USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 81
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.. Not failure but low and is sin," some one exclaimed, and Grant county women have "hitched their wagon to a star " The W. C. T.G. was organized not alone to fight the liquor traffic and reform the drunk. ard, but to train the young, and Mrs. Vayhinger says: "As important as it is to reach out and help the man and the woman who have fallen through drink, it is far more important to so train the boy and girl that they will recognize the temptation when it is presented to them. and not enter into it " The medal contests as conducted by Mrs Juha Overman, and others have been effective agencies have brought temp perance literature into many homes through the activities of the chil dren, and men have been reached who would not otherwise have given attention to the matter at all. While they will not listen to temporanee lectures, they will listen to the childish orators, and sentiment is this instilled like grammar used to be taught, miconsciously, and without arousing antagonism unuicessarily. While the crusade was of mushroom growth, a mere flash -the W. C. T. V. is like Tennyson s' Babbling Brook goes on and perhaps forever.
LXXX. GAME PRESERVES
tu his "Reveries and Recollections of a Naturalist." Oliver Davie describes early day conditions in Grant county, although he may never have been in Indiana, when he says: "My mind is frequently wrapped in deep contemplation as I view the varied forms of the feathered tribes that line the walls of my study. They tell of furrowed or verdant fields where often is heard the lowing of herds or the voice of the plowman ; they fell of crystal streams with mossy banks whose water's mellow music is soothing to the car as it tumbles and falls with decorons ripple and Vol 1 - St
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trips murmuring away. They tell of secluded forests when tall trees are unscarred by the woodman's axe, and through whose branches, les tooned by wild vines, the winds are sighing and meaning, they tell of moonlight nights when, within the sylvan temple, is heard the solem hooting of the owl, the song of the whip poor will, the hoarse vouy of the frogs, the cry of some waking bird. all mingling in the wild harmony of nature's mighty forest hymu.
"These inanimate figures were once the messengers of early dawn ,the frontispiece in the book quoted from shows the naturalist in Is study surrounded by his own handiwork taxidermist , they were the joyful children of sunlit hours and, when the dark skirted night came upon them, their clarion calls huddled together their little families to rest a few hours and to dream of another day, when they might again sing their lyrics of love and passion. For them the day was too short ; for them the night too long. In life they were the winged nymphs of limpid air. and their plumage vied with the rainbow in colors. .
These birds of many climes have performed their parts in the great cron- omy of nature." The man or woman who has lived fifty years in Grant county can close his eyes and see the birds of the long ago. With the naturalist, the county historian thinks: "Why shall I not dream that I am a boy again ; that the springtime has come ; that the sultry summer has passed : that the north winds are strewing the woodland's path with the trail honors of the dying monarchs and, as the gorgeous draperies of golden clouds skirt the western horizon, the cooling dove is mourning the loss of the shelter which those outstretched arms oney gave her." and wander-along Pipe creek, Deer creek or Walnut creek and the same language is reverberating among the trees. Where are the birds whose songs once glaubdened the forest ?
We study history by epochs-centuries, decades, and it is said there was not a bird dog in Grant county before 1870, when agriculture began to assert itself. The bird and fish-the game life of the woods and streants was tremendous as compared with the conditions of today. forty add years later. Within the last generation carp has been placed in local streams, and the red horse, onee the dominant fish, like the wild pigeon is practically extinct. When there were no dams across the river there were tish in all the contributing streams, and time was when there was no obstruction to New Orleans. Men living today tell about going out in boats with torches at night, and with gigs or pitch forks securing fish for family use, but the story of polluted streams means the onward march of civilization, sanitation not quite abreast with the general progress. There used to be cranes along Grant county streams farmers watched them every corn planting: "Up go crane, up stay rain, " hut who has seen a crane in the Twentieth century: It is the stork that still hovers about so many homes.
