BIRDS
[LIII.—A Disgusted Blackbird]
I know it was a low-down thing to do, but I did it with the best of intentions—though I am afraid the blackbirds will never understand. They will probably think that after the good work they did in eating white grubs, cut-worms and other pests while I was preparing the corn ground, I should have treated them differently. But it was just because they did so much good work that I treated them so badly. I was so grateful to them that I did not want to treat them in the usual way when the corn came up. In past years it was the custom to loaf around with a double-barrelled shot-gun about the time the corn was coming through the ground, but this year the blackbirds were unusually plentiful, and as the season was late they probably had many broods of young to feed. Anyway they came to the corn field in flocks and followed the plough, disc and harrow, picking up every worm and bug that came in sight. They demonstrated the fact that they are true friends of the farmer, even though they may have faults. So when it came time to plant the corn we gave the seed grain a good coating of tar, and then rolled it in ashes to dry it. This used to be a common practice many years ago, though I haven't seen any one doing it of late years. It certainly made the corn about as unappetising as anything possibly could, so I was not surprised, when I went to the corn field a few mornings after the planting, to find a blackbird sitting on the fence, coughing and spitting and using unparliamentary language. But I will take part of that back. Some of the language used by parliamentarians during the past few months has been of a kind that makes me wonder if any kind of language can possibly be unparliamentary. But to get back to the blackbird. He evidently thought I had played it low down on him after the way he had helped me in the matter of grubs, and I had no way of telling him that like a lot of human beings who do disagreeable things to one another I had done it "for his own good." A little tar and ashes in his beak was a greater kindness to him than a charge of bird shot.
Now, I dare say there will be some scientific persons who will sniff superior and say that my remarks about the blackbird coughing, spitting and cussing are only nonsensical romancing. That is the trouble with scientists. They observe things in nature in so matter-of-fact a way that they never get at the real truth. Moreover, I have long been convinced that only the observations we make about ourselves are of any use in trying to get at the feelings of others. For instance, I can remember a time when I would loaf along and observe a man digging in a ditch. Seeing him at so excellent and necessary a task I would imagine that he was full of fine ideas about the nobility of labour and the great virtue of the work he was doing, and I might even try to write a song of ditching to express what he felt but was unable to voice. Lately I did some ditching, and I know that my earlier observations were all wrong. If a man came along wearing summer flannels and paused to observe me and tried to understand my emotions and thoughts while doing a very necessary piece of ditching, my thoughts would have run somewhat as follows: "I wonder what that pop-eyed rabbit means by standing there gaping at me. I wonder if I couldn't accidentally splash him with some of this mud." And all the time I was doing a noble piece of work and knew it, but that was the way I felt about it. I am willing to bet a cookie that when I was doing my observing in comfort on the dry bank the thoughts of the man sloshing around in the ditch were much like those expressed above. And I am by no means inclined to confine this method of interpretation and observation to human beings. My dealings with birds and animals have convinced me that each of them has as distinct a character and personality as any human being. So when I try to imagine the emotions of a blackbird that has sampled a grain of tarred corn, that he has dug up with much labour, I merely try to imagine what I would do and say if some one whom I had helped with his work had put coal tar in my salad. I am afraid that having more capacity for spitting I would spit harder than the blackbird, and having command of a larger vocabulary I would use worse language and more of it. Making my observations in this way I have no compunctions about explaining the state of mind of the blackbird as I did, and I defy any scientist in the lot to prove that I am wrong. And the best of it all is that the blackbirds soon got wise and stopped trying to dig out my corn.
[LIV.—A Visitor]
Yesterday morning a distinguished visitor spent a few minutes with me in the sugar bush. To be exact, I was aware of his presence for a few minutes. He may have been with me for quite a while, though I didn't notice him. When I got to the wood-lot I had only one idea, and that was to save sap. It had been running all night. Some buckets were overflowing and others brimming dangerously, and I had to hustle around with a pail before giving attention to anything else. When I put a stop to the waste I lit the fire under the pan and got the work of boiling it properly started. Then I had leisure to notice that the crows were making a racket. Glancing towards the centre of the disturbance, I was surprised to see a huge bird sitting in the top of the biggest maple, about fifteen rods from where I was working. My first thought was that it was a great horned owl, but it was altogether too large. Although the crows were noisy they did not approach very near the object of their wrath, which seemed royally unconscious of their clamour. I walked towards the tree—the sole remnant of the original forest, a huge maple that is over three feet in diameter at the base, and which reaches fully thirty feet above the second-growth trees by which it is surrounded. When I was within about forty yards of the tree my visitor stretched his neck and turned to look at me. It was a magnificent bald eagle—the first I had ever seen outside of a zoological garden. I was near enough to catch the glint of his fierce eye. He gave me "the once-over" with an expression of haughty disdain, such as I have seen on the face of a bank President who has been forced to look at something that has spoiled his day. Then he turned toward the rising sun, leaned forward as if making obeisance, and launched himself into the morning with a wide beat of wings. He paid no attention to the pursuing crows. After a few powerful strokes he swung up on a vast spiral and sailed away to the east. Although he was so unsociable, I was glad to have seen him, and I had a really exciting story to tell the children when they got home from school in the evening.
[LV.—A Farewell]
I feel safe in announcing that the great blue heron that spent the summer spearing for frogs and tonging for clams in the Government drain has finally gone south. By this time he is probably toning up his digestion on a diet of young alligators and electric eels while
"Hid from view
By the tall, liana'd, unsunned boughs
O'erbrooding the dark bayou."
For a time it looked as if he intended staying with us all winter. The bird books say that the blue herons leave for the south about the middle of September, and I was ready to bid him good-bye about the time we were picking the apples, but he lingered on through October. When November came and he was still wading in the drain or flapping slowly across the fields, with Sheppy trying frantically to bite his trailing toes, I began to be afraid that something ailed him. But he flew strong at all times, and some other explanation must be found for his lingering in the lap of winter. And he lingered in winter's lap all right. Every week in November he was seen quite as frequently as during the summer. Even the first flurries of snow did not drive him away. As the streams were still free from ice he probably found no difficulty in getting his living, and he put off the trip south as long as he dared. The last time I saw him was on the 5th of December, when he crossed over, flying high and headed due south. Something about him, as they say in novels, told me that this would be positively his last appearance for the season. There was a snowstorm in progress at the time, and it was freezing. Canada was no place for a bird that, according to the best scientific authorities, should have gone south almost three months ago. He has not been seen since that last flight, and as the streams are not only frozen over but drifted full of snow, it is not likely that we shall see him again. Sheppy now has to take his exercise by chasing sparrows.