The golden plover in July is nesting and watching along by the margin of our streams. By chance I happened at one time upon the nest of one situated about half-way under the end of an old log. The nest had been built without any preparation at all as to nest building. During the previous season grass had grown rank and tall about this old log, and the parent bird had simply trodden down the dry and sere grass, and formed an almost level space for the nest. There was but little attempt to hollow the nest even in a concave, as one would naturally suppose, to hold the eggs. Four little ploverets rewarded my gaze, and such ridiculous things they were, too. Scarcely any feathers yet, but just down, as it were, and great long legs, which appeared to be so far out of proportion to their wants that their appearance was absurd, indeed. They essayed to walk away, but it would seem that a plover must learn to balance himself, like a rope-walker. At this stage they grotesquely tipped forward mostly every time. They arose upon their feet, sometimes, but not so often, backwards.
The large Canada owl will be found hatching or sitting in July. This is the owl which is so very white during the winter months, but, like the rabbit, changes his coat during the summer, when he becomes somewhat gray or brown. Of all our birds of prey, the owl is perhaps the most predatory in his persistence in waylaying about a farmer’s poultry yard, and it is no trouble at all for him nor any tax upon his powers to carry off an ordinary hen. Recently I happened to walk along the bank of a stream partly wooded, and in the top of a cedar stump, about ten feet from the ground, I found this great bird’s nest. Three owlets were there, with their great staring eyes nearly as large as those of the parent bird’s, while their bodies were covered with down so thick and so long that it seemed almost like a coat of wool. Perhaps the best way to describe them would be to say they were just fuzzy. Around the sides of their nest, which was made of small sticks, were some small bones, apparently those of mice and rats, but not of fowls, so far as I could see. Even if the owl does destroy some fowls, I could not find it in my heart to hurt the fuzzy little owlets, and I let them remain, fully believing that their parent entirely squares the account by the great quantity of mice and rats which he is daily securing from our fields. Before leaving the owl’s nest I want to say that one day, just as winter set in, an immense number of crows—I should say 3,000 at least—were congregated about the tops of some pine trees not far from my residence—trees about forty feet high. Furiously and persistently did those crows caw, and fly, and hop about, producing such a din as to attract persons a mile away during a still day. The cawing kept up so long that I seized my breech-loader and resolved to investigate the cause of the crows’ congress, as such gatherings are usually called. Cautiously I approached the feathered multitude, wondering what could possibly be up, but no such caution was at all needed, for they heeded me not. Backwards and forwards the more adventurous ones apparently darted into the top of one particular pine, giving at the, same time a tremendous yell. Following with my eye their line of flight, I discovered an enormous white owl perched upon a limb, the object of attack of the more desperate of the whole 3,000 or so crows thus assembled. For many minutes I quietly witnessed this unequal contest, in my curiosity actually forgetting to fire, and found that the old owl was a match, as he sat upon the limb, for them all. Sometimes the crows will gather just the same in congress about a black squirrel, in the top of some high forest tree, but I have yet to learn that they ever succeed in inflicting any punishment upon either owl or squirrel.
The blue heron nests and hatches with us, although many persons think that he goes far away from the haunts of man for the purpose of nesting. I do not know if he be really the blue heron of the naturalist, but he is a heron to all intents and purposes, and his color is mainly correctly described in his name. He is crested, too, and is withal a most magnificent bird. Not infrequently he stands five feet high, and the spread of his wings is six or seven feet. Any one who will quietly watch beside any of our marshes can easily, this time of the year, find his nest, as he alights unerringly in the same spot. His nest is only the marsh grass pressed down beside some hillock in the bogs, where it is dry. As yet I do not know for a certainty how many young the hen bird produces at a sitting, but I have never seen any more than two in any nest. Speaking of the plover with his long legs being awkward and absurd reminds me to say that perhaps the young heron is the most ridiculous of all birds which frequent our province. His legs are so very abnormally long that they seem almost a malformation, but when one comes to consider the use he makes of them afterwards, as he wades for food, one can see that he is properly formed. But at the same time he is the most absurd, awkward, homely and ill-looking, when young, of all the feathered tribe incubating in Ontario. You must pardon me, reader, for daring to presume to differ from great naturalists when they tell us that he never alights upon trees, for I have seen him alight. Not very far from my residence stands a very large towering water elm. So tall, indeed, is this elm that at night it far overshadows all other trees of the forests about, and among the branches of this elm, being an obstruction, as it would appear, is the herons’ line of flight. I have myself frequently seen them alight, and have tried to get a shot at them when upon the perch. So far as my observation goes, however, they do not long remain upon the perch.
