# Nature Near Home and Other Papers - John Burroughs

An episode of [The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1597045207), 19 Aug 2026, 2 h 10 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73694584/nature_near_home_and_other_papers_john_burroughs.mp3

"Nature Near Home and Other Papers" by John Burroughs invites listeners into the enchanting world of natural history through simple observations and charming anecdotes about rural life. Burroughs expresses his deep affection for the creatures and landscapes that surround him, sharing the joy he finds in his walks and studies of nature. This collection resonates with timeless themes of appreciation for the natural world and the beauty of everyday experiences, encouraging listeners to reconnect with their own surroundings. Burroughs' reflections remind us of the enduring pleasure that can be found in observing the simple wonders of life, making this audiobook a delightful exploration of nature's gifts. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Section one of Nature Near Home and Other Papers by
[0:03] Speaker 1: John Burroughs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
[0:08] Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
[0:12] Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Edith Burne. Nature
[0:17] Speaker 1: Near Home and Other Papers by John Burroughs, Section one,
[0:21] Speaker 1: Nature Lore. Emerson, in his journal says all facts in
[0:25] Speaker 1: nature interest us because they are deep and not accidental.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Facts of nature are undoubtedly of interest to most persons.
[0:32] Speaker 1: Though whether or not Emerson gives a true reason may
[0:35] Speaker 1: be questioned. I would sooner venture the explanation that it
[0:39] Speaker 1: is because nature is a sort of outlying province of ourselves.
[0:43] Speaker 1: We feel a kinship with her works, and in bird
[0:45] Speaker 1: and beast, in tree and flower, we behold the workings
[0:48] Speaker 1: of the same life principle that has brought us where
[0:51] Speaker 1: we are and relates us to all living things. Explain
[0:54] Speaker 1: the matter as we may. The facts and doings of
[0:57] Speaker 1: nature interest us, and our interest is bound to grow
[0:59] Speaker 1: as we enlarge our acquaintance with them, Which is about
[1:02] Speaker 1: like saying that our interest keeps pace with our interest.
[1:05] Speaker 1: But so it is. Water does not taste good to
[1:08] Speaker 1: us until we are thirsty. Before we ask questions, we
[1:11] Speaker 1: must have questions to ask, and before we have questions
[1:14] Speaker 1: to ask, we must feel an awakened interest or curiosity.
[1:18] Speaker 1: Action or reaction go hand in hand. Interest begets interest.
[1:22] Speaker 1: Knowledge reads knowledge. Once started in pursuit of nature lore,
[1:25] Speaker 1: we are pretty sure to keep on. When people ask me,
[1:29] Speaker 1: how shall we teach our children to love nature? I reply,
[1:32] Speaker 1: do not try to teach them at all, Just turn
[1:34] Speaker 1: them loose in the country and trust to luck. It
[1:37] Speaker 1: is time enough to answer children's questions when they are
[1:39] Speaker 1: interested enough to ask them. Knowledge without love does not stick.
[1:44] Speaker 1: But if love comes first, knowledge is pretty sure to follow.
[1:47] Speaker 1: I do not know how I first got my own
[1:49] Speaker 1: love for nature, but I suppose it was because I
[1:51] Speaker 1: was born and passed my youth on the farm and
[1:54] Speaker 1: reacted spontaneously to the natural objects about me. I felt
[1:58] Speaker 1: a certain privacy in Kip with the woods and fields
[2:01] Speaker 1: and streams. Long before the naturalist awoke to self consciousness
[2:04] Speaker 1: within me. A feeling of companionship with nature came long
[2:08] Speaker 1: prior to any conscious desire for accurate and specific knowledge
[2:12] Speaker 1: about her works. I love the flowers and the wild creatures,
[2:15] Speaker 1: as most healthy children do. Long before I knew there
[2:18] Speaker 1: was such a study as botany or natural history. And
[2:21] Speaker 1: when I take a walk now, thoughts of natural history
[2:24] Speaker 1: play only a secondary part. I suspected as more to
[2:27] Speaker 1: bathe the spirit and natural influences than to store the
[2:30] Speaker 1: mind with natural facts. I think I know what Emerson
[2:34] Speaker 1: means when he's as elsewhere in his journal that a
[2:36] Speaker 1: walk in the woods is one of the secrets for
[2:38] Speaker 1: dodging old age. I understand what the poet meant when
[2:41] Speaker 1: he sang, sweet is a lure which nature brings. Nature lore,
[2:46] Speaker 1: That is it not so much a notebook full of
[2:48] Speaker 1: notes of birds and trees and flowers, as a heart
[2:51] Speaker 1: warmed and refreshed by sympathetic intercourse and contact with these
[2:54] Speaker 1: primal forces. When the press of one's foot to the
[2:59] Speaker 1: earth spring a hundred affections, as Whitman says, then one
[3:03] Speaker 1: gets something more precious than exact science. Nature lore is
[3:07] Speaker 1: a mixture of love and knowledge, and it comes more
[3:09] Speaker 1: by way of the heart than of the head. We
[3:12] Speaker 1: absorb it with the air we breathe. It awaits us
[3:14] Speaker 1: at the sight of the spring. When we stoop to drink,
[3:18] Speaker 1: it drops upon us from the trees beneath which we
[3:20] Speaker 1: fondly linger. It is written large on the rocks and ledges,
[3:24] Speaker 1: whereas boys we prowled about on sundays, putting our hands
[3:27] Speaker 1: in the niches or on the rocky shelves, older than
[3:29] Speaker 1: thieves or karnak, touching carefully the phoebe's mossy nest with
[3:34] Speaker 1: its pearl white eggs, or noting the spoor of coon
[3:37] Speaker 1: or fox, or coming face to face with the oldest
[3:40] Speaker 1: inhabitant of the region, who saw the foundations of the
[3:43] Speaker 1: hills laid and the valleys scooped out geologic time, whose
[3:48] Speaker 1: tent is the gray overhanging rocks. Many a walk I
[3:52] Speaker 1: take in the fields and woods, when I gather no
[3:54] Speaker 1: new facts and make no new observations, and yet I
[3:57] Speaker 1: feel enriched. I have been for an hour or more
[4:00] Speaker 1: on intimate urns, with trees and rocks, and grass and birds,
[4:04] Speaker 1: and with nature's primal sanities. The fragrance of the wild
[4:07] Speaker 1: things lingers about my mind for days. Yet the close
[4:11] Speaker 1: observation of nature, the training of the eye and mind
[4:15] Speaker 1: to read her signals, to penetrate her screens, to disentangle
[4:19] Speaker 1: her skeins, to catch her significant facts, add greatly to
[4:23] Speaker 1: the pleasure of a walk and to life in the country.
[4:26] Speaker 1: Natural history is on the wing, and all about us
[4:29] Speaker 1: on the foot. It hides in holes, It perches on trees.
[4:32] Speaker 1: It runs to cover, under the stones and into the
[4:34] Speaker 1: stone walls. It soars its sayings that drums. It calls
[4:38] Speaker 1: by day, It barks in prowls and hoops by night.
[4:42] Speaker 1: It eats your fruit, It plunders your garden. It raised
[4:45] Speaker 1: your hen roost, and maybe disturbs your midnight slumbers. At
[4:50] Speaker 1: woodchuck Lodge, the woodchucks eat up my peas and melons
[4:54] Speaker 1: and dig under the foundations of my house. The coons
[4:57] Speaker 1: come down off the mountain for sweet apples in my orchard.
[5:00] Speaker 1: I surprise the foxes among the cows on my early
[5:03] Speaker 1: morning walks, where I am awakened in the dawn by
[5:05] Speaker 1: the hewing cry of the crows over a fox passing
[5:08] Speaker 1: mirror a little late in getting back to the cover
[5:10] Speaker 1: of the woods. All such things add interest to country life.
[5:15] Speaker 1: No wild creature comes amiss, even though it robs her
[5:18] Speaker 1: hen roost. I sometimes grow tender towards the wood hut.
[5:21] Speaker 1: Even though he raids my garden. He has such a
[5:24] Speaker 1: characteristic bit of wild nature creeping about the fields, or
[5:27] Speaker 1: sitting upon his haunches to see if danger is near.
[5:30] Speaker 1: He is of the earth, earthy, its true offspring, steeped
[5:33] Speaker 1: in its savors, hugging it close, harmonizing with its soil
[5:37] Speaker 1: and rocks, almost as liquid as its fountains, and as
[5:40] Speaker 1: perennial as its grass. I even get reconciled to the
[5:44] Speaker 1: unsavory but gentle mannered skunk. He does not disturb me
[5:47] Speaker 1: if I do not disturb him, and if he chances
[5:50] Speaker 1: to get into a trap which I have set for
[5:51] Speaker 1: some other animal, his composure is great, and he looks
[5:54] Speaker 1: the injured innocent that he is. Only I must keep
[5:58] Speaker 1: my eye upon that tail when it starts to rise
[6:00] Speaker 1: over his back. There is a masked battery there, the
[6:03] Speaker 1: noiseless shot of which is usually well aimed and is
[6:06] Speaker 1: pretty sure to rout the foe, whether it hit the
[6:07] Speaker 1: mark or not. Last summer, the morning light revealed one
[6:11] Speaker 1: held by the leg in a steel trap which I
[6:13] Speaker 1: had set for rats that were helping themselves too freely
[6:15] Speaker 1: to my roasting ears. How sorry and deprecatory he looked
[6:19] Speaker 1: as I approached, slowly straining to pull away from the
[6:22] Speaker 1: cruel trap, and turning upon me a half appealing, half
[6:25] Speaker 1: reproachful look. By imitating his slow, gentle manners, I lifted
[6:30] Speaker 1: him and the trap to the mouth of a woodchuck hole,
[6:33] Speaker 1: into which he quickly crept, leaving his trap, held foot
[6:36] Speaker 1: outside to release him. Then was an easy manner. The
[6:40] Speaker 1: skunk is a night prowler and subsists mainly on insects
[6:42] Speaker 1: and small rodents. But I would not insure the bird's
[6:45] Speaker 1: eggs or the young birds that happened to be in
[6:47] Speaker 1: his path, though mister Seton says his tame skunks do
[6:50] Speaker 1: not know how to deal with hen's eggs. There is
[6:53] Speaker 1: no prettier bit of natural history upon four legs than
[6:55] Speaker 1: the red fox, especially when you surprise him in your
[6:58] Speaker 1: morning walk, or he surprised as you and his. He
[7:01] Speaker 1: too is a night prowler, but often he does not
[7:03] Speaker 1: get home till after sun up. Early on October morning,
[7:07] Speaker 1: as I stood in the road looking out over the landscape,
[7:10] Speaker 1: a blated fox jumped over the wall a few yards
[7:12] Speaker 1: from me and loped unconcernedly along parallel with the road,
[7:16] Speaker 1: then turned and scaled the fence and crossed the road
[7:19] Speaker 1: and went bounding up the hill towards the wood with
[7:21] Speaker 1: a grace and ease impossible to describe. I suppose it
[7:24] Speaker 1: was his massive tail held level with this body that
[7:27] Speaker 1: helped give the idea of buoyancy. There was no apparent effort,
[7:31] Speaker 1: as when the farm dog climbs the hill, but the
[7:33] Speaker 1: ease and lightness that goes with floating and wing things.
[7:36] Speaker 1: It was indeed a pleasing spectacle such as I had
[7:39] Speaker 1: not seen for many years. This winter, the fox hunter
[7:42] Speaker 1: with his hound will be trailing him from mount to mountain,
[7:44] Speaker 1: or from valley to valley, and he will drift along
[7:47] Speaker 1: over the snow, pausing now and then to harken back
[7:49] Speaker 1: along his trail, and reluctantly expose himself to the eye
[7:53] Speaker 1: of day in the broad open spaces. Unless the day
[7:56] Speaker 1: is wet and his tail and furget draggled, he will
[7:59] Speaker 1: run from sun to sun without much apparent fatigue. But
[8:02] Speaker 1: if his burden gets too great, he knows of holes
[8:04] Speaker 1: in the rocks where he can take refuge. Any device
[8:08] Speaker 1: that a plant or an animal has for getting on
[8:10] Speaker 1: in the world interests us. It brings the lower orders
[8:13] Speaker 1: nearer to us. We have our own devices and make shifts,
[8:16] Speaker 1: and we like to know how it is with our
[8:17] Speaker 1: near or distant can among the humbler orders, they are
[8:21] Speaker 1: ourselves not yet come to consciousness and to the elective franchise.
[8:25] Speaker 1: When the birr of the burdock, reaching forth its arms
[8:28] Speaker 1: for such a chance, seizes onto your coat tail, take
[8:31] Speaker 1: your pocket glass, and examine the minute hooks that tip
[8:33] Speaker 1: the ends of the seed scales. They fish for you
[8:36] Speaker 1: and your dog and sheep and cow, and they catch
[8:39] Speaker 1: you not with one hook, but with twenty or fifty,
[8:41] Speaker 1: all at the same time. But in this case it
[8:44] Speaker 1: is not the fish that is caught, but the fisherman.
[8:47] Speaker 1: The plan of this fisherman is to go right along
[8:49] Speaker 1: with his captor, the farther the better, and plant his
[8:51] Speaker 1: progeny in a new territory. He lets go his hold
[8:55] Speaker 1: upon the parent plant at a mere touch, but the
[8:57] Speaker 1: touch gives him all the hold he wants. The hooks
[9:00] Speaker 1: a fine and hard, like minute sharp porns, not too
[9:03] Speaker 1: much bent that would defeat the end, and perfectly smooth
[9:06] Speaker 1: and finished. Instead of hooks, the weed called Biden's has
[9:10] Speaker 1: the teeth or prongs, armed with barbs like a fish hook,
[9:13] Speaker 1: many of them on each prong. They are quite as
[9:16] Speaker 1: sure a trap as the hooks of the birdock. Nature
[9:18] Speaker 1: never fails to perfect her device. Natural selection attends to
[9:22] Speaker 1: that her traps, her wings, her springs, her balloons always work.
[9:26] Speaker 1: The wings of the maple keys, the ashes, the linden
[9:29] Speaker 1: are all different, but they all work. Nature seems partial
[9:33] Speaker 1: to the burdock. What extra pains she seems to have
[9:35] Speaker 1: taken to perpetuate this worse than useless plant. So far
[9:39] Speaker 1: as I know, nothing wants it or profits by it,
[9:42] Speaker 1: though I have heard that the petioles, when Cooks suggest salsafe.
[9:45] Speaker 1: It is an ishmaelite among plants. Every man's hand is
[9:48] Speaker 1: against it, and nearly every animal has reason to detest it.
[9:52] Speaker 1: Against their wheels, they are engaged in sowing its seeds.
[9:56] Speaker 1: The other day I found some birds matted on the
[9:57] Speaker 1: tail of a woodchuck. Birds have been f on trap
[10:00] Speaker 1: by its hooks. Apparently the only domestic animal that it
[10:03] Speaker 1: does not seize hold of is the pig. The stiff,
[10:06] Speaker 1: smooth bristles of the pig afford it a scanty hold.
[10:10] Speaker 1: It possesses more original sin than any other plant I know.
[10:14] Speaker 1: How it drives its roots into the ground to find
[10:16] Speaker 1: your spading fork. How it seems to drive its burs
[10:19] Speaker 1: into your garments or into the hair of animals, refusing
[10:22] Speaker 1: to let go till it is fairly torn in pieces.
[10:24] Speaker 1: See the dog biting them out of his hair with
[10:26] Speaker 1: a kind of contemptuous fury. If you try to help him,
[10:30] Speaker 1: you must proceed very carefully and deliberately, or he will
[10:33] Speaker 1: confound you with the burdock and threaten the hand that
[10:35] Speaker 1: seeks to aid him. The burdock is vicious to the last,
[10:39] Speaker 1: the old birk lings with the same dogged determination as
[10:42] Speaker 1: the new. As a noxious weed, it is a great success.
[10:45] Speaker 1: Discourage it by cutting it down, you cannot by hook
[10:48] Speaker 1: or by cook. It is bound to persist. Its juice
[10:51] Speaker 1: is bitter, and its fiber course. What a pity that
[10:54] Speaker 1: so much native grit An enterprise cannot be turned to
[10:56] Speaker 1: some good account. The birds are detached from the parent's
[10:59] Speaker 1: stems almost as easily as are the quills from the porcupine,
[11:04] Speaker 1: even while it is yet in bloom. The hooks will
[11:06] Speaker 1: seize your coat tails, and the bird let go its
[11:08] Speaker 1: hold upon the stalk. The hooks are not attached to
[11:10] Speaker 1: the separate seeds, but are for the birds as a whole.
[11:14] Speaker 1: I know of no plant so difficult to prevent seeding.
[11:18] Speaker 1: Cut it down in July, and in August it has
[11:20] Speaker 1: new shoots loaded with birds. Cut these off, and in
[11:23] Speaker 1: late September or early October it will evolve birds directly
[11:27] Speaker 1: from the stub of the old stalk, often in clusters
[11:29] Speaker 1: and bunches, without a leaf to mother them. The plant,
[11:34] Speaker 1: if unhindered, grows three or four feet high, and bears
[11:36] Speaker 1: about five hundred birds, which usually have twelve seeds each,
[11:39] Speaker 1: or six thousand seeds to the plant. Before the seeds arrive,
[11:44] Speaker 1: there are nearly the size and color of rye or
[11:46] Speaker 1: peeled oats. Later they shrink and turn dark. So far
[11:50] Speaker 1: as I know, nothing feeds upon them, save the larvae
[11:53] Speaker 1: as some insect. I have examined many birds in October
[11:56] Speaker 1: and found a small white grub in a single seed
[11:58] Speaker 1: in each of them. As good people who fancy that
[12:01] Speaker 1: everything was made for some special service to man, would
[12:04] Speaker 1: have trouble, I think to find the uses of the burdock.
[12:08] Speaker 1: The advantage of that array of eager hooks to the
[12:10] Speaker 1: burdock there are more than two hundred of them on
[12:13] Speaker 1: each bird, seems obvious. And yet here is the yellow
[12:16] Speaker 1: dock alongside of it, a relative of our buckwheat that
[12:19] Speaker 1: has no hooks or other devices that I can discover
[12:22] Speaker 1: for scattering its seed, and yet it appears to compete
[12:25] Speaker 1: successfully with its more lusty neighbor. One is about as
[12:28] Speaker 1: abundant and troublesome to the gardener as the other. The
[12:32] Speaker 1: seeds of the yellow dock are like small, brown, polished buckwheat.
[12:35] Speaker 1: I have never seen birds or squirrels eat them. And
[12:38] Speaker 1: what secret way they have of keeping up with the burdocks,
[12:41] Speaker 1: I do not know. The burdock plants itself deeper in
[12:44] Speaker 1: the ground and defies your spading fork the more successfully.
[12:49] Speaker 1: I have always been curious to know why the birch
[12:51] Speaker 1: is the only one among our many forest trees that
[12:54] Speaker 1: seems to have an ambition to plant itself upon a rock.
[12:57] Speaker 1: Other trees do so occasionally, But in the world as
[13:00] Speaker 1: I am familiar with, I see ten birches upon rocks
[13:02] Speaker 1: to one of any other tree. They sit down upon
[13:05] Speaker 1: the rock as if it were a chair, and run
[13:07] Speaker 1: their big roots off into the ground, apparently entirely at home.
[13:11] Speaker 1: How in the first place, they get enough foothold in
[13:13] Speaker 1: the thin coat of leaf mold that covers the rocks.
[13:16] Speaker 1: To develop their roots and send them across the barren
[13:19] Speaker 1: places and down into the soil is a puzzle. I
[13:23] Speaker 1: have seen a small birch sapling that had attained a
[13:25] Speaker 1: foothold in a niche on the side of a cliff,
[13:28] Speaker 1: send one large root diagonally down across the face of
[13:31] Speaker 1: the bare rock two or more yards to the ground,
[13:33] Speaker 1: where it took hold and saved the situation. It was
[13:36] Speaker 1: like a party going out from a starving camp for relief.
[13:40] Speaker 1: To equip and provision the party required some resources, yes,
[13:44] Speaker 1: you may say, and to know where to send it
[13:46] Speaker 1: required some wit. But the roots of a tree always
[13:49] Speaker 1: tend downward as the branches go upward. We are at
[13:52] Speaker 1: the end of our tether when we say that such
[13:54] Speaker 1: is the rule of nature. The winged seeds always find
[13:58] Speaker 1: their proper habitat, as if they had eyes to see
[14:00] Speaker 1: the way. The seeds of the cattail flag find the
[14:03] Speaker 1: ditches and marshes as unerringly as if they were convoyed.
[14:07] Speaker 1: But this intelligence or self direction is only apparent. The
[14:11] Speaker 1: wind carries the seeds in all directions, and they fall everywhere,
[14:14] Speaker 1: just as it happens on the hills as well. As
[14:16] Speaker 1: in the ditches, but only in the latter do they
[14:19] Speaker 1: take root and flourish. Nature often resorts to this wholesale
[14:23] Speaker 1: method in scattering pollen and germs by the aid of
[14:26] Speaker 1: the wind. This is her method. Cover all the ground,
[14:29] Speaker 1: and you will be sure to hitch your mark. Night
[14:31] Speaker 1: or day after one or more windy days in November,
[14:35] Speaker 1: I am sure to find huddled in the recess of
[14:37] Speaker 1: my kitchen door the branching heads of a certain species
[14:40] Speaker 1: of wall grass that grow somewhere on the hills west
[14:43] Speaker 1: of me. These heads find their ways across fields and highways,
[14:47] Speaker 1: over fences, past tree and bushy barriers, down my steps
[14:51] Speaker 1: into the stormhouse, and lie there waiting on the door sill,
[14:54] Speaker 1: like things of life, waiting to get in the house.
[14:57] Speaker 1: Not one season alone, but every season they come as
[15:00] Speaker 1: punctually as the assessor the watchful broom routes them. But
[15:04] Speaker 1: the next day or the next week, there they are again,
[15:07] Speaker 1: and now and then one actually gets into the kitchen,
[15:09] Speaker 1: slipping in between your feet as you open the door.
