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Coming Through the Swamp: The Nature Writings of Gene Stratton Porter
Book by Stratton-Porter, Gene, Plum, Sydney Landon
- GenresNature
172 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1996
50 people want to read
About the author
Gene Stratton-Porter
140 books681 followersShe was an American author, amateur naturalist, wildlife photographer, and one of the earliest women to form a movie studio and production company. She wrote some of the best selling novels and well-received columns in magazines of the day.
Born Geneva Grace Stratton in Wabash County, Indiana, she married Charles D. Porter in 1886, and they had one daughter, Jeannette.
She became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and moths in one of the last of the vanishing wetlands of the lower Great Lakes Basin. The Limberlost and Wildflower Woods of northeastern Indiana were the laboratory and inspiration for her stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies. Although there is evidence that her first book was "Strike at Shane's", which was published anonymously, her first attributed novel, The Song of the Cardinal met with great commercial success. Her novels Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of the disappearing central Indiana ecosystems she loved and documented. She eventually wrote over 20 books.
Born Geneva Grace Stratton in Wabash County, Indiana, she married Charles D. Porter in 1886, and they had one daughter, Jeannette.
She became a wildlife photographer, specializing in the birds and moths in one of the last of the vanishing wetlands of the lower Great Lakes Basin. The Limberlost and Wildflower Woods of northeastern Indiana were the laboratory and inspiration for her stories, novels, essays, photography, and movies. Although there is evidence that her first book was "Strike at Shane's", which was published anonymously, her first attributed novel, The Song of the Cardinal met with great commercial success. Her novels Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of the disappearing central Indiana ecosystems she loved and documented. She eventually wrote over 20 books.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 19, 2025
The forest always has been compared rightly with a place of worship. I doubt if anyone can enter a temple of worship and not be touched with its import. Neither can one go to primal forests and not feel closer the spirit and essence of the Almighty than anywhere else in nature. In fact, God is in every form of creation; but in the fields and marshes the work of man so has effaced original conditions that he seems to dominate. The forest alone raises a chorus of praise under natural conditions. Here you can meet the Creator face to face, if anywhere on earth.
The only way to love the forest is to live in it until you have learned its pathless travel, growth, and inhabitants as you know the fields. You must begin at the gate and find your road slowly, else you will not hear the Great Secret and see the Compelling Vision. There are trees you never before have seen; flowers and vines the botanists fail to mention; such music as your ears can not hear elsewhere; and never-ending pictures no artist can reproduce with pencil or brush.
A foray into some unfortunately obscure female naturalist writers, and Stratton Porter seemed larger than life amazing, a photographer and naturalist, writer of fiction and nonfiction, an early conservationist, and a filmmaker. I read somewhere that she was the first wildlife photographer to shoot wildflife in situ instead of the male practice of killing and stuffing them to study them, and also campaigned to end the barbaric practice of killing birds for fashionable hats. Her writing veers back and forth, a storyteller at heart to help educate the public on the world around them, with delicious details of bird calls or adventures, and at times is a list of what she sees with no story to it, but overall interesting.
ANOTHER OF OUR FRIENDS is the jay bird, a beauty in plumage, friendly in disposition, a good husband and father, but dangerous to the nests and eggs of other birds. His call note is high, clear, and rather antagonistic: "D'jay, d'jay," certainly an obtrusive and self-satisfied note. He asks no favour, courts no bird but his mate. He may utter this cry once or a dozen times. I always get the impression from it that he would not avoid trouble if he met it, and usually he finds it. Perched on a conspicuous branch in early spring, when other birds are singing mating songs, the bluejay sings: "Ge-rul-lup" over and over, making rather an attractive song of it. The bluejay notes that really are pleasing to my ear are those uttered by a number of jays having a party after nesting affairs are over, when they gather in the top branches of a tree and in soft tones tell each other to "fill the kittle, fill the tea-kittle," and there are times, when Father Jay perching near his nest looks at his mate with an expression of extreme devotion, and in whispered, throaty utterances says to her something that sounds to me like "Chinkle-chee- tinkle, tankle, tunkle! Rinkle, rankle runkle! Tee chee, twee?" The jay can imitate perfectly the "Killy, killy" notes of the sparrow hawk or the "Ke- ah" cry of the red-shoulder. For this reason, he can cause undue commotion in the woods.
