His coming or
reappearance
in the spring marks a
## p.
## p.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v05 - Bro to Cai
Shake.
Spell.
9 Irons.
10 Mouth.
11 Stared.
## p. 2862 (#434) ###########################################
2862
ROBERT BURNS
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,'
Till ilka carlin ? swat and reekit, 3
And coost 4 her duddies 5 to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark! ?
Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans
A' plump and strapping, in their teens:
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen,
Thir breeks 10 o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,
For ane blink o' the bonnie burdies !
But withered beldams old and droll,
Rigwoodie" hags wad spean ! ? a foal,
Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 13
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie:
“There was ae winsome wench and walie, » 14
That night inlisted in the core
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore !
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 13
And kept the country-side in fear),
Her cutty sark, 16 o' Paisley harn, 17
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft 19 for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever graced a dance of witches!
18
· Caught hold of each other.
2 Old hag.
3 Reeked with heat.
4 Cast off.
5 Clothes.
6 Tripped.
7 Chemise.
& Greasy flannel.
9 Manufacturers' term for linen
woven in a reed of 1700 divisions.
10 Breeches.
11 Gallows-worthy.
12 Wean.
13 A crutch - a stick with a crook.
14 Quoted from Allan Ramsay.
Barley.
16 Short shift or shirt.
17 Very coarse linen.
18 Proud.
19 Bought.
15
## p. 2863 (#435) ###########################################
ROBERT BURNS
2863
But here my muse her wing maun cour';
Sic flights are far beyond her power:
To sing how Nannie lap and flang
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood like ane bewitched,
And thought his very een enriched;
Even Satan glow'red and fidged fu’ fain,
And hotched and blew wi' might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tints? his reason a'thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark! ”
And in an instant all was dark;
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,3
When plundering hords assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When «Catch the thief! » resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' mony an eldritch 5 screech and hollow.
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam, thou'll get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the keystane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,—
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle —
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
i Cower - sink.
? Loses.
* Hive.
3 Fuss.
5 Unearthly.
## p. 2864 (#436) ###########################################
2864
ROBERT BURNS
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump!
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty Sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear-
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.
BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN
SO
COTS wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots whain Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour:
See approach proud Edward's pow'r —
Chains and slaverie!
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave ?
Let him turn and flee!
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freemen stand, or freemen fa',
Let him follow me!
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains !
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow! -
Let us do or die!
## p. 2865 (#437) ###########################################
ROBERT BURNS
2865
HIGHLAND MARY
Y®
E BANKS and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom!
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi’mony a vow and locked embrace
Our parting was fu' tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursel's asunder;
But oh! fell Death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod and cauld's the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary!
Oh pale, pale now those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed so fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me sae kindly;
And moldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
V-180
## p. 2866 (#438) ###########################################
2866
ROBERT BURNS
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
M My heart's in the Highlands, wa-chasing the deer:
Y HEART's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North!
The birthplace of valor, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below!
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods!
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods !
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe -
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
THE BANKS O'DOON
Y
E BANKS and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care ?
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou ininds me o' departed joys,
Departed— never to return!
Oft ha'e I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause lover stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.
## p. 2867 (#439) ###########################################
2867
JOHN BURROUGHS
(1837-)
OHN BURROUGHS was born in Roxbury, New York, April 3d,
1837, and like many other American youths who later in
life became distinguished, he went to school winters and
worked on the farm in summer. He grew up among people who
neither read books nor cared for them, and he considers this cir-
cumstance best suited to his development. Early intercourse with
literary men would, he believes, have dwarfed his original faculty.
He began to write essays at the age of fourteen, but these early
literary efforts give little hint of his later
work, of that faculty for seeing, and com-
menting on all that he saw in nature,
which became his chief characteristic. He
was especially fond of essays; one of his
first purchases with his own money was a
full set of Dr. Johnson, and for a whole
year he lived on (The Idler) and The
Rambler' and tried to imitate their pon-
derous prose.
His first contributions to
literature, modeled on these essays, were
promptly returned. By chance he picked
up a volume of Emerson, the master who
JOHN BURROUGHS
was to revolutionize his whole manner of
thinking; and as he had fed on Dr. Johnson he fed on the Essays
and Miscellanies,' until a paper he wrote at nineteen on Expres-
sions) was accepted by the editor of the Atlantic, with a lurking
doubt whether it had not come to him on false pretenses, as it was
very much like an early essay of Emerson.
Mr. Burroughs ascribes to Emerson, who stimulated his religious
nature, his improved literary expression; while Whitman was to him
a great humanizing power, and Matthew Arnold taught him clear
thinking and clean writing. He had passed through these different
influences by the time he was twenty-one or twenty-two; had taught
for a while; and from 1863 to 1873 was vault-keeper and afterwards
chief of the organization division of the Bureau of National Banks,
in the Treasury Department. For several years afterward he was a
special national bank examiner.
The literary quality of his writings from the first captivates the
reader. He has the interpretive power which makes us see what he
## p. 2868 (#440) ###########################################
2868
JOHN BURROUGHS
sees and invites us to share his enjoyment in his strange adventures.
The stories of the wary trout and the pastoral bee, the ways of
sylvan folk, their quarrels and their love-making, are so many char-
acter sketches on paper, showing a most intimate acquaintance with
nature.
He is a born naturalist. He tells us that from childhood he was
familiar with the homely facts of the barn, the cattle and the horses,
the sugar-making and the work of the corn-field, the hay-field, the
threshing, the planting, the burning of fallows. He «loved nature
in those material examples and subtle expressions, with a love pass-
ing all the books in the world. ” But he also loved and knew books,
and this other love gives to his works their literary charm.
His account of a bird, a flower, or an open-air incident, however
painstaking and minute the record, teems with literary memories.
The sight of the Scotch hills recalls Shakespeare's line,
«The tufty mountains where lie the nibbling sheep. ”
The plane-tree vocal with birds' voices recalls Tennyson,—“The pil-
lared dusk of sounding sycamores”; he hears the English chaffinch,
and remembers with keen delight that Drayton calls it the throstle
with sharp thrills,” and Ben Jonson “the lusty throstle. ” After much
wondering, he finds out why Shakespeare wrote
« The murmuring surge
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,”
his own experience being that sea-shores are sandy; but the pebbled
cliffs of Folkestone, with not a grain of sand on the chalk founda-
tion, justified the poet.