[15:12] Speaker 1: They bring word from over the hills, and the word
[15:14] Speaker 1: is sooner or later. Nature hits her mark, hits all marks,
[15:18] Speaker 1: because her aim is broadcast and her efforts ceaseless. The
[15:22] Speaker 1: wind finds every crack and corner. We started on our
[15:25] Speaker 1: journey not for your door, but for any door, all doors,
[15:27] Speaker 1: any shelter where we could be at rest. And here
[15:30] Speaker 1: we are. The purple loose strife travels from marsh to
[15:34] Speaker 1: marsh in the Hudson River Valley, and as its seeds
[15:37] Speaker 1: are not winged, one may wonder how it gets about
[15:39] Speaker 1: so easily. It travels by the aid of wings, but
[15:42] Speaker 1: not of its own. Darwin discovered that the seeds of
[15:45] Speaker 1: marsh plants are often carried in the mud on the
[15:47] Speaker 1: feet of marsh birds. Years ago, the loose strife was
[15:51] Speaker 1: in a large marsh six miles south of me. A
[15:54] Speaker 1: few years later a few plants appeared in a pond
[15:56] Speaker 1: near me. And now this and nearby ponds and marshes
[15:59] Speaker 1: are lakes of royal purple in August. The loose strife
[16:03] Speaker 1: in late summer makes such a grand showing, with its
[16:05] Speaker 1: vast armies of tall, stately plants, that one welcomes it
[16:08] Speaker 1: in our unsightly marshes. Only the present season did I
[16:12] Speaker 1: observe a peculiar feature of our wild clematis that a
[16:16] Speaker 1: little close attention might have shown me at any time
[16:19] Speaker 1: its conspicuous appearance in September after its flowers have faded,
[16:23] Speaker 1: which has earned for it the name of old Man's
[16:25] Speaker 1: beard is owing to the fact that its seeds have
[16:27] Speaker 1: long feathered tails to aid in their dissemination. It is
[16:31] Speaker 1: the only seed I know of that the wind carries
[16:33] Speaker 1: by the tail. For some obscure reason, it does not
[16:37] Speaker 1: carry it very far, or at least does not plant
[16:39] Speaker 1: it very successfully, as the climatis is rare with me.
[16:43] Speaker 1: Instead of being sown broadcast over the hills and along
[16:46] Speaker 1: the fences, it appears sparsely at wide intervals. It is
[16:51] Speaker 1: such a beautiful vine, both in flowering time and seeding time,
[16:54] Speaker 1: that one wishes it were more common. The plants that
[16:58] Speaker 1: travel by runners above or low ground are many. The
[17:01] Speaker 1: plants that travel by walking are few. I recall only
[17:04] Speaker 1: the walking fern, which now seems to have walked away
[17:07] Speaker 1: from my neighborhood, and the black raspberry. Both are slow travelers,
[17:11] Speaker 1: but they do reach out and take steps. Some trees
[17:15] Speaker 1: can fight a much more successful battle against browsing animals
[17:18] Speaker 1: than can others. The apple and the red thorn are
[17:20] Speaker 1: notable examples. Trees like the linden, which the cattle freely crop,
[17:25] Speaker 1: are easy victims. They put up no kind of fight.
[17:28] Speaker 1: They sprout freely, but they make no headway. Their new
[17:31] Speaker 1: shoots are swept off every summer, and there the low
[17:34] Speaker 1: stool of the tree remains. The beach does better amid
[17:38] Speaker 1: grazing cattle, but I doubt if it ever wins the fight.
[17:40] Speaker 1: But the apple and the thorn, though the struggle is
[17:43] Speaker 1: a long and hard one, are sure to win. In
[17:45] Speaker 1: the end. After many years, one central shoot gets a
[17:48] Speaker 1: start from the top of the thorny mound of crop twigs,
[17:51] Speaker 1: makes rapid strides upward, and in due season stands there
[17:54] Speaker 1: the perfected tree. It will now bear fruit for the
[17:57] Speaker 1: short sighted grazers that sought to destroy it. Our belief
[18:01] Speaker 1: in the uniformity of nature, where in the unchangeableness of
[18:04] Speaker 1: natural law, is fundamental. We act upon it every hour
[18:08] Speaker 1: of our lives. Our bodies and minds are built upon
[18:10] Speaker 1: that plan. Yet in detail and within narrow limits, nature
[18:14] Speaker 1: is unequal, capricious, and calculable. Can the farmer always foretell
[18:19] Speaker 1: his crops, or forecast a wet season or dry The
[18:22] Speaker 1: problem is too complex, or our wits are too shallow.
[18:26] Speaker 1: Last season, the hay crop over a large part of
[18:28] Speaker 1: the country broke the record. The meadows everywhere and without
[18:31] Speaker 1: any very obvious reason, doubled their yield. The farmer's barns
[18:35] Speaker 1: from Pennsylvania to Maine were bursting with plenty, and at
[18:39] Speaker 1: the end of hanging a row of stacks encompassed or
[18:41] Speaker 1: flanked most of them. The trees all seem to have
[18:44] Speaker 1: had a superabundance of leaves. On my own grounds we
[18:47] Speaker 1: raked up and put under cover for stable use, nearly
[18:50] Speaker 1: double the usual quantity from the same number of trees.
[18:54] Speaker 1: One important factor in this meadow and pasture and tree
[18:56] Speaker 1: fertility was probably the continued deep snows of last winter.
[19:00] Speaker 1: About one hundred inches fell in the Hudson Valley and
[19:03] Speaker 1: two feet at one fall in December. Snow warms and fertilizers.
[19:07] Speaker 1: How it warmed up and quickened the mice beneath it.
[19:10] Speaker 1: The meadows yielded double their usual number of meadow mice.
[19:13] Speaker 1: Never have I seen in the spring evidence of such
[19:15] Speaker 1: a crop over a wide area. Wherever I looked, in
[19:18] Speaker 1: meadow bottoms or grassy hill sides or shaven lawns, there
[19:22] Speaker 1: were the runways, the grassy nests, the camping grounds of
[19:25] Speaker 1: this vast army of meadow mice. They had evidently had
[19:29] Speaker 1: a long picnic. They had had the world under their
[19:31] Speaker 1: all to themselves. There had been nothing there to molest
[19:34] Speaker 1: or to make them afraid, no fox, no cat, no owl,
[19:38] Speaker 1: no weasel, no mink, And they had reveled in their
[19:40] Speaker 1: freedom and security. One could read it all in the
[19:43] Speaker 1: record upon the ground, their straw villages, their round tunnels
[19:46] Speaker 1: and sunken runways through the grass, and the marks and
[19:49] Speaker 1: refuse everywhere as of temporary social and holiday gatherings. Vast
[19:54] Speaker 1: numbers of bushes and small trees, especially the apple order,
[19:57] Speaker 1: were stripped of their bark to a height of two
[19:59] Speaker 1: or more feet from the ground. I even saw a
[20:02] Speaker 1: thicket of small young locusts with stems as white as
[20:04] Speaker 1: bleached cornstalks. Spring quickly put an end to these winter
[20:09] Speaker 1: festivities of the mice, and compelled them to take to
[20:11] Speaker 1: their older treats and darkened lives under the ground. Evidently,
[20:15] Speaker 1: the old mother in this part of the country at
[20:16] Speaker 1: least took care of her children last winter, from grass
[20:20] Speaker 1: and tree roots to mice and insects in her subtler
[20:23] Speaker 1: physical forces. Nature often seems capricious and lawless, probably on
[20:27] Speaker 1: account of our limited vision. We see the lightning cleave
[20:31] Speaker 1: the air in one blinding flash from the clouds through
[20:33] Speaker 1: the earth, often chattering a tree or a house on
[20:35] Speaker 1: its way down. Hence, it is always a surprise to
[20:39] Speaker 1: see the evidence that the thunderbolt strikes upward as well
[20:42] Speaker 1: as downward. During an electrical storm one summer night, an
[20:45] Speaker 1: enormous charge of electricity came up out of the earth
[20:48] Speaker 1: under a maple tree at the foot of the hill
[20:50] Speaker 1: below my study, scattering the side, the roots and some
[20:53] Speaker 1: small bushes, like an explosion of powder or dynamite. Then
[20:56] Speaker 1: it rooted around on the ground like a pig devouring
[20:59] Speaker 1: or nihil the turf, making a wide, ragged zigzag trench
[21:03] Speaker 1: seven or eight feet long down the hill in the ground,
[21:07] Speaker 1: when it dived beneath the wagon track five or six
[21:09] Speaker 1: feet wide, bursting out here and there on the surface,
[21:12] Speaker 1: then escaped out of the bank made by the plow
[21:14] Speaker 1: on the edge of the vineyard. Here it seems to
[21:17] Speaker 1: have leaped to the wire trellis of the grape vines
[21:19] Speaker 1: running along at northward, scorching the leaves here and there,
[21:22] Speaker 1: and finally vented its fury on a bird box that
[21:24] Speaker 1: was fastened to a post at the end of the row.
[21:27] Speaker 1: It completely demolished the box, going a foot or more
[21:29] Speaker 1: out of its way to do so. The box was
[21:32] Speaker 1: not occupied, so there was not the anti climax of
[21:34] Speaker 1: a bolt of jove slaughtering house rans or blue birds.
[21:37] Speaker 1: Maybe it was the nails that due to charge to
[21:39] Speaker 1: the box, But White was reading around down the hill
[21:42] Speaker 1: when it came out of the ground. Instead of leaping
[21:44] Speaker 1: upward as a puzzle, it acted like some blind, crazy
[21:47] Speaker 1: material body that did not know where to go. A
[21:50] Speaker 1: cannon shot would have made a much smoother trench. Its
[21:53] Speaker 1: course on the ground was about twelve or fourteen feet,
[21:55] Speaker 1: half above and half below ground, and its leap in
[21:58] Speaker 1: the air about six feet. Strange that a thing of
[22:01] Speaker 1: such incredible speed and power should yet have time to
[22:03] Speaker 1: loiter about and do such fool stunts. This space and
[22:08] Speaker 1: iihilator left a trail like a slow plotting thing. It
[22:10] Speaker 1: burled like a mole, It delve like a plow, It
[22:13] Speaker 1: leaped and ran like a squirrel, and it struck like
[22:15] Speaker 1: a hammer. A spectator would have been aware only of
[22:18] Speaker 1: a blinding blaze of fire there on the edge of
[22:20] Speaker 1: the vineyard, and heard a crash that would have stunned him,
[22:23] Speaker 1: but probably could not have told whether the boat came
[22:25] Speaker 1: upward or downward. Lightning is much quicker than our special senses.
[22:30] Speaker 1: On another occasion, beside my path through the woods to
[22:32] Speaker 1: slab sides, I saw where a boat had come up
[22:35] Speaker 1: out of a chipmunk's hole at the root of a tree,
[22:37] Speaker 1: scattered the leaves and leaf mold about, and apparently disappeared
[22:40] Speaker 1: in the air. The lightning seems to have its favorite
[22:43] Speaker 1: victims among the trees. I have never known it to
[22:46] Speaker 1: strike a beech tree. Hemlocks and pines are its favorites
[22:48] Speaker 1: in my woods. In other regions, the oak and the
[22:51] Speaker 1: ash received its attention, and oak and my father's fine
[22:55] Speaker 1: was struck twice in the course of many years, the
[22:57] Speaker 1: last bolt proving fatal. The hard or sugar maple is
[23:01] Speaker 1: frequently struck, but only one instance have I known the
[23:03] Speaker 1: tree to be injured. In this case, a huge tree
[23:06] Speaker 1: was simply demolished. Usually the bolt comes down on the
[23:09] Speaker 1: outside of the tree, making a mark as if a
[23:12] Speaker 1: knife had clipped off the outer surfaces of the bark,
[23:14] Speaker 1: revealing the reddish yellow interior. In several cases I have
[23:18] Speaker 1: seen this effect. But a few summers ago, an unusually
[23:21] Speaker 1: large and solid sugar maple in my neighbor's woods received
[23:24] Speaker 1: a charge that simply reduced it to stove wood. Such
[23:27] Speaker 1: a scene of utter destruction I have never before witnessed
[23:30] Speaker 1: in the woods. The tree was blown to pieces, as
[23:32] Speaker 1: if it had been filled with dynamite over a radius
[23:36] Speaker 1: of fifty or more feet. The fragments of the huge
[23:38] Speaker 1: trunk lay scattered. It was as if the bolt, baffled
[23:41] Speaker 1: so long by the rough coat of mail of the maple,
[23:44] Speaker 1: had at last penetrated it and had taken full satisfaction.
[23:47] Speaker 1: The explosive force probably came from the instantaneous vaporization of
[23:51] Speaker 1: the sap of the tree by the bolt. Some friends
[23:54] Speaker 1: of mine were inoculated with curiosity about insects by watching
[23:57] Speaker 1: the transformation of the larvae of one of the wallow
[24:00] Speaker 1: tailed butterflies, probably the papilio asterias. As I was walking
[24:05] Speaker 1: on their porch one morning in early April, I chanced
[24:08] Speaker 1: to see a black and green caterpillar about two inches long,
[24:11] Speaker 1: posed in a meditative attitude upon the side of the
[24:13] Speaker 1: house a foot or more above the floor. The latter
[24:17] Speaker 1: half of its body was attached to the board wall,
[24:19] Speaker 1: and the fore part curved up from it with bowed head.
[24:22] Speaker 1: The creature was motionless and apparently absorbed in deep meditation.
[24:26] Speaker 1: I stooped down and examined it more closely. I saw
[24:29] Speaker 1: that it was on the eve of a great change.
[24:32] Speaker 1: The surface of the board immediately under the forward part
[24:34] Speaker 1: of the body had been silvered over with a very
[24:36] Speaker 1: fine silken web that was almost like a wash rather
[24:39] Speaker 1: than something woven. Anchored to this on both sides, as
[24:43] Speaker 1: if grown out of the web, ran a very fine
[24:46] Speaker 1: thread or cord up over the caterpillar's back, which served
[24:49] Speaker 1: to hold it in place. It could lean against the
[24:51] Speaker 1: thread as a sailor leans against a rope thrown around
[24:54] Speaker 1: him and tied to the mast. With bowed head, the
[24:56] Speaker 1: future butterfly hung there, and with bowed head, I waited
[24:59] Speaker 1: and watched. Presently, convulsive movements began to transverse its body
[25:04] Speaker 1: through segment after segment, a wave of effort seemed to pass.
[25:07] Speaker 1: It was a beginning of the travail panes of transformation.
[25:11] Speaker 1: Then in a twinkling, a slight rent appeared in the
[25:13] Speaker 1: skin on the curve of the back, revealing the new
[25:15] Speaker 1: light green surface underneath the first glimpse of the chrysalis.
[25:19] Speaker 1: The butterfly was being borne slowly. As the labor continued,
[25:24] Speaker 1: The split in the skin extended down the back and
[25:26] Speaker 1: over toward the head, till the outlines of the chrysalis
[25:29] Speaker 1: became plainly visible. I was witnessing that marvelous transformation and
[25:33] Speaker 1: nature of a worm into a creature of a much
[25:35] Speaker 1: higher and more attractive order. The worm mask was being
[25:39] Speaker 1: stripped off, and an embryo butterfly revealed to view. In
[25:42] Speaker 1: a few minutes, the head and forward part of the
[25:44] Speaker 1: body were free, and the latter half was fast becoming so.
[25:49] Speaker 1: The fine silken cord over the back served its purpose well,
[25:51] Speaker 1: holding the creature in place while it literally wriggled out
[25:54] Speaker 1: of its skin, and when this feat was accomplished, holding
[25:57] Speaker 1: it in position for its long winter sleep. The skin
[26:01] Speaker 1: behaved as if it were an interested party in the enterprise,
[26:04] Speaker 1: much better I am sure, than one's garments would if
[26:06] Speaker 1: one were to try to wriggle out of them without
[26:08] Speaker 1: using one's limbs. If folded back, it drew together. It
[26:11] Speaker 1: finally became a little pellet or pack of cast off
[26:14] Speaker 1: linen that clung to the tail end of the chrysalis.
[26:18] Speaker 1: To effect the final detachment and not lose the grip
[26:21] Speaker 1: which this end seemed to have on the board beneath it,
[26:23] Speaker 1: required a good deal of struggling, probably a full minute
[26:26] Speaker 1: of convulsive effort, before the little bundle of cast off
[26:29] Speaker 1: habiliments let go and dropped a dark pellet the size
[26:32] Speaker 1: of a small pea. Then our insect was at rest
[26:35] Speaker 1: and seemed slowly to contract and stiffen. It had woven
[26:39] Speaker 1: itself the silken loop to hold it to its support,
[26:41] Speaker 1: and it had struggled out of its old skin on
[26:43] Speaker 1: its own initiative, or without being mothered or helped, as
[26:46] Speaker 1: so many new born creatures are. I did not have
[26:50] Speaker 1: the pleasure of seeing it spin the cord over the back,
[26:53] Speaker 1: which plays an important part in the process of transformation
[26:56] Speaker 1: mechanical part, though it be but a few days later,
[26:59] Speaker 1: through the patient and clear seeing eyes of my friend,
[27:01] Speaker 1: Miss Grace Humphrey, I witnessed this operation also, she wrote,
[27:06] Speaker 1: the day after you left, we found another caterpillar a
[27:09] Speaker 1: few feet away from yours. It had already made its
[27:11] Speaker 1: saddle cord and shed its silken robe, and we found it,
[27:14] Speaker 1: but we watched it change from gray green to not
[27:17] Speaker 1: greenish brown at all, but a grayness matching the concrete
[27:20] Speaker 1: of the house, for it was higher up than yours,
[27:23] Speaker 1: on the ledge below the window, hanging from the ledge
[27:25] Speaker 1: against the plaster wall. Its cord, too, apparently grew thicker
[27:29] Speaker 1: just at the ends, showing up more plainly for a bit. Then,
[27:32] Speaker 1: like yours, it dried up and more perfectly matched its background,
[27:36] Speaker 1: and neither of them did the cord continue to look thicker.
[27:40] Speaker 1: The same day I found a third caterpillar under the
[27:42] Speaker 1: pear tree, the very same kind, black with a wide
[27:45] Speaker 1: green stripe marking off each segment in the rows of
[27:48] Speaker 1: yellow buttons. I carried it on a leaf up to
[27:50] Speaker 1: the porch, where we put it under a glass bowl.
[27:53] Speaker 1: But of course it thought that an unfavorable place for
[27:56] Speaker 1: housing itself for the winter, and it wouldn't start, though
[27:59] Speaker 1: we kept it there two at noon, when freed, it
[28:02] Speaker 1: climbed up the wall of the house, rather near yours,
[28:04] Speaker 1: so they were photographed together, and we held our breasts
[28:07] Speaker 1: to see if it would start building operations there, but no.
[28:11] Speaker 1: Up the window ledge, it warmed its way, and thence
[28:13] Speaker 1: up and up by the side of the window, leaving
[28:16] Speaker 1: all the way along a silky thread, and constantly going
[28:19] Speaker 1: back and forth with its head. Mister r knocked it
[28:23] Speaker 1: down once to keep it in the sunlight in order
[28:25] Speaker 1: to photograph it, and it immediately climbed up to the
[28:27] Speaker 1: same spot, all the time leaving the white silk thread.
[28:30] Speaker 1: It kept climbing up and up till I had to
[28:32] Speaker 1: get on a chair to see it, and once I
[28:34] Speaker 1: lost my balance and jumped down, drawing it so that
[28:37] Speaker 1: I knocked it to the floor. But up it got
[28:39] Speaker 1: and climbed up and spent the rest of the afternoon
[28:41] Speaker 1: alternately wriggling about to find just the right place and
[28:45] Speaker 1: making a silken background in one spot. The next day
[28:49] Speaker 1: it was still on the window ledge. About eleven o'clock
[28:51] Speaker 1: it disappeared, and I hunted and hunted before I found
[28:54] Speaker 1: it on the other side of the poor trailing. It
[28:56] Speaker 1: was busily making its network, but it made far less
[29:00] Speaker 1: either of the others, and most of the time it
[29:02] Speaker 1: was staying quite still. The following day, about noon, it
[29:05] Speaker 1: made its cord, anchoring that at one end, then at
[29:08] Speaker 1: the other, and going back and forth to strengthen it.
[29:11] Speaker 1: When the cord was ready, it put its head through.
[29:13] Speaker 1: The cord was made ahead of it, and wriggled itself
[29:15] Speaker 1: into the cord. It wriggled fully as hard as when
[29:18] Speaker 1: yours got itself out of its striped cover. So slowly
[29:22] Speaker 1: and carefully it made its way into place, being most
[29:25] Speaker 1: careful not to strain the cord. We watched breathlessly. It
[29:28] Speaker 1: pushed itself so far through that it was about half
[29:31] Speaker 1: and half, and then it had to wriggle backward until
[29:34] Speaker 1: its head and a third of its body was through
[29:36] Speaker 1: and two thirds not through. And wriggling back took far
[29:39] Speaker 1: greater care than forward. It stayed just that way, all
[29:42] Speaker 1: huddled up, for nearly four days, when about eight o'clock
[29:45] Speaker 1: in the morning it split and divested itself of its robe.
[29:48] Speaker 1: It is matching the brown woodwork like yours, and there
[29:51] Speaker 1: all three are the incomparable. French natural historian and felicitous
[29:56] Speaker 1: writer Enri Fabrey has witnessed what I never have. He
[30:00] Speaker 1: had seen the caterpillar build its case or cocoon. In
[30:03] Speaker 1: the instance which he describes, it was the small grub
[30:06] Speaker 1: of one of the psycheys. The first thing the creature
[30:09] Speaker 1: did was to collect bits of fell or pith from
[30:11] Speaker 1: the cast off garment of its mother. These it tied
[30:14] Speaker 1: together with the thread of its own silk, forming a
[30:16] Speaker 1: band or girdle, which it put around its own body,
[30:19] Speaker 1: uniting ends. This ring was the start and foundation of
[30:23] Speaker 1: the sack in which it was to encase itself. The
[30:25] Speaker 1: band was placed well forward so that the insect could
[30:28] Speaker 1: reach its edge by bending its head up and down
[30:30] Speaker 1: and around in all directions. It then proceeded to widen
[30:34] Speaker 1: the girdle by attaching particles of down to its edges.
