Chapter VII: On Getting Acquainted

To know birds and beasts may be a greater or a lesser triumph than to know ornithology or zoölogy. That is a question of taste or temperament, the only certainty being that the two classes of subjects are altogether different. The latter deals with external matters, with form, classification, generalities. Its materials are books, specimens, museums, one as dead or desiccate as another; and because it is limited and exact, you can memorize its outlines in a few days, or become in a few years an authority in the science.

The former subject, of birds and beasts, deals with an endless and fascinating mystery. Its materials are living and joyous individuals, among whom are no classes or species, concerning whom there can be no “authority”; and when, after a lifetime of study, you have made a small beginning of knowledge, you find that, like All Gaul of misty memory, it may be divided into three parts.

One part is observation, which is a simple matter of the eye. Another is sympathy, which belongs to the mind or heart. In dealing with wild creatures, as with civilized folk, one learns to appreciate De Quincey’s rule of criticism, “Not to sympathize is not to understand.” A third part, more rare and variable, may come from that penetrating but indescribable quality which we call a gift. A few men have it; the animals instinctively trust them, and they understand animals without knowing how they understand. The rest, lacking it, must struggle against a handicap to learn, substituting the slow wisdom of experience for the quick insight of the gift. It is for the latter chiefly that I write these wood notes.

One word more by way of preface, to express the conviction that you can learn nothing worth knowing about birds or beasts so long as you seek them with a gun in your hand. On that road you shall find only common dust, and at the end of it a valley of dry bones. Whether you carry the gun frankly for sport, or delude yourself with the notion that you can add to natural history by collecting more skins or skulls, you have unconsciously placed destruction above fulfilment, stark death above the beautiful mystery of life. So must you estrange both the animal and yourself, making it impossible for you to meet on any common ground of understanding. And now for our lessons:

If I were to formulate rules for a subject which can never be learned by the book, I might say that there are three things you should know, and another you must do, if you expect to gain any intimate knowledge of the wood folk, or even to approach them near enough for fair and leisurely observation.

The first thing to know is that natural creatures, though instinctively shy or timid, are not wildly governed by fears and terrors, as we have been misinformed from our youth up. The “reign of terror” is another of those pet scientific delusions, like the “struggle for existence,” for which there is no basis in nature. Fear in any true sense of the word is an exclusively human possession, or affliction; it is a physical and moral poison, as artificial as sin, which the animal escapes by virtue of being natural. It is doubtful, indeed, whether anything remotely resembling our fear, a state of mind arising from a highly developed imagination which enables us to picture events before they happen, is ever born into a hairy skin or hatched out of an egg. The natural timidity of all wild creatures is a protective and wholesome instinct, radically different from the fear which makes cowards of men who have learned to trace causes and to anticipate consequences.

So much for the mental analysis; and your eyes emphasize the same conclusion when you look frankly upon the natural world. The very attitude or visible expression of birds or beasts when you meet them in their native woods, feeding, playing, resting, seeking their mates, or roving freely with their little ones (all pleasurable matters, constituting nine-tenths or more of animal existence), is enough in itself to refute the absurd notion of a general reign of terror in nature. If you are wise, therefore, you will get rid of that prejudice, or at least hold it in abeyance till the animals themselves teach you how senseless it is. To go out obsessed with the notion of fear is to blind your eyes to the great comedy of the woods.

The second thing to know, and to remember when you go forth to see, is that sensitive creatures dislike to be watched, and become uneasy when they find a pair of eyes intently fixed upon them. You yourself retain something of this ancient animal inheritance, it seems, since there is nothing which more surely excites alarm if you are timid, or challenge if you are well balanced, or anger if you have a fighting spirit, than to have a stranger watching your every move while you go about your lawful affairs. The fact that you cannot word a reason for your alarm or challenge or anger makes you all the more certain that you have an unanswerable reason; which is your inborn right to be let alone.

