If you ask the boy there who tells you the law, "Why not a chickadee as well as a sparrow?" he shakes his head as of yore, and answers dogmatically: "'Cause you mustn't."

* * * * *

CHICKADEE'S SECRET.

If you meet Chickadee in May with a bit of rabbit fur in his mouth, or if he seem preoccupied or absorbed, you may know that he is building a nest, or has a wife and children near by to take care of. If you know him well, you may even feel hurt that the little friend, who shared your camp and fed from your dish last winter, should this spring seem just as frank, yet never invite you to his camp, or should even lead you away from it. But the soft little nest in the old knot-hole is the one secret of Chickadee's life; and the little deceptions by which he tries to keep it are at times so childlike, so transparent, that they are even more interesting than his frankness.

One afternoon in May I was hunting, without a gun, about an old deserted farm among the hills—one of those sunny places that the birds love, because some sense of the human beings who once lived there still clings about the half wild fields and gives protection. The day was bright and warm. The birds were everywhere, flashing out of the pine thickets into the birches in all the joyfulness of nest-building, and filling the air with life and melody. It is poor hunting to move about at such a time. Either the hunter or his game must be still. Here the birds were moving constantly; one might see more of them and their ways by just keeping quiet and invisible.

I sat down on the outer edge of a pine thicket, and became as much as possible a part of the old stump which was my seat. Just in front an old four-rail fence wandered across the deserted pasture, struggling against the blackberry vines, which grew profusely about it and seemed to be tugging at the lower rail to pull the old fence down to ruin. On either side it disappeared into thickets of birch and oak and pitch pine, planted, as were the blackberry vines, by birds that stopped to rest a moment on the old fence or to satisfy their curiosity. Stout young trees had crowded it aside and broken it. Here and there a leaning post was overgrown with woodbine. The rails were gray and moss-grown. Nature was trying hard to make it a bit of the landscape; it could not much longer retain its individuality. The wild things of the woods had long accepted it as theirs, though not quite as they accepted the vines and trees.

As I sat there a robin hurled himself upon it from the top of a young cedar where he had been, a moment before, practising his mating song. He did not intend to light, but some idle curiosity, like my own, made him pause a moment on the old gray rail. Then a woodpecker lit on the side of a post, and sounded it softly. But he was too near the ground, too near his enemies to make a noise; so he flew to a higher perch and beat a tattoo that made the woods ring. He was safe there, and could make as much noise as he pleased. A wood-mouse stirred the vines and appeared for an instant on the lower rail, then disappeared as if very much frightened at having shown himself in the sunlight. He always does just so at his first appearance.

Presently a red squirrel rushes out of the thicket at the left, scurries along the rails and up and down the posts. He goes like a little red whirlwind, though he has nothing whatever to hurry about. Just opposite my stump he stops his rush with marvelous suddenness; chatters, barks, scolds, tries to make me move; then goes on and out of sight at the same breakneck rush. A jay stops a moment in a young hickory above the fence to whistle his curiosity, just as if he had not seen it fifty times before. A curiosity to him never grows old. He does not scream now; it is his nesting time.—And so on through the afternoon. The old fence is becoming a part of the woods; and every wild thing that passes by stops to get acquainted.

I was weaving an idle history of the old fence, when a chickadee twittered in the pine behind me. As I turned, he flew over me and lit on the fence in front. He had something in his beak; so I watched to find his nest; for I wanted very much to see him at work. Chickadee had never seemed afraid of me, and I thought he would trust me now. But he didn't. He would not go near his nest. Instead he began hopping about the old rail, and pretended to be very busy hunting for insects.

Presently his mate appeared, and with a sharp note he called her down beside him. Then both birds hopped and twittered about the rail, with apparently never a care in the world. The male especially seemed just in the mood for a frolic. He ran up and down the mossy rail; he whirled about it till he looked like a little gray pinwheel; he hung head down by his toes, dropped, and turned like a cat, so as to light on his feet on the rail below. While watching his performance, I hardly noticed that his mate had gone till she reappeared suddenly on the rail beside him. Then he disappeared, while she kept up the performance on the rail, with more of a twitter, perhaps, and less of gymnastics. In a few moments both birds were together again and flew into the pines out of sight.



I had almost forgotten them in watching other birds, when they reappeared on the rail, ten or fifteen minutes later, and went through a very similar performance. This was unusual, certainly; and I sat very quiet, very much interested, though a bit puzzled, and a bit disappointed that they had not gone to their nest. They had some material in their beaks both times when they appeared on the rail, and were now probably off hunting for more—for rabbit fur, perhaps, in the old orchard. But what had they done with it? "Perhaps," I thought, "they dropped it to deceive me." Chickadee does that sometimes. "But why did one bird stay on the rail? Perhaps"—Well, I would look and see.

I left my stump as the idea struck me, and began to examine the posts of the old fence very carefully. Chickadee's nest was there somewhere. In the second post on the left I found it, a tiny knot-hole, which Chickadee had hollowed out deep and lined with rabbit fur. It was well hidden by the vines that almost covered the old post, and gray moss grew all about the entrance. A prettier nest I never found.

I went back to my stump and sat down where I could just see the dark little hole that led to the nest. No other birds interested me now till the chickadees came back. They were soon there, hopping about on the rail as before, with just a wee note of surprise in their soft twitter that I had changed my position. This time I was not to be deceived by a gymnastic performance, however interesting. I kept my eyes fastened on the nest. The male was undoubtedly going through with his most difficult feats, and doing his best to engage my attention, when I saw his mate glide suddenly from behind the post and disappear into her doorway. I could hardly be sure it was a bird. It seemed rather as if the wind had stirred a little bundle of gray moss. Had she moved slowly I might not have seen her, so closely did her soft gray cloak blend with the weather-beaten wood and the moss.

In a few moments she reappeared, waited a moment with her tiny head just peeking out of the knot-hole, flashed round the post out of sight, and when I saw her again it was as she reappeared suddenly beside the male.

Then I watched him. While his mate whisked about the top rail he dropped to the middle one, hopped gradually to one side, then dropped suddenly to the lowest one, half hidden by vines, and disappeared. I turned my eyes to the nest. In a moment there he was—just a little gray flash, appearing for an instant from behind the post, only to disappear into the dark entrance. When he came out again I had but a glimpse of him till he appeared on the rail near me beside his mate.

Their little ruse was now quite evident. They had come back from gathering rabbit fur, and found me unexpectedly near their nest. Instead of making a fuss and betraying it, as other birds might do, they lit on the rail before me, and were as sociable as only chickadees know how to be. While one entertained me, and kept my attention, the other dropped to the bottom rail and stole along behind it; then up behind the post that held their nest, and back the same way, after leaving his material. Then he held my attention while his mate did the same thing.

Simple as their little device was, it deceived me at first, and would have deceived me permanently had I not known something of chickadees' ways, and found the nest while they were away. Game birds have the trick of decoying one away from their nest. I am not sure that all birds do not have more or less of the same instinct; but certainly none ever before or since used it so well with me as Ch'geegee.

For two hours or more I sat there beside the pine thicket, while the chickadees came and went. Sometimes they approached the nest from the other side, and I did not see them, or perhaps got only a glimpse as they glided into their doorway. Whenever they approached from my side, they always stopped on the rail before me and went through with their little entertainment. Gradually they grew more confident, and were less careful to conceal their movements than at first. Sometimes only one came, and after a short performance disappeared. Perhaps they thought me harmless, or that they had deceived me so well at first that I did not even suspect them of nest-building. Anyway, I never pretended I knew.

