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Summer

Dallas Lore Sharp

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57 chapters

SUMMER

SUMMER

by DALLAS LORE SHARP AUTHOR OF “THE LAY OF THE LAND,” “THE FACE OF THE FIELDS,” “WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON,” “THE FALL OF THE YEAR,” “WINTER,” “THE SPRING OF THE YEAR,” ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1913 AND 1914, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE CENTURY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; CO. COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DALLA

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

In this fourth and last volume of these outdoor books I have taken you into the summer fields and, shall I hope? left you there. After all, what better thing could I do? And as I leave you there, let me say one last serious word concerning the purpose of such books as these and the large subject of nature-study in general. I believe that a child’s interest in outdoor life is a kind of hunger, as natural as his interest in bread and butter. He cannot live on bread and butter alone, but he ought n

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CHAPTER I THE SUMMER AFIELD

CHAPTER I THE SUMMER AFIELD

The word summer, being interpreted, means vacation; and vacation, being interpreted, means—so many things that I have not space in this book to name them. Yet how can there be a vacation without mountains, or seashore, or the fields, or the forests—days out of doors? My ideal vacation would have to be spent in the open; and this book, the larger part of it, is the record of one of my summer vacations—the vacation of the summer of 1912. That was an ideal vacation, and along with my account of it

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CHAPTER II THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY

CHAPTER II THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY

The watcher of wild animals never gets used to the sight of their mirthless sport. In all other respects animal play is entirely human. A great deal of human play is serious—desperately serious on the football-field, and at the card-table, as when a lonely player is trying to kill time with solitaire. I have watched a great ungainly hippopotamus for hours trying to do the same solemn thing by cuffing a croquet-ball back and forth from one end of his cage to the other. His keepers told me that wi

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I

I

The dawn, the breaking dawn! I know nothing lovelier, nothing fresher, nothing newer, purer, sweeter than a summer dawn. I am just back from one—from the woods and cornfields wet with dew, the meadows and streams white with mist, and all the world of paths and fences running off into luring spaces of wavering, lifting, beckoning horizons where shrouded forms were moving and hidden voices calling. By noontime the buzz-saw of the cicada will be ripping the dried old stick of this August day into s

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II

II

I said in “The Spring of the Year” that you should see a farmer ploughing, then a few weeks later the field of sprouting corn. Now in July or August you must see that field in silk and tassel, blade and stalk standing high over your head. You might catch the same sight of wealth in a cotton-field, if cotton is “king” in your section; or in a vast wheat-field, if wheat is your king; or in a potato-field if you live in Maine—but no, not in a potato-field. It is all underground in a potato-field. N

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III

III

Keep out from under all trees, stand away from all tall poles, but get somewhere in the open and watch a blue-black thunderstorm come up. It is one of the wonders of summer, one of the shows of the sky, a thing of terrible beauty that I must confess I cannot look at without dread and a feeling of awe that rests like a load upon me....

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IV

IV

But there are many smaller, individual things to be seen this summer, and among them, notable for many reasons, is a hummingbird’s nest. “When completed it is scarcely larger than an English walnut and is usually saddled on a small horizontal limb of a tree or shrub frequently many feet from the ground. It is composed almost entirely of soft plant fibers, fragments of spiders’ webs sometimes being used to hold them in shape. The sides are thickly studded with bits of lichen, and practiced, indee

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V

V

Have you read Mr. William L. Finley’s story of the California condor’s nest? The hummingbird young is out and gone within three weeks; but the condor young is still in the care of its watchful parents three months after it is hatched. You ought to watch the slow, guarded youth of one of the larger hawks or owls during the summer. Such birds build very early,—before the snow is gone sometimes,—but they are to be seen feeding their young far into the summer. The wide variety in bird-life, both in

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VI

VI

This is the season of flowers. But what among them should you especially see? Some time ago one of the school-teachers near me brought in a list of a dozen species of wild orchids, gathered out of the meadows, bogs, and woods about the neighborhood. Can you do as well? Suppose, then, that you try to find as many. They were the pink lady’s-slipper; the yellow lady’s-slipper; the yellow fringed-orchis ( Habenaria ciliaris ); the ladies’-tresses, two species; the rattlesnake-plantain; arethusa, or

