On the morning of the 27th I took my farewell of him. He had been there for at least five days, and would doubtless stay for the season. May joy stay with him. I think I have not betrayed his whereabouts too nearly. If I have, and harm comes of it, may my curse follow the man that shoots him.
The “spectacular duck,” of which I have spoken, was one of several (three or more) that seemed to be settled in the valley of the Landaff River. Our first sight of them was on the 20th; two birds, flying low and calling, but in so bewildering a light, and so quick in passing, that we ventured no guess as to their identity. Three days later, on the morning of the 23d, we had hardly turned into the valley before we heard the same low, short-breathed, grunting, grating, croaking sounds, and, glancing upward, saw three ducks steaming up the course of the river. This time, as before, the sun was against us, but my companion, luckier than I with his glass, saw distinctly that they carried a white speculum or wing-spot.
We were still discussing possibilities, supposing that the birds themselves were clean gone, when suddenly (we could never tell how it happened) we saw one of them—still on the wing—not far before us; and even as we were looking at it, wondering where it had come from, it flew toward the old grist-mill by the bridge and came to rest on the top of the chimney! Here was queerness. We leveled our glasses upon the creature and saw that it was plainly a merganser (sheldrake), with its crest feathers projecting backward from the crown, and its wing well marked with white. Its head, unless the light deceived me, was brown. The main thing, however, for the time being, was none of these details, but the spectacle of the bird itself, in so strange and sightly a position. “It looks like the storks of Europe,” said my companion. Certainly it looked like something other than an every-day American duck, with its outstretched neck and its long, slender, rakish bill showing in silhouette against the sky.
Meanwhile, it had put its head partly out of sight in the top of the chimney, as if it had a nest there and were feeding its young. Then of a sudden it took wing, but in a minute or two was back again, to our increasing wonderment; and again it dropped the end of its bill out of sight below the level of the topmost bricks. Now, however, I could see the mandibles in motion, as if it were eating. Probably it had brought a fish up from the river. The chimney was simply its table. Again, for no reason that was apparent to us, it flew away, and again, after the briefest absence, it returned. A third time it vanished, and this time for good. We kept on our way up the valley, talking of what we had seen, but after every few rods I turned about to put my glass upon the chimney. Evidently that was the duck’s favorite perch, I said; we should find it there often. But whether my reasoning was faulty or we were simply unfortunate, the fact is that we saw it there no more. On the 25th, at a place two miles or more above this point, we saw a duck of the same kind—at least it was uttering the same grating, croaking sounds as it flew; and a resident of the neighborhood, whom we questioned about the matter, told us that he had noticed such birds (“ducks with white on their wings”) flying up and down the valley, and had no doubt that they summered there. As to their fondness for chimney-tops he knew nothing; nor do I know anything beyond the simple facts as I have here set them down. But I am glad of the picture of the bird that I have in my mind.
Enthusiasm is a good painter; it is not afraid of high lights, and it deals in fast colors. And to us old Franconians, enthusiasm seems to be one of the institutions, one of the native growths, one of the special delectabilities, if you please, of that delectable valley. The valley of cinnamon roses, we have before now called it; the valley of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries; the valley of bobolinks and swallows; but best of all, perhaps, it is the valley of hobbyists. Its atmosphere is heady. We all feel it. The world is far away. Worldly successes, yea, dollars and cents themselves, are nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. A new flower, a new bird, the hundred and fiftieth spider, these are the things that count. We are like members of a conventicle, or like the logs on the hearth. Our inward fires are mutually communicative and sustaining. We laugh now and then, it may be, at one another’s peculiarities. Each of us can see, at certain moments, that the other is “a little off,” to use a “Francony” phrase; not quite “all there,” perhaps; a kind of eighth dreamer, “moving about in worlds not realized;” but at bottom we are sympathetic and appreciative. We would not have each other different, unless, indeed, it were a little younger. A grain of oddity is a good spice. If we are not deeply interested in the newest discovery, at least we participate in the exultation of the discoverer.
“That’s a good fly,” said the entomologist. We were driving, three of us, talking of something or nothing (we are never careful which it is), when the happy dipteran blundered into the carriage, and into the very lap of its admirer. Ten seconds more, and it was under the anæsthetic spell of cyanide of potassium, which (so we are told) puts its victims to sleep as painlessly, perhaps as blissfully, as chloroform. It was an inspiration to see how instantly the lady recognized a “good” one (it was one of a thousand, literally, for the day was summer-like), and how readily, and with no waste of motions, she made it her own. I was reminded of a story.
A friend of mine, a truly devout woman, of New England birth, and churchly withal (her books have all a savor of piety, though all the world reads them), is also an enthusiastic and widely famous entomological collector. One Sunday she had gone to church and was on her knees reciting the service (or saying her prayers—I am not sure that I remember her language verbatim), when she noticed on the back of the pew immediately in front of her a diminutive moth of some rare and desirable species. Instinctively her hand sought her pocket, and somehow, without disturbing the congregation or even her nearest fellow-worshiper (my helpless masculine mind cannot imagine how the thing was done) she found it and took from it a “poison bottle,” always in readiness for such emergencies. Still on her knees (whether her lips still moved is another point that escapes positive recollection), she removed the stopple, placed the mouth of the vial over the moth (which had probably imagined itself safe in such ecclesiastical surroundings), replaced the stopple above it, slipped the bottle back into her pocket, and resumed (or kept on with) her prayers. All this had taken but a minute. And who says that she had done anything wrong? Who hints at a disagreement between science and faith? Nay, let us rather believe with Coleridge—
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things, both great and small,”—
especially small church-going lepidoptera of the rarer sorts.