When the settlers had little money and ammunition was high, low birds were wantonly destroyed, and wherever an orchard was planted the fruit matured withont molestation from worms. When the boys had to mould their own bullets less money was "'shot away" than since everything is ready for the Inter in every hardware store. One who only remembers baek comparatively a few years knows the farmer was not in fear of a game warden, and, if he had not Jearned the service rendered him by the birds, he shot his best friends indiscriminately. The crack of the gun only meant to him the fall of a bird and one enemy fewer in his fruit trees and corn fields, but now that he has studied the question it means the death of the bird and the loss of his fruit. as the worms are industrious since the birds have so few hiding places
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in the neighborhood. Worms are the diet of the birds, and fruit is the diet of the worms.
When there was more hiding places for the birds there was less need of protecting them, but now that the timber is gone whither can they flee for refuge, and where can They raise their young / While they are perfectly safe in some door yards, not every farm house is sul . ronuded with a sheltering retreat. It was in February of 19lo that the first lot of Hungarian pheasants was turned loose in a ganh pile- serve consisting of about 1,500 acres of land in the corner of Frank lin. Mill and Liberty, Senator J. T. Strange assuring W. H Baldwin and Phil Harris that if they would secure the territory by written agreement with the owners of the land, he would furnish them the birds under provision of a state law. After exhibiting them in a Marion window for a few days they were taken to the Baldwin farm in Frank- lin, and when sunshiny days came in February sixty-live of thent were liberated, but none survived the rigors of the winter of 191 and 1912, although young pheasants were seen Frequently the first simmer after they were liberated. There are other game preserves in Monroe and Jeferson, and a few pheasants were given out to many farmers with trees about their premises, but in 1912 noue were seen in the county.
There has been one good result -quails have increased in number in all those preserves, a sign of game preserves carrying more terror 10 the heart of a hunter than a farm sign, "no Imting." While quails are trapped and bagged when the law is out of force, they are protected in the season when they produce their young, and if this is to become the fruit country promised by ludiana horticulturists, the bird life will have to be protected and "December as pleasant as May." It is said that Indians and birds are not easily civilized, and one must go a long way from the locomotive whistle first heard in the Gos in Grant county to find Nature pure and simple. The axe of civilization has removed the forest, and the tiller of the soil has drained the swamps indtil rach season brings forth the fields of waving grain, and the conditions favor- able to bird life are gone forever. When we deprive the birds of their homes why should we expect to see them again . Such is civilization, and they who would hold sweet commune with Nature will do well to take Horaer Greeley's advice, only it no longer applies to the West.
When the Indiana Andobon Society met in Marion in 1910. local people learned much about the birds of the state, the evening sessions being Inld in the city library. The society came to Marion upon the invitation of Major G. W. Steel and the day time sessions were held at the Soldiers' Home, where native bird life is protected. perhaps as in no other spot in Indiana. When planning this story the historian asked Mrs. Marietta Swayzee Steele, who welcomed the Audubon Society to Marion, at one of the evening sessions for her paper, which Follows: "In the name of the Marion Branch National Military Home of Indiana I welcome the Indiana Audubon Society. The members of our Home are defenders of birds and was to the person, great or small, who kills a bird on the reservation.
"John James Andubon Trom boyhood was deeply interested in the study of ornithology. His great work : 'Birds of America,' for which he obtained a large number of subscribers at one thousand dollars the copy has been prononneed 'the most majestic monument Art ever raised to Ornithology.' The Followers of Audubon have done a noble work in the state and nation. The first Audubon society was organized in Massachusetts in 1896, and societies now exist in ahnost every state of the Union. The Indiana organization was efferted in 1898, and already there is a notable increase of our birds, due to the agitation by the
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Audubon Society. The public schools are doing a great work in adurat. ing the young to protect the birds. No longer do boys carry sling shots in their pockets for birds or feel proud of rubbing their nes's.
"I cannot tell the Audubon Society anything new about birds but allow me to refresh your memories. We do not like to recall that our loved birds are allied to reptiles, and that once they pulled their great clumsy bodies through the thick branches of the virgin forests by the aid of a book on each tiny wing. Happily, environment and evolution throughout the ages have changed their structure. The wing of land birds has developed with the greater necessity for flight. Sea birds have remarkable wing power. The albatross is obliged to run some dis tance facing the wind before it can raise its large body, but once in the air it is able to remain for hours or even days before alighting. Prh- cans sail along in companies of ten or twelve close to the Water, every wing flapping in unison, then spread at once, suggesting a well drilled military company. Culike the gulls, which are flapping and circling, Mr. Pelican is going somewhere, and straight to the goal.
