23 chapters
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23 chapters
INTRODUCTORY.
INTRODUCTORY.
The studies in this volume were all made, as the title indicates, in the West; part of them in Colorado (1891), in Utah (1893), and the remainder (1892) in what I have called "The Middle Country," being Southern Ohio, and West only relatively to New England and New York, where most of my studies have been made. Several chapters have appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly" and other magazines, and in the "Independent" and "Harper's Bazar," while others are now for the first time published. OLIVE THORN
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IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
Trust me, 't is something to be cast Face to face with one's self at last, To be taken out of the fuss and strife, The endless clatter of plate and knife, The bore of books, and the bores of the street, From the singular mess we agree to call Life. And to be set down on one's own two feet So nigh to the great warm heart of God, You almost seem to feel it beat Down from the sunshine and up from the sod; To be compelled, as it were, to notice All the beautiful changes and chances Through which the
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I. CAMPING IN COLORADO.
I. CAMPING IN COLORADO.
This chronicle of happy summer days with the birds and the flowers, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, begins in the month of May, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two. As my train rolled quietly out of Jersey City late at night, I uttered a sigh of gratitude that I was really off; that at last I could rest. Up to the final moment I had been hurried and worried, but the instant I was alone, with my "section" to myself, I "took myself in hand," as is my custom. At the risk of seeming to s
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II. IN THE COTTONWOODS.
II. IN THE COTTONWOODS.
A cottonwood grove is the nearest approach to our Eastern rural districts to be found in Colorado, and a cotton storm, looking exactly like a snowstorm, is a common sight in these groves. The white, fluffy material grows in long bunches, loosely attached to stems, and the fibre is very short. At the lightest breeze that stirs the branches, tiny bits of it take to flight, and one tree will shed cotton for weeks. It clings to one's garments; it gets into the houses, and sticks to the carpets, ofte
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III. AN UPROAR OF SONG.
III. AN UPROAR OF SONG.
The bird music of Colorado, though not so abundant as one could wish, is singularly rich in quality, and remarkable for its volume. At the threshold of the State the traveler is struck by this peculiarity. As the train thunders by, the Western meadow-lark mounts a telegraph pole and pours out such a peal of melody that it is distinctly heard above the uproar of the iron wheels. This bird is preëminently the bird of the mesa, or high table-land of the region, and only to hear his rare song is wel
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IV. THE TRAGEDY OF A NEST.
IV. THE TRAGEDY OF A NEST.
Near to the Camp, a little closer to beautiful Cheyenne Mountain, lay a small park. It was a continuation of the grove, through which the brook came roaring and tumbling down from the cañons above, and, being several miles from the town, it had never become a popular resort. A few winding paths, and a rude bench here and there, were the only signs of man's interference with its native wildness; it was practically abandoned to the birds—and me. The birds had full possession when I appeared on the
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V. A FEAST OF FLOWERS.
V. A FEAST OF FLOWERS.
When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould, And folded green things in dim woods unclose Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes Into my veins and makes me kith and kin To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows. T. B. Aldrich. My feast of flowers began before I entered Colorado. For half the breadth of Kansas the banks of the railroad were heavenly blue with clustered blossoms of the spiderwort. I remember clumps of this flower in my
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VI. A CINDERELLA AMONG FLOWERS.
VI. A CINDERELLA AMONG FLOWERS.
Like torches lit for carnival, The fiery lilies straight and tall Burn where the deepest shadow is; Still dance the columbines cliff-hung, And like a broidered veil outflung The many-blossomed clematis. Susan Coolidge. A rough, scraggy plant, with unattractive, dark-green foliage and a profusion of buds standing out at all angles, is, in July, almost the only growing thing to be seen on the barren-looking mesa around Colorado Springs. Anything more unpromising can hardly be imagined; the coarses
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IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY.
IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY.
For all the woods are shrill with stress of song, Where soft wings flutter down to new-built nests, And turbulent sweet sounds are heard day long, As of innumerable marriage feasts. Charles Lotin Hildreth....
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VIII. AT FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
VIII. AT FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
Four o'clock in the morning is the magical hour of the day. I do not offer this sentiment as original, nor have I the slightest hope of converting any one to my opinion; I merely state the fact. For years I had known it perfectly well; and fortified by my knowledge, and bristling with good resolutions, I went out every June determined to rise at that unnatural hour. Nothing is easier than to get up at four o'clock—the night before; but when morning comes, the point of view is changed, and all th
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IX. THE LITTLE REDBIRDS.
IX. THE LITTLE REDBIRDS.
When the little redbirds began to visit the lawn there were exciting times. At first they ventured only to the trees overlooking it; and the gayly dressed father who had them in charge reminded me of nothing so much as a fussy young mother. He was alert to the tips of his toes, and excited, as if the whole world was thirsting for the life of those frowzy-headed youngsters in the maple. His manner intimated that nobody ever had birdlings before; indeed, that there never had been, or could be, jus
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X. THE CARDINAL'S NEST.
X. THE CARDINAL'S NEST.
While I had been studying four o'clock manners, grave and gay, other things had happened. Most delightful, perhaps, was my acquaintance with a cardinal family at home. From the first I had looked for a nest, and had suffered two or three disappointments. One pair flaunted their intentions by appearing on a tree before my window, "tsipping" with all their might; she with her beak full of hay from the lawn below; he, eager and devoted, assisting by his presence. The important and consequential man
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XI. LITTLE BOY BLUE.
