There is a murmur like unto many voices in the woods’ mysterious depths, as if Pan and his train of Oreads were holding a revel within. It is a combination of numerous sounds that produces these ceaseless whispers of the woods. You hear them in summer when the insect choirs are chanting an aërial melody and the hermit-thrush sings as if he had a soul; you hear them in winter when the wind sobs amid the needles of the pines, and the woodpecker’s hammer resounds unceasingly from hollow trees; you hear them now, on every hand, a chorus of voices, the forest’s pulsations—a palpable part and portion of its solitude. How weird the cry of the blue jay, the loon of the woods, whose startling scream sounds like that a faun might utter in despair! His sapphire coronet is not for you, however; he jeers at you in strident tones from his stronghold in the tree-tops, keeping close watch of you, but taking care to remain well out of range. Like his clamorous friend the crow, he has scented F. F. F. powder before. At intervals the airy treble of the tree-sparrow swells the sylvan choir—a minor but most melodious addition to the chorus. When the powdery snow patters upon the withered leaves and the stillness is otherwise almost unbroken, you may hear his carillon while he feeds on the tender buds of the sweet birch. “A merry heart goes all the day” is his motto and the tenor of his blithe refrain.
There are grouse tracks also that have left their reflection in winter’s mirror—the roving feet of the brown forest hermit, the daintiest print upon the snow. Unless disturbed, the ruffed-grouse will travel a great distance on foot through the woods in quest of food. A single bird will leave a surprising number of tracks in the course of his protracted wanderings, so that one is often puzzled at the comparative scarcity of birds. But even on the snow he is extremely difficult to detect, so closely does he blend with his surroundings. Not until he springs with sonorous pinions close at your side are you made aware of his precise location, when you wonder you had not observed him before. All game is alike in this respect—difficulty of detection—even to the brilliantly marked trout, which assume the general color of the bottom of streams in which they lie.
Should you shoot a crow amid your rambles, a swarm of mourners will quickly be in attendance on the remains. Within a few minutes every ebon inhabitant of the neighborhood, apprised by the alarm of its companions, may be seen winging its way thereto with loud cawings. It can not be the sense of sight alone that locates the dead, for the discovery will not unfrequently occur in thick cover or open glade.
One of the numerous runways of the hares, within gunshot of which you have taken position, extends through a glade, affording ample opportunity to observe the game. The eager hounds have struck the scent leading to a form in a thicket of brier where the quarry lies concealed. The startled hare leaps from his covert, with the hounds in full cry coming directly toward you, until, turning into another runway, the music recedes in the distance. Amid the frenzy of pursuit two other hares have been started, the deep baying indicating the course of the divided pack. Round and round the fleet hares circle, one of them after a prolonged flight approaching your standpoint. His agile dash for liberty has left his pursuers in the rear, and he pauses—a white silhouette of living beauty, and the embodiment of nimble speed—for a survey. He sits upon his great hind legs—his only safeguard—turning his long clean-cut ears forward and backward, each one singly, to focus the sound. The music swells into a grand crescendo, the twigs crackle beneath the trampling of many feet, and the hare is off again with the speed of the racer. The baying of the pack indicates the direction of pursuit, whether the game is coming or going. A hare always circles, returning sooner or later to the place he started from; he never “holes,” like the rabbit, unless in a log when exhausted. To baffle the dogs he will sometimes imitate his wily master, Reynard, by taking his back track for quite a distance, and then, leaping aside, to strike out on a fresh course; by this means he gains a breathing-spell and puzzles his foes.
So the sport progresses, and the bag mounts with the lengthening shadows. An owl is sounding his lone “tu-whoo!” when the hounds come in with lolling tongues and trembling flanks from the prolonged excitement of the chase. The last hare has carmined the snow with his life-blood, and the heavy spoils are harled and strung. The flaming fires of sunset are smoldering into ashen embers in the soft southwest; the tender violets of the remote table-lands chill to colder purples with day’s decline; the marshaled ranks of the skeleton trees stand out upon the hills as if limned in India ink; the mellow hyemal twilight deepens over woodland and valley, till the perfect winter day merges into the moonlit winter night and the vale of the sport.
VI.
DECORATIVE DECORATIONS.
All arts are one, howe’er distributed they stand;