The row up the river was delightful. For once the veil of nature was lifted everywhere. I could see as far as my eyes could penetrate, while even the water hid no mysteries. The air was clear and cool, touched with the odour of balsam, and sweeping in light breezes. The sky was a great arch of blue, with lazy floating clouds; the sun not too ardent in his attentions. On either hand the marsh was teeming with life. There were tracks beside the water edge where deer and bear came down to drink, small water-rats and beaver lived in the banks, and in the rushes were Duck, Teal, Plover, Heron-every kind of northern water-bird you could mention. This river was the first of my experience to give up its secrets. The bed was white sand, washed of every impurity by a swift current, while the water was pure and clear. At a depth of twenty and even thirty feet I could see every detail of the bed.
I have not time to tell of its wonders and mysteries in mineral formation; its dainty growing vines and mosses. But the water folk! If you never saw such a spot you can not dream how beautiful it is. The flowers on the bank or the birds and butterflies of the air were not more gaily coloured than the fish of that little river. Every shade of silver was striped and mottled with green, yellow, blue and red. Pike that seemed half as long as the boat swam past or darted under it. Big black bass, the kind that wreck your tackle and keep it, swam lazily unless moved to a sudden dart after small fry. There were a few rainbow trout, innumerable speckled perch, shad, and the most beautiful big sunfish. Occasionally an eel, monster turtles, sometimes a muskrat and a few water-puppies came slowly into sight and as slowly vanished. Oh, I could not row very fast on that river! And it was no wonder Herons and Cranes stalked with slowly lifted feet beside those banks, no wonder Kingfishers poised above that water by day, or that raccoons flattened themselves and lay immovable while they fished for frogs by night, for all of them could see their prey plainly and know exactly how to capture it.
We, as a nation, have already, in the most wanton and reckless waste the world has ever known, changed our climatic conditions and wasted a good part of our splendid heritage. The question now facing us is whether we shall do all that lies in our power to save comfortable living conditions for ourselves and the spots of natural beauty that remain for our children. If this is to be done, a nation-wide movement must be begun immediately. Our climate could be greatly bettered if every man owning land would do what he can to restore original conditions by fighting to save the water in his vicinity, and by planting all the trees for which he can possibly spare space. More water means more rain. A heavier growth of timber breaks up culminative winds and gives bird life, under rigorous protection, a chance to renew itself. Wherever there are plenty of birds, the inevitable spraying and fighting of insect pests is not necessary. In an individual way each man and woman should look this proposition squarely in the face. It seems incredible to me, when I remember the log heaps of my childhood, that today I am seeing builders use metal door and window casements and cement for the outside finish of houses.
It might be well even to consider the suggestion that there is a possible limit to the wealth of the interior of the earth. There may not be coal and iron, at the rate at which we are using it, to supply coming generations. Any thoughtful person realizes that there will not. Certainly to plant trees and to preserve trees, to preserve water, and to do all in our power to save every natural resource, both from the standpoint of utility and beauty, is a work that every man and woman should give immediate and earnest attention.
The river, when swollen with the flood of spring rains, sings a sweeping, irresistible measure that carries one's thoughts by force; but this is its most monotonous production. There is little variation, and the birds are the strongest accompanists. Later, when it falls into the regular channel, it sings its characteristic song and appears so much happier and more content. I believe the river loves and does not willingly leave its bed. When a strong, muddy current it sweeps the surface from valuable fields, drowns stock and washes away fences; it works as if forced, and I like to think the task is disagreeable. At times it seems to moan and sob, while sucking around big tree trunks and washing across meadows and fields.