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VII

VII

There are a certain number of moths and butterflies that you should see and know also. If one could come to know, say, one hundred and fifty flowers and the moths and butterflies that visit them (for the flower and its insect pollen-carrier are to be thought of and studied together), one would have an excellent speaking acquaintance with the blossoming out-of-doors. Now, among the butterflies you ought to know the mourning-cloak, or vanessa; the big red-brown milkweed butterfly; the big yellow t

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VIII

VIII

There is a like list of interesting beetles and other insects, that play a large part in even your affairs, which you ought to watch during the summer: the honeybee, the big droning golden bumblebee, the large white-faced hornet that builds the paper nests in the bushes and trees, the gall-flies, the ichneumon-flies, the burying beetle, the tumble-bug beetle, the dragon-fly, the caddis-fly—these are only a few of a whole world of insect folk about you, whose habits and life-histories are of utmo

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IX

IX

You see I cannot stop with this list of the things. That is the trouble with summer—there is too much of it while it lasts, too much variety and abundance of life. One is simply compelled to limit one’s self to some particular study, and to pick up mere scraps from other fields. But, to come back to the larger things of the out-of-doors, you should see the mist some summer morning very early or some summer evening, sheeted and still over a winding stream or pond, especially in the evening when t

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X

X

You should see it rain down little toads this summer— if you can! There are persons who claim to have seen it. But I never have. I have stood on Maurice River Bridge, however, and apparently had them pelting down upon my feet as the big drops of the July shower struck the planks—myriads of tiny toads covering the bridge across the river! Did they rain down? No, they had been hiding in the dirt between the planks and hopped out to meet the sweet rain and to soak their little thirsty skins full...

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XI

XI

You should see a cowbird’s young in a vireo’s nest and the efforts of the poor deceived parents to satisfy its insatiable appetite at the expense of their own young ones’ lives! Such a sight will set you to thinking....

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XII

XII

I shall not tell you what else you should see, for the whole book could be filled with this one chapter, and then you might lose your forest in your trees. The individual tree is good to look at—the mighty wide-limbed hemlock or pine; but so is a whole dark, solemn forest of hemlocks and pines good to look at. Let us come to the out-of-doors with our study of the separate, individual plant or thing; but let us go on to Nature , and not stop with the individual thing....

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CHAPTER IV THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT

CHAPTER IV THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT

“We have stopped the plumers,” said the game-warden, “and we are holding the market-hunters to something like decency; but there’s a pot-hunter yonder on Pelican Point that I’ve got to do up or lose my job.” Pelican Point was the end of a long, narrow peninsula that ran out into the lake, from the opposite shore, twelve miles across from us. We were in the Klamath Lake Reservation in southern Oregon, one of the greatest wild-bird preserves in the world. Over the point, as we drew near, the big w

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CHAPTER V FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD

CHAPTER V FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD

Over and over I read the list of saints and martyrs on the wall across the street, thinking dully how men used to suffer for their religion, and how, nowadays, they suffer for their teeth. For I was reclining in a dentist’s chair, blinking through the window at the Boston Public Library, seeing nothing, however, nothing but the tiles on the roof, and the names of Luther, Wesley, Wycliffe, graven on the granite wall, while the dentist burred inside of my cranium and bored down to my toes for nerv

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I

I

The fullness, the flood, of life has come, and, contrary to one’s expectations, a marked silence has settled down over the waving fields and the cool deep woods. I am writing these lines in the lamplight, with all the windows and doors open to the dark July night. The summer winds are moving in the trees. A cricket and a few small green grasshoppers are chirping in the grass; but nothing louder is near at hand. And nothing louder is far off, except the cry of the whip-poor-will in the wood road.

