Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

“Look,” he said. “Oh, by cosh, look! Dat cheeky hotter come in here las’ winter, an’ eat-um fish in beaver’s house, right under hees nose.”

And that, if one were guessing at animal motives, may suggest a reason why one beaver, at least, will have a grudge to settle when he meets a certain otter in the open. As Simmo says, “By cosh, now, no wonder he mad w’en he meet-um!”

A NIGHT BEWITCHED

SILENCE is the rule of the woods at night, of all woods and all proper nights, I think; but like other rules it has startling exceptions. Hidden in the voluminous records of Alexander von Humboldt is a picture of night in a tropical forest which stays in the memory like a bad dream. As I recall the matter, after many years, the scientist was awakened by a horrible uproar,—squeals, grunts of terror, a rumbling snarl which broke into the roar of a charging beast. Then came a violent crashing, as tapirs dashed away with a jaguar at their heels, and instantly the forest became pandemonium. Parrots screeched, monkeys gibbered and barked, a multitude of unnamed birds or beasts added each his scream or howl to the jungle chorus of fear.

To read of such nocturnal alarm was, for a certain small boy, at least, to dream and shiver over it afterward, as one dreamed in a cold sweat of Hugo’s man, in Toilers of the Sea, who went down to a gloomy wreck in which lurked a devilfish, and “just then he felt himself seized by one foot.” I did not know, and no truthful person thought to tell me, that the alleged savage jungle is in reality quite peaceful; that its killing is more strictly limited by the need of food than that of a modern packing house, or that women and children go nightly to sleep amid its fancied horrors with a greater sense of security than we enjoy behind bolted doors.

Humboldt’s description is undoubtedly true of some one night, or part of a night; but it gives a wrong impression that such a night is typical of the South American or any other forest. It errs also, and grievously, in the assumption that nocturnal cries are indicative of terror; for terror is an emotion which we carry with us into strange woods at night, and which we are apt to read into any sound we hear, even when the sound voices only anger or warning or animal excitement. Of the tropics I have no personal experience; but I have questioned men who have spent time enough in the jungle to become familiar with it, and they agree that in the early part of the night the forest often resounds to a thrilling outcry; and that this outcry, if one be not himself frightened by it, has a defiant or exultant ring, as when dogs voice challenge or applause at another dog’s barking. Then, as birds settle to sleep and beasts take up their roaming, the jungle becomes profoundly still, and remains so till the dawn, when full-fed brutes begin to grunt or bark as they seek their coverts, and birds call jubilantly from tree to tree as they welcome a new day.

That is certainly true of our northern forests, where a few wild creatures lift their voices, joyously, it seems to me, in the evening twilight, but where “the dead vast and middle of the night” passes in a silence that is almost painful to human ears. Yet even the silent North will sometimes be disturbed, and echoes that have long slept will rouse up to answer a wild calling from lake or ridge or lonely beaver meadow. Once in a while comes a night (in early autumn, as a rule, and at a time of full moon) when birds and beasts are strangely restless, when you meet them in unexpected places or hear them calling everywhere. No explanation of the phenomenon occurs to me, though I have observed it repeatedly, and have noticed that owls cry warning of it before sundown.

Owls have several distinct calls, by the way, and of all forest sounds their voices are perhaps the hardest to interpret. A week or a month may pass over your camp while the owls hold a league of silence, not a sound being heard from them by night or day. Then comes a subtle change in the air, a weather change it may be, and suddenly there are hootings, groanings, maniacal yellings in every direction. The uncanny creatures have their rumpus to themselves, one answering another, while other wood folk go their quiet ways through the dusk without a sign that they are touched by the disturbance. But at last comes an evening when something creeps into the owl’s voice that was not there before; no sooner does he begin to hoot than every bird or beast that hears must lift his head to cry answer. At such times even the taciturn bears will break their long silence, and go whooping through the woods in obedience to some weird impulse which the owl was first to feel.

Thus it befell on one occasion, when the owls of a countryside were calling, that a black bear suddenly began to whoop in the woods over against my tenting place; and the curious thing was that he was immediately answered by others, their wild cries sounding with clocklike regularity at about three-minute intervals. Till then I had not seen or heard a bear, though I had searched for them in places where their signs were plentiful; but that is precisely what one should expect, since Mooween is careful to keep out of your way, and is one of the least talkative creatures in the wilderness. When you stumble upon him at an unguarded moment he is apt to loose an explosive ough-woof! as he jumps for cover; or when you frighten a mother bear away from her cubs you may hear her circling at a distance, uttering a sharp wheeee-oo! again and again; but with these natural exceptions Mooween speaks so seldom that many woodsmen have never heard him. Others confuse his rare call with that of the barred owl, a bird that has half a dozen different cries besides his familiar Who-cooks-for-you? Who-cooks-for-you?