When it comes home again and runs in the proper channel it shouts and sings with glee the true song of the river. You can hear the water triumph as it swirls around great maple and sycamore roots, chuckle as it buffets against rocks, gurgle across shoals, and trill where it ripples over a pebbly floor. The muskrat weaves currents against its flow, the carp wallow in mucky pools, and the black bass leap in air as if too full of life to remain in their element.
The river is a house, the bed its floor, the surface its roof, and all the water-folk its residents. What a wonderful thing it would be if the water were transparent, that we might see the turtles, eels, and catfish busy with the affairs of life; bass, pickerel, and suckers maintaining the laws of supremacy, and water puppies at play! When the purple tints on its banks fade, tree-bloom baptizes it with golden pollen, and a week later showers it with snowy petals of wild plum, thorn, crab, and haw. All summer the trees drop a loosened leaf here and there, with Good Samaritan results; for these make lifeboats on which luckless wasps, bees, and worms fallen from blooming trees ride to safety and dry their drenched coats and weighted wings. Trees are the great life-saving service of the river.
The only way to love the forest is to live in it until you have learned its pathless travel, growth, and inhabitants as you know the fields. You must begin at the gate and find your road slowly, else you will not hear the Great Secret and see the Compelling Vision. There are trees you never before have seen; flowers and vines the botanists fail to mention; such music as your ears can not hear elsewhere; and never-ending pictures no artist can reproduce with pencil or brush.
A foray into some unfortunately obscure female naturalist writers, and Stratton Porter seemed larger than life amazing, a photographer and naturalist, writer of fiction and nonfiction, an early conservationist, and a filmmaker. I read somewhere that she was the first wildlife photographer to shoot wildflife in situ instead of the male practice of killing and stuffing them to study them, and also campaigned to end the barbaric practice of killing birds for fashionable hats. Her writing veers back and forth, a storyteller at heart to help educate the public on the world around them, with delicious details of bird calls or adventures, and at times is a list of what she sees with no story to it, but overall interesting.
ANOTHER OF OUR FRIENDS is the jay bird, a beauty in plumage, friendly in disposition, a good husband and father, but dangerous to the nests and eggs of other birds. His call note is high, clear, and rather antagonistic: "D'jay, d'jay," certainly an obtrusive and self-satisfied note. He asks no favour, courts no bird but his mate. He may utter this cry once or a dozen times. I always get the impression from it that he would not avoid trouble if he met it, and usually he finds it. Perched on a conspicuous branch in early spring, when other birds are singing mating songs, the bluejay sings: "Ge-rul-lup" over and over, making rather an attractive song of it. The bluejay notes that really are pleasing to my ear are those uttered by a number of jays having a party after nesting affairs are over, when they gather in the top branches of a tree and in soft tones tell each other to "fill the kittle, fill the tea-kittle," and there are times, when Father Jay perching near his nest looks at his mate with an expression of extreme devotion, and in whispered, throaty utterances says to her something that sounds to me like "Chinkle-chee- tinkle, tankle, tunkle! Rinkle, rankle runkle! Tee chee, twee?" The jay can imitate perfectly the "Killy, killy" notes of the sparrow hawk or the "Ke- ah" cry of the red-shoulder. For this reason, he can cause undue commotion in the woods.
The row up the river was delightful. For once the veil of nature was lifted everywhere. I could see as far as my eyes could penetrate, while even the water hid no mysteries. The air was clear and cool, touched with the odour of balsam, and sweeping in light breezes. The sky was a great arch of blue, with lazy floating clouds; the sun not too ardent in his attentions. On either hand the marsh was teeming with life. There were tracks beside the water edge where deer and bear came down to drink, small water-rats and beaver lived in the banks, and in the rushes were Duck, Teal, Plover, Heron-every kind of northern water-bird you could mention. This river was the first of my experience to give up its secrets. The bed was white sand, washed of every impurity by a swift current, while the water was pure and clear. At a depth of twenty and even thirty feet I could see every detail of the bed.