XI. LITTLE BOY BLUE.
"The crested blue jay flitting swift." To know the little boy blue in his domestic life had been my desire for years. In vain did I search far and wide for a nest, till it began to look almost as if the bird intentionally avoided me. I went to New England, and blue jays disappeared as if by magic; I turned my steps to the Rocky Mountains, and the whole tribe betook itself to the inaccessible hills. In despair I abandoned the search, and set up my tent in the middle country, without a thought of
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XII. STORY OF THE NESTLINGS.
XII. STORY OF THE NESTLINGS.
While I was studying the manners and customs of the bird in blue, babies were growing up in the pine-tree nest. Five days after I began to observe, I saw little heads above the edge. On the sixth day they began, as mothers say, to "take notice," stirring about in a lively way, clambering up into sight, and fluttering their draperies over the edge. Now came busy and hungry times in the jay family; the mother added her forces, and both parents worked industriously from morning till night. On the s
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XIII. BLUE JAY MANNERS.
XIII. BLUE JAY MANNERS.
Early in my acquaintance with the jay family, wishing to induce the birds of the vicinity to show themselves, I procured a quantity of shelled corn, and scattered a few handfuls under my window every night. This gave me opportunity to note, among other things, the jay's way of conducting himself on the ground, and his table manners. To eat a kernel of dry corn, he flew with it to a small branch, placed it between his feet (the latter of course being close together), and, holding it thus, drew ba
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XIV. THE GREAT CAROLINIAN.
XIV. THE GREAT CAROLINIAN.
All through June of that summer I studied the birds in the spacious inclosure around my "Inn of Rest." But as that month drew near its end, "The happy birds that change their sky To build and brood, that live their lives From land to land," almost disappeared. Blue jay babies wandered far off, where I could hear them it is true, but where—owing to the despair into which my appearance threw the whole jay family—I rarely saw them; orchard and Baltimore orioles had learned to fly, and carried their
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XV. THE WRENLINGS APPEAR.
XV. THE WRENLINGS APPEAR.
The moment we entered the court I saw there was news. My eyes being attracted by a little commotion on a dogwood-tree, I saw a saucy tufted titmouse chasing with cries one of the wrens who had food in its beak. With most birds this proclaims the arrival of the young family as plainly as if a banner had been hung on the castle walls. Whether the tit was after the food, or trying to drive the wren off his own ground, we could not tell, nor did we much care; the important fact was that babies were
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XVI. THE APPLE-TREE NEST.
XVI. THE APPLE-TREE NEST.
All day long in the elm, on their swaying perches swinging, New-fledged orioles utter their restless, querulous notes. Harriet Prescott Spofford. The little folk let out the secret, as little folk often do, and after they had called attention to it, I was surprised that I had not myself seen the pretty hammock swinging high up in the apple boughs. It was, however, in a part of the grounds I did not often visit, partly because the trees close by, which formed a belt across the back of the place,
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XVII. CEDAR-TREE LITTLE FOLK.
XVII. CEDAR-TREE LITTLE FOLK.
'T is there that the wild dove has her nest, And whenever the branches stir, She presses closer the eggs to her breast, And her mate looks down on her. Clare Beatrice Coffey. One of the voices that helped to make my June musical, and one more constantly heard than any other, was that of the "Mourning dove who grieves and grieves, And lost! lost! lost! still seems to say," as the poet has it. Now, while I dearly love the poets, and always long to enrich my plain prose with gems from their verse,
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BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE.
BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE.
Up!—If thou knew'st who calls To twilight parks of beach and pine High o'er the river intervals, Above the plowman's highest line, Over the owner's farthest walls! Up! where the airy citadel O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell! Emerson....
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XVIII. IN A PASTURE.
XVIII. IN A PASTURE.
The word "pasture," as used on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, conveys no true idea to one whose associations with that word have been formed in States east of the Rocky Mountains. Imagine an extensive inclosure on the side of a mountain, with its barren-looking soil strewn with rocks of all sizes, from a pebble to a bowlder, cut across by an irrigating ditch or a mountain brook, dotted here and there by sage bushes, and patches of oak-brush, and wild roses, and one has a picture of a Salt Lak
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XIX. THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH.
XIX. THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH.
"Shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?" Wordsworth's lines are addressed to the cuckoo of the Old World, a bird of unenviable reputation, notorious for imposing his most sacred duties upon others; naturally, therefore, one who would not court observation, and whose ways would be somewhat mysterious. But the American representative of the family is a bird of different manners. Unlike his namesake across the water, our cuckoo never—or so rarely as practically to be never—shirks the lab
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XX. ON THE LAWN.
XX. ON THE LAWN.
The first thing that strikes an Eastern bird-student in the Rocky Mountain region, as I have already said, is the absence of the birds he is familiar with. Instead of the chipping sparrow everywhere, one sees the lazuli-painted finch, or the Rocky Mountain bluebird; in place of the American robin's song, most common of sounds in country neighborhoods on the Atlantic side of the continent, is heard the silver bell of the towhee bunting, sometimes called marsh robin, or the harsh "chack" of Brewer
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