A man of something like my own age and build was trudging along the track in front of me, a day or two ago (by his gait and general appearance he was used to trudging), when I saw him approach the fence as if he meant in some way to force a passage. “You’ll never do it,” I thought. Really, there seemed not to be space enough between the wires, even if they had not been barbed, for a human body to squeeze through; but to my astonishment the fellow slipped between them without the slightest fumbling or hesitation, and without so much as a barb’s touching him. He must have been a specialist, I am sure. I could not have followed suit without tearing my clothing to tatters, if all the wealth of the East, “barbaric pearl and gold,” had been spread out before my itching fingers on the farther side. I have not yet ceased wondering at the rogue’s address. Such practice as he must have had! I hope he was never in jail. It was like the neatest of Japanese jugglery, or the famous passage through the eye of a needle. Behold, said I, the compensations of poverty. No rich man could have done it.
The greater part of the passengers that one meets in such out-of-the-way places are short, swarthy Mexicans. Usually they are able to bid you “good-morning,” or to ask how you “do,” but now and then you will hear a “buenos dias.” In the city one finds them at every corner selling peculiar-looking confections. Whether one likes their wares or not,—and for myself, I must confess that “my own particular lip” has not yet made up its mind to try the experiment,—their presence gives one an agreeable sense of being far from home. Two days ago I was wandering about San Pedro Park at noon, and noticed for the first time a few butterflies on the wing. Most of them were much like our common yellow one,—evidently some species of Colias,—but by and by I noticed a dark one, showing a touch of red as it flew. I took chase, and came up with it just as it dropped to rest directly in front of two Mexicans seated upon the grass. I stepped near to see it (a common red admiral, for aught I could discover), and perceiving that the men were inquisitive, I pointed to it with my finger. One of them imitated the gesture, as much as to say “That, do you mean?” I nodded, and he said, with a smile, “Mariposa.” “Yes,” said I, “a butterfly.” That was beyond him, and he repeated his incomparably prettier word, “mariposa.” “Very good,” said I to myself, “I am glad to find that I understand Spanish when I hear it spoken!” A solitary traveler, of all men, should know how to amuse himself with trifles.
A BIRD-GAZER’S PUZZLES
The days of my youth have come back to me. I am again at the foot of the ladder, a boy in the primary school, a speller of a-b-abs. The experience is pleasant, but not unmixedly so; it is sweet, with a suggestion of bitter. I am finding out daily that one is never too old to be mistaken. I knew it before, of course; but I am still finding it out; for the two things are not incompatible. One may know a thing, and still have need to learn it. It is possible that the most erudite scholar has never more than begun to apprehend his own ignorance; nay, that he would never make more than a beginning in that salutary study were he to burn the midnight oil for a thousand years. In that time he might square the circle and discover the philosopher’s stone, but he would not discover how little he knew. In that respect, in respect to what we do not know, human capacity is unlimited. Finite creatures that we are, we are endowed with a kind of negative infinity. And, for one, I wish to make the most of my greatest gift. It shall not be “lodged with me useless,” if I can help it.
I saw a strange warbler the other day. That is to say, I thought I saw one. I had been wandering for a whole forenoon amid the chaparral just outside the city of San Antonio, and had enjoyed a good number of novel sensations, when suddenly (such things always come suddenly, but it seems necessary to repeat the word) a tiny bird moved in a low bush directly before me. “A gray warbler with no wing-marks,” I said; and the next instant I saw that its crown was light yellow. It moved again, and the forward parts came into view. Its throat also was yellow. At that moment it was eating a yellow berry. Its ground color was near the shade worn by a juvenile chestnut-sided warbler, and the yellow of the crown and throat was very lightly laid on over the gray, so to express it, just as it is in the chestnut-side’s case.
Now what kind of warbler can this be? I asked myself: a gray warbler with a yellow crown and a yellow throat, and no other adornments. And with the question there came into my mind, as by the effect of immediate inspiration, the word Calaveras. Whether it was Calaveras or something else, there could be no doubt of my being able to clear up the question, once I should have a book in my hand.
I resumed my peregrinations, therefore, the bird having moved on, as birds do, being provided with wings for that very purpose, and by and by, walking at a venture round one clump of bushes after another, I came again upon the stranger, who, it should be said, was of a peculiarly unsuspicious disposition, and this time was swallowing piecemeal what seemed to my New England mind a very unseasonable caterpillar. And now I made a further discovery: the shoulder of the bird’s wing was edged with a line of pretty bright red, of a shade between chestnut and carmine! Surely, it was only a matter of surviving to reach the hotel and the mystery would be solved. Calaveras or what not, it was impossible that there should be two warblers marked in this singular manner.
Well, I got back to my room, and sure enough, not only were there not two warblers thus marked, there was not even one. Calaveras was nothing to the purpose. My inspiration must have come from the wrong place. At any rate, it was unprofitable for instruction. It wasn’t far to go, you may say, but I was at my wits’ end.
That evening I had occasion to answer a letter from an eminent ornithologist, who has herself worked much in the Southwest, and besides has at her elbow the best of American bird collections. She would be able to help me out of my difficulty. In all innocence, therefore, I stated my case. It was possible, I admitted (thrice lucky admission—it is always politic to seem modest, however one may feel), that the bird was not a warbler, after all, though, if it were not, I had no idea what it could be.
Well, the next day I was out in the country again, this time in a pecan grove, with tall seed-bearing weeds standing by the acre under the tall, leafless trees (a paradise for sparrows), when I heard a chickadee whistling his four notes in the distance. “How closely his music resembles that of his relative as we hear it in Florida,” I said to myself. And this reflection set me asking, “Where is that odd little titmouse, the verdin, that was said to be common about San Antonio at all seasons?” And then, like a flash, came the answer: “Why, man, that was a verdin you saw yesterday, out in the chaparral, and mistook for a warbler.” And so it turned out. Red shoulder-strap and all, everything suited. The verdin, by the by, is a distinctively Southwestern species, not Parus, but Auriparus. My bird had been a female, I suppose, showing less yellow than her mate would have done. Perhaps if I had seen him instead of her, I should not have been so befooled.