This natural and inalienable right (which society curbs for its own protection, and reform societies trample on for their peculiar pleasure) may help you to understand why the animal becomes alarmed when he finds you watching him closely. He desires above all things else, above his dinner even, to be let alone; and your eye may as surely disturb his peace, his self-possession, his sense of security, as any gun you may shoot at him or any fire you may kindle in his fragrant domain.

You have but to think a moment in order to understand why even your look may be too disturbing. When a beast of prey sees a buck that he wants to catch, what is his invariable mode of procedure? First he hides, then he creeps or skulks or waits, all the while keeping his eyes fastened upon his victim, watching every move with fierce intensity till the moment comes to spring. It follows, naturally enough, that when the same beast of prey finds other eyes fixed upon himself, he knows well what the look means, that a rush will swiftly follow; and he anticipates the rush by taking to his heels. Or the buck, having once escaped the charge of a hunting beast, will remember his experience the next time he finds himself an object of scrutiny, and will flee from it as from any other discomfort.

Whether this action is the result of instinctive or deductive knowledge is here of no consequence: let the psychologists pick a bone over it. Since we have in our heads a strong aversion to being observed too closely, we are probably facing an instinct, which is stronger in the brute than in the man; but it is the fact, not the explanation thereof, which is important. The simple fact is, that wild birds and beasts will not endure watching; and you begin to sympathize with their notion when you mark the eyes of a stalking cat, with their terrible fire just before she springs. There is always more or less of that fire in a watchful eye; you may see it glow or blaze under a man’s narrowed lids before he takes quick action; and it is the kindling of that dangerous light which a sensitive creature expects and avoids when he finds you watching him.

Did you ever follow an old cock-partridge in the woods with intent to kill him? If so, you have a living picture of the truth I have explained theoretically. Near our towns the partridge (ruffed grouse) is very wild, taking wing at your approach; but in the deep woods he is almost fearless. Even when you stumble into a flock of the birds, frightening them out of their calm, they are apt to flit into the trees and remain absolutely motionless. They are then hard to find, so well do they blend with their background; and if they are young birds, they will hold still after you discover them. Since they were helpless chicks they have trusted to quietness to conceal them; it serves them very well, much better than running away from stronger enemies; and the habit is strong upon them, as upon young ducks and other game-birds before they have learned to trust their wings. But when you stumble upon an old cock-grouse you meet a bird that has added experience to instinct, and that knows when to move as well as when to sit still. He dodges out of sight as you raise your rifle; as you follow him he bursts away on whirring wings and slants up into a tree in a distant part of the wood. Marking where he lights, you try to find him, cat-footing around his perch, peering into every tree-top, putting a “crik” in the back of your neck. For a half-hour, it may be, you search for him in vain; suddenly there he is, and—b’r-r-r-r! he is gone. The odd thing is that he sits still so long as you cannot find him; not a feather stirs or a foot shifts or an eyelid blinks even when your glance roves blindly over him; you may give him up and go away, leaving him motionless; but the instant you see him he seems to know it, and in that instant he is off. This is not a single or an accidental but a typical experience; any woodsman who has hunted ruffed grouse with a rifle will smile as he tells you, “That’s true; but I can’t explain it.”

A third bit of woods lore, of which we shall presently make good use, is that natural birds and animals have a lively interest in every new or strange thing they meet. Far from being occupied in a constant struggle for existence, as the books misinform us, their lives are full of leisure; they have plentiful hours for rest or play or roving, and in these idle times they get most of their fun out of life by indulging their curiosity. I fancy that in this respect, also, most people are still natural creatures, seeing that men or women in a crowd are as easily set to stretching their necks as any flock of ducks or band of caribou.

