the " Christmas candles " of the horse-
chestnut trees. On its breath is wafted the per-
fume of lilacs, or the pungent message of pine
woods burning, in spots left too long dry by the
fickle spring rains. There is a chill in this
turbulent air, not the damp chill of the east
wind, but the chill which has in it a faint sug-
gestion of autumnal frosts. Even after the wind
goes to sleep at sunset the air remains cold, and
farmers wonder if there is to be a late frost.
Sunday, May 17, was such a day, and, as
the woods were too full of noise and waving
leaves for birds to be either heard or seen, my
friend and I went to Rock Meadow to visit my
bittern. We reached the willows at four in the
182 LAND OF THE LINGERING iiNOW.
afternoon, feeling sure he would be present, be-
cause his mate is undoubtedly somewhere in that
quiet land of waving marsh grass, keeping warm
her four or five drab eggs in her cunningly con-
cealed nest. Between the wind gusts we listened
intently to hear his now familiar note. He was
not in the place where I had seen him before,
but at half past four, as we reached the northern
part of the meadow, I distinctly heard his boom-
ing near at hand. We crept cautiously along the
line of wall and. bushes bounding the meadow on
the north. Suddenly my friend gripped me by
the shoulder and dragged me to the ground. A
pair of black ducks flew by, scudding low over
the bushes. AV^e next disturbed a flock of twenty
crows, which rose from an old cornfield where
they had been feeding. Rock Meadow is a re-
markable rendezvous for crows, summer and
winter. What makes it so attractive I have
thus far been unable to ascertain. These crows
kept close watch upon us the rest of the after-
noon.
Standing upon a knoll capped with a few bar-
berry bushes, we looked straight down the whole
length of Rock Meadow. The rains of the past
two days had given a wonderful impetus to the
grass, which was now high enough to hide a bit-
tern completely, unless he chose to raise his
slender neck above it. With our glasses we
THE SECRETS OF THE MEADOW. 183
swept the wind -ruffled grass land thoroughly
over and over again. The bittern was not to be
seen. But almost at once my friend whispered
excitedly, " I see him," and by a common im-
j)ulse we merged our outlines in those of the
barberries behind us. The wary bird was in the
edge of the meadow, at the foot of the slight
slope on which we stood. His head and neck
were raised above the grass, and resembled in
size and color a cat-tail, which the wind and
weather had reduced to a mass of flaxen seed-
vessels loosely attached to their stalks. For
several minutes he did not move, and with our
eyes glued to the barrels of our field-glasses we
watched his uplifted beak and stiffened neck.
Slowly his head dropped, and with a premonitory
shake disappeared in the grass. Seven seconds
after it was flung up, so that the bill pointed to
the sky, but it fell back as quickly into the
grass. This was done four times, and each time
the " kung-ka-unk " came to our ears. After
this performance had been repeated several times,
the bittern sank slowly beneath the grass, as
though to begin pumping, but did not reappear.
Waiting for a while, we walked a few rods along
the edge of the meadow to a point where several
oak trees spread their strong arms to the breeze.
Concealed behind their trunks, we watched the
sea of grass, and soon discovered the beak and
184 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
long stiffened neck of the bittern pointing
towards the zenith, from a spot fifteen or twenty
yards distant from me place which we had just
left. He was quite as near us as before, and
this time he had no suspicion of our where-
abouts. I climbed into the middle of one of the
oaks, and my friend secured a comfortable posi-
tion on the wall below, and with glasses and a
stop-watch in constant use, we reduced the bit-
tern's performance to its lowest terms.
The bii'd, when at rest between his spasms,
stood with his neck extended and raised, and his
head and beak pointing forward and upward.
The first indication that he was about to pump
was a deliberate lowering of his beak to the
level of his body, and the settling down into his
breast and feathers of his long neck. This made
his breast look larger and fuller than when his
head was raised and his neck stretched upward.
The slow motion of lowering the head into line
with the body was followed by a slight shake of
the liead and throat, and the first of a series of
motions which were caused apparently by volun-
tary swallowing of air. The bill opened, the
head was raised slightly and then dropped, and
the bill closed with a snap. The first snap was
scarcely audible, the second was much louder,
the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth perfectly dis-
tinct, and a seventh, when made, was less dis-
THE SECRETS OF THE MEADOW. 185
tinct, partly because instantly followed by the
first " pump." Usually six or seven snaps were
succeeded by three or four pumps, but the bird
varied the number of snaps and pumps consider-
ably, and I presume different bitterns would show
marked individualities. By a "•pump" I mean
the triple sound which is called " booming,"
"stakedriving," or "pumping," according to the
fancy of the writer, and which to my ears sounds
as much like " kung-ka-unk " as anything else.
The head is in a line with the back when the
"kung" is made, but as the first syllable reaches
the ears of an observer, he sees the bird's head
flung abruptly and sharply back, so that the bill
points for a second to the zenith, and then sees
it thrown down again to its former position.
The " ka-unk " follows this spasm so closely that
it is impossible to be certain whether the " ka " is
made on the upward stroke or on the downward.
The three sounds "kung-ka-unk" occupy just
about a second of time, which makes it clear
how rapid is the motion of the head. The
period from the instant that the head first
reaches the level of the back to the instant when
the fourth " unk " makes the end of the song, is
in most cases exactly ten seconds in duration.
Then the head is raised, the long neck extends
itself, the breast grows smaller accordingly, and
the bird resuuies his stiffness and watchfulness.
186 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
My friend's stop-watcli recorded thirty-seven
seconds as the normal interval between the last
pump of one performance and the first snap of
the succeeding one. Twice during- an hour the
bittern sank beneath the grass and glided to a
new spot. Once I caught a glimpse of him on
his way, and he seemed to be moving more rap-
idly than the duration of his concealment indi-
cated. From his third station he took flight,
and, with long, graceful wing-strokes, flew an
eighth of a mile down the meadow and alighted
on the exact spot in which I had found him the
Monday evening preceding. We hastened back
to the turnjiike and sought the cover I had
previously used. As we listened to the bird at
a distance, with a grove of trees interrupting his
notes, the only sound which we could hear was
the " ka," which, under the changed conditions
became the true stake-driving " chuck " or
" tock." The nearer we came to the bird, the
less there remained of this acoustic metamorpho-
sis, and as we crawled cautiously through the
woods to the edge of the swamp nearest him it
disappeared altogether, and to our ears the
" kung^-ka-unk " was as distinct as before. We
listened to and watched the strange genius of
the marsh until he stoj^ped his performance at
twenty minutes of eight ; but our thoughts were
at times diverted from him.
THE SECRETS OF THE MEADOW. 187
A short-billed marsh wren sang his quaint,
nervous, and unmusical little song to us. It
seemed to me, never having heard it before, that
it was a sound well calculated not to be heard by
any ears but those specially attuned to it. A
similar thought had occurred to me earlier in the
afternoon, when my friend called my attention
to what he called the " background music " of
the crickets, audible probably that day for the
first time this year. They are sounds which go
to form the great undertone of the day, and the
ear is usually too busy with more distinctly sep-
arated and louder sounds to take note of them.
Let, however, the rest of the world's noises
cease, or the listener become feverish and over
sensitive to sound, and this " background music "
surges into the brain like an incoming tide and
thrills every nerve with its rapid rhythm.
A sound which even a deaf man could not
have ignored that evening was the persistent
quacking, or rather quaarking, of a female black
duck, who was exploring a small ditch between
us and the bittern. Her mate was near by,
although comparatively silent, and I hope for
his sake that her voice was more musical in his
ears than in ours. After going the length of
the ditch the ducks flew, the female quaarking
while in the air. In about ten minutes they
returned, the female's voice still vigorous, and
plumped down into a pool near by.
188 LAND OF THE LINGER! XG SNOW.
At ten minutes of eight, as we left the meadow
and strolled towards our waiting carryall, the
upper air resounded with the strange music of
the flying snipe. My friend, who has heard this
sound scores of times, feels confident that it is
mechanical in character, — "drumming," in fact.
To my ears it seems to be vocal in quality.
Whichever it may be, its weird sweetness makes
it one of the most attractive night or twilight
sounds in nature. One accepts rather as a
matter of course the sunlight singing of a light-
hearted little finch or vireo, but for a shy recluse
of the swamps to betake himself at evening to the
heights of the sky, and there against the stars,
invisible to all except the keenest eyes, to pro-
duce his witching serenade, is something unique,
and captivating to the imagination.
Early in the day Rock Meadow told us two
secrets which were very precious to two families
of birds. In the great pollard willows which
line the causeway are many comfortable crotches,
angles and curves which appeal to nest builders.
In one of these a robin had placed her nest and
laid her eggs. Her bright eye watched us
keenly as we drew near the tree, and the mo-
ment she felt the force of our gaze upon her, she
slipped away to reproach us from a distance.
Those greenish blue eggs were the first I had
seen this year, and they seemed like precious
THE SECRETS OF THE MEADOW. 189
stones, so delicate were they in form and color.
