Travels in a Tree-top

by Charles C. Abbott

And stolid beetle bears his brazen shield.

Give them the glowing, fiery world they love,

Give me the cool retreat beside the stream;

While sweeps the sun the noontide sky above,

Here would I linger with the birds and dream.

The Chesapeake Oak

And now what of the tree itself? Here I have been the better part of a long fore-noon, and scarcely given this fine young oak a thought. A young oak, yet a good deal older than its burden; an oak that was an acorn when the century was new, and now a sturdy growth full sixty feet high, straight of stem to its undermost branches and shapely everywhere. Such trees are not remarkable of themselves, though things of beauty, but at times how suggestive! Think of pre-Columbian America; then there were oaks to make men marvel. “There were giants in those days.” Occasionally we meet with them even now. A year ago I camped on the shore of Chesapeake Bay near an oak that measured eighteen feet six inches in circumference four feet from the ground, and in St. Paul’s church-yard, not a great way off, are five big oaks, one of which is twenty feet around shoulder high from the roots. Such trees are very old. The church-yard was enclosed two centuries ago, and these were big trees then, and so older by far than any monument of white men on the continent, except possible traces of the Norsemen. If a tree such as this in which I have been sitting is full to overflowing with suggestiveness, how much more so a noble patriarch like that upon the bay shore! It is usually not easy to realize the dimensions of a huge tree by merely looking at it, but this mammoth impressed one at first sight. The branches were themselves great trees, and together cast a circular patch of shade, at noon, three paces more than one hundred feet across. As a tree in which to ramble none could have been better shaped. The lowest branches were less than twenty feet from the ground, and after reaching horizontally a long way, curved upward and again outward, dividing finally into the leaf-bearing twigs. Course after course continued in this way, the size decreasing gradually, and the whole forming, as seen from a distance, a magnificent dome-shaped mass. Comparisons with the tree’s surroundings were full of suggestiveness. The ground immediately about was densely covered with rank ferns and the acorn sprouts of one or two years’ growth. Yet, where they were, it seemed but a smoothly-shaven lawn, so insignificant were they when seen with the tree; and the sproutland beyond, which would otherwise have been a wood, was absolutely insignificant. Yet, in truth, everything here was on a grand scale. The ferns were tall, and to prove it I sat upon the ground among them and so shut out all view of the great tree and its surroundings. I spent many hours seated upon different branches of this oak, and every one had features all its own. From those nearest the ground I surveyed the bird-life in the thicket beneath, and was entertained by a pair of nesting cardinal red-birds that came and went as freely as if quite alone, and whistled cheerfully morning, noon, and night. I fancied I made friends with these birds, for early one morning the male bird came to camp, as if to inspect my nest, thinking I was not up, and he expressed his favorable opinion in most glowing terms. A pair of doves, too, had a nest in sight, and their melancholy cooing seemed out of tune here, where Nature had done her work so well. Once, at least, while I was there, the bald eagle came for a few moments, and, big bird as he is, was not conspicuous, and had not a flash of sunlight fallen upon his yellow beak and white head, I should not have been aware of his presence, as he certainly was not of mine. What I took to be a duck-hawk, a few days later, interested me much more. He was a splendid bird, and tarried but a short time. The leaves so concealed him that I was not sure, having no field-glass at the time, but do not think I was mistaken. The eagle did not appear to disturb the fish-hawk’s temper in the least, but the great hawk did, and he was much excited until the bird disappeared in the steam and smoke that as a great cloud rested above Baltimore.

The birds of this retired spot may be divided into two classes,—those of the oak and of the sproutland growths about it, and the birds of the air, principally swallows, which hung over the tree as a trembling cloud. Never were swallows more numerous, except when flocked prior to migration. In the tree and bushes were always many birds, yet often they were far from each other. This gave me an excellent idea of what a great oak really is. Birds quite out of sight and hearing of each other were resting on branches from the same trunk. Although the middle of July, there was no lack of song, and second nesting of many familiar birds is, I judge, more common in Maryland than in New Jersey. Of all the birds that came, the little green herons were the most amusing. A pair doubtless had a nest near by, or young that were not yet on the wing. They walked sedately along the level branches, as a man might pace up and down his study, buried in deep thought. I listened carefully for some expression of content, but they made no sound except when they were startled and flew off. I was much surprised to find the beach-birds occasionally darting among the branches, and once a spotted sandpiper rested a moment near me. These birds we associate with water and the open country, although this species is less aquatic than its fellows. They were always in sight from the door of my tent, and always an earlier bird than I. I recall now standing upon the beach long before sunrise, marking the promises of the coming day, as I interpreted them. The fish-hawks were ahead of me; so, too, the little sand-pipers. Their piping at this time was very clear and musical. It was a delightful accompaniment to the rippling water. The dear old song-sparrows were quiet, and I was very glad; but with the first flooding of the sea with sunlight they all sang out, and the Chesapeake was afar off and I in the home meadows on the Delaware. I prefer novelty when away. It is well to utterly forget, at times, that which we most prize. What boots it to stand on the hill-top, if your thoughts are forever in the lowlands? Twice, from the branches of the old oak, I saw a splendid sunset, but nothing equal to the sunrise of to-day. With many a matter of this life the beginning is better than the end. We had a superb sunset last night. The color was gorgeous, but it was plain and commonplace compared to the sunrise of to-day. Perhaps no tint was really brighter in one case than in the other, but my mind was. The sunset was too closely linked with the death of the day; there was the idea of a grand finale before the curtain drops, and this tends to dull enthusiasm. It is not so with sunrise. It is all freshness,—a matter of birth, of beginning, of a new trial of life,—and with so happy an entrance, the exit should be one of gladness only; but there is no trace of pity in Nature. In awful certainty the night cometh.

I was not surprised at every visit to this tree to find some new form of life resting on its branches. A beautiful garter-snake had reached a low branch by climbing to it from a sapling that reached a little above it. There was no break in the highway that led to its very summit. The grass leaned upon ferns, these upon shrubs, these again upon saplings, and so the tree was reached. Any creeping thing could have climbed just eighty feet above the earth with far less danger than men encounter clambering over hills.