[30:37] Speaker 1: As the garment grew towards its head, the weaver crept
[30:40] Speaker 1: forward in it, thus causing it to cover more and
[30:42] Speaker 1: more of its body, till in a few hours it
[30:44] Speaker 1: covered all of it, and the sack was complete. A
[30:47] Speaker 1: very simple process, and it would seem the only possible one.
[30:51] Speaker 1: The head with the flexible neck, which allowed it to
[30:54] Speaker 1: swing through the circle, was the loom that did the weaving.
[30:57] Speaker 1: The thread issuing from the spinneret on the lip. Did
[31:00] Speaker 1: the silk issue from the other end of the body,
[31:02] Speaker 1: as we are likely to think it does. The feet
[31:04] Speaker 1: would be impossible. I suppose a woman might knit herself
[31:07] Speaker 1: into his sweater in the same way by holding the
[31:10] Speaker 1: ball of yarn in her bosom and turning the web
[31:12] Speaker 1: around and pulling it down instead of turning her body
[31:15] Speaker 1: all but her arms. Here, she would be balked to
[31:18] Speaker 1: understand how a grub weaves itself a close fitting garment
[31:21] Speaker 1: closed at both ends from its own hair, or by
[31:23] Speaker 1: what sleight of hand it attaches its cocoon to the
[31:26] Speaker 1: end of a branch. I suppose one would need to
[31:28] Speaker 1: witness the process in October. These preparations and transformations in
[31:33] Speaker 1: the insect world are taking place all about us, and
[31:36] Speaker 1: we regard them not. The caterpillars are getting ready for
[31:39] Speaker 1: a sleep out, of which they awakened in the spring,
[31:41] Speaker 1: totally different creatures. They tucked themselves away under stones or
[31:46] Speaker 1: into crevices. They hang themselves on bushes. They roll themselves
[31:50] Speaker 1: up in dry leaves and brave the cold of winter
[31:53] Speaker 1: and tough garments, wooly or silky of their own weaving.
[31:56] Speaker 1: Some of them, as certain of the large moths, do
[31:59] Speaker 1: what seems like an impossible stunt. They shut themselves up
[32:02] Speaker 1: inside a tough case or a septacle and attach it
[32:05] Speaker 1: by a long, strong bit of homemade tape to the
[32:07] Speaker 1: end of its twig, so that it swings freely in
[32:10] Speaker 1: the wind. I have seen the downy woodpecker trying to
[32:12] Speaker 1: break into one of these sealed up living tombs without
[32:15] Speaker 1: a ail. Its free pendent position allows it to yield
[32:18] Speaker 1: to the strokes of the bird and all efforts to
[32:21] Speaker 1: penetrate the case or in vain. How the big clumsy worm,
[32:25] Speaker 1: without help or hands, wove itself into this bird proof
[32:28] Speaker 1: case and hung itself up at the end of a
[32:31] Speaker 1: limb would be a problem more solving. Of course, It
[32:34] Speaker 1: had its material all within its own body, so as
[32:37] Speaker 1: not encumbered with outside tools or refractory matter. It was
[32:41] Speaker 1: the result of a mechanical and a vital process combined.
[32:44] Speaker 1: The creature knew how to use the means which nature
[32:46] Speaker 1: had given it for the purpose. Some of the caterpillars
[32:49] Speaker 1: weave the chrysalis case out of the hairs and mule
[32:52] Speaker 1: of their summer coats, others out of silk developed from within.
[32:56] Speaker 1: On October mornings, I have had great pleasure in turning
[32:59] Speaker 1: over the stones by the roadside and lifting up those
[33:01] Speaker 1: on the tops of the stone walls, and noting the
[33:03] Speaker 1: insect life preparing its winter quarters. Under them, the caterpillars
[33:07] Speaker 1: and spiders are busy. One could gather enough of the white,
[33:11] Speaker 1: fine silk from spider tants and cocoons to make a
[33:14] Speaker 1: rope big enough to hang himself with. The jumping spider
[33:17] Speaker 1: may be found in his closely woven tent. Look at
[33:20] Speaker 1: his head through a pocket glass, and he looks like
[33:22] Speaker 1: a miniature woodchut. His smooth, dark gray, hairy pate and
[33:26] Speaker 1: two beelike eyes are very like, But his broad, blunt
[33:29] Speaker 1: nose is unlike. It seems studded with a row of
[33:32] Speaker 1: five or six jewels. But these jewels are eyes. What
[33:35] Speaker 1: extra bounty nature seems to have bestowed upon some of
[33:38] Speaker 1: these humble creatures. We find our one pair of eyes precious.
[33:42] Speaker 1: Think what three or four pairs would be if they
[33:44] Speaker 1: added to our powers of vision proportionately. But probably the
[33:47] Speaker 1: many eyed spiders and the flies, with their compound eyes,
[33:50] Speaker 1: see less than we do. This multitude of ice seems
[33:53] Speaker 1: only an awkward device of nature's to make up for
[33:55] Speaker 1: the movable eye like our own. In some of the
[33:58] Speaker 1: spider's cocoons, under the stones on the tops of the walls,
[34:02] Speaker 1: you will find masses of small pink eggs expected to
[34:04] Speaker 1: survive the winter, I suppose, and hatch out in the spring.
[34:08] Speaker 1: The underside of a stone on the top of a
[34:10] Speaker 1: stone wall seems like a very cold cradle in nursery.
[34:13] Speaker 1: But the caterpillars and their shrouds survive here and may
[34:16] Speaker 1: not the spiders eggs. In October. You will find the
[34:20] Speaker 1: caterpillars in all stages of making ready for winter. They
[34:23] Speaker 1: first cover a small space on the stone, upon which
[34:26] Speaker 1: they rest a very fine silken whim. It looks like
[34:29] Speaker 1: a delicate silver wash. This is the foundation of the
[34:32] Speaker 1: coming cocoon. But I could never catch any of them
[34:34] Speaker 1: in the act of weaving their cocoons. I brought one
[34:37] Speaker 1: to the house and kept it under observation for several days,
[34:40] Speaker 1: but it was always passive whenever I glimpsed it through
[34:43] Speaker 1: the crack between the stones. The nights were frosty and
[34:45] Speaker 1: the day's chilly, But sometime during the twenty four hours
[34:48] Speaker 1: the creature's loom was at work. One morning, a thin
[34:51] Speaker 1: veil of delicate silver threads, through which I could dimly
[34:54] Speaker 1: see the warm united the two stones. It seemed to
[34:57] Speaker 1: be in the midst of a little thicket of vertical,
[34:59] Speaker 1: shining silken threads. It was like some enchantment. A little later,
[35:03] Speaker 1: the thicket or veil had developed into a thin cradle,
[35:06] Speaker 1: in which lay the chrysalis and the cast off skin
[35:08] Speaker 1: of the worm. This caterpillar had been disturbed a good
[35:11] Speaker 1: deal and made to waste some of its precious silk,
[35:14] Speaker 1: so that its cocoon was finally a thin, poor one.
[35:17] Speaker 1: Life under a Stone forms a chapter in Nature's infinite
[35:20] Speaker 1: book of secrecy, which most persons skip, but which is
[35:23] Speaker 1: well worth perusal and of Section one. Recording by Edith Erne,
[35:30] Speaker 1: Southern California, Fall two thousand eight. Section two of Nature
[35:46] Speaker 1: Near Home and other Papers by John Burroughs. This is
[35:49] Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[35:54] Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[35:58] Speaker 1: Recording by Edith ern Nature in Your Home and Other
[36:01] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrough's Section two New Gleanings in Old Fields,
[36:06] Speaker 1: Part one, Live Natural History. Recently, while reading Throlle's journal,
[36:13] Speaker 1: I wondered why his natural history notes, with which the
[36:15] Speaker 1: journal abounds, interested me so little. On reflection, I saw
[36:19] Speaker 1: that it was because he contented himself with making only
[36:22] Speaker 1: a bare statement of the fact. He did not relate
[36:25] Speaker 1: it to anything else or interpret its meaning. There is
[36:28] Speaker 1: a great deal of bald, dry natural history of this
[36:30] Speaker 1: kind in his journal, which he never wove together into
[36:33] Speaker 1: a living texture. When he simply tells me, I see
[36:38] Speaker 1: a downy woodpecker tapping on an apple tree, and here,
[36:41] Speaker 1: when I have passed his sharp metallic note, he has
[36:44] Speaker 1: not interested me in the woodpecker. He must string the
[36:48] Speaker 1: bird on his thoughts in some way. He must relate
[36:50] Speaker 1: him to my life or experience. The facts of natural
[36:53] Speaker 1: history become interesting the moment they become facts of human history.
[36:58] Speaker 1: All the ways of the wall creatures and getting on
[37:00] Speaker 1: in the world interests us, because we have our ways
[37:03] Speaker 1: of getting on in the world. All their economies, antagonisms, failures,
[37:07] Speaker 1: devices appeal to us for the same reason. The Roe's
[37:11] Speaker 1: description of the battle of the ants in Walden is
[37:13] Speaker 1: intensely interesting because it is so human. Valor, heroism stir
[37:18] Speaker 1: us in whatever field they appear. As I write, a
[37:21] Speaker 1: little chippy comes among the vines on my porch, looking
[37:24] Speaker 1: for nesting material. The old spring impulse to increase and
[37:27] Speaker 1: multiply is strong upon her. She tugs at the strings
[37:30] Speaker 1: that tie the vines. She scrutinizes every branch for some
[37:33] Speaker 1: shred or bit that will serve her purpose. She interests me,
[37:37] Speaker 1: and I lent her a hand by releasing some of
[37:39] Speaker 1: the strings which she could not manage. I'm familiar with
[37:42] Speaker 1: her problem, as we all are. The cliff swallows daintily
[37:46] Speaker 1: gathering mud at the edges of a puddle in the road,
[37:49] Speaker 1: lifting their wings and standing on tiptoe, as it were,
[37:51] Speaker 1: to guard against soiling their plumage is a site I
[37:54] Speaker 1: will always pause to witness. Yesterday I sat for an
[37:58] Speaker 1: hour in the woods near a dead maple stub in
[38:00] Speaker 1: which a flicker was excavating her nest. At intervals the
[38:03] Speaker 1: hammering would cease, and the bird, on her guard against
[38:06] Speaker 1: the approach of deathly enemies, would appear at the opening
[38:09] Speaker 1: and take a long look. Finally, when she discovered me,
[38:12] Speaker 1: she came out and went off in the woods and
[38:14] Speaker 1: seemed to have some conversation with her mate. All the
[38:17] Speaker 1: industries and weighs and means among the animals are interesting.
[38:20] Speaker 1: A chipmunk carrying nuts and seeds to her den. A
[38:23] Speaker 1: red squirrel cutting off the chestnut birds too impatient to
[38:26] Speaker 1: wait for the frost to open them. On the trees.
[38:28] Speaker 1: Even a woodchuck, carrying dry grass and stubble into his
[38:31] Speaker 1: hole for a nest arrests the attention the currents of
[38:35] Speaker 1: life everywhere. The lamb priests piling up the stones and
[38:38] Speaker 1: the creek bottom for a nest. The muskrat in the fall,
[38:40] Speaker 1: building his aquatic tent with mouthfuls of sedge grass, excite
[38:44] Speaker 1: our interest. In may. All the seed eating and nut
[38:47] Speaker 1: eating creatures are hard put to it to obtain food.
[38:51] Speaker 1: The red squirrel comes in front of my door and
[38:53] Speaker 1: eats the sterile catkins of the butternut, and they evidently
[38:56] Speaker 1: help tide him over the season of scarcity. One morning,
[38:59] Speaker 1: a gray squirrel in his quest for a breakfast andvaded
[39:02] Speaker 1: the tree. The red squirrel soon spied him and hustled
[39:06] Speaker 1: him out of it. Very spitefully. The gray went underlating
[39:09] Speaker 1: along the top of the stone wall the picture of
[39:11] Speaker 1: grace and ease, while the red, with his tail canked,
[39:14] Speaker 1: was in hot pursuit. To find an interest in natural history,
[39:17] Speaker 1: one must add something more than the fact. One must
[39:20] Speaker 1: see the meaning of the fact. I feel no especial
[39:24] Speaker 1: interest in the kingbird the alights on the telephone wire
[39:26] Speaker 1: in front of me. But when he climbs high up
[39:28] Speaker 1: in the air and picks some invisible insect from out
[39:31] Speaker 1: the apparently empty space and brings it back to his perch,
[39:34] Speaker 1: I am interested. It was a characteristic act. The fox
[39:39] Speaker 1: is interesting for his cunning, the skunk and porcupine for
[39:42] Speaker 1: their stupidity. We see in the last two how the
[39:45] Speaker 1: weapons of defense which nature has so liberally bestowed upon
[39:48] Speaker 1: them have left no room for the exigencies of life
[39:51] Speaker 1: to develop their wits. The novel, the extraordinary, the characteristic,
[39:56] Speaker 1: the significant always interests us. The human bore is a
[40:00] Speaker 1: a person who has no conception of what constitutes the interesting.
[40:03] Speaker 1: He or she pours out his own private experiences upon
[40:06] Speaker 1: us as if they were of the same interest to
[40:08] Speaker 1: us as to him. How prone we are to think
[40:11] Speaker 1: our special ailments are of universal interest. But how rarely
[40:15] Speaker 1: is this the case. One afternoon, two cuckoos, flying side
[40:19] Speaker 1: by side passed my door. In the morning they passed
[40:22] Speaker 1: again in the same way, and going in the same direction.
[40:25] Speaker 1: I became interested. I said, this means business. Following the
[40:29] Speaker 1: course they took, I went straight to a clump of
[40:32] Speaker 1: red thorn trees a hundred yards distant, and there was
[40:35] Speaker 1: the nest with young more than half grown. They were
[40:38] Speaker 1: black billed cuckoos. The mother bird chided me in that
[40:40] Speaker 1: harsh guttural staccato note of hers, and kept her place
[40:43] Speaker 1: on a branch near the nest. One of the three
[40:46] Speaker 1: young got out of the rude nest and perched on
[40:48] Speaker 1: its wig, holding its head or neck nearly vertical. Its
[40:51] Speaker 1: pronounced stuppy quills and peculiar attitude gave it an unbirdlike look.
[40:56] Speaker 1: The cuckoos seemed to time their nesting with that of
[40:58] Speaker 1: the tent caterpillars upon which they feed. As the supply
[41:01] Speaker 1: of these orchard pests and many other similar pests have
[41:04] Speaker 1: been nearly exterminated by the cold, wet May of the
[41:07] Speaker 1: previous year nineteen seventeen, it would have been very interesting
[41:10] Speaker 1: to know how the birds made up for the deficiency.
[41:13] Speaker 1: What was the substitute? But I could not find out.
[41:17] Speaker 1: Nearly every cuckoo's nest I have happened to find has
[41:19] Speaker 1: been on a thorn bush. Why do they choose this tree?
[41:22] Speaker 1: What special enemy are they on their guard against? Our
[41:25] Speaker 1: cuckoos evidently lay their eggs at longer intervals than the
[41:27] Speaker 1: other birds. In the present case, one of the young
[41:31] Speaker 1: was clearly several days older than its fellows. This fact,
[41:34] Speaker 1: with the rude skeleton of a nest, suggests some reminiscence
[41:38] Speaker 1: of the habits of the European cuckoo, a parasitical bird.
[41:42] Speaker 1: The wild life around one becomes interesting the moment one
[41:44] Speaker 1: gets into the current of it and sees its characteristics
[41:47] Speaker 1: and byplay. The coons that come down off the mountain
[41:50] Speaker 1: into my orchard for apples on the chill November nights.
[41:53] Speaker 1: The fox that prowls about near me and wakens me
[41:55] Speaker 1: by his wild vulpine squall at two o'clock in the morning.
[41:59] Speaker 1: The woodchucks brought in my meadows and eating and tangling
[42:01] Speaker 1: my clover, and showing sudden terror when they spy me
[42:04] Speaker 1: peeping over the stone wall or coming with my rifle.
[42:07] Speaker 1: The chipmunk leaving a mound of freshly dug earth conspicuous
[42:10] Speaker 1: by the road side, while his entrance to his den
[42:13] Speaker 1: is deftly concealed under the grass or strawberry vines a
[42:15] Speaker 1: few yards away. The red squirrel spinning along the stone wall,
[42:19] Speaker 1: his movements apparently controlled by the electric like waves of
[42:22] Speaker 1: energy that run along his tail and impart to it
[42:25] Speaker 1: a new curb or cank every moment, or chipping up
[42:28] Speaker 1: my apples and parish for the seed, and snickering and
[42:31] Speaker 1: castinating as if in derision. When I appeared upon the scene.
[42:34] Speaker 1: How much there is in the lives of all these
[42:36] Speaker 1: creatures that we should find keenly interesting, if we only
[42:39] Speaker 1: knew how to get at it. This rainy morning, I
[42:42] Speaker 1: saw two red squirrels make a wild dash through my garden,
[42:46] Speaker 1: one in hot pursuit of the other. A woven wire
[42:49] Speaker 1: fence was in the way. The fleeing one cleared one
[42:51] Speaker 1: of the meshes neatly, but his pursuer, intent on his enemy,
[42:54] Speaker 1: blundered and doubled up against the obstruction, and was delayed
[42:57] Speaker 1: a moment. How much I wanted to know what the
[42:59] Speaker 1: mad race meant and how it resulted. The red squirrel
[43:02] Speaker 1: is a perky, feather edged creature, the hottest and most
[43:05] Speaker 1: peppery rodent we have in our woods and orchards. Every
[43:08] Speaker 1: hair of him like a live wire, and many of
[43:10] Speaker 1: his movements are to me quite unaccountable. The search for
[43:14] Speaker 1: the elements of the interesting in nature and in life
[43:16] Speaker 1: in persons and in things will is an interesting search
[43:20] Speaker 1: and of Section two recording by Edith ern Southern California,
[43:25] Speaker 1: Fall two thousand and eight. Section three of Nature in
[43:36] Speaker 1: Your Home and Other Papers by John Burroughs. This is
[43:40] Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[43:44] Speaker 1: To learn more or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[43:49] Speaker 1: Recording by Edith Erne. Nature in Your Home and Other
[43:52] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burroughs. Section three The barn swallow. How
[43:57] Speaker 1: wensome is the swallow, how tender and pleasing all her notes?
[44:01] Speaker 1: Is it boyhood that she brings back to us old
[44:03] Speaker 1: men who were farm boys? In our youth, we saw
[44:07] Speaker 1: the swallows play out and in the wide open barn
[44:09] Speaker 1: doors and hang time, their steel blue backs and ruddy
[44:12] Speaker 1: throats glancing in the sun, and their gentle unctious winged
[44:15] Speaker 1: gossip falling on our ears. Their coarse nests, mud without
[44:19] Speaker 1: but feathers within were plastered on the rafters in the peak,
[44:23] Speaker 1: and when the young were out, we saw them perch
[44:24] Speaker 1: in a row on the ridge board, resting from their
[44:26] Speaker 1: first flights. Now, as I sit within my barn door outlook,
[44:31] Speaker 1: the same swallows are playing before me, untouched by the
[44:34] Speaker 1: many long years that have passed, giving the impression of
[44:37] Speaker 1: perpetual youth. The same tender, confiding calls, the same darting
[44:41] Speaker 1: wayward flight, the same swift coursings above the shorn meadows,
[44:45] Speaker 1: darlings of the ripe summer air, aerial feeders, reaping an
[44:48] Speaker 1: invisible bounty above us, touching the earth in quest of
[44:51] Speaker 1: a straw or a feather, or for clay, for the nest,
[44:54] Speaker 1: tireless of wing, and impotent of foot. As of old,
[44:58] Speaker 1: the swallow has two words, one for her friends and
[45:01] Speaker 1: one for her foes. Wit wit, wit, uttered so confidingly
[45:05] Speaker 1: for the friends, And sleep, sleep, sleep, uttered sharply for
[45:09] Speaker 1: the foes. Instead of the ridge board of my youth,
[45:13] Speaker 1: the swallow now has a new perch, the telephone and
[45:16] Speaker 1: telegraph wires strung along the highway. Shall we look upon
[45:19] Speaker 1: the swallow as a songster, Virtil refers to him as such,
[45:23] Speaker 1: And when he perches upon the telephone wire in front
[45:25] Speaker 1: of my barn door, and fills and refills his mouth
[45:28] Speaker 1: with a succession of those squeaking, smacking, unctious notes, his
[45:32] Speaker 1: throat swelling and throbbing, his beak opening and shutting, glancing
[45:35] Speaker 1: now to the right, now to the left, as if
[45:37] Speaker 1: to see if his mate is near. He looks, and
[45:40] Speaker 1: we may say is the songster that Virgil called him.
[45:44] Speaker 1: The performance lacks resonance and the flute quality of our
[45:47] Speaker 1: regular song birds. It seems to be made in the
[45:49] Speaker 1: cheeks or by the softer parts of the mouth. The
[45:51] Speaker 1: beak is too small and feeble to play much of
[45:53] Speaker 1: a part in its production. What a waxy, adhesive sort
[45:58] Speaker 1: of sound it is? I wonder if this has the
[46:00] Speaker 1: organ called the syrynx, common to the regular songbirds. If
[46:04] Speaker 1: one may compare sound with substance, I should say that
[46:07] Speaker 1: the swallow strange seems viscous and turbid, rather than liquid
[46:10] Speaker 1: and translucent like that of the acknowledged song birds. It
[46:14] Speaker 1: is less a musical performance for its own sake than
[46:17] Speaker 1: a note of self congratulation or of salutation to its fellows.
[46:21] Speaker 1: The bird does not lift up his head and pour
[46:23] Speaker 1: out his strain as if for the joy of singing.