So strong is the animal’s inquisitive instinct (for it surely is an instinct, the basis of all education, and without it we should be fools, learning nothing) that he will readily give over his play or even his feeding to investigate any new thing which catches his attention. I speak now not of fearsome things, which may properly alarm the wood folk, but of pretty or harmless or attractive things, such as the repeated flash of a looking-glass or the rhythmic swing of a handkerchief or a whistled tune, which commonly bring wild creatures nearer with forward-set ears and eyes with questions in them. In a word, so far as I have observed birds and beasts, their first or natural attitude toward every new object, unless it be raising fearful smells or moving toward them with hostile intent, is invariably one of curiosity rather than of fear.

One proof of this universal trait, to me, is that when I approach wild animals carelessly they often run away; but of the hundreds that have approached me when I was quiet in the woods, every one without exception showed plainly by his action that he was keen to find out who or what I might be. Young animals are more inquisitive than old, having everything to learn, and they are easily attracted; but age cannot stale the wonder of the world for them, and I have never chanced to meet an old doe, no, nor a tough old bull moose, that did not come near to question me if the chance were given. Of the larger wood folk Mooween the bear is perhaps the least inquisitive; yet once an old bear came so close to me, his eyes a question and his nose an exclamation point, that I could have touched him before his curiosity was satisfied; and several times, when I have been watching the berry-fields, a bear and her cubs have noticed some slight motion of mine and have left their feast of blueberries to approach rather too near for my comfort. At close quarters an old she-bear is a little uncertain. Commonly she runs away in sudden panic; but should you get between her and her cub, and the piggish little fellow squeal out as if frightened or hurt, she may fly into a fury and become dangerous to a man unarmed.

The obvious thing to do, in view of what has been learned, is to hold physically and mentally still when you meet a wild animal, and so take advantage of his curiosity. That is very easy when he happens to find you at rest, for then he is bound to find out something about you before he goes; but even when he catches you afoot you may still have a fair chance if you stop in your tracks and move no muscle while he is looking. Remember that so long as you are motionless you puzzle him; that you should advance only when his head is turned away, and that you should never move directly at any animal, but to one side, as if you would give him plenty of room in passing. If you must change your position or attitude while he is looking, move gently and very slowly, avoiding every appearance of haste or nervousness. If he vanishes after one keen look, be sure he is a veteran that has seen men before, and bide still where you are. The chances are ten to one that no sooner does he think himself hidden than he will turn to have another look at you. It is always in your favor, since you have the better eyes, that an animal has the habit of concealment, and so long as you pretend not to see him he is very apt to think himself unseen.

Such a method applies particularly well to all members of the deer family, with their insatiable curiosity; but it serves almost as well with beasts of prey, which may be so surprised by meeting a motionless man that they will often “point” him in a way to suggest a setter pointing a woodcock. We think of the fox, for example, as the most cunning of animals; like the dolls’ dressmaker in Our Mutual Friend, he seems to be saying, “Oh, I know your tricks and your manners”; yet on a good tracking-snow I have trailed many foxes to their day-beds, and have found that with few exceptions they act in the same half-puzzled, half-inquisitive way. And this is the fashion of it:

Looking far ahead on the dainty trail you suddenly catch a glimpse of orange color, very warm against the cold whiteness of the snow, which tells you where Eleemos the sly one, as Simmo calls him, is curled on a warm rock or stump with the winter sunshine fair upon him. Then you must leave the trail, as if you were not following it, and advance on noiseless feet till the fox raises his head, when you must “freeze” in your tracks. If he is a tramp fox (that is, one which has come hunting here out of his own territory) or a veteran that has already seen too much of men and their devices, he will dodge out of sight and be seen no more; but if he is an ordinary young fox, especially a cub weathering his first winter, he will almost certainly investigate that odd motionless object which was not there when he went to sleep. After “pointing” you a moment he slips into the nearest cover, not turning his head in your direction, but watching you keenly out of the corners of his yellow eyes. When he thinks himself hidden from your sight he circles to get your wind; and on this side or that you will have two or three good glimpses of him before he floats away—or seems to, so lightly does he run—to hunt up another day-bed. Your last view of him shows a slyly inquisitive little beast, perfectly self-possessed; but as he disappears you notice a nervous, quivering, fluttering motion of his great brush, which gives him away as a tail betrays a dog, and which says that Eleemos is greatly excited or puzzled over something.

