[* Reports--on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds; the Herbaceous
Plants and Quadrupeds; the Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and the
Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts. Published agreeably to an Order of
the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zooelogical and Botanical
Survey of the State.] [1842.]
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read
in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of
the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea-breezes; of the
fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of
the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the
forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these
reminiscences of luxuriant nature.
Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial,--purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.
I am singularly refreshed in winter when I hear of service-berries,
poke-weed, juniper. Is not heaven made up of these cheap summer glories?
There is a singular health in those words, Labrador and East Main, which
no desponding creed recognizes. How much more than Federal are these
States. If there were no other vicissitudes than the seasons, our interest
would never tire. Much more is adoing than Congress wots of. What journal
do the persimmon and the buckeye keep, and the sharp-shinned hawk? What is
transpiring from summer to winter in the Carolinas, and the Great Pine
Forest, and the Valley of the Mohawk? The merely political aspect of the
land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the
members of a political organization. On this side all lands present only
the symptoms of decay. I see but Bunker Hill and Sing-Sing, the District
of Columbia and Sullivan's Island, with a few avenues connecting them. But
paltry are they all beside one blast of the east or the south wind which
blows over them.
In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at
least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would be pale and livid.
Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so. There is no scent
in it so wholesome as that of the pines, nor any fragrance so penetrating
and restorative as the life-everlasting in high pastures. I would keep
some book of natural history always by me as a sort of elixir, the reading
of which should restore the tone of the system. To the sick, indeed,
nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health. To him who
contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can
come. The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or
servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature.
Surely good courage will not flag here on the Atlantic border, as long as
we are flanked by the Fur Countries. There is enough in that sound to
cheer one under any circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine
will not countenance despair. Methinks some creeds in vestries and
churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and
that the Esquimaux sledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the
northern night, the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and
walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would
toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better
than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living
men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation.
What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible of something in it
as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be
relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and
refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is the condition
of life. Think of the young fry that leap in ponds, the myriads of insects
ushered into being on a summer evening, the incessant note of the hyla
with which the woods ring in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly
carrying accident and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, or
the brook minnow stoutly stemming the current, the lustre of whose scales
worn bright by the attrition is reflected upon the bank.
We fancy that this din of religion, literature, and philosophy, which is
heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe,
and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle; but if a
man sleep soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is
the three-inch swing of a pendulum in a cupboard, which the great pulse of
nature vibrates by and through each instant. When we lift our eyelids and
open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle like the cars on a
railroad. When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am
reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be
contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life,--how silent and
unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from
the holiest, quietest nook. What an admirable training is science for the
more active warfare of life. Indeed, the unchallenged bravery, which these
studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the
warrior. I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night
not unfrequently, as his astronomical discoveries prove. Linnaeus, setting
out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches"
and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a
park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man
is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and
biped. Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and
danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she
calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts
that follow in her train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there cannot
be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery, for that
advances; but a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an
orderly advance in the face of circumstances.
But to draw a little nearer to our promised topics. Entomology extends the
limits of being in a new direction, so that I walk in nature with a sense
of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the universe is
not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will bear the closest
inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part
is full of life. I explore, too, with pleasure, the sources of the myriad
sounds which crowd the summer noon, and which seem the very grain and
stuff of which eternity is made. Who does not remember the shrill
roll-call of the harvest fly? There were ears for these sounds in Greece
long ago, as Anacreon's ode will show.
"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada,
For on the tops of the trees,
Drinking a little dew,
Like any king thou singest,
For thine are they all,
Whatever thou seest in the fields,
And whatever the woods bear.
Thou art the friend of the husbandmen,
In no respect injuring any one;
And thou art honored among men,
Sweet prophet of summer.
The Muses love thee,
And Phoebus himself loves thee,
And has given thee a shrill song;
Age does not wrack thee,
Thou skilful, earthborn, song-loving,
Unsuffering, bloodless one;
Almost thou art like the gods."
In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all the
land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so then by
their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can all
the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has
chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket's chant and the
tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can.