" Birds breathe more rapidly than other animals, having the power to inflate numerous air saes and even certain bones when breathing. They have powerful vision, which enables them to migrate a mile above the earth, where they command extended views. The department of agriculture tells us that birds sing antiphonally for instance one bird will sing the first part of a measure and another will finish it in perleet harmony. Down along the Mississinewa in the home grounds one can have a delightful talk with the birds. Whustle to a cardinal three, four, five times and he will reply with a like number of notes. A pair of cardinals have wintered in the evergreens about our house, being so tame that they hunt their food on the lawn with the robins and black birds. One day the male bird began Hying up against the windows and peeking at the glass. He went from window to window uttering his 'tseep' very angrily, and we thought he was trying to get in, possibly to build his nest. So we opened all the windows, but he did not coute again until they were closed.
"We thought his mate had been killed and he was hunting for her. We tried in many ways to account for the phenomenon. A hall' dozen times each day he was at the window repeating this performance, when it was discovered that he was fighting his image in the glass. After that we watched him. He would dy up against the windows many times, fighting as best he could the bird that repeated so exactly his every movement, then fly to the balcony rail and pour out his song of challenge, of triumph and at it again. No doubt he was sure the house was full of hated rivals which were threatening to steal away his well beloved mate. He is at the window again with fell purpose depleted in his ruffled plumage and Hatteund crest. evidently determined to clear the reservation of male cardinals- rivals in love affairs of birds. When the cardinal chooses a mate it is for life, and coustaney is his virtue.
"The department of agriculture also says that birds understand the musical significance of the combinations of notes they utter, and that their musical intelligence differs from our own only in degree. Birds have many other human traits -- love, hate, courage. fear, anger, vanity, constancy, curiosity, pleasure, modesty, virtue, vice, fickleness, generosity, selfishness, wit, memory and reason. And in home making, fidelity to each other and the family, the frathered tribes give man an example which he might well emulate. Down by the river I have met my king-fisher, that bird of ancient mystery, which is said to drive away evil luck and devils, and of which mythology relates that when a hus- band and wife were separated by a journey and he died, she prayed with-
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out ceasing and was finally changed to a kigtisher, flew over on water and found her husband, who had also been changed to tus lord, and they were happy again.
"Some one said of the song of the hermit thrush: 'Low and soft as the soothing fall of the fountain of Eden, sweet as the call of angels over the Jaspar wall, that welcomes a soul to Heaven,' and I hope sometime to hear this angelie mmsie in my walks through the forest by the river. The nearest I know to it now is that of his cousin, the brown thrasher, who sways on the topmost branch of the tallest free just outside my window and sings his charming love song to his lady. And that other consin. the prosaic herald of the dawn whom tradition tells us tried to minister to the dying Saviour upon the cross, and stained its breast in His saered blood, Robin Redbreast we have ever with us. Doubtless some of you have seen the eagle's nest away below Inspiration Point overlooking the Yellowstone. After reaching this goal of the ave inspiring drive through Yellowstone park, where all are hushed by the grandeur of that marvelous region, yon gaze speedli- less into the abyss and there a mother cagle lastly flaps her wings over the nest on the erag above the gorge, where she and lus kind have reared their young far from the haunts of men, doubtless from time memorial. Perhaps you, too, had a feeling of thankfulness that Nature had provided that inaccessible site where this rare bird would laty her young out of reach of the hunter. In the Old World they keep the last half dozen nests of morsbund species under guard to prevent atter extermination, In our own country such species are now being pro terled by the Audubon societies, augmented by the strong arm of the United States government. We welcome you."
