With Ernest Seton-Thompson in the Woods
The Ladies’ Home Journal, 1901
Ernest Seton-Thompson is an example of what outdoor life can do for a man. He has made his work his play. The outdoor world is his book, and every page is full for him of teeming life, comedy, tragedy, history, opera and poetry.
Naturally, he is at his best when roughing it on the Western plains, tramping through the woods, or studying some bird or animal in its native home. A more fitting environment for such a man could not be found than the new home which Mr. and Mrs. Seton-Thompson — or Mr. and Mrs. Seton as they prefer to be known, having dropped “Thompson” from their surname — have selected in Connecticut. A hundred acres of woodland, which they have named Wyndygoul, for one of the Seton estates in Scotland, offers the naturalist-artist-author-lecturer an ideal opportunity for investigating, studying and experimenting with his animal friends, and a quiet retreat for writing and illustrating.
It is difficult to realize that so wild a bit of forest as Wyndygoul is within an hour af New York. The private road that leads from the gates to the house winds a quarter of a mile between green walls of trees, flanked by mossy boulders, and rising above ravines that tumble off at reckless angles. In. boskage the forest resembles the Adirondacks, and seems equally remote from civilization.
“I have waited twenty years for this place, and at last it is mine.” These words of this man of Nature expressed the deep satisfaction that comes rightfully to the man who has never wavered in the pursuit of his ideals, and who finally draws near them. “It was not easy to find something that suited me exactly. I wanted level land. I object to mountains,” continued this man of the prairie. “I do not like to have anything obstruct my view. I regard the mountains as highly impertinent,” he said, throwing up his head and assuming a look of offended dignity. “I even object to this hillock on which the house stands, but I believe it is good form to have one’s house on an elevation?” This in an inquiring tone, with a serious air, as if he lived for good form alone.
“On a rock, in any event.”
“Well, it is. I don’t dislike a few rocks if they know their place and keep it. Besides, I must have a tree. I cannot live without my tree.”
“You have enough and to spare here.”
“Yes; oh, yes! I shall trim them out, but judiciously. I shall preserve every one I can, but my forest shall serve my uses, too. I mean to do some good, practical forestry here. The country needs it. Too many people are destroying trees and too few are preserving them. I shall trim here to the west so we can see the shimmer of the lake from the house; and to the east until we can catch glimpses of the Sound. In fact, I have used many trees in building the house, and I already have a timber yard — trees cut out to make room for the lake.”
The house stands on the highest point of the tract. It is Spanish in effect, the lower story of rough-newn, green-tipped rocks, quarried on the place; the upper story of creamy pink stucco. The low, red roof, wide verandas, low entrance door and quaint arrangement of windows are interesting and picturesque. The Englishman’s love of solidity is shown in the thick walls, massive cornices of natural wood, and in the heavy beams of the studio ceiling.
“Come inside!” Mr. Seton bade me; “I want to show you something!” The sudden, eager gleam in his eyes meant animals. It is always there when he is watching them, thinking of them, talking of them, an intense, alert, vivid gaze, both outward and inward; a look of power. He gives the impression of growing taller and larger. He certainly fills the scene when the subject is animals.
“Look out of this big north window. See that crooked tree at the corner of the house? See the squirrel’s nest in it? I had the original site of the house moved six feet so we should not disturb that fellow’s home.”
The little neighbor was not receiving callers that day. He will find himself beguiled by Mr. Seton’s overtures later, but he will take his own time.
The north window of the naturalist-artist’s big studio hangs directly over a ravine that drops forty feet nearly sheer. The trees wave their tops fairly against the huge pane, and the sunlight filters golden green through them. The spirit of the woods fills the place.
Knows All the Birds by Their Song
Did you notice that huge boulder to the right of the drive? That is Clambake Rock; or Ab’s Rock, if you don’t care for clams. Let’s go down there.”
A dim trail through tangled underbrush, brakes, laurel and maidenhair fern leads to the big, mossy rock.
“On the south side Ab, the Indian, had his shack. He was the grandson of Chief Coscob, who owned all the land around here. You can see where Ab made holes in the face of the cliff for the timbers of his mansion. In later peas picnic parties used the top of the rock for their clam-bakes.
