Otsego Leaves, The Bird Primeval, Part II [pp. 273-277]

APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
hovering over the lake and river, in little dancing
flocks. For a clumsy bear it might have been perhaps
a fifteen minutes' walk down the wild, steep hill-side
to the shore. But in a few seconds the swift was
there, disporting himself joyously. At favorable
moments in the early morning, at evening hours,
and in cloudy, showery days, he met there many
companions of his own kind whirling in graceful
maze to and fro. And other feathered creatures were
afloat on the water. Ducks of many feathers were
swimming, rising, falling, in little parties of their own,
among them lovely wood-ducks, nesting in trees
overhanging the lake.
There were reaches of the shore where the limpid
waters were shallow, rolling over a clean bottom of
pebbles, and here white, branchless trunks of ancient trees could plainly be seen lying where they
had fallen headlong into the lake, weakened by centuries of age, or laid low by the tempest. Other
fallen giants of the old forest, still branching at their
summits, and touched here and there with verdure,
had also dropped from the bank, but were only partially submerged, though reaching, perhaps, thirty
feet into the lake; on these half-submerged wrecks
of trees young saplings had grown up, vines and
creepers clung to them, and a few wild-flowers
bloomed among the moss, on the half-decayed
trunks, the whole forming a fantastic little point
stretching out from the shore here and there. It
was near one of these leafy points that the swallows
frequently saw a few noble birds floating grandly to
and fro, entirely white in plumage, silent, majestic
in movement, with long, graceful necks, and black
bills. They were swans, whose nests lay in a
marshy spot on the shore. Seldom on the wing, the
beautiful forms of those brilliant white birds often
gleamed in the sunlight on the blue water. And
there were other great water-fowl still larger than
the swan, with white plumage tinged with pinkish
red, frequently in sight near a low point on the
western shore, where they had their nests; they
were heavy and uncouth in movement, bearing a
large bill and great pouch beneath it; these were
the large white pelicans, rarely in flight, often in
drowsy sleep on the water.
Nor was it only feathered creatures that the
swallows saw in their flight over the lake. Often
they flitted over the heads of the graceful deer, or
the large elk, lapping the water in morning and
evening hours. Not unfrequently the tall, dark, ungainly moose was there also, uprooting the waterlilies, or feeding daintily on the buds of the wildroses growing along the shore. With a colony of
beavers also they were on visiting terms, so far, at
least, as making flying calls to the beaver-town at a
point on the opposite shore. These primeval swallows saw, indeed, many sights which your civilized
modem eyes shall never behold.
Nay, they saw more than most creatures haunting the shores of the same forest-lake. They were
on the wing more than most birds. The sun found
them hovering over the water when he arose above
the eastern hill, and he left them there when, after
the long summer day, he dropped slowly to the
westward. There was scarcely an hour in the night
when a few of those anxious father and mother birds
were not roving over the water, hunting among the
night-moths great and small. There was feeding
going on in the old elm, more or less, all through
the night. A dull, rumbling sound like distant
thunder was often heard in the darkness, as well as
in daylight hours, from within the riven tree. Many
a graceful deer, passing near the elm, would suddenly pause in listening attitude, startled by that mysterious sound. Was it a pack of wolves in pursuit?
Perchance, indeed, the cruel wolves were not far
away, and were rushing on the track of the stag as
he leaped through the wood, seeking the lake-shore.
The ungainly bear, who had wintered in a cave not
far to the southward, would also pause to listen in his
night wandering, near the hollow tree, and perchance
he would paw the trunk in inquiring wonder. The
wily panther, coming and going on errands of his
own, haunting the cliffs to the northward, would hear
the rumbling from the heart of the old tree, and
crawl with stealthy movement, and glaring, cruel
eye, to the root of the great elm to listen. Strange,
is it not, that birds who have so little voice, whose
only speech is a faint twitter, whose airy flight is so
easy, so noiseless, should thus produce this subdued
roar within an old tree? It was the constant movement of the parent-birds feeding their young, coming and going through the hollow column which
sheltered their flock, that produced the busy murmur.
And this movement, whether under sunshine or
moonlight, went on through the midsummer weeks.
There were two sets of little white eggs laid in many
of those rude basket-nests; two broods of odd little
fledglings clinging to the inner surface of the tree.
But ere long the whole nursery, elder and younger
birds, was afloat in the air, the flock being nearly
quadrupled in numbers since the arrival of the parent-birds in the spring. Then came a general holiday-a merry, joyous, dancing time. They were
abroad all day in idle pleasuring, high, high in the
air, far above the grandest pines, low over the lake,
where they now saw the young, blue-gray cygnets
swimming about their proud mother, and the odd,
ash-colored young pelicans, with those uncouth bills
and pouches.
During the day the great elm was now deserted.
Old Crow came back to his favorite perch unmolested. But at night, about sunset, the whole swallowflock would whirl and flutter about the riven tree,
and then vanish within to roost for the night.
The weather was still very warm. The later
summer flowers were coming into bloom. The berries were ripening in the woods. The air was full
of insect-life. The whole forest was richly green.
At this very period of the season, when the luxuriant affluence of summer was still unfading, there
came an evening when the old crow sat preening his
feathers on the blighted branch in perfect solitude.
Not a single swallow returned! The old riven
elm was deserted. The movement and murmur
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