As the afternoon wore away, and the sun dropped into the pine tops, the chickadees grew hungry, and left their work until the morrow. They were calling among the young birch buds as I left them, busy and sociable together, hunting their supper.



XI. A FELLOW OF EXPEDIENTS.



Among the birds there is one whose personal appearance is rapidly changing. He illustrates in his present life a process well known historically to all naturalists, viz., the modification of form resulting from changed environment. I refer to the golden-winged woodpecker, perhaps the most beautifully marked bird of the North, whose names are as varied as his habits and accomplishments.

Nature intended him to get his living, as do the other woodpeckers, by boring into old trees and stumps for the insects that live on the decaying wood. For this purpose she gave him the straight, sharp, wedge-shaped bill, just calculated for cutting out chips; the very long horn-tipped tongue for thrusting into the holes he makes; the peculiar arrangement of toes, two forward and two back; and the stiff, spiny tail-feathers for supporting himself against the side of a tree as he works. But getting his living so means hard work, and he has discovered for himself a much easier way. One now frequently surprises him on the ground in old pastures and orchards, floundering about rather awkwardly (for his little feet were never intended for walking) after the crickets and grasshoppers that abound there. Still he finds the work of catching them much easier than boring into dry old trees, and the insects themselves much larger and more satisfactory.

A single glance will show how much this new way of living has changed him from the other woodpeckers. The bill is no longer straight, but has a decided curve, like the thrushes; and instead of the chisel-shaped edge there is a rounded point. The red tuft on the head, which marks all the woodpecker family, would be too conspicuous on the ground. In its place we find a red crescent well down on the neck, and partially hidden by the short gray feathers about it. The point of the tongue is less horny, and from the stiff points of the tail-feathers lamina are beginning to grow, making them more like other birds'. A future generation will undoubtedly wonder where this peculiar kind of thrush got his unusual tongue and tail, just as we wonder at the deformed little feet and strange ways of a cuckoo.

The habits of this bird are a curious compound of his old life in the woods and his new preference for the open fields and farms. Sometimes the nest is in the very heart of the woods, where the bird glides in and out, silent as a crow in nesting time. His feeding place meanwhile may be an old pasture half a mile away, where he calls loudly, and frolics about as if he had never a care or a fear in the world. But the nest is now more frequently in a wild orchard, where the bird finds an old knot-hole and digs down through the soft wood, making a deep nest with very little trouble. When the knot-hole is not well situated, he finds a large decayed limb and drills through the outer hard shell, then digs down a foot or more through the soft wood, and makes a nest. In this nest the rain never troubles him, for he very providently drills the entrance on the under side of the limb.

Like many other birds, he has discovered that the farmer is his friend. Occasionally, therefore, he neglects to build a deep nest, simply hollowing out an old knot-hole, and depending on the presence of man for protection from hawks and owls. At such times the bird very soon learns to recognize those who belong in the orchard, and loses the extreme shyness that characterizes him at all other times.

Once a farmer, knowing my interest in birds, invited me to come and see a golden-winged woodpecker, which in her confidence had built so shallow a nest that she could be seen sitting on the eggs like a robin. She was so tame, he said, that in going to his work he sometimes passed under the tree without disturbing her. The moment we crossed the wall within sight of the nest, the bird slipped away out of the orchard. Wishing to test her, we withdrew and waited till she returned. Then the farmer passed within a few feet without disturbing her in the least. Ten minutes later I followed him, and the bird flew away again as I crossed the wall.

The notes of the golden-wing—much more varied and musical than those of other woodpeckers—are probably the results of his new free life, and the modified tongue and bill. In the woods one seldom hears from him anything but the rattling rat-a-tat-tat, as he hammers away on a dry old pine stub. As a rule he seems to do this more for the noise it makes, and the exercise of his abilities, than because he expects to find insects inside; except in winter time, when he goes back to his old ways. But out in the fields he has a variety of notes. Sometimes it is a loud kee-uk, like the scream of a blue jay divided into two syllables, with the accent on the last. Again it is a loud cheery whistling call, of very short notes run close together, with accent on every other one. Again he teeters up and down on the end of an old fence rail with a rollicking eekoo, eekoo, eekoo, that sounds more like a laugh than anything else among the birds. In most of his musical efforts the golden-wing, instead of clinging to the side of a tree, sits across the limb, like other birds.

A curious habit which the bird has adopted with advancing civilization is that of providing himself with a sheltered sleeping place from the storms and cold of winter. Late in the fall he finds a deserted building, and after a great deal of shy inspection, to satisfy himself that no one is within, drills a hole through the side. He has then a comfortable place to sleep, and an abundance of decaying wood in which to hunt insects on stormy days. An ice-house is a favorite location for him, the warm sawdust furnishing a good burrowing place for a nest or sleeping room. When a building is used as a nesting place, the bird very cunningly drills the entrance close up under the eaves, where it is sheltered from storms, and at the same time out of sight of all prying eyes.

During the winter several birds often occupy one building together. I know of one old deserted barn where last year five of the birds lived very peaceably; though what they were doing there in the daytime I could never quite make out. At almost any hour of the day, if one approached very cautiously and thumped the side of the barn, some of the birds would dash out in great alarm, never stopping to look behind them. At first there were but three entrances; but after I had surprised them a few times, two more were added; whether to get out more quickly when all were inside, or simply for the sake of drilling the holes, I do not know. Sometimes a pair of birds will have five or six holes drilled, generally on the same side of the building.

Two things about my family in the old barn aroused my curiosity—what they were doing there by day, and how they got out so quickly when alarmed. The only way it seemed possible for them to dash out on the instant, as they did, was to fly straight through. But the holes were too small, and no bird but a bank-swallow would have attempted such a thing.

One day I drove the birds out, then crawled in under a sill on the opposite side, and hid in a corner of the loft without disturbing anything inside. It was a long wait in the stuffy old place before one of the birds came back. I heard him light first on the roof; then his little head appeared at one of the holes as he sat just below, against the side of the barn, looking and listening before coming in. Quite satisfied after a minute or two that nobody was inside, he scrambled in and flew down to a corner in which was a lot of old hay and rubbish. Here he began a great rustle and stirring about, like a squirrel in autumn leaves, probably after insects, though it was too dark to see just what he was doing. It sounded part of the time as if he were scratching aside the hay, much as a hen would have done. If so, his two little front toes must have made sad work of it, with the two hind ones always getting doubled up in the way. When I thumped suddenly against the side of the barn, he hurled himself like a shot at one of the holes, alighting just below it, and stuck there in a way that reminded me of the chewed-paper balls that boys used to throw against the blackboard in school. I could hear plainly the thump of his little feet as he struck. With the same movement, and without pausing an instant, he dived through headlong, aided by a spring from his tail, much as a jumping jack goes over the head of his stick, only much more rapidly. Hardly had he gone before another appeared, to go through the same program.

Though much shyer than other birds of the farm, he often ventures up close to the house and doorway in the early morning, before any one is stirring. One spring morning I was awakened by a strange little pattering sound, and, opening my eyes, was astonished to see one of these birds on the sash of the open window within five feet of my hand. Half closing my eyes, I kept very still and watched. Just in front of him, on the bureau, was a stuffed golden-wing, with wings and tail spread to show to best advantage the beautiful plumage. He had seen it in flying by, and now stood hopping back and forth along the window sash, uncertain whether to come in or not. Sometimes he spread his wings as if on the point of flying in; then he would turn his head to look curiously at me and at the strange surroundings, and, afraid to venture in, endeavor to attract the attention of the stuffed bird, whose head was turned away. In the looking-glass he saw his own movements repeated. Twice he began his love call very softly, but cut it short, as if frightened. The echo of the small room made it seem so different from the same call in the open fields that I think he doubted even his own voice.