“But listen! Hear the wood-thrush! Hear him ring his little bell to call attention, to let you know he has said something! Whenever he says something he rings that little bell. There is a yellow-breasted chat calling. There are thirty or forty species of birds nesting in the trees around here. There’s another; hear him? The golden-crowned thrush. ‘Te-cher! te-cher!’ For many years naturalists thought he had no other song, but that is not his real song. It is only his call. He sings his song in the air after the sun goes down. His is one of the sweetest songs sung by any of our birds. He builds the most beautiful ground nest in our woods. It looks like an oven and he is often called the oven bird. The nest is difficult to find because it is always so carefully covered,’ Mr. Seton rambles on. “There goes a chimney swift! And I hear a red-eyed vireo calling. He is sitting somewhere in a bunch of green leaves — a little green bunch himself. You cannot see him. He says, ‘Do you see me? No, you hear me. You don’t see me. You would like to see me; but you only hear me.’ Listen! ‘Pe-ru-lia-te-lee,’ ‘pe-ru-lia-te-lee!’ Do you know that fellow? It is the wood-thrush,” and almost unconsciously he repeated the warble, whistling softly and clearly so perfect an imitation of the tuneful trill that one could fancy the thrush must have thought a brother was conversing with him.
Studied the Calls of His Feathered Neighbors
Few men could talk like that without seeming didactic, pedantic and tiresome. A certain charm of personality saves Mr. Seton from producing that impression. From him such rambling discourse seems the most delightful gossip about his friends. He has the accurate knowledge of a scientist, the eyes of an artist, the heart of a poet, the wit and humor of himself. Virile, vital, inquisitive, tireless and intuitive, every movement in the forest has a meaning for him. He is a sleuth of the woods, with an almost Indian instinct.
“How did you learn the bird calls?”
“It took years. I listened to a certain call, located the bird, tried to make a mental image of his song in syllables, wrote it out as it sounded to me, listened again, revised it, until I had it in such shape that I could whistle it myself and felt sure I should always know it. Then” — he hesitated, and added regretfully — “it took a great deal of killing. I had to shoot the birds at first, to be certain I had them identified. Later, I used field-glasses.”
Mr. Seton cordially dislikes to take the life of any animal, and he only does so for purposes of scientific investigation which cannot otherwise be pursued.
“Is that your medicine?” he asked abruptly, holding up a branch of hemlock to my nostrils. “The Indians have a theory that every person has in Nature some particular plant which is his individual best medicine. That plant is supposed to cure him of all ills. It is the plant to which his entire nature responds. The odor of it touches his heart and stirs his nerves. It brings before his mental vision scenes of his childhood, and moves his emotions.”
Wields an Ax with a Woodman’s Skill
What is your medicine; do you know?”
“I am not certain yet. Fresh cut tamarack, I think. We have no tamarack here. That is one of the few trees we lack. We have spruce, hemlock, pine, hickory, oak and — look, in the top of that chestnut tree! A scarlet tanager! The most gorgeous bird of our woods. He looks black sometimes when the shadow falls on the intense red of his plumage, but in the sunlight he is a flash of scarlet. There is my timber yard,” he added incidentally, pointing to piles of logs stored for future use in the great fireplace or for building purposes.
Picking up a rusty ax which lay at the side of the trail he gravely displayed it as an ancient, fossiliferous relic. Then he proceeded to wield a few effective blows with it against a sapling that was marked for removal from the lake bed. Incidentally, Mr. Seton is a good carpenter. He dearly loves to steal away from his easel or desk, get out a box of tools and put up a few shelves or repair some damaged door or window while publishers’ messengers are clamoring at his gates and engravers are waiting with frantic impatience for drawings.
“Come around to the other end of the lake,” was the next suggestion when he had finished his self-appointed task on the small tree. Don’t you want to help take the census of the woods?”
He led the way out on a small mud flat, bending low, scanning the wet ground, occasionally dropping on one knee, with a fine disregard of his clothes, and finally pointing in triumph to a discovery.
“Here is one of the things which speak to me. This is probably the track of a robin. He has walked there, as a robin sometimes does. Some other bird might make the same sized track, but that other bird would hop. The two toes, together at the base and spreading so much at the tips, help to indicate a robin’s track. Being in close proximity to the water also is further evidence that it was made by a robin, as he is especially fond of bathing.”
His Animals Always Name Themselves
“But I have not yet found the track I am looking for. We will go to the other end of the lake. How do you like Bird Island?” indicating it with a wave of his hand. “I shall make it absolutely perfect for birds to nest on. Then maybe they’ll never go near it,” he added, with the conviction in his tone that animals don’t always know what is good for them.
“Some one said this lake is to be arranged especially for the study of frogs.”
“Yes, frogs will have especial privileges here which other animals. need not expect.”
Suddenly he was down on his knees in the mud again, examining the face of a rock which had been upturned from the lake bed. It was covered with what looked like scraps of black lint.