[46:25] Speaker 1: He delivers it as a speaker delivers his discourse, looking
[46:29] Speaker 1: about him and laying the emphasis here and there in
[46:31] Speaker 1: a confident and reassuring tone. The cliff swallows, and the
[46:35] Speaker 1: purple martins and bank swallows are much more social and
[46:37] Speaker 1: gregarious than the barn swalls. I do not remember ever
[46:41] Speaker 1: to have seen more than one nest of the latter
[46:43] Speaker 1: at a time in the peak of the barn. Although
[46:45] Speaker 1: I am told that in New England they nest in colonies,
[46:48] Speaker 1: I do not know that they migrate in large flocks
[46:50] Speaker 1: like the other swallows. I only know that their season
[46:53] Speaker 1: with uns ends about the twentieth of August, and that
[46:56] Speaker 1: they pass the winter in South America, where I hope
[46:58] Speaker 1: they have as happy a time as they do here.
[47:01] Speaker 1: If anything preys upon them while they are here, I
[47:03] Speaker 1: do not know what it is. They could laugh at
[47:05] Speaker 1: the swiftest hawk. They share the distrust of all birds
[47:08] Speaker 1: towards the cat, though I have never known Puss to
[47:11] Speaker 1: catch one. They will swoop down spitefully if she lingers
[47:14] Speaker 1: about their haunts, and I have seen her try to
[47:16] Speaker 1: strike them with her paw, but have never known her
[47:18] Speaker 1: to sixteed. My swallows have a pretty habit when the
[47:22] Speaker 1: day is chilly and cloudy or stormy, of collecting their
[47:25] Speaker 1: brood on the little edges or shelves above the windows
[47:27] Speaker 1: on the south gable of the house and feeding them there.
[47:30] Speaker 1: The young sit there in a huddled row, apparently looking
[47:32] Speaker 1: off in the fields of air, where their parents are
[47:35] Speaker 1: coursing for insects, and when they see them returning, they
[47:37] Speaker 1: break out in a happy and grateful chatter. The old
[47:40] Speaker 1: weather worn gable is for the moment the scene of
[47:42] Speaker 1: a very pleasing and animated incident in swallow life and
[47:46] Speaker 1: of section three recording by Edith Ferne, Southern California, sixteenth
[47:51] Speaker 1: of December two thousand eight. Nature Near Home in Other
[47:58] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrough's. This is a LibriVox recording. All
[48:02] Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. To learn more
[48:05] Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Nature Near
[48:10] Speaker 1: Home and other papers by John Burroughs. Section four Insects.
[48:16] Speaker 1: One reason why all truthful and well written books upon
[48:18] Speaker 1: insects interest us more than the subject would seem to warrant,
[48:22] Speaker 1: is that no creature is small in print or in
[48:24] Speaker 1: a book. Print is the great equalizer. It magnifies a little,
[48:29] Speaker 1: and it minimizes the big. When Fawbray focuses our attention
[48:33] Speaker 1: upon a wasp or spider, his account engrosses our minds
[48:36] Speaker 1: as completely as an account of a lion or an
[48:39] Speaker 1: elephant wood. The insect is singled out and separated from
[48:42] Speaker 1: the thousand forms and entanglements that belittle it. In field
[48:45] Speaker 1: and wood, it alone occupies the page. The lion can
[48:49] Speaker 1: do no more. It is precisely like putting the flea
[48:53] Speaker 1: under the microscope. The wars, loves industries. Activities of Fawbrey's
[48:57] Speaker 1: little people are described in terms and image, which we
[49:01] Speaker 1: use in giving an account of man and the greater beasts.
[49:04] Speaker 1: The words make them big. A moment ago, a minute
[49:07] Speaker 1: red insect, a mere moving point, revealed itself to my eye,
[49:11] Speaker 1: crawling across the sheet of paper. It was so frail
[49:15] Speaker 1: and small that a bare touch of my finger, as
[49:17] Speaker 1: my pocket glass showed, crushed it. If I could give
[49:20] Speaker 1: you its life history and show its relation to other insects,
[49:24] Speaker 1: it would stand out on my page as distinctly as
[49:26] Speaker 1: if it had been a thousand times larger. Its travels,
[49:29] Speaker 1: its adventures, its birth, its death would fill the mind's eye.
[49:33] Speaker 1: The reader would not have to grope for it on
[49:35] Speaker 1: my page, as my eye did when it discovered it.
[49:38] Speaker 1: There is no little and no big to nature, and
[49:40] Speaker 1: there is none to the mind. We think of the
[49:42] Speaker 1: whirling solar system as easily as of a whirling top.
[49:46] Speaker 1: The space that separates us from the fixed stars is
[49:48] Speaker 1: no more to the mind than the space that separates
[49:50] Speaker 1: us from our neighbors. In like manner, the atoms and
[49:54] Speaker 1: the molecules of matter, when we have once conceived of them,
[49:57] Speaker 1: are as easy if apprehension, as are the rocks in
[50:00] Speaker 1: the mountains. The theory of their nature and activities figures
[50:03] Speaker 1: as large in our minds as that of the planetary systems.
[50:07] Speaker 1: The stories of many of Fabrey's flies and beetles interests
[50:10] Speaker 1: as much and are quite as significant as the story
[50:13] Speaker 1: of Jack a giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. His history
[50:17] Speaker 1: of the tumble bug amuses and interests us as much
[50:20] Speaker 1: as that of any of Plutarch's heroes. But see the
[50:23] Speaker 1: tumble bug there in the path or by the roadside,
[50:25] Speaker 1: struggling with his little black globe, and he is little
[50:29] Speaker 1: more than the microscopic spider on my sheet of paper.
[50:32] Speaker 1: His history must be written large, magnified by printer's type,
[50:35] Speaker 1: before it comes fully within our kent or has power
[50:38] Speaker 1: to move us. Fabrey's excursions afield are as entertaining and suggestive,
[50:43] Speaker 1: as Roosevelt's excursions into the big game lands of Africa
[50:47] Speaker 1: with the true artist. Size does not count. The same
[50:51] Speaker 1: is true with all the minutia of nature flowers, insects, birds, fishes, frogs.
[50:56] Speaker 1: We are bound to magnify them by describing them in
[50:58] Speaker 1: the terms of our experience with larger bodies. A wasp
[51:02] Speaker 1: will capture its prey, paralyze it, and leave it upon
[51:05] Speaker 1: the ground, and then go a few yards away and
[51:07] Speaker 1: dig its hull. Then it will come back, look its
[51:10] Speaker 1: game over, take its measure, and apparently conclude that the
[51:13] Speaker 1: hole is too small, then go back and enlarge it,
[51:16] Speaker 1: sometimes making several trips of this kind. Its attitudes and
[51:20] Speaker 1: procedure would lead you to say that the wasp was
[51:23] Speaker 1: sinking and calculating, as a mechanic would under similar circumstances.
[51:28] Speaker 1: In another case, the sphex wasp has need to paralyze
[51:32] Speaker 1: the mouth parts of the prey she is carrying, so
[51:35] Speaker 1: as she bestrides it and drags it. Also by its antennae,
[51:38] Speaker 1: it cannot grip her with its mandibles or impeded progress
[51:41] Speaker 1: by seizing upon blades of grass by the way, like
[51:44] Speaker 1: a skillful surgeon. The wast knows just what to do,
[51:47] Speaker 1: knows in what part of the head to insert her
[51:49] Speaker 1: sting to produce the desired effect. To know everything and
[51:53] Speaker 1: to know nothing, says Fabre. According as it acts under
[51:56] Speaker 1: normal or exceptional conditions, that is of strange antithesis presented
[52:01] Speaker 1: by the insect race. But we must never credit the
[52:04] Speaker 1: insect with understanding as a result of cogitation. It knows nothing.
[52:09] Speaker 1: Its life is a series of acts fatally linked together.
[52:12] Speaker 1: The mind of the insect is the mind of nature.
[52:15] Speaker 1: It is action and not reflection. The plant does not
[52:17] Speaker 1: consciously select the elements in the soil or the air
[52:20] Speaker 1: that it needs as we select. The vital chemistry in
[52:23] Speaker 1: the organism does the selecting, but the moment we name
[52:26] Speaker 1: what it is that does the selecting. We are caught
[52:29] Speaker 1: in a trap. We want to know what prompted it
[52:31] Speaker 1: to the act. We cannot find the underside of these things,
[52:34] Speaker 1: because there is no underside or upper side either any
[52:37] Speaker 1: more than there is to the earth and of section
[52:40] Speaker 1: four recording by edith Ierne, Southern California, December two thousand
[52:45] Speaker 1: and eight, Nature Near Home and other papers by John Burrows.
[52:57] Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings round the
[53:01] Speaker 1: public domain. To learn more or to volunteer, please visit
[53:04] Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Nature in your Home and other papers
[53:08] Speaker 1: by John Burrow's section five The Dog. The most wonderful
[53:13] Speaker 1: thing about the dog is not his intelligence, but his
[53:15] Speaker 1: capacity for loving. We can call it by no other name.
[53:19] Speaker 1: The more you love your dog, the more your dog
[53:21] Speaker 1: loves you. You can win your neighbor's dog any time
[53:25] Speaker 1: by loving him more than your neighbor does. He will
[53:27] Speaker 1: follow you to the ends of the earth. If you
[53:29] Speaker 1: love him enough, he may become so attached to you
[53:32] Speaker 1: that he fairly divines your thoughts, not through his own
[53:35] Speaker 1: power of thought, but through his intense sympathy and the
[53:37] Speaker 1: freemasonry of love. He is the ideal companion because he
[53:43] Speaker 1: gives you a sense of companionship without disturbing your sense
[53:46] Speaker 1: of solitude. Your mind is alone, but your heart has company.
[53:50] Speaker 1: He is below your horizon, but something comes up from
[53:52] Speaker 1: his life that mingles with your own. This friend walks
[53:55] Speaker 1: with you or sits with you, and yet he does
[53:58] Speaker 1: not come between you and your book, or between you
[54:00] Speaker 1: and the holiday spirit you went out to woo. He
[54:03] Speaker 1: is the visible embodiment of the holiday spirit. He shows
[54:06] Speaker 1: you how to leave dull care behind. He goes forth
[54:09] Speaker 1: with you in the spirit of eternal youth, sure that
[54:11] Speaker 1: something beautiful or curious or adventurous will happen at any
[54:14] Speaker 1: turn of the road. He finds no places dull. He
[54:17] Speaker 1: is alert with expectancy every moment. In him, you have
[54:21] Speaker 1: good fellowships, always on tap, as it were, Say the word,
[54:25] Speaker 1: and he bounced to your side, or leads the way
[54:26] Speaker 1: to the woods. My dog enjoys a walk more than
[54:29] Speaker 1: I do. His nature study is quite as real as
[54:32] Speaker 1: mine is, though of a totally different kind. The sense
[54:35] Speaker 1: of smell that plays such a part in his excursions
[54:37] Speaker 1: plays little or none in mine. And the eye and
[54:40] Speaker 1: the mind, which contributes so much to my enjoyment, are
[54:43] Speaker 1: almost a blank with him. He enjoys the open fire, too,
[54:47] Speaker 1: and a warm, soft bed, and a good dinner. All
[54:49] Speaker 1: his purely animal enjoyments are as keen or keener than mine.
[54:52] Speaker 1: But has he any other how different? His interest in
[54:57] Speaker 1: cats is from mine, and in dogs and in men.
[54:59] Speaker 1: He is not interested in the landscape as a whole.
[55:02] Speaker 1: I doubt very much if he sees it at all,
[55:05] Speaker 1: But He is interested in what the landscape holds for him,
[55:08] Speaker 1: the woodchuck hole, or the squirrel's den, or the fox's trail.
[55:12] Speaker 1: His life is entirely the life of the senses. And
[55:14] Speaker 1: on this ground we meet in our boon companions. If
[55:18] Speaker 1: he has any mind, life, or ideas, if he ever
[55:21] Speaker 1: looks back over the past or forward into the future,
[55:24] Speaker 1: I see no evidence of it. When there is nothing doing,
[55:27] Speaker 1: he sleeps. Apparently he could sleep all the time if
[55:29] Speaker 1: there were nothing better going on. Into Section five. Recording
[55:34] Speaker 1: by Edith Erne, Southern California, January eleventh, two thousand nine.
[55:46] Speaker 1: Nature in Your Home and Other Papers by John Burrows.
[55:49] Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
[55:53] Speaker 1: the public domain. To learn more or to volunteer, please
[55:56] Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Nature in Your Home and Other
[56:00] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrows. Section six Wood waifs, those little
[56:06] Speaker 1: waists from the woods, chickadees, nut hatches, downy woodpeckers and
[56:10] Speaker 1: brown creepers that come in winter and feed on the
[56:12] Speaker 1: suet on the maple in front of my window. How
[56:15] Speaker 1: much company they are to me? What thoughts and associations
[56:18] Speaker 1: they bring with them? What a pleasure to have them
[56:20] Speaker 1: is my guests on the old tree, the cold neckad
[56:23] Speaker 1: snow choked woods. What can those little pilgrims get there?
[56:28] Speaker 1: I think the nut hatch touches me the most closely.
[56:30] Speaker 1: He is pretty to look upon, and his voice is
[56:33] Speaker 1: that of a child, soft, confiding, contented, and his ways
[56:36] Speaker 1: are all ways of prettiness. His sliding up and down
[56:39] Speaker 1: a round the tree, his pose with heads standing out
[56:41] Speaker 1: at right angles to the body, which enables him to
[56:44] Speaker 1: see the approach of danger as readily as if he
[56:46] Speaker 1: were perched on a horizontal limb. His pretty habit of
[56:49] Speaker 1: making a vice of a crevice, and the bark to
[56:51] Speaker 1: hold a nut. All his notes and calls are pleasing.
[56:56] Speaker 1: He is incapable of a harsh sound. His call in
[56:59] Speaker 1: the spring woods when he made maple sugar in my boyhood, Yank, Yank, yank,
[57:03] Speaker 1: How it comes back to me not a song, but
[57:06] Speaker 1: a token the spirit of the leafless maplewoods finding a voice.
[57:11] Speaker 1: And now for two or three weeks I have had
[57:13] Speaker 1: another guest at the free lunch table, the prettiest of
[57:15] Speaker 1: them all, the red breasted nut hatch from the north,
[57:18] Speaker 1: And he so appreciates my bounty that he has taken
[57:21] Speaker 1: up his temporary a boat here and a RAN's box
[57:23] Speaker 1: a few yards from the lunch table. One cold day
[57:25] Speaker 1: I saw him go into the box and remain for
[57:27] Speaker 1: some time. So with sundown I went and wrapped on
[57:31] Speaker 1: his retreat, and out he came. He spends nearly half
[57:34] Speaker 1: his time at the suit lunch. How pretty he is
[57:36] Speaker 1: and as spry as a cricket, about two thirds the
[57:39] Speaker 1: size of the white breasted. He is quicker in his movements.
[57:42] Speaker 1: He glides round the old tree like a spirit. He
[57:45] Speaker 1: does not seem to have the extra joint in his
[57:47] Speaker 1: neck that his larger cousin has. He does not point
[57:50] Speaker 1: his bill straight out from the tree at right angles
[57:52] Speaker 1: to it, but turns his head more from side to side.
[57:55] Speaker 1: I call him my baby bird. He is so suggestive
[57:57] Speaker 1: of babyhood. It is amusing to see him come down
[58:00] Speaker 1: upon a fragment of hickory nut when he has wedged
[58:02] Speaker 1: it into the bark. Each blow is seconded by a
[58:05] Speaker 1: flash of his wings, as if the tiny wings reinforce
[58:08] Speaker 1: the head. One day I put out a handful of
[58:11] Speaker 1: cracked hickory nuts, and he hustled them all away as
[58:13] Speaker 1: fast as he could carry them, hiding them here and
[58:15] Speaker 1: there in the vineyard, in the summer house, on the woodpile,
[58:19] Speaker 1: Whether with a view to hoarding them for future use,
[58:22] Speaker 1: or whether in obedience to some blind natural instinct, I
[58:24] Speaker 1: know not. The white breasta does the same thing, but
[58:27] Speaker 1: I never see either of them looking up their hidden stores.
[58:31] Speaker 1: Two downy woodpeckers, male and female, but evidently not made
[58:34] Speaker 1: it this season, come many times a day. The male
[58:37] Speaker 1: is a savage little despot. No other bird shall dine
[58:40] Speaker 1: while he does. He bosses the female. The female bosses
[58:43] Speaker 1: the big nut hatch. The nuthatch bosses the red breast.
[58:46] Speaker 1: The red breast bosses the chickadees. The chickadees boss the
[58:49] Speaker 1: brown creeper, and the juncos. Not one bird is hospitable
[58:53] Speaker 1: to another. Each seems to look upon the suit as
[58:55] Speaker 1: it's special find. The more in clement the season, the
[58:59] Speaker 1: more sympathy goes out to our little wild neighbors who
[59:02] Speaker 1: face it and survive it. The tracks of the mice
[59:04] Speaker 1: and the squirrels and the winter woods have an interest
[59:06] Speaker 1: for one they could not possibly have in summer were
[59:09] Speaker 1: they visible. Then, Oh frost and snow, where is your victory? O?
[59:13] Speaker 1: White and barren solitude. Thou art not all potent, how
[59:16] Speaker 1: distinctly I remember where our schoolboard path through the woods
[59:19] Speaker 1: crossed an old bush fence, and the fresh prints in
[59:22] Speaker 1: the snow of the feet of the red and gray squirrels,
[59:24] Speaker 1: to whom the old fence served as a highway, Those sharp, nervous,
[59:28] Speaker 1: hurried tracks, and the silent snow choked woods, silent except
[59:32] Speaker 1: when the frost pistol snapped now and then. How vivid
[59:34] Speaker 1: the picture of it all is in my memory. The
[59:38] Speaker 1: delicate tracks of the wood mice and their tunnels up
[59:40] Speaker 1: through the snow here and there beside our path, They
[59:42] Speaker 1: are still unfaded in my mind, after a lapse of
[59:45] Speaker 1: more than seventy years. Occasionally the stealthy track of a
[59:49] Speaker 1: red fox would cross our trail, both in field and wood,
[59:52] Speaker 1: never hurried like that of the mice and the squirrels
[59:54] Speaker 1: and the hares, but slow, a watchful, listening walker in
[59:58] Speaker 1: the midnight winter solitude. Wild life in winter is like
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: black print on a white page. He who runs may read.
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: In summer it is print on a green or brown
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: or gray page. The little waste from the woods that
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: come to my door day after day and winter, so
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: active and cheery and brave hearted, heroic little figures that
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: ask no favors of me or any one yet, who
[1:00:19] Speaker 1: complacently help themselves to the proffered suet and nuts, and
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: go their way like a merry gipsy band. They little
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: know that they are my benefactors as much as I
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: am theirs and of section six. Recording by Edith Ferne,
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: Southern California, January eleventh, two thousand nine. Nature in Your
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: Home and Other Papers by John Burroughs. This is a
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: To learn more or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: Nature in Your Home and Other Papers by John Burroughs.
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: Section seven an interesting plant. In our walks we note
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: the most showy and beautiful flowers, but not always the
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: most interesting. Who, for instance, pauses to consider that early
[1:01:10] Speaker 1: species of everlasting called in the botany on Tenaria, that
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: grows nearly everywhere by the roadside and about poor fields.
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: It begins to be noticeable in May, its whitish, downy appearance,
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: its groups of slender stalks crowned with a quorum of
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: paper like buds, contrasting with the fresh green of surrounding
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: grass or weeds. It is a member of a very
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: large family, the composite, and does not attract one by
[1:01:36] Speaker 1: its beauty, But it is interesting because of its many
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: curious traits and habits. For instance, it is dioecious, that is,
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: the two sexes are represented by separate plants. And what
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: is more curious, these plants are usually found separated from
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: each other in well defined groups, like the men and
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: women in an old fashioned country church. Always in groups. Here,
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: a group of females there are a few yards away
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: a group of males. The females may be known by
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: their more slender and graceful appearance, and as the season advances,
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: by their outstripping the males in growth. Indeed, they become
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: real amazons in comparison with their brothers. The staminant or
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: male plants grow but a few inches high. The heads
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: are round and have a more dusky or freckled appearance
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: than do the pistilate, And as soon as they have
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: shed their pallen their work is done. They are of
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: no further use, and by the middle of May or
[1:02:27] Speaker 1: before their heads droop, their stalks whither and their general
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: clap sets in. Then the other sex or pistilate plants,
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: seem to have taken a new lease of life. They
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: wax strong, They shoot up with the growing grass and
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: keep their heads above it. They are alert and active.
[1:02:43] Speaker 1: They bend in the breeze. Their long tapering flower heads
[1:02:46] Speaker 1: take on a tinge of color, and life seems full
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: of purpose and enjoyment with them. I have discovered too,
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: that they are real sun worshippers, that they turn their
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: faces to the east in the morning and follow the
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: sun in his course across the sky till they all
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: bend to the west, that is going down. On the
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: other hand, their brothers had stood stiff and stupid and
[1:03:05] Speaker 1: unresponsive to any influence of sky or air so far
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: as I could see, till they drooped and died. Another
[1:03:11] Speaker 1: curious thing is that the females seemed vastly more numerous,
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: I should say, almost ten times as abundant. You have
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: to hunt for the males the others you see afar off.
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: In my usual five minute morning walk to the post office,
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: I passed several groups or circles of females in the
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: grass by the roadside. I note how they grow and
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: turn their faces sunward. I observe how alert and vigorous
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: they are, and what a purplish tinge comes over their
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: mammaise shaped flower heads. As June approaches, I looked for
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: the males to the east west south. None could be
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: found for hundreds of yards. On the north, about two
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: hundred feet away, I found a small colony of meek
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: and lonely males. I wondered by what agency fertilization would
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: take place, by insects or by the wind. I suspected
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: it would not take place. No insects seemed to visit
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: the flowers, and the wind surely could not be relied
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: upon to hit the mark so far off and from
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: such an unlikely corner too. But by some means, the
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: vitalizing dust seemed to have been conveyed. Early in June,
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: the plants began to shed their down or seed bearing pappus,
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: still carrying their heads at the top of the grass,
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: so that the breezes could have free access to them
[1:04:18] Speaker 1: and sow the seeds far and wide, as seeds are,
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: some broadcast by the wind. I was at first puzzled
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: to know how the two sexes were kept separate and
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: always in little communities till I perceived what I might
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: have read in the botany, that the plant is perennial
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: and spreads by offsets and runners, like the strawberry. This
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: would of course keep the two kinds and groups by themselves.
