The last notch I cut longitudinally, that I might mark the Sundays, and thus chronicle the return of the one day to be kept holy. Having always been accustomed religiously to observe the Sabbath, the current of my thoughts now took another turn. My first act was to offer up prayers, and to petition God to infuse into my breast courage to face the trials I must necessarily undergo in the wilderness, and ask for his guiding finger in all my wanderings.
Alter performing this duty, I sat down on a fallen tree to court reflection, and presently heard a humming noise close to my ear. Turning round, to see from whence it proceeded, I thought I recognised the identical bird that I had, a short time before, liberated from the spider's web. It appeared, at first, to be stationary in the air, and I marvelled how it was supported; it then occurred to me that it was a spiritual messenger, sent in the form of the little creature I had been kind to, as an assurance of divine protection. Full ten minutes I contemplated the bird in this light, when it flew away, leaving me in a much happier state of mind than I had hitherto felt myself.
Utility of birds
The fixed position of the bird I afterwards found to be its habit when hovering over certain flowers in search of insects. There are a great variety of the humming-bird tribe; the one I had caught was very beautiful, and moved its wings with such astonishing rapidity in flight as to elude the eye; and when poising itself over a flower, waiting to attack insects as they enter between the petals, the wings moved with such celerity as to become almost invisible, like a mist. The habits of these birds may be denominated fly-like:—
"When morning dawns, and the blest sun again
Lifts his red glories from the eastern main,
Then round our woodbines, wet with glittering dews,
The flower-fed humming-bird his round pursues,—
Sips with inserted tube the honied blooms,
And chirps his gratitude as round he roams."
Birds, throughout my sojourn in the forest, were my chief and most cheerful companions. They seem to be sent by Heaven as the peculiar associates of man; they exhilarate him in his labour, and brighten his hours of leisure by their melody. They also, in an especial manner, serve man, by preventing the increase of those insects that would consume the products of his industry. Whatever the uninformed farmer or gardener may say on this head, I beg to assure them that the depredations birds commit are more than compensated by their insectivorous habits.
There is not a vegetable production, cultivated or of spontaneous growth, from the forest tree to the most tender garden-flower, that is not liable to attacks from myriads of insects, though small in form and weapons, yet insidious in their mode of attack, and fatal to the plant. Birds are the natural enemies of insects, and were sent as a check upon their increase. Man persecutes the bird for plundering his fruits, seeds, and grain crops, but he does not enquire whether he would have any of these productions if the bird did not free the ground and buds from insects. The late Professor Bradley ascertained that a pair of sparrows, during the time they had young ones, destroyed on an average 3360 caterpillars every week, besides butterflies.
Man, when he clears and cultivates the land, destroys the winter food of birds, cutting down the trees that nature intended should supply them with berries during a season when their insectivorous habits are suspended. It would be an advantage to those who are engaged in cultivating the earth, if they studied the harmony of nature a little more than they now generally do. The farmer will say that a hard and long frost is good for the land, because it kills the insects; so likewise do the birds die off in severe seasons of cold, thus reducing the number of his auxiliary agriculturists to the proportion in which they will be required, on the return of spring, to keep the land clear from insects, and secure a crop to the cultivator. Birds in general return tenfold to man, in the services they render him, for all they take from his store; while they,
——"With melody untaught,
Turn all the air to music, within hearing,
Themselves unseen."
The humming-bird's visit, together with the peculiar associations of my mind at the time, produced in me a calmness that partook of heaven. The scene—a picture, too,—which was before me, was one of those beautiful instances of nature's chaste compositions that combined all around in harmony. Lovely were the sylvan flowers, fresh with blossoms, rising amidst the soft and matted growth beneath; and how exquisite the structure of the moss and lichen within my reach; how calm, how clear and serene was the air—how deepened were the shadows—how perfect was the quiet—how eloquent the silence!