“Fresh-water shrimps, I think. Killed by draining the lake.” Then rising, he pointed to the many birds circling around.
“Swallows! I am so glad. It shows the birds find plenty of food and good foraging ground here. There is a wood pewee. When we first came out there were ’coon tracks around here. That was why I decided to buy the place. Be sure I didn’t tell the owner I had seen those tracks. I just laid low! No telling what he would have charged for those tracks. But I can’t find any more, though the ’coon may be almost anywhere in these woods. He will come back. If he should not there are probably others. They maintain themselves easily where there is heavy timber. He may be in Rim Rock now.”
“Have you named him yet?”
“No; I shall let him do that himself.”
“Do your animals always name themselves?”
“They just acquire names.”
Constantly Studying Nature’s Lessons
The trail leading around Stony Point opens out on to the upper end of the lake, where it backs up behind Bird Island, teyond the Narrows, the water rippling over a tumbled heap of rocks in a busy and important little series of rapids. To the right rises Rim Rock, the giant ledge of Stony Point, its majestic walls covered with exquisite black and white lichens. From its top spring lofty trees, and great vines of wild grape and Virginia creeper droop down to beds of reindeer moss at the water’s edge.
“I have had to plan carefully to save these vines. I shall make an arch of them across the Narrows.
Seating himself precariously on a wobbling rock, with one foot still immersed in mud, Mr. Seton pulled from his pocket a notebook and pencil. The book was a leather-covered, dirty, ill-kept, scatteration-looking volume, a jumble of rough pencil sketches, wash drawings, splashes of color, notes, measurements in inches, dates, crazy-looking diagrams, figures, and odds and ends of all descriptions.
‘“What is the good of that? Why do you keep that journal?”
“You see that Italian laborer over there? He kicks aside that stick and he puts that stone on a pile. What is the good of that? He does not know. He cannot see. He has no clew to the plan; but he does know it is his present business to do his part of it, and that he is under the guidance of some one wiser than himself. He is only bringing the building material for the architect; and whatever little he may do, though it be only to lift a stone or kick aside a stick that was in the pathway, is all essential work in one direction. That is why I keep my journal. All these notes, facts and scraps, as long as they are true, are building material. I do not know what the building will be. Nobody knows; but I have confidence that in gathering the truth I am working in the right direction, and that I am building wiser than I know.”
“What are you putting down to-day?”
“The birds I have seen during our stroll. We have had the tanager, the oven bird, the water thrush (as one flitted close by), the red-eyed vireo, robins, swallows, the yellow-breasted chat, and a lot of them.”
Birds’ Notes the Only Music He Loves
Replacing the book in his pocket, after making swift entries, he started across the rapids. Not so easy. The moss-covered rocks were loose and treacherous. A glance around and then he seized a rustic ladder which was lying on the ground, and which looked as if it might have been used at some time for scaling Rim Rock. This opportune device he dropped across the singing rapids and stepped on it as lightly as an Indian, turning in the middle of the stream for a backward glance at Rim Rock.
“Isn’t that a magnificent rock?’’
“Notwithstanding it shuts out your view?”
“I forgive it. It is a view itself.
“There is a wood pewee having it out with a red-eyed vireo,” he continued, as peculiar melodious but excited sounds filtered through the trees. Then he stooped in the mud again, on the farther side of the Narrows.
“O-ho! A gray squirrel’s track. I thought at first I had the track of a little ’coon; but it is a gray. Just see how beautiful it is! And close by the side of it is the tiny track of a mouse.”
Out came the notebook and pencil. Squatting on the mud flat he made a careful sketch of the two tracks, measuring them accurately with his pocket rule.
“Inch and a half long, toes close together,” he muttered as he rapidly drafted in the squirrel’s track. “Every one of these little balls tells something about the animal’s experiences or history; why it grew so many, why some of them are tight in and others spread out.”
As he finished the sketches and slipped the notebook back into his pocket a clear, almost musical halloo sounded from across the lake, and Mrs. Seton appeared through the trees.
“Here is a moose call for her,” said the husband.
With his hands to his mouth and his head thrown back he sent over the water the most thrilling sound that ever greets the woodsman’s ear — the call of the moose to her mate. He has remarkable ability to imitate bird and animal calls.
“I have no ear for any other kind of music than the songs of birds,” he said, “but it is good for that. Shall we go on around the lake? Ah, we have a tulip tree!” he exclaimed, stooping to pick up the withered petal of a fallen blossom. “This is the first time I have seen it. And there is my friend Jack-in-the-pulpit. He has preached his last sermon for this season, though. He starts early for his vacation.”
