The golden apples of Hesperides were never more beautiful or pleasing to the eye than those of our orchards, laden with their golden fruit. It is presumed these golden apples were oranges, and even so, it is just a question if they ever were prettier than many of our colored apples. The “King” with its red cheeks, or the “Fameuse,” and many other kinds will rival the famed oranges for beauty any day. Manifestly one of the prettiest sights in nature is to see an orchard of considerable size in Ontario, heavily laden with fruit, and its limbs bending to the ground with their burdens. Let the breeze just gently stir the leaves, and sway the branches, and the dancing sunbeams glinting upon the sheen of the apples’ sides, and then as you walk through and among the trees, nature smiles at you, and you realize that ours is indeed a beauteous and kindly land.
And this is our autumn, clearly defined, and in a few days to be rendered doubly beautiful as the first frosts touch the foliage upon the maples, the birches, and the beeches, and transform their leaves into a broad gallery of the brightest and most variegated colors. Tropical dwellers, who have never seen the transformation, know not of the beauty this world in our north temperate zone affords. It is supposed to be ever green in the tropics, but the winter green down there is not beautiful, but a dull, dusty, dark russet. This decided change, which our fall season produces, they can have no conception of, and we would not trade our season with them if we could. Man loves variety. Universal green one tires of, but our recurring seasons always awaken in us a zest, and we love them in their turn.
Indian summer is soon upon us, with its delicious dreamy haze, when life out-of-doors is appreciated to its fullest extent. You can never quite make up your mind, when this season is with us, whether it be too warm or too cold. Physical existence becomes a perfect luxury, and a feeling of sensuousness gradually steals over one. During all the travels I have made to other lands, in different climates, I have yet to find the equal of our Indian summer. Gradually the frost of the nights gets more intense and the leaves fall, and are blown in windrows by the winds. Trees overhanging streams completely cover the still pools with their leaves; the bark of the birch, by way of contrast, is whiter if possible than before, and the few remaining leaves upon the almost nude branches have not yet lost their gay colors. Now let the mid-day sun shine upon valley and grotto, and glimmer and dance upon the thin film of last night’s ice, and you have a picture that even the most obtuse cannot fail to love at sight.
Day by day nature becomes stiller. The earthworm has gone deeper into the soil, the birds have left us for the south, and only the shrill pipe of the blue jay remains of the birds’ summer campaign. Solitary crows, indeed, are almost ever ubiquitous, and their parting caw! caw! will soon announce the order of their going. The fox has prepared his hole by the side of some upturned tree, and the chipmunk has laid away his store of beechnuts for a winter supply. Nature is preparing for winter. This is the interregnum, as it were, and it is neither autumn nor winter. The farmer daily follows his plough, if the previous night’s frost has not been too severe. If it has, he must need wait until nine or ten o’clock, to let the previous night’s freeze soften in the sun’s rays. About the middle of December he has to lay his plough aside, for at last, after repeated warnings, gentle enough at first, the frost is really upon him.
CHAPTER XIII.
Some natural history notes—Our feathered pets—“The poor Canada bird”—The Canadian mocking-bird—The black squirrel—The red squirrel—The katydid and cricket—A rural graveyard—The whip-poor-will—The golden plover—The large Canada owl—The crows’ congress—The heron—The water-hen.
If one would see our feathered pets in all their abundant numbers and luxuriant beauty nowadays in Ontario, he must get away from the towns and villages and centres of dense population. At various times I have explored portions of our province that lie far back from the Great Lakes and the more densely populated areas, and have then enjoyed some good opportunities of observing our summer visitants. The “poor Canada bird,” as the song-sparrow is locally called, is one that we cannot but value, seeing that his notes really lengthen and become more charming as the season advances and the weather becomes more boisterous. Even when the nights have become quite chilly, though the days are warm and sunshiny, one gets his varied song-notes if he will only listen. Especially will the song-sparrow pipe up of an evening, just as the sun is setting, and all nature is about to be hushed to rest. He leaves us with the light, after giving us a pleasant chant from his brown throat. The triplet of notes that he gives us, and which we interpret as “Can-a-da, Can-a-da,” is in some localities interpreted as “Van-i-ty, Van-i-ty,” and of course any suitable word of three syllables may be associated with the well-known song of this small bird.
As for the common sparrow, so prevalent in our towns and cities, there is no doubt he has robbed us of a large part of the pleasures of our summer life, for where he is the song-bird is not. The change has so gradually stolen over us that we do not realize that we have lost our most charming birds through the advent of the pugnacious sparrow. Go once away from where he is and the change is so very apparent that one cannot fail to notice it. In the forests away from sparrows there are at least ten times as many birds, and it is plainly the duty of every one, especially of lovers of nature, to aid in exterminating the sparrow in every way possible.
The Canadian mocking-bird is, of course, a catbird, and although he cannot, perhaps, copy as many notes or voices as his American brother can, yet he’s our mocking-bird, and a charmer as well. He is about done with us for this season (fall), and his imitations are not now heard as frequently as they were, but yet he is with us and one can hear him occasionally. Stand near a thicket, a copse, or a “spinney,” as, perhaps, they would say in England, and let there be some water near, and you’ll get the calls from him. Sometimes he is pleasant, and in turn descends to the disagreeable, coming back again to the pleasant and enchanting, and so one may listen by the hour, and every few minutes get something entirely new from him.
The Canadian black squirrel, so exceedingly plentiful when most of us were boys, just able to be the proud possessor of a poor gun, is now nearly extinct in Ontario. Speaking of gunning in our boyhood days reminds me of the off Saturdays from school, when every other Saturday was a holiday, and of the day’s trudge with the old gun for the alert black squirrel, safely ensconced among the tallest tree-tops during the sunny hours of the short fall days. And one had to get up a little, too, at marksmanship, for he was ever on the move, and you seldom got a good shot at him while quietly at ease. The boy’s heart that would not thrill at a day’s black squirrel shooting must indeed be more obdurate than most Ontario boys’ hearts are, as one followed him, always looking up, as he jumped from tree to tree, almost falling to the ground when he made some exceedingly long jumps, but quite recovering himself and never by any possibility falling. Most exceedingly do I regret the gradual extinction of this squirrel—the real squirrel of Canada—and, besides, he’s such an intelligent fellow and so easily tamed and becomes such a pet. The days were when, in his tin revolving cage, he was one of the means of diversion at many a household; and for a stew he had no superior, feeding as he always did upon the choicest nuts to be found in the forests, and he was so scrupulously clean in his habits.