The willows have also many caverns of various
sizes and shapes in their trunks. From one of
these, through which and to the depths of which
a man's hand could but just pass, a song sparrow
sprang as we sauntered past. Fortunate for her
that we were friends, for in the cave from which
she came lay her five richly decorated eggs. As
a rule this sparrow builds a grass nest by a
brook bank, flat on the pasture turf, in a low
evergi'een in a meadow, or in a cup-shaped hol-
low in a decaying stump. Among all the song
sparrows' nests which my friend and I had seen,
none approached this in the security and origi-
nality of its location.
WACHUSETT.
By starting from Cambridge at half -past six
A. M., on Saturday, May 23d, I was able to leave
Fitchburg at nine behind an eccentric stable
horse, bound for the top of Wachusett Moun-
tain. The distance to the foot of the mountain
was about nine miles. For the first four miles
the road was far from agreeable. We encoun-
tered rough pavements or dust, the obtrusive
features of a young and by no means beautiful
city, hillsides denuded of trees, and in many
cases turned into quarries, the Nashua Kiver
defiled by mill-waste and stained by chemicals,
railroad embankments coated with ashes and bare
of verdure, and brick mill buildings, grim, noisy,
and forbidding. The road gradually ascended,
and at length crossed the river, passed under
the railway and sought the woods. A parting-
glance down stream showed a mass of steeples,
chimneys, brick walls, quarry derricks, freight
cars, and dirty mill ponds flanked by wasted hill-
sides and overhung by a cloud of smoke. Be-
tween the smoke and the hurly-burly of the
town a distant line of hills shone out on the
WACHUSETT. 191
horizon. It was a promise of something purer
above.
As we followed the highway southward
toward Princeton we passed through no forests
or remnants of forest, nothing but cleared land
or new woodland in which birch, poplar, cherry,
and other inferior growth predominated. The
undergrowth was mainly mountain laurel, which
a month from now will be a joy to the eye.
Warblers sang in every thicket — the ovenbirds
being especially noisy. Next to them the sweet
but wearisome voice of the red-eyed vireo sounded
on all sides. Brown thrushes were noticeably
numerous and tame. Along the wayside, lady's
slipper, white and purple violets, hawthorn,
clintonia, blackberry vines and barberry bushes,
painted trillium, chokeberry and chokecherry,
star flower, and houstSnia were abundant. The
great size of the dandelions attracted our notice,
and the violets were unusually large and beau-
tiful.
A little after eleven o'clock we emerged from
between two ridges and saw the mass of Wachusett
before us. A long even slope from northwest to
southeast terminated in a flat summit, on which
several wooden buildings stood out sharply and
disagreeably against the sky. The southeastern
slope was much more abrupt than the north-
western, but far from precipitous. There was
192 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
nothing grand or impressive about the mountain
apart from the simple fact of its height, two
thousand feet. The carriage road to the sum-
mit proceeds part way along the eastern base,
then meets a road from Princeton and turns
abruptly northwestward, makes several great
serpent curves upon the northern and north-
western face, and finally gains the summit from
the east. The road is remarkably well sur-
veyed, and is kept in good order. The eccen-
tric stable horse, which up to the moment of
our reaching the ascent had shown a willingness
to go anywhere but to the mountain, started up
the slope with such zeal that I found it impos-
sible to kee]) up with him on foot. This made
our progress rather more rapid than pleasant,
and the charming glimpses of scenery below us
and at a distance were only half appreciated.
Most of the trees on the mountain seemed to be
of recent growth, but among them dozens of
scattered giants rose to show what lumbermen's
greed might have left in the way of a forest if
it had been restrained. Some of these large
trees were sugai'-maples, while others were yellow
birches and beeches. The most striking flowers
along the mountain road were creamy white
bunches of early elder, pinkish purple rhodora,
and rose-colored azalea just coming into bloom.
Birds were few and far between on the moun.
WACHUSETT. 193
tain sides, although they had been plenty below.
The call of the ovenbird occasionally reached
our ears, and at one point the scolding of a
superb scarlet tanager drew our eyes to the spot
where his plumage seemed burning among the
leaves.
The summit, reached just at noon, proved
anything but attractive. Stripped of trees and
bushes, it has been afflicted by a large and com-
monplace hotel, several barns and ugly sheds,
and a bowling alley, billiard room, and tintype
gallery. The north wind was polluted by the
escaping odors of a cask of gasoline, and when
we sought the groves below the crest, we encoun-
tei-ed tin cans, broken bottles and other remains
of previous seasons. When one seeks gasoline,
electric bells, and a tintype gallery he has a
right to feel pleased on finding them, but when I
seek Nature on a mountain top and find her fet-
tered by civilization, I have a right to feel
aggrieved. However, we endeavored to forget
man and his gasoline in the contemplation of
the beautiful.
What first struck us was the number of fires
which were contributing columns of blue smoke
to an atmosphere already dimmed by its thin
strata. More than a dozen such fires were in
sight. Thanks to them, the view was soft and
dreamy in tone, giving the idea of distance more
194 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
by suggestion than by disclosure. Eastward
and southward, where the smoke lay heaviest,
the land seemed flat. Most of it was free from
forest, but every few miles a dark line or spot
told of a grove of pines saved thus far from the
destroying hand of this generation of timber
thieves. A few lakes caught the light of the
sky and flashed it back to us, and scattered
houses, usually white, broke the monotony of
green fields and pastures. Marlborough on the
east, Worcester on the south, Gardner on the
west, and Fitehburg on the north were nuclei
of houses, reminding me of the piles of sand
which form themselves on a pane of sanded glass
when a violin bow is drawn across its edge.
Far away in the smoke on the western horizon
rose the Berkshire Hills with proud Greylock
dominant over them. I thought of the fair
Connecticut flowing southward between them
and us, and of the bright Hudson rolling be-
yond them on its journey toward the modern
Babylon. Northwai'd of the Berkshires the sky
line was ragged with hills and distant mountains
in Vermont and New Hamjjshire, even to the
point where, rising serenely from its granite
bed, Monadnock reared its noble head toward
the heavens. It alone in all that smoky land-
scape was majestic. All else was soft, yielding,
sleepy, but Monadnock rose with clear-cut out-
WACnUSETT. 195
lines and sharp summit, attracting the eye, fix-
ing the attention, compelling admiration. On
its right — that is, to the eastward — its pack
strung out in perpetual pursuit of it. There
was Peterborough in the fore and the Unca-
noonucs far behind, Crotchett Mountain in the
north and Watatic in the south — the latter
" out of bounds," if the laws of this great chase
require the pursuing hills to stay on New
Hampshire soil. In the dim distance, beyond
this group of sunny hills, hallowed in my mind
by a thousand loving recollections of boyhood
days, were other hills. What were they ? I
could not tell beyond the certainty that they
were stepping stones to that far northland
which I call home, Kearsarge, Cardigan, Cube,
Moosilauke, Stinson, Ossipee, Chocorua ! I
could recall the feeling of every summit under
my weary foot, as I had pressed upon it with the
satisfaction of a conqueror. Perhaps in a clear
day some of those sentinel peaks of New Hamp-
shire can be really recognized from Wachusett.
After absorbing the beauties of the distant
view we explored the stunted groves of beeches
and oaks, mountain ash, striped and mountain
maples below the summit. Here I found a robin,
on a nest containing three eggs. The dwarfed
trees, being numerous and well proportioned,
seemed of normal size, but the bird, her nest
196 LAND OF THE LINGERINO SNOW.
and I appeared to have expanded be3^ond our
proper dimensions. The carpet nnder this grove
was woven of beautiful forms. Its warp was of
arbutus, false Solomon seal, checkerberry, straw-
berry, and potentilla, its woof of elintonia, hob-
ble bush, sarsaparilla, skunk currant, twisted
stalk, and columbine.
The arbutus was heavily laden with flowers
which had spent their sweetness on birds and
breezes. They were drj^ and their lovely tints
had changed to chestnut and russet. A great
bed of anemones rippled in the wind. They
seemed to be four weeks behind their sisters,
which I had found so abundant at Heard's
Island. In a low tree above them a juneo
called to his mate, and I felt confident that this
mountain top had seemed to them a comfortable
nesting spot. Two thousand feet upward is
almost as good as two hundred miles northward.
The Nashville warblers which I saw on or near
the summit seemed also to agree to this prin-
ciple.
At half-past two we started down the moun-
tain, and although our eccentric horse was even
more anxious to go down than to go up, we suc-
ceeded in seeing more of the view than while
ascending. At the foot of the north slope of
the mountaiu lay Wachusett Pond, a charming
sheet of water, reminding me by its location and
WACHUSETT. 197
size of Dublin Pond, nestling at the north of
Monaclnock. Over it, beyond a multitude of
farms, groves, and hills, Monadnock cut into the
sky as the commanding feature of the sleepy
landscape. This combination of lake and moun-
tain was the most beautiful view Wachusett
gave us. Although the summit of the moun-
tain remained springlike, the lowlands along
the Nashua Kiver were burned deeply with the
brand of summer. Early flowers had gone,
later ones were going. Migrant birds had
mainly gone by, and the dry z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z of the
blackpoll warbler wore on the edge of one's
temper much as the song of the harvest fly does
in its season. There are many pleasant views
from the Fitchburg train as it hurries along from
the valley of the Nashua across that of the
Assabet and Musketaquid to that of the Charles :
Wachusett across the vale of Leominster, As-
sabet water at Concord Junction, the meadows
of the Sudbury above Concord, the level fields
which Emerson loved, Fairhaven Hill and
Walden Pond where Thoreau studied life and
its mysteries, Stony Brook, the Charles at Wal-
tham, Waverley Oaks ; and then, across the
Belmont marshes. Memorial and Mt. Auburn
Towers, the emblems of eager life and the rest
which eaji'er life has no need to fear.
