Outings At Odd Times

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Abbott Charles Conrad. Outings At Odd Times

PREFATORY

PART I. IN WINTER

A Winter Sunrise

Midwinter Minstrelsy

A Cold Wave

The Woods in Winter

Old Almanacs

A Quaker Christmas

A New Place to Loaf

Round about a Spring in Winter

A Bay-Side Outing

Free for the Day

An Open Winter

A Foggy Morning

The Old Farm’s Wood-Pile

PART II. IN SPRING

The April Moon

Concerning Small Owls

A Hidden Highway

Weathercocks

Apple-Blossoms

The Building of the Nest

A Meadow Mud-Hole

An Open Well

PART III. IN SUMMER

A Noisome Weed

A Wayside Brook

Wayside Trees

Skeleton-Lifting

Why I prefer a Country Life

A Midsummer Outing

A Word about Knowledge

The Night-Side of Nature

The Herbs of the Field

PART IV. IN AUTUMN

A Lake-Side Outing

Dew and Frost

A Hermit for the Day

Snow-Birds

Blue Jays

The Growth of Trees

Fossil Man in the Delaware Valley

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The waning moon was scarcely visible in the western sky and not a star shone overhead, when I ventured out of doors, at the call of the gathering crows. These noisy scavengers of the river’s shore had evidently slept with one eye open, and at the first faint glimmering of the dawn signaled, in no uncertain tones, the coming day. Across the brown meadows floated their clamorous cries and roused me when my own slumber was most profound; but I responded promptly, willing at least, if not wildly anxious, to witness a winter sunrise.

I have said the meadows were brown; such was their color when I saw them last; but now, every wrinkled blade of last year’s grass was daintily feathered with pearly frost. A line, too, of steel-gray crystals topped every rail of the old worm fence, and capped the outreaching branches of the scattered trees. The glint of splintered glass filled the landscape.

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John Blank is one of those unfortunates who desire to be thought a genius. To float with the current is beneath his dignity. Uz Gaunt described him well as one who persists in looking toward the west to see the sun rise. Knowing my love for the open fields, this would-be genius has kindly treated me, of late, to innumerable accounts of recent observations of beasts, birds, reptiles, and wild life’s less noble forms, and certainly the man has remarkable powers in one direction – he can misinterpret admirably. “Think of it!” he exclaimed excitedly; “here it is December, and I have heard a frog croak! It was not a springtime croak, of course, but a cry of pain, and I believe a musk-rat dug it out of its winter quarters, and the sound I heard was a cry of pain.” It is a wonder that he did not hear the musk-rat’s chuckle over a good dinner, also. Here we have three assumptions – that frogs never sing in winter; that they habitually hibernate; and that musk-rats dig them out of the mud. The aforesaid John Blank had lived forty-odd years on a farm, and did not know that frogs voluntarily sang or croaked during mild winter days. Like many another, finding that it is cold in December, he turns his back on winter sunshine.

Here are some statistics concerning frogs in winter. Previous to Oct. 20, 1889, there had been white frost, some chilly days as well as nights, and yet the frogs sang merrily on that date. There was frost, snow, and ice during the following week, and then these same frogs were again in full chorus; and later, in November, as late as the 19th, they rattled and piped, not only in the sheltered marshes, but among the wilted stalks of lotus in an exposed upland field. Then a long interim, when I was constantly in town, but at noon, December 19, I heard them again, and on Jan. 12, 1890, frogs of at least two species were croaking; and, too, bees were about, snakes were sunning themselves, turtles crawled from the mud, and salamanders squatted on dead oak leaves in the full glare of an almost midsummer sun. When John Blank was told of this he looked his name; but he was not disconcerted. “Did you ever examine the marshes in winter?” I asked.

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