234 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Aug. 24, 1912 
strewn hillsides and swampy hollows. A few 
dying apple trees and some old-fashioned garden 
flowers, now growing wild, help the friendly ob¬ 
server to reconstruct the past. 
In summer the fields are a tangle of briers 
and bushes and weeds, affording slim pasturage 
even for sheep and cattle, but I have never seen 
a place richer in birds and wild flowers and 
other wild crops of nature’s own raising. In 
these thickets the birds of summer nest and sing, 
for the most part unmolested except by their 
natural enemies. On a morning’s jaunt I have 
seen wood-thrushes, catbirds, red-eyed vireos, 
yellow-breasted chats, orchard orioles, wood 
pewees, phoebes, meadowlarks, bobwhites, scar¬ 
let tanagers, chewinks, rose-breasted grosbeaks, 
vesper sparrows, flickers, bluejays and a large 
number of other birds not so well known. One 
bright afternoon, which I will not soon forget, 
I watched with delight an Irish setter “work” 
a lone snipe from one heavy cover to another. 
The poor dog, besmeared with mud, was having 
the time of his life, and probably felt disap¬ 
pointed because I did not take part in the game. 
Occasionally since then I have seen snipe and 
plover about the place. Red squirrels, rabbits 
and woodchucks are numerous, and according 
to report a few red foxes are making their pres¬ 
ence felt. I recently stumbled upon what ap¬ 
pears to be a den, and I am anxiously awaiting 
possible developments. 
So it goes. There is always something 
worth while to call one back for further inves¬ 
tigation. Perhaps I would not be so keen about 
going if it were not so near at hand. The state 
of the weather might be a hindrance if there 
were involved “a long, hard trip.” One visit 
might last a long time. After all a really inti¬ 
mate acquaintance is possible only with things 
close home. Would you have the inclination, 
for instance, to listen to the tinkling music of 
the little brook singing under its arch of ice if 
you chanced upon it in the Big Woods? A 
thousand commonplace sights and sounds, ex¬ 
ceedingly pleasing to the receptive mind, pass un¬ 
noted when more important objects are at stake. 
Fortunately a large portion of my fanciful 
wilderness is in fact .a heavily wooded ridge, in 
some parts mountainous in character, in which 
there are three fair-sized ponds. Here a little 
practice shooting or fly-casting does no harm. 
I11 winter an uncrowded stretch of ice affords 
skating of a better grade than usual. There is 
plenty of room also for snowshoeing, and a win¬ 
ter camp does not seem wholly out of place. 
At all times there are splendid opportunities for 
the outdoor photographer to indulge his fancy. 
I often wonder how long this comparative 
seclusion will last. Save the day when the in¬ 
evitable axe and spade shall come to “beautify.” 
At present only the cedars suffer at the hands 
of unthinking marauders in search of Christmas 
trees. The historic ground can have changed 
but little since Washington’s tatterdemalion 
troops marched over it, but the city’s feet are 
edging closer and closer, and the speculative in¬ 
vasion only too soon will take the place by storm. 
Last fall it was said mistakenly to have been 
purchased by a great real estate company which 
had tremendous “development” plans under way. 
The few of us who appreciated this unspoiled 
outdoors immediately "fell for” the rumor and 
proceeded to take advantage of every excuse to 
get out and enjoy ourselves while the “going” 
was good and before the Italian camps were 
pitched. The hickory nuts and wild grapes and 
the velvety fall winds seemed never so tempting. 
How we reveled in that friendly corner of the 
good old earth! 
“Hang the city,” sighed one of us. 
“I'm going back to Colorado next month,” 
growled another. “I can’t get my breath around 
here.” 
“I don't believe in civilization, anyway,” 
chimed in the third. “Fact is, I’m an anar¬ 
chist.” 
But the fear which possessed us then did 
not remain to spoil our fun, and the occasional 
days off which followed could hardly be excelled. 
To all of us the autumn seemed the gayest 
period of the year, the season of stirring marches 
and brilliant uniforms. We saw nothing melan¬ 
choly in our tramps. Nature was in her mer¬ 
riest mood, keeping step to lively music, and we 
made th« woods ring with boisterous banter and 
laughter. The man who sees anything sad in 
the flaming woods must carry sadness within 
him. At least that is the conclusion the three 
of us reached after running Fall down to the 
last faded leaf. 