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II

II

You ought to hear the lively clatter of a mowing-machine. It is hot out of doors; the roads are beginning to look dusty; the insects are tuning up in the grass, and, like their chorus all together, and marching round and round the meadow, moves the mower’s whirring blade. I love the sound. Haying is hard, sweet work. The farmer who does not love his haying ought to be made to keep a country store and sell kerosene oil and lumps of dead salt pork out of a barrel. He could not appreciate a live, f

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III

III

You ought to hear the Katydids—two of them on the trees outside your window. They are not saying “Katy did,” nor singing “Katy did”; they are fiddling “Katy did,” “Katy didn’t”—by rasping the fore wings. Is the sound “Katy” or “Katy did”? or what is said? Count the notes. Are they at the rate of two hundred per minute? Watch the instrumentalist—till you make sure it is the male who is wooing Katy with his persistent guitar. The male has no long ovipositors....

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IV

IV

Another instrumentalist to hear is the big cicada or “harvest-fly.” There is no more characteristic sound of all the summer than his big, quick, startling whirr—a minute mowing-machine up on the limb overhead! Not so minute either, for the creature is fully two inches long, with bulging eyes and a click to his wings when he flies that can be heard a hundred feet away! “Dog-days-z-z-z-z-z-z-z” is the song he sings to me. “FLITTING AND WAVERING ABOUT” [Pg 50] [Pg 51]...

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V

V

This is the season of small sounds. As a test of the keenness of your ears go out at night into some open glade in the woods or by the side of some pond and listen for the squeaking of the bats flitting and wavering above in the uncertain light over your head. You will need a stirless midsummer dusk; and if you can hear the thin, fine squeak as the creature dives near your head, you may be sure your ears are almost as keen as those of the fox. The sound is not audible to most human ears....

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VI

VI

Another set of small sounds characteristic of midsummer is the twittering of the flocking swallows in the cornfields and upon the telegraph-wires. This summer I have had long lines of the young birds and their parents from the old barn below the hill strung on the wires from the house across the lawn. Here they preen while some of the old birds hawk for flies, the whole line of them breaking into a soft little twitter each time a newcomer alights among them. One swallow does not make a summer, b

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VII

VII

In the deep, still woods you will hear the soft call of the robin—a low, pensive, plaintive note unlike its spring cry or the after-shower song. It is as if the voice of the slumberous woods were speaking—without alarm, reproach, or welcome either. It is an invitation to stretch yourself on the deep moss and let the warm shadows of the summer woods steal over you with sleep. THE RED-EYED VIREO And this, too, is a thing to learn. Doing something, hearing something, seeing something by no means ex

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VIII

VIII

There is one bird-song so characteristic of midsummer that I think every lover of the woods must know it: the oft-repeated, the constant notes of the red-eyed vireo or “preacher.” Wilson Flagg says of him: “He takes the part of a deliberative orator who explains his subject in a few words and then makes a pause for his hearers to reflect upon it. We might suppose him to be repeating moderately with a pause between each sentence, ‘You see it—you know it—do you hear me?—do you believe it?’ All the

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IX

IX

A few other bird-notes that are associated with hot days and stirless woods, and that will be worth your hearing are the tree-top song of the scarlet tanager. He is one of the summer sights, a dash of the burning tropics is his brilliant scarlet and jet black, and his song is a loud, hoarse, rhythmical carol that has the flame of his feathers in it and the blaze of the sun. You will know it from the cool, liquid song of the robin both by its peculiar quality and because it is a short song, and s

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X

X

When night comes down with the long twilight there sounds a strange, almost awesome quawk in the dusk over the fields. It sends a thrill through me, notwithstanding its nightly occurrence all through July and August. It is the passing of a pair of night herons—the black-crowned, I am sure, although this single pair only fly over. Where the birds are numerous they nest in great colonies. It is the wild, eerie quawk that you should hear, a far-off, mysterious, almost uncanny sound that fills the t

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XI

XI

From the harvest fields comes the sweet whistle of Bob White, the clear, round notes rolling far through the hushed summer noon; in the wood-lot the crows and jays have already begun their cawings and screamings that later on become the dominant notes of the golden autumn. They are not so loud and characteristic now because of the insect orchestra throbbing with a rhythmic beat through the air. So wide, constant, and long-continued is this throbbing note of the insects that by midsummer you almo