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: End of section seven. Recorded by Edith Ferne, Southern California,
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: February fourth, two thousand nine. Section eight of Nature in
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: Her Home and other Papers by John Burroughs. This is
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recording are in the public domain.
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: To learn more or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: Nature Near Home and other papers by John Burroughs. Section
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: eight Nature near Home. After long experience, I am convinced
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: that the best place to study nature is at one's
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: own home, on the farm, in the mountains, on the plains,
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: by the sea, no matter where that may be. One
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: has it all about him. Then the season spring to
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: his door, the great revolving cycle of wildlife, floral and faunel,
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: and he den miss no part of the shell. At
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: home one should see, and here, with more fawdness and sympathy,
[1:05:41] Speaker 1: nature should touch him a little more closely there than
[1:05:43] Speaker 1: anywhere else. He is better attuned to it than to
[1:05:45] Speaker 1: strange scenes. To birds about his own door are his birds.
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: The flowers in his own fields and wood are his.
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: The rainbow springs its magic arch across his valley. Even
[1:05:56] Speaker 1: the everlasting stars to which one lifts his eye night
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: after night and year after year from his own doorstep,
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: have something private and personal about them. The clouds in
[1:06:06] Speaker 1: the sunsets one seas, and strange lands move one. The
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: more they are like the clouds and sunsets one has
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: become familiar with at home. The wall creatures about you
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: become known to you as they cannot be known to
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: a passer by. The traveler sees little of nature that
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: is revealed to the homestayer. You will find she has
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: made her home where you have made yours, and intimacy
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: with her there becomes easy. Familiarity with things about one
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: should not dull the edge of curiosity or interest. The
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: walk you take to day, through the fields and woods
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: or along the river bank is the walk you should
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: take tomorrow, and next day and next. What you miss
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: once you will hit upon next time. The happenings are
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: at intervals and are irregular. The play of nature has
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: no fixed program. If she is not at home to day,
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: or is in a non committal mood call tomorrow or
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: next week. It is only when the wall creatures are
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: at home, where their nests or dens are made, that
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: their characteristics come out. If you would study the winter birds,
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: for instance, you need not go to the winter woods
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: to do so. You can bring them to your own door.
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: A piece of suet on a tree in front of
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: your window will bring chickadees, nuthatches downy woodpeckers, brown creepers,
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: and offun juncos. At want interest. You will take in
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: these little waves from the winter woods that daily or
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: hourly seek the bounty you prepare for them. It is
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: not till they have visited you for weeks that you
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: begin to appreciate the bit of warmth and life they
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: have added to your winter outlook. The old tree trunk
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: then wears a more friendly aspect. The great inhospitable out
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: of doors is relenting a little. The cold and the
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: snow have found their match, and it warms your heart
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: to think that you can help these brave little feathered
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: people to win the fight. Not a bit daunted are
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: they at the fearful odds against them. The woods and
[1:07:49] Speaker 1: groves seem as barren as deserts. The earth is powless, snow,
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: the trees snap with the cold, no stores, no warmths anywhere.
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: Yet here are these atoms in full breath, hurling defiance
[1:07:59] Speaker 1: at vast death. They are as cheery and active as
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: if on a summer holiday. The birds are sure to
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: find the tibet you put out for them on a
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: tree in front of your window, because sooner or later,
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: at this season they visit every tree. The picking is
[1:08:13] Speaker 1: very poor, and they work their territory over and over thoroughly.
[1:08:17] Speaker 1: No tree in field, or grove or orchard escapes them.
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: The wonder is that in such a desert as the
[1:08:23] Speaker 1: trees appear to be in winter, in both wood and field,
[1:08:26] Speaker 1: these little adventures can subsist at all. They reapa to
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: us in visible harvest. But the rough, dry bark of
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: the trees is not such a barren waste as it seems.
[1:08:37] Speaker 1: The amount of animal food in the shape of minute insects, eggs,
[1:08:41] Speaker 1: and larvae tucked away and cracks and crevices must be considerable,
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: And by dint of incessant peeping and prying into every
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: seam and break in the bark, they get feel enough
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: to keep their delicate machinery going. The brown creeper, with
[1:08:54] Speaker 1: his long, slender the curved bill secures, with the chickadee
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: with his short, straight bill fails to get. The creeper
[1:09:02] Speaker 1: works the trunk of the tree in a ground up
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: and straight or in spiral lines, disappearing quickly round a
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: trunk if he sends danger. He is more assimilatively colored
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: than any of his winter congeners, being like a bit
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: of animated bark itself in forming color. Hence, his range
[1:09:17] Speaker 1: and movements are more limited and rigid than those of
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: the woodpeckers and chickadees. The creeper is emphatically a tree
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: trunk bird. His enemies are shrikes and hawks, and the
[1:09:26] Speaker 1: quickness with which he will dart around the trunk or
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: flash away to another trunk shows what the struggle for
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: life has taught his race. The range of the nuthatch
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: is greater than that of the creeper, in that he
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: takes in more o the branches of the tree. He
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: is quite conspicuously colored in his suit of black like gray,
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: blue and white, and his power of movement is correspondingly varied.
[1:09:48] Speaker 1: His bill is straight and heavier, and has an upward
[1:09:51] Speaker 1: slant with the angle of the face that must serve
[1:09:53] Speaker 1: him some useful purpose. He navigates the tree trunks up
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: and down and around, always keeping an eye on every
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: source of danger in the air about him. I have
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: never seen a nuthatch molested or threatened by any bird
[1:10:05] Speaker 1: of prey. But his habitual attitude of watchfulness, while exploring
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: the tree trunks with head bent back and beak pointed
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: out at ryan angles, shows clearly what the experience of
[1:10:14] Speaker 1: his race has taught him. Danger evidently lurks in that direction,
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: and black and white and blue are revealing colors in
[1:10:21] Speaker 1: the neutral woods. But however much the nuthatch may be
[1:10:25] Speaker 1: handicapped by its coloration, it far outstrips the creeper in
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: range and numbers. Its very diet of nuts and insects,
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: no doubt gives it a more vigorous constitution and makes
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: it more adaptive. It is the vehicle of more natural
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: life and energy. How winter emphasizes the movements of wild life.
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: The snow and the cold are the white paper upon
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: which the print is revealed. A track of a mouse,
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: a bird, a squirrel, or a fox shows us at
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: a glance. How the warm pulse of life defies the
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: embargo of winter from cracks and rents in the frigid
[1:10:57] Speaker 1: zone which creep down upon us. At this season, there
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: issue tiny jets of warm life which play about here
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: and there, as if in the heyday of summer. The
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: wood snap and explode with the frost. The ground is
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: chokeless snow. No sign of food is there for bird
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: or beast. And yet here are these tiny bundles of
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: cheer and contentment in feathers, the chickadees, the nut hatches,
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: and their fellows and of Section eight recorded by Edith Fern,
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: Southern California, May twenty fourth, two thousand nine. Section nine
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: of Nature in Your Home and Other Papers by John Burrows.
[1:11:39] Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
[1:11:42] Speaker 1: the public domain. To learn more or to volunteer, please
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Nature in Your Home and Other
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrows. Section nine, Each after its kind.
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: How sharply most forms of life are differentiating. The die
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: that stamps each of them is deeply and clearly cut.
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: As I sit here in my bush camp under the
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: apple trees, I see a chipmunk spinning up the stone
[1:12:05] Speaker 1: wall a few yards away. His alert eye spies me,
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: and he pauses, sits up a few moments, washes his
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: face with that hurried movement of his paws over it,
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: then hesitates, turns and goes spinning back down the stone fence.
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: He seems to sniff danger in me. He is living
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: his life. He has a distinct sphere of activity in
[1:12:24] Speaker 1: this broad rolling landscape. He is a little jet of
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: vital energy that has a character and a purpose of
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: its own. It is unlike any other, how unlike the
[1:12:33] Speaker 1: wood chuck in the next field creeping about the meadow
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: storing up his winter fuel as fat in its own
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: flabby body, or the woodpecker on the apple tree, or
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: the noisy crow flying by overhead. Each is a manifestation
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: of the psychic principle and organic nature, but each is
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: an individual expression of it. The chemistry and the physics
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: of their lives are the same, but how different the
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: impressions they severally make upon us. Life is infinitely various
[1:12:58] Speaker 1: in its forms and activity, though living things all be
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: made of one's stuff. Soon after the chipmunk, there appears
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: a red squirrel going down the wall half brother to
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: the chipmunk, but keyed to a much higher degree of intensity.
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: He moves in spasms and sallys, and is frisky and impish.
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: Where the chipmunk is to day in timid His arboreal
[1:13:18] Speaker 1: life requires different qualities and powers. He rushes through the
[1:13:21] Speaker 1: tree tops like a rocket. He travels on bridges of air.
[1:13:25] Speaker 1: He is nearly as much at home amid the branches
[1:13:27] Speaker 1: as are the birds, much more so than is the
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: flying squirrel, which has but one trick, while the red
[1:13:32] Speaker 1: squirrel has a dozen. That faciled tail now a cockade,
[1:13:36] Speaker 1: now a shield, now an air buoy, that mocking dance,
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: those drives of snickers and explosions, those electric spurts and dashes.
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: What a character he is, the very puck of the woods.
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: Yesterday a great squirrel came down the wall from the mountain,
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: a long, softly undulating line of silver gray, unhurried, alert
[1:13:55] Speaker 1: but not nervous, pausing now and then, but striking no attitudes,
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: Silent as a shadow, and graceful as a wave, the
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: very spirit of the tall lichen covered birches and beeches
[1:14:05] Speaker 1: of the mountain side. When food is scarce in the woods,
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: he comes to the orchards, and feels for insects and
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: wild fruit, and any chance bit of food he can
[1:14:12] Speaker 1: pick up. What a contrast he makes to the pampered
[1:14:14] Speaker 1: town squirrel, gross in form and heavy in movement, the
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: town squirrel is the real rustic, while the denizen of
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: the woods has the grace and refinement. Domestication or semi
[1:14:25] Speaker 1: domestication coarsens and vulgarizes the wild creatures. Only in the
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: freedom of their native haunts do they keep the beauty
[1:14:31] Speaker 1: and delicacy of form and color that belong to them.
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: A nuthatch comes upon the apple tree in front of me,
[1:14:37] Speaker 1: uttering now and then his soft nasal call, and runs
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: up and down and round the trunk and branches, his
[1:14:42] Speaker 1: boat shaped body, navigating the rough surfaces and barely touching them.
[1:14:47] Speaker 1: Every moment or two he stops and turns his head
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: straight out from the tree, as if he had an
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: extra joint in his neck. Is he on the lookout
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: for danger? He pecks a little now and then, but
[1:14:57] Speaker 1: most of the food he is in questo seems on
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: the surface. Very minute. A downy woodpecker comes upon the
[1:15:02] Speaker 1: same tree. His movements are not so free as those
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: of the nuthatch. He does not go head foremost down
[1:15:09] Speaker 1: the tree. His head is always pointed upward. He braces
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: and studies himself with his tail, which has stiff spines
[1:15:15] Speaker 1: at the end of the quills, by a curious gymnastic feet.
[1:15:19] Speaker 1: He drops down the trunk inch by inch, loosening his
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: hold for a moment and instantly recovering it. He cannot
[1:15:25] Speaker 1: point his beak out at right angles to the tree,
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: as can the nutthatch. In fact, he is not a
[1:15:29] Speaker 1: tree creeper but a woodpecker, and can penetrate fairly hard
[1:15:32] Speaker 1: wood with his beak. His voice has a harsh, metallic ring,
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: compared with that of the soft, childlike call of the nuthatch.
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: His only contribution to the music of the spring is
[1:15:43] Speaker 1: his dry lamb drum, with which he seeks to attract
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: his mate when the love passion is upon him. Oh,
[1:15:49] Speaker 1: these wild creatures, how clear cut, how individual, how definite
[1:15:52] Speaker 1: they are. While every individual of a species seems stamped
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: with the same eye, the species themselves, even in closely
[1:15:59] Speaker 1: allied grips, are as distinct and various in their lineaments
[1:16:03] Speaker 1: and characteristics as we can well conceive. Behold the order
[1:16:06] Speaker 1: of rodents including the squirrels, the hares, the rabbits, the woodchucks,
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: the prairie dogs, the rats and mice, the porcupines, the beavers.
[1:16:15] Speaker 1: What diversity amid the unity, what unlikeness amid the sameness?
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: It makes one marvel anew at the ingenuity and inventiveness
[1:16:22] Speaker 1: of nature, Some living above ground, some below, some depending
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: upon the fleetness of foot and keenness of eye for safety,
[1:16:30] Speaker 1: some upon dens and burrows always near at hand, the
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: porcupine upon an armor of barbed quills, the beaver upon
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: his dam and his sharpness of sense. If they all
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: descended from the same original type form, how that form
[1:16:43] Speaker 1: has branched like a tree in the fields, dividing and
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: dividing and dividing again. But the likeness to the tree
[1:16:49] Speaker 1: fails when we consider that no two branches are like,
[1:16:52] Speaker 1: in fact, that they are as unlike as pears and peaches,
[1:16:55] Speaker 1: and apples and berries and cherries would be on the
[1:16:57] Speaker 1: same tree, all of the same family, but diverging widely
[1:17:01] Speaker 1: in the species. The ground dwellers such as woodchucks and
[1:17:05] Speaker 1: prairie dogs and gophers have many similar habits, as have
[1:17:09] Speaker 1: the tree dwellers and the hairs and rabbits. That any
[1:17:12] Speaker 1: of these rodent groups will branch again and develop a
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: new species is in harmony with the doctrine of evolution.
[1:17:18] Speaker 1: But these evolutionary processes are so slow that probably the
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: whole span of human history would be inadequate to measure
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: one of them. Nearly all the animal forms that we
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: know are specialized forms, like our tools and implements shape
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: for some particular line of activity. Man is the most
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: generalized of animals. His organization opens to him many fields
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: of activity. The woodpecker must peck for his food. The
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: kingfisher must dive, The flycatcher must whoop, the hawk must strike,
[1:17:45] Speaker 1: the squirrel must gnaw, the cat must spring, the woodcock
[1:17:48] Speaker 1: must probe, the barnyard fowls must scratch, and so on.
[1:17:52] Speaker 1: But man is not thus limited. His hands are tools
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: that can be turned to a thousand uses. They offer
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: love or war, to cress or dismile, to climb, or
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: to swim, to hurl, or to seize, to delve, or
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: to build. The organization of most animals has special reference
[1:18:08] Speaker 1: to their mode of getting a living that is the
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: most dominant need and stamps itself upon every organism. Man
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: is a miscellaneous feeder and a worldwide traveler. Hence all
[1:18:17] Speaker 1: climes and conditions are his. He is at home in
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: the arctics or the tropics, on the sea, on the land,
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: and in the air. A fruit eater, a grain eater,
[1:18:26] Speaker 1: a flesh eater, a nut eater, an herb eater. His
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: generalized anatomy, in his diversified mentality, make the whole earth
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: his dwelling place, and all its thousands of treasure houses
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: are made available for his needs. What diversity and unity
[1:18:42] Speaker 1: among the hawks contrasts these two familiar species, which are
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: nearly of a size, the marsh hawk and the hen
[1:18:48] Speaker 1: or red tailed hawk. The marsh hawk has a longer tail,
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: and the back of the male is bluish gray. We
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: see it in summer, beating up and down low over
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: the fields and meadows, its attention fixed upon the ground beneath.
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: At the same time, we may see the hen hawks
[1:19:03] Speaker 1: wearing aloft, sweeping leisurely around in great circles, or climbing
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: higher in easy spirals, apparently abandoning itself to the joy
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: of its aerial freedom. The hen hawk is a bird
[1:19:14] Speaker 1: of leisure, in contrast with its brother of the marshes,
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: we rarely see it hunting. It is either describing its
[1:19:20] Speaker 1: great circles against the sky, apparently in the same mood
[1:19:23] Speaker 1: that the skater is in, who cuts its circles and
[1:19:25] Speaker 1: figures upon the ice. Or else it's its perch like
[1:19:28] Speaker 1: a statue, high up on some dead branch in the
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: edge of the forest, or on some tree by the roadside,
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: and sees the summer hours go by. Solitude, contemplation, a
[1:19:38] Speaker 1: sense of freedom seemed to be its chief delight. While
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: we rarely see the marsh hawk except when it is
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: intent upon its game, it haunts the fields and meadows
[1:19:49] Speaker 1: over a wide area, like a spirit, up and down
[1:19:51] Speaker 1: and around and across. It goes only a few feet
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: above the ground, eyeing sharply every yard a surface beneath
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: it now, and then dropping down into the grass, never
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: swooping or striking savagely, but halting and alighting rather deliberately,
[1:20:05] Speaker 1: evidently not in pursuit of a bird, but probably attracted
[1:20:08] Speaker 1: by field mice. The eye follows its course with pleasure.
[1:20:12] Speaker 1: Such industry, such ease of movement, such deliberation, such a
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: tireless quest over the summer fields, all contribute to make
[1:20:19] Speaker 1: a picture which we look upon with interest. It is
[1:20:23] Speaker 1: usually the female which we see on such occasions. She
[1:20:26] Speaker 1: is larger and darker in color than the male, and
[1:20:28] Speaker 1: apparently upon her falls the main support of the family.
[1:20:31] Speaker 1: Said family is usually composed of three or four young
[1:20:34] Speaker 1: in a nest upon the ground in a marsh where
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: it is not easy for the pedestrian to reach. The
[1:20:39] Speaker 1: hunting habits of the henhock are quite different. It subsists
[1:20:43] Speaker 1: largely not upon hands or poultry, as its name would
[1:20:46] Speaker 1: seem to indicate, but upon field mice and other small rodents,
[1:20:49] Speaker 1: which it sweeps down upon from a point in the
[1:20:51] Speaker 1: air above them, where it hovers a moment on beating wing,
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: or from the top of some old stub or dry
[1:20:57] Speaker 1: branch in the meadow. Its nest is usually played fifty
[1:21:00] Speaker 1: or more feet from the ground in some large forest tree,
[1:21:03] Speaker 1: and is made of dry twigs and branches. I have
[1:21:06] Speaker 1: found but one marsh hawk's nest, and not more than
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: once in twenty years do I find the nest of
[1:21:11] Speaker 1: a hen hawk. Two species of our smaller hawks present
[1:21:15] Speaker 1: about a sharper contrast, as do the two I have
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: just described, the sparrow hawk and the pigeon hawk. It
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: is very doubtful if the sparrow hawk ever kills sparrows,
[1:21:23] Speaker 1: its food being large in insects. Though the pigeon hawk
[1:21:26] Speaker 1: is not above killing pigeons, at least of pursuing them
[1:21:29] Speaker 1: with murderous intent. It is the terror of the smaller birds,
[1:21:33] Speaker 1: capturing robins, high holes, bluebirds, thrushes, and almost any other
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: it can get its claws upon. If you see a
[1:21:40] Speaker 1: small bird hotly pursued by a brown hawk, the chances
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: are that it is the song or field sparrow making
[1:21:46] Speaker 1: desperate efforts to reach the cover of some bush or tree.
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: On such occasions, I have seen the pursued bird take
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: refuge in a thornbush, the branches of which have been
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: cropped by the cattle till they were so thick and
[1:21:56] Speaker 1: thorny that you could hardly insert your hand among them.
[1:21:59] Speaker 1: In such cases as the hawk is of course defeated,
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: but he will beat about the bush spitefully in his
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: vain attempts to dislodge his game. The sparrow hawk is
[1:22:08] Speaker 1: the prettiest of our hawks, and probably the most innocent.
[1:22:11] Speaker 1: One Midsummer, when I was a boy on the old farm,
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: we had a sudden visitation at sparrow hawks. There must
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: have been at least fifty about the old meadow at
[1:22:18] Speaker 1: one time, alighting upon the fence stakes, or hovering on
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: the wing above the grass and sweeping down upon the
[1:22:23] Speaker 1: big fat grasshoppers. It was a pretty sight, and unusual,
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: as I have witnessed it only once in my life.
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: Our birds often differ in their habits much more than
[1:22:33] Speaker 1: in their forms and colors. We have two flycatchers singularly
[1:22:37] Speaker 1: alike in general appearance, namely the phoebe bird and the
[1:22:40] Speaker 1: wood peewee, which differ widely in their habits of life.
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: The phoebe is the better known because she haunts our
[1:22:47] Speaker 1: porches and sheds and bridges, and not infrequently makes herself
[1:22:50] Speaker 1: a nuisance from the vermin with which her nests, especially
[1:22:53] Speaker 1: her midsummer nest, often swarms. She is an early spring
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: bird in her late march or earth the April call
[1:23:01] Speaker 1: repeating over and over. The name by which she is known,
[1:23:03] Speaker 1: is it sound that every country boy delights in the
[1:23:07] Speaker 1: wood peewee is a little less in size, but in
[1:23:10] Speaker 1: forming color and manners is almost the duplicate of the phoebe.
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: She is a much later arrival and need not be
[1:23:15] Speaker 1: looked for till the trees begin to turn over their
[1:23:17] Speaker 1: new leaves. Then you may hear her tender, plaintive cry
[1:23:21] Speaker 1: amid the forest branches, also a repetition of her own name,
[1:23:25] Speaker 1: but with a Sylvan cadence and tenderness, Particularly its own.
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: It differs from the Phoebe's note, just as the leafy
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: solitudes of the woods differ from the strong open light
[1:23:35] Speaker 1: and the fence stakes and ridge boards where the Phoebe
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: loves to perch. It is the voice or cry of
[1:23:39] Speaker 1: a lonely yearning spirit, a tune to great sweetness and tenderness.
