The common red squirrel is still very common, as he chatters away, half way up some forest tree, perched upon a limb. He’s a very valiant fellow, indeed, as he saucily chit-chats, with a guttural noise; but drive him up the tree once, and keep him there you can’t. His first care will be to get down to the ground again and scamper away; and get down he will, unless one be specially alert and active. He will rest upon the tree trunk, head downwards, with his great eyes watching your every motion, and should the least chance present itself for escape he’s down along the opposite side of the trunk of the tree where one is standing, if it be a considerable one, and is away in a twinkling.
Birds gather in flocks at about this time of the year, affording to us who watch a sure admonition that summer is nearly past, and fall close upon us. I saw the first flock of blackbirds on the 4th of September, and my recollection is, from past seasons, that many others are quickly seen after the first flock of any kind of birds is about.
Another sure sign that fall approaches is evidenced by the call of the cricket and other kindred insect life in our midst as the sun sinks behind the heavens. The noises of the evenings just now are particularly observable, and almost rival—or perhaps, if not rival, measurably approach—the choruses of Nature during a tropical night. Those of us who recall our first impression of our stay in the tropics can, at this season in Ontario, get quite a simile at home, and it’s charming too; and our air is so delightful that mere physical existence becomes dreamy and a positive luxury.
The katydid is now at his best, and delivers himself of his “crackling sing” as he descends on the wing, bat-like, among the tree branches, to the ground. Our katydid is never heard during the early part of the summer, and just now, since he is our guest for a short time, it would richly repay our boys to catch him and examine him at leisure. One cannot help admiring him, for he’s a fine fellow; but the great trouble with him is that he’s so plainly a member of the locust family that we fear his congeners might come and devour our beautiful Ontario for us. We are assured, however, by those naturalists supposed to be able to know, that there can possibly be no danger of a locust pest in our humid, cool, Ontario climate, and so we bless our stars that our lines have fallen in such pleasant places. Ontario to-day, the golden grain-burdened, with its hill and dale and copses interspersed, is beautiful beyond compare.
Walk out any one of the fine evenings in July, grandest of all months, just when the sun is leaving us, far away in the north-west, amidst an amber sky, with not a vestige of cloud above, and just as he finally dips, the strong probability is that you will be startled at first, and then delighted, with the quick cry of the “whip-poor-will.”
Stand in your tracks and back again and again will come to you in quick succession for eight or ten times the distinct words, “whip-poor-will,” and then as quickly the cry will cease.
Right away from an exactly opposite side of the landscape, from about a coppice of thick bushes, with some large trees growing in it and protruding far above them, will come the answer to the challenge, “whip-poor-will,” and so the words will be bandied back and forth until the shades of night have fallen in real earnest, giving you, perhaps, the most enjoyable and natural concert one can be treated to in our own country.
As to the bird itself, it is very seldom seen, its color being so nearly like that of brown leaves, or the ordinary color of the carpeted bases of trees in the forest, that he is scarcely distinguishable. Once in a while you will come on him, however, in your rambles, when he spreads his brown wings, of a foot’s distension at least, and alights a few rods on, as before, upon some fallen tree trunk, or as likely as not upon the ground. He stays with us as long as our summer really lasts, and of all the birds that sing, his call is the clearest and most distinctive. The “whip-poor-will” has been celebrated by one of the best of our Canadian poets, Charles Sangster. He says:
“Last night I heard the plaintive whip-poor-will,
And straightway sorrow shot his swiftest dart;
I know not why, but it has chilled my heart
Like some dread thing of evil. All night long
My nerves were shaken, and my pulse stood still
And waited for a terror yet to come,
To strike harsh discords through my life’s sweet song.
Sleep came—an incubus that filled the sum
Of wretchedness with dreams so wild and chill
The sweat oozed out from me like drops of gall;
An evil spirit kept my mind in thrall,
And rolled my body up like a poor scroll,
On which is written curses that the soul
Shrinks back from when it sees some hellish carnival.”
To us who are not so sensitive the mournful cry of the nightly whip-poor-will is not so depressing, but I am sure we are all glad to get this gleaning of a poet’s feelings when he hears the uncanny bird.