Part 14 (2/2)
”Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many good sportsmen believe that they remain where they were before; getting into the thickest and wettest brakes, refusing to rise before the dog, and giving out little or no scent!”
”Do you believe this?”
”No; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I cannot tell you with any certainty. Some birds do stay, as they a.s.sert; and that a few do stay, and do give out enough scent to enable dogs to find them, is a proof to me that all do not. A good sportsman can always find a few birds even during the moult, and I do not think that birds killed at that time are at all worse eating than others. But I am satisfied that the great bulk s.h.i.+ft their quarters, whither I have not yet fully ascertained; but I believe to the small runnels and deep swales which are found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle States; and in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed and scattered in such small parties that they are not worth looking after, till the frost drives them down to their old haunts. A gentleman, whom I can depend on, told me once that he climbed Bull Hill one year late in September--Bull Hill is one of the loftiest peaks in the Highlands of the Hudson--merely to show the prospect to a friend, and he found all the brushwood on the summit full of fine autumn c.o.c.k, not a bird having been seen for weeks in the low woodlands at the base. They had no guns with them at the time, and some days elapsed before he could again spare a few hours to hunt them up; in the meantime frost came, the birds returned to their accustomed swamps and levels, and, when he did again scale the rough mountain, not a bird rewarded his trouble. This, if true, which I do not doubt, would go far to prove my theory correct; but it is not easy to arrive at absolute certainty, for if I am right, during that period birds are to be found no where in abundance, and a man must be a downright Audubon to be willing to go mountain-stalking--the hardest walking in the world, by the way--purely for the sake of learning the habits of friend Scolopax, with no hope of getting a good bag after all.”
”How late have you ever killed a c.o.c.k previous to their great southern flight?”
”Never myself beyond the fifteenth of November; but Tom Draw a.s.sures me, and his a.s.severation was accidentally corroborated by a man who walked along with him, that he killed thirty birds last year in h.e.l.l-hole, which both of you fellows know, on the thirteenth of December. There had been a very severe frost indeed, and the ice on that very morning was quite thick, and the mud frozen hard enough to bear in places. But the day was warm, bright, and genial, and, as he says, it came into his head to see 'if c.o.c.k was all gone,' and he went to what he knew to be the latest ground, and found the very heaviest and finest birds he ever saw!”
”Oh! that of course,” said A---, ”if he found any! Did you ever hear of any other bird so late?”
”Yes! later--Mike Sandford, I think, but some Jerseyman or other--killed a couple the day after Christmas day, on a long southern slope covered with close dwarf cedars, and watered by some tepid springs, not far from Pine Brook; and I have been told that the rabbit shooters, who always go out in a party between Christmas and New Year's day, almost invariably flush a bird or two there in mid-winter. The same thing is told of a similar situation on the south-western slope of Staten Island; and I believe truly in both instances. These, however, must, I think, be looked upon not as cases of late emigration, but as rare instances of the bird wintering here to the northward; which I doubt not a few do annually. I should like much to know if there is any State of the Union where the c.o.c.k is perennial. I do not see why he should not be so in Maryland or Delaware, though I have never heard it stated so to be. The great heat of the extreme southern summer drives them north, as surely as our northern winter sends them south; and the great emigrations of the main flight are northward in February and March, and southward in November, varying by a few days only according to the variations of the seasons!”
”Well, I trust they have not emigrated hence yet--ha! ha! ha!” laughed the Commodore, with his peculiar hearty, deep-toned merriment.
”Not they! not they! I warrant them,” said Archer; ”but that to-morrow must bring forth.”
”Come, Harry,” exclaimed Forester, after a little pause, ”spin us a shooting yarn, to kill the time, till we get to fat Tom's.”
”A yarn! well, what shall it be?”
”I don't know; oh! yes! yes! I do. You once told me something about a wolf-hunt, and then shut up your mouth all at once, and would give me no satisfaction.”
”A wolf-hunt?” cried the Commodore, ”were you ever at a wolf-hunt; and here in this country, Harry?”
