Preview
Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
16
of a quarter of a mile or so, but soon call each other together again with a louder piping note. [These are the most beautiful of] Nature’s beautiful mountain chickens [hereabouts & the smallest]. I have not yet found their nests. [&] The young of the season are already hatched & away, [a] new brood of happy wanderers as large as their parents. I wonder how they live through the long winters when the ground is smothered ten feet deep in snow. [I suppose] They must go down towards the lower edge of the forest as the deer do, though I have not heard of them there.
The blue or dusty sooty grouse is here also & they [seems to] like the deepest & closest [of the] fir woods, [They] & burst from the thick branches of the trees with a strong loud whir [of wing beats], then sail away in a long wavering silent slide without moving a feather. A beautiful vigorous bird about the size of the prairie chicken of the Old West, spending most of their time in the trees excepting the breeding season when [of course] they keep to the ground. The young are now able to fly. When scattered by a man or a dog, they keep still until the danger is supposed to be past, then the mother calls them together. The chicks can hear the call a distance of several hundred yards though it is not loud. Should the young be unable to fly the mother feigns desperate lameness
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or death to draw one away, throwing herself at once feet within two or three yards, rolling over on her back kicking & gasping so as to deceive man or beast. They are said to [this brave bird] stay[s] all the year in the woods hereabouts taking hardy well clad shelter in dense tufted branches of the yellow pine or fir during snowstorms, & feeding on the young buds of these trees. Their legs are feathered down to their toes & I have never heard of their suffering in any sort of weather [way]. [Being] Able to live on pine & fir buds they are forever independent in the matter of food, which troubles [gives] so many of us [trouble] & controls our movements dragging us hungrily down here & they're against our will seeking bread [& all other reason]. How gladly I would live forever on pine buds however full of turpentine & pitch for the sake of this grand steadfast Independence. These brave hardy birds put us to shame. Just to think of our sufferings last month merely for grist mill flour [on account of the want of bread merely]. Man seems to have more difficulty in gaining food than any of the Lord’s creatures. In [for] many in town's [places] it is a consuming [desperate] lifelong struggle [for existence, in] for others the danger of coming to want is so great [that people] get in the habit the deadly habit of hoarding of [continuing to lay up] for the future is formed & continues to smother all real life long after [all] reasonable need has been over supplied. trans to Hof [Hoffman] Clark’s Crow
When I was on Mount Hoffmann I saw a curious dove colored bird Picicorvus Columbianus that seemed half woodpecker, half magpie or crow
Date Occurred
1869
Resource Identifier
MuirReel31 Notebook 009 Img011.jpg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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