This lover of nature loves not only the beautiful things he sees,
but he loves what they suggest, what they remind him of, what they
bid him aspire to. Like Wordsworth, he looks on the hills with
tenderness, and makes deep friendship with the streams and groves. ”
He notes what he divines hy observation. And what an observer he
He discovers that the bobolink goes south in the night. He
scraped an acquaintance with a yellow rumpled warbler who, taking
the reflection of the clouds and blue sky in a pond for a short cut
to the tropics, tried to cross it; with the result of his clinging for a
day and night to a twig that hung down in the water.
Burroughs has found that whatever bait you use in trout
stream, - grasshopper, grub, or fly,— there is one thing you must
always put on your hook; namely, your heart. It is a morsel they
love above everything else. He tells us that man has sharper eyes
than a dog, a fox, or any of the wild creatures except the birds, but
not so sharp an ear or a nose; he says that a certain quality of
youth is indispensable in the angler, a certain unworldliness and
is!
1
a
## p. 2869 (#441) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2869
we never
readiness to invest in an enterprise that does not pay in current
coin. He says that nature loves to enter a door another hand has
opened: a mountain view never looks better than when one has been
warmed up by the capture of a big trout. Like certain wary game,
she is best taken by seeming to pass her by, intent on other mat-
ters. What he does not find out for himself, people tell him. From
a hedge-cutter he learns that some of the birds take an earth-bath
and some a water-bath, while a few take both; a farmer boy con-
fided to him that the reason
see any small turtles is
because for two or three years the young turtles bury themselves in
the ground and keep hidden from observation. From a Maine farmer
he heard that both male and female hawks take part in incubation.
A barefooted New Jersey boy told him that "lampers” die as soon
as they have built their nests and laid their eggs. How apt he is in
similes! The pastoral fields of Scotland are “stall-fed,” and the hill-
sides “wrinkled and dimpled, like the forms of fatted sheep. ”
And what other bird-lover has such charming fancies about birds,
in whom he finds a hundred human significances ? «The song of the
bobolink,” he says, “expresses hilarity; the sparrow sings faith, the
bluebird love, the catbirds pride, the white-eyed fly-catchers self-
consciousness, that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity, while
there is something military in the call of the robin. ” Mr. Burroughs
has been compared with Thoreau, but he seems closer to White of
Selborne, whom he has commemorated in one of his most charming
essays. Like White, he is a literary man who is a born naturalist in
close intimacy with his brute neighbors and “rural nature's varied
shows. ” In both, the moral element is back of nature and the
source of her value and charm. Never nature for her own sake, but
for the sake of the soul that is above all and over all. Like White,
too, though by nature solitary, Burroughs is on cordial terms with
his kind. He is an accurate observer, and he takes Bryant to task
for giving an odor to the yellow violet, and Coleridge for making a
lark perch on the stalk of a foxglove. He gloats over a felicitous
expression, like Arnold's blond meadow-sweet” and Tennyson's
"little speedwell's darling blue”; though in commenting on another
poet he waives the question of accuracy, and says “his happy liter-
ary talent makes up for the poverty of his observation. ”
And again as with White, he walks through life slowly and in a
ruminating fashion, as though he had leisure to linger with the
impression of the moment. Incident he uses with reserve, but with
picturesque effects; figures do not dominate his landscape but hu-
manize it.
As a critic Mr. Burroughs most fully reveals his personality. In
his sketches of nature we see what he sees; in his critiques, what he
## p. 2870 (#442) ###########################################
2870
JOHN BURROUGHS
feels and thinks. The cry of discovery he made when 'Leaves of
Grass) fell into his hands found response in England and was
re-echoed in this country till Burroughs's strange delight in Whitman
seemed no longer strange, but an accepted fact in the history of
poetry. The essay on Emerson, his master, shows the same dis-
criminating mind. But as a revelation of both author and subject
there are few more delightful papers than Burroughs's essay on
Thoreau. In manner it is as pungent and as racy as Thoreau's
writings, and as epigrammatic as Emerson's; and his defense of
Thoreau against the English reviewer who dubbed him a “skulker »
has the sound of the trumpet and the martial tread of soldiers march-
ing to battle.
SHARP EYES
From "Locusts and Wild Honey)
N
Oting how one eye seconds and reinforces the other, I have
often amused myself by wondering what the effect would
be if one could go on opening eye after eye, to the num-
ber, say, of a dozen or more. What would he see? Perhaps not
the invisible — not the odors of flowers or the fever germs in
the air — not the infinitely small of the microscope or the infi-
nitely distant of the telescope. This would require not so much
more eyes as an eye constructed with more and different lenses;
but would he not see with augmented power within the natural
limits of vision ? At any rate, some persons seem to have
opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and dis-
tinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where
that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How
many eyes did Gilbert White open ? how many did Henry Tho-
reau? how many did Audubon ? how many does the hunter,
mat hing his sight against the keen and alert senses of a deer,
or a moose, or a fox, or a wolf ? Not outward eyes, but inward.
We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general
features or outlines of things — whenever we grasp the special
details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. Science
confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to
discriminate the birds, or the plants, or the geological features
of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added.
Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright
what he sees.
The facts in the life of nature that are transpiring
## p. 2871 (#443) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2871
the query.
about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange
into sentences. Or, the writing is a cipher and he must fur-
nish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very
much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse
stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls,
scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable,
dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding
what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and
was presently captured by the farmer. What did she want ? was
What but a horse-hair for her nest, which was in an
apple-tree near by ? and she was so bent on having one that I
have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's
tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined
her nest, and found it sewed through and through with several
long horse-hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the
hair was found.
Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic
scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our
eyes are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw
this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and
wrote an account of it in his newspaper. It is too good not to
be true: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose-
feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted.
After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations
over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in
and seized the feather,- and here the wit of the bird came out,
for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a
near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home,
and when her neighbor returned with his mate, was innocently
employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his
feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement,
and with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue,
rushed into the cot of the female. Not finding his goods and
chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and
then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out
of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home
and lined her own domicile with it.
The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recur-
ring to him.