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: The Phoebe has not arrested the attention of any of
[1:23:46] Speaker 1: our poets, but the Peewee has inspired at least one
[1:23:49] Speaker 1: fine woodsy poem. I refer to Trowbridge as Peewee. The
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: nesting habits of the two birds differ as widely as
[1:23:57] Speaker 1: do their songs. The Phoebe is an architect who works
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: with mud and moss, using the latter in a truly
[1:24:02] Speaker 1: artistic way, except when she is tempted, as she so
[1:24:05] Speaker 1: often is, to desert the shelving rocks by the waterfalls
[1:24:09] Speaker 1: or along the brows of the wooded slopes, for the
[1:24:11] Speaker 1: painted porches of our houses or the sod timbers of
[1:24:14] Speaker 1: our outbuildings, where her moss is incongruous and gives away
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: the secret she so carefully seeks to guard. You cannot
[1:24:21] Speaker 1: buy any sleight of hand or of beak use moss
[1:24:24] Speaker 1: on a mud nest so as to blend it with
[1:24:26] Speaker 1: a porch or timber background. But in the niches of
[1:24:29] Speaker 1: the mossy and lichen covered overhanging rocks of the gorges
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: and mountain sides, where her forebearers practice the art of
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: nest building, and where she still often sets up per
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: procreant cradle. What in the shape of a nest can
[1:24:42] Speaker 1: be more pleasing and exquisite than her moss covered structure.
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: It is entirely fit. It is nature's own handiwork, and
[1:24:49] Speaker 1: thoroughly in the spirit of the shelving rocks. The pea.
[1:24:52] Speaker 1: We uses no mud and no moss. She uses lichens
[1:24:55] Speaker 1: and other wild woodsy things, and her nest is one
[1:24:58] Speaker 1: of the most trim and artistic of wild bird structures.
[1:25:01] Speaker 1: It is as finished and symmetrical as an acorn cup.
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: It is cup shaped and sits on a horizontal branch
[1:25:07] Speaker 1: of beech or maple as if it were a grown
[1:25:09] Speaker 1: part of the tree, not one loose end or superfluous
[1:25:12] Speaker 1: stroke about it. Two other species of our flycatchers, the
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: kingbird and the great crested differ in form and coloration
[1:25:19] Speaker 1: as much as they do in life habits, the kingbird
[1:25:23] Speaker 1: being rather showily clad in black, gray and white, with
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: a peculiar affected tip wing flight and haunting the groves
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: and orchards, while the great crested flycatcher is rufous or
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: copper colored with a tinge of saffron yellow, haunting the
[1:25:35] Speaker 1: woods and building its nest in a cavity in a
[1:25:37] Speaker 1: tree occasionally in orchards. Nature repeats herself with variations in
[1:25:42] Speaker 1: two of our sparrows, the song sparrow and the vesprous
[1:25:45] Speaker 1: sparrow or grass finch. The latter is a trifle the
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: larger and of a lighter mottled gray and brown color,
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: and has certain field habits, such as skulking or running
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: in the grass, and running along the highway in front
[1:25:56] Speaker 1: of your team. It does not wear the little dark
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: brown be drest pen that the song sparrow does, and
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: it has two lateral white quills in its tail, which
[1:26:04] Speaker 1: are conspicuous when it flies. Its general color and these
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: white quills suggests a skylark. And it was doubtless these
[1:26:11] Speaker 1: features that let a male lark, which once came to
[1:26:13] Speaker 1: me from overseas, and which I liberated in a wild
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: field near home, to pay court to the vesper, and
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: to press his suit day after day to the obvious
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: embarrassment of the sparrow. The song sparrow is better known
[1:26:25] Speaker 1: than the vesper to all country people because it lives
[1:26:27] Speaker 1: near our dwellings. It is an asset of every country
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: garden and lawn and near by roadside, and it occasionally
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: spends the winter in the Hudson River Valley when you
[1:26:36] Speaker 1: have carelessly or thoughtfully left a harvest of weed seeds
[1:26:39] Speaker 1: for it to subsist upon. It comes before the vesper
[1:26:43] Speaker 1: in the spring, and its simple song on a bright
[1:26:45] Speaker 1: March or April morning is one of the most welcome
[1:26:47] Speaker 1: of all vernal sounds. In its manners, it is more
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: fussy and suspicious than the vesper, and it worries a
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: great deal about its nest if one comes anywhere in
[1:26:56] Speaker 1: its vicinity. It is one of the familiar half domesticated
[1:26:59] Speaker 1: birds that suggests home to us wherever we see it.
[1:27:03] Speaker 1: The song sparrow is remarkable above any other bird I
[1:27:06] Speaker 1: know for its repertoire or songs. Few of our birds
[1:27:09] Speaker 1: have more than one song, except in those cases when
[1:27:11] Speaker 1: a flat song is added during the bating season, as
[1:27:14] Speaker 1: with the oven bird, the purple finch, the goldfinch, the
[1:27:17] Speaker 1: meadow lark, and a few others. But every song sparrow
[1:27:20] Speaker 1: has at least five distinct songs that differ from one
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: another as much as any five lyrics by the same
[1:27:25] Speaker 1: poet differ. The bird from its perch on the bush
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: or tree will repeat one song over and over, usually
[1:27:32] Speaker 1: five or six times a minute, for two or three minutes.
[1:27:35] Speaker 1: Then it will change to another string, quite different in
[1:27:37] Speaker 1: time and measure, and repeat it for a dozen or
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: more times. Then it drops into still another, and yet another,
[1:27:43] Speaker 1: and another, each song standing out distinctly as a new
[1:27:46] Speaker 1: combination in sequence of sparrow notes. And a still greater
[1:27:50] Speaker 1: wonder is that no two song sparrows have the same repertoire.
[1:27:54] Speaker 1: Each bird has its own individual songs, an endless and
[1:27:56] Speaker 1: bewildering variety inside a general resemblance. The song sparrow you
[1:28:01] Speaker 1: hear in Maine or Canada differs widely from the one
[1:28:03] Speaker 1: you hear in the Hudson River Valley or on the Potomac,
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: even in the same neighborhood. I have never yet heard
[1:28:09] Speaker 1: two sparrows whose songs were exactly alike, whereas two robins
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: or meadow locks, or blue birds, or wood thrushes or
[1:28:16] Speaker 1: vesper sparrows, or goldfinches or indigo birds differ from one
[1:28:19] Speaker 1: another inner songs as little as they do in their
[1:28:22] Speaker 1: forms and manners, and from one end of the country
[1:28:24] Speaker 1: to the other there is little or no variation. During
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: ten days by the sea one July, I was greatly
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: entertained by a song sparrow which had a favorite perch
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: on the top of a small red cedar that stood
[1:28:36] Speaker 1: in front of the cottage where I was staying. Four
[1:28:39] Speaker 1: fists of the day at least it was perched upon
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: this little cedar platform, going through its repertoire of song
[1:28:44] Speaker 1: over and over. Getting its living seemed entirely a secondary matter.
[1:28:48] Speaker 1: The primary matter was the song. I estimated that it
[1:28:52] Speaker 1: sang over two thousand times each day that I heard it.
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: It had probably been singing at the same rate since
[1:28:58] Speaker 1: May or earlier, and would probably keep bit up till
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: August or later. The latter part of July and the
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: whole of August of the same season I spent at
[1:29:05] Speaker 1: Woodchuck Lodge in the Catskills, and across the road in
[1:29:08] Speaker 1: front of the porch there on the top of an
[1:29:10] Speaker 1: old plum tree, a song sparrow sang throughout the greater
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: part of each summer day, as did the one by
[1:29:16] Speaker 1: the sea, going through its repertoire of five or six
[1:29:19] Speaker 1: songs and happy iteration. It too sang about three hundred
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: times an hour, and nearly always from the same perch.
[1:29:25] Speaker 1: And as most assuredly was the case with the seaside bird,
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: singing with an earshot of its brooding mate, but its
[1:29:32] Speaker 1: songs bore only the most remote general resemblance to those
[1:29:35] Speaker 1: of its seaside brother. When early in August the mowing
[1:29:39] Speaker 1: machine laid low the grass in the meadow on the
[1:29:41] Speaker 1: edge of which the old plum tree stood, the singer
[1:29:44] Speaker 1: behaved as if some calamity had befallen him, as no
[1:29:47] Speaker 1: doubt there had. He disappeared from his favorite perch, and
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: I heard him no more, except at long intervals below
[1:29:52] Speaker 1: the hill. In another field, the vesper sparrow has a
[1:29:56] Speaker 1: wilder and more pleasing song than the song sparrow, but
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: has no variety, so far as my ear can judge.
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: It has only the one sweet, plaintive strain in which
[1:30:04] Speaker 1: it indulges while perched upon a stone or bowler or
[1:30:07] Speaker 1: bare knoll in a hill pasture or by a remote
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: road side. The charm of its song is greatly enhanced
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: by the soft summer twilight in which it is so
[1:30:15] Speaker 1: often uttered it sounds the vespers of the fields. The
[1:30:18] Speaker 1: vesper sparrow is invariably a ground builder, placing its nest
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: of dry grass in the open, with rarely a weed
[1:30:24] Speaker 1: or tuft of grass to mark its site. Hence, its
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: eggs or young often fall victims to the sharp eyed,
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: all devouring crows as they lead their clamorous broods about
[1:30:34] Speaker 1: the summer pastures. The song sparrow more frequently selects this
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: nesting place in a grassy or mossy bank, by the roadside,
[1:30:41] Speaker 1: or in the orchard, when it does not leave the
[1:30:43] Speaker 1: ground to take to a low bush or tangle of
[1:30:45] Speaker 1: vines on the lawn, as it so frequently does. We
[1:30:49] Speaker 1: have two other sparrows that are close akin, indeed almost
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: like fruit on the same tree, yet with clear cut differences.
[1:30:56] Speaker 1: I refer to the chippy or social sparrow and the
[1:30:58] Speaker 1: field or, as I I prefer to call it, the
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: bush barrow, two birds that come so near being duplicates
[1:31:04] Speaker 1: of each other, that in my boyhood I recognize only
[1:31:06] Speaker 1: the one species, the chipping sparrow, so much at home
[1:31:09] Speaker 1: in the orchard and around the dooryard, few country persons
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: I fancy discriminate the two species. There are practically of
[1:31:17] Speaker 1: the same size and the same manners, but different color.
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: The bush barrow is the more russet, has a resset
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: beak and feet and legs, and its general appearance harmonizes
[1:31:26] Speaker 1: more with country surroundings. The two species differ in about
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: the same way that the town dweller differs from his
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: rustic brother, but in the matter of song there is
[1:31:35] Speaker 1: no comparison, the strain of the bush barrow being one
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: of the most tender and musical of all our sparrow songs,
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: while that of the chippy, or the hair bird, as
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: it is often called, is the shuffling repetition of a
[1:31:47] Speaker 1: single unmusical note. The wild scenes and field solitudes are
[1:31:51] Speaker 1: reflected in the bush barrow song. While that of the
[1:31:54] Speaker 1: chippy is more suggestive of the sights and sounds near
[1:31:56] Speaker 1: the haunts of men. The pure, plaintive, childlike strain of
[1:32:00] Speaker 1: the bush barrel, a silver scroll of tender song, heard
[1:32:04] Speaker 1: in the prophetic solitude of the remote fields on a
[1:32:07] Speaker 1: soft April or May morning, is to me one of
[1:32:09] Speaker 1: the most touching and pleasing bits of bird music to
[1:32:11] Speaker 1: be heard in the whole round year. The swarms of
[1:32:15] Speaker 1: small sparrows that one sees in August and September in
[1:32:18] Speaker 1: the vineyards and along the bushy highways are made up
[1:32:21] Speaker 1: mostly of bush sparrows. There is a little doubt but
[1:32:24] Speaker 1: that these birds, at time peck and haggle the grapes,
[1:32:27] Speaker 1: which Chippy never does. The bush barrow builds a more
[1:32:30] Speaker 1: compact and substantial nest, using more dry grass and weedy
[1:32:33] Speaker 1: gross and less horse hair. It is the abundant use
[1:32:36] Speaker 1: of hair that has given Chippy the name of the
[1:32:39] Speaker 1: hair bird. The hair bird appears the more strikingly dressed
[1:32:43] Speaker 1: of the two, its black beak and legs, the darker
[1:32:46] Speaker 1: lines of its plumage, the well defined brick red patch
[1:32:49] Speaker 1: of its head easily separated to the careful observer from
[1:32:53] Speaker 1: the other species. When you have learned quickly to discriminate
[1:32:56] Speaker 1: these two kinds of sparrows, you have made a good
[1:32:58] Speaker 1: beginning in conquering the bird kingdom and of Section nine
[1:33:03] Speaker 1: recorded by Edith Ferne, Southern California, June two thousand nine.
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: Section ten of Nature and Her Home and other Papers
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: by John Burrows. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
[1:33:23] Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. To learn more or
[1:33:26] Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Nature in Your
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: Home and Other Papers by John Burrows. Section ten Nature
[1:33:34] Speaker 1: leaves in warbler time. This early May morning, as I
[1:33:39] Speaker 1: walked through the fields, the west wind brought to me
[1:33:42] Speaker 1: a sweet, fresh odor, like that of our little white
[1:33:44] Speaker 1: sweet violet by Olablanda. It came probably from sugar maples
[1:33:49] Speaker 1: just shaking out their fringe like blossoms, and from the
[1:33:52] Speaker 1: blooming elms for a few hours. When these trees first bloom,
[1:33:56] Speaker 1: they shed a decided perfume. It was the first breath
[1:33:59] Speaker 1: of May, and very welcome. April has her odors too,
[1:34:03] Speaker 1: very delicate and suggestive, but seldom is the wind perfumed
[1:34:06] Speaker 1: with the breath of actual bloom. Before May. I said
[1:34:10] Speaker 1: it is warbler time. The first arrivals of the pretty
[1:34:12] Speaker 1: little migrants should be noted. Now hardly had my thought
[1:34:15] Speaker 1: to find itself when before me, in a little hemlock
[1:34:19] Speaker 1: I caught the flash of a blue white barred wing,
[1:34:22] Speaker 1: then glimpses of a yellow breast and a yellow crown.
[1:34:25] Speaker 1: I approached cautiously, and in a moment more had a
[1:34:28] Speaker 1: full view of one of our rarer warblers, the blue
[1:34:32] Speaker 1: winged yellow warbler. Very pretty he was, too, the yellow cap,
[1:34:36] Speaker 1: the yellow breast, and a black streak through the eye
[1:34:38] Speaker 1: being conspicuous features. He would not stand to be looked
[1:34:41] Speaker 1: at long, but soon disappeared in a nearby tree. The
[1:34:46] Speaker 1: ruby crowned kinglet was piping in an evergreen tree not
[1:34:48] Speaker 1: far away. But him I had been hearing for several
[1:34:51] Speaker 1: days with me. The kinglets come before the first warblers,
[1:34:54] Speaker 1: and may be known to the attentive eye by their quick,
[1:34:57] Speaker 1: nervous movements and small, olive gray forms, and to the
[1:35:01] Speaker 1: discerning ear by their hurried musical piping strains. How soft,
[1:35:05] Speaker 1: how rapid, how joyous and lyrical their songs are very
[1:35:09] Speaker 1: few country people, I imagine, either see them or hear them.
[1:35:12] Speaker 1: The powers of observation of country people are seldom fine
[1:35:15] Speaker 1: enough and trained enough. They see and hear coarsely. An
[1:35:20] Speaker 1: object must be big and a sound loud to attract
[1:35:22] Speaker 1: their attention. Have you seen and heard the Kinglet? If not?
[1:35:26] Speaker 1: The finer inner world of nature is the sealed book
[1:35:29] Speaker 1: to you. When your senses taken the Kinglet, they will
[1:35:32] Speaker 1: take in a thousand other objects that now escape you.
[1:35:36] Speaker 1: My first warbler in the spring is usually the yellow
[1:35:38] Speaker 1: red pole, which I see in April. It is not
[1:35:43] Speaker 1: a bird of the trees and woods, but of low
[1:35:45] Speaker 1: bushes in the open, often alighting upon the ground in
[1:35:47] Speaker 1: quest of food. I sometimes see it on the lawn.
[1:35:51] Speaker 1: The last one I saw was one April day, when
[1:35:53] Speaker 1: I went over to the creek to see if the
[1:35:54] Speaker 1: suckers were yet running up. The bird was flitting amid
[1:35:57] Speaker 1: the low bushes now and then dropping down to the
[1:36:00] Speaker 1: gravelly bank of the stream. Its chestnut crown and yellow
[1:36:03] Speaker 1: underparts were noticeable. The past season I saw for the
[1:36:07] Speaker 1: first time the golden winged warbler, a shy bird that
[1:36:11] Speaker 1: eluded me a long time, in an old clearing that
[1:36:13] Speaker 1: had grown up with low bushes. The song first attracted
[1:36:16] Speaker 1: my attention. It is so like inform to that of
[1:36:19] Speaker 1: the black throaded green back, but in quality so inferior.
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: The first distant glimpse of the bird, too, suggested the
[1:36:26] Speaker 1: green back, so for a time I deceived myself with
[1:36:30] Speaker 1: a nocean that it was the green back with some
[1:36:32] Speaker 1: defect in its vocal organs. A day or two later
[1:36:35] Speaker 1: I heard two of them, and then concluded my inference
[1:36:38] Speaker 1: was a hasty one. Following one of the birds up,
[1:36:41] Speaker 1: I caught sight of its yellow crown, which is much
[1:36:44] Speaker 1: more conspicuous than its yellow wing bars. Its song is
[1:36:47] Speaker 1: like this nut ded ed, with a peculiar reedy quality,
[1:36:52] Speaker 1: but not at all musical, falling far short of the clear,
[1:36:55] Speaker 1: sweet lyrical song of the green back. Narroling sees in
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: it a re t semblance to that of the Maryland
[1:37:01] Speaker 1: yellow throat, but I fail to see any resemblance whatever.
[1:37:06] Speaker 1: One appreciates how bright and gay the plumage of many
[1:37:09] Speaker 1: of our warblers is when he sees one of them
[1:37:11] Speaker 1: alight upon the ground. While passing along a wood road
[1:37:14] Speaker 1: in June, a male black throat of green came down
[1:37:17] Speaker 1: out of the hemlocks and sat for a moment on
[1:37:19] Speaker 1: the ground before me how out of place. He looked
[1:37:22] Speaker 1: like a bit of ribbon or millinery just dropped there.
[1:37:26] Speaker 1: The throat of this warbler always suggests the finest black velvet.
[1:37:30] Speaker 1: Not long after, I saw the chestnut side and warbler
[1:37:32] Speaker 1: do the same thing. We were trying to make it
[1:37:35] Speaker 1: out in a tree by the roadside when it dropped
[1:37:37] Speaker 1: down quickly to the ground in pursuit of an insect,
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: and sat a moment upon a brown surface, giving us
[1:37:42] Speaker 1: a vivid sense of its bright new plumage. When the
[1:37:46] Speaker 1: leaves of the trees are just unfolding, or as Tennyson says,
[1:37:50] Speaker 1: when all the woods stand in the midst of green
[1:37:52] Speaker 1: and nothing perfect, the tide of migrating warblers is at
[1:37:55] Speaker 1: its height. They come in the night, and in the
[1:37:58] Speaker 1: morning the trees are alive with them. The apple trees
[1:38:01] Speaker 1: are just showing them pink, and how closely the birds
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: inspect them in their eager quest for insect food. One cold,
[1:38:07] Speaker 1: rainy day at this season, Wilson's black cap, a bird
[1:38:11] Speaker 1: that is said to go north nearly to the Arctic circle,
[1:38:14] Speaker 1: explored an apple tree in front of my window. It
[1:38:16] Speaker 1: came down within two feet of my face as I
[1:38:19] Speaker 1: stood by the pane and paused a moment in its hurry,
[1:38:22] Speaker 1: and and peering in at me, giving me an admirable
[1:38:24] Speaker 1: view of its form and markings. It was wet and hungry,
[1:38:27] Speaker 1: and it had a long journey before it. What a
[1:38:30] Speaker 1: small body to cover such a distance. The black pole warbler,
[1:38:34] Speaker 1: which one may see about the same time, is a
[1:38:36] Speaker 1: much larger bird and of slower movement, and is colored
[1:38:39] Speaker 1: much like the black and white creeping warbler, with a
[1:38:41] Speaker 1: black cap on its head. The song of this bird
[1:38:44] Speaker 1: is the finest in volume and most insect like of
[1:38:47] Speaker 1: that of any warbler known to me. It is the
[1:38:50] Speaker 1: song of the black and white creeper, reduced, high and
[1:38:53] Speaker 1: swelling in the middle, and low and faint at its
[1:38:55] Speaker 1: beginning and ending. When one has learned to know and
[1:38:58] Speaker 1: discriminate the warblers, he has made a good beginning in
[1:39:01] Speaker 1: his ornithological studies and of Section ten recording by Edith Ferne,
[1:39:07] Speaker 1: Southern California, November ninth, two thousand nine. Section eleven of
[1:39:18] Speaker 1: Nature in Your Home and other papers by John Burroughs.
[1:39:21] Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
[1:39:24] Speaker 1: the public domain. To learn more or to volunteer, please
[1:39:27] Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Nature in Your Home and other
[1:39:31] Speaker 1: papers by John Burroughs, Section eleven. A short walk one
[1:39:36] Speaker 1: midsummer afternoon. I went up to Scotland and prowl about
[1:39:39] Speaker 1: amid the raspberry bushes, finding a little fruit black and
[1:39:43] Speaker 1: red here and there, and letting my eyes wander to
[1:39:45] Speaker 1: the distant farms and mountains. The wild but familiar prospect
[1:39:49] Speaker 1: dilated and rested me. As I lingered near the torn
[1:39:53] Speaker 1: edge of the woods in a tangle of raspberry bushes,
[1:39:55] Speaker 1: I caught a glimpse of some large bird dropping suddenly
[1:39:58] Speaker 1: to the ground from a tall bass wood to that
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: stood in the edge of the open where it was
[1:40:02] Speaker 1: hidden from my view. Was it a crow or a hawk?