The harbinger of spring, the sassafras vendor, does not com . earlier than the Idue bird, and to the naturalist who loves the solitude of the early morning in the country, the song of this land is suggestive of spring even though heard in December. It is said that he always Brats the national colors, red, white and blue, and there is not an American bird which so strongly emphasizes the return of spring as does his sub dned melody. People are hearing blue birds all winter long, and the little creature is cherished by all who know him, and hailed ahke by the young and the old as on the first sunny day his lisping notes foretell the arrival of springtime. As the pioneers cleared the forest the sound of the use was oftentimes hushed while they listened to his music, and gazed with admiration upon his back of blue and breast of red, and in the carly spring little children clap their hands when they hear his merry carol. The blue bird's notes bring back to the aged the happy hours of childhood, and all are inclined to worship at the shrine of Nature.
A recent newspaper article by E. L. Goldthwaite and perhaps not intended for history, under the headline: "The birds have gone the killing machines are here," is a fitting finale for this chapter on birds. Hle quotes :
"Wake from thy nest, robin red breast Sing, birds. in every furrow ; And from each hill let music shrill Give my fair love good morrow. Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet and coek-sparrow, You petty elves, amongst yourselves, Sing my fair love good morrow. To give my love good morrow. Sing, birds. in every furrow."
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There are more killing machines sold in Marion every year than there is "game" in the bird and animal life remaining, allowing a unit for each one guns on one side and game birds on the other. Of all the richieulous statutory laws in the book there is no greater fraud or clam to false pretenses than that to " protect game" in our state. If a flock of quail on a farm is protected from their birth in July to cold weather, their fate is fixed in the season which begins with the early winter fol lowing. We have a score of alleged sportsmen here in Marion who indi vidually will easily kill a whole flock in a single day when the season "opens"- with the command of a modern shotgun and a trained dog. For proof allow me to recite the fact that we now have no quail; or to make it plainer, we have more shotguns in the county today than game birds not to mention trained bird dogs.
These thoughts and observations oreur to me in a reminiscent mood of my boyhood days. Then in the whistling season no one was beyond the scope of the watchfulness of a bob-white. No stubble could be crossed without scaring up a nest of these meck, innocent and beautiful denizens of the wilds. And they remained all winter. Every coru shock had thousands of tracks leading to and from it in the snow. Quail are socialists, They naturally lead the commmanual life. It is safe to sity that in such a community there was blood kindred only foreign to a degree. They needed no guardian beyond the victorious male leader - the king who won his lordship by virtue of his physical strength and courage. I am unable to estimate the size of his family, but the most famons Mormon in history was the overseer of a tiny kindergarten com pared to his.
There will be fewer quail this year than there were last, notwith- standing the recent game law amendment. And yet it is a very ignorant. farmer who won't confess that the quail is the most valuable assist ant he has in the bird kingdom.
I've seen a thousand bhichirds faring about pending the mating season in the early spring. And no blue worn in woman's hats today is as bright and shiny as the blue worn by every one of these sweet and innocent birds. They were a cheerful, tame, modest, quiet bird. They were easily killed, and the apprentice embryo sportsman with a maga zine shotgun could easily kill two or three at a shot. Now they are about as searee in Grant county as three-legged calves. I haven't seen one in several years. And if a pair should feel courageous enough to build a nest in this Christian community it is ten to one in a bet that that geh- eration would be wiped off the face of the earth before the Trust thes. Unlike the quail, they have no food value.
The red-headed woodpecker was everywhere then. One of these made a complete bouquet- a perfertion of the blending of colors. The red is cardinal, the white immaculate, the black undisturbed jet. A fruit and insect-eating biped, impudent, brave and aggressive. A splendid target for a boy with his first shotgun. And a striking mark with his body close to a decayed spot in a bare tree; for a sportsman a target. Poor thing! Endowed by his creator for man's recreation and admira- tion. 1 saw several boys a year or two ago up Railroad avenue in the community possession of a shotgun. They were camped beside a trolley pole, in which, at the far end, was a hole, the best of a bridal couple of red-headed woodpeckers. One of the boys had a dead one, and all were awaiting the return of the survivor to get another shot. These were embryo "sportsmen" -- honored by the statute laws of the state of Indiana, immune from cruelty.
