One need but pass the boundary of Washington city to be fairly in the country, and ten minutes' walk in the country brings one to real primitive woods. The town has not yet overflowed its limits like the great Northern commercial capitals, and Nature, wild and unkempt, comes up to its very threshold, and even in many places crosses it.
The woods, which I soon reach, are stark and still. The signs of returning life are so faint as to be almost imperceptible, but there is a fresh, earthy smell in the air, as if something had stirred here under the leaves. The crows caw above the wood, or walk about the brown fields. I look at the gray silent trees long and long, but they show no sign. The catkins of some alders by a little pool have just swelled perceptibly; and, brushing away the dry leaves and débris on a sunny slope, I discover the liverwort just pushing up a fuzzy, tender sprout. But the waters have brought forth. The little frogs are musical. From every marsh and pool goes up their shrill but pleasing chorus. Peering into one of their haunts, a little body of semi-stagnant water, I discover masses of frogs' spawn covering the bottom. I take up great chunks of the cold, quivering jelly in my hands. In some places there are gallons of it. A youth who accompanies me wonders if it would not be good cooked, or if it could not be used as a substitute for eggs. It is a perfect jelly, of a slightly milky tinge, thickly imbedded with black spots about the size of a small bird's eye. When just deposited it is perfectly transparent. These hatch in eight or ten days, gradually absorb their gelatinous surroundings, and the tiny tadpoles issue forth.
In the city, even before the shop-windows have caught the inspiration, spring is heralded by the silver poplars which line all the streets and avenues. After a few mild, sunshiny March days, you suddenly perceive a change has come over the trees. Their tops have a less naked look. If the weather continues warm, a single day will work wonders. Presently each tree will be one vast plume of gray, downy tassels, while not the least speck of green foliage is visible. The first week of April these long mimic caterpillars lie all about the streets and fill the gutters.
The approach of spring is also indicated by the crows and buzzards, which rapidly multiply in the environs of the city, and grow bold and demonstrative. The crows are abundant here all winter, but are not very noticeable except as they pass high in air to and from their winter quarters in the Virginia woods. Early in the morning, as soon as it is light enough to discern them, there they are, streaming eastward across the sky, now in loose, scattered flocks, now in thick dense masses, then singly and in pairs or triplets, but all setting in one direction, probably to the waters of eastern Maryland. Toward night they begin to return, flying in the same manner, and directing their course to the wooded heights on the Potomac, west of the city. In spring these diurnal mass movements cease; the clan breaks up, the rookery is abandoned, and the birds scatter broadcast over the land. This seems to be the course everywhere pursued. One would think that, when food was scarcest, the policy of separating into small bands or pairs, and dispersing over a wide country, would prevail, as a few might subsist where a larger number would starve. The truth is, however, that, in winter, food can be had only in certain clearly defined districts and tracts, as along rivers and the shores of bays and lakes.
A few miles north of Newburgh, on the Hudson, the crows go into winter quarters in the same manner, flying south in the morning and returning again at night, sometimes hugging the hills so close during a strong wind as to expose themselves to the clubs and stones of schoolboys ambushed behind trees and fences. The belated ones, that come laboring along just at dusk, are often so overcome by the long journey and the strong current that they seem almost on the point of sinking down whenever the wind or a rise in the ground calls upon them for an extra effort.
The turkey buzzards are noticeable about Washington as soon as the season begins to open, sailing leisurely along two or three hundred feet overhead, or sweeping low over some common or open space where, perchance, a dead puppy or pig or fowl has been thrown. Half a dozen will sometimes alight about some object out on the commons, and, with their broad dusky wings lifted up to their full extent, threaten and chase each other, while perhaps one or two are feeding. Their wings are very large and flexible, and the slightest motion of them, while the bird stands upon the ground, suffices to lift its feet clear. Their movements when in the air are very majestic and beautiful to the eye, being in every respect identical with those of our common hen or red-tailed hawk. They sail along in the same calm, effortless, interminable manner, and sweep around in the same ample spiral. The shape of their wings and tail, indeed their entire effect against the sky, except in size and color, is very nearly the same as that of the hawk mentioned. A dozen at a time may often be seen high in air, amusing themselves by sailing serenely round and round in the same circle.
They are less active and vigilant than the hawk; never poise themselves on the wing, never dive and gambol in the air, and never swoop down upon their prey; unlike the hawks also, they appear to have no enemies. The crow fights the hawk, and the kingbird and the crow blackbird fight the crow; but neither takes any notice of the buzzard. He excites the enmity of none, for the reason that he molests none. The crow has an old grudge against the hawk, because the hawk robs the crow's nest and carries off his young; the kingbird's quarrel with the crow is upon the same grounds. But the buzzard never attacks live game, or feeds upon new flesh when old can be had.
In May, like the crows, they nearly all disappear very suddenly, probably to their breeding-haunts near the seashore. Do the males separate from the females at this time, and go by themselves? At any rate, in July I discovered that a large number of buzzards roosted in some woods near Rock Creek, about a mile from the city limits; and, as they do not nest anywhere in this vicinity, I thought they might be males. I happened to be detained late in the woods, watching the nest of a flying squirrel, when the buzzards, just after sundown, began to come by ones and twos and alight in the trees near me. Presently they came in greater numbers, but from the same direction, flapping low over the woods, and taking up their position in the middle branches. On alighting, each one would blow very audibly through his nose, just as a cow does when she lies down; this is the only sound I have ever heard the buzzard make. They would then stretch themselves, after the manner of turkeys, and walk along the limbs. Sometimes a decayed branch would break under the weight of two or three, when, with a great flapping, the would take up new positions. They continued to come till it was quite dark, and all the trees about me were full. I began to feel a little nervous, but kept my place. After it was entirely dark and all was still, I gathered a large pile of dry leaves and kindled it with a match, to see what they would think of a fire. Not a sound was heard till the pile of leaves was in full blaze, when instantaneously every buzzard started. I thought the treetops were coming down upon me, so great was the uproar. But the woods were soon cleared, and the loathsome pack disappeared in the night.
About the 1st of June I saw numbers of buzzards sailing around over the great Falls of the Potomac.
A glimpse of the birds usually found here in the latter part of winter may be had in the following extract, which I take from my diary under date of February 4th:—