[1:40:05] Speaker 1: A hawk, I guessed from its manner of descent. I
[1:40:09] Speaker 1: threw a stone after waiting some moments for it to reappear,
[1:40:11] Speaker 1: but it made no sign. Then I moved slowly toward
[1:40:14] Speaker 1: the spot, and presently up sprang a hand hawk, and,
[1:40:17] Speaker 1: uttering its characteristic squeal, circled around near me, and then
[1:40:21] Speaker 1: I lighted not far off a young hawk. I saw
[1:40:23] Speaker 1: it was, and quite unsophisticated. Presently, as I made my
[1:40:28] Speaker 1: way along, just touching the edge of the woods. A
[1:40:31] Speaker 1: covey of nearly full grown partridges burst up out of
[1:40:34] Speaker 1: the berry bushes, ten or twelve of them, and went
[1:40:37] Speaker 1: humming up into the denser woods, some of them alighting
[1:40:39] Speaker 1: in the trees. Whence they stretched their necks to watch
[1:40:42] Speaker 1: me as I passed along. The dust flew from their
[1:40:45] Speaker 1: plumage as they jumped up as if they had been
[1:40:48] Speaker 1: earthing their wings. My next adventure was with a young
[1:40:52] Speaker 1: but fully grown blue bird, which crawled and fluttered away
[1:40:55] Speaker 1: from my feet as I came upon it in the open.
[1:40:58] Speaker 1: It could not fly, and I easily picked it up.
[1:41:00] Speaker 1: Its plumage showed the mingled blue and speckled brown of
[1:41:03] Speaker 1: the immature bird. I looked it over but could see
[1:41:06] Speaker 1: no mark or sign of injury to wing or body.
[1:41:09] Speaker 1: Its plumage was unruffled and its eye bright, but its
[1:41:11] Speaker 1: movements were feebled. Was it ill or starved? I could
[1:41:15] Speaker 1: not tell which, Probably the latter. It may have got
[1:41:18] Speaker 1: lost from the brood and was not yet able to
[1:41:20] Speaker 1: forge for itself. I left it under the edge of
[1:41:22] Speaker 1: a rock, where the fresh blue of the ends of
[1:41:25] Speaker 1: its wings and tail held my eye a moment. As
[1:41:27] Speaker 1: I turned to go farther along, under some shelving rocks,
[1:41:31] Speaker 1: I came upon two empty Phoebe's nests, a relic of
[1:41:34] Speaker 1: bird life that always gives a touch to the rocks
[1:41:36] Speaker 1: that I delight in. I find none of these nests
[1:41:39] Speaker 1: placed lower than three feet from the ground, and always
[1:41:43] Speaker 1: in places that seemed to be carefully chosen with reference
[1:41:46] Speaker 1: to enemies that can reach and climb. Two or three woodchucks,
[1:41:50] Speaker 1: which I bagged with my eye completed my afternoon's adventures
[1:41:54] Speaker 1: and of section eleven. Recording by Edith Ferne, Southern California,
[1:41:59] Speaker 1: November night, two thousand nine. Nature Near Home and other
[1:42:08] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrows. This is a LibriVox recording. All
[1:42:13] Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. To learn more
[1:42:16] Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Nature in
[1:42:20] Speaker 1: Your Home and other Papers by John Burroughs, Section twelve.
[1:42:23] Speaker 1: In field and would intense observation, The casual glances or
[1:42:30] Speaker 1: the admiring glances that we cast upon nature do not
[1:42:33] Speaker 1: go very far in making us acquainted with her real ways.
[1:42:36] Speaker 1: Only long and close scrutiny can reveal these to us.
[1:42:39] Speaker 1: The look of appreciation is not enough. The eye must
[1:42:42] Speaker 1: become critical and analytical if we would know the exact truth.
[1:42:47] Speaker 1: Close scrutiny of an object in nature will nearly always
[1:42:50] Speaker 1: yield some significant fact that our admiring gaze did not
[1:42:53] Speaker 1: take in. I learned a new fact about the teasel
[1:42:56] Speaker 1: the other day by scrutinizing it more closely than I
[1:42:58] Speaker 1: had ever before done. I discovered that the wave of
[1:43:01] Speaker 1: bloom begins in the middle of the head and spreads
[1:43:04] Speaker 1: both ways up and down, Whereas in all other plants
[1:43:07] Speaker 1: known to me with flowering heads or spikes, except the
[1:43:10] Speaker 1: golden rod and the steeple bush, the wave of bloom
[1:43:12] Speaker 1: begins at the bottom and creeps upward like a flame.
[1:43:16] Speaker 1: In the golden rod, it drops down from branch to branch,
[1:43:19] Speaker 1: in vervane, in blue weed, in Venus's looking glass, in
[1:43:22] Speaker 1: the mullen, in the evening primrose, and others, the bloom
[1:43:26] Speaker 1: creeps slowly upward from the bottom. But with the teasel,
[1:43:30] Speaker 1: the flame of bloom is first kindled in the middle.
[1:43:33] Speaker 1: To day you see the head with this purple zone
[1:43:35] Speaker 1: or girdle about it, and in a day or two
[1:43:37] Speaker 1: you see two purple girdles with an open space between them,
[1:43:40] Speaker 1: and these move one up and the other down, till
[1:43:43] Speaker 1: the head stands with a purple base and a purple crown,
[1:43:46] Speaker 1: with a broad space of neutral green between them. This
[1:43:50] Speaker 1: is a sample of the small but significant facts in
[1:43:52] Speaker 1: nature that interest me, exceptional facts that show how nature,
[1:43:55] Speaker 1: at times breaks away from a fixed habit. A beaten pass,
[1:43:58] Speaker 1: so to speak, tries a new course. She does this
[1:44:01] Speaker 1: an animal life too. Huxley mentions a curious exception to
[1:44:06] Speaker 1: the general plan of the circulation of the blood. In
[1:44:09] Speaker 1: all animals that have a circulation, the blood takes one
[1:44:12] Speaker 1: definite and invariable direction, except in the case of one
[1:44:15] Speaker 1: class of marine animals called ascidians. In them, the heart,
[1:44:19] Speaker 1: after beating a certain number of times, stops and begins
[1:44:22] Speaker 1: to beat the opposite way, so as to reverse the current.
[1:44:26] Speaker 1: Then in a moment or two it changes again and
[1:44:28] Speaker 1: drives the blood in the other direction. All things are
[1:44:32] Speaker 1: possible with nature, and these unexpected possibilities or departures from
[1:44:35] Speaker 1: the general plan are very interesting. It is interesting to
[1:44:38] Speaker 1: know that any creature can come into being without a father,
[1:44:41] Speaker 1: but with only a grandfather. Yet such is the case.
[1:44:44] Speaker 1: The drone in the hive has no father. The eggs
[1:44:47] Speaker 1: of the unfertilized queen produces drones. That is, in producing males,
[1:44:51] Speaker 1: the male is dispensed with. It is to produce the
[1:44:54] Speaker 1: neuters or the workers, that the service of the male
[1:44:57] Speaker 1: is required. The queen bee is developed from one of
[1:44:59] Speaker 1: them these newter eggs. Hence her male offspring have only
[1:45:02] Speaker 1: a grandfather. The chipmunk is an old friend of my
[1:45:06] Speaker 1: boyhood and my later years also. But by scrutinizing his
[1:45:10] Speaker 1: ways a little more closely than usual the past summer,
[1:45:12] Speaker 1: I learned things about this pretty little rodent that I
[1:45:15] Speaker 1: did not before know. I discovered, for instance, that he
[1:45:18] Speaker 1: digs his new hole for his winter quarters in midsummer.
[1:45:22] Speaker 1: In my strolls of field or along the road in July,
[1:45:25] Speaker 1: I frequently saw a fresh pile of earth upon the
[1:45:27] Speaker 1: grass near a stone fence, or in the orchard, or
[1:45:30] Speaker 1: on the edge of the woods. Usually a peck or
[1:45:32] Speaker 1: two of bright new earth, carefully put down in a
[1:45:34] Speaker 1: pile upon the ground, without any clue visible as to
[1:45:37] Speaker 1: where it probably came from. But a search in the
[1:45:41] Speaker 1: grass or leaves usually disclosed its source. A little round
[1:45:44] Speaker 1: hole neatly cut through the turf and leading straight downward,
[1:45:48] Speaker 1: I came upon ten such mounds of earth upon a
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: single farm, and found the hole from which each came
[1:45:53] Speaker 1: only one to six feet away. In one case, in
[1:45:56] Speaker 1: a meadow recently mowed, I had to explore the stubble
[1:45:59] Speaker 1: with my fe finger over several square yards of surface
[1:46:02] Speaker 1: before I found the squirrel's hull, so undisturbed was the
[1:46:05] Speaker 1: grass around it. Not a grain of soil had this
[1:46:08] Speaker 1: little delver drop near it, and not the slightest vestige
[1:46:11] Speaker 1: of a path had he made from the tunnel to
[1:46:12] Speaker 1: the dump. And his feature was noticeable. In every case
[1:46:17] Speaker 1: the hole had been dug several yards underground, and several
[1:46:20] Speaker 1: pecks of fresh earth removed to a distance of some feet,
[1:46:23] Speaker 1: without the least speck of soil or the least trace
[1:46:25] Speaker 1: of the workmen's footsteps showing near the entrance. Such clean,
[1:46:29] Speaker 1: deft workmanship was remarkable. All this half bushel or more
[1:46:33] Speaker 1: of earth the squirrel must have carried out in his
[1:46:35] Speaker 1: sheep pockets, and he must have made hundreds of trips
[1:46:38] Speaker 1: to and fro from his dump to his hole. And
[1:46:40] Speaker 1: yet if he had fallen like a bird, the turf
[1:46:42] Speaker 1: could not have been freer from the marks of his
[1:46:44] Speaker 1: going and coming. And he had cut down through the turf,
[1:46:47] Speaker 1: as one might have done with an auger, without bruising
[1:46:50] Speaker 1: or disturbing in any way the grass about the edges.
[1:46:54] Speaker 1: It was a clean, neat drop in every case, so
[1:46:56] Speaker 1: much so that it was hard to believe that the
[1:46:58] Speaker 1: delver did not come up from below and have a
[1:47:00] Speaker 1: back door from which he carried his soil some yards away. Indeed,
[1:47:05] Speaker 1: I have heard this theory stated. Look under the pile
[1:47:07] Speaker 1: of earth, said a friend who was with me, and
[1:47:09] Speaker 1: who had observed the work of the pocket gopher in
[1:47:11] Speaker 1: the west, and you will find the back door there.
[1:47:14] Speaker 1: But it was not so. I carefully removed four piles
[1:47:17] Speaker 1: of earth and dug away the turf beneath them, and
[1:47:19] Speaker 1: no hole was to be found. One day we found
[1:47:23] Speaker 1: a pile of earth in a meadow, and near it
[1:47:24] Speaker 1: a hole less than two inches deep, showing where the
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: chipmunk had begun to dig and had struck a stone.
[1:47:30] Speaker 1: Then he went a foot or more up the hill
[1:47:31] Speaker 1: and began again. Here he soon struck stones as before.
[1:47:35] Speaker 1: Then he went still farther up the hill, and this
[1:47:37] Speaker 1: time was successful in penetrating the soil. This was conclusive
[1:47:42] Speaker 1: proof that these round holes are cut from above and
[1:47:44] Speaker 1: not from below, as we often see. In the case
[1:47:46] Speaker 1: of the woodchuck hole, the squirrel apparently gnads through the
[1:47:49] Speaker 1: turf instead of digging through, and carries away the loosened
[1:47:52] Speaker 1: material in his mouth, never dropping or scattering a grain
[1:47:55] Speaker 1: of it. No home was ever built with less litter,
[1:47:58] Speaker 1: no cleaner door yard from fires. The last can be
[1:48:00] Speaker 1: found the absence of anything like a trail or beaten
[1:48:05] Speaker 1: away from the mound of earth to the hole, or
[1:48:07] Speaker 1: anything suggesting passing feet. I understood better when later in
[1:48:11] Speaker 1: the season, day after day, I saw chipmunk carrying supplies
[1:48:14] Speaker 1: into his den, which was in the turf by the roadside,
[1:48:17] Speaker 1: about ten feet from a stone wall. He covered the
[1:48:21] Speaker 1: distance by a series of short jumps, apparently striking each
[1:48:24] Speaker 1: time upon his toes between the spears of grass, and
[1:48:27] Speaker 1: leaving no marks whatever by which his course could be traced.
[1:48:30] Speaker 1: This was also his manner of leaving the hole, and
[1:48:32] Speaker 1: doubtless it was his manner in carrying away the soil
[1:48:35] Speaker 1: from his tunnel to the dumping pile. He left no
[1:48:37] Speaker 1: sign upon the grass. He disturbed not one spear about
[1:48:40] Speaker 1: the entrance. There was a mystery about this den by
[1:48:44] Speaker 1: the roadside of which I have just spoken. The pile
[1:48:47] Speaker 1: of earth could not be found unless the road maker
[1:48:50] Speaker 1: had removed it. It must have been hidden in or
[1:48:52] Speaker 1: beneath the stone wall. And there was a mystery about
[1:48:57] Speaker 1: some of the other holes that was absolutely baffling to me.
[1:49:00] Speaker 1: In at least four mounds of fresh earth, I found
[1:49:02] Speaker 1: freshly dug stones that I could not, by any manipulation
[1:49:05] Speaker 1: get back into the hole out of which they had
[1:49:07] Speaker 1: evidently come. They were all covered with fresh earth, and
[1:49:11] Speaker 1: were in the pile of soil with many other smaller stones.
[1:49:15] Speaker 1: In one case, a stone two inches long, one and
[1:49:18] Speaker 1: one half inches broad, and one half inch thick was found.
[1:49:22] Speaker 1: In two other cases, stones of about the same length
[1:49:24] Speaker 1: and breadth, but not so thick, were found, and in
[1:49:27] Speaker 1: either case could the stone be forced into the hole.
[1:49:31] Speaker 1: In still another case, the entrance to the dam was
[1:49:33] Speaker 1: completely framed by the smaller roots of a beech tree,
[1:49:36] Speaker 1: and in the little mound of earth near it were
[1:49:38] Speaker 1: two stones that could only be gotten back into the
[1:49:40] Speaker 1: hole by springing one of these roots, which required considerable
[1:49:43] Speaker 1: force to do. In two at least of these four cases,
[1:49:48] Speaker 1: it was a physical impossibility for the stones to have
[1:49:50] Speaker 1: come out of the hole. From whence the mound of
[1:49:52] Speaker 1: earth and the lesser stones evidently came. Yet how happened
[1:49:56] Speaker 1: they in the pile of earth freshly earth stained? Could
[1:50:00] Speaker 1: not have carried them in his cheek patches, they were
[1:50:02] Speaker 1: so large, How then did he carry them? The matter
[1:50:06] Speaker 1: stood thus with me for some weeks I was up
[1:50:08] Speaker 1: against the little problem in natural history that I could
[1:50:11] Speaker 1: not solve. Late in November I visited the scene of
[1:50:14] Speaker 1: the squirrel holes again and at last got the key
[1:50:16] Speaker 1: to the mystery. The cunning little delver cuts the groove
[1:50:19] Speaker 1: in one side of the hole just large enough to
[1:50:21] Speaker 1: let the stone through, then packs it full of soil again.
[1:50:26] Speaker 1: When I made my November visit, it had been snowing
[1:50:29] Speaker 1: and raining and freezing and thawing, and the top of
[1:50:31] Speaker 1: the ground was getting soft. A red squirrel had visited
[1:50:34] Speaker 1: the hole in the orchard where two of the largest
[1:50:36] Speaker 1: stones were found in the pile of earth, and had
[1:50:38] Speaker 1: apparently tried to force his way into the shipmunk's den.
[1:50:41] Speaker 1: In doing so, he had loosened the earth and the
[1:50:43] Speaker 1: groove softened by the reins, and it had dropped out.
[1:50:47] Speaker 1: The groove was large enough for me to lay my
[1:50:49] Speaker 1: finger in and just adequate to admit the stones into
[1:50:51] Speaker 1: the hole. This, then, was the way the little engineer
[1:50:54] Speaker 1: solved the problem, and I experienced a sense of relief
[1:50:56] Speaker 1: that I had solved mine. I visited did the second
[1:51:00] Speaker 1: hole where the large stone was in the pile of earth,
[1:51:03] Speaker 1: and found that the same thing had happened there. A
[1:51:05] Speaker 1: red squirrel bent on plunder, had been trying to break
[1:51:08] Speaker 1: in and had removed the soil in the groove. I
[1:51:11] Speaker 1: feel bound to report that the next season I found
[1:51:14] Speaker 1: a pile of earth which a chipmunk had removed from
[1:51:16] Speaker 1: his den, containing a stone too large to go into
[1:51:19] Speaker 1: the hole. Yet the most careful examination failed to reveal
[1:51:23] Speaker 1: that there had ever been any groove cut in it,
[1:51:25] Speaker 1: or that it had ever been in any way enlarged.
[1:51:29] Speaker 1: To settle the point as to whether or not the
[1:51:31] Speaker 1: chipmunk has a back door, which in no case had
[1:51:34] Speaker 1: I been able to find, we dug out the one
[1:51:36] Speaker 1: by the roadside, whose mount of earth we could not discover.
[1:51:40] Speaker 1: We followed his tortuous course through the soil three or
[1:51:43] Speaker 1: four feet from the entrance and nearly three feet beneath
[1:51:45] Speaker 1: the surface, where we found him in his chamber, warm
[1:51:48] Speaker 1: in his nest of leaves, but not asleep. He had
[1:51:51] Speaker 1: no back door. He came out it was a mail
[1:51:54] Speaker 1: as a hand was thrust into his chamber, and the
[1:51:57] Speaker 1: same fearless, strong hand seized him, but did not hurt him.
[1:52:01] Speaker 1: His chamber was spacious enough to hold about four quarts
[1:52:04] Speaker 1: of winter stores and leave him considerable rooms to stir
[1:52:06] Speaker 1: about in. His supplies consisted of the seeds of the
[1:52:10] Speaker 1: wild buckwheat, Polygonum dumatorum, and choke cherry pits, and formed
[1:52:15] Speaker 1: a very unpromising looking miss. His buckwheat did not seem
[1:52:18] Speaker 1: to have been properly cured, for much of it was muldy,
[1:52:21] Speaker 1: but it had been carefully cleaned every kernel of it.
[1:52:24] Speaker 1: There were nearly four quarts of seeds altogether, and over
[1:52:27] Speaker 1: one half of it was wild buckwheat. I was curious
[1:52:30] Speaker 1: to know approximately the number of these seeds he had
[1:52:32] Speaker 1: gathered and chucked. I first found the number it took
[1:52:36] Speaker 1: to fill a lady thimble, and then the number of
[1:52:38] Speaker 1: thimbles full it took to fill a cup, and so
[1:52:41] Speaker 1: reached the number in the two courts, and found that
[1:52:44] Speaker 1: it amounted to the surprising figure of two hundred and
[1:52:46] Speaker 1: fifty thousand. Think of the amount of patient labor required
[1:52:50] Speaker 1: to clean two hundred fifty thousand of the small seeds
[1:52:53] Speaker 1: of the wild buckwheat. The grains are hardly one third
[1:52:56] Speaker 1: of the size of those of the cultivated kind, and
[1:52:58] Speaker 1: are jet black when the husk is removed. Probably every
[1:53:02] Speaker 1: seed was husked with those deft little hands and teeth
[1:53:04] Speaker 1: as it was gathered before it went into his cheek pockets.
[1:53:08] Speaker 1: But what a task it must have been, poor little hermit.
[1:53:11] Speaker 1: It seemed pathetic to find him, facing the coming winter
[1:53:14] Speaker 1: there with such inferior stuff in his greenery, not a nut,
[1:53:17] Speaker 1: not a kernel of corn or wheat. Why he had
[1:53:20] Speaker 1: not availed himself of the oaths that grew just over
[1:53:22] Speaker 1: the fence, I should like to know, of course, the
[1:53:25] Speaker 1: wild buckwheat must have been more to his liking. How
[1:53:28] Speaker 1: many hazardous trips along fences and into the bushes his
[1:53:31] Speaker 1: stores represented. The ball creatures all live in as savage
[1:53:35] Speaker 1: a country as did our earliest ancestors, and the enemy
[1:53:38] Speaker 1: of each is lying in wait for it at nearly
[1:53:40] Speaker 1: every turn. Digging the little fellow out, of course, brought
[1:53:44] Speaker 1: ruin upon his house. And I think the mews of
[1:53:46] Speaker 1: natural history contemplated the scene with many compunctions of conscience,
[1:53:50] Speaker 1: if she has any conscience, which I am concline to doubt.
[1:53:53] Speaker 1: But our human hearts prompted us to do all we
[1:53:55] Speaker 1: could to give the provident little creature a fresh start.
[1:53:58] Speaker 1: We put his supplice carefully down beside the stone wall
[1:54:01] Speaker 1: into which he had disappeared on being liberated, and the
[1:54:03] Speaker 1: next day he had carried a large part of them away.
[1:54:06] Speaker 1: He evidently began at once to hustle, and I trust
[1:54:09] Speaker 1: he found or made a new retreat from the winter
[1:54:11] Speaker 1: before it was too late. I doubt if the chipmunk
[1:54:15] Speaker 1: ever really hibernates. The hibernating animals do not lay up
[1:54:19] Speaker 1: winter stores, but he, no doubt indulges in many, very
[1:54:22] Speaker 1: long before dinner and after dinner naps. It is black
[1:54:25] Speaker 1: as night there in his den, three feet under the ground,
[1:54:28] Speaker 1: and this lasts about four months, or until the premonitions
[1:54:31] Speaker 1: of coming spring reach him in March and call him forth.
[1:54:35] Speaker 1: I am curious to know if the female chipmunk also
[1:54:37] Speaker 1: digs a den for herself, or takes up with one
[1:54:39] Speaker 1: occupied by the mail the previous winter. One ought to
[1:54:43] Speaker 1: be safe in generalizing upon the habits of chipmunks and
[1:54:45] Speaker 1: digging their holes. After observing ten of them, yet one
[1:54:49] Speaker 1: must go slow. Even then, nine of the holes I
[1:54:52] Speaker 1: observed had a pile of earth near them. The tenth
[1:54:55] Speaker 1: hole had no dumps that I could find. Then I
[1:54:57] Speaker 1: found four holes with the soil hauled out and piled
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: up about the entrance, precisely after the manner of woodchucks.