About two hundred and eighty birds either reside permanently in the State,
or spend the summer only, or make us a passing visit. Those which spend
the winter with us have obtained our warmest sympathy. The nut-hatch and
chicadee flitting in company through the dells of the wood, the one
harshly scolding at the intruder, the other with a faint lisping note
enticing him on; the jay screaming in the orchard; the crow cawing in
unison with the storm; the partridge, like a russet link extended over
from autumn to spring, preserving unbroken the chain of summers; the hawk
with warrior-like firmness abiding the blasts of winter; the robin
[* A white robin, and a white quail have occasionally been seen.
It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should
be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than
most in the choice of a building spot. I have seen its nest placed under
the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where the
adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two of the
phoebe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a saw-mill, but a few feet
from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion of the
machinery.]
and lark lurking by warm springs in the woods; the familiar snow-bird
culling a few seeds in the garden, or a few crumbs in the yard; and
occasionally the shrike, with heedless and unfrozen melody bringing back
summer again;--
His steady sails he never furls
At any time o' year,
And perching now on Winter's curls,
He whistles in his ear.
As the spring advances, and the ice is melting in the river, our earliest
and straggling visitors make their appearance. Again does the old Teian
poet sing, as well for New England as for Greece, in the
RETURN OF SPRING.
"Behold, how Spring appearing,
The Graces send forth roses;
Behold, how the wave of the sea
Is made smooth by the calm;
Behold, how the duck dives;
Behold, how the crane travels;
And Titan shines constantly bright.
The shadows of the clouds are moving;
The works of man shine;
The earth puts forth fruits;
The fruit of the olive puts forth.
The cup of Bacchus is crowned,
Along the leaves, along the branches,
The fruit, bending them down, flourishes."
The ducks alight at this season in the still water, in company with the
gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and
swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at
the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not
loosened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long
harrows and waving lines; the gingle of the song-sparrow salutes us from
the shrubs and fences; the plaintive note of the lark comes clear and
sweet from the meadow; and the bluebird, like an azure ray, glances past
us in our walk. The fish-hawk, too, is occasionally seen at this season
sailing majestically over the water, and he who has once observed it will
not soon forget the majesty of its flight. It sails the air like a ship of
the line, worthy to struggle with the elements, falling back from time to
time like a ship on its beam ends, and holding its talons up as if ready
for the arrows, in the attitude of the national bird. It is a great
presence, as of the master of river and forest. Its eye would not quail
before the owner of the soil, but make him feel like an intruder on its
domains. And then its retreat, sailing so steadily away, is a kind of
advance. I have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have for some years
fished in this vicinity, shot by a neighboring pond, measuring more than
two feet in length, and six in the stretch of its wings. Nuttall mentions
that "The ancients, particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys
taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so
were destroyed. Linnaeus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of
the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly
webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the
other." But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless.
Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the
sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath
in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the
Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over
Parnassus.
The booming of the bittern, described by Goldsmith and Nuttall, is
frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like
a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant
farm-yard. The manner in which this sound is produced I have not seen
anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird has been seen by one of my
neighbors to thrust its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it
could hold, then raising its head, it pumped it out again with four or
five heaves of the neck, throwing it two or three feet, and making the
sound each time.
At length the summer's eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the flicker
among the oaks on the hill-side, and a new dynasty begins with calm
security.
In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and given the immense
spaces of hollow air, and this curious human ear, one does not see how the
void could be better filled.
Each summer sound
Is a summer round.
As the season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing visit
depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle the
drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a response and
expression for every mood in the depths of the wood.
Sometimes-I hear the veery's* clarion,
Or brazen trump of the impatient jay,
And in secluded woods the chicadee
Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise
Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness
Of virtue evermore.
[* This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is
apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common
in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college
yard ring with its trill. The boys call it "yorrick," from the sound of
its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveller through the
underwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as
mentioned by Audubon.]
The phoebe still sings in harmony with the sultry weather by the brink of
the pond, nor are the desultory hours of noon in the midst of the village
without their minstrel.
Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays
The vireo rings the changes sweet,
During the trivial summer days,
Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.