I have not time to tell of its wonders and mysteries in mineral formation; its dainty growing vines and mosses. But the water folk! If you never saw such a spot you can not dream how beautiful it is. The flowers on the bank or the birds and butterflies of the air were not more gaily coloured than the fish of that little river. Every shade of silver was striped and mottled with green, yellow, blue and red. Pike that seemed half as long as the boat swam past or darted under it. Big black bass, the kind that wreck your tackle and keep it, swam lazily unless moved to a sudden dart after small fry. There were a few rainbow trout, innumerable speckled perch, shad, and the most beautiful big sunfish. Occasionally an eel, monster turtles, sometimes a muskrat and a few water-puppies came slowly into sight and as slowly vanished. Oh, I could not row very fast on that river! And it was no wonder Herons and Cranes stalked with slowly lifted feet beside those banks, no wonder Kingfishers poised above that water by day, or that raccoons flattened themselves and lay immovable while they fished for frogs by night, for all of them could see their prey plainly and know exactly how to capture it.
We, as a nation, have already, in the most wanton and reckless waste the world has ever known, changed our climatic conditions and wasted a good part of our splendid heritage. The question now facing us is whether we shall do all that lies in our power to save comfortable living conditions for ourselves and the spots of natural beauty that remain for our children. If this is to be done, a nation-wide movement must be begun immediately. Our climate could be greatly bettered if every man owning land would do what he can to restore original conditions by fighting to save the water in his vicinity, and by planting all the trees for which he can possibly spare space. More water means more rain. A heavier growth of timber breaks up culminative winds and gives bird life, under rigorous protection, a chance to renew itself. Wherever there are plenty of birds, the inevitable spraying and fighting of insect pests is not necessary. In an individual way each man and woman should look this proposition squarely in the face. It seems incredible to me, when I remember the log heaps of my childhood, that today I am seeing builders use metal door and window casements and cement for the outside finish of houses.
It might be well even to consider the suggestion that there is a possible limit to the wealth of the interior of the earth. There may not be coal and iron, at the rate at which we are using it, to supply coming generations. Any thoughtful person realizes that there will not. Certainly to plant trees and to preserve trees, to preserve water, and to do all in our power to save every natural resource, both from the standpoint of utility and beauty, is a work that every man and woman should give immediate and earnest attention.
The river, when swollen with the flood of spring rains, sings a sweeping, irresistible measure that carries one's thoughts by force; but this is its most monotonous production. There is little variation, and the birds are the strongest accompanists. Later, when it falls into the regular channel, it sings its characteristic song and appears so much happier and more content. I believe the river loves and does not willingly leave its bed. When a strong, muddy current it sweeps the surface from valuable fields, drowns stock and washes away fences; it works as if forced, and I like to think the task is disagreeable. At times it seems to moan and sob, while sucking around big tree trunks and washing across meadows and fields.
When it comes home again and runs in the proper channel it shouts and sings with glee the true song of the river. You can hear the water triumph as it swirls around great maple and sycamore roots, chuckle as it buffets against rocks, gurgle across shoals, and trill where it ripples over a pebbly floor. The muskrat weaves currents against its flow, the carp wallow in mucky pools, and the black bass leap in air as if too full of life to remain in their element.
The river is a house, the bed its floor, the surface its roof, and all the water-folk its residents. What a wonderful thing it would be if the water were transparent, that we might see the turtles, eels, and catfish busy with the affairs of life; bass, pickerel, and suckers maintaining the laws of supremacy, and water puppies at play! When the purple tints on its banks fade, tree-bloom baptizes it with golden pollen, and a week later showers it with snowy petals of wild plum, thorn, crab, and haw. All summer the trees drop a loosened leaf here and there, with Good Samaritan results; for these make lifeboats on which luckless wasps, bees, and worms fallen from blooming trees ride to safety and dry their drenched coats and weighted wings. Trees are the great life-saving service of the river.
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