I don't want to forget the "flicker." I always loved that bird. Two flickers made a community. They don't come in flocks like most birds.
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It seemed to me always that they mated for life. Noisy, without har- mony; loyal, quarrelsome and eruel in warfare. A hundred thekers in a neighborhood were enduring in prominence. But flickers were big. They had thesh value, and if the sportsman believed he was entitled to something in the way of eats he killed flickers, which were even better than robins, his chier competitor. The flicker is a woodpecker Wearing a sort of guinea habit, with a predominance of yellow. 1 ser one yet now and then. The "sportsmen" club could eliminate them forever from Grant county in a single day. I sincerely hope they won't do it, but one can't tell.
It's too bad we have no redbirds any more. . But they were so attract- ive, so easy to reach with a gun, and then they really had a value alive. But civilization exterminated them. The male was blood red, with a riotous exhibit of feathers. Sometimes when captured alive and placed in a little dinky wooden home made cage, when no one was looking, and during the mating season, this pathetic prisoner, with half his plumage lost in vainless beating against the slats of his cage, would whisthe. This was the only reward of his owner. But his life was short. He quickly died of injuries and a broken heart. They were everywhere to be seen, particularly in the neighborhood of thickets in the wild woods, and then they were not a migratory bird. They were with us all the time.
There were so many snow birds here in the winter that people said they were really bluebirds in winter garb. But the people didn't know whether they were kindred to the bluebird. I don't know, nor care, except this, we have no showbirds any more.
I am not well enough acquainted to classify peewees, ground birds, sparrows, warblers, fly-ratebers, sugar birds, etc., which include a score or more of thicket birds, always everywhere in evidence. I believe many species are wholly exterminated-never to be seen here by my descend- ants. The only ones that seem to hold their own are blackbirds. Would it bw a blessing to exterminate them? And then there are erows too. They seem to be organized and apparently hold their own.
All in all, the English sparrow, then unknown, gives us now about all the bird life we have.
A few robins revisit us every year-glad harbingers of the spring! It's a shame to kill a robin, and I'm glad to know that public opinion protects them. If one is sick and is on the mend toward spring. the first venturesome robin on his return from his vacation south cheers him better, as Peggy said to David Copperfield, "better than pints of linament."
How many of the boys living around here now with gray pates, freaky joints and other evidences of wear, have forgotten the bird lite along our river-the shitepoke. the loon, the dipper, the riproaring king- fisher, with his inaccessible nest tunneled into the high bank along the stream? He never flew inland. No one ever saw one of these birds a half mile from a pond or running stream; no one ever saw him going afoot. Ile was always on the watch for fish or trespassers in his home or flying, not even stopping on his way to his burrow or from it. A noisy, saucy bird, courageous, aggressive. I killed a few of 'em, and am even now sitting on the stool of righteous repentance. And fish- hawks, too. They could catch when I couldn't with the most modern artificial attractions. And then there were Jong-legged ble cranes. They were too slow of wing to eateh tish except within reach of their long neck and sharp little bills. Towards evenings you'd see them high up returning to their nesting places with a supply in their craws for the wife and young ones, who were carrying on domestie seience at home.
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The Mississinewa was constantly receiving unusual visitors in their migratory flights, besides wild duck vaguely related to our common kind. There were now and then seen different kinds of the web footed species, strange to this region of the country. I once saw a number of white swans in the river back of the cemetery and they remained there sev oral weeks. They were very shy but were easily seen and many species of wild geese and even peculiar specimens of the crane tribe. Along the river, parallel with the river and farther east was a bch of timber. In these trees wood ducks found homes where they nested and of course remained during the season. They were the only web-footed bird I ever know which not only nested but roosted in treetops. Very likely there are none left in all Indiana. They were really too easy to kill with a gun. The flesh was nasty, fishy and ill-smelling. The mother would carry her little ones down into the bayou and allow them to swim awhile, and then tote them back to the nest.
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