With the autumn begins in some measure a new spring. The plover is heard
whistling high in the air over the dry pastures, the finches flit from
tree to tree, the bobolinks and flickers fly in flocks, and the goldfinch
rides on the earliest blast, like a winged hyla peeping amid the rustle of
the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to congregate; you may stand and
count them as they fly low and straggling over the landscape, singly or by
twos and threes, at intervals of half a mile, until a hundred have passed.
I have seen it suggested somewhere that the crow was brought to this
country by the white man; but I shall as soon believe that the white man
planted these pines and hemlocks. He is no spaniel to follow our steps;
but rather flits about the clearings like the dusky spirit of the Indian,
reminding me oftener of Philip and Powhatan, than of Winthrop and Smith.
He is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight, by just so lasting a
tenure does superstition hold the world ever; there is the rook in
England, and the crow in New England.
Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
Bird of an ancient brood,
Flitting thy lonely way,
A meteor in the summer's day,
From wood to wood, from hill to hill,
Low over forest, field, and rill,
What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat,
And bears thee up above the clouds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low?
The late walker or sailor, in the October evenings, may hear the
murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most spirit-like
sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the frosts have
tinged the leaves, a solitary loon pays a visit to our retired ponds,
where he may lurk undisturbed till the season of moulting is passed,
making the woods ring with his wild laughter. This bird, the Great
Northern Diver, well deserves its name; for when pursued with a boat, it
will dive, and swim like a fish under water, for sixty rods or more, as
fast as a boat can be paddled, and its pursuer, if he would discover his
game again, must put his ear to the surface to hear where it comes up.
When it comes to the surface, it throws the water off with one shake of
its wings, and calmly swims about until again disturbed.
These are the sights and sounds which reach our senses oftenest during the
year. But sometimes one hears a quite new note, which has for background
other Carolinas and Mexicos than the books describe, and learns that his
ornithology has done him no service.
It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds belonging
to the State, and among these one is glad to hear of a few bears, wolves,
lynxes, and wildcats.
When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the
meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness
advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off
then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the musk-rat, made of
mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river, as when I
read of the barrows of Asia. The musk-rat is the beaver of the settled
States. Their number has even increased within a few years in this
vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the Merrimack, the Concord is
known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The Indians are said to have called
it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its current being much more sluggish,
and its water more muddy than the rest, it abounds more in fish and game
of every kind. According to the History of the town, "The fur-trade was
here once very important. As early as 1641, a company was formed in the
colony, of which Major Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the
exclusive right to trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and
for this right they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one
twentieth of all the furs they obtained." There are trappers in our midst
still, as well as on the streams of the far West, who night and morning go
the round of their traps, without fear of the Indian. One of these takes
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred musk-rats in a year, and even
thirty-six have been shot by one man in a day. Their fur, which is not
nearly as valuable as formerly, is in good condition in the winter and
spring only; and upon the breaking up of the ice, when they are driven out
of their holes by the water, the greatest number is shot from boats,
either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass
and reeds, by the side of the stream. Though they exhibit considerable
cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to
be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait
being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter
the hunter cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them when they come to the
surface. Their burrows are usually in the high banks of the river, with
the entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high
water. Sometimes their nests, composed of dried meadow grass and flags,
may be discovered where the bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of the
ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young in the
spring.
Frequently, in the morning or evening, a long ripple is seen in the still
water, where a musk-rat is crossing the stream, with only its nose above
the surface, and sometimes a green bough in its mouth to build its house
with. When it finds itself observed, it will dive and swim five or six
rods under water, and at length conceal itself in its hole, or the weeds.
It will remain under water for ten minutes at a time, and on one occasion
has been seen, when undisturbed, to form an air-bubble under the ice,
which contracted and expanded as it breathed at leisure. When it suspects
danger on shore, it will stand erect like a squirrel, and survey its
neighborhood for several minutes, without moving.
In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the stream,
they erect cabins of mud and grass, three or four feet high, near its
edge. These are not their breeding-places, though young are sometimes
found in them in late freshets, but rather their hunting-lodges, to which
they resort in the winter with their food, and for shelter. Their food
consists chiefly of flags and fresh-water muscles, the shells of the
latter being left in large quantities around their lodges in the spring.
The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a musk-rat, with the legs
and tail dangling, and the head caught under his girdle, for a pouch, into
which he puts his fishing tackle, and essences to scent his traps with.