[1:55:03] Speaker 1: This was a striking exception to the general habit of
[1:55:05] Speaker 1: the chipmunks in this manner. Is this the way the
[1:55:08] Speaker 1: female digs her hole? I ask myself? Or is it
[1:55:10] Speaker 1: the work of young chipmunks. I have in two cases
[1:55:14] Speaker 1: found holes in the ground on the borders of swamps
[1:55:17] Speaker 1: occupied by weasels. But the holes were in all outward
[1:55:20] Speaker 1: respects like those made by chipmunks, with no soul near
[1:55:23] Speaker 1: the entrance. The wood check makes no attempt to conceal
[1:55:26] Speaker 1: his hole by carrying away the soul. Neither does a
[1:55:28] Speaker 1: prairie dog nor the pocket gopher. The pile of till
[1:55:31] Speaker 1: tell earth in each case may be seen from afar.
[1:55:34] Speaker 1: But our little squirrel seems to have notions of neatness
[1:55:36] Speaker 1: and concealment that he rarely departs from. The more I
[1:55:39] Speaker 1: study his ways, the more I see what a clever
[1:55:42] Speaker 1: and foxy little rodent he is. End of section twelve.
[1:55:46] Speaker 1: Recording by Edith Ferne, Southern California, November twentieth, two thousand nine.
[1:55:59] Speaker 1: Section thirteen of Nature, Near Home and Other Papers by
[1:56:02] Speaker 1: John Burroughs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
[1:56:07] Speaker 1: are in the public domain. To learn more or to volunteer,
[1:56:10] Speaker 1: pleaded at LibriVox dot org. Nature ner Home and Other
[1:56:14] Speaker 1: Papers by John Burrows, Section thirteen from a Walker's Wallet.
[1:56:19] Speaker 1: One on the morning after our first hard frost in
[1:56:23] Speaker 1: late October or early November, how rapidly the leaves let
[1:56:26] Speaker 1: go their hold upon their parents stems. I stood for
[1:56:29] Speaker 1: some minutes one such morning under a maple by the
[1:56:32] Speaker 1: roadside to witness the silent spectacle. The leaves came down,
[1:56:35] Speaker 1: one by one, like great golden flakes. There was no
[1:56:38] Speaker 1: motion in the air to loosen them. That hour had come,
[1:56:41] Speaker 1: and they gave up life easily and gracefully. What a
[1:56:45] Speaker 1: gay company they had made on that tree all summer,
[1:56:48] Speaker 1: clapping their hands in gladness and joyously drinking in the
[1:56:51] Speaker 1: air in the sunshine, whispering, rustling, swayed by emotion or
[1:56:54] Speaker 1: stilled by the night dews, and each and all doing
[1:56:57] Speaker 1: their work. Now their day is done, and one by
[1:57:00] Speaker 1: one they let go their hold upon apparent stem and
[1:57:03] Speaker 1: fall to the earth. Some come hurrying and tumbling down,
[1:57:07] Speaker 1: Some drop almost like clods, Some come eddying and balancing down.
[1:57:11] Speaker 1: And now and then one comes down as gracefully as
[1:57:13] Speaker 1: a bird sailing around in an easy spiral, like a dove, alighting,
[1:57:17] Speaker 1: its edges turned up like wings, and its stems pointing
[1:57:20] Speaker 1: downward like a head and neck. One can hardly believe
[1:57:23] Speaker 1: it is not a thing of life. It reaches the
[1:57:25] Speaker 1: ground as lightly as a snowflake. If one could only
[1:57:28] Speaker 1: finish his own career so gracefully. What a contrast to
[1:57:32] Speaker 1: the falling of the leaves of some other trees, say
[1:57:34] Speaker 1: those of the mulberry. The leaves of this tree fall
[1:57:37] Speaker 1: on such mornings like soldiers lain in battle, with all
[1:57:40] Speaker 1: their powers in full force. They drop heavily and clumsily,
[1:57:43] Speaker 1: apparently untouched by the ripening process that so colors the
[1:57:46] Speaker 1: maple and other leaves. They are rank, green and full
[1:57:49] Speaker 1: of sap. So with i locusts and the apple and
[1:57:52] Speaker 1: cherry leaves. They all seem cut off prematurely. But the
[1:57:56] Speaker 1: leaves of most of our native trees, oak ash, hackory
[1:57:59] Speaker 1: may seem to fall in the fullness of time. They
[1:58:03] Speaker 1: have ripened, like the grain and the fruit. They are
[1:58:05] Speaker 1: colored like the clouds at sunset, and their demise seems
[1:58:08] Speaker 1: a welcome event. They make the woods and grows gay.
[1:58:11] Speaker 1: They carpet the ground as with sunset clouds. It is
[1:58:14] Speaker 1: a funeral, that is like a festival. It is the
[1:58:16] Speaker 1: golden age come back. The falling of these gaily colored
[1:58:20] Speaker 1: leaves seems to make a holiday in nature. It is
[1:58:24] Speaker 1: like the fluttering of ribbons and scarves. It does not
[1:58:27] Speaker 1: suggest age and decay. It suggests some happy celebration. They
[1:58:31] Speaker 1: seem to augment the sunshine, to diffuse their own color
[1:58:34] Speaker 1: into it, or to give back to it the light
[1:58:36] Speaker 1: they have been so long absorbing. The day itself drops
[1:58:39] Speaker 1: upon the earth like a great golden leaf fallen from
[1:58:42] Speaker 1: the tree of Igdrassel two. It always gives me a
[1:58:48] Speaker 1: little pleasurable emotion when I see in the autumn woods
[1:58:50] Speaker 1: where the downy woodpecker has just been excavating his winter
[1:58:53] Speaker 1: quarters in a dead lamb or tree trunk. I am
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: walking along a trail or wood road. When I see
[1:58:59] Speaker 1: something like coarse neesws sawdust scattered on the ground, I
[1:59:01] Speaker 1: know at once what carpenter has been at work in
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: the trees overhead, and I proceed to scrutinize the trunks
[1:59:06] Speaker 1: and branches. Presently, I am sure to detect a new
[1:59:09] Speaker 1: round hole about an inch and a half in diameter,
[1:59:12] Speaker 1: on the under side of a dead limb or in
[1:59:14] Speaker 1: a small tree trunk. This is Downey's cabin, where he
[1:59:17] Speaker 1: expects to spend the winter nights and a part of
[1:59:19] Speaker 1: the stormy days too. When he excavates it in an
[1:59:23] Speaker 1: upright tree trunk, he usually chooses a spot beneath the limb.
[1:59:26] Speaker 1: The limb forms a sort of rude hood and prevents
[1:59:29] Speaker 1: the rain water from running down into it. It is
[1:59:31] Speaker 1: a snug and pretty retreat, and a very safe one.
[1:59:34] Speaker 1: I think. I doubt whether the driving snow ever reaches him,
[1:59:37] Speaker 1: and no predatory owl could hook him out with its claw.
[1:59:40] Speaker 1: Near town or in town, the English barrel would probably
[1:59:43] Speaker 1: drive him out, But in the woods, I think he
[1:59:45] Speaker 1: is rarely molested, though in one instance I knew him
[1:59:48] Speaker 1: to be dispossessed by a flying squirrel on stormy days.
[1:59:52] Speaker 1: I have known Downy to return to his chamber in
[1:59:54] Speaker 1: mid afternoon until I a bed there till ten in
[1:59:57] Speaker 1: the morning. I have no knowledge that any other species
[2:00:01] Speaker 1: of our woodpeckers excavate these winter quarters, but they probably do.
[2:00:05] Speaker 1: The chickadee has too slender a beak for such work,
[2:00:08] Speaker 1: and usually spends the winter nights in natural cavities or
[2:00:11] Speaker 1: in the abandoned holls of Downy. Three. As I am
[2:00:16] Speaker 1: riding here in my study these November days, a Downy
[2:00:19] Speaker 1: woodpeckers excavating a chamber in the top of a chestnut
[2:00:22] Speaker 1: post in the vineyard a few yards below me. Or rather,
[2:00:26] Speaker 1: he is enlarging a chamber which he or one of
[2:00:28] Speaker 1: his fellows excavated last fall. He is making it ready
[2:00:31] Speaker 1: for his winter quarters. A few days ago I saw
[2:00:34] Speaker 1: him enlarging the entrance and making it a more complete circle.
[2:00:38] Speaker 1: Now he is in the chamber itself, working away like
[2:00:40] Speaker 1: a carpenter. I hear his muffled hammering as I approach
[2:00:44] Speaker 1: cautiously on the grass. I make no sound, and the
[2:00:46] Speaker 1: hammering continues till I have stood for a moment beside
[2:00:49] Speaker 1: the post. Then it suddenly stops and Downy's head appears
[2:00:52] Speaker 1: at the door. He glances at me suspiciously, and then
[2:00:55] Speaker 1: hurries away in much excitement. How did he know there
[2:00:59] Speaker 1: was some one so near? As birds have no sense
[2:01:02] Speaker 1: of smell, it must have been by some other means.
[2:01:04] Speaker 1: I return to my study, and in about fifteen minutes
[2:01:06] Speaker 1: Downy is back at work again. I cautiously and silently approach,
[2:01:11] Speaker 1: but he is now more alert, and when I am
[2:01:13] Speaker 1: the width of three grape rows from him, he rushes
[2:01:15] Speaker 1: out of his den and lets off his sharp metallic
[2:01:17] Speaker 1: cry as he heards away to some trees below the hill.
[2:01:22] Speaker 1: He does not return to his work again that afternoon,
[2:01:24] Speaker 1: but I feel certain that he will pass the night
[2:01:26] Speaker 1: there and every other night all winter unless he is disturbed.
[2:01:29] Speaker 1: Slim My son and I are passing along the path
[2:01:31] Speaker 1: by his post with a lantern about eight o'clock in
[2:01:34] Speaker 1: the evening. I pause and say, let's see if Downey
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: is at home. A slight tap on the post and
[2:01:39] Speaker 1: we hear Downy jump out of bed, as it were,
[2:01:41] Speaker 1: and his head quickly feels the doorway. We pass hurriedly on.
[2:01:45] Speaker 1: He needs does not take flight. A few days later,
[2:01:49] Speaker 1: just at sundown, as I am walking on the terrace above.
[2:01:52] Speaker 1: I see Downy come sweeping swiftly down through the air
[2:01:55] Speaker 1: on that long galloping flight of his, and a light
[2:01:57] Speaker 1: on the big maple on the brink of the hill
[2:01:59] Speaker 1: above his. He sits perfectly still for a few moments,
[2:02:03] Speaker 1: surveying the surroundings, and seeing that the coast is clear,
[2:02:06] Speaker 1: drops quickly and silently down and disappears in the interior
[2:02:09] Speaker 1: of his chestnut lodge. He will do this all winter long,
[2:02:13] Speaker 1: coming home when the days are stormy by four o'clock
[2:02:16] Speaker 1: and not stirring out in the morning till nine or
[2:02:18] Speaker 1: ten o'clock. Some very cold, blustery days, he will probably
[2:02:21] Speaker 1: not leave his retreat at all. He has no mate
[2:02:24] Speaker 1: or fellow lodger, though there is room in his cabin
[2:02:27] Speaker 1: for three birds. At least. Where the female is, I
[2:02:30] Speaker 1: can only conjecture maybe she is occupying a discarded last
[2:02:34] Speaker 1: year's lodge, as I notice there are a good many
[2:02:36] Speaker 1: new holes drilled in the trees every fall, though many
[2:02:39] Speaker 1: of the old ones still seem intact during the inclement season.
[2:02:44] Speaker 1: Downy is anything but chivalrous or even generous. He will
[2:02:47] Speaker 1: not even share with the female the marrow bone or
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: bit of suet that I fasten on the maple in
[2:02:52] Speaker 1: front of my window, but drives her away rudely. Sometimes
[2:02:56] Speaker 1: the hairy wood picker, a much larger bird, routes downing
[2:02:59] Speaker 1: out and wrecks his house. Sometimes the English sparrows mob
[2:03:02] Speaker 1: him and dispossess him in the woods. Of flying squirrels
[2:03:05] Speaker 1: often turn him out of doors and furnish his chamber
[2:03:08] Speaker 1: cavity to suit themselves. Four. I am always content if
[2:03:13] Speaker 1: I can bring home from my walks the least bit
[2:03:15] Speaker 1: of live natural history, as when the other day I
[2:03:19] Speaker 1: saw a red headed woodpecker having a tilt with a
[2:03:21] Speaker 1: red squirrel on the trunk of a tree. Doubtless the
[2:03:24] Speaker 1: woodpecker had a nest near by and had had some
[2:03:27] Speaker 1: experience with this squirrel as a nest robber. When I
[2:03:29] Speaker 1: first saw them, the bird was chasing the squirrel around
[2:03:32] Speaker 1: the trunk of an oak tree, his bright colors of
[2:03:34] Speaker 1: black and white and red making his every movement conspicuous.
[2:03:38] Speaker 1: The squirrel avoided him by darting quickly to the other
[2:03:40] Speaker 1: side of the tree. Then the woodpecker took up his
[2:03:44] Speaker 1: stand on the trunk of a tree a few yards distant,
[2:03:46] Speaker 1: and every time the squirrel ventured timidly around where he
[2:03:49] Speaker 1: could be seen. The woodpecker was swooped down at him,
[2:03:52] Speaker 1: making another loop of bright color. The squirrel seemed to
[2:03:55] Speaker 1: enjoy the fun and to tempt the bird to make
[2:03:57] Speaker 1: this ineffectual swoop. Time and again. He would poke his
[2:04:00] Speaker 1: head round a tree and draw the fire of his
[2:04:02] Speaker 1: red headed enemy. Occasionally the bird made it pretty hot
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: for him and pressed him closely, but he could escape
[2:04:10] Speaker 1: because he had the inside ring and was so artful
[2:04:12] Speaker 1: a dodger. As often as he showed himself on the
[2:04:15] Speaker 1: woodpecker's side, the bird would make a vicious path at him,
[2:04:19] Speaker 1: and there would follow a moment of lively scurrying around
[2:04:22] Speaker 1: the trunk of the old oak, then all would be
[2:04:24] Speaker 1: quiet again. Finally, the squirrel seemed to get tired of
[2:04:27] Speaker 1: the sport and ran swiftly to the top and off
[2:04:29] Speaker 1: through the branches into the neighboring trees. As this was
[2:04:32] Speaker 1: probably all the woodpecker was fighting for, he did not
[2:04:34] Speaker 1: give chase. While I was watching the squirrel on the woodpecker,
[2:04:38] Speaker 1: I discovered a crow's nest with nearly grown young. The
[2:04:41] Speaker 1: parent crow came low over the fence into the grove,
[2:04:44] Speaker 1: and flew to a branch of an oak and alighted
[2:04:46] Speaker 1: only ten or twelve feet from the ground. Then it
[2:04:48] Speaker 1: flew to a higher branch in another tree, and then
[2:04:51] Speaker 1: to the top of a group of spruces, where I
[2:04:53] Speaker 1: saw one of the young crows rise and take the food.
[2:04:56] Speaker 1: How cautious and artful the whole proceeding was one of
[2:05:00] Speaker 1: our latest nature writers pretends to see what the crow
[2:05:03] Speaker 1: brings her young at such times. Had I had the
[2:05:05] Speaker 1: most powerful opera glasses on this occasion, I could not
[2:05:09] Speaker 1: have told the nature of the morsels she brought in
[2:05:11] Speaker 1: her beak. The thing is done very quickly and deafly,
[2:05:14] Speaker 1: and is not meant for the eye of any onlooker
[2:05:16] Speaker 1: there may chance to be about. Thus, all the little
[2:05:19] Speaker 1: ways and doings of the birds interest me. They are
[2:05:21] Speaker 1: curiously human, while yet they afford glimpses into a new
[2:05:24] Speaker 1: and strange world. We look on. We are interested, we understand,
[2:05:28] Speaker 1: we sympathize, we may lend a hand. We share much
[2:05:31] Speaker 1: in common. One nature mothers us. All our lives run
[2:05:34] Speaker 1: parallel in many respects, similar problems, similar needs, similar fatalities,
[2:05:39] Speaker 1: similar tribulations come home to us. All, and yet we
[2:05:43] Speaker 1: are separated by a gulf, the gulf that lies between
[2:05:45] Speaker 1: conscious reasoning soul and unconscious unreasoning instinct. But I must
[2:05:51] Speaker 1: not plunge into the gulf, nor seek to clear it.
[2:05:53] Speaker 1: Here Five, it always amuses me to see in late
[2:05:58] Speaker 1: May a chippy or a gold bench right down the
[2:06:00] Speaker 1: dandelion stalk that is carrying its frail globe of down
[2:06:03] Speaker 1: high above the grass. You are looking out over the
[2:06:06] Speaker 1: lawn when you see one of these silver balls suddenly
[2:06:08] Speaker 1: go down. A chippy or a goldfinch has thrown itself
[2:06:11] Speaker 1: upon the stalk and borne it to the ground for
[2:06:13] Speaker 1: the seed. The dandelion seeds are about the first that ripen,
[2:06:18] Speaker 1: and the seed eating birds are hard put for food
[2:06:20] Speaker 1: at this time. Hence these globes are God send to them.
[2:06:24] Speaker 1: Not long before I had seen the goldfinches and the
[2:06:26] Speaker 1: purple finches pecking to pieces the button balls of the
[2:06:28] Speaker 1: sycamore for the seeds they held put up so compactly
[2:06:33] Speaker 1: in May the squirrels are hard put. Also it is
[2:06:36] Speaker 1: at this season that the chipmunk pulls up the corn,
[2:06:38] Speaker 1: and that the red squirrel robs the bird's nests of
[2:06:40] Speaker 1: both eggs and down their last year's stores. Of nuts
[2:06:44] Speaker 1: and grains are exhausted, and the new crop is not
[2:06:46] Speaker 1: yet formed. I think that the chipmunk has learned that
[2:06:49] Speaker 1: there is something for him also in the dandelion seed,
[2:06:52] Speaker 1: but I doubt whether the red squirrel has. The latter
[2:06:55] Speaker 1: has found out that there is something for him in
[2:06:57] Speaker 1: the seeds of the elm tree, which usually get fully
[2:06:59] Speaker 1: to developed in May. The elm affords short commons, but is
[2:07:03] Speaker 1: better than nothing. The chaff is big and the grain small,
[2:07:05] Speaker 1: but probably sweet morning, noon and night. I see the
[2:07:09] Speaker 1: squirrel speeding in the elms about my cabin, and see
[2:07:11] Speaker 1: the roads strewn with the elm flakes from which the
[2:07:14] Speaker 1: germ in the center has been cut. Do they know
[2:07:16] Speaker 1: an elm tree when they see it? Or do they
[2:07:18] Speaker 1: explore all their trees in quest of food? If again,
[2:07:21] Speaker 1: I belong to the new school of nature riders, I
[2:07:24] Speaker 1: should say they know an elm as well as you
[2:07:26] Speaker 1: or I, and the day on which the seas are edible,
[2:07:28] Speaker 1: and that they taught this wood lord to their young.
[2:07:31] Speaker 1: But as it is, I will only venture to say
[2:07:33] Speaker 1: that at this season there they are, in the topmost
[2:07:36] Speaker 1: branches of the scattered elms, very busy with these green scales,
[2:07:40] Speaker 1: reaching and swaying and hanging by their hind feet, or
[2:07:43] Speaker 1: sitting up in that pretty way with tails over their
[2:07:45] Speaker 1: backs and hands deftly submitting the samaras to the teeth.
[2:07:49] Speaker 1: The red squirrel is much more of a hustler than
[2:07:51] Speaker 1: is the gray, and will make shift to live where
[2:07:53] Speaker 1: the latter will starve. The red squirrel abides, while the
[2:07:56] Speaker 1: gray seems to go and comb with the season's of
[2:07:58] Speaker 1: scarcity or of plenty. Yet I have seen the gray
[2:08:01] Speaker 1: eating the fruit of the poison ivy, and apparently relishing it,
[2:08:04] Speaker 1: But he rarely disturbs the birds, though with this misdemeanor
[2:08:07] Speaker 1: he is probably not entirely innocent. Small things, small doings
[2:08:12] Speaker 1: train our powers of observation. The big things all can see.
[2:08:16] Speaker 1: Who sees the finer, shyer play of wild life that
[2:08:18] Speaker 1: goes on about us. Not all of Nature's book is
[2:08:21] Speaker 1: written large. The fine print is quite as interesting, and
[2:08:24] Speaker 1: it is this that trains the eye. A schoolgirl wrote
[2:08:27] Speaker 1: me one day that she had seen a hawk carrying
[2:08:29] Speaker 1: a snake in its beak. Now, as she had had
[2:08:31] Speaker 1: a trained eye, she would have seen that the hawk
[2:08:33] Speaker 1: carried the snake in its talents. One of our recent
[2:08:36] Speaker 1: nature writers has made the same mistake in his book
[2:08:39] Speaker 1: Birds of Prey. All carry their game in their talents,
[2:08:42] Speaker 1: other birds carry it in their beaks. A recent magazine
[2:08:45] Speaker 1: writer errs in the other direction. When he makes the
[2:08:47] Speaker 1: crow carry in its claws the corn. It is pulled up,
[2:08:50] Speaker 1: as the crow is one of the birds that carries
[2:08:52] Speaker 1: everything in its beak. Emerson says, the day does not
[2:08:56] Speaker 1: seem holy profane in which we have given heed to
[2:08:59] Speaker 1: some natural object. It is such little incidents as I
[2:09:02] Speaker 1: have been relating, that redeem many of my own days,
[2:09:05] Speaker 1: and gave to my pastimes a touch of something I
[2:09:07] Speaker 1: would not willingly miss from them. And of Section thirteen
[2:09:12] Speaker 1: and of Nature Near Home and other papers by John Burroughs,
[2:09:15] Speaker 1: recorded by Edith Erne, Southern California, December two thousand nine,

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