THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Vol. 12 September, 1916 No. 6 



When the Birds Nested 



L. H. Bailey 



I was fortunate to have been born and sent forth near a brook 

 and several catholes,* in the forests and with a varied wild life. 

 The wolves had just disappeared as I came into knowledge of my 

 surroundings, but bears and lynxes were now and then seen and 

 deer were not uncommon. Nearby was a wonderful rookery of 

 passenger pigeons, and all my early boyhood was animated by 

 the clouds of flying birds in the feeding seasons. The Indians, 

 migrating with the fishing and the game, were a constant wonder. 

 A mile away was Lake Michigan, and although the roar of it be- 

 came a part of me and I often ran its shores, it was nevertheless 

 always another world, a great place outside of me, mighty and 

 compelling but yet not within my waking ambitions. 



I doubt whether any recent boy feels that old charm of the cat- 

 hole — of that small swamp with a deep hole in the center, in which 

 everything seemed to grow, where strange birds nested, to which 

 all things retreated, where there was water life beyond reach, and 

 whence a small boy expected everything unearthly to come. It 

 was a part of the pioneer life, how much a part we did not then 

 know for we thought the fever-and-ague to come from the miasma 

 of the newly broken ground. It must have been more of a factor 

 with us than the coulee of the farther Out-West, for it was wet and 

 full of breeds year in and year out. I cannot m^,ke the young folk 

 understand that certain dry lands were once the scene of catholes, 



*Note — The term cathole seems to be little known at present, as it was 

 used in the early days in Michigan. It is not a hole in the cellar door to let 

 the cat in and out; nor is it a nautical term, as in the dictionaries. It was 

 applied to a small bog or swamp, usually less than an acre in extent, as I recall 

 it, and sometimes only four or six rods across. Commonly it was deep in the 

 center, often with considerable muck deposit. These holes were undoubtedly 

 post-glacial, perhaps in large part the depressions left from the melting of re- 

 maining masses of ice. About their edges grew willows, sedges, and other low- 

 land growths, but the hard land came close around them. I have heard it 

 said that they were called catholes because of the cattails that grew in them; 

 and others say it is because they became depositories for departed cats and all 

 other offcasts, but this I doubt; yet there were lots of things in those catholes. 



L. H. B. 



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