IN THE WREN ORCHARD.
One of the fairest spots known to me in tlie
neigliborlioocl of Cambridge is the " Wren
Orchard." Thither on the morning of this Sun-
day, May 24, I took my little covey of butter-
cup hunters. The orchard was set out several
generations ago, and not only the unknown
hand which planted it but the house that shel-
tered him and his have passed away forever.
The ground where the orchard stands is a hill-
side facing the south. Snmmer and winter
the sun watches over it and only gentle winds
sweep across it. North and east of this sunny
Eden are elms which shut it out from inquisitive
distance. Westward it is guarded by dark
cedars, and along its southern edge rise rank
upon rank of great oaks and chestnuts, in whose
midst is a small swamp overhung by an-
cient willows. The swamp is made by a gentle
brook which begins life in the elm grove north
of the orchard, spends all its days murmuring
over a pebbly bed among forget-me-nots and
violets, and which crosses the oi-chard at its
middle. The orchard and its borders contain
IN THE WREN ORCHARD. 199
high land, low land, dry land, wet land, open
land, wooded land, hard wood, soft wood, ever-
green wood and apple wood — all the elements
of home and shelter which a majority of land
birds desire. No wonder then that summer and
winter the wren orchard is alive with birds.
As I write these words merry calls and music
come from all its quai'ters in pleasing medley.
Many of the birds have nests near by, others are
building or planning where to place their nests.
The latest migrants are now here. In the low
land south of the orchard I hear a blackbilled
cuckoo, saying " Coo-coo-coo, coo-coo-coo, coo-
coo-coo-coo, coo-coo-coo-coo." In the largest of
the elms east of the orchard an indigo bird is
singing. his clear and joyous notes. His coloring
is as intense as that of a scarlet tanager which I
have been watchin<j in the hiohest bi-anches of a
great oak. Another lato migrant, whose voice
is in my ears, is the wood pewee. His notes,
like most of the sounds made by the tyrant fly-
catchers, are querulous and unmusical. He
seems to be continually complaining that insects
will not fly into his mouth.
The thrush famil}^ inhabits this orchard in
numbers. Robins build in the apple-ti'ces, —
a nest with four eggs in it is in the tree next me,
• — catbirds and brown thrushes dwell in the
clumps and hedges of barberry bushes with
200 LAND OF THK LINGERING SNOW.
wliicli the orchard abounds, and the mild-eyed
veery lives near the swampy spot by the great
willows. All of these singers have been pouring
out their notes during the past hour.
While my little buttercup hunters have been
gathering great fistfuls of pure golden blossoms,
the turf of the orchard has not been wholly
theirs. Among a herd of a dozen deer-like
Jersey heifers six cowbirds have been walking
about catching flies; chipping and song -spar-
rows have hopped about in the grass ; robins,
thrushes, and bluebirds have found worms in the
earth, and I suspect that a great glossy crow
who seems to have a nest in a high tree in the
swamp has found something edible while stalk-
ing up and down the brookside. From the
thick woods to the south comes every now and
then the clear " bob-white " of the quail, and
they are near enough for me to hear the low
" bob " which precedes the loud " bob " in their
three-syllabled whistle.
I brought two wicker baskets to-day, one con-
taining milk, sandwiches, and strawberries, and
the other a distinguished and important member
of my household. His name is Puffy, and he now
sits on the dead limb of an apple-tree, his great
dark eyes solemnly gazing at a redstart, who is
abusing him from a neighboring limb. His
brown and white feathers blend so well with the
IN THE WREN ORCHARD. 201
rough bark of the apple tree that it requires
sharj) or experienced eyes to see him. Puffy
is one of two barred owls which I have held iu
happy captivity since June 1, 1888, the day on
which I took them from their ancestral castle in
a White Mountain forest. Puffy is not a favor-
ite with other birds. They dislike and distrust
him, and when I place him in a tree, from which
a crippled wing prevents his flying, they come to
him in dozens, scolding and complaining at his
very existence in their midst. To-day, while
the last petals of the apple blossoms have been
falling around him, most of the birds already
named, and in addition kingbirds, least fly-
catchers, redstarts, black - and - white creepers,
ovenbirds, black-throated green warblers, red-
eyed and solitary vireos, downy and golden-
winged woodpeckers, rose-breasted grosbeaks
and chickadees have perched or hovered near,
noisily expressing their bitter feelings towards
him. Sometimes I see his great round head
turned towards the sky, and his eyes fix them-
selves upon some moving bird. A chimney
swift or a barn swallow attracts him for a second
only, but if a hawk or a crow crosses his
heavens his eyes never leave it until it disap-
pears from view. He cares little or nothing
for the abuse of other birds, but if they actually
assault him, as kingbirds and flickers often do,
202 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
his serenity is marred. It is still a little early
in the season for birds to become frantic at his
presence. When the robins, vireos, and chick-
adees have tender young dependent on them, the
sight of Puffy will drive them into paroxysms of
rage.
I have called this warm pasture flecked with
buttercups and fallen apple petals the " Wren
Orchard." It deserves the name, for it is the
only spot in New England that I have ever
visited where house wrens survive and build
regularly. Even now I hear the jingling notes
of this once common but now rare bird falling
like drops of water from a fountain through the
sunlit air. Two years ago (May 26, 1889) I
found one of thfir nests. Attracted by the
showery notes of the male I crept into a cor-
ner of the orchard, where an old apple - tree
grew alone in a circle of privet and barberry
bushes. Concealed under their branches I
watched the tree. Soon a wren appeared, then
disappeared in the substance of the tree. Its
tiny body seemed to melt into the bark of a
horizontal limb about twelve feet above the
ground. I examined this limb, seeking a hole
in it, but found none. After a second period of
watching I saw that the bird passed into the
limb by a hole on its under side. I climbed the
tree, measured the extent of the hole, which was
IN THE WREN ORCHARD. 203
seven or eight inches, and then cut a neat door
into it from above. There on a mass of soft
shredded bark and odds and ends of forest fibre
lay seven tiny eggs. They were round little
eggs, having a salmon-white groundwork thickly
and uniformly covered with hundreds of minute
reddish brown spots.
Bluebirds also build in this orchard, and so
do do^^'ny woodpeckei's, flickers, and chickadees ;
all birds which rear their families in the hollows
of trees. A bluebird's nest wliich I found here
was placed at the bottom of a dark dry cavity in
an apple trunk. The hole was large enough for
a somewhat slender hand to pass through, and
so deep that half the forearm was in the hole be-
fore the eggs could be touched. Once in a while
the bluebird lays pure white eggs, but generally
they are pale blue, and to an unpracticed eye
might suggest a reflection of the sky in a pool of
rain water at the bottom of the hole. Almost all
birds which nest in hollow trees lay unmarked
white eo:2:s.
While I am writing a downy woodpecker and
a flicker both make their voices heard in the
orchard.
The barberry bushes are in bloom to-day, and
I have amused my buttercup hunters by show-
ing them how tlie barberry flowers set trajis for
their insect visitors. As one turns up the yellow
204 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
cup of the flower and looks into it, he sees the
stamens pressed against the inner curve of the
petals and away from the central column of the
pistil. If a straw be gently pressed upon the
base of the stamens the latter jump forward and
clasp it tightly enough to hold it. This pres-
sure covers the embraced surface with yellow
pollen, and in the case of an insect would make
it perfectly certain that in shaking himself free
he would not only rub some of the poller upon
the pistils' of the flower he was in, but that he
would bear away enough of it to cross-fertilize
the next blossom he entered.
I can hear the songs of a robin, an oriole, and
a rose-breasted grosbeak. They have marked
differences, yet I find many peoj)le are unable to
distinguish them unaided. A thrush, a starling,
and a finch should not sing alike, but in Cam-
bridge the three birds build in the same trees,
and mingle in their daily lives so constantly that
it is possible they have learned to speak alike.
The robin's song is animated, but rough and
full of harsh passages. It reminds me of a
farmer's boy bellowing his favorite tune as he
drives his oxen home through a wood road.
The oriole often makes music, but his voice is
apt to crack and flat until his silence seems
golden. The grosbeak sings the robin's theme
with all the robin's spirit, but without the
IN THE WHEN ORCHARD. 205
robin's harshness. It is a stirring, bold, free
song, having little musical merit and no pathos,
but plenty of " go " and " swing." The metallic
squeak which the bird generally makes just
before he begins his song is an odd and unmis-
takable sound, which once learned never fails to
identify this beautiful finch.
