[LIV.—A Visitor]
Yesterday morning a distinguished visitor spent a few minutes with me in the sugar bush. To be exact, I was aware of his presence for a few minutes. He may have been with me for quite a while, though I didn't notice him. When I got to the wood-lot I had only one idea, and that was to save sap. It had been running all night. Some buckets were overflowing and others brimming dangerously, and I had to hustle around with a pail before giving attention to anything else. When I put a stop to the waste I lit the fire under the pan and got the work of boiling it properly started. Then I had leisure to notice that the crows were making a racket. Glancing towards the centre of the disturbance, I was surprised to see a huge bird sitting in the top of the biggest maple, about fifteen rods from where I was working. My first thought was that it was a great horned owl, but it was altogether too large. Although the crows were noisy they did not approach very near the object of their wrath, which seemed royally unconscious of their clamour. I walked towards the tree—the sole remnant of the original forest, a huge maple that is over three feet in diameter at the base, and which reaches fully thirty feet above the second-growth trees by which it is surrounded. When I was within about forty yards of the tree my visitor stretched his neck and turned to look at me. It was a magnificent bald eagle—the first I had ever seen outside of a zoological garden. I was near enough to catch the glint of his fierce eye. He gave me "the once-over" with an expression of haughty disdain, such as I have seen on the face of a bank President who has been forced to look at something that has spoiled his day. Then he turned toward the rising sun, leaned forward as if making obeisance, and launched himself into the morning with a wide beat of wings. He paid no attention to the pursuing crows. After a few powerful strokes he swung up on a vast spiral and sailed away to the east. Although he was so unsociable, I was glad to have seen him, and I had a really exciting story to tell the children when they got home from school in the evening.
[LV.—A Farewell]
I feel safe in announcing that the great blue heron that spent the summer spearing for frogs and tonging for clams in the Government drain has finally gone south. By this time he is probably toning up his digestion on a diet of young alligators and electric eels while
"Hid from view
By the tall, liana'd, unsunned boughs
O'erbrooding the dark bayou."
For a time it looked as if he intended staying with us all winter. The bird books say that the blue herons leave for the south about the middle of September, and I was ready to bid him good-bye about the time we were picking the apples, but he lingered on through October. When November came and he was still wading in the drain or flapping slowly across the fields, with Sheppy trying frantically to bite his trailing toes, I began to be afraid that something ailed him. But he flew strong at all times, and some other explanation must be found for his lingering in the lap of winter. And he lingered in winter's lap all right. Every week in November he was seen quite as frequently as during the summer. Even the first flurries of snow did not drive him away. As the streams were still free from ice he probably found no difficulty in getting his living, and he put off the trip south as long as he dared. The last time I saw him was on the 5th of December, when he crossed over, flying high and headed due south. Something about him, as they say in novels, told me that this would be positively his last appearance for the season. There was a snowstorm in progress at the time, and it was freezing. Canada was no place for a bird that, according to the best scientific authorities, should have gone south almost three months ago. He has not been seen since that last flight, and as the streams are not only frozen over but drifted full of snow, it is not likely that we shall see him again. Sheppy now has to take his exercise by chasing sparrows.