It is the “dead,” “close” season now and still 
there are no signs of the dreaded occupation by 
contractors. Instead, the chickadees and juncoes 
appear to be having the place all to themselves. 
They act as though they owned it, bless their 
merry, frolicsome hearts. It is their playground, 
their feeding ground, their shelter in rough 
weather. I trust they may never be crowded 
out. And sometimes I think the solitary bob- 
white I heard calling plaintively there one day 
is worth pretty nearly the price of the whole 
estate. 
It has been literally my wilderness this win¬ 
ter, for my two companions of other days have 
moved to foreign parts. I miss them. The skat¬ 
ing and the skiing have been great. I have spent 
many pleasant hours in stormy, zero weather, 
searching for some evidence of the lingering (or 
is it the awakening?) fires of summer. The 
white and black winter has a witchery about it 
which cannot be defined or described, and which 
is lacking in any other season. The snow hides 
the defects and at the same time brings out all 
the strong lines of the landscape that cannot be 
traced during the season of leaf and flower. 
Everything superfluous is blotted out. Only es¬ 
sentials remain. Winter, like truth, is a power¬ 
ful stimulant. 
When spring comes back again, perhaps with 
dancing feet, perhaps half reluctantly, I know 
that I shall see her smile first somewhere in 
those ancient woods. Her voice I shall hear 
when the first bluebirds carol along the edge of 
the pasture. The dogwood, the shad bush and 
the violets will vouchsafe a vision of her ex¬ 
quisite presence. I shall strive to be on hand 
with the robins and blackbirds and all the other 
members of that band of enthusiastic press 
agents of the star performer of the year. 
While it may be somewhat a matter of “sour 
grapes” with me, still I do not envy the person 
who holds title to the “five hundred acres more 
or less.” As for buying it, I do not believe that 
ownership always means possession in the truest 
sense. Besides, to paraphrase Thoreau, what has 
the average lover of the open to pay for a great 
estate which the owner will take? 
Disappearance of the Wild Pigeon 
W E know what happened to the American 
Indian who made his home in the East¬ 
ern woods. We have seen the annihila¬ 
tion of very nearly the last buffalo that lived on 
the Western plains. There is no uncertainty as 
to the fate of the gray wolf and the panther. 
The salmon and the trout are the sure prey 
of a growing population. The deer, the bear, 
the elk, the rabbit, the squirrel, the raccoon, the 
wild goose and the wild turkey, pheasant, quail, 
woodcock and all the other rovers of the wood 
and air may be diminished in number, but they are 
far from extinct—all except one—the wild pigeon. 
There is a mystery surrounding the utter dis¬ 
appearance of this bird that no one has yet 
satisfactorily explained. Thirty years ago I saw 
By HERMAN L. COLLINS 
in Northern Pennsylvania millions of them every 
spring. But for many years no one has seen a 
single flock where once the air was darkened 
by their flight. 
Was man responsible for this swift and com¬ 
plete destruction of a whole species, or was the 
wild pigeon the victim of some great natural 
tragedy? It has been argued that a storm dur¬ 
ing migration drove them out to sea where all 
perished. Some real or near naturalists pretend 
that only an awful pestilence could so thoroughly 
have destroyed the whole wild pigeon tribe. Still 
others say that the failure of a winter's food 
supply resulted in their starvation. Then there 
are those who believe that the bird butchers are 
to blame. 
But whoever may be right or wrong, this 
we do know for certain—a short generation ago 
you might see more wild pigeons in one day in 
Northern Pennsylvania than you will see all 
other birds combined for an entire year, and 
now you cannot see one, whereas the other birds 
are nearly as plentiful as ever. 
In his novel, “The Pioneer,” Cooper de¬ 
scribed a pigeon shoot. The scene of this tale 
is Lake Otsego, in Southern New York, and 
while the time of the story is half a century be¬ 
fore I was born, I have myself witnessed flights 
of these birds just as the novelist described them. 
The year after William Penn came up the 
Delaware in 1682, one of his companions wrote 
a letter back to the founder in England, telling 