Almost over his head, on a bracket against the wall, was another bird, a great hawk, pitched forward on his perch, with wings wide spread and fierce eyes glaring downward, in the intense attitude a hawk takes as he strikes his prey from some lofty watch tree. The golden-wing by this time was ready to venture in. He had leaned forward with wings spread, looking down at me to be quite sure I was harmless, when, turning his head for a final look round, he caught sight of the hawk just ready to pounce down on him. With a startled kee-uk he fairly tumbled back off the window sash, and I caught one glimpse of him as he dashed round the corner in full flight.

What were his impressions, I wonder, as he sat on a limb of the old apple tree and thought it all over? Do birds have romances? How much greater wonders had he seen than those of any romance! And do they have any means of communicating them, as they sing their love songs? What a wonderful story he could tell, a real story, of a magic palace full of strange wonders; of a glittering bit of air that made him see himself; of a giant, all in white, with only his head visible; of an enchanted beauty, stretching her wings in mute supplication for some brave knight to touch her and break the spell, while on high a fierce dragon-hawk kept watch, ready to eat up any one who should dare enter!

And of course none of the birds would believe him. He would have to spend the rest of his life explaining; and the others would only whistle, and call him Iagoo, the lying woodpecker. On the whole, it would be better for a bird with such a very unusual experience to keep still about it.



XII. A TEMPERANCE LESSON FOR THE HORNETS.



Last spring a hornet, one of those long brown double chaps that boys call mud-wasps, crept out of his mud shell at the top of my window casing, and buzzed in the sunshine till I opened the window and let him go. Perhaps he remembered his warm quarters, or told a companion; for when the last sunny days of October were come, there was a hornet, buzzing persistently at the same window till it opened and let him in.

It was a rather rickety old room, though sunny and very pleasant, which had been used as a study by generations of theological students. Moreover, it was considered clean all over, like a boy with his face washed, when the floor was swept; and no storm of general house cleaning ever disturbed its peace. So overhead, where the ceiling sagged from the walls, and in dusty chinks about doors and windows that no broom ever harried, a family of spiders, some mice, a daddy-long-legs, two crickets, and a bluebottle fly, besides the hornet, found snug quarters in their season, and a welcome.

The hornet stayed about, contentedly enough, for a week or more, crawling over the window panes till they were thoroughly explored, and occasionally taking a look through the scattered papers on the table. Once he sauntered up to the end of the penholder I was using, and stayed there, balancing himself, spreading his wings, and looking interested while the greater part of a letter was finished. Then he crawled down over my fingers till he wet his feet in the ink; whereupon he buzzed off in high dudgeon to dry them in the sun.

At first he was sociable enough, and peaceable as one could wish; but one night, when it was chilly, he stowed himself away to sleep under the pillow. When I laid my head upon it, he objected to the extra weight, and drove me ignominiously from my own bed. Another time he crawled into a handkerchief. When I picked it up to use it, after the light was out, he stung me on the nose, not understanding the situation. In whacking him off I broke one of his legs, and made his wings all awry. After that he would have nothing more to do with me, but kept to his own window as long as the fine weather lasted.

When the November storms came, he went up to a big crack in the window casing, whence he had emerged in the spring, and crept in, and went to sleep. It was pleasant there, and at noontime, on days when the sun shone, it streamed brightly into his doorway, waking him out of his winter sleep. As late as December he would come out occasionally at midday to walk about and spread his wings in the sun. Then a snow-storm came, and he disappeared for two weeks.



One day, when a student was sick, a tumbler of medicine had been carelessly left on the broad window sill. It contained a few lumps of sugar, over which a mixture of whiskey and glycerine had been poured. The sugar melted gradually in the sun, and a strong odor of alcohol rose from the sticky stuff. That and the sunshine must have roused my hornet guest, for when I came back to the room, there he lay by the tumbler, dead drunk.

He was stretched out on his side, one wing doubled under him, a forward leg curled over his head, a sleepy, boozy, perfectly ludicrous expression on his pointed face. I poked him a bit with my finger, to see how the alcohol affected his temper. He rose unsteadily, staggered about, and knocked his head against the tumbler; at which fancied insult he raised his wings in a limp kind of dignity and defiance, buzzing a challenge. But he lost his legs, and fell down; and presently, in spite of pokings, went off into a drunken sleep again.

All the afternoon he lay there. As it grew cooler he stirred about uneasily. At dusk he started up for his nest. It was a hard pull to get there. His head was heavy, and his legs shaky. Half way up, he stopped on top of the lower sash to lie down awhile. He had a terrible headache, evidently; he kept rubbing his head with his fore legs as if to relieve the pain. After a fall or two on the second sash, he reached the top, and tumbled into his warm nest to sleep off the effects of his spree.

One such lesson should have been enough; but it wasn't. Perhaps, also, I should have put temptation out of his way; for I knew that all hornets, especially yellow-jackets, are hopeless topers when they get a chance; that when a wasp discovers a fermenting apple, it is all up with his steady habits; that when a nest of them discover a cider mill, all work, even the care of the young, is neglected. They take to drinking, and get utterly demoralized. But in the interest of a new experiment I forgot true kindness, and left the tumbler where it was.

The next day, at noon, he was stretched out on the sill, drunk again. For three days he kept up his tippling, coming out when the sun shone warmly, and going straight to the fatal tumbler. On the fourth day he paid the penalty of his intemperance.

The morning was very bright, and the janitor had left the hornet's window slightly open. At noon he was lying on the window sill, drunk as usual. I was in a hurry to take a train, and neglected to close the window. Late at night, when I came back to my room, he was gone. He was not on the sill, nor on the floor, nor under the window cushions. His nest in the casing, where I had so often watched him asleep, was empty. Taking a candle, I went out to search under the window. There I found him in the snow, his legs curled up close to his body, frozen stiff with the drip of the eaves.

I carried him in and warmed him at the fire, but it was too late. He had been drunk once too often. When I saw that he was dead, I stowed him away in the nest he had been seeking when he fell out into the snow. I tried to read; but the book seemed dull. Every little while I got up to look at him, lying there with his little pointed face, still dead. At last I wrapped him up, and pushed him farther in, out of sight.

All the while the empty tumbler seemed to look at me reproachfully from the window sill.



XIII. SNOWY VISITORS.



Over my table, as I write, is a big snowy owl whose yellow eyes seem to be always watching me, whatever I do. Perhaps he is still wondering at the curious way in which I shot him.

One stormy afternoon, a few winters ago, I was black-duck shooting at sundown, by a lonely salt creek that doubled across the marshes from Maddaket Harbor. In the shadow of a low ridge I had built my blind among some bushes, near the freshest water. In front of me a solitary decoy was splashing about in joyous freedom after having been confined all day, quacking loudly at the loneliness of the place and at being separated from her mate. Beside me, crouched in the blind, my old dog Don was trying his best to shiver himself warm without disturbing the bushes too much. That would have frightened the incoming ducks, as Don knew very well.

It grew dark and bitterly cold. No birds were flying, and I had stood up a moment to let the blood down into half-frozen toes, when a shadow seemed to pass over my head. The next moment there was a splash, followed by loud quacks of alarm from the decoy. All I could make out, in the obscurity under the ridge, was a flutter of wings that rose heavily from the water, taking my duck with them. Only the anchor string prevented the marauder from getting away with his booty. Not wishing to shoot, for the decoy was a valuable one, I shouted vigorously, and sent out the dog. The decoy dropped with a splash, and in the darkness the thief got away—just vanished, like a shadow, without a sound.



