Beyond Your Doorstep

by Hal Borland

  The blossoms of both plants are small, dull greenish-white, but those of poison ivy are in compact clusters, those of Virginia creeper in loose clusters. In late Summer and early Fall poison-ivy berries, about one-eighth inch in diameter, ripen to lead gray or lusterless white. Ripe Virginia-creeper berries are purple; they look like tiny Concord grapes. Poison-ivy berries are borne on green stems. Virginia-creeper berries are on red stems. When the leaves turn, poison ivy usually is lemon yellow or rich orange, sometimes red. Virginia creeper leaves turn deep crimson, sometimes scarlet, seldom yellow or orange.

  If there is any doubt about whether a plant is poison ivy or Virginia creeper, avoid it until you are sure which it is. But once it has been identified, poison ivy is recognizable anywhere. You seem to know it, almost by instinct, at a glance.

  Two other plants, both cousins of poison ivy, can be equally painful and in much the same way. One is poison sumac which, although it grows from Maine to Florida and west to Minnesota, is usually found in low, wet ground and boggy places. In the Northeast it is said to be seldom found far from the seacoast. However, I recently identified a specimen only a few miles from my house and more than a hundred miles from the seacoast. It is growing in relatively dry soil on a side road frequently used by bird watchers. I wonder how many persons have carelessly brushed against it and mistaken the consequent skin eruptions for an unusually virulent attack of ivy poisoning. It is the only poison sumac I have seen for miles around, but the birds will eat its berries and plant its seeds elsewhere. We may yet have poison sumac as a common menace in this unlikely area.

  Poison sumac looks much like the common, harmless sumac, though it grows as a round-topped bush or low tree while the harmless sumac usually is flat-topped. Poison sumac’s blossoms and fruit are borne in loose, slender clusters at the junction of leaf-stem and branch. Harmless sumac blossoms and fruit come in tight clumps at the branch tips. Poison sumac berries ripen to dull greenish-white, something like poison-ivy berries. Harmless sumac fruit ripens in stiff, upright clusters, usually conical in shape and velvety maroon in color.

  The other poisonous relative of the ivy is poison oak. It is said to grow only from Virginia southward and through the lower areas of the South, and it is said always to grow in thin woods and waste places. Having found poison sumac in my own unlikely area, I hesitate to say that poison oak is always confined to those places, no matter what the guidebooks say. Poison oak’s leaves look something like the familiar oak leaves but, like those of poison ivy, they grow in groups of three. Its berries are much like those of poison ivy in shape, size, and color. If you should find an “oak” shrub bearing greenish-white berries instead of acorns, even if you find it in Maine or New Jersey or Iowa, leave it strictly alone. It is not a true oak and it is not harmless. It is poison oak and as treacherous as poison ivy.

  I know of no other plants as poisonous on contact or as potentially dangerous as these three allied cousins of the common sumac, poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak. Nettles are troublesome, but they cause only a stinging itch that is gone in a few hours. Thistles are prickly. Various briers and thorny bushes can be a nuisance but they are not dangerous, certainly no more of a peril than the rosebushes in any flower garden. Cat brier, a well-armed cousin of the common smilax, creates impenetrable tangles now and then. Wild raspberries and wild blackberries can be punishing to clothing and skin. Barberry, which often grows wild, can be a thorny proposition. There are thorn trees, such as the hawthorns and locusts, which any sensible person will avoid. But the person who is afraid of all thorns and briers had better stay at home and indoors.

  As for poisonous berries, there are a few which will make the person who eats them distressingly uncomfortable. Children especially should be warned not to eat strange berries, no matter how pretty and inviting they may look. The red baneberry looks good enough to eat but it can cause stomach cramps or, if taken in quantity, illness that may call for a doctor. Some of the nightshade family have poisonous berries that are invitingly red and juicy-looking.

  The best advice about wild berries is that one should not eat any that cannot be definitely identified. Almost everyone knows wild strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, and the novice who confines his wild-fruit diet to those will have no trouble. He may miss a good many other edible berries, but he will also avoid possible nausea, cramps, and even the attention of a doctor.