The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten, have disappeared;
the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less
common than formerly.
Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and
most familiar reputation, from the time of Pilpay and Aesop to the present
day. His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in
the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which
perhaps I have started, with such a tiptoe of expectation, as if I were on
the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected
soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to know what has determined its
graceful curvatures, and how surely they were coincident with the
fluctuations of some mind. I know which way a mind wended, what horizon it
faced, by the setting of these tracks, and whether it moved slowly or
rapidly, by their greater or less intervals and distinctness; for the
swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace. Sometimes you will see the
trails of many together, and where they have gambolled and gone through a
hundred evolutions, which testify to a singular listlessness and leisure
in nature.
When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, with the carelessness of
freedom, or at intervals trace his course in the sunshine along the ridge
of a hill, I give up to him sun and earth as to their true proprietor. He
does not go in the sun, but it seems to follow him, and there is a visible
sympathy between him and it. Sometimes, when the snow lies light, and but
five or six inches deep, you may give chase and come up with one on foot.
In such a case he will show a remarkable presence of mind, choosing only
the safest direction, though he may lose ground by it. Notwithstanding his
fright, he will take no step which is not beautiful. His pace is a sort of
leopard canter, as if he were in nowise impeded by the snow, but were
husbanding his strength all the while. When the ground is uneven, the
course is a series of graceful curves, conforming to the shape of the
surface. He runs as though there were not a bone in his back. Occasionally
dropping his muzzle to the ground for a rod or two, and then tossing his
head aloft, when satisfied of his course. When he comes to a declivity, he
will put his forefeet together, and slide swiftly down it, shoving the
snow before him. He treads so softly that you would hardly hear it from
any nearness, and yet with such expression that it would not be quite
inaudible at any distance.
* * * * *
Of fishes, seventy-five genera and one hundred and seven species are
described in the Report. The fisherman will be startled to learn that
there are but about a dozen kinds in the ponds and streams of any inland
town; and almost nothing is known of their habits. Only their names and
residence make one love fishes. I would know even the number of their
fin-rays, and how many scales compose the lateral line. I am the wiser in
respect to all knowledges, and the better qualified for all fortunes, for
knowing that there is a minnow in the brook. Methinks I have need even of
his sympathy, and to be his fellow in a degree.
I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing
and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or
Shakspeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the
Angler's Souvenir, I am fain to exclaim,--
"Can these things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud?"
Next to nature, it seems as if man's actions were the most natural, they
so gently accord with her. The small seines of flax stretched across the
shallow and transparent parts of our river, are no more intrusion than the
cobweb in the sun. I stay my boat in midcurrent, and look down in the
sunny water to see the civil meshes of his nets, and wonder how the
blustering people of the town could have done this elvish work. The twine
looks like a new river weed, and is to the river as a beautiful memento of
man's presence in nature, discovered as silently and delicately as a
footprint in the sand.
When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my
feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many
pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain. The
revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length
the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens
again.
Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, is the time for spearing
fish. Suddenly the wind shifts from northeast and east to west and south,
and every icicle, which has tinkled on the meadow grass so long, trickles
down its stem, and seeks its level unerringly with a million comrades. The
steam curls up from every roof and fence.
I see the civil sun drying earth's tears,
Her tears of joy, which only faster flow.
In the brooks is heard the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice,
floating with various speed, full of content and promise, and where the
water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold
conversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of
the meadow. In the ponds the ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din,
and down the larger streams is whirled grating hoarsely, and crashing its
way along, which was so lately a highway for the woodman's team and the
fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and the
holes cut for pickerel. Town committees anxiously inspect the bridges and
causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice, and save the
treasury.
The river swelleth more and more,
Like some sweet influence stealing o'er
The passive town; and for a while
Each tussuck makes a tiny isle,
Where, on some friendly Ararat,
Resteth the weary water-rat.
No ripple shows Musketaquid,
Her very current e'en is hid,
As deepest souls do calmest rest,
When thoughts are swelling in the breast,
And she that in the summer's drought
Doth make a rippling and a rout,
Sleeps from Nabshawtuck to the Cliff,
Unruffled by a single skiff.