Back of the orchard in the evergreens I hear a
chickadee calling, and a moment ago a blue jay's
scream attracted my notice. Their voices carry
me back many Sundays to those winter days
when I began my walks. This slope now soft with
thick grass and splendid with golden buttercups,
shy violets, jolly little jsotentillas and pale wild
geraniums swaying in the breeze, was then
eighteen inches deep in snow. These trees now
arrayed in lustrous foliage were then encased in
ice armor or muffled in the snow which crushed
the cedars to the earth and wrecked yonder
prostrate willow, whose fall I remember seeing
and hearing. The blue jays, chickadees, and
robins which frequented this warm pastui-e in
January are probably hundreds of miles from
here to-day, rearing their young in the woods
and fields of the far north. The glistening snow
which then burdened the earth and trees is now
gleaming in this brook, flowing as life blood
through these tree trunks, forming the chief
part of these brightly tinted leaves of grass,
206 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
ferns, brakes, flowers and shrubs, or floating
high in that warm sky, and as a pure spirit of
the past smiling upon the hmd of plenty to
which it never was unfriendly or unkind. Yes,
the winter has melted into spring and now the
spring has blossomed into sununer. Nature,
once so cold and white and still, is now warm,
gleaming with many tints and trembling with
growth in eveiy marvellous group of its restless
molecules. The tide of life was ebbing in
Januaiy. Now it is nearing the flood. Then
the soul of man needed courage and faith to
make it believe that the frozen world had un-
quenchable life, persistent force, locked up in it.
Now the soul needs the intelligence of God to
enable it to count the wonders of realization
which burning life and exuberant energy have
placed above, below, and on every side.
As I look at this grass and the flowers which
shine in its midst, at the myriad leaves upon the
trees, at the butterflies, caterpillars, locusts, ants,
and bees, and at the birds, solicitous for their
eggs or young, should I be sorrowful because
in a few days the annual tide of life will turn
and the grass begin to ripen, the flowers to fade,
the butterflies to die, and the birds to take note
of the sky and begin their journey southward ?
No. The rhythm of the universe demands just
this coming and going, rising and falling, ex-
IN THE WREN ORCHARD. 207
paneling and contracting, living and dying.
Without reaction there could be no action.
Without death we should not know what life
meant ; without what we call sorrow there could
be no joy.
I hear the song of the veery down there under
the willows. It is a weird, ventriloquial song.
The bird seems making its gypsy music to
itself, not to the world. In that dark corner
the trillium grows, keeping its face hidden un-
der its cloak. There, too, the jack-in-the-
puljjit is found masking its face. The song of
the veery has in it the tinkling of bells, the
jangle of the tamborine. It recalls to me the
gypsy chorus in the " Bohemian Girl," and when
I hear it as evening draws on, I can picture light
feet tripping over the damp grass, and in the
shadows made by moving of branches and ferns
I can see dark forms movins^ back and forth in
the windings of the dance.
CHOCORUA.
A May rain after a spring drought has a
wonderfully reviving effect upon the landscape.
It washes away dust, expands tissues, intensifies
colors, deepens shadows and heightens contrasts ;
fills the brooks, and veils the horizon in white
mist. On May 29, just after the sun, presum-
ably in rubber boots and a mackintosh, had
crossed the meridian, a train rolled out of Bos-
ton, bound for the north. Its windows were
soon wet and covered with coal ashes. Rain-
drops were driven at all angles across them, dis-
torting the landscape and discouraging observa-
tion. The rain accompanied the train to the
end of its journey. It beat upon the Saugus
marshes and the sands of Revere Beach, and it
splashed into the rushing tide of the Merrimac
flowing seaward at Newburyport. The Hampton
marshes were strikingly picturesque in the storm.
Near the train the lush grass on the flats could
be seen bowing before the gusts. The tide-
rivers and channels were full to their brim, and
showed snowy white under the colorless sky and
between their verdant banks. Within their
CHOCORUA. 209
meshes and reaching on to the invisible sea, were
thousands of acres of green marsii dotted with
haystacks, or the round groups of piles from
which the stacked hay had been removed. The
most distant stacks looked no larger than thim-
bles, and were dim in the fast falling rain. As
the train sped over the marshes these distant hay-
cocks seemed to move as little as the sun would
have, had it been hurrying on that far line of
sky, while the near ones swung swiftly past, and
those intermediate went with them, yet more
slowly. The marsh seemed like a great wheel
revolving beside us, its lines of haycocks being
the innumerable spokes forever whirling past.
The rain pelted the Piscataqua at Portsmouth,
and almost hid the great ship-houses at the Kit-
tery Navy Yard. It was beatiug upon Milton
ponds as the train rolled past them, and it was
swelling the flood of Bearcamp water as we
gained Ossipee valley. Of course no mountains
were to be seen. They were hidden in the roll-
ing masses of vapor which filled the upper air.
Towards them, however, and into their midst we
continued our journey by stage. The trees were
diipping with rain, patches of mist trailed west-
ward over the hill-tops, the bushes and flowers
by the roadside glistened with moisture. In
places the air was heavy with the spicy breath
of the choke-cherrv, whose multitudes of finger-
210 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
shaped racemes drooped under the weight of
rain. The perfume of this tree is, at certain dis-
tances, akin to that of the heliotrope. White
and purple violets, star-flower, chokeberry, false
Solomon's seal, fringed polygala, and dwarf cornel
blossomed by thousands on every side. Brakes
were just ojDening, many being still coiled, wait-
ing some elfin touch to expand, but the ferns
were present in force. They are one of the
triumphs of nature. Numerous in species, ex-
quisite in form, tender in color, graceful in mo-
tion, harmless in growth, wholesome in odor, sen-
sitive yet persistent, refined j'et abundant. Some
of them perish at the first frost, as for example
the onoclea ; others like the Christmas-fern and
polypody remain green and buoyant all winter,
even when haK buried in snow or covered by ice.
The coloring of the osmiinda regal is as it un-
folds is in beautiful contrast to that of the other
osmundas, the former being light red, salmon
colored, orange, or even bright red, and the lat-
ter silvery green. Bird voices were not quenched
by the rain. The harsh squawk of the night-hawk
came from the mist ; hermit thrushes sang in
damp balsam cloisters, chimney swifts sprinkled
the air with their small notes, and the thin voices
of warblers were heard in every thicket. Here,
as in Cambridge, the migration seemed to be
over and resident species present in full force.
CHOCORUA. 211
The stage turned into a narrow ribhou road
lined with white-stemmed birches. The road
pointed straight towards Chocorna, whose vast
base rose like a wall across the north, meeting
the even line of white cloud which concealed its
peak. To the right, glimpses of water revealed
the position of Chocorna Lake. The ribbon
road led to a red-roofed cottage in the midst of
an ancient orchard, and there stopped. This cot-
tage stands within the limits of the wilderness.
In winter the snow lies around it in deep drifts,
and for many weeks at a time no snowshoe
leaves its latticed imprint near. The moun-
tain broods over it, and when in cold nights the
groaning of the ice gives the lake voice, it tells
the cottage the story of its journey from the sky
and its plans for reaching the sea. From the
days after the civil war until five years ago, this
cottage was the home of the children of the
forest. Man left it to be shingled by lichens
and glazed by cobwebs. Snow lay deep in its
attic, pewees nested in the angles of its rooms,
snakes and skunks dwelt in its foundations,
generations of swifts were hatched in its chim-
ney, and chipmunks frolicked in its empty rooms.
To the deer, the crow, the fox, and the hedge-
hog, this house had no terrors. It had ceased
to belong to man. Although of late years it
has been my home. 1 have done what I can to
212 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
maintain the belief among the creatures of the
forest that it belongs to them.
It was seven o'clock as the stage rolled up to
the cottage door, left us, turned around and
departed. Inside, a fire blazed on the old
hearth, and the bark on the birch logs sputtered
and crackled like burning fat. Outside, the rain
fell softly, making a pleasant murmur on the
leaves, a murmur which blended with the voices
of crickets, tree toads, liylas, and frogs. As
night fell and the fire burned low, the clock and
the whippoorwills began a conversation which
lasted long, perhaps till morning.
A rainy morning does not discourage birds.
They are just as hungry, and almost if not quite
as tuneful as on other days. The morning of
the 30th of May was warm and wet, but the air
was as full of bird notes as of rain drops. A
white-throated sparrow sang j)ea-2')ea-'peahody.,
pcahocly, jicahody., under my window ; a cat-
bird in the grape-vine in front of the house rev-
elled in a medley of notes, hermit thrushes ren-
dered their sweet phrases from three neighboring
groves, and red-eyed vireos, chestnut-sided war-
blers, redstarts, ovenbirds, barn-swallows, and
swifts filled in any gaps with their joyous voices.
A pair of catbirds were building their nests in the
lilac bush at the corner of the cottage, so near a
window that a Ions: arm could reach it. The
CHOCORUA. 213
pewees were feeding their young in a nest at
the top of a pilaster under the eaves of the
house. The piazza rail was their perch all
through the day. They have occupied the nest
three years. The nest used in 1888 is in an angle
of the roof near by. The pewee has a trick
which it is hard to explain. It jerks its tail up-
ward sharply about once in two seconds. The
motion is petulant in character, but suggestive
of eternal vigilance. Both birds causrht insects
for their young, and the feeding process seemed
perpetual. Over the dairy window is a wooden
gutter to catch the rain from the roof. Tliis
being a dry spring, a foolish robin built in the
gutter, near its lower end. The nest was soaked
by the storm on the 29th and 30th, and partly
dissolved by the trickling water, but the robin
stuck to her eggs. The noisiest birds anywhere
near the cottage were a pair of great-crested fly-
catchers. They screamed or whistled all day.
