No More Learning

Sometimes I hear the veery's[5] clarion,
Or brazen trump of the impatient jay,
And in secluded woods the chickadee
Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise
Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness
Of virtue evermore.

The phoebe still sings in harmony with the sultry weather by the
brink of the pond, nor are the desultory hours of noon in the midst of
the village without their minstrel.

Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays
The vireo rings the changes sweet,
During the trivial summer days,
Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.

With the autumn begins in some measure a new spring. The plover is
heard whistling high in the air over the dry pastures, the finches
flit from tree to tree, the bobolinks and flickers fly in flocks, and
the goldfinch rides on the earliest blast, like a winged hyla peeping
amid the rustle of the leaves. The crows, too, begin now to
congregate; you may stand and count them as they fly low and
straggling over the landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at
intervals of half a mile, until a hundred have passed.

I have seen it suggested somewhere that the crow was brought to this
country by the white man; but I shall as soon believe that the white
man planted these pines and hemlocks. He is no spaniel to follow our
steps; but rather flits about the clearings like the dusky spirit of
the Indian, reminding me oftener of Philip and Powhatan than of
Winthrop and Smith. He is a relic of the dark ages. By just so slight,
by just so lasting a tenure does superstition hold the world ever;
there is the rook in England, and the crow in New England.

Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
Bird of an ancient brood,
Flitting thy lonely way,
A meteor in the summer's day,
From wood to wood, from hill to hill,
Low over forest, field, and rill,
What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat,
And bears thee up above the clouds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low?

The late walker or sailor, in the October evenings, may hear the
murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most
spirit-like sound in nature; and still later in the autumn, when the
frosts have tinged the leaves, a solitary loon pays a visit to our
retired ponds, where he may lurk undisturbed till the season of
moulting is passed, making the woods ring with his wild laughter.
This
bird, the Great Northern Diver, well deserves its name; for when
pursued with a boat, it will dive, and swim like a fish under water,
for sixty rods or more, as fast as a boat can be paddled, and its
pursuer, if he would discover his game again, must put his ear to the
surface to hear where it comes up. When it comes to the surface, it
throws the water off with one shake of its wings, and calmly swims
about until again disturbed.

These are the sights and sounds which reach our senses oftenest during
the year. But sometimes one hears a quite new note, which has for
background other Carolinas and Mexicos than the books describe, and
learns that his ornithology has done him no service.

It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds
belonging to the State, and among these one is glad to hear of a few
bears, wolves, lynxes, and wildcats.

When our river overflows its banks in the spring, the wind from the
meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its freshness
advertises me of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far
off then. I am affected by the sight of the cabins of the muskrat,
made of mud and grass, and raised three or four feet along the river,
as when I read of the barrows of Asia. The muskrat is the beaver of
the settled States. Their number has even increased within a few
years in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the
Merrimack, the Concord is known to the boatmen as a dead stream. The
Indians are said to have called it Musketaquid, or Prairie River. Its
current being much more sluggish and its water more muddy than the
rest, it abounds more in fish and game of every kind. According to the
History of the town, "The fur-trade was here once very important. As
early as 1641, a company was formed in the colony, of which Major
Willard of Concord was superintendent, and had the exclusive right to
trade with the Indians in furs and other articles; and for this right
they were obliged to pay into the public treasury one twentieth of all
the furs they obtained. " There are trappers in our midst still, as
well as on the streams of the far West, who night and morning go the
round of their traps, without fear of the Indian.