But by a thousand distant hills
The louder roar a thousand rills,
And many a spring which now is dumb,
And many a stream with smothered hum,
Doth swifter well and faster glide,
Though buried deep beneath the tide.
Our village shows a rural Venice,
Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is;
As lovely as the Bay of Naples
Yon placid cove amid the maples;
And in my neighbor's field of corn
I recognize the Golden Horn.
Here Nature taught from year to year,
When only red men came to hear,
Methinks 'twas in this school of art
Venice and Naples learned their part;
But still their mistress, to my mind,
Her young disciples leaves behind.
The fisherman now repairs and launches his boat. The best time for
spearing is at this season, before the weeds have begun to grow, and while
the fishes lie in the shallow water, for in summer they prefer the cool
depths, and in the autumn they are still more or less concealed by the
grass. The first requisite is fuel for your crate; and for this purpose
the roots of the pitchpine are commonly used, found under decayed stumps,
where the trees have been felled eight or ten years.
With a crate, or jack, made of iron hoops, to contain your fire, and
attached to the bow of your boat about three feet from the water, a
fish-spear with seven tines, and fourteen feet long, a large basket, or
barrow, to carry your fuel and bring back your fish, and a thick outer
garment, you are equipped for a cruise. It should be a warm and still
evening; and then with a fire crackling merrily at the prow, you may
launch forth like a cucullo into the night. The dullest soul cannot go
upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if
he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone down the Styx on a midnight
expedition into the realms of Pluto. And much speculation does this
wandering star afford to the musing nightwalker, leading him on and on,
jack-o'lantern-like, over the meadows; or, if he is wiser, he amuses
himself with imagining what of human life, far in the silent night, is
flitting mothlike round its candle. The silent navigator shoves his craft
gently over the water, with a smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as
if he were the phosphor, or light-bringer, to these dusky realms, or some
sister moon, blessing the spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or
two on either hand and several feet in depth, are lit up with more than
noonday distinctness, and he enjoys the opportunity which so many have
desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed raised, and he surveys the
midnight economy of the fishes. There they lie in every variety of
posture; some on their backs, with their white bellies uppermost, some
suspended in midwater, some sculling gently along with a dreamy motion of
the fins, and others quite active and wide awake,--a scene not unlike what
the human city would present. Occasionally he will encounter a turtle
selecting the choicest morsels, or a musk-rat resting on a tussuck. He may
exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more distant and active
fish, or fork the nearer into his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even
take the sound sleepers with his hands. But these last accomplishments he
will soon learn to dispense with, distinguishing the real object of his
pursuit, and find compensation in the beauty and never-ending novelty of
his position. The pines growing down to the water's edge will show newly
as in the glare of a conflagration; and as he floats under the willows
with his light, the song-sparrow will often wake on her perch, and sing
that strain at midnight, which she had meditated for the morning. And when
he has done, he may have to steer his way home through the dark by the
north star, and he will feel himself some degrees nearer to it for having
lost his way on the earth.
The fishes commonly taken in this way are pickerel, suckers, perch, eels,
pouts, breams, and shiners,--from thirty to sixty weight in a night.
Some are hard to be recognized in the unnatural light, especially the
perch, which, his dark bands being exaggerated, acquires a ferocious
aspect. The number of these transverse bands, which the Report states to
be seven, is, however, very variable, for in some of our ponds they have
nine and ten even.
* * * * *
It appears that we have eight kinds of tortoises, twelve snakes,--but one
of which is venomous,--nine frogs and toads, nine salamanders, and one
lizard, for our neighbors.
I am particularly attracted by the motions of the serpent tribe. They make
our hands and feet, the wings of the bird, and the fins of the fish seems
very superfluous, as if nature had only indulged her fancy in making them.
The black snake will dart into a bush when pursued, and circle round and
round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five
or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang
in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in the simpler
forms of animal life are equivalent to a complex system of limbs in the
higher; and we have only to be as wise and wily as the serpent, to perform
as difficult feats without the vulgar assistance of hands and feet.