Their voices are harsh, their tempers and man-
ners bad, but their nesting habits are very inter-
esting. They build every year in the hollow of
an apple tree, where a large limb broke off long
ago and gave the elements a chance to make a
deep, dark cavity. The last nest I examined
consisted of cow's hair, reddish fur, feathers, a
squirrel's tail, grasses, dry leaves, shreds of birch
bark, and many small pieces of snake-skin. One
214 LAND OF rilK LINGERING SNOW.
year nearly tlie whole of a discarded snake-skin
was placed in a circle around the eggs. I have
yet to find one of their nests without a piece of
snake-skin in it. I think the bird uses it be-
cause experiments tried by previous generations
have shown that the skin is useful in scaring
away squirrels, mice, and other enemies. Be-
tween the cottage and the lake I found a song
sparrow's nest. If was built in marked contrast
to the one in the willow tree on Concord turn-
pike. Flat on the ground at the edge of a ditch,
its only shelter was a bunch of brush, cut last
season and left to dry. From above, the nest
and its contents were perfectly concealed, but
by stooping down and looking in from the bank
of the ditch I could see the neat grass cup and
its four richly colored eggs. The bird in leav-
ing the nest showed herself expert in dodging.
She glided from beneath the brush and over the
edge of the ditch, much as a leaf might have if
impelled by the wind. Dropping to the bottom
of the trench she ran down its gravelly bottom
nearly to the shore of the lake before she took
wing for the woods. Although the chipping
sparrow spends most of its summer in the grass,
it builds its nest of coiled horse-hair in the
branch of an apple-tree, at least eight or ten feet
from the around. One of their nests was nearlv
finished in a tree near the dining-room window.
CHOCORUA. 215
The swifts had not begun building in the
chimney, but the cause of their delay was discov-
ered wlien one of them was found beating against
the inside of an upstairs chamber window. The
poor frightened creature had come down the
chimney into the fireplace, and had probably been
a captive for several days. Holding it gently but
firmly in my left hand, I endeavored to hypno-
tize it, as I had the peabody bird on April 80th,
Its brown eyes looked at me beseechingly, and
it winced whenever I touched it. Its flat head,
tiny beak leading to a wide mouth, long slender
wings, insignificant feet and legs, and strange
little tail, with bare spikes at the tips of the
feathers, combined to form a creature more like
a living arrow than a denizen of earth. Tak-
ing it out-of-doors I caressed it a moment more
and then slowly opened my fingers. Could it
be that the tiny being, which I might have
crushed by one grip of my hand, possessed a
speed almost equal to a projectile, and a brain
powerful enough to will that speed and to direct
it? Like a breath the bird was gone. Those
slender wings throbbing through the air bore it
higher and higher, round and round in widen-
ing circles, until it was lost in the depths of the
sky. I felt as though I had held a soul in my
hand and as though that soul had gone back to
the infinite.
216 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
Standing in the deep woods by the side of a
rushing stream I watched a slender silk line
borne down with the current. The line straight-
ened. One end was restrained by the tip of
my fishing rod, the other end swayed from right
to left in a little whirlpool under a miniature
waterfall. On the lower end was a barbed
hook, on the hook was a writhing worm, and
presently on the writhing worm was a strug-
gling fish. Tossed to the shore he fell among
the nodding ferns and lay under them on his
side, gasping. He threw himself into the air
a few times by a spasmodic contraction of his
muscles, and then died. As he lay there among
the ferns, violets, wild lilies of the valley,
gleaming checkerberries, and other gayly-tinted
groundwork of the forest, he outshone them all.
"White, gray, yellow, orange, red, green, blue,
brown, and black, — all shared in his brilliant
coloring. His beauty was not all in tints. Plis
outlines were graceful and suggestive of speed.
His fins, delicate and wonderful structures in
themselves, were so placed as to give him marvel-
lous powers of motion and control of direc-
ti(in. A moment before he had had not only
beauty and speed but intelligence. The cun-
ning and wariness of the trout are proverbial.
But he was dead, and I went on down the
stream for an hour, catching and killing more
CHOC OR UA. 217
marvels of color and design until I had enough
for dinner.
The surroundings of a good trout brook are
much more fascinating than the fishing. The
woods are lonely as regards mankind, but they
are full of wild life and the bustle of that life.
The fisherman always realizes the bustle of the
mosquitoes and black flies, but he is not so quick
to appreciate the gypsy music of the veery, the
rich notes of the solitary vireo or the water
thrush, or the gorgeous coloring of the Maryland
yellowthroat, blackburnian warbler, and Canada
flycatching warbler, which, ten chances to one,
are his unseen companions during the day.
In the afternoon I visited my favorite pair of
sap-sucking woodpeckers whose beginnings of
housekeeping I had noted on May 1st. Their
maple tree which had yielded sap all last summer,
and again for a time this spring, seemed to be dry.
Perhaps in a sunless wet day sap does not flow
freely. The holes cut by the birds this season
numbered over five hundred, and their location
on various parts of the trunk indicated that the
birds found difficulty in securing as free a flow
of sap as they needed. All told, there are now
fully fifteen hundred holes in the bark of that
one red maple. As I neared the tree in which
the male had been drilling a month ago, I
chanced to look at a dead poplar about twenty
218 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
feet in height which stood neai' it. To my aston-
ishment I discovered the head of the male sap-
sucker protruding from a liole in its side. He
saw me and saw that I saw him. The hole was
fifteen feet from the grountl, on the southeast
side of the stump. The male flew away. See-
ing neither bird near the hole which I had
planned to attack, I decided to cut down the
stump. It toppled against some low evergreens,
which broke the force of its fall. The hole
was less than a foot in depth, and contained two
chubby little white eggs, through whose shell
the color of the yolk w^as plainly visible. The
bottom of the hole was cushioned with fine chips.
Concealing myself, I waited to see what the
woodpeckers would do. They had watched my
work, and had not gone out of my sight at all.
Flying to the tree nearest the poplar, they aimed
for the spot where it had been, and flew to it,
hovered a second and returned. This w^as done
over and over again, but much oftener by the
female than by the male. Failing to find the
stump by flying from the nearest ti'ee, they tried
to strike it by approaching it from other trees
standing respectively to the south, southwest,
west, and northeast of its former position. The
stump itself, prostrate among the ferns, was
wholly ignored. The birds showed no grief,
indignation, or fear, nothing but astonishment
CHOCORUA. 219
at the disappearance of their focus. I think it
possible that one or both birds had been hatched
in this poplai", and had in tui-n reared families
in it, for it contained an old hole below the new
one.
On my way home I crossed the fresh tracks
of a deer, its sharp hoofprints having been made
since the heavy rains of the forenoon.
Nearing the barn, I was greeted by the whin-
ing squeals of a newly captured b^y barred
owl. It had been found in the same hollow in
a giant beech from which my two favorite pets
were taken June 1, 1888. When first seen,
about May 10, it was too small to be carried
away. Even on May 17, the day on which its
capture was completed, it was only a double
handfid of soft gray down and stomach, accent-
uated by claws, hooked beak and a squealing
voice. By May 30 it had grown into the like-
ness of an owl. Its stiff wing and tail feathers
had begun to grow long, and much of its plum-
age to assume the distinctive markings of the
family. Its head and breast were still downy,
and its eyes, feeble in sight, looked milky and
bluish. In answer to its clamor, I gave it
a handful of angleworms, and a bullfrog neatly
jointed. Tucked up for the night in a cloth
and warmed by my hand, it made a series of
chuckles amusingly similar in character to the
contented peepings of a brood of chickens.
220 LAND OF THE LIXGERIXG SNOW.
About five o'clock Sunday morning (May
31) a deer stepped boldly out of the woods at
the top of a sloping field and surveyed the val-
ley below it. A small farmhouse from whose
chimney a column of pale blue smoke rose into
the hazy air, a big barn with cattle standing in
front of it, a man milking one of the cows, a
green meadow dotted with vivid gi-een larches, a
small round pond framed in grass and weeds of
just the kind deer like best — this was the picture
the deer saw and found pleasant to its eyes.
It walked down the hill, crossing a strip of
plowed land, leaped over a brush fence, and
paused in the highway. The cow which was
being milked raised her head and gazed fixedly
at tlie deer. The man felt the cow's motion, and
looked too. Seeing the deer he whistled shrilly.
The deer threw up its head, shook its stub tail,
crossed the road with a bound, plunged through
the larches and vanished in the deep dark woods
by the lake.
It was an hour when bird voices filled the
air with their messages of love and happiness.
The rain had ceased, the sun was shining ; no-
thing came between these children of the air
and their completest joy. If one wishes to be-
lieve that life may be and is happy, look at the
birds at the opening of summer and see how
seldom a shadow crosses their path. Even if
CHOCORUA. 221
danger threatens for a moment, if a snake ap-
pears in the grass, a hawk in the air, an owl
ill the tliijket, a man near their nest, joy returns
the moment danger is gone. There are tragedies
of the nests, and many a bird falls a victim to
destroyers, but on the whole the life of birds is
joyous, not sorrowful ; contented, not anxious.