”Indeed was I, and--”
”The story, then, the story; we must have it.”
”Oh! as for story, there is not much--”
”The story! the story!” shouted Frank. ”You may as well begin at once, for we will have it.”
”Oh! very well. All is one to me, but you will be tired enough of it before I have got through, so here goes for: A WOLF HUNT ON THE WARWICK HILLS,” said Archer, and without more ado, spun his yarn as follows:
”There are few wilder regions within the compa.s.s of the United States, much less in the vicinity of its most populous and cultivated districts, than that long line of rocky wood-crowned heights which--at times rising to an elevation and exhibiting a boldness of outline that justifies the application to them of the term 'mountains', while at others they would be more appropriately designated as hills or knolls--run all across the Eastern and the Midland States, from the White Mountains westward to the Alleghanies, between which mighty chains they form an intermediate and continuous link.
”Through this stern barrier, all the great rivers of the States, through which they run, have rent themselves a pa.s.sage, exhibiting in every instance the most sublime and boldest scenery, while many of the minor, though still n.o.ble streams, come forth sparkling and bright and cold from the clear lakes and lonely springs embosomed in its dark recesses.
”Possessing, for the most part, a width of eight or ten miles, this chain of hills consists, at some points, of a single ridge, rude, forest-clad and lonely--at others, of two, three, or even four distinct and separate lines of heights, with valleys more or less highly cultured, long sheets of most translucent water, and wild mountain streams dividing them.
”With these hills--known as the Highlands--where the gigantic Hudson has cloven, at some distant day, a devious path for his eternal and resistless waters, and by a hundred other names, the Warwick Hills, the Greenwoods, and yet farther west, the Blue Ridge and the Kittatinny Mountains, as they trend southerly and west across New York and New Jersey--with these hills I have now to do.
”Not as the temples meet for the lonely muse, fit habitations for the poet's rich imaginings! not as they are most glorious in their natural scenery--whether the youthful May is covering their rugged brows with the bright tender verdure of the ta.s.seled larch, and the yet brighter green of maple, mountain ash and willow--or the full flush of summer has clothed their forests with impervious and shadowy foliage, while carpeting their sides with the unnumbered blossoms of calmia, rhododendron and azalea!--whether the gorgeous hues of autumn gleam like the banners of ten thousand victor armies along their rugged slopes, or the frozen winds of winter have roofed their headlands with inviolate white snow! Not as their bowels teem with the wealth of mines which ages of man's avarice may vainly labor to exhaust! but as they are the loved abode of many a woodland denizen that has retreated, even from more remote and seemingly far wilder fastnesses, to these sequestered haunts. I love them, in that the graceful hind conceals her timid fawn among the ferns that wave on the lone banks of many a nameless rill, threading their hills, untrodden save by the miner, or the infrequent huntsman's foot--in that the n.o.ble stag frays oftentimes his antlers against their giant trees--in that the mighty bear lies hushed in grim repose amid their tangled swamps--in that their bushy dingles resound nightly to the long-drawn howl of the gaunt famished wolf--in that the lynx and wild-cat yet mark their prey from the pine branches--in that the ruffed grouse drums, the woodc.o.c.k bleats, and the quail chirrups from every height or hollow--in that, more strange to tell, the n.o.blest game of trans-atlantic fowl, the glorious turkey--although, like angels'
visits, they be indeed but few and far between--yet spread their bronzed tails to the sun, and swell and gobble in their most secret wilds.
”I love those hills of Warwick--many a glorious day have I pa.s.sed in their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan sport and forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisans.h.i.+p in the old revolutionary days--the days that tried men's souls--while sitting at my noontide meal by the secluded wellhead, under the canopy of some primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport, rifle or shot-gun by my side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound rec.u.mbent at my feet. And one of these tales will I now venture to record, though it will sound but weak and feeble from my lips, if compared to the rich, racy, quaint and humorous thing it was, when flowing from the nature-gifted tongue of our old friend Tom Draw.”
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