His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a
## p. 2872 (#444) ###########################################
2872
JOHN BURROUGHS
new chapter in the progress of the season; things are never
quite the same after one has heard that note. The past spring
the males came about a week in advance of the females. A fine
male lingered about my grounds and orchard all that time,
apparently awaiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within earshot and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half angrily or upbraid-
ingly; then coaxingly; then cheerily and confidently, the next
moment in a plaintive and far-away manner. He would half
open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly as if beckoning his
mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and
reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree
and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble
the old, old story.
But the female flew to a near tree and ut-
tered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some
dry grass or bark in his beak and flew again to the hole in the
old tree, and promised unremitting devotion; but the other said
"Nay,” and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going,
or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff and cried
out in a tone that said plainly enough, “Wait a minute: one
word, please! ” and flew swiftly in pursuit. He won her before
long, however, and early in April the pair were established in
one of the four or five boxes I had put up for them, but not
until they had changed their minds several times. As soon
the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their
parents' care, they began to nest in one of the other boxes, the
female as usual doing all the work and the male all the compli-
menting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird
was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had
never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watch-
ing them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she
appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint.
One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came
with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted above
me to survey the place before going into the box. When she
saw the cat she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could
not keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came
eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. After
the cat had gone away the bird's alarm subsided; till presently,
seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in
her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and without
as
## p. 2873 (#445) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2873
going in to arra
rrange them as was her wont, flew away in evident
relief.
In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much
nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or
golden-shafted woodpeckers, took up their abode. A knot-hole
which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood
being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The
inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day as I
passed near I heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating
down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. The
chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the
interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather nest-
carvers.
The time seemed very short before the voices of the young
were heard in the heart of the old tree,- at first feebly, but
waxing stronger day by day, until they could be heard many
rods distant. When I put my hand upon the trunk of the tree
they would set up an eager, expectant chattering; but if I
climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual
sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clam-
bered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could
stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbow-
ing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one,
aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked
out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds
seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a
consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is not
sweet. When the parent birds came with food, the young one in
the opening did not get it all; but after he had received a por-
tion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one,
he would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evi-
dently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two or
three days in advance of them. His voice was the loudest and
his head oftenest at the window. But I noticed that when he
had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it
uncomfortable in his rear, and after “fidgeting about awhile he
would be compelled to "back down. " But retaliation was then
easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments at the out-
look. They would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity
as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
## p. 2874 (#446) ###########################################
2874
JOHN BURROUGHS
This bird was of course the first to leave the nest. For two
days before that event he kept his position in the opening most
of the time, and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old
ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to
encourage his exit. As I stood looking at him one afternoon
and noticing his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution,-
seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,- and launched forth
upon his untried wings. They served him well, and carried him
about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another,
till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to
him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired
of the sound. His was the faintest heart of all: then he had
none to encourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung
to the outer bole of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour
longer; then he committed himself to his wings and went his
way like the rest.
A young farmer in the western part of New York sends me
some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He
says a large gooseberry-bush, standing in the border of an old
hedge-row in the midst of the open fields, and not far from his
house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in suc-
cession; and after an interval of a year, for two seasons more.
This gave him a good chance to observe them. He says the
mother-bird lays a single egg and sits upon it a number of days
before laying the second, so that he has seen one young bird
nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the
nest at once. “So far as I have seen, this is the settled prac-
tice,- the young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number
of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of
the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are cov-
ered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, with-
out a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and
hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious
feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but
handsome. They never open their mouths when approached,
as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving
when touched. ” He also notes the unnatural indifference of the
mother-bird when her nest and young are approached. She
makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent
perfect unconcern.
## p. 2875 (#447) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2875
These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the
cuckoo is occasionally found in the nest of other birds, raise the
inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the
European species, which always foists its egg upon other birds;
or whether on the other hand it be not mending its manners in
this respect.
It has but little to unlearn or forget in the one
case, but great progress to make in the other. How far is its
rudimentary nest — a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks
of weeds — from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely mod-
eled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a gulf between
its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its irregular
manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our
cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of
interesting things as he goes about his work. He one day saw
a white swallow, which is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a
sparrow, he thinks, fly against the side of a horse and fill his
beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal.
He saw a
shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking
refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he
saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air,
approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together,
fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft
again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of
love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other.
When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk
for insects about cattle and moving herds in the field. My
farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day, as he
was mowing in the meadow with a mowing-machine. It had
been foggy for two days, and the swallows were very hungry
and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of his
machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like
a brood of hungry chickens. He
says
there was
a continual
rush of purple wings over the "cutter-bar,” and just where it was
causing the grass to tremble and fall. Without his assistance
the swallows would have gone hungry yet another day.
of the hen-hawk he has observed that both the male and
female take part in incubation. I was rather surprised,” he
says, "on one occasion, to see how quickly they change places
## p. 2876 (#448) ###########################################
2876
JOHN BURROUGHS
on the nest. The nest was in a tall beech, and the leaves were
not yet fully out. I could see the head and neck of the hawk
over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk coming
down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alight
near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest,
his mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being
hit; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I
hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without
danger to the eggs. ”
The kingbird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will
worry a bear. It is by his persistence and audacity, not by any
injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. The king-
bird seldom more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and be.
tween his wings and making a great ado; but my correspondent
says he once saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back. The
hawk flew as fast as possible, and the kingbird sat upon his
shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,”—
tweaking his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the
next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-
catcher, has one well-known peculiarity: he appears never to con-
sider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My
alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion
skin and make off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking
it a good substitute for the coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon a nest
of whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest, - two
elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My
foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I
wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or character-
istic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the place many
times and had a look. It was always a task to separate the
bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a few feet of
her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with
his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and
leaves, and bits of black or dark brown bark, were all exactly
copied in the bird's plumage. And then she did sit so close and
simulate so well a shapeless decaying piece of wood or bark!
Twice I brought a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot,
noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full
view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the
## p. 2877 (#449) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2877
bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a
few inches of her eggs and then, after a moment's pause, hobble
awkwardly upon them.
After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came
into play. I was on hand the next day, I think. The mother-
bird sprang up when I was within a pace of her, and in doing
so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as
the leaves started the young started, and, being of the same
color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a try-
ing task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young
birds and nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish
down like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother about.
