Woodland Paths

by Winthrop Packard

IT is fortunate that the angleworm is born without a voice, else throughout the length and breadth of the land were now resounding a chorus of doleful shrieks, for great is the dismemberment of angleworms about this time. The same warmth of imminent summer which made the grass jump six inches in length over night, has brought him forth in great numbers, over night also, for the angleworm is a lover of darkness.

I know Darwin thought earthworm a more proper designation of him, but it is to be believed that Darwin was not a fisherman. Had he been he would have known that the chief end of worm is to become bait. There may be nicer things to have than these somewhat attenuated hermits of the mold, but if there are the fishes do not know it, and there are few anglers but on May fifteenth would give their weight in gold for them if such was the price. It is fortunate, therefore, that angleworms are inhabitants of the earth, so to speak, and not of any one neighborhood. It is, no doubt, possible to catch fish with other bait. There are grasshoppers, to be sure, though not at this time of year. There are various artificial flies and lures, spoon hooks and other wastrel inventions. Of these little is to be said; indeed, some of them are unspeakable.

On fortunate springs April showers linger into May, finally hastening northward lest summer catch them here and make a wet June of it. The seductive warmth of summer is in them now, and as they go spilling by of perfumed nights they work all kinds of wonder. Things that were beginning to grow up suddenly blow up. My cherry tree has exploded over night. Two days ago the grass, we noted with delight, was really quite green. This morning it waves in the wind, and I am confident that by to-morrow, at this rate, it will be full of bobolinks and mowing machines. Yesterday you could see far through the woodland. To-day it is clouded with its own green leaves, and along aisles that begin to be shady the truant ovenbirds are shouting “Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher,” in warning to one another every time they hear a human footfall in the path.

The first dragon flies have come, and in woodland places lovely little brown butterflies skip about like mad. No wonder the Hesperidæ are commonly known as skippers. These that I saw to-day, most of them Thanaos brizo, the sleepy dusky-wing, defied any but the most alert eye to follow them as they dashed from invisibility on some dark fallen limb to vanishment on brown mud of the path. They seemed to skip in and out of existence at will. I call them brown, for you will see that they are that if you have a chance to see one sitting at rest. You may get near enough to see the beautiful blueish spots surrounded with dark rings on the fore wings, and the double row of yellow spots on the hind wings. For all that Thanaos brizo is as black as your hat to the eye when he is in flight. Perhaps that is why he vanishes so readily. You are looking for a black butterfly, and what you see is nothing but a brown bit of bark or leaf.

Darwin was convinced that the earthworm, as he called him, was of inestimable value to man, and he cites how he works over the mold and loosens it up, ploughing it, as it were, for future planters who should thus be able to enjoy the fruits of the earth, leveling it and working in various ways for the good of mankind. But Darwin never says a word of the inestimable value of earthworms as angleworms. Thus often do our greatest scientists fail to interpret things at their true value. Very likely Darwin never had an opportunity to bob for eels in a New England pond. If so he would have seen worms as they are, for no man can really know things till he has yearned for them.

In the winter time the angleworm goes down well below the reach of frost which will kill him. Indeed, he is sensitive to the cold, and comes to the surface only when the sun has warmed the earth so that it is comfortable. Under the May moon he comes, sometimes clear out of his hole, and wanders far in search of friends or new countries. Often of a moist early morning you may find big ones caught out on the concrete sidewalk or marooned in the dry dust of the road, remaining to be an easy prey for early birds.

But these are the adventurous or unfortunate few. The many have remained all night stretched far from the mouths of their burrows, indeed, but with tails still hooked into the door jamb, and able to make a rapid backward scramble into safety. It is this habit of the worm of warm summer evenings that the wise angler utilizes for his capture. The robin knows it too, and he spices his rapture of matin song with trips across the lawn, where, between staccato hops, he eyes the grass sidewise and catches late roisterers before they can get under cover. These he takes by the scruff of the neck, as one might say, hauls them, stretching and resisting, forth from their homes and swallows them.

Thus with the unrighteous, but even the upright, or rather the downright, who are that, snugly ensconced as they intended to be, he is apt to see and seize, for the robin’s eye is good and his bill is long enough. Angleworms, after the joys or labors of the night are over, withdraw into their holes, but often not very far. They like to lie with the head drawn back just out of sight, near enough to the surface to bask in the warmth of the sun.

Some line the outer ends of their burrows with leaves to keep them from the damp of the earth, thus further to enjoy themselves. Some, too, on retiring, draw leaves and sticks in, thus going into their holes and pulling the holes in after them, as the saying goes. Some merely pile small stones in a sort of an ant heap about the mouth. In the gravel walk these little mounds are often taken for those piled by the industrious ants. The robin gets many of these as he hops, and it is no wonder that his chestnut-red front looms as round as a pumpkin and almost as big.

There are many ways of getting angleworms and many ways of using them after you get them; but he who wants them in bulk will do well to imitate the robin,—only do it in the night instead of the day. Of course you may go out with a spade and assault likely spots in the garden. That is often satisfactory, though crude. It is likely to result in small numbers and not well assorted sizes.