Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

That owlish hoot expresses the prevalent theory of wild life, I know; but forget all such borrowed notions here in the budding woods, and open your eyes to behold life as it is. “Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, or the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee” that animal life is from beginning to end a gladsome comedy. The “tragedy” is a romantic invention of our story-writers; the “struggle for existence” is a bookish theory passed from lip to lip without a moment’s thought or observation to justify it. I would call it mythical were it not that myths commonly have some hint of truth or gleam of beauty in them; but this struggle notion is the crude, unlovely superstition of one who used neither his eyes nor his imagination. To quote Darwin as an authority is to deceive yourself; for he borrowed the notion of natural struggle from the economist Malthus, who invented it not as a theory of nature (of which he knew nothing), but to explain from his easy-chair the vice and misery of massed humanity. Moreover, Darwin used the “struggle for existence” as a crude figure of speech; but later writers accept it as a literal gospel, or rather bodespel, without once putting it to the test of out-door observation.[1]

A moment’s reflection here may suggest two things: first, that from lowly protozoans, which always unite in colonies, to the mighty elephant that finds comfort and safety in a herd of his fellows, coöperation of kind with kind is the universal law of nature; second, that the evolutionary processes, to which the violent name of struggle is thoughtlessly applied, are all so leisurely that centuries must pass before the change is noticeable, and so effortless that subject creatures are not even aware they are being changed. Meanwhile individual birds and beasts go their alert ways, finding pleasure in the exercise of every natural faculty. Singing or feeding, playing or resting, courting their mates or roving freely with their little ones, all wild creatures have every appearance of gladness, but give you never a sign that they are under a terrible law of strife or competition. And why? Because there is absolutely no such thing as a struggle for existence in nature. There is no evidence of struggle, no reason for struggle, no impression of the spirit of struggle, when you look on the natural world with frank unprejudiced eyes.

As for the coming winter, let not theory be as a veil over your sight to obscure the facts or to blur your impressions. One who camps in these big woods when they are white with snow finds them quite as cheery as the woods of spring or summer. Most of the birds that now fill the solitude with rejoicing will then be far away, pursuing the happy adventure under other skies; but the friendliest of them all, the tiny chickadee, will bide contentedly in his cold domain, and greet the sunrise with a note in which you detect no lack of cheerfulness. A few of the animals will then be snug in their dens, with the bear and chipmunk; others will show the same spirit of play—a little subdued, but still brave and confident—which moves them now as they go seeking their mates to the sound of running brooks and the fragrance of swelling buds. Keeonekh the otter will spend a large part of his time happily sliding downhill. Pequam the fisher will save his short legs much travel by putting his nose into every fox track till he finds one which tells him that Eleemos has been digging at a frozen carcass, and has the smell of it on his feet; then he will cunningly back-trail that fellow, knowing that food is somewhere ahead of him. Tookhees the wood mouse will be building his assembly rooms deep under the snow, and Meeko the red squirrel (mischief-maker the Indians call him) will still be making tragi-comedy of every passing event, berating the jays that spy upon him when he hides food, chasing the woodpeckers that hammer on his hollow tree, and scolding every big beast that pays no attention to him.

To sum up this prelude of the sunrise: whether you enter the solitude in the expectant spring or the restful winter, “nothing is here to wail or knock the breast.” The wood folk are invincibly cheerful, and need no pity for their alleged tragic fate. If I dared voice their unconscious philosophy, I might say that the lines are fallen unto them in pleasant places, and that, if ever they grow discontented with the place, they quickly change it for a better or for hope of a better. The world is wide and all theirs, and through it they go like perpetual Canterbury pilgrims.

THE BIRDS’ TABLE

THE impression of comedy among natural birds and beasts first came to me in childhood, a time when eyes are frankly open to behold the natural world as God made it. Long before it became the excellent fashion to feed our winter birds, I used to prepare a table under the grapevines and spread it with crumbs, raisins, cracked nuts, everything a child could think of that feathered folk might like. Scores of wild birds came daily to my table in bitter weather. Squirrels frisked over it, and were sometimes hungry enough to eat before they began to hide things away, as squirrels commonly do when they find unexpected abundance. Several times a family of Bob Whites, graceful and light footed, came swiftly over the wall, gurgling exquisite low calls as they sensed the feast; and once a beautiful cock partridge appeared from nowhere, gliding, turning, balancing like a dancing master, and hopped upon the table and ate all the raisins as his first morsel.

Unless a door were noisily opened or a sneaky cat crept into the scene, none of these dainty creatures gave me any impression of fearfulness, and such a notion as pity for their tragic existence could hardly enter one’s head; certainly not so long as one kept his eyes open. Though always finely alert, they seemed a contented folk, gay even in midwinter, and they quickly accepted the child who watched with eager eyes from the window or sat motionless out-of-doors within a few feet of their dining table. When their hunger was satisfied many would stay a little time, basking in the sunshine on the grapevines or the pear tree, as if they liked to be near the house. Some of them sang, and their note was low and sweet, very different from their springtime jubilation. A few uttered what seemed to be a food call, since it brought more of the same feather hurrying in; now and then it appeared that birds which are perforce solitary in winter (because of the necessity of seeking food over wide areas) were glad to be once more with their own kind. Among these were certain small groups, noticeable because they chattered together after the feast, and I wondered if they were not a mother bird and her reunited nestlings. I think they were, for I have since learned that family ties hold longer among the birds than we have been led to imagine.

One of the first things I noticed in the conduct of my little guests was that they were never quarrelsome so long as they were downright hungry. Indeed, unlike our imported house sparrow, very few of them showed a pugnacious disposition at any time; but now and then appeared a thrifty or grasping fellow who, after satisfying his hunger, would get a notion into his head that the food was all his if he could claim or corner it; and he was apt to be a trouble-maker. This early observation is one which I have since confirmed many times, both at home and in the snows of the North: the hunger which is supposed to make wild creatures ferocious invariably softens and tames them.