When disturbed they gave but one leap, then settled down, per-
fectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird,
on these occasions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from
her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast,
,
and a spasm like that of death would run through her tremulous
outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out
the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to
draw my attention as before. When followed she always alighted
upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The
second or third day both old and young had disappeared.
The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which
is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead
her young about the woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps
and sudden spurts, their protective coloring shielding them most
effectively. Wilson came upon the mother-bird and her
brood in the woods, and though they were at his very feet, was
so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to
give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived some-
thing like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and,
on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill,
seemingly asleep. ” Wilson's description of the young is very
accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a slight
moldiness. ” Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to
get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor
young
It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, motionless
upon the leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell
once
## p. 2878 (#450) ###########################################
2878
JOHN BURROUGHS
soon
ear or nose.
in hounds and pointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that
seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I
think he sees it as as it sees him, and before it suspects
itself seen.
What a training to the eye is hunting! To pick out
the game from its surroundings, the grouse from the leaves, the
gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red
fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the
stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires the best
powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or
upon a rock looks very much like a large stone or bowlder, yet
a keen eye knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile
away.
A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any
of the wild creatures; but not so sharp an
But in
the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey dis-
covers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly
the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights! One advan-
tage the bird surely has; and that is, owing to the form, struct-
ure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision
- indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same
instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces
less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his
brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of
the zenith without a movement of the head; the bird, on the
other hand, takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance.
I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every bird within
sight in the field or wood I pass through (a fit of the wing, a
flirt of the tail, are enough, though the flickering leaves do all
conspire to hide them), and that with like ease the birds see
me, though unquestionably the chances are immensely in their
favor. The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, truly.
You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in
the bush. The eye must have purpose and aim. No one ever
yet found the walking-fern who did not have the walking-fern
in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian relics picks
them up in every field he walks through.
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs, especially the
tiny pipers that one hears about the woods and brushy fields-
the hylas of the swamps become a denizen of trees; I had never
seen him in this new rôle. But this season having them in mind,
## p. 2879 (#451) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2879
or rather being ripe for them, I several times came across them.
One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I captured two. They
leaped before me as doubtless they had done many times before,
but though not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were
quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was
hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of
overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the
treetops, when one of these Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-
yellowing leaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the
corner of my eye, and yet bagged him, because I had already
made him my own.
Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and
decisive gazing; not by a first casual glance, but by a steady,
deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things
discovered You must look intently and hold your eye firmly
to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind.
The sharpshooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal
certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The
phrenologists do well to locate not only form, color, weight, etc. ,
in the region of the eye, but a faculty which they call individ-
uality — that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every
object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the
naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes spe-
cific points and differences, -it seizes upon and preserves the
individuality of the thing.
We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked
for its specific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of
the leaf of the tulip-tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw
the outlines of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and
to follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, especially in the
life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see
the play, because we do not look intently enough.
Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone
or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon
the crows will discover it and be on hand. If it be near the
house or barn, the crow that first discovers it will alight near it,
to make sure that he is not deceived; then he will go away and
soon return with a companion. The two alight a few yards from
## p. 2880 (#452) ###########################################
2880
JOHN BURROUGHS
the bone, and after some delay, during which the vicinity is
sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advances boldly to within a
few feet of the coveted prize. Here he pauses, and if no trick
is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes it and
makes off.
One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple-tree
near the house, and scattered some corn there. I had not seen
a bluejay for weeks, yet that very day they found my corn, and
after that they came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels
under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them
vigorously.
Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes. Still
I was surprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones
that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be
pounded up for the hens. In going out to the barn I often dis-
turbed him making a meal off the bits of meat that still adhered
to them.
“Look intently enough at anything,” said a poet to me one
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you. " I thought of the remark as I sat on a stump in the open-
ing of the woods one spring day. I saw a small hawk approach-
ing; he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large limb near
the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Then the bird disclosed
a trait that was new to me; he hopped along the limb to a small
cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out
some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken
of it some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and
I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly
down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the
feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes be-
neath the tree. The hawk then — commonly called the chicken
hawk — is as provident as a mouse or squirrel, and lays by a store
against a time of need; but I should not have discovered the fact
had I not held my eye to him.
An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or
commotion among them. In May and June, when other birds
are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about
the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is rob-
bing birds'-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be
said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry
« Thief, thief” as he. One December morning a troop of them
flew away.
## p. 2881 (#453) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2881
discovered a little screech-owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an
old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a
mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but
they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect
the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peep-
ing into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsus-
pecting bird probably entered the cavity, prospecting for a place
for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass
a cold night, when it has rushed with very important news. A
boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when
Bruin was at home could not be more astonished and alarmed
than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a de-
cayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined the
jays, in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the
fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day
in the old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm
and approached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious,
and hovered about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but
the jays were bolder, and took turns looking in at the cavity and
deriding the poor shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the
entrance of the hole, and flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then
fly away crying “Thief, thief, thief,” at the top of his voice.
I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just
descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in
and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping
of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a
He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my
forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncom-
fortable. I placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of
getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very will-
ing prisoner, scarcely moving at all even when approached and
touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-
closed sleepy eyes.
But at night what a change; how alert, how
wild, how active! He was like another bird; he darted about
with wild fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I
opened the window, and swiftly, but as silently as a shadow, he
glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps ere this has
revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or blue bird that first
betrayed his hiding-place.
Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.
V-181
## p. 2882 (#454) ###########################################
2882
JOHN BURROUGHS
WAITING
SER
ERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace ?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
Spell.
9 Irons.
10 Mouth.
11 Stared.
## p. 2862 (#434) ###########################################
2862
ROBERT BURNS
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,'
Till ilka carlin ? swat and reekit, 3
And coost 4 her duddies 5 to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark! ?
Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans
A' plump and strapping, in their teens:
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen,
Thir breeks 10 o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,
For ane blink o' the bonnie burdies !
But withered beldams old and droll,
Rigwoodie" hags wad spean ! ? a foal,
Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 13
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie:
“There was ae winsome wench and walie, » 14
That night inlisted in the core
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore !
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perished mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 13
And kept the country-side in fear),
Her cutty sark, 16 o' Paisley harn, 17
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft 19 for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever graced a dance of witches!