Since the law now protects ducks from being food for the guns of boys, they now, generally on Saturdays and holidays, walk in groups, guns in hand, along our streams and marshes, always ready to take a pot shot at anything. The water-hen—generally called hell-diver—gets most of the shots which the boys can spare. This fowl can generally accommodate the boys to all the fun they want, in the shooting line, and with but little danger to itself. Its anatomical form is so peculiar and its sense of sight and hearing so acute that it can, nine times out of ten, dodge the shots from the boys’ guns from the time of explosion of the charge to the driving of it home. Outwardly it is formed very much like the duck, and is about the size of our ordinary wood duck. Its feet, however, are placed far back in its body, like the great auk. From this fact it is a most expert swimmer, and is also enabled to dive as quickly as powder and shot explode. It is not at all uncommon for this fowl to dive to avoid the shot from a gun and swim under water, wholly out of sight, ten rods from the place where it went down.
In reality it is a species of duck, but since it feeds mostly upon small fishes, its flesh is rank, oily, and not palatable for the table. When August comes around it is no uncommon sight to see the mother water-hen swimming around followed by her brood of six to ten young water-hens about as big as cricket-balls. Wonderfully tame, too, they get when they are not daily molested, and one can spend a very pleasant half hour or so in watching the brood as they float along with the mother, every few minutes diving for food.
CHAPTER XIV.
Lake Ontario—Weather observations with regard to it—Area and depth—No underground passage for its waters—Daily horizon of the author—A sunrise described—Telegraph poles an eye-sore—The pleasing exceeds the ugly.
Realizing the fact that the greater part of beautiful Lake Ontario belongs to us, and, likewise, that the most densely populated portion of our province is about its borders, a few facts and observations will, I think, be acceptable to most Canadians. My remarks are founded mainly upon my own observations, from a lifetime residence upon its shores, and also in a measure from Dr. Smith’s report to the United States Government on the fisheries on the lake. First, the lake is a perfect barometer, in this wise: It will foretell the weather to come to us for twenty-four to forty-eight hours in advance, to all who will closely observe it. For instance, suppose we have our coldest winter days, when everything about is held in the tight embrace of Jack Frost, and there is no sign of milder weather, or any relief from the intense cold. Look abroad upon the lake just as the sun is setting, and a light yellow band hangs above the surface of the water. Then in a few hours Jack Frost leaves us, and a thaw is at hand. Or, perchance, during the winter days, when we wish for sleighing, and yet the ground is bare, and it will not come; no sign of snow, nor the feeling of it (as you well know, one can feel it before it really comes). But before that time look abroad upon the surface of the lake, and see a black band extending as far as the eye can reach. Now it is only a few hours, ordinarily about eighteen, before the feeling of snow comes, and then down comes the “fleecy cloud.” It is summer now, and we would know if it will be windy to-morrow. Are there red rays and yellow skies at sunrise? Yes. It will be windy on the morrow. But when the cumulous clouds move easily, and as if not driven above the waters, fine weather old Ontario now gives us—and he always tells the truth. Not to use many words, in the glorious midsummer days, when his surface is just like molten glass, and objects in a depth of sixty feet are clear and distinct, its entrancing beauty comes. Molten glass; but watch, and a mile away you see a streak of ruffled water coming towards you, for just there a puff of wind has caught it. But it dies away and leaves the polished mirror once more to me. Then he rises in his might and tosses our ships about just like old ocean, and sends his spray far upon the shore, and his huge-capped waves advance and recede.
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.”
But it never freezes so hard close by the shores as away from its breath. Curious, also, to relate, in the fall it does not “freeze up,” as we say in Canada, as soon as away from it, by two weeks usually. In the spring, again, the frost is gone from the soil quite two weeks before it is gone back from its influence, so I feel safe in asserting that winters upon its shores are one month shorter than they are away from its meteorological influences. And yet leaves do not appear quite close to its waters just as soon as they do a few miles away, anomalous as it may seem, for it does not get warm so quickly as localities more remote. It is never so warm in the summer about it, as it is never so cold in the winter. Dwellers upon its shores rarely, if ever, suffer from extreme heat during the periodical torrid waves which sometimes visit this land. Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes—being about 185 miles long, and of an average width of 40 miles, being widest opposite Irondequoit Bay, where it is 55 miles in width. It is some 6,500 square miles in area, of which Ontario owns 3,800. It is 232 feet above the sea, and usually fluctuates but little in height, though in 1891 it was three feet lower than ever before observed. Persons living at Niagara, it is said, remarked on the unusually small amount of water that year passing over Niagara Falls. I am unable in any way to account for that small flow. We are told it is because the tributary streams and the waters of the Falls were less. Granted, but why they were less is far to seek. In most parts the depth of Lake Ontario is about 350 feet, but off