I sought the birds that morning in their deep-
est solitude, their inner temple. Wading ice-
cold brooks in which I alarmed many a trout,
forcing a way through thickets of high-bush
blueberry, alder, and tangled vines, plunging
through soft spots in the bog where I sank to
my knees, I came finally to the cool dark shades
in the centre of a great swamp. Several
tall pines reared their heads above it. From
their lower limbs, long since dead and dry,
beards of gray moss depended and swung back
and forth. An under forest of water maples,
balsam firs, larches, and white ash trees flour-
ished beneath the giant pines. Below these in
turn a miniature forest of ferns and hobble bush
grew, and still lower the moist ground surround-
ing numerous pools of amber-colored water was
covered by a carpet of clintonia, veratrum, or-
chids, gold-thread, swamp blackberry, dalibarda,
and fernlike mosses. Who, if any, were the
dwellers in this solitude of solitudes ? Not the
robin or the bluebird, the song sparrow or the
222 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
redwing blackbird ; they are birds of the farm
or the meadow, not of the twilight. I listened.
" Teacher, teachei^ teacher," came the call of
the ovenbird ; then followed the bold, spar-
kling song of the water thrush, the tambourine
music of the veery, conversational cawing and
chortling of crows, and the familiar chick-a-
dee-dee-dee of the titmouse. AYere these the
principal owners of the shades ? The ringing
notes of a rose-breasted grosbeak, the quanh,
quanh of a Canada nuthatch, a black-and-white
creeper's apology for a song, and then a thin
painstaking voice I did not i-ecognize, came to
show that the roll of the swamp's tenants was not
complete. Just as I made out the last singer to
be a black-throated blue warbler, a winter wren
sang. The brilliancy of this petulant brown and
white atom's music is one of the wonders of the
northern woods. It is orchestral in nature
rather than vocal, and it is one of the longest
songs I know. It seems to me like falling drops
of crystal water in which the sunbeams play and
give out rainbow tints. If I tried to describe
it I should say it was like the music of tiny
spheres of silver, falling upon slabs of marble
and rebounding only to fall again and again at
briefer intervals, until their jjerfectly clear, ring-
ing notes had run into one high, expiring tone too
delicate for the ear of man to follow. The wren
CHOCORUA. 223
sang over and over again, and each cooling spray
of notes seemed more bewitching tlian the last.
Meantime I had recognized blue yellow-
backed or parula warblers, and that charming
bird, the vivacious Canadian flycatching war-
bler. As I strolled on slowly through the moss-
hung shades a large bird flew from a maple
a rod or two before me and perched on a high
limb, so that I saw it against a patch of sky.
Quickly covering it with my glass I saw that
it was a hawk of the largest size, probably
the hiiteo lineatus or red-shouldered hawk. To
my surprise the great creature flew back to-
wards me and alit in a tree which sprang from
a point close by. It saw me, and was peering
keenly and anxiously through the leaves. A
wild and weird cry escaped from its open
throat, and it flew in a half circle and perched
again near by. Creeping under a balsam tree
I sat down and awaited developments. A rush
of wings, a shadow, and I saw the hawk's mate
sweep downwards and alight upon the edge of
a large nest of branches and twigs in a tall
maple just in front of me. It saw me as it
struck the nest, and instantly swooped down
towards me, passing within two or three feet
of my head. Both birds then took positions
cotnmanding a good view of me and made the
woods echo with their fierce cries. They were
224 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
within easy range of a shotgun, but I had no desire
to injure them. The broad-winged hawk lives
mainly upon insects, small animals, and reptiles,
and is no menace to poultry or small birds. In
this instance the small birds in the swamp sang
their songs with no apparent interest in the
angry hawks above them.
A visit to the nest showed that its limited and
uncomfortable platform sustained three downy
young birds whose plump bodies were so placed
that the three heads faced the circumference of
the nest at three different points. They looked
as though they had been out of the shell about a
week. A half-eaten yellow-throated frog was
in the bottom of the nest. During this in-
spection the parent birds were flying in small
circles a thousand feet or more above the swamp.
I think their first boldness was due to my
stealthy approach and quick concealment, which
left them in doubt as to what manner of crea-
ture I was. As the j'oung birds were not
quite large enough to make it safe to take them
prisoners they were left for a time to the tender
care of their natural protectors.
Not far from the hawk's nest I found the tree
from which my barred owls had been taken in
1888 and this year. The tree is a baech over
sixty feet high, having in its great trunk a
cavity large enough to admit a man's head and
CHOCORUA. 225
arm. This chamber, which faces south west-
ward, is about twenty-five feet from the ground,
dry within but unfurnished. The owlets have
no feather beds to sleep on, no nest to keep
them warm. Thinking- that the mother of my
most recent captive might have laid again, I had
the owl castle searched, but found nothing.
The flowers of the week were the cornel,
fringed polygala, cow-lily, purple and white vio-
lets, blue-eyed grass, clintonia, and hawthorn.
The dark swamps were dotted with the yellow
moccasin flowers, and in the higher, drier woods
tlie pink lady's-slipper abounded. The varia-
tion in color in the pink lady's-slipper is wide
for a wild plant not separated into recognized
varieties. From normal, the color varies both
ways, to extremely dark carmine and to pure
white. In some of the white ones even the
veining is immaculate. I found two distorted
flowers of the pink species which suggested a
reversion to a less elaborate and morphologically
effective form. The flowers which were passing
away were the trailing arbutus, of which I
found only one plant still blooming and fra-
grant ; the apple blossoms, which wei-e whitening
the grass like snow ; the trilliums, hobble bush,
choke cherry, rhodora, uvularia and anemone.
The flowers just coming forward were the lin-
naea, white orchis, fleur-de-lis, and clover.
226 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
From four o'clock until sunset we drove, taking
for our road the one leading around three sides
of fair Chocorua Pond, thence up the Chocorua
River to the eastern side of the mountain.
The afternoon was sultry, and over the moun-
tains the outlines of thunder-heads faintly edged
with gold showed through a bluish white haze.
The mountains looked double their usual height,
and thin, for detail, light and shadow, were lost
in the haze. Parts of the lake were broken into
small waves, and every wave was a tongue of fire
borrowed from the red sun. Under the lofty
white pines fringing the eastern shore the shade
was deep and soothing, and a faint breeze made
the foliage breathe and sigh. From the edge of
the water a little bird flew up to a branch, shook
itself and presented apparently novel coloring.
Not until this interesting scrap of tropical life
began to dry and smooth down its feathers did
it become recognizable as a black-throated green
warbler fresh from a bath. At the northeast
corner of the lake a broad beach of white sand
extends for an eighth of a mile in crescent form.
The water in this bay is shallow, and under it
the sand is clean. Chocorua's horn was reflected
in the heart of this bay, while sleepy pickerel and
schools of minnows could be seen j^oised above tlie
sand. Spotted sandpipers ran along the beach,
kingbirds shot out from tall j)ines and hovered,
CHOCORUA, 227
chattering, with tails wide spread, over the
water. In the orchard opposite, a great-crested
flycatcher screamed and flew from tree to tree.
Her nest was in the gaping hollow of an apple
trunk, and on its outer edge a bit of snake-skin
caught the light. No eggs had as yet been laid.
The muffled drumming of a grouse could be felt
by the ear as its heavy throbbing came down
from high woods back of the orchard.
The Chocorua River has three phases of life
above the pond, — mountain torrent ; placid
meadow brook and mill pond ; and forest river
full of deep amber pools, dams of fallen trees
and sawmill waste, and noisy falls and rapids.
The road avoids the forest part and emerges on
the mill pond and meadow. The meadow was
alive with birds. At the ford a solitary tattler
was feeding. He was an object of no small
interest, for the breeding season was at hand
and the nest of this species has never been
taken and satisfactorily identified. He was so
tame that I walked to within twenty paces of
him before he flew, and then he went but a
short distance. The coloring of his plumage
suggested tiny waves breaking over a sandy
shore. He has not the teetering hal)it to tha
extent that his cousin, the spotted sandpiper,
has, but he is far from steady iu his walk.
Barn swallows by dozens skimmed the surface
228 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
of tlie meadow. A few redwing blackbirds — a
comparatively uncommon bird in this region —
balanced on the grass and made more noise than
their slender numbers justified. A heron rose
from the farthest end of the meadow and flew a
distance of more than a mile in a semicircle,
heading north at first, but ending his journey
by a flight southward past the base of Chocorua to
a secluded pond under the shoulder of the moun-
tain. His measured and majestic flight through
the haze, against woods, then sky, then blue
mountain-side, was more like the progress of a
barge impelled by long, slow-moving oars than
the hurrying of a bird. The pond to which he
went is known to few. It is shallow and green,
swarming with- tadpoles and surrounded by
sphagnum banks above which rise steep and.
heavily wooded sIojdcs. It has no outlet save
the air, no inlet save the springs which feed it.
Deer tracks are always thick about its shores,
and the bear, hedgehog, fox, skunk, mink, and
gray squiri^el are its f requeut fourfooted visitors.
From a high hill, north of the meadow and
due east of Chocorua, we watched the descend-
ing sun mark the close of the last day of spring.