18
· Caught hold of each other.
2 Old hag.
3 Reeked with heat.
4 Cast off.
5 Clothes.
6 Tripped.
7 Chemise.
& Greasy flannel.
9 Manufacturers' term for linen
woven in a reed of 1700 divisions.
10 Breeches.
11 Gallows-worthy.
12 Wean.
13 A crutch - a stick with a crook.
14 Quoted from Allan Ramsay.
Barley.
16 Short shift or shirt.
17 Very coarse linen.
18 Proud.
19 Bought.
15
## p. 2863 (#435) ###########################################
ROBERT BURNS
2863
But here my muse her wing maun cour';
Sic flights are far beyond her power:
To sing how Nannie lap and flang
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood like ane bewitched,
And thought his very een enriched;
Even Satan glow'red and fidged fu’ fain,
And hotched and blew wi' might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tints? his reason a'thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark! ”
And in an instant all was dark;
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,3
When plundering hords assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When «Catch the thief! » resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' mony an eldritch 5 screech and hollow.
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam, thou'll get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the keystane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,—
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle —
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
i Cower - sink.
? Loses.
* Hive.
3 Fuss.
5 Unearthly.
## p. 2864 (#436) ###########################################
2864
ROBERT BURNS
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump!
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty Sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear-
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.
BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN
SO
COTS wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots whain Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour:
See approach proud Edward's pow'r —
Chains and slaverie!
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave ?
Let him turn and flee!
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freemen stand, or freemen fa',
Let him follow me!
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains !
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow! -
Let us do or die!
## p. 2865 (#437) ###########################################
ROBERT BURNS
2865
HIGHLAND MARY
Y®
E BANKS and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom!
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi’mony a vow and locked embrace
Our parting was fu' tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursel's asunder;
But oh! fell Death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod and cauld's the clay
That wraps my Highland Mary!
Oh pale, pale now those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed so fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me sae kindly;
And moldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
V-180
## p. 2866 (#438) ###########################################
2866
ROBERT BURNS
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS
M My heart's in the Highlands, wa-chasing the deer:
Y HEART's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North!
The birthplace of valor, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below!
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods!
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods !
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe -
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
THE BANKS O'DOON
Y
E BANKS and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care ?
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou ininds me o' departed joys,
Departed— never to return!
Oft ha'e I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause lover stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.
## p. 2867 (#439) ###########################################
2867
JOHN BURROUGHS
(1837-)
OHN BURROUGHS was born in Roxbury, New York, April 3d,
1837, and like many other American youths who later in
life became distinguished, he went to school winters and
worked on the farm in summer. He grew up among people who
neither read books nor cared for them, and he considers this cir-
cumstance best suited to his development. Early intercourse with
literary men would, he believes, have dwarfed his original faculty.
He began to write essays at the age of fourteen, but these early
literary efforts give little hint of his later
work, of that faculty for seeing, and com-
menting on all that he saw in nature,
which became his chief characteristic. He
was especially fond of essays; one of his
first purchases with his own money was a
full set of Dr. Johnson, and for a whole
year he lived on (The Idler) and The
Rambler' and tried to imitate their pon-
derous prose.
His first contributions to
literature, modeled on these essays, were
promptly returned. By chance he picked
up a volume of Emerson, the master who
JOHN BURROUGHS
was to revolutionize his whole manner of
thinking; and as he had fed on Dr. Johnson he fed on the Essays
and Miscellanies,' until a paper he wrote at nineteen on Expres-
sions) was accepted by the editor of the Atlantic, with a lurking
doubt whether it had not come to him on false pretenses, as it was
very much like an early essay of Emerson.
Mr. Burroughs ascribes to Emerson, who stimulated his religious
nature, his improved literary expression; while Whitman was to him
a great humanizing power, and Matthew Arnold taught him clear
thinking and clean writing. He had passed through these different
influences by the time he was twenty-one or twenty-two; had taught
for a while; and from 1863 to 1873 was vault-keeper and afterwards
chief of the organization division of the Bureau of National Banks,
in the Treasury Department. For several years afterward he was a
special national bank examiner.
The literary quality of his writings from the first captivates the
reader. He has the interpretive power which makes us see what he
## p. 2868 (#440) ###########################################
2868
JOHN BURROUGHS
sees and invites us to share his enjoyment in his strange adventures.
The stories of the wary trout and the pastoral bee, the ways of
sylvan folk, their quarrels and their love-making, are so many char-
acter sketches on paper, showing a most intimate acquaintance with
nature.
He is a born naturalist. He tells us that from childhood he was
familiar with the homely facts of the barn, the cattle and the horses,
the sugar-making and the work of the corn-field, the hay-field, the
threshing, the planting, the burning of fallows. He «loved nature
in those material examples and subtle expressions, with a love pass-
ing all the books in the world. ” But he also loved and knew books,
and this other love gives to his works their literary charm.
His account of a bird, a flower, or an open-air incident, however
painstaking and minute the record, teems with literary memories.
The sight of the Scotch hills recalls Shakespeare's line,
«The tufty mountains where lie the nibbling sheep. ”
The plane-tree vocal with birds' voices recalls Tennyson,—“The pil-
lared dusk of sounding sycamores”; he hears the English chaffinch,
and remembers with keen delight that Drayton calls it the throstle
with sharp thrills,” and Ben Jonson “the lusty throstle. ” After much
wondering, he finds out why Shakespeare wrote
« The murmuring surge
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,”
his own experience being that sea-shores are sandy; but the pebbled
cliffs of Folkestone, with not a grain of sand on the chalk founda-
tion, justified the poet.
This lover of nature loves not only the beautiful things he sees,
but he loves what they suggest, what they remind him of, what they
bid him aspire to. Like Wordsworth, he looks on the hills with
tenderness, and makes deep friendship with the streams and groves. ”
He notes what he divines hy observation. And what an observer he
He discovers that the bobolink goes south in the night. He
scraped an acquaintance with a yellow rumpled warbler who, taking
the reflection of the clouds and blue sky in a pond for a short cut
to the tropics, tried to cross it; with the result of his clinging for a
day and night to a twig that hung down in the water.