  When it comes to wild mushrooms, the word for the novice is: “No!” Unless one knows, for sure, which ones to pick, it is foolhardy to eat them. Many people know puff-balls and morels, but there is a poisonous false-morel, and several non-edible mushrooms in their early stages look like young puffballs. Many wild mushrooms are edible, some of them delicious, and only a few such as the Amanitas are critically poisonous, though at least a dozen of them can cause acute distress. Anyone who wants to learn which are which can, with proper study and guidance, soon identify and classify as edible or inedible the common ones in his area. But until you know your wild mushrooms, don’t eat them.

  As for ferocious animals, virtually none are left in the East and few in the West, if one excludes the temperamental bears that often beg for food in the National Parks. Here or there in the East there is an occasional report of a panther or cougar—one was reported on the mountain just back of my house this past Winter. There certainly could be a few panthers in the more rugged areas, but unless they were cornered or wounded they probably would run at the sight of a man. The one reported on my mountain fled from the man who saw it and apparently kept on going, because several of us looked for it and never got sight of it.

  The panther is America’s biggest cat except the jaguar, weighing as much as 250 pounds and sometimes more than seven feet long, tail and body. In the West it is called a mountain lion and sometimes kills sheep and young cattle; but I never knew of one making an unprovoked attack on a man. In colonial days panthers were well known in the Northeast, at least by reputation. The panther’s scream was a byword for terror in the night, and hair-raising tales were told about the beast, most of them by people who never had seen a panther. I have heard of panthers trailing a man and of wounded panthers attacking and even killing foolhardy hunters; but I have yet to see an authenticated instance of unprovoked attack by one. It is safe to say that not one person in a million of those who tramp the woods will ever see a panther, and even then it will be a panther in full flight away from him.

  Our other two wild cats are the lynx and the bobcat. The lynx is now gone from nearly all parts of the United States except certain wilderness mountain areas of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The lynx fights back only when cornered or wounded, and in any case will not be found in the Northeast. We do have bobcats in wooded and mountainous areas. There are a few on my own mountain and one once mauled my dog. The bobcat is smaller than the lynx, less than three feet long, is in no sense dangerous, and will run from a human being. Or from a dog, if it has a chance.

  In the United States, outside Alaska, there are only two kinds of bear, the black bear, sometimes in a cinnamon phase, and the grizzly. In 1950 there were only 750 known grizzlies in this country, most of them in a wilderness area of Montana but a few in similar areas of Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington. Few Americans except hunters and professional guides will ever see a grizzly outside a zoo. Black bears, on the other hand, persist in the mountain areas of the East as well as in the western mountains. Now and then a black bear wanders down out of the hills and prowls through the countryside, raids garbage cans and public dumps, hides in the woods, scares suburban housewives, and gets shot by a policeman. A few years ago one wandered through my area, frightened a few motorists out for Sunday drives, dug up a few compost heaps, and vanished over the hills unscathed. Black bears don’t care for human company and will run at the sight of a man. But a mother bear with cubs can be dangerous and probably will be truculent. If you ever see such a bear, leave her alone, and particularly leave the cubs alone, and she will go on about her business,
glad to get away from you. If you visit parks such as Yellowstone, where bears seem quite tame and often beg for food, be wary of them. A bear isn’t a dog. Its moods are unpredictable. Otherwise, there is no danger from bears, even in the thickest eastern woodland.

  Porcupines can be both painful and even dangerous if one tries to bother them. Left alone, they will amble off without bothering anyone. If camping in porcupine territory, however, make sure that boots and all other leather gear, even canoe paddles and axes, are safely out of their reach. They will wander into camp in the night and rip boots to pieces or gnaw canoe paddles and ax handles, apparently liking the salty sweat on them. And keep dogs away from porcupines. Most dogs are tempted to attack the lumbering creatures, and if they get a mouthful of quills they probably will need the help of a veterinarian.