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XII

XII

One can do no more than suggest in a short chapter like this; and all that I am doing here is catching for you some of the still, small voices of my summer. How unlike those of your summer they may be I can easily imagine, for you are in the Pacific Coast, or off on the vast prairies of Canada, or down in the sunny fields and hill-country of the South. I have done enough if I have suggested that you stop and listen; for after all it is having ears which hear not that causes the trouble. Hear the

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CHAPTER VII THE SEA-BIRDS’ HOME

CHAPTER VII THE SEA-BIRDS’ HOME

After my wandering for years among the quiet lanes and along the winding cow-paths of the home fields, my trip to the wild-bird rocks in the Pacific Ocean, as you can imagine, was a thrilling experience. We chartered a little launch at Tillamook, and, after a fight of hours and hours to cross Tillamook Bar at the mouth of the bay, we got out upon the wide Pacific, and steamed down the coast for Three-Arch Rocks, which soon began to show far ahead of us just off the rocky shore. I had never been

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CHAPTER VIII THE MOTHER MURRE

CHAPTER VIII THE MOTHER MURRE

I hear the bawling of my neighbor’s cow. Her calf was carried off yesterday, and since then, during the long night, and all day long, her insistent woe has made our hillside melancholy. But I shall not hear her to-night, not from this distance. She will lie down to-night with the others of the herd, and munch her cud. Yet, when the rattling stanchions grow quiet and sleep steals along the stalls, she will turn her ears at every small stirring; she will raise her head to listen and utter a low, t

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CHAPTER IX MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKENS

CHAPTER IX MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKENS

“Who has not wondered,” I asked, many years ago, “as he has seen the red rim of the sun sink down in the sea, where the little brood of Mother Carey’s chickens skimming round the vessel would sleep that night?” Here on the waves, no doubt, but what a bed! You have seen them, or you will see them the first time you cross the ocean, far out of sight of land—a little band of small dark birds, veering, glancing, skimming the heaving sea like swallows, or riding the great waves up and down, from cres

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CHAPTER X RIDING THE RIM ROCK

CHAPTER X RIDING THE RIM ROCK

From P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen-day drive through a desert of rim rock and greasewood and sage, which, under the most favorable of conditions, is beset with difficulty; but which, in the dry season, and with a herd of anything like four thousand, becomes an unbroken hazard. More than anything else on such a drive is feared the wild herd-spirit, the quick black temper of the cattle, that by one sign or another ever threatens to break the spell of the rider’s power and sweep the maddened

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I

I

First , select some bird or beast or insect that lives with you in your dooryard or house or near neighborhood, and keep track of his doings all summer long, jotting down in a diary your observations. You might take the white-faced hornet that builds the big paper nests in the trees; or the mud wasp, or the toad under the steps, or the swifts in the chimney, or the swallows in the barn. It hardly matters what you take, for every life is interesting. The object is to learn how to follow up your s

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II

II

Along with this study of one life, keep a list of all the beasts, birds, insects, flowers, etc., that live—I mean, that build nests or dig holes and rear families—in your dooryard or in this “haunt” that I told you in “The Spring of the Year” (see page 42, Sections III and IV ) you ought to pick out as your own field of study. This list will grow all through the summer and from year to year. I have a list of seventy-six wild neighbors (not counting the butterflies and insects) that are sharing m

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III

III

All through June and into July you should have a round of birds’ nests that you visit daily, and to which you can take your friends and visitors—that is, if you live in or near the country. One will be in the big unused chimney of the house, perhaps, and that will be the first; then one in the barn, or in a bird-house in the yard; or in the pear-or apple-tree hole; one in the lilac or honeysuckle bushes, and then down into the orchard, out into the meadow, on into the woods and back—taking in tw

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IV

IV

You should camp out—even if you have to pitch your tent in the back yard or up on the roof! You should go to sleep on a bed of boughs,—pine, or spruce, or hickory, if possible,—or swing your hammock between the trunks of sweet-smelling forest trees, and turn your face up to the stars! You will never want to sleep in a room with closed windows after that. To see the stars looking down upon you; to see the tree-tops swaying over you; to feel the fresh night wind stealing across your face and breat