Burroughs has found that whatever bait you use in trout
stream, - grasshopper, grub, or fly,— there is one thing you must
always put on your hook; namely, your heart. It is a morsel they
love above everything else. He tells us that man has sharper eyes
than a dog, a fox, or any of the wild creatures except the birds, but
not so sharp an ear or a nose; he says that a certain quality of
youth is indispensable in the angler, a certain unworldliness and
is!
1
a
## p. 2869 (#441) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2869
we never
readiness to invest in an enterprise that does not pay in current
coin. He says that nature loves to enter a door another hand has
opened: a mountain view never looks better than when one has been
warmed up by the capture of a big trout. Like certain wary game,
she is best taken by seeming to pass her by, intent on other mat-
ters. What he does not find out for himself, people tell him. From
a hedge-cutter he learns that some of the birds take an earth-bath
and some a water-bath, while a few take both; a farmer boy con-
fided to him that the reason
see any small turtles is
because for two or three years the young turtles bury themselves in
the ground and keep hidden from observation. From a Maine farmer
he heard that both male and female hawks take part in incubation.
A barefooted New Jersey boy told him that "lampers” die as soon
as they have built their nests and laid their eggs. How apt he is in
similes! The pastoral fields of Scotland are “stall-fed,” and the hill-
sides “wrinkled and dimpled, like the forms of fatted sheep. ”
And what other bird-lover has such charming fancies about birds,
in whom he finds a hundred human significances ? «The song of the
bobolink,” he says, “expresses hilarity; the sparrow sings faith, the
bluebird love, the catbirds pride, the white-eyed fly-catchers self-
consciousness, that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity, while
there is something military in the call of the robin. ” Mr. Burroughs
has been compared with Thoreau, but he seems closer to White of
Selborne, whom he has commemorated in one of his most charming
essays. Like White, he is a literary man who is a born naturalist in
close intimacy with his brute neighbors and “rural nature's varied
shows. ” In both, the moral element is back of nature and the
source of her value and charm. Never nature for her own sake, but
for the sake of the soul that is above all and over all. Like White,
too, though by nature solitary, Burroughs is on cordial terms with
his kind. He is an accurate observer, and he takes Bryant to task
for giving an odor to the yellow violet, and Coleridge for making a
lark perch on the stalk of a foxglove. He gloats over a felicitous
expression, like Arnold's blond meadow-sweet” and Tennyson's
"little speedwell's darling blue”; though in commenting on another
poet he waives the question of accuracy, and says “his happy liter-
ary talent makes up for the poverty of his observation. ”
And again as with White, he walks through life slowly and in a
ruminating fashion, as though he had leisure to linger with the
impression of the moment. Incident he uses with reserve, but with
picturesque effects; figures do not dominate his landscape but hu-
manize it.
As a critic Mr. Burroughs most fully reveals his personality. In
his sketches of nature we see what he sees; in his critiques, what he
## p. 2870 (#442) ###########################################
2870
JOHN BURROUGHS
feels and thinks. The cry of discovery he made when 'Leaves of
Grass) fell into his hands found response in England and was
re-echoed in this country till Burroughs's strange delight in Whitman
seemed no longer strange, but an accepted fact in the history of
poetry. The essay on Emerson, his master, shows the same dis-
criminating mind. But as a revelation of both author and subject
there are few more delightful papers than Burroughs's essay on
Thoreau. In manner it is as pungent and as racy as Thoreau's
writings, and as epigrammatic as Emerson's; and his defense of
Thoreau against the English reviewer who dubbed him a “skulker »
has the sound of the trumpet and the martial tread of soldiers march-
ing to battle.
SHARP EYES
From "Locusts and Wild Honey)
N
Oting how one eye seconds and reinforces the other, I have
often amused myself by wondering what the effect would
be if one could go on opening eye after eye, to the num-
ber, say, of a dozen or more. What would he see? Perhaps not
the invisible — not the odors of flowers or the fever germs in
the air — not the infinitely small of the microscope or the infi-
nitely distant of the telescope. This would require not so much
more eyes as an eye constructed with more and different lenses;
but would he not see with augmented power within the natural
limits of vision ? At any rate, some persons seem to have
opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and dis-
tinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where
that of others fails, like a spent or impotent bullet. How
many eyes did Gilbert White open ? how many did Henry Tho-
reau? how many did Audubon ? how many does the hunter,
mat hing his sight against the keen and alert senses of a deer,
or a moose, or a fox, or a wolf ? Not outward eyes, but inward.
We open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general
features or outlines of things — whenever we grasp the special
details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. Science
confers new powers of vision. Whenever you have learned to
discriminate the birds, or the plants, or the geological features
of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added.
Of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright
what he sees.
The facts in the life of nature that are transpiring
## p. 2871 (#443) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2871
the query.
about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange
into sentences. Or, the writing is a cipher and he must fur-
nish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very
much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse
stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls,
scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable,
dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding
what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and
was presently captured by the farmer. What did she want ? was
What but a horse-hair for her nest, which was in an
apple-tree near by ? and she was so bent on having one that I
have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's
tail had he been in the stable. Later in the season I examined
her nest, and found it sewed through and through with several
long horse-hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the
hair was found.
Little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic
scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our
eyes are sharp enough to see them. Some clever observer saw
this little comedy played among some English sparrows, and
wrote an account of it in his newspaper. It is too good not to
be true: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose-
feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted.
After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations
over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door
neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in
and seized the feather,- and here the wit of the bird came out,
for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a
near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home,
and when her neighbor returned with his mate, was innocently
employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his
feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement,
and with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue,
rushed into the cot of the female. Not finding his goods and
chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around awhile,
abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and
then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out
of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home
and lined her own domicile with it.
The bluebird is a home bird, and I am never tired of recur-
ring to him.
His coming or reappearance in the spring marks a
## p. 2872 (#444) ###########################################
2872
JOHN BURROUGHS
new chapter in the progress of the season; things are never
quite the same after one has heard that note. The past spring
the males came about a week in advance of the females. A fine
male lingered about my grounds and orchard all that time,
apparently awaiting the arrival of his mate. He called and
warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within earshot and
could be hurried up. Now he warbled half angrily or upbraid-
ingly; then coaxingly; then cheerily and confidently, the next
moment in a plaintive and far-away manner. He would half
open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly as if beckoning his
mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and
reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree
and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble
the old, old story.