Better than roaming noisily through the woods in search of game is to sit still and let the game come to you—an arrangement which puts you at your ease, and at the same time encourages the animal to indulge his curiosity without alarm. You may not see so many birds or beasts in this way, but some of them you shall see much more intimately; and a single inquisitive jay may teach you more of nature than all the bird books in the world, as I have learned more of Latin humanity from Angelo, who polishes my shoes, than from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Very often, if you hold perfectly still, a wild animal will pass down the runway close at hand without even seeing you, and you must draw his attention by a chirp or a slight motion. Then, when he whirls upon you in astonishment, his eyes saying that he was never so surprised in his life, observe him casually as it were, veiling your interest and never staring at him as if he were a wild or strange beast, but greeting him rather as one you have long known.

At such a moment quietness is the best medicine—quietness and friendly eyes. If the animal wavers, a low song or a whistled tune may or may not be helpful; it depends entirely on the tune. You are to keep physically quiet, because any sudden motion will alarm the sensitive creature, so near is he to the unknown; and mentally quiet, because excitement is as contagious as fear or measles, or any other disease of mind or body. When I am alone in the woods wild animals are rarely hard to approach, and when I am sitting quietly by a runway they show no fear of me whatever, drawing near with questioning eyes or moving away reluctantly; but when I take another with me, especially one who grows excited in the presence of big game, the same animals appear suspicious, uneasy, and end by bolting away as if we had frightened them.

One day there came to my camp a friend who was eager to see a deer at close range, but who was doubtful of my assurance that animals could neither see nor smell him if he knew how to hold still. When I promised him a deer at ten feet he jumped for his camera, saying that in such an incredible event he would get what he had always wanted, a picture of the graceful creature against a background of his native woods, in soft light and shadow instead of the glaring black-and-white of a flashlight. At that disturbing proposition all his doubts moved into me, who have always found camera folk a fidgety folk. What with their fussing and focusing and everlasting uneasiness over distance or time or shutter, or something else which is never right and ready, they are sure to bedevil any wild creature before he comes within speaking distance; so I took my friend and his camera along without faith, hoping for the best.

Our stand was a hardwood ridge where deer often passed on their way to the lake, and we had been sitting there hardly an hour when I saw a young spikebuck coming down the runway. The next moment there was a gasping “Oh, there’s a deer!” from the man who had been warned to keep mentally still. Then began the inevitable tinkering with the camera, which had been thrice prepared and was still as unready as all its kind. More than once I had sat in that precise spot while deer passed at a distance of three or four yards without noticing me; but now the little buck caught an uneasy motion and halted with head high and eyes flashing. If ever there was a chance for a wonderful picture, he offered it; but he did not like the focusing, or whatever it was, and after endless delay the camera clicked on a white flag bobbing among the shadows, where it looked in the negative like a smear of sunlight.

The camera reminds me of another way of approaching deer, a way often followed by summer campers; namely, by chasing the swimming animal in a canoe. I have but one word to say of such a method, and that is, Don’t! When a deer is crossing broad water you can get as close to him as you will; you can take a grip on him and let him tow your canoe, as thoughtless people sometimes do, encouraged by their guides; but I suggest that it would be much better to shoot the creature and have done with it.

A deer’s powers are very delicately balanced; he is nervous, high strung, easily upset. Even on land, where he can distance you in a moment, he begins to worry if he finds you holding steadily to his trail; and I have known a young deer to become so flustered after he had been jumped and followed a few times that he began to act in most erratic fashion, and was very easily approached. When you chase him in the water, and he finds that he cannot get away from you, he may give up and drown, as a rabbit submits without a struggle when a weasel rises in front of him; but a vigorous deer is more apt to become highly excited, to struggle wildly, to waste ten times as much energy as would keep him afloat, to jump his heart action at a dangerous rate; and then a very little more will finish him as surely as a bullet in the brain.