In May, the snapping turtle, Emysaurus serpentina, is frequently taken
on the meadows and in the river. The fisherman, taking sight over the calm
surface, discovers its snout projecting above the water, at the distance
of many rods, and easily secures his prey through its unwillingness to
disturb the water by swimming hastily away, for, gradually drawing its
head under, it remains resting on some limb or clump of grass. Its eggs,
which are buried at a distance from the water, in some soft place, as a
pigeon-bed, are frequently devoured by the skunk. It will catch fish by
daylight, as a toad catches flies, and is said to emit a transparent fluid
from its mouth to attract them.
Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and
refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers
exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower.
When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been
there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there. I am
struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of nature, as when
the lichen on the trees takes the form of their leaves. In the most
stupendous scenes you will see delicate and fragile features, as slight
wreaths of vapor, dewlines, feathery sprays, which suggest a high
refinement, a noble blood and breeding, as it were. It is not hard to
account for elves and fairies; they represent this light grace, this
ethereal gentility. Bring a spray from the wood, or a crystal from the
brook, and place it on your mantel, and your household ornaments will seem
plebeian beside its nobler fashion and bearing. It will wave superior
there, as if used to a more refined and polished circle. It has a salute
and a response to all your enthusiasm and heroism.
In the winter, I stop short in the path to admire how the trees grow up
without forethought, regardless of the time and circumstances. They do not
wait as man does, but now is the golden age of the sapling. Earth, air,
sun, and rain, are occasion enough; they were no better in primeval
centuries. The "winter of their discontent" never comes. Witness the
buds of the native poplar standing gayly out to the frost on the sides of
its bare switches. They express a naked confidence. With cheerful heart
one could be a sojourner in the wilderness, if he were sure to find there
the catkins of the willow or the alder. When I read of them in the
accounts of northern adventurers, by Baffin's Bay or Mackenzie's river, I
see how even there too I could dwell. They are our little vegetable
redeemers. Methinks our virtue will hold out till they come again. They
are worthy to have had a greater than Minerva or Ceres for their inventor.
Who was the benignant goddess that bestowed them on mankind?
Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and
extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as
art. Having a pilgrim's cup to make, she gives to the whole, stem, bowl,
handle, and nose, some fantastic shape, as if it were to be the car of
some fabulous marine deity, a Nereus or Triton.
In the winter, the botanist needs not confine himself to his books and
herbarium, and give over his out-door pursuits, but may study a new
department of vegetable physiology, what may be called crystalline botany,
then. The winter of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In December of
that year, the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by night over its
summer haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoarfrost, as is very
uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full effects can never be witnessed
after sunrise, occurred several times. As I went forth early on a still
and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness
caught napping; on this side huddled together with their gray hairs
streaming in a secluded valley, which the sun had not penetrated; on that
hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and
grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their
diminished heads in the snow. The river, viewed from the high bank,
appeared of a yellowish green color, though all the landscape was white.
Every tree, shrub, and spire of grass, that could raise its head above the
snow, was covered with a dense ice-foliage, answering, as it were, leaf
for leaf to its summer dress. Even the fences had put forth leaves in the
night. The centre, diverging, and more minute fibres were perfectly
distinct, and the edges regularly indented. These leaves were on the side
of the twig or stubble opposite to the sun, meeting it for the most part
at right angles, and there were others standing out at all possible angles
upon these and upon one another, with no twig or stubble supporting them.
When the first rays of the sun slanted over the scene, the grasses seemed
hung with innumerable jewels, which jingled merrily as they were brushed
by the foot of the traveller, and reflected all the hues of the rainbow
as he moved from side to side. It struck me that these ghost leaves, and
the green ones whose forms they assume, were the creatures of but one law;
that in obedience to the same law the vegetable juices swell gradually
into the perfect leaf, on the one hand, and the crystalline particles
troop to their standard in the same order, on the other. As if the
material were indifferent, but the law one and invariable, and every plant
in the spring but pushed up into and filled a permanent and eternal mould,
which, summer and winter forever, is waiting to be filled.
This foliate structure is common to the coral and the plumage of birds,
and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same
independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in
the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its
counterpart in some vegetable. As, indeed, all rhymes imply an eternal
melody, independent of any particular sense.