But the female flew to a near tree and ut-
tered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some
dry grass or bark in his beak and flew again to the hole in the
old tree, and promised unremitting devotion; but the other said
"Nay,” and flew away in the distance. When he saw her going,
or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff and cried
out in a tone that said plainly enough, “Wait a minute: one
word, please! ” and flew swiftly in pursuit. He won her before
long, however, and early in April the pair were established in
one of the four or five boxes I had put up for them, but not
until they had changed their minds several times. As soon
the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their
parents' care, they began to nest in one of the other boxes, the
female as usual doing all the work and the male all the compli-
menting. A source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird
was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. The cat had
never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watch-
ing them that was very embarrassing to the bird. Whenever she
appeared, the mother bluebird set up that pitiful melodious plaint.
One morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came
with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted above
me to survey the place before going into the box. When she
saw the cat she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could
not keep her hold upon all her material. Straw after straw came
eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. After
the cat had gone away the bird's alarm subsided; till presently,
seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in
her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and without
as
## p. 2873 (#445) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2873
going in to arra
rrange them as was her wont, flew away in evident
relief.
In the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much
nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or
golden-shafted woodpeckers, took up their abode. A knot-hole
which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood
being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. The
inside preparations I could not witness, but day after day as I
passed near I heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating
down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. The
chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the
interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather nest-
carvers.
The time seemed very short before the voices of the young
were heard in the heart of the old tree,- at first feebly, but
waxing stronger day by day, until they could be heard many
rods distant. When I put my hand upon the trunk of the tree
they would set up an eager, expectant chattering; but if I
climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual
sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clam-
bered up to the orifice to receive their food. As but one could
stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbow-
ing and struggling for this position. It was a very desirable one,
aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked
out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds
seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must have been a
consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is not
sweet. When the parent birds came with food, the young one in
the opening did not get it all; but after he had received a por-
tion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one,
he would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evi-
dently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two or
three days in advance of them. His voice was the loudest and
his head oftenest at the window. But I noticed that when he
had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it
uncomfortable in his rear, and after “fidgeting about awhile he
would be compelled to "back down. " But retaliation was then
easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments at the out-
look. They would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity
as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
## p. 2874 (#446) ###########################################
2874
JOHN BURROUGHS
This bird was of course the first to leave the nest. For two
days before that event he kept his position in the opening most
of the time, and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old
ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to
encourage his exit. As I stood looking at him one afternoon
and noticing his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution,-
seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,- and launched forth
upon his untried wings. They served him well, and carried him
about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another,
till only one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to
him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired
of the sound. His was the faintest heart of all: then he had
none to encourage him from behind. He left the nest and clung
to the outer bole of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour
longer; then he committed himself to his wings and went his
way like the rest.
A young farmer in the western part of New York sends me
some interesting observations about the cuckoo. He
says a large gooseberry-bush, standing in the border of an old
hedge-row in the midst of the open fields, and not far from his
house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in suc-
cession; and after an interval of a year, for two seasons more.
This gave him a good chance to observe them. He says the
mother-bird lays a single egg and sits upon it a number of days
before laying the second, so that he has seen one young bird
nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the
nest at once. “So far as I have seen, this is the settled prac-
tice,- the young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number
of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of
the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are cov-
ered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, with-
out a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and
hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious
feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but
handsome. They never open their mouths when approached,
as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving
when touched. ” He also notes the unnatural indifference of the
mother-bird when her nest and young are approached. She
makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent
perfect unconcern.
## p. 2875 (#447) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2875
These observations, together with the fact that the egg of the
cuckoo is occasionally found in the nest of other birds, raise the
inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the
European species, which always foists its egg upon other birds;
or whether on the other hand it be not mending its manners in
this respect.
It has but little to unlearn or forget in the one
case, but great progress to make in the other. How far is its
rudimentary nest — a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks
of weeds — from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely mod-
eled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a gulf between
its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! Its irregular
manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our
cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of
interesting things as he goes about his work. He one day saw
a white swallow, which is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a
sparrow, he thinks, fly against the side of a horse and fill his
beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal.
He saw a
shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking
refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he
saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air,
approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together,
fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied
together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft
again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of
love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other.
When the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk
for insects about cattle and moving herds in the field. My
farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day, as he
was mowing in the meadow with a mowing-machine. It had
been foggy for two days, and the swallows were very hungry
and the insects stupid and inert. When the sound of his
machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like
a brood of hungry chickens. He
says
there was
a continual
rush of purple wings over the "cutter-bar,” and just where it was
causing the grass to tremble and fall. Without his assistance
the swallows would have gone hungry yet another day.
of the hen-hawk he has observed that both the male and
female take part in incubation. I was rather surprised,” he
says, "on one occasion, to see how quickly they change places
## p. 2876 (#448) ###########################################
2876
JOHN BURROUGHS
on the nest. The nest was in a tall beech, and the leaves were
not yet fully out. I could see the head and neck of the hawk
over the edge of the nest, when I saw the other hawk coming
down through the air at full speed. I expected he would alight
near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest,
his mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being
hit; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. I
hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without
danger to the eggs. ”
The kingbird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will
worry a bear. It is by his persistence and audacity, not by any
injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. The king-
bird seldom more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and be.
tween his wings and making a great ado; but my correspondent
says he once saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back. The
hawk flew as fast as possible, and the kingbird sat upon his
shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,”—
tweaking his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the
next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-
catcher, has one well-known peculiarity: he appears never to con-
sider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My
alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion
skin and make off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking
it a good substitute for the coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon a nest
of whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest, - two
elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My
foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I
wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or character-
istic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the place many
times and had a look. It was always a task to separate the
bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a few feet of
her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with
his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and
leaves, and bits of black or dark brown bark, were all exactly
copied in the bird's plumage. And then she did sit so close and
simulate so well a shapeless decaying piece of wood or bark!
Twice I brought a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot,
noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full
view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the
## p. 2877 (#449) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2877
bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a
few inches of her eggs and then, after a moment's pause, hobble
awkwardly upon them.
