The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-12-08
WOOD-FEARS.
They Are Proofs That Nature Is
Strange to Us.

140J 1al0 1ioOio 4Aoo NekVu1O 40
Strange to Us.
Unless we live in the country, the
woods play but small part in our lives.
We see them only in the summer holt
days, perhaps not even then; we become
as strangers to their beauty, and for
longer or shorter periods forget to think
of them. And yet, aside from all phys
ical consequences, what dreary world
it would be were there no forests! Our
thought would be parched and restless.
and, so to speak, without eyelids. The
busiest and most persistently urban
among us would lose an horizon restful
to the eye, curtain of green and
peaceful recollections.
To the wild creatures who inhabit it,
the wood is full of terrors. 1t is at once
a covert and snare, q place OF refuge
and of lurking danger. The tree that
shelters the small bird conceals the
movements of his enemy, the owl, the
squirrel, or the black snake; there is
protection beneath the underbrush, but
no gertrude as to what lies on the other
side of its LEAKAGE. Every thing in the
wood appears to be in perpetual state
of watchfulness or of easily routed Sc
curity. The sparrow by the roadside
will accept you for listener, if you
keep within bounds of the auditorium;
transgress them little, and he meas
ures off another dozen feet to the next
post, and begins the concert afresh.
The chipmunk, after his first start and
scurry, pauses to eye the intruder before
slipping into his hole, and the glance is
often an assured one. But the wood
bird and squirrel have no low curiosity
and no desire to be seen; they are up
and away at the first alarm. The only
birds who are careless of new presence
in the woods are the tiny warblers and
fly catching tribes, who live first floor
below the stars and take small note of
events IN the rez-de-chaussee, and the
chickadee, who brings in from orchard
and pasture fund of cheerful audacity
to be paid out among the shadows
Do not we ourselves, on entering the
wood, take on a certain increase of sus-
ceptibility and alertness analogous to
this deepened timidity and caution of
the birdsp Have we no wood-fear S?
They may be definite and substantial or
altogether vague, but / think that most
of us have felt some quaver OF this in
nate distrust, this readiness to take alarm
in the forest. "See his little breast
heave," l once said, pointing out to a
startled maiden a chipmunk, who, in the
furry of his own terror, had been the
cause of hers. II don't wonder at il, "
she replied, fervently. 'tMine does. "
There are all degrees of this sensitive
ness, according to the fineness or Guilt
walton of the Imagination. There are
people who suspect every unfamiliar
leaf or berry of malicious intent to poison
them, who will hardly pluck flower
without challenge, and are more wary
of drinking at mountain stream than
of imbibing the filtered liquid which
usurps the name of water in the city.
And country people have more shrink
ings and small superstitions, albeit of a
homelier and more absolvable sort, than
the most urban of excursionists. The
children, on returning from a day 5 ber-
rying, or "plumming," as they quantity
call it in some parts, report OF
hearing bear in the forest border, and
are half convinced that their escape
to the sunlight has been a mar
row one. Toads and snakes are not
looked upon with more favor by those
nearest to their haunts. What veneer
able cult is that fear of snakes. 1t is
as old as the Oldest religion; it is SO
widespread that we can almost call it
universal, and has roots so deep that it
is impossible to tell whether they are
fastened in instinct or in tradition.
The fact that it is shared by birds and
other animals points to the former
source; but if the feeling had not its
rise in tradition, it has certainly been
among the most potent factors in Gre
ating it The vivid emeralds and har-
monious wood-tints of the snake, his
patterned spots and stripes, his repro,
duction in almost every movement OF
Hogarth's line of beauty, win for him
no admiration. Even his innocence is
no shield to him; the world will not be
brought to believe it. Take away his
fangs and reduce him to a puny size,
the aversion he inspires is there all the
same, illogical yet ineradcable.
Thus it is with the majority of the
sensations which l term wood-fears.
Apart from ali vulgar, tangible appre-
hension OF being bitten or stung, there
exists host of tiny intangible "fear-
| lets" which tease our imaginations or
klurk unsupported in the background OF
aour consciousness. Alone in the forest,
Eve listen and keep lookout; there is a
fourse to be shaped; we are alive to
every whisper; we startle the partridge,
fnd are startled by him in turn. An
unexplained noise has everywhere an
unfriendly sound, and under the trees
Nnoises do not SO readily explain them.
Nselves as IN the open country. The very
Screams and bellowings of the farm.
yard, familiar as they are, sound new
bnd unaccountable when heard at inter.
Eals across wooded ridge or valley.
Sometimes it is the creaking and sough
ing of the boughs; the tree-tops, or
b windy day, give forth unearthly