Poor ducky died in my hands a few moments later, the marks of sharp claws telling me plainly that the thief was an owl, though I had no suspicion then that it was the rare winter visitor from the north. I supposed, of course, that it was only a great-horned-owl, and so laid plans to get him.

Next night I was at the same spot with a good duck call, and some wooden decoys, over which the skins of wild ducks had been carefully stretched. An hour after dark he came again, attracted, no doubt, by the continued quacking. I had another swift glimpse of what seemed only a shadow; saw it poise and shoot downward before I could find it with my gun sight, striking the decoys with a great splash and clatter. Before he discovered his mistake or could get started again, I had him. The next moment Don came ashore, proud as a peacock, bringing a great snowy owl with him—a rare prize, worth ten times the trouble we had taken to get it.

Owls are generally very lean and muscular; so much so, in severe winters, that they are often unable to fly straight when the wind blows; and a twenty-knot breeze catches their broad wings and tosses them about helplessly. This one, however, was fat as a plover. When I stuffed him, I found that he had just eaten a big rat and a meadow-lark, hair, bones, feathers and all. It would be interesting to know what he intended to do with the duck. Perhaps, like the crow, he has snug hiding places here and there, where he keeps things against a time of need.

Every severe winter a few of these beautiful owls find their way to the lonely places of the New England coast, driven southward, no doubt, by lack of food in the frozen north. Here in Massachusetts they seem to prefer the southern shores of Cape Cod, and especially the island of Nantucket, where besides the food cast up by the tides, there are larks and blackbirds and robins, which linger more or less all winter. At home in the far north, the owls feed largely upon hares and grouse; here nothing comes amiss, from a stray cat, roving too far from the house, to stray mussels on the beach that have escaped the sharp eyes of sea-gulls.

Some of his hunting ways are most curious. One winter day, in prowling along the beach, I approached the spot where a day or two before I had been shooting whistlers (golden-eye ducks) over decoys. The blind had been made by digging a hole in the sand. In the bottom was an armful of dry seaweed, to keep one's toes warm, and just behind the stand was the stump of a ship's mainmast, the relic of some old storm and shipwreck, cast up by the tide.

A commotion of some kind was going on in the blind as I drew near. Sand and bunches of seaweed were hurled up at intervals to be swept aside by the wind. Instantly I dropped out of sight into the dead beach grass to watch and listen. Soon a white head and neck bristled up from behind the old mast, every feather standing straight out ferociously. The head was perfectly silent a moment, listening; then it twisted completely round twice so as to look in every direction. A moment later it had disappeared, and the seaweed was flying again.

There was a prize in the old blind evidently. But what was he doing there? Till then I had supposed that the owl always takes his game from the wing. Farther along the beach was a sand bluff overlooking the proceedings. I gained it after a careful stalk, crept to the edge, and looked over. Down in the blind a big snowy owl was digging away like a Trojan, tearing out sand and seaweed with his great claws, first one foot, then the other, like a hungry hen, and sending it up in showers behind him over the old mast. Every few moments he would stop suddenly, bristle up all his feathers till he looked comically big and fierce, take a look out over the log and along the beach, then fall to digging again furiously.

I suppose that the object of this bristling up before each observation was to strike terror into the heart of any enemy that might be approaching to surprise him at his unusual work. It is an owl trick. Wounded birds always use it when approached.

And the object of the digging? That was perfectly evident. A beach rat had jumped down into the blind, after some fragments of lunch, undoubtedly, and being unable to climb out, had started to tunnel up to the surface. The owl heard him at work, and started a stern chase. He won, too, for right in the midst of a fury of seaweed he shot up with the rat in his claws—so suddenly that he almost escaped me. Had it not been for the storm and his underground digging, he surely would have heard me long before I could get near enough to see what he was doing; for his eyes and ears are wonderfully keen.

In his southern visits, or perhaps on the ice fields of the Arctic ocean, he has discovered a more novel way of procuring his food than digging for it. He has turned fisherman and learned to fish. Once only have I seen him get his dinner in this way. It was on the north shore of Nantucket, one day in the winter of 1890-91, when the remarkable flight of white owls came down from the north. The chord of the bay was full of floating ice, and swimming about the shoals were thousands of coots. While watching the latter through my field-glass, I noticed a snowy owl standing up still and straight on the edge of a big ice cake. "Now what is that fellow doing there?" I thought.—"I know! He is trying to drift down close to that flock of coots before they see him."

That was interesting; so I sat down on a rock to watch. Whenever I took my eyes from him a moment, it was difficult to find him again, so perfectly did his plumage blend with the white ice upon which he stood motionless.

But he was not after the coots. I saw him lean forward suddenly and plunge a foot into the water. Then, when he hopped back from the edge, and appeared to be eating something, it dawned upon me that he was fishing—and fishing like a true sportsman, out on the ice alone, with only his own skill to depend upon. In a few minutes he struck again, and this time rose with a fine fish, which he carried to the shore to devour at leisure.

For a long time that fish was to me the most puzzling thing in the whole incident; for at that season no fish are to be found, except in deep water off shore. Some weeks later I learned that, just previous to the incident, several fishermen's dories, with full fares, had been upset on the east side of the island when trying to land through a heavy surf. The dead fish had been carried around by the tides, and the owl had been deceived into showing his method of fishing. Undoubtedly, in his northern home, when the ice breaks up and the salmon are running, he goes fishing from an ice cake as a regular occupation.

The owl lit upon a knoll, not two hundred yards from where I sat motionless, and gave me a good opportunity of watching him at his meal. He treated the fish exactly as he would have treated a rat or duck: stood on it with one foot, gripped the long claws of the other through it, and tore it to pieces savagely, as one would a bit of paper. The beak was not used, except to receive the pieces, which were conveyed up to it by his foot, as a parrot eats. He devoured everything—fins, tail, skin, head, and most of the bones, in great hungry mouthfuls. Then he hopped to the top of the knoll, sat up straight, puffed out his feathers to look big, and went to sleep. But with the first slight movement I made to creep nearer, he was wide awake and flew to a higher point. Such hearing is simply marvelous.

The stomach of an owl is peculiar, there being no intermediate crop, as in other birds. Every part of his prey small enough (and the mouth and throat of an owl are large out of all proportion) is greedily swallowed. Long after the flesh is digested, feathers, fur, and bones remain in the stomach, softened by acids, till everything is absorbed that can afford nourishment, even to the quill shafts, and the ends and marrow of bones. The dry remains are then rolled into large pellets by the stomach, and disgorged.

This, by the way, suggests the best method of finding an owl's haunts. It is to search, not overhead, but on the ground under large trees, till a pile of these little balls, of dry feathers and hair and bones, reveals the nest or roosting place above.

It seems rather remarkable that my fisherman-owl did not make a try at the coots that were so plenty about him. Rarely, I think, does he attempt to strike a bird of any kind in the daytime. His long training at the north, where the days are several months long, has adapted his eyes to seeing perfectly, both in sunshine and in darkness; and with us he spends the greater part of each day hunting along the beaches. The birds at such times are never molested. He seems to know that he is not good at dodging; that they are all quicker than he, and are not to be caught napping. And the birds, even the little birds, have no fear of him in the sunshine; though they shiver themselves to sleep when they think of him at night.

I have seen the snowbirds twittering contentedly near him. Once I saw him fly out to sea in the midst of a score of gulls, which paid no attention to him. At another time I saw him fly over a large flock of wild ducks that were preening themselves in the grass. He kept straight on; and the ducks, so far as I could see, merely stopped their toilet for an instant, and turned up one eye so as to see him better. Had it been dusk, the whole flock would have shot up into the air at the first startled quack—all but one, which would have stayed with the owl.

