ALEXANDER WILSON (1766-1813) Wilson, who shares with Audubon pioneer honors in the realm of American ornithology, was born in Scotland and did not arrive in America until he was twenty-eight. His youthful ambition had centered wholly upon poetry. An edition of his poems had appeared in 1789 three years after the first volume of his contemporary neighbor Burns, and he had followed it with others, one of which had sold a hundred thousand copies in a few weeks. Sympathy with the spirit of the French revolution led him, as Burns was tempted to do at about the same period. to emigrate to America. Almost as soon as he landed he became intensely interested in the strange new bird life of the new world, and began at once to study it, supporting himself in the meantime by teaching school. Under difficulties almost insuperable he struggled on until in 1808 he was able to issue the first volume of what ultimately was to be the nine volumes of his American Ornithology. He lacked Audubon's energy and vision, and as a result worked on a smaller scale for a smaller audience and has won a smaller place for himself. His writings, however, are more literary than Audubon's and far more poetical. He was a true poet. The poetical endings of his studies of American birds are original and poetic and intensely American. THE BLUEBIRD The pleasing manners, and sociable disposition of this little bird, entitle him to particular notice. As one of the first messengers of spring, bringing the charming tidings to our very doors, he bears his own recommendation always along with him, and meets with a hearty welcome from everybody. 5 Though generally accounted a bird of passage, yet, so early as the middle of February, if the weather be open, he usually makes his appearance about his old haunts, the barn, orchard, and fence 15 posts. Storms and deep snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time; but about the middle of March is again seen, accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple 20 tree, the cradle of some generations of his ancestors. When he first begins his amours,' says a curious and correct observer, it is pleasing to behold his courtship, his solicitude to please and to secure 25 the favour of his beloved female. He uses the tenderest expressions, sits close by her, caresses and sings to her his most endearing warblings. When seated together, if he espies an insect delicious to her 30 taste, he takes it up, flies with it to her, spreads his wings over her, and puts it in her mouth.' If a rival makes his appearance (for they are ardent in their loves), he quits her in a moment, attacks and pursues the intruder as he shifts from place to place, in tones that bespeak the jealousy of his affection, conducts him, with many reproofs, beyond the extremities of his territory, and returns to warble out his transports of triumph beside his beloved mate. The preliminaries being thus settled, and the spot fixed on, they begin to clean out the old nest, and the rubbish of the former year, and to prepare for the reception of their future offspring. Soon after this, another sociable little pilgrim (motacilla domestica, house wren), also arrives from the south, and, finding such a snug berth preoccupied, shows his spite, by watching a convenient opportunity, and, in the absence of the owner, popping in and pulling out sticks; but takes special care to make off as fast as possible. The female lays five, and sometimes six eggs, of a pale blue colour; and raises two, and sometimes three brood in a season; the male taking the youngest under his particular care while the female is again setting. Their principal food are insects, particularly large beetles, and other hard-shelled sorts, that lurk among old, dead, and decaying trees. Spiders are also a favourite repast with them. In the fall, they occasionally regale themselves on the berries of the sour gum; and, as winter approaches, on those of the 5 red cedar, and on the fruit of a rough return of mild and open weather, we hear his plaintive note amidst the fields, or in the air, seeming to deplore the devastations of winter. Indeed, he appears scarcely ever totally to forsake us; but to follow fair weather through all its journeyings till the return of spring. Such are the mild and pleasing manners of the bluebird, and so universally is he esteemed, that I have often regretted that no pastoral muse has yet arisen in this western woody world, to do justice to his name, and endear him to us still more by the tenderness of verse, as has been done to his representative in Britain, the robin redbreast. A small acknowledgment of this kind I have to offer, which the reader, I hope, will excuse as a tribute to rural innocence. When winter's cold tempests and snows are no more, Green meadows and brown furrow'd fields re-appearing, shore; And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering; When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing, 5 When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, O then comes the bluebird, the herald of spring! And hails with his warblings the charms of the season. The usual spring and summer song of 25 The fishermen hauling their shad to the the blue bird is a soft, agreeable, and oftrepeated warble, uttered with open quivering wings, and is extremely pleasing. In his motions and general character, he has great resemblance to the robin redbreast 30 of Britain; and, had he the brown olive of that bird, instead of his own blue, could scarcely be distinguished from him. Like him, he is known to almost every child; and shows as much confidence in man by 35 associating with him in summer, as the other by his familiarity in winter. He is also of a mild and peaceful disposition, seldom fighting or quarrelling with other birds. His society is courted by the in- 40 habitants of the country, and few farmers neglect to provide for him, in some suitable place, a snug little summer-house, ready fitted and rent free. For this he more than sufficiently repays them by the 45 cheerfulness of his song, and the multitudes of injurious insects which he daily destroys. Towards fall, that is in the month of October, his song changes to a Then loud piping frogs make the marshes to ring; Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather; 10 The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring, And spicewood and sassafras budding together: O then to your gardens ye housewives repair, Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure; single plaintive note, as he passes over 50 