As confirmation of the fact, that vegetation is but a kind of
crystallization, every one may observe how, upon the edge of the melting
frost on the window, the needle-shaped particles are bundled together
so as to resemble fields waving with grain, or shocks rising here and
there from the stubble; on one side the vegetation of the torrid zone,
high-towering palms and widespread banyans, such as are seen in pictures
of oriental scenery; on the other, arctic pines stiff frozen, with
downcast branches.
Vegetation has been made the type of all growth; but as in crystals the
law is more obvious, their material being more simple, and for the most
part more transient and fleeting, would it not be as philosophical as
convenient to consider all growth, all filling up within the limits of
nature, but a crystallization more or less rapid?
On this occasion, in the side of the high bank of the river, wherever
the water or other cause had formed a cavity, its throat and outer edge,
like the entrance to a citadel, bristled with a glistening ice-armor.
In one place you might see minute ostrich-feathers, which seemed the
waving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress; in another, the
glancing, fan-shaped banners of the Lilliputian host; and in another, the
needle-shaped particles collected into bundles, resembling the plumes of
the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears. From the under side of the
ice in the brooks, where there was a thicker ice below, depended a mass of
crystallization, four or five inches deep, in the form of prisms, with
their lower ends open, which, when the ice was laid on its smooth side,
resembled the roofs and steeples of a Gothic city, or the vessels of a
crowded haven under a press of canvas. The very mud in the road, where the
ice had melted, was crystallized with deep rectilinear fissures, and the
crystalline masses in the sides of the ruts resembled exactly asbestos in
the disposition of their needles. Around the roots of the stubble and
flower-stalks, the frost was gathered into the form of irregular conical
shells, or fairy rings. In some places the ice-crystals were lying upon
granite rocks, directly over crystals of quartz, the frost-work of a
longer night, crystals of a longer period, but to some eye unprejudiced by
the short term of human life, melting as fast as the former.
In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, this singular fact is recorded,
which teaches us to put a new value on time and space. "The distribution
of the marine shells is well worthy of notice as a geological fact. Cape
Cod, the right arm of the Commonwealth, reaches out into the ocean, some
fifty or sixty miles. It is nowhere many miles wide; but this narrow point
of land has hitherto proved a barrier to the migrations of many species of
Mollusca. Several genera and numerous species, which are separated by the
intervention of only a few miles of land, are effectually prevented from
mingling by the Cape, and do not pass from one side to the other.... Of
the one hundred and ninety-seven marine species, eighty-three do not pass
to the south shore, and fifty are not found on the north shore of the
Cape."
That common muscle, the Unio complanalus, or more properly
fluviatilis, left in the spring by the musk-rat upon rocks and stumps,
appears to have been an important article of food with the Indians. In one
place, where they are said to have feasted, they are found in large
quantities, at an elevation of thirty feet above the river, filling the
soil to the depth of a foot, and mingled with ashes and Indian remains.
The works we have placed at the head of our chapter, with as much license,
as the preacher selects his text, are such as imply more labor than
enthusiasm. The State wanted complete catalogues of its natural riches,
with such additional facts merely as would be directly useful.
The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and Invertebrate Animals,
however, indicate labor and research, and have a value independent of the
object of the legislature.
Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot be of much value, as long as
Bigelow and Nuttall are accessible. They serve but to indicate, with more
or less exactness, what species are found in the State. We detect several
errors ourselves, and a more practised eye would no doubt expand the list.
The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and instructive report than they have
obtained.
These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not
interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored
sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests, which
bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was comparatively
unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he raises no flowers
with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one
day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are
added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural
history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing
enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairymaid knows that the
coats of the fourth stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what
particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious diet. You cannot go into any
field or wood, but it will seem as if every stone had been turned, and the
bark on every tree ripped up. But, after all, it is much easier to
discover than to see when the cover is off! It has been well said that
"the attitude of inspection is prone." Wisdom does not inspect, but
behold. We must look a long time before we can see. Slow are the
beginnings of philosophy. He has something demoniacal in him, who can
discern a law or couple two facts. We can imagine a time when,--"Water
runs down hill,"--may have been taught in the schools. The true man of
science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell,
taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and
finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction, and the
application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and
sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by
contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with
all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be
the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian
wisdom. |