His favorite time for hunting is the hour after dusk, or just before daylight, when the birds are restless on the roost. No bird is safe from him then. The fierce eyes search through every tree and bush and bunch of grass. The keen ears detect every faintest chirp, or rustle, or scratching of tiny claws on the roost. Nothing that can be called a sound escapes them. The broad, soft wings tell no tale of his presence, and his swoop is swift and sure. He utters no sound. Like a good Nimrod he hunts silently.

The flight of an owl, noiseless as the sweep of a cloud shadow, is the most remarkable thing about him. The wings are remarkably adapted to the silent movement that is essential to surprising birds at dusk. The feathers are long and soft. The laminae extending from the wing quills, instead of ending in the sharp feather edge of other birds, are all drawn out to fine hair points, through which the air can make no sound as it rushes in the swift wing-beats. The whish of a duck's wings can be heard two or three hundred yards on a still night. The wings of an eagle rustle like silk in the wind as he mounts upward. A sparrow's wings flutter or whir as he changes his flight. Every one knows the startled rush of a quail or grouse. But no ear ever heard the passing of a great owl, spreading his five-foot wings in rapid flight.

He knows well, however, when to vary his program. Once I saw him hovering at dusk over some wild land covered with bushes and dead grass, a favorite winter haunt of meadow-larks. His manner showed that he knew his game was near. He kept hovering over a certain spot, swinging off noiselessly to right or left, only to return again. Suddenly he struck his wings twice over his head with a loud flap, and swooped instantly. It was a clever trick. The bird beneath had been waked by the sound, or startled into turning his head. With the first movement the owl had him.

All owls have the habit of sitting still upon some high point which harmonizes with the general color of their feathers, and swooping upon any sound or movement that indicates game. The long-eared, or eagle-owl invariably selects a dark colored stub, on top of which he appears as a part of the tree itself, and is seldom noticed; while the snowy owl, whose general color is soft gray, will search out a birch or a lightning-blasted stump, and sitting up still and straight, so hide himself in plain sight that it takes a good eye to find him.

The swooping habit leads them into queer mistakes sometimes. Two or three times, when sitting or lying still in the woods watching for birds, my head has been mistaken for a rat or squirrel, or some other furry quadruped, by owls, which swooped and brushed me with their wings, and once left the marks of their claws, before discovering their mistake.

Should any boy reader ever have the good fortune to discover one of these rare birds some winter day in tramping along the beaches, and wish to secure him as a specimen, let him not count on the old idea that an owl cannot see in the daytime. On the contrary, let him proceed exactly as he would in stalking a deer: get out of sight, and to leeward, if possible; then take every advantage of bush and rock and beach-grass to creep within range, taking care to advance only when his eyes are turned away, and remembering that his ears are keen enough to detect the passing of a mouse in the grass from an incredible distance.

Sometimes the crows find one of these snowy visitors on the beach, and make a great fuss and racket, as they always do when an owl is in sight. At such times he takes his stand under a bank, or in the lee of a rock, where the crows cannot trouble him from behind, and sits watching them fiercely. Woe be to the one that ventures too near. A plunge, a grip of his claw, a weak caw, and it's all over. That seems to double the crows' frenzy—and that is the one moment when you can approach rapidly from behind. But you must drop flat when the crows perceive you; for the owl is sure to take a look around for the cause of their sudden alarm. If he sees nothing suspicious he will return to his shelter to eat his crow, or just to rest his sensitive ears after all the pother. A quarter-mile away the crows sit silent, watching you and him.

And now a curious thing happens. The crows, that a moment ago were clamoring angrily about their enemy, watch with a kind of intense interest as you creep towards him. Half way to the rock behind which he is hiding, they guess your purpose, and a low rapid chatter begins among them. One would think that they would exult in seeing him surprised and killed; but that is not crow nature. They would gladly worry the owl to death if they could, but they will not stand by and see him slain by a common enemy. The chatter ceases suddenly. Two or three swift fliers leave the flock, circle around you, and speed over the rock, uttering short notes of alarm. With the first sharp note, which all birds seem to understand, the owl springs into the air, turns, sees you, and is off up the beach. The crows rush after him with crazy clamor, and speedily drive him to cover again. But spare yourself more trouble. It is useless to try stalking any game while the crows are watching.

Sometimes you can drive or ride quite near to one of these birds, the horse apparently removing all his suspicion. But if you are on foot, take plenty of time and care and patience, and shoot your prize on the first stalk if possible. Once alarmed, he will lead you a long chase, and most likely escape in the end.

I learned the wisdom of this advice in connection with the first snowy owl I had ever met outside a museum. I surprised him early one winter morning eating a brant, which he had caught asleep on the shore. He saw me, and kept making short flights from point to point in a great circle—five miles, perhaps, and always in the open—evidently loath to abandon his feast to the crows; while I followed with growing wonder and respect, trying every device of the still hunter to creep within range. That was the same owl which I last saw at dusk, flying straight out to sea among the gulls.



XIV.

The Christmas carol, sung by a chorus of fresh children's voices, is perhaps the most perfect expression of the spirit of Christmastide. Especially is this true of the old English and German carols, which seem to grow only sweeter, more mellow, more perfectly expressive of the love and good-will that inspired them, as the years go by. Yet always at Christmas time there is with me the memory of one carol sweeter than all, which was sung to me alone by a little minstrel from the far north, with the wind in the pines humming a soft accompaniment.

* * * * *

Doubtless many readers have sometimes seen in winter flocks of stranger birds—fluffy gray visitors, almost as large as a robin—flying about the lawns with soft whistling calls, or feeding on the ground, so tame and fearless that they barely move aside as you approach. The beak is short and thick; the back of the head and a large patch just above the tail are golden brown; and across the wings are narrow double bars of white. All the rest is soft gray, dark above and light beneath. If you watch them on the ground, you will see that they have a curious way of moving about like a golden-winged woodpecker in the same position. Sometimes they put one foot before the other, in funny little attempt at a dignified walk, like the blackbirds; again they hop like a robin, but much more awkwardly, as if they were not accustomed to walking and did not quite know how to use their feet—which is quite true.

The birds are pine-grosbeaks, and are somewhat irregular winter visitors from the far north. Only when the cold is most severe, and the snow lies deep about Hudson Bay, do they leave their nesting places to spend a few weeks in bleak New England as a winter resort. Their stay with us is short and uncertain. Long ere the first bluebird has whistled to us from the old fence rail that, if we please, spring is coming, the grosbeaks are whistling of spring, and singing their love songs in the forests of Labrador.

A curious thing about the flocks we see in winter is that they are composed almost entirely of females. The male bird is very rare with us. You can tell him instantly by his brighter color and his beautiful crimson breast. Sometimes the flocks contain a few young males, but until the first mating season has tipped their breast feathers with deep crimson they are almost indistinguishable from their sober colored companions.

This crimson breast shield, by the way, is the family mark or coat of arms of the grosbeaks, just as the scarlet crest marks all the woodpeckers. And if you ask a Micmac, deep in the woods, how the grosbeak got his shield, he may tell you a story that will interest you as did the legend of Hiawatha and the woodpecker in your childhood days.

