Travels in a Tree-top

by Charles C. Abbott

Yet it is a very common saying, being repeated whenever a few, or less than five, fly over. It is repeated mechanically, of course, and then forgotten, for no one seems to worry over one or three crows as they do when a looking-glass breaks or the dropped fork sticks up in the floor. Seems to worry, and yet I strongly suspect a trace of superstition lingers in the mind of many a woman. Those who will not sit as one of thirteen at a table are not dead yet. Can it be that all this weakness is only more concealed than formerly, but none the less existent?

I watched the departing crows until they were but mere specks in the sky, and heard, or fancied I heard, their cawing when half a mile away. It is ever a sweet sound to me. It means so much, recalls a long round of jolly years; and what matters the quality of a sound if a merry heart prompts its utterance?

I was not the only occupant of the tree; there were hundreds of other and more active travellers, who often stopped to think or converse with their fellows and then hurried on. I refer to the great, shining, black ants that have such a variety of meaningless nicknames. Its English cousin is asserted to be ill-tempered, if not venomous, and both Chaucer and Shakespeare refer to them as often mad and always treacherous. I saw nothing of this to-day. They were ever on the go and always in a hurry. They seemed not to dissociate me from the tree; perhaps thought me an odd excrescence and of no importance. No one thinks of himself as such, and I forced myself upon the attention of some of the hurrying throng. It was easy to intercept them, and they grew quickly frantic; but their fellows paid no attention to such as I held captive for the moment. I had a small paper box with me, and this I stuck full of pin-holes on every side and then put half a dozen of the ants in it. Holding it in the line of the insects’ march, it immediately became a source of wonderment, and every ant that came by stopped and parleyed with the prisoners. A few returned earthward, and then a number came together, but beyond this I could see nothing in the way of concerted action on the part of the ants at large looking towards succoring their captive fellows. Releasing them, these detained ants at once scattered in all directions, and the incident was quickly forgotten. Where were these ants going, and what was their purpose? I wondered. I was as near the tree’s top as I dared to go, but the ants went on, apparently to the very tips of the tiniest twigs, and not one that I saw came down laden or passed up with any burden. It is not to be supposed they had no purpose in so doing, but what? There is scarcely an hour when we are not called upon to witness just such aimless activity,—that is, aimless so far as we can determine.

Nothing molested these huge black ants, although insect-eating birds came and went continually. One lordly, great-crested fly-catcher eyed them meditatively for some seconds, and then my identity suddenly dawned upon him. His harsh voice, affected by fear, was more out of tune than ever, and, coupled with his precipitant flight, was very amusing. The bird fell off the tree, but quickly caught himself, and then, as usual, curiosity overcame fear. Students of bird-ways should never forget this. The fly-catcher soon took a stand wherefrom to observe me, and, if intently staring at me for thirty seconds was not curiosity, what shall we call it? Is it fair to explain away everything by calling it mere coincidence? It is a common practice, and about as logical as the old cry of “instinct” when I went to school. To have said, when I was a boy, that a bird could think and could communicate ideas to another of its kind, would have brought down ridicule upon my head out of school, and brought down something more weighty if the idea had been expressed in a “composition.” I speak from experience.

To return to the cheerier subject of curiosity in birds: our large hawks have it to a marked degree, and advantage can be taken of this fact if you wish to trap them. I have found this particularly true in winter, when there is a general covering of the ground with snow. Food, of course, is not then quite so plenty, but this does not explain the matter. An empty steel trap on the top of a hay-stack is quite as likely to be tampered with as when baited with a mouse. The hawk will walk all around it, and then put out one foot and touch it here and there. If we can judge from the bird’s actions, the question, What is it, anyway? is running through its mind. I once played a trick upon a splendid black hawk that had been mousing over the fields for half the winter. It often perched upon a stack of straw instead of the lone hickory near by. Early one morning I placed a plump meadow-mouse on the very top of the stack, to which I had attached a dozen long strands of bright-red woollen yarn and a bladder that I had inflated. This was secured to the mouse by a silk cord, and all were so concealed by the snow and straw that the hawk noticed the mouse only. The bird was suspicious at first: it was too unusual for a mouse not to move when a hawk hovered above it. Then the bird alighted on the stack and walked about the mouse, pecking at it once, but not touching it. Then putting out one foot, he seized it with a firm grip, the talons passing through the carcass, and at the same time spread his wings and moved slowly towards the lone hickory that towered near by. I was near enough to see every movement. It was evident that the hawk did not look down at first, and saw nothing of the streaming threads and bobbing bladder; but it did a moment later, and then what a quickening of wings and hasty mounting upward! The hawk was frightened, and gave a violent jerk with one foot, as if to disengage the mouse, but it was ineffectual. The sharp claws had too strong a hold, and the effect was only to more violently bob the bladder. Then the hawk screamed and dashed into the trees near by, and was out of sight.

A curious and disappointing occurrence, while sitting aloft, was the frequent discovery of my presence by birds and their sudden right-about movement and departure. Occasionally I could see them coming as if directly towards me, but their keen eyes noticed the unusual object, and they would dart off with a promptness that showed how completely at home they were while on the wing. Even the bluebirds, usually so tame, had their misgivings, and came to rest in other trees. But if the birds were not always about and above me, there were many below, and the sweet song of the wood-robin from the tangled underbrush seemed clearer and purer than when sifted through a wilderness of leaves.

It was not until noon that the wood and open fields became silent or nearly so, for the red-eye came continually, and, whether insect-hunting in the tree or on the wing, it seemed never to cease its singing, or querulous cry, which more aptly describes its utterance. To hear this sound throughout a long summer day is depressing, particularly if you hear nothing else, for the steady hum of insect-life hardly passes for sound. It was only when I listened for it that I was aware that millions of tiny creatures were filling the air with a humming that varied only as the light breeze carried it away or brought it nearer and clearer than before. There is a vast difference between absolute and comparative or apparent silence. The former is scarcely ever a condition of the open country unless during a still, cold winter night, and never of one of our ordinary woodland tracts. We do find it, however, in the cedar swamps and pine-land, even during summer. I have often stood in “the pines” of Southern New Jersey and tried to detect some sound other than that of my own breathing, but in vain. Not a twig stirred. The dark waters of the pools were motionless; even the scattered clouds above were at rest. It was to be absolutely alone, as if the only living creature upon earth. But ere long a gentle breeze would spring up, there was a light and airy trembling of the pines, and the monotone of a whispered sigh filled the forest. Even this was a relief, and what a joy if some lonely bird passed by and even lisped of its presence! The dee-dee of a titmouse at such a time was sweeter music than the choral service that heralds the coming of a bright June morning.

At noon, the day being torrid, there was comparative silence, and yet as I looked about me I saw ceaseless activity in a small way. The ants were still journeying, and red admiral and yellow swallow-tailed butterflies came near, and the latter even passed high overhead and mingled with the chimney-swifts. Had I been on the ground, walking instead of waiting, I should have sought some sheltered spot and rested, taking a hint from much of the wild life I was watching.

AT NOONTIDE.

Where cluster oaks and runs the rapid brook,