In nesting time the red-wing is indeed a citizen of the lowland. His voice is as distinctive of the marsh as is the croak of the frog, and from a distance it is one of the first sounds to greet the ear. How beautiful is his clear whistle with its liquid break! Indeed one may say that he is the most conspicuous singer of the marshlands. His is not a sustained song, but the exuberant expression of a happy heart.
According to many writers the little marsh wren is without song. No song! As well say that the farmer boy’s whistling as he follows the plough, or the sailor’s song as he hoists the sail, is not music! All are the songs of the lowly, the melody of those glad to be alive and out in the free air.
When man goes into the marsh, the marsh retires within itself, as a turtle retreats within his shell. With the exception of a few blackbirds and marsh wrens, babbling away the nest secret, and an occasional frog’s croak, all the inhabitants have stealthily retired. The spotted turtle has slid from the decayed log as the boat pushed through the reeds. At our approach the heron has flown and the little Virginia rail has scuttled away among the reeds.
Remain perfectly quiet, however, and give the marsh time to regain its composure. One by one the tenants of the swamp will take up the trend of their business where it was interrupted.
All about, the frogs rest on the green carpet of the lily pads, basking in the sun. The little rail again runs among the reeds, searching for food in the form of small snails. The blackbirds and wrens, most domestic in character, go busily about their home business; the turtles again come up to their positions, and a muskrat swims across the channel. One hopes that the little colony of marsh wren homes on stilts above the water, like the ancient lake dwellers of Tenochtitlan, may have no enemies. But the habit of building dummy nests is suggestive that the wee birds are pitting their wits against the cunning of some enemy,—and suspicion rests upon the serpent.
As evening approaches and the shadows from the bordering wood point long fingers across the marsh, the blackbirds straggle back from their feeding-grounds and settle, clattering, among the reeds. Their clamour dies gradually away and night settles down upon the marsh.
All sounds have ceased save the booming of the frogs, which but emphasises the loneliness of it all. A distant whistle of a locomotive dispels the idea that all the world is wilderness. The firefly lamps glow along the margin of the rushes. The frogs are now in full chorus, the great bulls beating their tom-toms and the small fry filling in the chinks with shriller cries. How remote the scene and how melancholy the chorus!
To one mind there is a quality in the frogs’ serenade that strikes the chord of sadness, to another the chord of contentment, to still another it is the chant of the savage, just as the hoot of an owl or the bark of a fox brings vividly to mind the wilderness.
Out of the night comes softly the croon of a little screech owl—that cry almost as ancient as the hills. It belongs with the soil beneath our towns. It is the spirit of the past crying to us. So the dirge of the frog is the cry of the spirit of river and marshland.