If the old male, with his proud crimson, be rare with us, his beautiful song is still more so. Only in the deep forests, by the lonely rivers of the far north, where no human ear ever hears, does he greet the sunrise from the top of some lofty spruce. There also he pours into the ears of his sober little gray wife the sweetest love song of the birds. It is a flood of soft warbling notes, tinkling like a brook deep under the ice, tumbling over each other in a quiet ecstasy of harmony; mellow as the song of the hermit-thrush, but much softer, as if he feared lest any should hear but her to whom he sang. Those who know the music of the rose-breasted grosbeak (not his robin-like song of spring, but the exquisitely soft warble to his brooding mate) may multiply its sweetness indefinitely, and so form an idea of what the pine-grosbeak's song is like.

But sometimes he forgets himself in his winter visit, and sings as other birds do, just because his world is bright; and then, once in a lifetime, a New England bird lover hears him, and remembers; and regrets for the rest of his life that the grosbeak's northern country life has made him so shy a visitor.

* * * * *

One Christmas morning, a few years ago, the new-fallen snow lay white and pure over all the woods and fields. It was soft and clinging as it fell on Christmas eve. Now every old wall and fence was a carved bench of gleaming white; every post and stub had a soft white robe and a tall white hat; and every little bush and thicket was a perfect fairyland of white arches and glistening columns, and dark grottoes walled about with delicate frostwork of silver and jewels. And then the glory, dazzling beyond all words, when the sun rose and shone upon it!

Before sunrise I was out. Soon the jumping flight and cheery good-morning of a downy woodpecker led me to an old field with scattered evergreen clumps. There is no better time for a quiet peep at the birds than the morning after a snow-storm, and no better place than the evergreens. If you can find them at all (which is not certain, for they have mysterious ways of disappearing before a storm), you will find them unusually quiet, and willing to bear your scrutiny indifferently, instead of flying off into deeper coverts.

I had scarcely crossed the wall when I stopped at hearing a new bird song, so amazingly sweet that it could only be a Christmas message, yet so out of place that the listener stood doubting whether his ears were playing him false, wondering whether the music or the landscape would not suddenly vanish as an unreal thing. The song was continuous—a soft melodious warble, full of sweetness and suggestion; but suggestion of June meadows and a summer sunrise, rather than of snow-packed evergreens and Christmastide. To add to the unreality, no ear could tell where the song came from; its own muffled quality disguised the source perfectly. I searched the trees in front; there was no bird there. I looked behind; there was no place for a bird to sing. I remembered the redstart, how he calls sometimes from among the rocks, and refuses to show himself, and runs and hides when you look for him. I searched the wall; but not a bird track marked the snow. All the while the wonderful carol went on, now in the air, now close beside me, growing more and more bewildering as I listened. It took me a good half-hour to locate the sound; then I understood.

Near me was a solitary fir tree with a bushy top. The bird, whoever he was, had gone to sleep up there, close against the trunk, as birds do, for protection. During the night the soft snow gathered thicker and thicker upon the flexible branches. Their tips bent with the weight till they touched the trunk below, forming a green bower, about which the snow packed all night long, till it was completely closed in. The bird was a prisoner inside, and singing as the morning sun shone in through the walls of his prison-house.

As I listened, delighted with the carol and the minstrel's novel situation, a mass of snow, loosened by the sun, slid from the snow bower, and a pine-grosbeak appeared in the doorway. A moment he seemed to look about curiously over the new, white, beautiful world; then he hopped to the topmost twig and, turning his crimson breast to the sunrise, poured out his morning song; no longer muffled, but sweet and clear as a wood-thrush bell ringing the sunset.

Once, long afterward, I heard his softer love song, and found his nest in the heart of a New Brunswick forest. Till then it was not known that he ever built south of Labrador. But even that, and the joy of discovery, lacked the charm of this rare sweet carol, coming all unsought and unexpected, as good things do, while our own birds were spending the Christmas time and singing the sunrise in Florida.



XV. MOOWEEN THE BEAR.



Ever since nursery times Bruin has been largely a creature of imagination. He dwells there a ferocious beast, prowling about gloomy woods, red eyed and dangerous, ready to rush upon the unwary traveler and eat him on the spot.

Sometimes, indeed, we have seen him out of imagination. There he is a poor, tired, clumsy creature, footsore and dusty, with a halter round his neck, and a swarthy foreigner to make his life miserable. At the word he rises to his hind legs, hunches his shoulders, and lunges awkwardly round in a circle, while the foreigner sings Horry, horry, dum-dum, and his wife passes the hat.

We children pity the bear, as we watch, and forget the other animal that frightens us when near the woods at night. But he passes on at last, with a troop of boys following to the town limits. Next day Bruin comes back, and lives in imagination as ugly and frightful as ever.

But Mooween the Bear, as the northern Indians call him, the animal that lives up in the woods of Maine and Canada, is a very different kind of creature. He is big and glossy black, with long white teeth and sharp black claws, like the imagination bear. Unlike him, however, he is shy and wild, and timid as any rabbit. When you camp in the wilderness at night, the rabbit will come out of his form in the ferns to pull at your shoe, or nibble a hole in the salt bag, while you sleep. He will play twenty pranks under your very eyes. But if you would see Mooween, you must camp many summers, and tramp many a weary mile through the big forests before catching a glimpse of him, or seeing any trace save the deep tracks, like a barefoot boy's, left in some soft bit of earth in his hurried flight.

Mooween's ears are quick, and his nose very keen. The slightest warning from either will generally send him off to the densest cover or the roughest hillside in the neighborhood. Silently as a black shadow he glides away, if he has detected your approach from a distance. But if surprised and frightened, he dashes headlong through the brush with crash of branches, and bump of fallen logs, and volleys of dirt and dead wood flung out behind him as he digs his toes into the hillside in his frantic haste to be away.

In the first startled instant of such an encounter, one thinks there must be twenty bears scrambling up the hill. And if you should perchance get a glimpse of the game, you will be conscious chiefly of a funny little pair of wrinkled black feet, turned up at you so rapidly that they actually seem to twinkle through a cloud of flying loose stuff.

That was the way in which I first met Mooween. He was feeding peaceably on blueberries, just stuffing himself with the ripe fruit that tinged with blue a burned hillside, when I came round the turn of a deer path. There he was, the mighty, ferocious beast—and my only weapon a trout-rod!

We discovered each other at the same instant. Words can hardly measure the mutual consternation. I felt scared; and in a moment it flashed upon me that he looked so. This last observation was like a breath of inspiration. It led me to make a demonstration before he should regain his wits. I jumped forward with a flourish, and threw my hat at him.—

Boo! said I.

Hoof, woof! said Mooween. And away he went up the hill in a desperate scramble, with loose stones rattling, and the bottoms of his feet showing constantly through the volley of dirt and chips flung out behind him.

That killed the fierce imagination bear of childhood days deader than any bullet could have done, and convinced me that Mooween is at heart a timid creature. Still, this was a young bear, as was also one other upon whom I tried the same experiment, with the same result. Had he been older and bigger, it might have been different. In that case I have found that a good rule is to go your own way unobtrusively, leaving Mooween to his devices. All animals, whether wild or domestic, respect a man who neither fears nor disturbs them.

Mooween's eyes are his weak point. They are close together, and seem to focus on the ground a few feet in front of his nose. At twenty yards to leeward he can never tell you from a stump or a caribou, should you chance to be standing still.

If fortunate enough to find the ridge where he sleeps away the long summer days, one is almost sure to get a glimpse of him by watching on the lake below. It is necessary only to sit perfectly still in your canoe among the water-grasses near shore. When near a lake, a bear will almost invariably come down about noontime to sniff carefully all about, and lap the water, and perhaps find a dead fish before going back for his afternoon sleep.