  Skunks are too well known to need much additional warning. They, too, will amble off if given a chance. But they refuse to be crowded or hurried, by anyone or anything, including an automobile. Their nauseous spray is contained in twin glands situated on each side of the tail, and each gland has enough for four or five shots. The spray can be squirted twelve or fifteen feet. Besides being nauseating, this spray can burn the skin and blind the eyes. A dog which has been skunked can be made moderately acceptable socially by rubbing him thoroughly with tomato juice, catsup, almost any tomato preparation, then washing him with a strong soap or detergent. That is the method I use with my own dog. I have heard that a vinegar bath is also effective, but I have never tried it. The tomato-scrub is also effective on a person who has been skunked; but the best thing to do with the clothes such a person was wearing at the time is to burn them or throw them away. I have never heard of an effective way to clean an automobile that has hit a skunk and been sprayed. The odor persists for weeks. Avoid skunks, afoot or in a car. They are willing to avoid you if you give them a chance.

  Probably the most vicious animal in America, if not in the world, when considered ounce for ounce, is the shrew. Fortunately, shrews are very small animals, even smaller than a field mouse. In appearance, the shrew is something like a small mouse with a long, tapering nose and inconspicuous eyes and ears. It is usually mole-gray in color, often almost silvery. As mentioned before, shrews live in open fields and thin woodlands, eat almost anything they can find, mostly insects and grubs, and have such a high metabolism that they must consume about twice their own weight every twenty-four hours. A friend of mine has caught several of them in humane traps, but all were caught at night and were dead by the next morning, apparently starved to death.

  The shrews I have seen were all very hungry, scurrying about in search of food. They can be truculent and surprisingly aggressive for such small creatures. Few people ever see shrews, so they are not really a hazard. But if you try to catch a field mouse in your bare hands, be sure it is a mouse, not a shrew. If it has visible ears, it isn’t a shrew.

  Most wild animals will bite or scratch if they are cornered or caught. Even a rabbit can scratch like a cat, on occasion, and both red and gray squirrels can give one a painful bite with needle-sharp teeth. Young raccoons may be cute as kittens, but their teeth can be painful and their tempers can be short. All wild animals resent loss of freedom, and usually they will fight anyone who captures them with whatever means they have. It is a good rule to leave them alone, even young animals. The mother is probably somewhere around and will return to take care of them as soon as you go away.

  As for snakes, there are only a few poisonous ones—the Eastern coral snake, the cottonmouth or moccasin, the copperhead, and the various rattlesnakes.

  Despite its name, the Eastern coral snake is found only in the South, no farther north than central North Carolina. It is the only American snake with a black snout and body rings of black-yellow-red-yellow-black, in that order. There are other snakes with alternate color rings on the body, but none with the black snout and the same sequence of color rings. But, to repeat, the coral snake is never seen north of the Carolinas.

  The cottonmouth is also a southern snake, sometimes found as far north as coastal Virginia. It tends to be a big snake, as much as six feet long, and is brown with wide, indistinct black bands. It is almost invariably found in or near bogs, marshes or other wetlands, including riverbanks. Again, to repeat, the cottonmouth is never found north of Virginia, and there only near the coast.

  The copperhead is found from central Texas to the East Coast and from the Gulf to southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, in most of Pennsylvania, lower New York, all of Connecticut and Massachusetts. It is usually found in dry upland woods, on rocky hillsides and ledges, and especially in rocky hills or mountainous country. In Summer it may move into more lowland areas. It grows to about four and a half feet in length. The northern copperhead is marked with dark, hourglass-shaped bands that enclose patches of light tan or a pinkish shade. Its head is coppery brown or even almost pink. The dark bands are somewhat less regular in pattern in the southern copperhead, and the color is somewhat lighter. The copperhead bites only if stepped on or touched. If exploring rocky hillsides or ledges known to have copperheads, be cautious. Wear stout leather boots in snake country, and don’t reach blindly onto a ledge or down among the rocks.

  Rattlesnakes can be distinguished by the loose, horny links at the end of the tail that form the rattle the snake vibrates as a warning. It has been said that the rattler is a gentleman because he always gives warning before striking. But don’t rely on this. If stepped on, a rattler will strike first, then rattle—maybe. But the rattle, actually a high-pitched buzz, is fair warning if one is too close.