The bluebird will chant from his box such the yellow many-coloured woods; and its melancholy air recalls to our minds the approaching decay of the face of nature. Even after the trees are stript of their 15 an air, That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure! leaves, he still lingers over his native 55 He flits through the orchard, he visits each fields, as if loath to leave them. About the middle or end of November, few or none of them are seen; but, with every tree, The red flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms: He snaps up destroyers wherever they be, And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms; 20 THE FISH-HAWK This formidable, vigorous-winged, and He drags the vile grub from the corn it well known bird, subsists altogether on the devours, finny tribes that swarm in our bays, creeks, and rivers; procuring his prey by his own active skill and industry; and seeming no further dependent on the land than as a mere resting place, or, in the usual season, a spot of deposit for his nest, eggs, and young. The fish-hawk is migratory, arriving on the coasts of New York and New Jersey about the twenty-first of March, and retiring to the south about the twenty-second of September. Heavy equinoctial storms may vary these periods of arrival and departure a few days; but long observation has ascertained, that they are kept with remarkable regularity. On the arrival of these birds in the northern parts of the United States, in March, they sometimes find the bays and ponds frozen, and experience a difficulty in procuring fish for many days. Yet there is no instance on record of their attacking birds, or inferior land animals, with intent to feed on them; though their great strength of flight, as well as of feet and claws, would seem to render this no difficult matter. But they no sooner arrive, than they wage war on the bald eagles, as against a horde of robbers and banditti; sometimes succeeding, by force of numbers, and perseverance, in driving them from their haunts, but seldom or never attacking them in single combat. The first appearance of the fish-hawk in spring, is welcomed by the fishermen, as the happy signal of the approach of those vast shoals of herring, shad, etc., that regularly arrive on our coasts, and enter our rivers in such prodigious multitudes. Two of a trade, it is said, seldom agree; the adage, however, will not hold good in the present case, for such is the respect paid the fish-hawk, not only by this class of men, but generally, by the whole neighborhood where it resides, that a person who should attempt to shoot one of them, would stand a fair chance of being insulted. This prepossession in favor of the fish-hawk is honorable to their feelings. They associate, with its first appearance, ideas of plenty, and all the gaiety of business; they see it active and industrious like themselves; inoffensive to the productions of their farms; building with confidence, and without the least disposi CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN (1771-1810) The first professional man of letters in America and, moreover, the pioneer novelist of our American literature, was Charles Brockden Brown of Philadelphia. Ponderously educated by the learned Dr. Proud, the historian of Pennsylvania, he was a classical scholar and a writer of epic poems while in his early teens. He tried the law, but finding it distasteful, never practised it. He lived for a time in New York City where he became a friend of Dunlap and other literary men of the time. He wrote a dialogue on the rights of women, Alcuin, 1797, and then brought out in rapid succession between 1798 and 1801 his six novels. In the meantime he managed to support himself by editing magazines.- the Monthly Magazine and American Review, the Literary Magazine, and the American Register, and by doing literary hack work of every variety. He was of frail physique and of melancholy temperament, and his latter years were a depressing struggle with infirmities. The novels of Brown belong to the school of Gothic romance that flourished in England at the close of the eighteenth century and they were influenced chiefly by Godwin's Caleb Williams. Judged by the art of Poe and Hawthorne, they are crude and sensational, but compared with the fiction of their time they have considerable power. He was a pioneer in a bare and desolate literary region, and he deserves great praise. His work even to-day holds the reader. He has movement and intensity and, within the limits of short episode, real narrative skill. Moreover he chose American scenes for his backgrounds, and depicted, often with realism, American life. More one may not say. The fatal defects of his art, when it is judged by modern standards, we need not dwell upon. A DEATH BY MYSTERIOUS Early in the morning of a sultry day in August my father left Metingen to go to the city. He had seldom passed a day from home since his return from the shores of the Ohio. Some ardent engagements at this time existed, which would not admit of further delay. He returned to in the evening, but appeared to be greatly oppressed with fatigue. His silence and dejection were likewise in more than ordinary degree conspicuous. My mother's brother, whose profession was that of a 15 surgeon, chanced to spend this night at our house. It was from him that I have frequently received an exact account of the mournful catastrophe that followed. these fits he expressed no surprise, but, pressing his hand to his head, complained, in a tremulous and terrified tone, that his brain was scorched to cinders. He would 5 then betray marks of insupportable anxiety. My uncle perceived by his pulse that he was indisposed, but in no alarming degree, and ascribed appearances chiefly to the workings of his mind. He exhorted him to recollection and composure, but in vain. At the hour of repose he readily retired to his chamber. At the persuasion of my mother he was undressed and went to bed. Nothing could abate his restlessness. He checked her tender expostulations with some sternness. Be silent,' said he, for that which I feel there is but one cure, and that will shortly come. You can help me nothing. Look to your own conditions, and pray to God to strengthen you under the calamities that await you.' 'What am I to fear?' she answered. What terrible disaster is it that you think of?' 'Peace! as yet I know it not myself, but come it will, and shortly.' She repeated her inquiries and doubts; but he suddenly put an end to the discourse by stern command to be silent. |