Four or five times I have sat thus in my canoe while Mooween passed close by, and never suspected my presence till a chirp drew his attention. It is curious at such times, when there is no wind to bring the scent to his keen nose, to see him turn his head to one side, and wrinkle his forehead in the vain endeavor to make out the curious object there in the grass. At last he rises on his hind legs, and stares long and intently. It seems as if he must recognize you, with his nose pointing straight at you, his eyes looking straight into yours. But he drops on all fours again, and glides silently into the thick bushes that fringe the shore.

Don't stir now, nor make the least sound. He is in there, just out of sight, sitting on his haunches, using nose and ears to catch your slightest message.

Ten minutes pass by in intense silence. Down on the shore, fifty yards below, a slight swaying of the bilberry bushes catches your eye. That surely is not the bear! There has not been a sound since he disappeared. A squirrel could hardly creep through that underbrush without noise enough to tell where he was. But the bushes sway again, and Mooween reappears suddenly for another long look at the suspicious object. Then he turns and plods his way along shore, rolling his head from side to side as if completely mystified.

Now swing your canoe well out into the lake, and head him off on the point, a quarter of a mile below. Hold the canoe quiet just outside the lily pads by grasping a few tough stems, and sit low. This time the big object catches Mooween's eye as he rounds the point; and you have only to sit still to see him go through the same maneuvers with greater mystification than before.

Once, however, he varied his program, and gave me a terrible start, letting me know for a moment just how it feels to be hunted, at the same time showing with what marvelous stillness he can glide through the thickest cover when he chooses.

It was early evening on a forest lake. The water lay like a great mirror, with the sunset splendor still upon it. The hush of twilight was over the wilderness. Only the hermit-thrushes sang wild and sweet from a hundred dead spruce tops.

I was drifting about, partly in the hope to meet Mooween, whose tracks were very numerous at the lower end of the lake, when I heard him walking in the shallow water. Through the glass I made him out against the shore, as he plodded along in my direction.

I had long been curious to know how near a bear would come to a man without discovering him. Here was an opportunity. The wind at sunset had been in my favor; now there was not the faintest breath stirring.

Hiding the canoe, I sat down in the sand on a little point, where dense bushes grew down to within a few feet of the water's edge. Head and shoulders were in plain sight above the water-grass. My intentions were wholly peaceable, notwithstanding the rifle that lay across my knees. It was near the mating season, when Mooween's temper is often dangerous; and one felt much more comfortable with the chill of the cold iron in his hands.

Mooween came rapidly along the shore meanwhile, evidently anxious to reach the other end of the lake. In the mating season bears use the margins of lakes and streams as natural highways. As he drew nearer and nearer I gazed with a kind of fascination at the big unconscious brute. He carried his head low, and dropped his feet with a heavy splash into the shallow water.

At twenty yards he stopped as if struck, with head up and one paw lifted, sniffing suspiciously. Even then he did not see me, though only the open shore lay between us. He did not use his eyes at all, but laid his great head back on his shoulders and sniffed in every direction, rocking his brown muzzle up and down the while, so as to take in every atom from the tainted air.

A few slow careful steps forward, and he stopped again, looked straight into my eyes, then beyond me towards the lake, all the while sniffing. I was still only part of the shore. Yet he was so near that I caught the gleam of his eyes, and saw the nostrils swell and the muzzle twitch nervously.

Another step or two, and he planted his fore feet firmly. The long hairs began to rise along his spine, and under his wrinkled chops was a flash of white teeth. Still he had no suspicion of the motionless object there in the grass. He looked rather out on the lake. Then he glided into the brush and was lost to sight and hearing.

He was so close that I scarcely dared breathe as I waited, expecting him to come out farther down the shore. Five minutes passed without the slightest sound to indicate his whereabouts, though I was listening intently in the dead hush that was on the lake. All the while I smelled him strongly. One can smell a bear almost as far as he can a deer, though the scent does not cling so long to the underbrush.

A bush swayed slightly below where he had disappeared. I was watching it closely when some sudden warning—I know not what, for I did not hear but only felt it—made me turn my head quickly. There, not six feet away, a huge head and shoulders were thrust out of the bushes on the bank, and a pair of gleaming eyes were peering intently down upon me in the grass. He had been watching me at arm's length probably two or three minutes. Had a muscle moved in all that time, I have no doubt that he would have sprung upon me. As it was, who can say what was passing behind that curious, half-puzzled, half-savage gleam in his eyes?



He drew quickly back as a sudden movement on my part threw the rifle into position. A few minutes later I heard the snap of a rotten twig some distance away. Not another sound told of his presence till he broke out onto the shore, fifty yards above, and went steadily on his way up the lake.

* * * * *

Mooween is something of a humorist in his own way. When not hungry he will go out of his way to frighten a bullfrog away from his sun-bath on the shore, for no other purpose, evidently, than just to see him jump. Watching him thus amusing himself one afternoon, I was immensely entertained by seeing him turn his head to one side, and wrinkle his eyebrows, as each successive frog said ke'dunk, and went splashing away over the lily pads.

A pair of cubs are playful as young foxes, while their extreme awkwardness makes them a dozen times more comical. Simmo, my Indian guide, tells me that the cubs will sometimes run away and hide when they hear the mother bear returning. No amount of coaxing or of anxious fear on her part will bring them back, till she searches diligently to find them.

Once only have I had opportunity to see the young at play. There were two of them, nearly full-grown, with the mother. The most curious thing was to see them stand up on their hind legs and cuff each other soundly, striking and warding like trained boxers. Then they would lock arms and wrestle desperately till one was thrown, when the other promptly seized him by throat or paw, and pretended to growl frightfully.

They were well fed, evidently, and full of good spirits as two boys. But the mother was cross and out of sorts. She kept moving about uneasily, as if the rough play irritated her nerves. Occasionally, as she sat for a moment with hind legs stretched out flat and fore paws planted between them, one of the cubs would approach and attempt some monkey play. A sound cuff on the ear invariably sent him whimpering back to his companion, who looked droll enough the while, sitting with his tongue out and his head wagging humorously as he watched the experiment. It was getting toward the time of year when she would mate again, and send them off into the world to shift for themselves. And this was perhaps their first hard discipline.

Once also I caught an old bear enjoying himself in a curious way. It was one intensely hot day, in the heart of a New Brunswick wilderness. Mooween came out onto the lake shore and lumbered along, twisting uneasily and rolling his head as if very much distressed by the heat. I followed silently close behind in my canoe.

Soon he came to a cool spot under the alders, which was probably what he was looking for. A small brook made an eddy there, and a lot of driftweed had collected over a bed of soft black mud. The stump of a huge cedar leaned out over it, some four or five feet above the water.

First he waded in to try the temperature. Then he came out and climbed the cedar stump, where he sniffed in every direction, as is his wont before lying down. Satisfied at last, he balanced himself carefully and gave a big jump—Oh, so awkwardly!—with legs out flat, and paws up, and mouth open as if he were laughing at himself. Down he came, souse, with a tremendous splash that sent mud and water flying in every direction. And with a deep uff-guff of pure delight, he settled himself in his cool bed for a comfortable nap.

In his fondness for fish, Mooween has discovered an interesting way of catching them. In June and July immense numbers of trout and salmon run up the wilderness rivers on their way to the spawning grounds. Here and there, on small streams, are shallow riffles, where large fish are often half out of water as they struggle up. On one of these riffles Mooween stations himself during the first bright moonlight nights of June, when the run of fish is largest on account of the higher tides at the river mouth. And Mooween knows, as well as any other fisherman, the kind of night on which to go fishing. He knows also the virtue of keeping still. As a big salmon struggles by, Mooween slips a paw under him, tosses him to the shore by a dexterous flip, and springs after him before he can flounder back.