On every side the quiet of the forest surrounded
us. A house standing near was but an exclama-
tion mark to the wildness of the scene, for it
had ceased to be the home of man and had
CHOCORUA. 229
become a mere monument of the decay of a
community. Towards Chocorua the land sloped
downward until it reached a narrow valley point-
ing north and south. Then it began to rise, at
first imperceptibly, then plainly-, then more and
more abruptly, until it became precipitous and
climbed high against the sky. At its beginning
this slope, which like the one on which we stood
was clad in soft birches and poplars, was three
miles in width, its north and south limits
being sharply marked by rocky spurs of the
mountain. As it rose, these buttresses of the
mountain drew together and narrowed it. Fi-
nally, as it attained to a precipice of bald rock, the
source of Chocorua River, they came together
and united their height and strength with. its
ascending mass. Upon the mighty shoulders
thus formed rested the sharp horn of Chocorua,
three thousand feet above the slender valley at
its feet. We were so near to this mountain wall
that it seemed to cover half the western sky.
The haze concealed all its details of rough forest
and stained precipice, leaving it a blue barrier
crowding its jagged outlines into a golden sky.
Through this sky, towards the edge of the lofty
horn, the red sun was drifting and sinking. It
did not seem far awa}^ but so near that it might
strike upon that menacing ledge of rock, and
fall shattered, down, forever down, into an end-
230 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW.
less abyss on the farther side. As the sun sank
lower and lower, nearer and nearer to Chocorua,
it seemed to me that it was marking a crisis in
the year, and that when it came again — if come
it ever did from the abyss behind that wall —
the tide of life would have changed and begun
its slow and certain ebbing. Vegetable and ani-
mal life seemed to have gained the point of their
greatest beauty and activity. The leaf could be
no fairer ; the flower was already falling and the
formation of the fruit begun ; the nest was built,
the eog laid, in many cases the young bird was
already stirring his wings for flight ; and in the
secret places of the mountain the young of the
bear, the deer, and tlie fox had long been afoot.
The sun reached the edge of rock and passed
behind it. In the deep Chocorua Valley the day
was over and the song of the hermit was yielding
to that of the whip-poor-will, the flight of the swal-
low was giving way to that of the bat. Would
the life of that valley be any less happy on the
opening of the season of ripening than it was at
the close of the season of growth ? Surely not,
for there is nothing in nature which is apprehen-
sive of that period of rest, which for the flower
is called winter, and for the butterfly, death. It
is man alone who dreads the downward swing of
the pendulum, the ebbing of the tide, the pause
in the endless rhythm of life.
INDEX.
Agamenticus, 58.
Alder, 3, 53, 103, 167, 170, 175, 221.
Alawife Brook, 52, 122. 128.
Auemones, 131, 142, 19C, 225.
Aiit3, 77, 206.
Arlington, 1, 6, 12, 25, 29, 35, 38,
40, 52, 53, 73, 78, 91, 127, 17U, ISO.
Arnold Ar joretum, 35, 30.
Ash, 57, 221.
Ass^bet River, 133, 146, 166-174,
197.
Asters, 2, 7.
Azalea, 192.
Ball's Hill, 102, 14G, 147.
Bilsamfir, 210, 221, 223.
Barberry, 2-4, 8, 28, 35, 45, 117, 124,
203.
Bit, 230.
Baarberry, 55.
Bearcanip Hiver, 150, 209.
Beaver Brook, 31, 33, 73, 123, 124,
159-161.
Bedford, 47. 48, 102, 147.
Baech, 46, 154, 175, 192, 195, 224.
Bees, 172, 206.
Bellevue Hill, 36.
Belmont. 1, -^5, 31, 33, 34,44,52, 73,
110, 127, 176.
Berkshire Hills, 194.
Bir-h, 2, 7, 29, 109, 111, 113, 150, 156,
175, 179, 191, 192, 211, 2J9.
Bittern, 146-148, 159-163, 176-178,
181-186.
Blackberry, 179, 191, 221.
Blackbird, 52, 55, 84, 147 ; cowbird,
99, 116, 124, 130, 133, 200; purple
grackle, 73, 90, 113, 123, 133 ; red-
wing, 52, 69, 74, 78, 89, 100, 101,
108, 112, 116, 123, 130, 167, 168,
170, 228 ; rn.sty e;rackle, 74.
Bloodroot, 123, 124.
Blueberry, 220.
Bluebird, 4J, 43, 48, 51, .53, 56, 7.5,
78, 101, 105,124, 126,141.
Blue-eyed grass, 225.
Blue Hill, 28, 29, 35, 36, 46.
Blue jay. a'>, 39, 41, 48, 205.
Bobolink, 168.
Boon Pond, 171, 172.
Boston, 1, 19, 26.
Brookliue. 34.
Brown creeper, 9, 15, 33, 39, 45,
56, 76.
Bussey Woods, 34, 37.
Buttercrp, 15, 38, 51, 55, 131, 142,
2(0,205.
Batterliies, 76, 206.
Buttouball, 90, 111, 125.
Caddis-worm, OS.
Cambridge 1, 52, 74, 110, 122, 126,
105, 190.
Cape Cod, 83-95.
Carlisle, 102, 105, 147.
Catbird, 167, 176, 199, 212.
C.iterpillar, 55, 206.
Cedar, 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 39,
43 45 56.
Cedar-bird. 17. 28, 33, 51. 124.
Charles River, 26, 31, 39, 56, 118,
124, 197.
Checkerberry, 96, 196.
Cherry, 191, 192, 209, 225.
Chestnut. 3. 8, 117, 198.
Cliewiuk, 147, 160, 173.
Chickadee, 4, 9, 16, 18, 19, 33, 35,
39, 41, 45, 48, 55, 56, 76, 99, 108,
140, 171.
Cliimnev-swift, 152, 168, 201. 210-
212, 215.
Chipmunk, 36, 77.
Chocorua, 150, 151, 155, 157, 211
230.
Chokeberry, 101, 210.
Clematis, 161.
Clintonia, 191, 190, 221,225.
Clover, 225.
Club moss, 55.
Columbine, 140. 145, 196.
232
INDEX.
Concord. 34, 47-49, 52, 73, 100, 130,
133 197.
Coucord Turnpike, 74, 110, 127, 161.
Corema, 92.
Cornel, 210, 225.
Corydalis, 55.
Cow-lUy, 225.
Cranberry, 63, 84.
Crescent Beach, 23, 24.
Cricket, 187, 212.
Crocus, 32.
Crow, 3, 4, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19, 23, 33,
39, 41, 45, 48, 51, 55, W, 80, 89,
96, 108, 117, 140, 149, 154, 176, 182,
200, 222.
Cuckoo, 199.
Dalibarda, 221.
Dandelion, 123, 131, 142, 164, 191.
Deer, 150, 219, 220, 228.
Dove, domestic, 19; mourning, 147.
Dover, 115.
Duck, 94 ; black, 61-69, 97, 104, 108,
146,182,187; sheldrake, 103,104,
141 ; wliistler, 21 ; wood, 125, 146.
Dunes, 59-72, 87-92, 149.
Eagle, 149.
Elder, 192.
Elm, 2, II, 41, 46, 49, 101, 144, 198.
Everlasting, 131, 142.
Fairhaven Bay and Hill, 132-140,
197.
Ferns, 35, 54, 57, 123, 161, 210, 221.
Fitchburg, 190-194.
Five-finger, 51.
Fleur-de-lis, 225.
Forget-me-not, 198.
Fox, 2, 42, 102, 150.
Fresh Pond, 52, 110-114, 122, 123,
127.
Free, 78, 135, 138, 151, 176, 212,
224.
Geranium, wild, 205.
Golden plover, 92.
Goldenrod, 2, 7.
Goldfinch, 2, 16, 18, 88, 105.
Goldtliread, 221.
Goose, wild, 90, 91.
Great-crested flycatcher, 213, 227.
Great meadows (Coucord), 102-106,
146.
Greylock, 194.
Grouse, 33, 36, 40, 55, 57, 76, 80,
103, 119, 138, 140, 147, 227.
Gull, black-backed, 62 ; herring, 21,
23, 53, 62, 67, 70, 84, 89; kittiwake,
95.
Harvard University, 1, 36, 122.
Hawk, 9, 39, 140; broad-winged,
223; marsh, 106, !4(') ; red-shoul-
dered, 35, 74, 103, 148 ; sparrow,
53, 112, 123, 124, 127.
Hawthorn, 191. 225.
Heard's Inland and Pond, 144-146.
Hell's Bottom, 93.
Hemlock, 36, 37, 113, 155.
Hepatica, 54, 78, 80.
Heron, 147, 228.
Higliland Light, 85-94.
Highland Station, 31.
Hill's Crostinp, 122.
Hobble bush, 196, 221, 225.
Hog Island. 69, 71.
Hoiieypot Hill, 166, 167, 171.
Horned lark, CS, 91.
Horsechestnut, 123, 131, 176.
Horsetail-rushes, 123.
Houstonia, 131, 142, 149, 173, 191.
Hudsouia tomeutosa, 63, 69, 87, 88,
92.
Humming bird, 154.
Indian relics, 64, 91.
Indigo bird, 199.
Ipswich, 59-70, 150.
Jack-in-the-pulpit, 207.