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V

V

But you must not build a fire in the woods, unless you have a guide or older people with a permit along. Fires are terrible masters, and it is almost as dangerous to build a fire in the woods as to build one in the waste-paper basket in the basement of some large store. Along the seashore or by the margin of a river or lake, if you take every precaution, it might be safe enough; but in the woods, if camping out, make all preparations by clearing a wide space down to the bare ground, then see tha

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VI

VI

At the close of some stifling July day you ought to go out into the orchard or woods and watch the evening come on—to notice how the wild life revives, flowers open, birds sing, animals stir, breezes start, leaves whisper, and all the world awakes. Then follow that up by getting out the next morning before sunrise, say at half-past three o’clock, an hour before the sun bursts over the eastern hills. If you are not a stump or a stone, the sight and the smell—the whole indescribable freshness and

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VII

VII

You ought to spend some time this summer on a real farm. Boy or girl, you need to feel ploughed ground under your feet; you need the contact with growing things in the ground; you need to handle a hoe, gather the garden vegetables, feed the chickens, feed the pigs, drive the cows to pasture, help stow away the hay—and all the other interesting experiences that make up the simple, elemental, and wonderfully varied day of farm life. A mere visit is not enough. You need to take part in the digging

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VIII

VIII

You ought to learn how to browse and nibble in the woods. What do I mean? Why, just this: that you ought to learn how to taste the woods as well as to see them. Maurice Thompson, in “Byways and Bird Notes,” a book you ought to read (and that is another “ought to do” for this summer), has a chapter called “Browsing and Nibbling” in which his mountain guide says: “What makes me allus a-nibblin’ an’ a-browsin’ of the bushes an’ things as I goes along? I kinder b’lieve hit keeps a feller’s heart sti

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IX

IX

POISON SUMACH “But I shall bite into something poisonous,” you say. Yes, you must look out for that, and you must take the pains this summer to learn the poisonous things of our woods and fields. So before you begin to browse and nibble, make a business of learning the deadly nightshade with its green or its red berries; the poison sumach with its loose panicles or clusters of grayish-white berries; the three-leaved poison ivy or “ground oak” (which you can easily tell from the five-leaved Virgi

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X

X

THE DEADLY AMANITA Finally, as a lover of the woods and wild life, you ought to take a personal responsibility for the preservation of the trees and woods in your neighborhood, and of the birds and beasts and other lowlier forms of wild life. Year by year the wild things are vanishing never to return to your woods, and never to be seen again by man. Do what you can to stop the hunting and ignorant killing of every sort. You ought to get and read “Our Vanishing Wild Life,” by William T. Hornaday,

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CHAPTER XII THE “CONY”

CHAPTER XII THE “CONY”

We were threading our slow way along the narrow divide of the Wallowa Mountains that runs between the branches of the Snake River. Our guide was a former “camp-tender,” one who carries provisions to the sheep-herders in the mountains. As we were stopping a moment to breathe our horses and to look down upon the head springs of Big Sheep and Salt Lick Creeks on one side, and the narrow ribbon of the Imnaha on the other, this guide and our mammal-collector rode on ahead. An hour later I saw them ro

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CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

TO THE TEACHER Let me say again that the best thing any nature book can do for its readers is to take them out of doors; and that the best thing any nature-study teacher can do for them is to take them out of doors. Think of going to school to a teacher so simple, wholesome, vigorous, original, and rich in the qualities of the soul that she (how naturally we say “she”!)—that she comes to her classroom by way of the Public Garden, carrying a bird-glass in her hand! or across the fields with a rar

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CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II

TO THE TEACHER Set the students to watching and reporting this rare but very interesting phase of wild animal life. Nothing will tax their patience and ingenuity more; nor will any of their reports need so careful scrutiny and weighing, so easy is it to be mistaken. FOR THE PUPIL Page 10 “line” : the end of the race; the “tape” or mark set for runners in a contest. “set-to” : a combat or fight. mix-up : is the same half-slangy word or newspaper expression for a general fight. Page 11 Paramœcium