When hungry, Mooween has as many devices as a fox for getting a meal. He tries flipping frogs from among the lily pads in the same way that he catches salmon. That failing, he takes to creeping through the water-grass, like a mink, and striking his game dead with a blow of his paw.

Or he finds a porcupine loafing through the woods, and follows him about to throw dirt and stones at him, carefully refraining from touching him the while, till the porcupine rolls himself into a ball of bristling quills,—his usual method of defense. Mooween slips a paw under him, flips him against a tree to stun him, and bites him in the belly, where there are no quills. If he spies the porcupine in a tree, he will climb up, if he is a young bear, and try to shake him off. But he soon learns better, and saves his strength for more fruitful exertions.

Mooween goes to the lumber camps regularly after his winter sleep and, breaking in through door or roof, helps himself to what he finds. If there happens to be a barrel of pork there, he will roll it into the open air, if the door is wide enough, before breaking in the head with a blow of his paw.

Should he find a barrel of molasses among the stores, his joy is unbounded. The head is broken in on the instant and Mooween eats till he is surfeited. Then he lies down and rolls in the sticky sweet, to prolong the pleasure; and stays in the neighborhood till every drop has been lapped up.

Lumbermen have long since learned of his strength and cunning in breaking into their strong camps. When valuable stores are left in the woods, they are put into special camps, called bear camps, where doors and roofs are fastened with chains and ingenious log locks to keep Mooween out.

Near the settlements Mooween speedily locates the sweet apple trees among the orchards. These he climbs by night, and shakes off enough apples to last him for several visits. Every kind of domestic animal is game for him. He will lie at the edge of a clearing for hours, with the patience of a cat, waiting for turkey or sheep or pig to come within range of his swift rush.

His fondness for honey is well known. When he has discovered a rotten tree in which wild bees have hidden their store, he will claw at the bottom till it falls. Curling one paw under the log he sinks the claws deep into the wood. The other paw grips the log opposite the first, and a single wrench lays it open. The clouds of angry insects about his head meanwhile are as little regarded as so many flies. He knows the thickness of his skin, and they know it. When the honey is at last exposed, and begins to disappear in great hungry mouthfuls, the bees also fall upon it, to gorge themselves with the fruit of their hard labor before Mooween shall have eaten it all.

Everything eatable in the woods ministers at times to Mooween's need. Nuts and berries are favorite dishes in their season. When these and other delicacies fail, he knows where to dig for edible roots. A big caribou, wandering near his hiding place, is pulled down and stunned by a blow on the head. Then, when the meat has lost its freshness, he will hunt for an hour after a wood-mouse he has seen run under a stone, or pull a rotten log to pieces for the ants and larvae concealed within.

These last are favorite dishes with him. In a burned district, where ants and berries abound, one is continually finding charred logs, in which the ants nest by thousands, split open from end to end. A few strong claw marks, and the lick of a moist tongue here and there, explain the matter. It shows the extremes of Mooween's taste. Next to honey he prefers red ants, which are sour as pickles.

Mooween is even more expert as a boxer than as a fisherman. When the skin is stripped from his fore arms, they are seen to be of great size, with muscles as firm to the touch as so much rubber. Long practice has made him immensely strong, and quick as a flash to ward and strike. Woe be to the luckless dog, however large, that ventures in the excitement of the hunt within reach of his paw. A single swift stroke will generally put the poor brute out of the hunt forever.

Once Simmo caught a bear by the hind leg in a steel trap. It was a young bear, a two-year-old; and Simmo thought to save his precious powder by killing it with a club. He cut a heavy maple stick and, swinging it high above his head, advanced to the trap. Mooween rose to his hind legs, and looked him steadily in the eye, like the trained boxer that he is. Down came the club with a sweep to have felled an ox. There was a flash from Mooween's paw; the club spun away into the woods; and Simmo just escaped a fearful return blow by dropping to the ground and rolling out of reach, leaving his cap in Mooween's claws. A wink later, and his scalp would have hung there instead.

In the mating season, when three or four bears often roam the woods together in fighting humor, Mooween uses a curious kind of challenge. Rising on his hind legs against a big fir or spruce, he tears the bark with his claws as high as he can reach on either side. Then placing his back against the trunk, he turns his head and bites into the tree with his long canine teeth, tearing out a mouthful of the wood. That is to let all rivals know just how big a bear he is.

The next bear that comes along, seeking perhaps to win the mate of his rival and following her trail, sees the challenge and measures his height and reach in the same way, against the same tree. If he can bite as high, or higher, he keeps on, and a terrible fight is sure to follow. But if, with his best endeavors, his marks fall short of the deep scars above, he prudently withdraws, and leaves it to a bigger bear to risk an encounter.

In the wilderness one occasionally finds a tree on which three or four bears have thus left their challenge. Sometimes all the bears in a neighborhood seem to have left their records in the same place. I remember well one such tree, a big fir, by a lonely little beaver pond, where the separate challenges had become indistinguishable on the torn bark. The freshest marks here were those of a long-limbed old ranger—a monster he must have been—with a clear reach of a foot above his nearest rival. Evidently no other bear had cared to try after such a record.

Once, in the mating season, I discovered quite by accident that Mooween can be called, like a hawk or a moose, or indeed any other wild creature, if one but knows how. It was in New Brunswick, where I was camped on a wild forest river. At midnight I was back at a little opening in the woods, watching some hares at play in the bright moonlight. When they had run away, I called a wood-mouse out from his den under a stump; and then a big brown owl from across the river—which almost scared the life out of my poor little wood-mouse. Suddenly a strange cry sounded far back on the mountain. I listened curiously, then imitated the cry, in the hope of hearing it again and of remembering it; for I had never before heard anything like the sound, and had no idea what creature produced it. There was no response, however, and I speedily grew interested in the owls; for by this time two or three more were hooting about me, all called in by the first comer. When they had gone I tried the strange call again. Instantly it was answered close at hand. The creature was coming.

I stole out into the middle of the opening, and sat very still on a fallen log. Ten minutes passed in intense silence. Then a twig snapped behind me. I turned—and there was Mooween, just coming into the opening. I shall not soon forget how he looked, standing there big and black in the moonlight; nor the growl deep down in his throat, that grew deeper as he watched me. We looked straight into each other's eyes a brief, uncertain moment. Then he drew back silently into the dense shadow.

There is another side to Mooween's character, fortunately a rare one, which is sometimes evident in the mating season, when his temper leads him to attack instead of running away, as usual; or when wounded, or cornered, or roused to frenzy in defense of the young. Mooween is then a beast to be dreaded, a great savage brute, possessed of enormous strength and of a fiend's cunning. I have followed him wounded through the wilderness, when his every resting place was scarred with deep gashes, and where broken saplings testified mutely to the force of his blow. Yet even here his natural timidity lies close to the surface, and his ferocity has been greatly exaggerated by hunters.

Altogether, Mooween the Bear is a peaceable fellow, and an interesting one, well worth studying. His extreme wariness, however, enables him generally to escape observation; and there are undoubtedly many queer ways of his yet to be discovered by some one who, instead of trying to scare the life out of him by a shout or a rifle-shot in the rare moments when he shows himself, will have the patience to creep near, and find out just what he is doing. Only in the deepest wilderness is he natural and unconscious. There he roams about, entirely alone for the most part, supplying his numerous wants, and performing droll capers with all the gravity of an owl, when he thinks that not even Tookhees, the wood-mouse, is looking.

THE END