After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came
into play. I was on hand the next day, I think. The mother-
bird sprang up when I was within a pace of her, and in doing
so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as
the leaves started the young started, and, being of the same
color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a try-
ing task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young
birds and nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish
down like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother about.
When disturbed they gave but one leap, then settled down, per-
fectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird,
on these occasions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from
her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast,
,
and a spasm like that of death would run through her tremulous
outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out
the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to
draw my attention as before. When followed she always alighted
upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The
second or third day both old and young had disappeared.
The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which
is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead
her young about the woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps
and sudden spurts, their protective coloring shielding them most
effectively. Wilson came upon the mother-bird and her
brood in the woods, and though they were at his very feet, was
so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to
give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived some-
thing like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and,
on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill,
seemingly asleep. ” Wilson's description of the young is very
accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a slight
moldiness. ” Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to
get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor
young
It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, motionless
upon the leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell
once
## p. 2878 (#450) ###########################################
2878
JOHN BURROUGHS
soon
ear or nose.
in hounds and pointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that
seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I
think he sees it as as it sees him, and before it suspects
itself seen.
What a training to the eye is hunting! To pick out
the game from its surroundings, the grouse from the leaves, the
gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red
fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the
stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires the best
powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or
upon a rock looks very much like a large stone or bowlder, yet
a keen eye knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile
away.
A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any
of the wild creatures; but not so sharp an
But in
the birds he finds his match. How quickly the old turkey dis-
covers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly
the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes, or behind the fence near which he alights! One advan-
tage the bird surely has; and that is, owing to the form, struct-
ure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision
- indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same
instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces
less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his
brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of
the zenith without a movement of the head; the bird, on the
other hand, takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance.
I find I see, almost without effort, nearly every bird within
sight in the field or wood I pass through (a fit of the wing, a
flirt of the tail, are enough, though the flickering leaves do all
conspire to hide them), and that with like ease the birds see
me, though unquestionably the chances are immensely in their
favor. The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, truly.
You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in
the bush. The eye must have purpose and aim. No one ever
yet found the walking-fern who did not have the walking-fern
in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian relics picks
them up in every field he walks through.
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs, especially the
tiny pipers that one hears about the woods and brushy fields-
the hylas of the swamps become a denizen of trees; I had never
seen him in this new rôle. But this season having them in mind,
## p. 2879 (#451) ###########################################
JOHN BURROUGHS
2879
or rather being ripe for them, I several times came across them.
One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I captured two. They
leaped before me as doubtless they had done many times before,
but though not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were
quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was
hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of
overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the
treetops, when one of these Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-
yellowing leaves, leaped near me. I saw him only out of the
corner of my eye, and yet bagged him, because I had already
made him my own.
Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and
decisive gazing; not by a first casual glance, but by a steady,
deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things
discovered You must look intently and hold your eye firmly
to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind.
The sharpshooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal
certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. The
phrenologists do well to locate not only form, color, weight, etc. ,
in the region of the eye, but a faculty which they call individ-
uality — that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every
object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the
naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes spe-
cific points and differences, -it seizes upon and preserves the
individuality of the thing.
We think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked
for its specific features. I thought I knew exactly the form of
the leaf of the tulip-tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw
the outlines of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and
to follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, especially in the
life of the birds and animals, are well screened. We do not see
the play, because we do not look intently enough.
Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone
or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon
the crows will discover it and be on hand. If it be near the
house or barn, the crow that first discovers it will alight near it,
to make sure that he is not deceived; then he will go away and
soon return with a companion. The two alight a few yards from
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JOHN BURROUGHS
the bone, and after some delay, during which the vicinity is
sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advances boldly to within a
few feet of the coveted prize. Here he pauses, and if no trick
is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes it and
makes off.
One midwinter I cleared away the snow under an apple-tree
near the house, and scattered some corn there. I had not seen
a bluejay for weeks, yet that very day they found my corn, and
after that they came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels
under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them
vigorously.
Of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes. Still
I was surprised to see how quickly Downy found out some bones
that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be
pounded up for the hens. In going out to the barn I often dis-
turbed him making a meal off the bits of meat that still adhered
to them.
“Look intently enough at anything,” said a poet to me one
day, “and you will see something that would otherwise escape
you. " I thought of the remark as I sat on a stump in the open-
ing of the woods one spring day. I saw a small hawk approach-
ing; he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large limb near
the top. He eyed me and I eyed him. Then the bird disclosed
a trait that was new to me; he hopped along the limb to a small
cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out
some small object and fell to eating it. After he had partaken
of it some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and
I had seen something like feathers eddying slowly
down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the
feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes be-
neath the tree. The hawk then — commonly called the chicken
hawk — is as provident as a mouse or squirrel, and lays by a store
against a time of need; but I should not have discovered the fact
had I not held my eye to him.
An observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or
commotion among them. In May and June, when other birds
are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about
the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is rob-
bing birds'-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be
said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry
« Thief, thief” as he. One December morning a troop of them
flew away.
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JOHN BURROUGHS
2881
discovered a little screech-owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an
old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a
mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but
they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect
the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peep-
ing into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. Some unsus-
pecting bird probably entered the cavity, prospecting for a place
for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass
a cold night, when it has rushed with very important news. A
boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when
Bruin was at home could not be more astonished and alarmed
than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a de-
cayed tree with an owl. At any rate, the bluebirds joined the
jays, in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the
fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day
in the old apple-tree. I heard the notes of warning and alarm
and approached to within eyeshot. The bluebirds were cautious,
and hovered about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but
the jays were bolder, and took turns looking in at the cavity and
deriding the poor shrinking owl. A jay would alight in the
entrance of the hole, and flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then
fly away crying “Thief, thief, thief,” at the top of his voice.
I climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just
descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in
and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping
of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a
He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my
forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncom-
fortable. I placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of
getting better acquainted with him. By day he was a very will-
ing prisoner, scarcely moving at all even when approached and
touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-
closed sleepy eyes.
But at night what a change; how alert, how
wild, how active! He was like another bird; he darted about
with wild fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. I
opened the window, and swiftly, but as silently as a shadow, he
glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps ere this has
revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or blue bird that first
betrayed his hiding-place.
Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston.
V-181
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JOHN BURROUGHS
WAITING
SER
ERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace ?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