The winding, broken bank of the lake is covered with rocks of all sizes making progress through the thick brush quite uncertain.
“I shall have a trail cleared around the lake, but I shall take especial care not to have it too clear. It should be just possible to get through, but wild enough so every one who follows it can imagine he is ‘the first white man whose foot ever trod these forest deeps.’”
Imitating the Wolf’s Cry to its Mates
Before he had stopped speaking he was down on his knees again, peering up under a group of rocks with peculiar openings between them.
“This is a possible ’coon den. No, nothing here. It is not comfortable enough. Animals insist on being as comfortable as possible.” He pushed on through the dense underbrush.
“This is good grouse cover. We shall have quails here, too. I'll let my neighbors stock up, and some of the birds will come over to our place.”
“Of course you will drive them back.”
“Be inhospitable to the birds! Never!” with an absurd air of extreme virtue. “I know how it feels to be hungry. I shall feed them well.”
The bountiful luncheon which was spread on the top of Ab’s Rock met Mr. Seton’s instant and enthusiastic approval.
“I'm as hungry as a wolf.” Then, lifting his voice, wolf fashion, he gave the long howl which summons all wolfdom within hearing to share the banquet.
The author of “Wild Animals I Have Known” has a gleeful way of wrecking conventionality. With some unexpected, boyish, utterly frank, natural and human word, look or prank he wilts the starch out of the stiffest social drapery and reaches straight for the heart beneath it. The heart never fails to respond. It is impossible to imagine any one’s not liking this lover of Nature, especially in his rollicking mood. His nonsense has always wit and keen perception behind it which give it a meaning and make it as much worth while, many a time, as an important discourse. Some one has defined a great man as one whom society permits to be himself. Mr. Seton once said, “A genius is a fellow who does what he wants to.” Following these lines he ranks high, for those who know him are only too well pleased to allow him the fullest possible expression of his own personality. He assumes no mannerisms for society. On the contrary, society assumes for him its best listening attitude and counts itself lucky if he will reveal himself to it. With all his gayety and informality he has an unassailable dignity.
A Lesson in Color to His House Painter
When he finally discovered he was not hungry, which fact he announced impressively, he hunted up the painters who were doing some work about the house.
“Those window frames must be a light peacock blue on the outside,” he instructed them. The head painter demurred. No, he was sure he could not mix such a color.
“Tf I mix it you can copy it, can’t you?” asked the painter.
“Oh; yes.”
“Then bring your colors.”
In a few minutes he was blending yellow, blue and green in a masterly way and trying the effect on a piece of board. Suddenly he looked up, laughed and went on painting.
“Did you hear the bluejay?”? he asked. “As I hit the right shade he said, ‘Bl-loo! Bl-loo! That’s it! That’s it!’
“I wish I could do all my painting out-of-doors,” Mr. Seton continued, as he left the painter subdued, repentant, and properly impressed with the possibility of getting the exact shade desired. “I am only happy when I am studying the birds and animals. Sitting at an easel in the house comes near being drudgery for me. No house can hold me long. I must live outside. I must walk and rough it.”
Heretofore he has spent at least a part of every year in the mountains, or on the plains of the West, making notes and sketches, collecting specimens and heaping up material by the bookful for his work, and incidentally storing up strength, energy and inspiration for himself. Now he has in his own possession a sufficient field for a large part of his investigations. In his own woods he will lead an ideal life. Like the Turk in the old story, he will find his fortune beneath his own tree.
Birds and Animals Welcome at Wyndygoul
“I shall have as many different kinds of birds and animals in this place as I can possibly entertain and induce to come,” he said, with a burst of hospitality he would by no means extend indiscriminately to the human animal. “We shall be delightfully chummy.”
Notwithstanding Mr. Seton’s reserve, a more charming host never existed. His simplicity and cordiality at once put the most diffident guest at ease, and he has the gift of inspiring others to their best. Success has not robbed him of extreme natural modesty and sensitiveness, two qualities which prompt him to seek always the pleasure of others rather than his own. One reason for his great popularity is that he never seems to push himself. On the contrary, he has at times a peculiarly appealing manner. When, in spite of himself, he bubbles over with some clever thought, some sudden inspiration, perhaps some bit of information he has just acquired, it is often with an almost apologetic air, as if hesitating to make himself prominent in any way. Yet when he forgets everything but the expression of the many and varied ideas that flit constantly through his mind he entertains and delights without an effort. The guest forgets there is such a thing as time.