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CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III

FOR THE PUPIL Page 19 “All heaven and earth are still,” etc. : this is from Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” a poem you ought to read. Page 21 Mr. William L. Finley’s story of the condor appeared in the “Century Magazine.” It is one of the most interesting bird stories ever written. This is the season of flowers : among the helpful and interesting flower books for field use are “Gray’s Manual,” Mrs. Dana’s “How to Know the Wild Flowers,” and Chester A. Reed’s little vest-pocket Guide with c

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CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

TO THE TEACHER In reading this story point out the very narrow margin of life among the wild animals; that is to say, show how little a thing it often is that turns the scales, that makes for life or death. We need all our powers, and all of them developed to their very highest degree of efficiency for the race of life. Only the fittest survive, and for these the race is often under too great handicaps. FOR THE PUPIL Page 27 plumers : those who used to kill birds for their beautiful plumage. Kla

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CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V

TO THE TEACHER With a map of Boston follow the course of this title—from the crowded wharf and water-front to the wide, country-like fields of Franklin Park. It is a five-cent car-ride, a good half-day’s walk if you watch the wild life on the way. Map out such a course in your own city and take your pupils over it on a tramp, watching for glimpses of animal and bird life and for the sight of Nature’s face—the sky, the wind, the sunshine, trees, grass, flowers, etc. Make the most of your city cha

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CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

FOR THE PUPIL Page 46 The tree-toad : ( Hyla versicolor ); he is said by country people to prophesy rain. pennyroyal : is one of the small aromatic mints. Wilson Flagg : one of our earliest outdoor writers. Look up his life in any American biographical dictionary....

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CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VII

TO THE TEACHER For a fuller account of this Wild Bird Reservation see the chapter in “Where Rolls the Oregon,” called “Three-Arch Rocks Reservation.” Bring out in your reading the point I wished to make, namely that these great reservations of State and Federal Government are not only to preserve bird and animal life, but also to preserve nature—a portion of the earth—wild and primitive and thrilling, against the constant encroachments of civilization. Interest your pupils in their own local par

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CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

TO THE TEACHER Set the pupils to watching for evidences of mother-love among the lower creatures, where we do not think of finding it; stir them to look for unreported acts, and the hidden, less easily observed ways. Such a suggestion might be the turning of a new page for them in the book of nature. FOR THE PUPIL Page 65 Cud : the ball of grass or hay that the cow keeps bringing up from her first stomach to be chewed and swallowed, going then into the second stomach, where it is digested. stanc

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CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER IX

FOR THE PUPIL Mother Carey’s chickens are any of the small petrels. The little stormy petrels of poetry and story belong to the Old World and only wander occasionally over to our side of the Atlantic. Page 79 petrel : pronounced pĕt´rel , so called in allusion, perhaps, to Saint Peter’s walking on the sea....

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CHAPTER X

CHAPTER X

Page 88 P Ranch : is one of the Hanley system of cattle ranches, which cover a wide area almost seventy-five miles long. The buildings and tree-fences, the stockades and sheds make it one of the most picturesque I have ever seen. This story was told to me by Jack Wade, the “boss of the buckaroos.” “Buckaroo” is a corruption of the Spanish vaquero , cowherd. Winnemucca : find the place on the map. Page 91 buckskin : a horse of a soft yellowish color. He got his name Peroxide Jim from the resembla

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CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

FOR THE PUPIL Page 100 paper nests in trees : The common yellow-jacket hornet builds similar large round nests in bushes, and other wasps build paper nests behind walls, under the ground, in holes, etc. Page 107 bite into something poisonous : Send to the Department of Agriculture at Washington for the little booklet on our poisonous plants. It is free....

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CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XII

TO THE TEACHER Try to bring home to the class the profoundly interesting facts of animal distribution—where they live, and how they came to live where they do. Point out the strange shifts resorted to by various creatures who live at the various extremes of height or depth or cold or heat to enable them to get a living. FOR THE PUPIL Page 121 “ And God who clears ”: these lines of Kipling I am quoting as I first found them printed. I see in his collected verse that they are somewhat changed....

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