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IN THE OPEN

INTIMATE STUDIES
AND APPRECIATIONS OF
NATURE BY

STANTON DAVIS KIRKHAM

AUTHOR OF

"WHERE DWELLS THE SOUL SERENE"
"THE MINISTRY OF BEAUTY"

"_Over and above a healthy
curiosity, or any scientific
acquaintance, it is the
companionship of the woods
and fields which counts--
a real friendship for birds
and bees and flowers._"

PAUL ELDER & COMPANY

SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK




_Copyright, 1908
by_ PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY




TO MY WIFE
MARY WILLIAMS KIRKHAM
THIS BOOK IS
AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED




PREFACE


_There is an estate on which we pay no tax and which is not susceptible
of improvement. It is of indefinite extent and is to be reached by
taking the road to the nearest woods and fields. While this is quite as
valuable as any property we may possess, as a matter of fact few assert
their title to it._

_Nature is in herself a perpetual invitation to come into the open. The
woods are an unfailing resource; the mountains and the sea,
companionable. To count among one's friends, the birds and flowers and
trees is surely worth while; for to come upon a new flower is then in
the nature of an agreeable event, and a chance meeting with a bird may
lend a pleasant flavor to the day._




CONTENTS


PREFACE                   v

THE POINT OF VIEW         1

SIGNS OF SPRING          11

BIRD LIFE                22

SONGS OF THE WOODS       40

WILD GARDENS             56

WEEDS                    69

INSECT LORE              78

THE WAYS OF THE ANT      94

AUTUMN STUDIES          113

PASTURE STONES          127

NEIGHBORS               136

THE WINTER WOODS        153

LAUGHING WATERS         164

THE MOUNTAINS           173

THE FOREST              185

THE SEA                 196

INDEX                   209


     _A flock of wild geese on the wing is no less than an
     inspiration. When that strong-voiced, stout-hearted company
     of pioneers pass overhead, our thoughts ascend and sail with
     them over the roofs of the world. As band after band come
     into the field of vision--minute glittering specks in the
     distant blue--to cross the golden sea of the sunset and
     disappear in the northern twilight, their faint melodious
     honk is an Orphean strain drawing irresistibly._

     AFTER THE PAINTING BY
     LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES

[Illustration]




THE POINT OF VIEW


Nature is in herself a perpetual invitation: the birds call, the trees
beckon and the winds whisper to us. After the unfeeling pavements, the
yielding springy turf of the fields has a sympathy with the feet and
invites us to walk. It is good to hear again the fine long-drawn note
of the meadow-lark--voice of the early year,--the first bluebird's
warble, the field-sparrow's trill, the untamed melody of the kinglet--a
magic flute in the wilderness--and to see the ruby crown of the beloved
sprite. It is good to inhale the mint crushed underfoot and to roll
between the fingers the new leaves of the sweetbrier; to see again the
first anemones--the wind-children,--the mandrake's canopies, the
nestling erythronium and the spring beauty, like a delicate carpet; or
to seek the clintonia in its secluded haunts, and to feel the old
childlike joy at sight of lady's-slippers.

It is worth while to be out-of-doors all of one day, now and then, and
to really _know_ what is morning and what evening; to observe the
progress of the day as one might attend a spectacle, though this
requires leisure and a free mind. The spirit of the woods will not lend
itself to a mere fair-weather devotion. You must cast in your lot with
the wild and take such weather as befalls. If you do not now and then
spend a day in the snow, you miss some impressions that no fair weather
can give. When you have walked for a time in the spring shower, you
have a new and larger sympathy with the fields. The shining leaves,
glistening twigs, jeweled cobwebs and the gentle cadence of the falling
rain all tell you it is no time to stay indoors.

Life in the woods sharpens the nose, the eyes, the ears. There are
nose-feasts, eye-feasts, ear-feasts. What if the frost-grapes are
sour--they are fair to look at. Some things are for the palate and some
for the eye. The fragrance of blackberries is as delicate as the
flavor, a spicy aroma, a woodsy bouquet, and to eat without seeing or
smelling is to lose much. Clustered cherries, so lustrous black with
their red stems, refresh the inner and the outer man. You may safely
become a gourmand with respect to these wild flavors. Their virtue is
of the volatile sort that will not stand bottling; it will not enter
into essence or tincture. You must yourself go out and pick the cherry
under a September sky and in the presence of the first glowing leaves
of sumac and Virginia creeper.

Does not the bayberry revive and exhilarate the walker, as
smelling-salts restore fainting women? You have but to roll the waxen
berry in the fingers, or crush the leaf, to feel that indefinable
thrill which belongs to the woods, to the open air--the free life.
Another vigorous and stimulating odor is the fragrance of green
butternuts, which contains the goodness, the sweetness, the very marrow
of the woods, and calls out the natural and unaffected, as a strain of
music arouses the heroic. The tartness of the barberry matches the
crispness of the air and rebukes the lack of vigor in us. No true child
can resist the lure of wintergreen berries, while to nibble the bark of
a fresh young sassafras shoot admits us to some closer association with
Nature. A whiff of balsam is an invitation to share the abandon of the
woods, and awakens memories of the halcyon days, the shining hours,
when nutting and berrying were the real things of life.

One who is possessed with the idea of finding a certain bird or plant
is in a fair way to the discovery, and sooner or later each will come
into the field of vision. How the robin discovers the worm is a mystery
to be explained on the score of _attention_; it is perfect
concentration on a single point, with faculties trained in that
direction. That the footsteps of ants were audible had not occurred to
me till one day in watching the progress of the annual raid of the red
ants upon the black colonies, I plainly heard the patter of their feet,
as the column marched at double-quick over the floor of dry leaves.
There are many sounds in Nature that only become evident when we give
absolute attention, when we become all ear,--as there are things seen
only when we become for the time an eye.

Sensitive and sympathetic natures rarely confuse one person with
another, whereas the cold or obtuse really never see the finer
distinctions in a face. They make poor observers. Any one unacquainted
with birds will show by an attempted description that he has not in the
least seen the bird. I have known old lumbermen who had not noticed the
difference in the needles of the species of pine, nor the leaves of
oaks; but they knew the difference in the quality of the wood well
enough, because that appealed to their interest and held their
attention.

Preparedness adds zest to the walk and enriches it, precisely as a
broad culture and a fund of information enlarge the view of the
traveler. Notwithstanding what may be in the woods, it takes some
understanding and some interest to see it. An unprepared person will
see little; an uninterested person will see nothing. To many of the
villagers the wood-lot is a remote and unfamiliar wilderness, and the
warblers and vireos as unknown as any tropic bird. We should at least
know the kinglets by their caste-mark--whether it be red or yellow--and
the oriole by the colors of his ancient line.

Given a certain preparedness even the rocks become instinct with
suggestion. They are more than stone,--even historical reminders, which
incite one to long and pleasing trains of thought. In the mountains I
came upon a flat ledge of shale which showed ripple marks of an earlier
sea than any we know, a far-off Devonian ocean which once washed this
primitive beach. They had long parted company, and now the beach was
up among the spruce and balsams,--such vicissitudes are there in the
fortunes of all. The ancient waters had left their mark, that however
high the rock might go, it should none the less speak of the mother
sea. Again, the traces of glaciation on ledges and boulders appeal to
the imagination with a peculiar eloquence. What a mighty cosmic plane
was that which smoothed these granite ledges! It planed off New England
as if it were a knot on a plank, and scattered over it the dust and
chips of the workshop. These ledges serve as a fairly accurate compass,
and are at least more reliable than the lichens on the trees.

Some men have an eye for trees and an inborn sympathy with these rooted
giants, as