  There are a number of types of rattlers, from the little sidewinder of the deserts to the seven-foot Western diamondback, from the small massasauga of the upper Midwest to the timber rattler of the East which sometimes grows to six feet in length. This timber rattler is the only one common to the Northeast, but the massasauga is found as far east as western Pennsylvania and New York. The timber rattler may be almost all black, or yellowish with brown or black crossbands. The massasauga is brown with squarish dark markings on its back, sometimes so dark as to look almost all black. Both species carry rattles on the tail and will give warning, if they have a chance, before they strike. The massasauga is a wetland snake, usually found in swamps. It is the only American snake that still carries the original Indian name. The timber rattler likes the same kind of terrain where one finds copperheads, but sometimes is found on the edge of swamps.

  The number of people who die of snakebite is still so small that an instance is headline news. If one is bitten, open the wound, let it bleed, apply a tourniquet above the wound, and get to a doctor as soon as possible. Antivenin is usually effective. But best of all, avoid being bitten in the first place. Learn to recognize the poisonous snakes in your area, know where they are likely to be, and use ordinary caution. I live in copperhead and timber-rattler country, but I have never seen a snake of either species on my place though both species have been killed every Summer within a few miles of here. In the past ten years I have not heard of anyone in this whole area being bitten by a poisonous snake.

  As I said earlier, most insect bites and stings are a painful nuisance and nothing more, for most people. The black-widow spider got a good deal of publicity a few years ago, but I have not heard of anyone seriously hurt by one. Black widows can be found here and there, but if they have half a chance they will run away and hide. They do not attack. Other spiders may bite if provoked, but usually with little more effect than a bee sting. There is little need to be wary of spiders.

  Bees and wasps can cause more pain than any other insects I know, and some people are acutely sensitive to their sting. My wife is, and she has been painfully ill from the sting of a wasp. But the prompt administration of cortisone is an effective treatment, and we keep that drug on hand; and she works among the wasps in the garden just as I do and has been stung only three times in ten years. If a wasp or bee sting makes you sick, call a doctor at once.

  Wasps a
re far more resentful of human intrusion than are bees. A few years ago I was watching a work party of paper wasps (hornets) at an old stump in the dooryard. They were suspicious of me but made no hostile move until I got out a magnifying glass. They took offense at that and four of them attacked me. One hit me on the forehead with a stinger like a red-hot needle. I got away from there in a hurry, but my forehead swelled up until my eyes were hooded. The pain was gone in a few hours but the swelling remained for three days. Leave the wasps alone if you don’t want to get stung. Particularly avoid hornets. If you insist on watching them at work, sit or stand quietly and not too close to them.

  Bumblebee stings can be almost as painful as a wasp sting. But bumblebees are less easily annoyed than wasps. They sometimes buzz noisily around me when I approach the delphiniums in the flower garden, which they regard as their own, but they have never stung me there. I have never been stung by a bumblebee except when I trapped one in my bare hand, for some stupid reason I now forget.

  In early Spring there are gnats and midges to contend with—we speak of them as sap flies because they appear when sap is in full flow and leaf buds are opening, and as midges or no-see-ums. They are all midges, the smallest of all insect bloodsuckers, and can be a painful nuisance because they often arrive in swarms. An insect repellent, of which there are a number available in drugstores, helps to fend them off. A little later there are mosquitoes, especially in damp places. There are deer flies, bigger than house flies and with dark markings on their wings. Deer flies are persistent and inflict painful but not serious bites. I find insect repellents more effective with mosquitoes than with deer flies. In the North woods, and sometimes well south of that area, especially in boglands and along streams, the Summer is sometimes made almost insufferable by black flies. They have close cousins known in other areas as buffalo gnats and turkey gnats. They are all humpbacked insects as big as mosquitoes, and they are vicious biters. At the height of black-fly season in the North it is often necessary to wear head nets, and those hardy souls who disdain the nets use “fly dope,” a repellent that is moderately effective. It also is quite effective against the swarms of mosquitoes that often accompany the black-fly hordes.