Junco, 74, 79, 100, 106, 151, 196.
Juniper, 3, 4.
Kearsarge, Mt., 58.
Kendal Green, 41, 42.
Kingbird, 162, 201, 226.
Kingfisher, 123, 124, 126, 146, 147.
Kinglet, goh^eu-cretted, 4, 16, 33,
35, 39, 55, 50 ; ruby-crowned, 122,
140, 146.
Lady's sl'pper, 191, 225.
Larch, 220, 221.
Laurel, 191.
Least flycatcher, 130, 201.
Le.\ingt\)n, IS, 53, 78, 81.
Lilac, 130, 172, 170, 212.
Lincoln, 40, 41.
Linnaea, 225.
Locust. 70, 118, 206.
Loon, 152, 158.
Lynn, 21, 20.
Maple 29, 80, 111. 114. 122, 128, 131,
150, 153, 150, 175, 192, 195, 217.
Marsh marigold, 149, 150, 163.
Massachusetts Bav, 26, 57.
Mpadow lark, 53, 89, 95, 99, 116, 123,
ICS.
Meadow-sweet, 63.
INDEX.
233
M^dford, 1-2, 2.5, 127.
M;uiorialHvll, 11. 27. 197.
Mirrimic River, 27, 208.
MiUlesex Vi\U, 1, 25, 29, 39, 127.
Minute -Mj,n, 49, 98, 99, 109, 130,
146, 148.
Mol3, lOG.
Mjnxdnock, Mt.,28, 36, 46, 57, 194,
196.
M5th, 76.
M^imt Auburn, 27, 73, 127, 197.
M )unt Pisgih, 39, 40.
Miuntain ash, 19.5.
Mouse, 3, 28, 33, 35, 40, 42, 68, 71,
106.
M illaiu, 51.
Musket i-(uid River, 98-109, 131,
133 197.
M iskkt, 43, 74, 76, 108.
Mystic Pond, 38, 39, 91.
Nashua River, 190, 196.
N 'ponset River, 26, 28, 29.
Night-hawk, 210.
Nabscot HIl, 143, 165, 166, IH.
Nuthatch, 16, 45, 98, 99, 222.
Oak. 8, 9, 11, 13, 29, 31, 32, 46, 86,
96, 101, 10.5, 124, 150, 174, 19;5, 198.
Old Mmse. 49, 9S, 109, 131, 148.
One Pins Hill, 40, 54, 78, 79.
Or3liard,4S, 66, 96, 101, 174,198-207.
Orchid, 221, 225.
Oriole, B.atimore,101, 166, 169, 172,
204.
Oiprey, 148.
OsMpse, 150, 209.
Otter, 76.
Ovenbiri. See Wirbler.
Owl, 102, 108; Acadian, 51, r,'l;
barrel, 77, 201, 219, 224, 225;
great-horned, 134-140 ; screecii,
147.
Partridgeberry, 39, 55.
Pissaconwviy, Mt., 155.
Pvugus, Mt., 155.
Payson Pirk, 73, 126, 127.
Pegan Hill, 115-119.
Pewee, phoeb-. 45, 120, 145, 211,
213: w>ol, 1?9.
Pin?, 8, 9, 13, 60, 84, 102, 1.56, 194,
221 ; pit-ih, 10, 39, 88. 96, 101, 1.50,
172 ; white, 40, 119, 134, 138, 172,
226.
Piping hyla, 77, 78, 176, 178, 212.
P'psissewa, 55.
Point of Pin-s, 21, 24.
Polygala, 210, 225.
Poplar, 93, 131, 150, 154, 156, 191,
217,220.
Poteutilla, 131, 142, 196, 205.
Privet, 3, 4, 8, 202.
Prospect Hill, 55, 56, 57.
Provinceto.vn, 84, 85, 87, 88, 92, 95.
Pa If ball, 65.
Parple finch, 45, 116, 130.
Pyrola, 55.
Quail, 3, 8, 35, 40, 45, 48, 73, 200.
Rabbit, 3, 8, 35, 36, 40, 42, 54.
Rvttlesnake plantain, 55.
R^adviUe, 28.
Redstart. See Warbler.
Revere Beach, 20, 208.
Rhodora, 192, 225.
Rjbin, 4, 6, 9, 16, 17, 28, 35. 45, 53,
56. 73, 95, 99, 123, 130, 140, 142,
167, 188, 195, 199, 204, 213.
Rock'^ottom, 165 166.
Rock M'ladow, 73, 74, 159, 161,176,
179, 181.
Rose-breasted grosbeak, 201, 204,
205, 222.
Rosebush, 3, 4, 51, 63.
Sandpiper, spotted, 148, 226; soU-
tary, 227.
Sindwich, 83.
Sirsaparilla, 196.
S\ugU3 River, 21 26. 208.
Saxifrage, 131, 142, 145.
Scarlet tmagei-, 193, 199.
Seaweed, 24, 61, 89.
Shell-heaps, 64.
Shrike, 95.
Skunk, 35, 42, 66, 67. 95, 211.
Skunk-cabbige, 32 54, 80.
Skunk currant, 196.
Snake, 77. 96, 174. 211.
Snipe, 177. 178, 188.
Snow bnntine, 23.
Snowfleas, 4, 33, 108.
S 'lomon's seal, 55, 196, 210.
Sparrow, ohippine, 116. 123. 124,
142, 151, 171, 200, 214; English,
20.24,41,7.3, 101. 111, 112; field,
117, 140, 142, 1.51, 172; fox, 45,
54, ,57, 102. 106, 107, 108, 112;
prassfinch, 116, 151; Ipswich, 67,
88; -song, 51. ,53. 73, 78, 81,9.5,
112, 130. 140, 1,S9, 214: swamn, 45 ;
tree, 16, 29, 33, 41, 48, 51, 53, 76,
78, 79, 90, 91,
Spider, 55. 79.
Spruce, 56, 1.55.
Spy Pond, 52.
234
INDEX.
Squirrel, 3, 8, 35, 36, 49, 54, 77, 80,
211.
StarUower, 191, 210.
Stuuy Brook, 41, 43, 114, 197.
Stow, 171.
Strawberry, 196.
Sudbury River, 120, 133, 142, 197.
Sumac, 4, 8, 42, 43.
Swallow, 141, 142, 150, 174, 230;
bank, 143, 1C8 ; baru, 143, 151,
ie8, 201, 212, 227; eaves, 143,
1G8 ; martiu, 133, 143, 108 ; white-
bellied, 116, 1'-0, 123, 143, 151, 108.
Tamworth Iron Works, 150.
Thrush, brown, 1S9, 140, 107, 191,
199; hermit, 107, 142, 157, 210,
212, 230; veery, 107, 200, 207,
217, 222.
Tom Coddles, 68.
Trailing arbutus, 96, 150, 152, 196,
225.
Tree toad, 212.
Trillium, 152, 191, 207, 225.
Trout, 216, 221.
Truro, 84-97.
Tudor Place, 110-114, 122, 123.
Turkey HilL, 40, 54.
Turtle, 75.
Twisted stalk, 196.
Uncanoonucs, 28, 58, 195.
Uvularia, 152, 225.
Veery. See Thrush.
Veratrum, 221.
Violet, 142, 145, 191 , 198, 210, 225.
Vireo, red-eyed, 191, 201, 212 ; soli-
tary, 146, 201, 217.
Wachusett, Mt, 28, 36, 80, 81,98,
190-197.
Walden Pond, 197.
Waltham, 31, 43, 55, 124, 197.
Warbler, 1C9 ; Hack - and - white
creeping, 154, 170, 173, 201, 222
Blackbi ms, 217 ; black-poll, 197
black-tl.roated blue, ICl, 173, 222
black-throated green, 146, 173
201, 220 ; Canada flycatcl.iiip, 217
223 ; che.stnut-Eided, ICl, 173, 212
Maryland yellow - throat, 217
Nashville, 154, 190 ; ovenbird
173, 191, 193, 201, 212, 222
parula, 142, 223 ; pine-creeping,
110, 142, 150, 170, 171, 173
redstart, ICO, 109, 170, 173, 200
212 ; water tl rush, 148, 217, 222
yellow red-poll, 117, 173; yellow-
riimped, 90, 91, 109, 173; yeUow
170, 173.
W.atercress. 15, 32, 38, 123.
Waverley, 18. 31, 55, 73, 159.
Waverley Oaks, 73, 123, 124, 126,
100, 197.
Wayland, 143, 144.
Way land Elm, 144.
WeileFley, 118, 120.
West Roxbury, 34.
Whip-poor-will, 140, 212, 230.
Whiteface, Mt.,155.
Willow, 3, 4, 9, 10, 34. 41, 46, 52,
101, 111, 128, 101, 173, 188, 189,
198.
Winchester, 38, 39, 127.
Woodchuck, 77, 149.
Woodcock, 81, 82, 157.
Woodpecker, 147 ; downv, 29, 36,
55, 76, 98, 116, 154, 201. 203;
golden-winged, 35, 48, 53, 69, 76,
112, 117, 123, 124, 120, 152, 201,
203; yellow-bellied, 154,217,218.
Wren, house, 202 ; short-billed
marsh, 187 ; whiter, 222, 223.
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