One Took to the Woods
Our objective point was a small lake nestled somewhere in the direction we were going, among the pine, birch, and spruce, but on the way we missed the location and got lost in the undertaking. My guide climbed a tree in order to get a peep of the lake, but without success. While wandering about we heard from afar the doleful “who, who, hum, hee” of the loon. We had considerable difficulty determining the direction of the sound, but finally made a bee-line for the lake. No sooner had we put in an appearance than from a small grassy island in the middle of the lake a dozen or more herring gulls (Larus argentatus smithsonianus) rose into the air, uttering their distressed, plaintive cries as they soared round and round. After getting a cup of tea and a bite to eat, we cut down four or five old tree stubs, bone dry from years and years of exposure to the elements. Lashing them together with redwood twisted into a “gad” and propelling the impromptu raft with a pole, we landed safely on the island. Our appearance startled from their island home three little birds, whose whitish down was covered with irregular dusky spots. In their excitement one took to the woods, and when requested to pose for its picture displayed all the resentment and fierceness charged to the American herring gulls. The others took to the water. I am almost sure this was their first experience in the water, and how the little flesh-covered palmated feet churned it in their desperate efforts to lend the enchantment of distance to the view of their unwelcome visitors. The colony had almost deserted its annual nesting-ground, but here and there a tardy mother bird had not completed incubation, and the little chicks were about due and calling to be released from their prison. At the point of the island, just at the water-line, we found a loon’s nest (Urinator imber). Its two big olive-brown eggs (size 3.50” × 2.25”), marked with dark brown spots, were lying on the bare, wet ground, with a few rootlets scattered here and there. The old pair floated gracefully on the surface of the water some three hundred yards in the distance, without uttering a sound. What a contrast between the gull and the loon in this respect,—the gulls soaring in the air above us with great excitement and noise, the loons quiet and apparently resting peacefully in the blue distance! The water in the lake was higher than usual. A family of beaver (Castor canadensis Kuhl) had dammed the entrance and had taken possession by building their home close at hand. Occasionally from the fortifications came across the lake a report almost as loud as a gun, the smack of the beaver’s flat tail on the water as he disappeared when alarmed by the intruders.
One of the Others
After taking several photographs we boarded our raft, crossed over to mainland, and returned homeward in the dead stillness of the evening. Softly we make our way through the forest, our feet sinking deep into the moss, turning over with our toes the evergreen oval-shaped leaves of the trailing arbutus (Epigæa repens), exposing to the light of day the beautiful delicate flower that loves sylvan seclusion. Again and again I plucked a cluster which filled the air with a fragrant perfume that mingled with the odor of the pine; then I thought of the lines,
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
Trailing Arbutus