Twice have I seen deer thus killed by thoughtless campers, the last victim being a splendid buck full grown. Two men saw him swimming an arm of Moosehead Lake, and launched a canoe with no unkinder purpose than to turn him back to shore, so that a party of sportsmen there might get a picture of him. The buck labored mightily; but the paddles were swift, and wherever he turned the danger appeared close in front of him. Suddenly he rose in the water, pawing the air, and heaved over on his side. When the canoe reached him he was dead; and the surprising thing is that dissection revealed no ruptured blood-vessel nor any other visible cause of his death. It was probably a matter of heart paralysis. Such an ending was unusual, I know; but undoubtedly many of these overwrought animals reach shore exhausted, spent to the limit, and lie down in the first good cover, never to rise again.

Moose and caribou are stronger swimmers than deer, and of tougher fiber; but it is still dangerous, I think, to chase them in the water. Once I saw a canoe following close behind a cow and a calf moose, the canoeists yelling wildly to hurry up the pace. Had they thought to look once into the eyes of the struggling brutes, they might have learned something which they ought to know. As the calf lagged farther and farther behind, the mother turned to come between him and the canoe, and remained there trying to urge and push the little fellow along. So they reached shallow water at last, found their footing, and plunged into the cover. The canoe turned away, and no doubt the incident was soon forgotten. I never saw the canoemen again, but I saw one of the moose. A few days later, in passing through the woods on that side of the lake, I found the calf stretched out dead where he had fallen, not fifty yards from the water’s edge.

Perhaps another “don’t” should here be memorized for the happy occasion when you find a fawn or a little cub in the woods, and are moved most kindly to pet him. If the mother is half-tame, or has lived near a clearing long enough to lose distrust of the man-scent, it may do no harm to treat her fawn or cub as you would a puppy; but to handle any wild little creature is to do him an injury. Until a fawn is strong enough to travel the rough country in which he was born, the doe often leaves him hidden in the woods, where he lies so close and still that you may pass without seeing him. Once you discover him, however, and he knows that he is seen, his beautiful eyes begin to question you with a great wonder. He has no fear of you whatever (this while he is very young, or before he begins to follow his mother); he will sometimes follow you when you go away, and he is such a lovable creature, so innocent and so appealing, that it is hard to keep your hands from him. Let him sniff your palm if he will, or lick it with his rough tongue for the faint taste of salt; but as you value his life don’t pet him or leave the scent of you on his delicate skin. A wild mother knows her own by the sense of smell chiefly; if she finds the startling man-scent where she expected a familiar odor, she becomes instantly alarmed, and then the little one is a stranger to her or a source of violent anger.

Once, before I learned better than to handle any helpless cub, I saw a doe drive her own fawn roughly away from her, out of my sight and hearing. I had petted the fawn a little (a very little, I am glad to remember) and looked with wonder on the mother’s anger, not understanding it till some time later, when I learned of a similar incident with a sadder ending. Not far from my camp a sportsman with his guide found a fawn hidden near the stream where they were fishing, and being completely won by the beautiful innocent, as most men are, they petted him to their hearts’ content. When an old doe, the mother presumably, appeared heading in their direction they thoughtfully withdrew, hiding at a distance to watch the family reunion. The doe seemed to hasten her steps when she saw that the fawn was on his feet, instead of lying close where she had left him; but when near him she suddenly stiffened, with the hair bristling on her neck. Two or three times she thrust out her nose, only to back away, and once she raised the harsh alarm-cry that a doe utters when she smells danger. Then, as the little fellow trotted up to her on his wabbly legs, she leaped upon him in fury and trampled him to death.